Tyrades.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP MY MOM, who was very cool with music, would often catch me listening to punk rock. Once she asked to listen in on the headphones. After about 15 seconds she took them off and said, "It sounds like animals being suffocated in a plastic bag," shrugged, then went off to make some iced tea. Her statement's one of the highest standards I've kept in judging punk rock over the years. The Tyrades have it in spades. A lead lady singer who lacerates songs with a voice that sounds like a circular saw going through something living. Guitarists whose leads and rhythms go in vicious circles like beheaded fighting cocks. A bassist who perches on his amp like a vulture, and a drummer who bleeds a lot. Punk rock: pure, ugly, mildly retarded, and simple. As timeless as pimples. As uncomplicated as how to put on underwear. As satisfying as knowing that squares nationwide still won't get it.

The Tyrades had skateboards on tour, is that correct?

Jim: We had them in Seattle. Some guy kept starting fights and he tried to steal one of the decks. We busted him, like, "Hey, what the fuck are you doing?" We were only selling them for 20 bucks or something. So the guy goes to the ATM and gets his 20 bucks, and then proceeds to get super drunk and get his ass kicked. Right before we left I went back in to do the dummy check, to see if we left any guitars or anything. The bar was closed and the deck was just lying there. I was like, if this guy writes me a letter and wants the deck back I'll mail it to him but I'm taking it with me.

Frankie: He bought the deck and then he picked a fight with this friend of ours and totally lost. He got his ass kicked real good. I haven't seen somebody bleed so much in a while. He went back for round two and our friend was honestly trying to play this super cool. He's not a big guy or anything, and he's like, "Man, I don't want to do this again. Let's just leave it alone." But the guy wouldn't leave him alone so he got the crap kicked out of him again. So much so that he dropped good, American cash and then just left it. We ended up just selling it to someone else.

Have you ever knocked yourself out playing?

Jim: Robert smashed me in the face with his bass at the Triple Rock once, knocked me off the stage. I was pretty loopy and I think when I got back on stage I wasn't even playing the right song. At the Blackout, Robert fell off the stage and smashed his face open. He had to get stitches. Later on at the same show I smashed my guitar and the neck broke, but the headstock was still attached with the strings so when I picked up the body to throw against the wall it came flying by and smashed me in the back of the head. I thought we were both going to have to go to the hospital. Jenna gets a lot of sore feet from us stomping on her.

Frankie: We played a show a couple of weeks ago and I bled more than I've ever bled. I cut my hand open while I was playing drums. I looked at my drums a few days ago--and seriously--it looks like I took a paint roller to it. I didn't get knocked unconscious, so that story's wimpy by comparison.

Jim: Well, it's funny because at the end of the night my guitar was covered with failure.

Frankie: I drank a lot that night and when I woke up the next morning my face was covered with ugly. I was wondering how that happened. "Who did this? Who took that magic marker?"

How do you balance out what I'm assuming is a modest income with breaking a lot of instruments?

Jim: I just get so fucking frustrated that it seems like the right thing to do. If you're poor and you smash something it means more than Page and Plant doing it. It's never planned. It's more like "I can't believe how bad we are, and my friends that I just met have to watch this." Sometimes I make out of the broken parts. Those work great.

Frankie: Why buy one when you can just glue one together?

Jim: When you don't know how to play guitar it doesn't seem like you need a good one. That's our philosophy.

Frankie: With my drums it's weird, because it's an older kit from the '60s. And no matter how much damage I inflict on them and throw them around they hang together pretty good. I guess they just knew how to build stuff better back then. I've had my drums for l0 years. I've eliminated all resale value from it, but it's still in one piece.

Tell me the styrofoam pellets story.

Jim: It was with the Black Lips. We were on tour on the East Coast, and one night we played in Virginia Beach at the Candy Snatchers' bar.

Jim: Earlier in the day, we went and bought a giant stuffed gorilla from a thrift store. It was 10 bucks or something and we were like, "Oh, we definitely need to buy this and throw it at the Black Lips while they're playing," because they're definitely like a brother band for us. They're just as retarded as we are, if not more. They would definitely enjoy getting hit over the head with a giant stuffed gorilla. At that show, though, all the guys there looked like bigger dudes. I knew it was going to get torn open and it didn't really seem like those guys were going to get the joke.

They weren't very playful?

Jim: No. I just thought it was going to be a disaster, but we got drunk enough anyway and we threw it at them. Somehow it survived and we were supposed to play in Atlanta, so we said, "We:ve got to take this thing with us." We strapped it to the hood, and me and Robert were driving and we forgot about it. We would drive by all these construction sites and all the workers would point and laugh. We were like, "What the fuck? Are we just gay looking?" Then a trucker comes over. He points to his neck and then points to our roof, and I was like, "Is this guy about to kill me?" Then we remembered, it's the giant stuffed gorilla on the roof. It had a hole in its neck and all the stuffing was coming out, so we fixed it and took it to the show. We played last, and we definitely set it up for those guys to give us the worst of it. The next thing we know the giant monkey comes flying at us, hits Jenna, almost knocks her over. I mean, it was big, probably almost five-feet tall. As they're throwing it around all the fucking inside pellets are all over the place. It was like an unending supply of White pellets. People were throwing them in the air like it was snowing. The Black Lips are notorious for doing retarded shit, and they knew the guys that ran the club. After the show the guy comes and stands on the bumper of one of the vans and goes, "I have to make a new stipulation to the Black Lips rule. Number one: No fireworks. Number two: No giant stuffed monkeys." I go, "But sir, that was a stuffed gorilla." He looked like he was gonna fucking kill me.