Originally from the San Franciso Bay Area the Clorox Girls now call Portland, Oregon home. Their hook filled energy driven pop has garned them loads of early Redd Kross comparions and they have been on many a true music fan's top ten lists. You can check out their debut four song seven inch on Jonny Cat or pick up their amazing self titled debut album on Smart Guy. While the limited first pressing (400 copies) of their debut LP quicky sold out, Smart Guy has issued a limited second pressing of 350 out now. Their music speaks for itself.
Interview by Mike Fungus on May 15, 2004 @ the Empty Bottle, Chicago Blackout, All photos by Jeff Watts
The Clorox Girls are: Justin guitar/vocals, Clay drums, & Zack bass/backing vocals
FB: Tell me how the band got started? You started in Southern California in San Francisco right?
Clay: We started out in the gay area, I mean Bay Area and we lived there for a while and we had a girl bass player…
Justin: And then we were living
in a van for a couple of months and then we
moved to Portland because we couldn’t afford it any longer in the
Bay Area.
And now we reside in Portland where we play shows every week.
FB: (To Justin) You used to play drums in the Deadly Weapons right?
Justin: Yes, and the Seven Inches.
FB: But because the
Clorox Girls are so popular now you had to quit the
band, well not only that but because you moved.
Justin: Yeah, mostly because I moved. They we really fun to play with.
Clay: I did not play in the
Deadly Weapons, but I know Larry, the guitar
player.
FB: Have you had any problems with the name being that the Clorox company is a big corporation?
Justin: Only the seven inch
labels (on the Jonny Cat single), but when we
get signed to a major they’ll probably sue us.
FB: Have you had any pressure to
change the name and if you did what would
you change it to?
Justin: I don’t know, probably just
a different spelling or uh, I don’t
know….
FB: The Lorox Girls, like the seven inch?
Justin: I’m thinking’ “Ch”
(Chlorox) or Kkklorox, or with a K and three X’s
at the end, two X’s at the end, not three two.
FB: You could call it Clorox Girls
U.K., but you’d still have to use the
word Clorox.
Justin: (laughing) Clorox Girls U.K., yeah
we’d have to change the spelling
they have licensing to the name.
allowed to use it.
Justin: The Melvins do a rad cover of, what is it
“Desperado” by Alice
Cooper, they do a rad Alice Cooper cover and it’s amazing. But you
don’t
have to put that in the interview.
FB: I’m putting it all in.
Clay: Oh, here’s Zack, here’s Zack!
Justin: We’re doing an interview, we couldn’t find you. Here say your name.
Zack: Hi, I’m Zack, I’m a student.
Justin: No you play bass you idiot.
Clay: Zack plays bass, but he’s not hot, not like our old bass player.
FB: There is a release that I read about in
your Maximum Rock & Roll
interview that I’ve never seen. You said something about a CD EP,
does that
exist?
Justin: Uh, yeah we just did when
we toured before this (the debut album)
came out. It was like just a couple of songs, it had scantily clad men
on it.
FB: All I have is the seven inch, the limited edition vinyl, and the CD.
Justin: You’re not missing much, I
think there’s like two unreleased songs,
I think they’re crappy. I don’t even remember what they are.
Justin: So you’ve got the good stuff.
Clay: Don’t even bother, you shouldn’t even bother with that seven inch.
FB: Who’s idea was it to the vinyl limited to only 400 copies?
Clay: Smart Guy, Smart Guy, and a hundred of them
have red labels which
makes them more rare than the ones with white labels. So check red label
or
a white label.
Zack: Do you have a gold wrapper, ‘cause you
can get a free trip to Charlie’
s chocolate factory.
FB: A golden ticket to the
Northwest to see all the Portland bands.
FB: So it’s a marketing scheme to get all the suckers to buy this album.
Justin: Yes. (lots of laughter) Every one in the Mid West has been duped. No it’s true, and Belgium, I’m just joking. Sorry Belgium.
FB: I’ll start telling people that there
are eight different CD cover
designs and they’ll have to buy every one ‘em.
Justin: Please do that, it’s just like the Crowd’s new LP, it spells out "C-l-o-r-o-x".
FB: Are you sick of the Redd Kross comparisons?
Justin & Clay: Yes, yes, we’re sick of it!
Justin: ’Cause we do not sound like Redd Kross, or maybe we do but on we don’t.
Clay: It’s just a Redd Kross song, a really good song.
Justin: Yeah, I know fuck that.
FB: This is something that I’m guilty of in my review (of your album) but what about the word “pop”?
Justin: I’m fine with pop as long as it’s not pop punk.
Clay: I would like to be known as a pop punk band.
FB: I actually said that you guys remind me a lot of the Gears & Controllers.
Justin: Only because Joe Ritter smokes dope, that’s the only reason why any one says we sound like the Gears.
Clay: The only reason any one says the Controllers
is because we cover “Killer Queers”, on our demo we cover
it. People need to be more creative
with their reviews.
FB: Ohhh, that’s a stab at me. (Honestly I had no idea that they covered songs by both bands)
Clay: No offense, no offense. I don’t know I haven’t read your review.
Justin: I like all those early LA bands but I think that it’s just the name, you know what I mean? That’s the only reason why (people compare us to those bands)…
Clay: And the fact that we cover a Redd Kross song every set.
Justin: And we cover a Urinals song, so people say we sound like the Urinals. Except the Urinals are sorta better than Redd Kross, sometimes.
Clay: Sometimes, but not often.
FB2: Like the Vietnam references, it sort of goes back to 70’s punk….
FB: Kind of like the Reagan era of punk rock maybe?
Justin: I don’t know, I think war can kind of be romantic sometimes. Our record is just how, the lyrics are just how I feel about what’s going on right now, today.
FB: I would definitely say that you guys are one of those bands with such good word of mouth that I kept hearing the name before I actually heard any of your music.
Clay: Oh, awesome.
FB: It intrigued me to check out your website and to download the songs and from there I couldn’t wait for the album to come out.
Justin: Cool, yeah. We toured a bunch on the West Coast, so we came out here once before and it was fun, we had a good time in the Mid West.
FB: Are you having good responses now that your album is out & people are finding out about you?
Justin: Kind of, yeah I guess it’s
mixed. It seems like people are really analytical, I mean way too analytical.
Like when there’s a hype then you
have to live up to the hype and we don’t care about that, we just
still play our songs just like we did before it came out, you know.
Clay: I kinda felt analyzed tonight.
Justin: Me too, there was more people taking
pictures than dancing some one said. (some one walks up to talk to the
band) That’s our label guy. (long
pause ensues)
FB: So you’ve been interviewed by Maximum Rock & Roll, now you’re being interviewed by this crappy magazine Fungus Boy…
Clay: Wait, wait, this is way better than our Maximum interview.
Justin: Yeah, yeah, that interview is horrible, that magazine kinda sucks.
Clay: I think they’re all right but
I’m just mad about the ska picture, that’s all. And Razorcake
is doing one, and Horizontal Action wouldn’t interview
us because the Maximum came out before they interviewed us. Yeah, they
wanted to be the first to interview us but whatever.
FB: What can we expect from you coming up? Any new releases, any singles?
Justin: I think we want to save it all for a new album.
Clay: A new album, a hit single, and heavy MTV rotation. Possibly a tour with Blink 182, and I mean that.
Zack: It’s in the works, we’re negotiating.
FB: Are you trying to rival the Spits with 18 minute (long) albums?
Justin: You said the Spits 18 minute albums? Our songs are just short, the Spits second album was good but a little half assed.
Clay: It has some damn good songs on it.
Justin: Much love to the brothers, they are our bros..
Zack: We didn’t have any money, like making a cheap album….(gets cut off)
Justin: No seriously, if we had more money
to record it might have been a couple minutes longer, and we wanted it
on 45. We definitely wanted the 45
(the speed on the vinyl LP).
FB: That’s all right my CD player has a repeat button.
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