What does an interviewer do when confronted with the task of interviewing one of the most notorious, hell raising, womanizing and hard rocking musicians on the planet? Why, talk about the traffic on the freeways in Los Angeles, of course! Tone Deaf had been unsuccessfully trying to contact Eagles of Death Metal front man Jesse ‘The Devil’ Hughes for several days. Once intrepid reporter Nikki Williams got through to him, however, it was a little disappointing to learn that he was just negotiating freeway traffic jams in LA, rather than snorting cocaine off a hooker’s tits. In fact, it appeared that the interview would be as tame as interviewing the likes of Mumford & Sons. Luckily for us, despite the innocuous start; the interview got us all hot under the collar.
As we get hold of him, Hughes professes to be doing “Nothing much, just cruising in crazy LA traffic.” Suggesting that experience might be a little ‘sucky’, Hughes is quick to colour our vision of the experience more. “Instead of sucky, it’s like having a blade viciously rape me,” he says deadpan. First off, as a headliner at Melbourne’s CherryRock011 Festival in AC/DC Lane this year, is he excited about popping over from LA to Melbourne to play just the one show? “I’m fucking super excited about it,” he reveals. “I’m looking at it like a vacation, you know.”
Hughes is far from a first time visitor to AC/DC Lane and Cherry Bar – indeed he’s had many a wild night there on previous visits to Melbourne. It begs the question – what is it about the venue he loves so much? “I think it has something to do with my very unbelievably horny love affair with Australia itself,” he explains. “For me personally, in my personal experiences with Rock n Roll and the way I look back on it, Australia is one of the bench standards. Cherry Bar is one of the very first bars I ever walked into where I heard full music and saw white kids dancing and everyone was horny. It was like…no bullshit! So, I spent a bit of time there and as a result I have all these hoarded relationships. And for me, now that I’m recording this new record, I’m starting to get into the concept of touring it and all that jazz, and I’m always going to start Down Under baby!”
Compliments to Melbourne aside, does this mean that there is nothing comparable to Cherry Bar in California? Surely legendary Los Angeles venues like the Rainbow Bar & Grill, The Viper Room and dive bars such as the Short Stop, Little Joy and the Burgundy Room would give it a run for its money? Hughes is adamant in his response. “I don’t think there’s a bar like that anywhere in the world. Yeah, it’s true, I mean Australia is a really unbelievably unique place. The first time I ever stepped foot there, I looked around and almost every dude looked like me. I mean they were covered in prison tattoos and everyone agrees that Chopper is the number one comedian. That’s the kind of country I can deal with, you know what I mean?”
While Hughes is clearly in his second home in Melbourne, does he like to go anywhere else while in Australia? “Well I love Sydney,” he slyly confesses. “I love to go visit the meat factory and I like to visit where Chopper killed the ‘Turk’. Oh, and I like to go shopping.”
As Tone Deaf tries to stifle its giggles, Hughes is on a roll and we can’t dream of stopping him take the piss. “That’s right”, he continues. “I also like to sit under the big Coca Cola sign in Kings Cross. And then I occasionally like to get pulled over by the police and have to lick on a strip. You don’t have to do that anywhere else in the world. Oh and nowhere else in the world can you find a fucking, miniaturized Alchemino with an eight cylinder engine in it and call it a Ute.” While we’re trying to hold back our laughs, it’s worth asking Hughes if he plans to head bush and check out some of Australia’s finest utes. He says “I guess it is a quick visit but it’s also my vacation. Tuesday and I are going to take the country by storm. Maybe we’ll be able to emigrate and become actualized citizens.”
Jesse is a wild fellow with complete disregard for conventions and following the instructions of promoters and publicists, so could we see him do a secret sideshow? Hughes steps around the question in his answer but you can see the smile in his voice. He says “I do want to sit back and soak in the atmosphere but I do want to take advantage of situations where I’m surrounded by amazing environments. The potential for inspiration is incredible in Australia and I’ll be in the company of one of the most smokin’ hot women to ever take the streets of Hollywood, Tuesday Cross; so I have a plan that I will probably end up writing some of the greatest songs ever written.”
As Hughes settles in to some hard core flirting with Tone Deaf, the subject of Josh Homme’s recent tiff with Triple J’s The Doctor is brought up. Hughes is caught completely unawares of his childhood friend and EODM bandmate’s recent brush with Triple J. “Woah woah woah” He exclaims. “Josh had an argument with someone from Triple J? If you give me a call back in a couple of hours, like two hours, I’ll get the details from Josh and I’ll find out exactly what that is. I wanna know what that’s about. Josh has one of the most fiery tempers but he’s really just a 6 foot 5 mobster.” [Editorial note – Jesse was actually driving to meet Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age when we rang. We’ve since tried to call him back a number of times to follow this up but he’s a hard man to get hold of. However, we’ll be following this one up as soon as he touches down in Melbourne. Stay tuned for further developments!]
Talk turns to Hughes and his multitude of nicknames. Why so many and why does he need them all? Are they ciphers for undisclosed insecurity? “Well, you know, I think about myself all the time and my many nicknames,” he admits. Pondering it for a moment, he then asserts “No, you know what I think it is, when I was a kid, I was kind of an extreme loner. I really didn’t have any friends. I really was just a weird kid and didn’t really hang out with anyone and came to the point where I was being picked on a lot. And so my nicknames developed from the fact that most people’s experiences with me were specific acts that they could describe with a nickname. So my nicknames usually reflect a particular type of vicious vengeance. But Tuesday, she calls me “Jesse Dollface” because she says I’m beautiful”
As he warms up to the subject and continues flirting with the Tone Deaf crew, Hughes confesses “As for “The Devil”, well Josh came up with that as my first nickname because there was this football player who picked on me a lot and well, I got back at him pretty interestingly. It was such an extreme way that Joshua and I went to this football game and he said to me “You’re the god damned Devil, dude.” And that kinda stuck. And then one of my most recent nicknames came from the fact I guess, given that I didn’t hang out with a lot of people, I didn’t realise that rollerblading was just not that cool. So, I used to rollerblade all the time. And my friend started calling me “Fruit Boot”. And then Josh told me I had redeemed myself with Rock n Roll and that I could have “Electric Boots.”
Moving on from nicknames to record names, Hughes reveals that he has a new album in the works. He’s also modest in his assessment of it. He says: “This record is going to change history because what I did was I took the five greatest rock albums ever made and ripped off the best parts. So, I have actually created THE best album ever written. What I did was I took George Clinton and Gary Numan and butt-fucked them then came out with the most bizarre electro sound, then I wrote a love letter to every woman in the world telling them how much I appreciate them. That’s what this album is about.”
For all the bravado about his new record, Hughes insists he’s just a softie at heart. No, really. He argues, “You know what, I like it when people like me. I’m not one of those dudes who is going to live the lie and pretend like I don’t care what people think. And the reason I am that way is probably because I have insecurity issues the size of fucking Niagara Falls. So you know, I just loved to be loved. I’ll do anything to be loved.”
The greatest love of all for this hard livin’, hard drinkin’, hard to catch rock star, however; is women, funnily enough. They turn him in to putty in their hands, they send him weak at the knees. He also just wants to be loved. “I really love to be loved,” he says. “And I really do love women. And in my rock n roll experience, my perception is that rock n roll forgot about women and the first real rocker, Little Richard as gay as he was, even he knew Rock n Roll was for the ladies. And that’s kind of what I’m here for. The Gods of Rock have sent me to remind the people that Rock n Roll is played for the ladies.”
Speaking of the ladies, Hughes is bringing his girlfriend, Tuesday Cross to play guitar in his band at Cherry Rock011. Will this break the old ‘no girlfriends on tour’ rule held sacrosanct by every rock n’ roll band since time immemorial? Hughes dismisses the thought. “Not at all. She’s the most erotic, beautiful woman and if anything she’s inspiring to be around. I guess you could say she’s my mojo.” Cross is notorious for her work as a much sought after actress in the adult entertainment business in LA. Does her work there interfere with the band? Hughes is quick to dismiss such suggestions. “She’s always been dedicated to music,” he says in support. “And she’s dedicated to me too. So, there’s time for music and time for our business.” Indeed, Hughes admits it was love at first sight, for all you cynics out there. Thinking back to the moment they met, he reflects; “Funny story actually. She was getting into a car, she saw me and I walked over to her. All she said was “Who the hell are you” and we’ve been together ever since. Haha.”
Australians are going to be the lucky recipients of the love Jesse Hughes encountered at his first sight of Cherry Bar way back when as he headlines CherryRock011 in AC/DC Lane Melbourne this Sunday 1st May. If you read the interview carefully you might have got a few hints as to something that may or may not also be happening in Melbourne with Jesse, but you’ll have to keep checking back on Tone Deaf tomorrow for more exclusive clues.
There are literally only a handful of tickets left for CherryRock011 – get them here: http://tickets.oztix.com.au/?Event=19927
