Nectar’s in Burlington, VT is currently celebrating it’s 40th year. What has the venue meant to you guys?

CD: Some shitty April gigs every year? I don’t know. A nice string of underpaid performances where they packed the bar to the fucking gills and didn’t give us a bonus. They mean a lot to us, though.

CF: Chris Walsh is helping us out a bunch. Of course, Don has played with some other groups there for the 40th anniversary. We have not yet. But, you know, they were the place Colby and I started in 2003, doing open mics there. Then Don jumped up on drums with us shortly after that. So, as it has been for many bands, it’s been a starting point for Touchpants, being able to earn a little bit of a loyal following around the Burlington area. So yeah, they’ve been huge. But, Chris Walsh’s interest and enthusiasm has been top notch. He knows the biz and has ideas beyond music for us that could beneficially play out nicely for our brand of pissogyny in the future.

CD: Yeah, I mean, we’re no Gordon Stone, but we get a pretty good draw over there.

Going back to America and the problems we’re facing today, let’s just say, hypothetical situation here, you walk into a sushi buffet. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both there. Whose soy sauce do you ask to borrow, and why?

CD: For one, what the fuck is a boo-fay?

DH: Is that like a bouffant?

CD: The easiest answer there, obviously, would be to not so much ask to borrow, but to just take Bernie Sanders’ soy sauce. Because clearly he believes his soy sauce is everybody’s fuckin’ soy sauce, and he might as well share the wealth, you know? So just take it—I’m entitled to it.

CF: I wouldn’t take Hillary’s soy sauce, because it’s made by Monsanto.

CD: Ooh, I didn’t even think about that. Is that made by Mossimo, that clothing line out of Target? Is that what you’re talking about?

AB: Yeah, they make those bouffants.

What shows do you guys have planned for the summer? What are you going to do with this album?

CD: We have a tour announcement forthcoming. Unfortunately we can’t really divulge too much of that just yet until we have all the press stuff in line, but rest assured, we’ll be everywhere we need to be.

CF: You’re probably gonna see it announced this week, so you can add the dates upon that announcement. You’re gonna see five shows this summer at various points in the US. Until the fall. When we’re going big! With five more.

CD: This is Don. I mean, I figure by fall, I can probably quit Pork Tornado entirely and just focus on Touchpants full-time.

Let’s talk about the album’s title.

CF: Straight Outta Cumpton.

CF: And that’s Cumpton, C-U-M-P-T-O-N. Get it straight.

CD: Outta. O-U-T-T-A. Straight. As in something Aram is not. This is Aram. Sorry, I was speaking in the third person there.

CF: Let me explain you what a “cump” is. It’s the combination of having an orgasm (cum) and defecating (dump) at the same time. Hence the word cump. Hence the name of the album, Straight Outta Cumpton.

Do you guys have anything else to add, anything else you’d like to go into? What’s on your minds?

CF: If anybody comes to the shows this summer, just understand: this is the greatest and the worst thing you’ve ever seen, all at once. This is Don. Nah, it’s gonna rock. The shows will be electrically entertaining, for sure.

CD: We feel really confident, especially with the album we’ve got going right now and with the level of absolute fuckin’ badassery that we’re performing at, both as individuals and as humans on this planet. I really think we’re really making a difference this year, and I think that you’re gonna see that, not just in a live sense, but across all the channels of the Internet. That includes MySpace and Friendster—like we’re really reaching out now and actually making our stamp here on America. I think you’re gonna see some real changes.

When you say “changes,” do you mean musical changes or changes in the world?

CF: Changes in your bowel system, for the most part.

CD: And that’s a lot of it, because we tend to play places where the water isn’t necessarily sanitary. So there’s a lot of changes to the people who view our shows, because they get thirsty and then have a dysentery issue coming on. But, past that, we’re changing the face—not just of music—but of the political landscape, everywhere we go. We change people’s opinions, we change their minds. We’re literally going out there on a one-on-one basis and just changing the way people think and view, not just the world, but themselves. We’re turning people around from the inside out so that they can move forward in life and really feel like they can make a difference that isn’t just in their own communities, but beyond that. Some of them are working, sure, at the county, at the municipal level, others moving up to the state government. This is Aram, by the way.

DH: When Aram speaks like that, I am motivated to run for office. This is Friday, by the way.

CF: Our civic priorities are, number one, going out on the road. Therefore we will work on these water issues, and so will the people attending our shows—in their pants.

CD: And this is Aram again. The thing to us, the biggest thing that motivates us right now, is economic development. There’s so much need right now, in our small communities, to embrace—it’s not just another craft store on fuckin’ Main Street, you know? It’s not another bunch of musicians playing for free on the town commons. That’s not gonna revitalize your economy. We’re talking a small business incubator—things like that—that Touchpants is bringing to communities across America right now. If you want to get together with us during and/or after—preferably, actually, during—the show to talk about your business idea, we’re there for you 100% every time, every show. Let’s do this.

CF: But not after. Definitely not after.

CD: No, we don’t actually want to see much of any of you after. At all.

CF: Nobody.

CD: I don’t even want to see Aram, but I am Aram.

DH: That makes three of us. I like that, at the beginning, you said, “oh it makes it a lot easier if you say your name.” You really asked for this.

I realized that about a minute through. You can pretty much say anything you want at this point.

DH: I feel like the good thing about this is once this interview comes out, the New York Times and all the other editorials will be lining up at our door, of course. Is there actually anything you want to know about the band?

Well I know you guys have been a comedy band for many years now. You’ve released—one album, is it?

CD: Yeah, if you can call it that.

CF: Well, Poopenis Poetry was released in 2006, and it’s damn near the funniest comedy album ever made. And Aram is not on it, so you know it’s even better.

AB: I know, yeah. Poopenis Poetry really set the standard.

Do you think you guys have grown as a band between now and Poopenis Poetry?

AB: We just did a record as a whole band, and poetry is part of every show that we do, regardless.

Colby drops out of interview due to prior arrangement.

AB: See you later, Aram.

DH: Thank God he’s gone. Now we can really put some words in Colby’s mouth.

CF: The band has been a band since Don joined open mic-style in like late 2003. And then Aram came in 2012, his first gig was April 20, 2012. So it’s been a solid four years as the quartet, but before that it was just Colby, Don and myself.

DH: He plays on one gig a year.

CF: We took three years off, so it was like a third of a gig a year, on average.

DH: Now it’s really picked up to what? We’re like knocking on the door of like six or seven gigs a year or something.

CF: After Colby got off of his meth and heroin addiction, we started to play again. But things are better.

AB: This is Aram, and I don’t really think a whole lot about what to say or do, I just kinda show up and play bass. I try to not listen too much to the filth coming out of their mouths. It’s working pretty well so far. We’re up to five or six gigs a year, and I’m hoping by 2020 we’ll be doing a dozen a year.

DH: Are the lyrics filthy? I’m really just so focused on the instrumentation, and I just hear the vocals as another instrument. I don’t really know anything about the lyrical content.

AB: Nor should anyone.

DH: In all seriousness, I think that was well put before. Touchpants really does exist for Touchpants. Like, I love playing in this band. I think all of us do. I love playing with Aram, he’s a great bass player. I love Friday’s vocals. I love the whole thing. For me, it’s just pure fun. And whether or not it’s offensive or whatever, that’s part of the fun. You can always elect to not listen, but to me it’s had staying power.

AB: I wasn’t expecting it to happen, but there is some kind of chemistry going on with Touchpants. The album was really really good—in all seriousness, it’s pretty rocking. It’s sort of astronomically rocking in moments. It is a real pleasure. All kidding aside, it’s really nice to be in this group with these three sweet guys.

CF: You actually gave him something to print, holy shit.

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