Your cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Smooth Criminal’ reached Number 3 on the UK Top 40 in 2001. Name either of the two tracks that placed above you.
“Bob the Builder? Was Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ one of them?”
CORRECT. Kylie topped the charts with ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’, ‘Hey Baby’ by DJ Ötzi was Number 2. You beat Bob the Builder’s construction-themed reworking of Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’ (in at Number 4) by one chart place.
“There you go! When we were making the ‘Smooth Criminal’ video, we sent it to Michael Jackson who said he loved it but he didn’t like the boy wearing the mask, probably because Michael wore the mask after botched surgeries. We were all freaking out because we didn’t want to offend him. There was a little bit of poking fun in the video, but we truly are fans. The director had to reshoot the boy dancing without the mask, but after that, Michael decided: ‘You know what? I like it better with the mask’. I couldn’t believe we were actually in correspondence with the guy!”
“We never got to meet him, but we heard that he loved our version of the song. After he died, we played a tribute show in Cardiff in 2011, and [Michael’s sister] La Toya Jackson introduced me to their mom. As she put her hand out to shake mine, I kissed it like she was the Queen or something! I didn’t know what to do!”
For a bonus half-point: how many times do you enquire if Annie is OK in the song’s lyrics?
“I would say…36?”
WRONG. 54!
“Holy shit! I thought I was maybe going over at 36! When that video was getting played, wherever I went, there was bound to be a gaggle of kids chanting ‘Annie, are you OK?’”
Have you enjoyed the numerous times ‘Smooth Criminal’ has gone viral on social media?
“We’ve had tremendous fortune to be able to ride this wave for as long as we have, when we’ve seen bigger bands fall away. ‘Smooth Criminal’ keeps coming around and we’re seeing 10-year-olds at our gigs. I’m glad we consciously geared our videos towards children back in the day and were lighthearted. In the nu-metal age when we came up, bands were trying to be cool and dark and we went the other way.”
An easy one: which four film-themed outfits do Alien Ant Farm rock in the video to your 2001 single ‘Movies’?
“The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka, and Edward Scissorhands.”
CORRECT. The late Pat Morita spoofs his famous role as Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid franchise, telling you ‘Dryden-san, shut up!’.
“He was such a cool guy. I remembered him from his role in ‘70s sitcom Happy Days, so seeing him walking into a room was weird because it felt like someone walking through a TV screen. He was sweet, super-nice to us, and excited to be there.”
Didn’t you end up smoking weed with him?
“[Laughs] I don’t know how crazy he was indulging because at the time I wasn’t smoking, but I’m pretty sure he took a little toke with the rest of the band. He was also flirting with my girlfriend, but not in a creepy way.”
Ever meet any other childhood icons?
“Metallica’s [frontman] James Hetfield took me and my parents out to dinner. We opened for them in Germany and, instead of ‘Smooth Criminal’, we played Sade’s ‘Smooth Operator’ in front of a metal crowd – and we got away with it! James said: ‘You guys are ballsy as hell! I can’t believe you did that and the crowd liked it!’ Anyway, I left him a CD of ours and I put my number inside. Months later, he texted me asking: ‘Would you like to come to dinner tonight?’. My parents were visiting so I had to turn him down! Moments later, he hit me back saying: ‘That’s pretty cool that you turned me down for your parents’, and invited them along too.”
Which song were Alien Ant Farm and CeeLo Green once planning on covering together?
“‘Easy Lover’ by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.”
CORRECT.
“We recorded it, but he didn’t do his part. It was at the Michael Forever – The Tribute Concert in Cardiff, where we were both playing, that he said he was doing a bunch of covers and Alien Ant Farm were the first people he thought of because of ‘Smooth Criminal’. Immediately, I told him: ‘I already know what song we’re going to do – ‘Easy Lover’, and you’re going to do the Philip Bailey parts’. ‘SHE’S THE KIND OF GIRL YOU DREAM OF!’ is CeeLo’s wheelhouse! He was so into it. When we got home, we recorded it, but he ended up being too busy touring or something happened that meant it fell apart. We have a solid version of it so maybe we can get him back in the mix.”
Ever toyed with any other collaborations?
“There’s a song on our [2003] album ‘truANT’ called ‘Glow’ that was meant to be a collaboration with Edie Brickell, who’s a hero of mine. She sang ‘What I Am’ and is married to Paul Simon. I’m the douchebag that kiboshed her being on the record, because I was worried that if the song blew up, people would think we were riding on her talent, similar to people who thought we were only successful because of a Michael Jackson cover. In my own head, I’d created a problem that didn’t exist.”
Five video games have featured Alien Ant Farm songs. Name them.
“Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 and…I can’t believe I can only name two!”
WRONG. Apart from Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 (‘Wish’), and Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder (‘Courage’), ‘Courage’ also features in ATV Offroad Fury 2, ‘These Days’ appears in Madden NFL 2004, and NHL 2004 boasts ‘S.S. Recognize‘.
“What sucks is I knew all of those when you said them! Video games are a different animal, because kids will play all day long while inadvertently listening to your song. I have to prise my own kid off Fortnite now!”
Alien Ant Farm appeared on two episodes of Top of the Pops in 2001. Can you name any other two acts who also performed on your editions?
“Shaggy and …I don’t think it was Blur? I’m going to get a C-minus on this quiz!”
WRONG. Aside from Shaggy, you could have had Victoria Beckham, Travis, Faithless, Starsailor, Ian Brown, Kylie, Elbow, No Doubt, Jamiroquai and Enrique Iglesias, among others.
“I remember Shaggy because he introduced himself to us. He was hanging with the other bands, letting his guard down, and was pretty badass. It’s like when we were walking down the hallway of MTV in New York one time and Lenny Kravitz pointed at us and shouted: ‘YOU! I LOVE YOU GUYS!’. Lenny Kravitz’s first two records were the Bible for me.”
Last year, the Sky music comedy show Never Mind the Buzzcocks hosted a round where panellists had to guess which of the following on-tour pranks Alien Ant Farm used to play on each other. Can you secure a point for correctly identifying which of these er, ANTics is true?
A: Doing atomic wedgies on guitarist Terry Corso which led to hospitalisation.
B: They’d play a game call Lick Cliff’s Pit, a version of spin the bottle, ending in one of them having to lick their tour bus driver’s armpit.
C: They’d do a regular tour bus prank where someone gets a bum in their face.
“It’s C!”
CORRECT.
“Oh my gosh, we were fuelled by untold amounts of vodka and debauchery. Someone would straddle the top bunks on the tour bus naked in the dark so when you opened the door, you would walk into someone’s crotch. We found that to be of the upmost importance in hilarity! We’d also play end-of-tour pranks like putting vodka in people’s water bottles, or covering drumheads with baby powder, so there would be an explosion of dust every time someone hit their drums. Just goofy stuff! Nothing too mean.”
Perhaps your biggest ‘prank’ was interrupting the 2003 BET Awards to perform on a rooftop opposite the red carpet for the ‘These Days’ video, which captures the reactions of attendees including Snoop Dogg and Killer Mike.
“We only had one chance. We didn’t ruin the awards, we just added to the chaos of it, and it was only paused for 15-20 minutes. We set all our equipment up on a rooftop opposite the street from where the BET Awards were going on. We were told we couldn’t make any noise, so lied and said we were setting up for tomorrow. Then we deadbolted the door. The police had to use bolt cutters to get up to the roof and said: ‘Everyone’s going to jail. You guys F-d up big time!’, and like little kids, we just ran.”
Adjusted for inflation, what would the title of Alien Ant Farm’s 1996 demo tape ‘$100 EP’ be today?
“[Laughs] Should I say ‘$1000 EP’?”
WRONG. Too exorbitANT. It would be ‘$199.06 EP’. What do you recall about that demo?
“Er, that it sounded like crap! We were just trying to get our wiggles out. I just remember us being excited to start something and it felt like the beginning of a marriage or something.”
Which three sports are shown on the front CD cover of ‘truANT’?
“Tennis? I know ‘cause I’m the tennis player! Football, and baseball.”
WRONG. Tennis, American football and running (Baseball, basketball and skiing are depicted on the back).
“The album art is based on Pee Chee brand folders that you get in US elementary school, and we always played truANT from school. Hence the pun!”
What is track 10 on your latest album ‘~mAntras~’?
“Is it a cover of ‘Everything She wAnts’ by Wham!?”
CORRECT.
“Cool! ‘Make It Big’ by Wham! was probably my favourite album when I was 10 years old. We knew we were going to do a cover and our drummer [Michael Cosgrove] suggested that one, and it initially intimidated me because George Michael is such a great singer. When it first got mentioned, I said ‘I don’t want to do that. He’s a monster of a singer!’, but once I did a few passes of it, I felt like I could at least do my version of it. I would never compare myself to George Michael, but I had fun doing it!”
How does it feel now that ‘~mAntras~’ is finally out?
“It’s a little notch of accomplishment for me. I have a problem finishing tasks, no matter how big or small – just making my damn bed in the morning is a task. It feels good to have it done. And I’ve been sober for a couple of years now, which has helped me work on things like that. Whether it was problems or projects, I used to push them back to the next day. Now, when something arises, I think: ‘How do we fix this? How do we get this done?’. And I love that change in me.”
Has sobriety helped with the music?
“It’s hard to gauge, but it helps with every facet of life. To get creative stuff, I used to rely on almost becoming depressed or down in the dumps to yank these ideas out of me. I almost thought I needed to be that sad sack of shit to pull that out of me. I know that’s not the case, but there was a compelling argument in my own head that I needed to be that guy. But I’ve learned that’s utter bullshit.”
Ants can be found on all continents except where?
“ANTarctica? What an irony!”
CORRECT.
“I shall add that to my long list of ridiculous ant puns!”
You recently announced a joint UK tour with CKY with a £1 ticket levy to benefit grassroots venues…
“It’s important to us, because even in the US, you’re seeing grassroots venues that kickstarted a lot of bands’ careers, close and the vibes in these older venues are potent; these dirty dungeons are for growing bands and super-important in keeping music alive. They’re special buildings that employ, and provide for, tons of people.”
The verdict: 6/10
“I don’t even know my own band! That’s ridiculous!”
You can redeem yourself by describing your score in the form of an on-brand ant-pun…
“Not fANTastic.”
‘~mAntras~’ is available now. The band tour the UK in November.