As Lesley, Raz, and I waited beside the trailer, Steve emerged -- wearing a straw Panama hat. He was dressed down in a blue sweatshirt with the word "Cuba" in red across the chest, dark blue shorts (I saw a studded black leather belt), and...black socks and black sneakers.

Oh, Steve.

He had taken care of his business and was ready to start the interview. So he ushered us up into their trailer, which now had Keb' Mo's name taped to it already. We peered inside. Lesley exclaimed, "So THIS is what the life of a rock star is like!" Climbing up the steps and inside, we found a really cramped space suitable for not very much activity. But at least there was a bunk bed, a refrigerator, a sink, cabinets, a microwave, a ceiling fan, four chairs facing each other in a little nook, and a hanging lamp. Steve made his way over to the chairs and put the sax cases and backpacks on the floor. As he set one of the backpacks down, something snapped. He examined a plastic buckle and muttered to himself. "Uh oh, Steve broke something!" I announced. He ushered us to sit down and get comfy. YAY.

I sat on the outside chair, the back against the bunk bed, and Raz sat next to me by the slatted window. Steve was sitting opposite me, and Lesley sat next to him. I was strangely calm about the whole thing. All I could think of for a while were "holy crap," "what am I doing here," "Steve is so hot." I explained to him that I had written a bunch of questions on three pages, but I didn't bring them because I didn't think this interview was going to even happen. He asked if I remembered any, and I just said that we'll wing it. However, 'winging it' was never one of my strong abilities, but I had to try despite my initial nervousness.

After Ian good-naturedly, but rather vehemently cursed Steve out about driving the car, we settled down to our INTERVIEW. Or something that vaguely resembled one. It was more like a forty-minute conversation interspersed with moments of hilarity and enlightenment, minutia and trivia, and thingies and stuff.

Before it officially commenced, we once again complimented him on the show. He said he didn't think he did particularly well, but we insisted with all our might.

"At least you tried hard," said Lesley. "It'll go under your report card: 'Steve tries hard.' With a little smiley face."

"Exactly!" said Steve. "Steve tries hard. Steve tries hard and fails."

We wailed with disagreement.

"I did the best I could do, considering. There you go. I could have done better, though. If things had gone my way," he added slyly.

There was a brief pause during which we girls eyed each other and silently wondered the implications of that statement.

We were set to go. I had my tape recorder out and prepared it, making sure it was in good working order. In the meantime, the trailer's ratty tin door slammed each time some random Daddie entered and exited.

I began, "You know, I wrote these questions when Soul Caddy came out, and so most of them were based on what was going on at the time with the band and whatnot. I think one of my questions was, who came up with that crazyass look?"

He grinned. "Oh, that was me," he replied.

"That was you, of course."

"Of course."

"And what inspired you to do that?"

"Well, I've always like glam music. No, I don't like the word glam. I like glitter rock. I was born in '63, and in my neighborhood, there was -- in the days of Marc Bolan, and T-Rex, and Bowie, and things like that -- there were these bands. I knew a couple guys who were in bands. And it was sort of the look at the time, and I always liked that music. Kind of like the progenitor of punk rock. If I could keep my mind on one style, which I'm never going to do, it would be fun to make a kind of glittery... I also like the whole kind of..."

"Theatrics?"

"Yeah. I guess. That's a good way to put it."

"Because you really did have, in the early days -- well, you know, I wasn't there to witness it, but I've heard stories -- of the early days, the theatrics, the infamous Dildorado..."

"Yeah, yeah, we did all sorts of things," he said with a mischievous smile.

"Well, about your past songs... What are your favorite songs? Of your own?"

"Yeah... Well, successful. I look at them as either... I don't care if a song is good, as long as it's successful, as far as whether it did what I wanted it to do. Like Skyline Drive was a successful song. Because my idea was to write a psychedelic song, like LA-psychedelic. So, I wanted to write a song that wasn't typical psychedelic. There's a whole bunch of songs that are fairly successful. On that record, Lovers Understand was sort of successful, because I wound in this weird backing tape that I wanted to do."

"Yeah, what was that?"

"It was uh...I think it was Moulage, the song, by uh...it's not Marceau..."

At this point, my tape recorder went on a temporary fritz, and Steve was kind enough to point that out to me.

"Yeah, so what was I saying," he went on. "Oh yeah, Lovers Understand was successful. That record was kind of successful in a way."

"Right," I said. "I've always heard that you liked Rapid City Muscle Car out of all the albums."

"Yeah, I think I like the idea of a kind of psychedelia of doing different things, of different styles. I like things all broken up. But I also like little tight moments. Like an ear of corn. Like each kernel of corn would be a different thing. But they're all connected. But other songs, I don't know what my favorite songs are. I mean, I even like the bad ones."

"Okay, what are the bad ones?"

"The Search is bad," he immediately replied.

"But it's fun!" I said giggling.

"Yeah, it needed it to be there, but it's just not a good song. I wanted to have a-it's hard to explain. I needed an 'in.' I needed a beginning. And I wanted to be really banal. 'I go in a van.' And the rest of the record comes in from there." He paused in thought. "Let's see...some other bad songs. There's a bunch of bad songs. Some of them were not successful. Enemy Within -- not successful. Um...I don't know. I like them all."

"Yeah, so do we."

Lesley said, "I guess it's kind of difficult to pick, because they're kind of like your children. Like, which one do you like the most? I mean, you create something, and then you say, well, I don't like that one."

Steve agreed. "Sorry about that."

"I'm not complaining."

We laughed.

Steve went on, "Yeah, sometimes you write songs that are... I used to tend to think of records as albums, you know, like rock operas or something. So they'd serve their weird purpose. Even if they sucked."

I said, "Well, you said once in an interview, you reserve the right to suck."

He grinned. "Yeah, we definitely, definitely reserve the right to suck. I sort of like it and I sort of don't like it. I like to see other bands fall apart, like the wheels come off, because it's interesting. But somehow, when I do it, I'm not sure. As I get older, though, I think it's all right."

"Flaws are more interesting."

"Yeah, they are. Yeah, I would say the mistakes are more interesting in our case, but I don't think that's true in music."

Suddenly he picked up and said, "I want to do something really different. It would be cool if I could do something really difficult, and like really at the edge of the possible. ...I don't know what that means yet. But I thought that the other day when I was looking at a sculpture book, and a lot of shit goes way out there. Just do it really way out. That'd be good."

"Well, one day!" I said encouragingly. "One day you'll reach that point."

"Yeah, I've just started to plan. I like that. Trying things that make no sense at all. See if you can make it work."

I wanted to make a remark about Frank Zappa, but I was too uneducated in the World of Zappa to even remotely appear coherent. So I went on with the silly questions.

"So what songs do you like performing? What really works for you live?" I asked.

At this point, Sean entered the trailer. He came up to us and said, "Steve, I just want you to know that you're only the second man that's ever worn that hat." We all laughed. "I just figured, you know, everybody thought it was...kind of..." He trailed off, and Steve chuckled.

Raz said to Sean, "Like you carrying another man's horn?"

"Now I realize you're one of me," he said.

"Awww!" said Lesley.

"You are kindred spirits," I sighed.

"A lot of sharing here tonight," said Raz. "He's got the horns. Steve's got your hat. There's love."

"We're all doing our part," said Sean, as he dug into the refrigerator. Steve then said, "What was the question?"

We laughed. I forgot.

Raz piped up, "What do you like performing live?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "They all have potential. Um, on a good night. I guess sometimes I like doing Teenage Brainsurgeon. God is a Spider, sometimes. I like doing the stupid sci-fi ones. They're not as dancey. They're just absurd. Which I like. Yeah, you could say I like those. You can figure out new ways to do things. I look at them new."

"And which are the hardest to perform?" I asked.

"For some reason, Tiger Woods is hard. It sounds really good when we sometimes play in practice..."

"Yeah, tonight was really good!"

"I dunno, I didn't sing it very well," he immediately said, to much eye-rolling from me. "But that's hard for some reason. There's no snare in it, so people just stand there. Um, slow songs are hard. People don't get into them."

Lesley said, "People go to the bathroom during the slow songs."

He laughed. "I like the slow songs more and more. Everything seems too fast to me now when we practice. We used to play a lot faster."

Dan came into the trailer. He said, "Steve is looking like Michael Billings right now."

We looked up at him and laughed. He was wearing a green cardigan that seemed to be made out of an unidentifiable fuzz.

Lesley remarked, "That's a great sweater you got there!"

Dan eyed her. "'Great' in its girth?"

He always throws curve balls like that.

Steve commented, "It's very Rumplestiltskin-like." We agreed.

"Do you have to water that thing?" Lesley asked. "It looks like a Chia-sweater."

"It's crumbling," said Dan. "It's actually itchy, though."

As Steve then examined his watch that broke during the concert, I asked him, "Speaking of accessories, do you still have those cufflinks I gave you? Those hot rod cufflinks?"

He nodded vigorously as he put the watch back in his pocket. "Oh, yeah, yeah," he said. "I probably even brought 'em- I don't know if I brought 'em. There's a red box that I put all my cufflinks in. It kind of doesn't shut very well, so sometimes I don't bring it. It flies open every time, so every night I have to pick up like 400 off the floor. I didn't wear cufflinks tonight, I just didn't want to bring them. I was just working right up until before we left, so I just threw a couple of suits in a bag."

Raz said, "It was a good suit, though," and we agreed.

"Have you worn that before?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I tore the ass out."

We laughed.

"And what was going on with you and your ass tonight?" Raz demanded.

"Was there an ass thing going on?" said Steve.

Lesley explained, "For some reason, the mic was not sitting well, so there was a lot of ass-grab on your part."

"Oh, yeah," he said, "I think that was it."

"All ass, all the time. This'll be the Ass Tour."

"Oh, yeah. All ass, all the time. I don't know. I wasn't aware. I was just trying...to do something."

We couldn't suppress the giggles. Steve, I salute you for letting us talk about your ass in your presence.

Lesley then had a question. "This has just made me more aware, I mean -- I see you on stage, I see you here. When you're on stage, do you sort of zone out and just become 'Steve Onstage'? And then after? Because obviously you are not that guy all the time."

"I guess," he said. "Yeah, I don't know what it is. I guess I am that guy, to certain degree. I just try and have fun, and, you know, think about..." -a rather lengthy pause- "...things."

We laughed.

"Yeah, I do, I just try to think about things when I'm up there."

Sean suddenly appeared and commented on our seating arrangement: "If there were a ground ball up the middle, I'd probably ground it right here and make a double play."

After a beat, Steve said, "Oh, yeah!"

We females completely missed the joke.

"I find baseball very comforting," he assured us.

Sean remarked, "Just getting more and more frivolous. Every time I come in here, it's something even less substantial."

He had a point!

Lesley asked, "Mets or Yankees?"

"I like the Yankees," Steve replied, and we all groaned disappointedly. "Sorry about that! I grew up in the Triple Cities, the Triplets. I'm a Yankees fan. I've been a Yankees fan since I was a baby."

"Yeah, my family's been the Mets fans since..."

"Is it a Long Island thing?"

"New Jersey. Oh, I don't like you anymore."

He looked at me, and I said, "Mine's a Brooklyn thing."

Raz said, "I'm only a Mets fan because of HoJo."

"Minor league, like Whitey Ford -- most famous minor league baseball teams of all time, the Triple Cities Triplets. From where I grew up. That's why I became a Yankees fan."

"I suppose it's something we'll just have to accept," said Lesley.

"Yeah," he said. "No, I understand, lots of New Yorkers like the Mets. But there's a lot of New Yorkers who like the Yankees."

"Most New Yorkers like the Yankees now that they do well."

"Yeah. But I liked the Yankees back when the Yankees were no one, when they didn't do good at all."

"Oh! Okay, that's fine, then," said Lesley, and we all agreed. "There's a lot of bandwagon. 'Oh, Yankees rule!' 'Okay, yeah, Yankees rule!'"

Steve adamantly shook his head. "No," he said.

Raz snickered, "Steve's not a bandwagon kind of guy."

We laughed as he continued to shake his head.

"I apologize for saying that," said Lesley. "That was very wrong of me."

"I've never been particularly interested in the Mets," Steve went on.

"You know what Mets stands for right? My Entire Team Sucks."

"Yeah. I used to like the song, though. Remember the song?"

And then Steve did an amazingly amazing thing: he SANG THE SONG FOR US.

"Meet the Mets! Meet the Mets! Step right up and meet the Mets! Bring the kiddies, bring the wife, guaranteed to have the time of your life! Because the Mets are really sockin' the ball, hittin' those home runs over the wall! East side, west side, everybody's comin' down, to meet the M-E-T-S Mets, from New York Town!"

Holy crap.

Raz applauded, I went "Yay!" and Lesley managed a "good lord."

"That was the best baseball song ever," he said.

Uh, yaw, now that Steve sang it.

"My dad was a baseball coach," he remarked. "Babe Ruth Little League and all that stuff. We were serious baseball guys. All the houses in my neighborhood had-all the sides, the siding? Not siding..."

"Sheet rock?" Lesley suggested.

"Not sheet rock..."

"Wood shingles?" said Raz.

"Wood shingles, I think. And they were all covered with ball marks, because we would go to everyone's house and throw lacrosse balls or hard rubber baseballs. Every single house on the street was destroyed by the kids. We were all crazy about baseball."

"What else were you crazy about?" Raz asked.

"Yeah, what were your obsessions?" I said.

"As a kid? Um, I liked the Olympics."

"Really? Did you get to see the last...?"

"Winter Olympics? Oh yeah, I was in New York through the Winter Olympics. I watched the Skate-Gate."

Lesley said, "You know New York's trying to get the next Olympics."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. New York shouldn't."

"Well, it's going to be a kind of Tri-State area kind of thing."

"New York should just stop."

We laughed.

Raz giggled, "Stop wanting all the attention!"

Lesley said, "Yeah, we're attention whores."

"It's true, New York is a really insecure city," said Steve.

"Well, somebody knocked our buildings down..." said Lesley.

"Yeah, I understand that. But even before that..."

I said, "Love us! Visit us!"

Lesley added, "We need a hug!"

Steve nodded. "Okay, New York's getting a giant-ass hug."

We all burst out laughing.

"You know what I mean?" said Steve. "It really struck me, living there, especially. There's so much crap. You know, you read the New York Times, a lot of the art or rock reviews and you just go, 'Oh my God, would you just please shut up?' You know what I mean? It's like, 'Ah, you think way too much of yourselves. You're making a mistake. You're just--'" And he made a face and shook his head, unable to express his disgust. We laughed.

Lesley said, "You ever read Time Out New York?"

"Oh, yeah. I've read it. Time Out New York Personals are fun to read. That's the best part of the whole thing!"

"Oh, yeah, they make them so much more fun to read!" said Lesley. "They've got questions you can answer, a little picture, come up with a cute little nickname..."

"Yeah. Time Out New York Personals, I heart those," said Steve.

"The back four pages and like, Savage Love."

Raz said, "Savage Love is great."

"Time Out New York is only worth about the back four pages. Other than that, it's a piece of crap.

Steve remarked, "That Savage Love guy, he's from Seattle, that dude."

"Oh, really? We spent three-and-a-half hours in Seattle. A lot of coffee."

Ian had come in during this exchange. "Really?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Ouch. Don't hurt your liver."

Steve said, "You know, Balzac used to drink twenty pots of coffee a day. Well, he wrote about five thousand books anyway, so..."

"He got a lot done!" Ian guffawed. "He was a busy guy!"

It was either Sean, Dustin, or Dan who interposed, "You mean Balzac, the lead singer from GWAR??"

Ian and Steve laughed. "Bal-ZAC!" Ian sang.

"Where did he find the time?" said Raz.

"To drink all that coffee? Well..."

Steve was musing: "It was either Balzac or...yeah, it was Balzac."

"Zappa drank five or ten pots of coffee and smoked, too," said Ian.

"Smoked his body weight in cigarettes."

"Yeah, literally. He didn't really do any other drugs, but he did those drugs, and it beat the shit out of him."

Lesley said, "If you're going to do it, go hard or go home."

Ian was politely against that notion. "No, I disagree!" he said. "You know? Maintain."

"Ah, even keel."

"Yeah, exactly. Don't expect any trouble, don't be a fucking asshole. Enjoy your buzz. If that's your buzz, fucking enjoy it. Just, you know, don't do it until you're telling your best friends to go fuck themselves."

This message was brought to you by Ian Early of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.

That was when Steve very gratefully said, "It's safe to say that I have no bad habits at all."

We laughed.

Raz said, "Especially not empty carbs!"

"Noooo," he said, shaking his head. "I think my bad habit would be that I get messy. Too many tables covered with stuff. That's like the worst habit you can have. I've got tables with magazines on them..."

"What kind of magazines?" Raz asked.

"Uh, I have..." Steve began, thinking deeply, "well, a bunch of video magazines, like Home Buyer magazines...stupid shit."

We busted out laughing.

"Like, three old...you know, like, what's going on in town? You don't throw 'em away."

Lesley said, "You never know when you might wanna know what's going on in town!"

"No, it's stupid, though. You know, you don't realize that it piles up. Like, what's happening at the museum. One flyer. Had it for four months. What else is on my table... Juxtapose magazine...art magazines...what else would be on there...Real estate...very boring..." He shook his head. "Stupid shit stays on the table. Oh, and like a bottle of Serachi."

Giggling ensued.

"Gum."

More giggling.

"Salt."

Hysterics.

"Saltines."

Lesley said, "A little pile of salt? That would be really interesting."

"No, a saltshaker, 'cause I sit on the floor when I eat," Steve oh-so casually revealed to us. "And I'll turn on the TV and I'll sit on the floor on this little mat. And I'll put my food on, and I sit there disgustingly, and my table's next to me and so the Serachi is still there."

Lesley remarked, "So you're still in college, basically."

"Yeah! And it's not terrible, but it's...it's bad enough."

With a giggle, Raz said, "I'm getting such a visual!"

Lesley said, "It's not filthy..."

Steve shook his head. "It's not filthy, it's really cluttered. And you know, I throw a bunch of sweaters, sweatshirts or whatever on the couch. And they just stay there. Forever."

(At that instant, Raz and I looked at each other and chorused, "Foreva' eva'?")

"What if somebody comes over and yells at you to clean up?" said Lesley. "Everything goes in the closet and comes right out as soon as they leave."

"It's only when somebody who's important, like who I don't know very well, and it's like, 'Okay, gotta clean up.' And then I go, 'Why have I kept six months' of stuff on my tables?'"

"It's cool when you get to know somebody better just so you don't have to clean up when they come over."

"See, then you're REALLY lazy. And they come over and you go, you know, I'll just tell 'em. Tell 'em the truth. 'You know, I just didn't really wanna clean up for you. I just don't wanna pick up stuff.' The stuff that ends up on your table is stuff you don't have a place for. I got a bulletin board, and then I had a box, and the box wasn't working. I keep every receipt, too. I have every receipt. It's bad. I want to get file cabinets, but they're just ugly."

"You need to go to Ikea!" Lesley said.

At that point, Ian, who had been coming and going in and out of the trailer, said, "You need to get nice files. They do make nice file cabinets, though. I used to deliver them."

Steve said, "There are folders everywhere in my house."

"Yeah, those hanging flap folders..."

"Folders labeled, 'Ideas!' 'Books I Want!'"

"'Stuff!'" Lesley suggested.

Raz said, "You make folders? That's organized, though, at least."

"Yeah, but they're all over the place. It's like your desktop that isn't cleaned up, with folders all over it? It's like that, except my house."

Lesley asked, "But you know where everything is, though, right?"

"No, well, only in the general vicinity."

"If somebody moves a pile?"

Very flatly, Steve replied: "No one's gonna move my pile."

We laughed.

Stumped, Lesley held her hands up. "I dunno," she said. "Maybe if someone comes in the wrong house and moves a pile."

"No one's ever moved my pile," Steve maintained.

We laughed again.

"Okay, well, GOOD," said Lesley.

After the giggles died down, I managed to go on with the questions.