What on earth would a band with a name like Zeke sound like? In years past, many critics hailed them, alongside REO Speedealer, as “Motorhead on speed/amphetamines”. I might tend to agree with that, though whereas Motorhead was the “punkest metal band”, I’d say Zeke are the most metal punk band on the face of the earth. In any event, they kick ass.

Mark: We were sitting around, we were really, really high and one of the guys that we were with that was in the band at the time, he’s not in the band anymore, he’d been up all night and he had a list of names and there were probably about a hundred and twenty names on the list and he was going through them very rapidly and when he said Zeke, we all started laughing; we thought it was funnier than shit. Basically, we just didn’t give a fuck about anything at all, what anybody thought about what we were doing and we just thought that would be just as good a name as any.

Mark: No, dude, we’ve been waiting for years and years and years for that to happen, man. I knew it was going to happen, I really wanted to meet those guys ‘cause I have been a huge fan for years, obviously. It was just really cool for it to happen on their Thirtieth Anniversary and they were awesome every night, it was unbelievable; I did an interview with Lemmy, hung out with those cats a lot, my wife got to meet all those guys and everything – it was pretty amazing, dude, it was a really good experience. I didn’t find it ironic at all we’ve been trying so hard to make it happen.

Mark: Not really. It’s weird, it’s always been the same dudes, it’s like the same people have been coming to the shows. There’s like three groups of people; there’s the guys with the beards and the horn-rimmed glasses that dress in all black and they’re more interested in metal, then there’s the guys that are the weird dudes that work on cars or whatever, they all look like they’re from Texas and they all drive pickup trucks, (small amount of laughter) they come to our shows too, and then you get these weird Canadian youngsters that come down and see us; they’ll have a Mayhem patch on one side of their blue jean jacket, then a Black Sabbath, then like a Minor Threat and it’s just all over the place, but they know everything about every period of everything that’s ever happened in the realm of rock music. They’re always in all these different bands as well, they’re usually musicians. It’s always been the same people, man, it hasn’t changed at all. The only reason we wound up on more of a metal label is there’s people that belong within the realms of the metal world and they dig us ‘cause they hear certain things in our music that they like.

Mark: I didn’t even that was true and if it is true, where’s my money? (laughter) I’m not interested in sponsoring any cola or amplifier or guitar or anything whatsoever. That would have to be something somebody did without me knowing about it. Thanks for letting me know that, I’ll take immediate action.

Mark: Never heard of it.

Mark: At that point I really did go off on this weird metal tangent. We were in England and there was this gross availability of 80’s hardcore and metal vinyl for really, super cheap and so I got on the plane from Europe to the States with, like eight stacks of vinyl this big… (places his hands about a foot and a half apart) It was ridiculous; we had to pay extra money to have it shipped from the record label and everything, that was when we were on Epitaph, and for some reason, at the time, I was really getting into bands like Bathory, all that stuff that Quorthon did, mostly the early stuff, ‘cause it has kind of a Motorhead flavor to it, you know, it’s just more extreme and a little bit darker. And at the same time, I was into bands like Pungent Stench and Death and I don’t know why I was into it, but I really was and I brought these songs to the band and they really just came out of me watching a bunch of horror movies and that kind of Southern flavor was still there, so I don’t think I was too far off the mark, but it really alienated the rest of my band I think in the first place. And then during that tour, there was all kinds of fucked up shit going on; people were getting way too loaded, there was just too much drugs and alcohol, and everybody was fuckin’ sick of eachother, you know, we wanted to kill eachother and when you’re getting ready to be Varg Vikernes and kill somebody, it’s time to quit. (small laughs) I told ‘em I was going to try and change my attitude, they said I was being a real dick, I said I was going to try my best and they said that wasn’t good enough and they said “fuck it.” And we were getting ready to do a tour with the fucking Melvins, dude!

Mark: So I blew the fucking Melvins tour, which fucking kills me, dude. That was the whole deal behind that.

Mark: No, but there’s an Australian release called “True Crime” that you can get and that has all that stuff on it and it’s a really nice package too, man. I don’t know who’s putting it out right now, maybe you can get that information online. But it’s a really nice package. Relapse is getting ready to reissue the first two albums, as well. But the singles are better.

Mark: You know, they want to release the CD’s individually, but I’m having them put together a vinyl package that’s both of the albums together with different artwork. It fuckin’ rules.

Mark: Well, if it starts to get boring for me, I imagine it’s going to get boring for other people, so that’s where I stop.

Mark: Ultimate Zeke love song? Hmmm… (very long pause) “The River”.

Mark: No. (laughter) Well, yeah, maybe! (pause) I don’t think you can really say that you love somebody unless you’re willing to make the grade for them; that’s why I’d pick “The River” over “Fuck All Night”; that’s more of a lust song than a love song.