Interview with guitarist/Vocalist Sean Wood | By John Gentile
When The Spits’ Sean and Erin Wood were little kids in rural Michigan, their mother painstakingly handmade costumes for them to wear on Halloween. In contrast to the gruesome plastic masks of off-the-shelf Walmart costumes so prevalent today, the Wood brothers’ costumes were sweet, pastoral, and quaint. “The costumes my mom made were goofy as hell,” guitarist and vocalist Sean Wood says. “I think they were supposed to be clown costumes, but I’m not too sure. She put a lot of love into it, and that always made me really appreciate Halloween.”
The image is of two young fellows trotting down the street, candy sacks in hand, innocently enjoying the children’s holiday, but somewhere along the way, something happened. By the time Wood and his future Spits bassist and vocalist brother, Erin, were in their early teens, they weren’t dressed as clowns and asking for Snickers bars anymore. They were speeding through fields on dirt bikes, doing doughnuts on top of farmer’s crops. They were blaring Mötley Crüe from their car at earsplitting volume. They were walking down isolated highways with shotguns, firing on any inanimate target in sight. They were, as Wood says, “getting fucked over by the law.”
“What happened was we grew up in a hillbilly area, but then, we moved to the city and got some culture,” he elaborates. “We got some good music, and we were just crazy. We used to see people high on meth every day. We were never bored. I don’t know why we did those things—but—but—but yeah!” This gnarly impulse eventually led to the brothers to form The Spits, who took the unrelenting throttle of the Ramones and added a jagged, grimy edge that made every song sound like it was recorded in a rusty barrel.
Their songs were as nihilistic as they were spiteful, with titles like “Die Die Die,” “Violence Cup,” and “I’m Scum.” Oh yeah, they also sang like they were robots. But one thing remained from their more innocent years: the band wore el cheapo costumes in concert. Sometimes they dressed as low-rent witches, sometimes they were cardboard killbots, and sometimes they were—um, sex Zorros? Wood explains, “We grew up watching the God Bullies in Kalamazoo. They got dressed up, and it really added to the show. It’s like putting on a play. When you go see a play, it’s a performance. We want to put on a show because we’re having fun.”
“After so many years, you run out of costume ideas,” he admits, “but we have to do it, because we’ve been doing it for so long. So now, each person has their own persona, and that’s how he dresses.” As for Wood’s character: “My persona, well—I don’t know. It’s—it’s the bad boy of rock ‘n’ roll? I can’t tell you, because it wouldn’t make sense. You need to see it for yourself. Think, like, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick. What the hell is he? You make it up.”
As always, an underlying current of chaos reverberates through the band. They are supposed to be recording their new studio album—their sixth LP in a row entitled The Spits—but in true Spits form, the winds of chaos have blown that plan aside for now. “The new album? We—we haven’t put it to the side,” Wood clarifies, “but right now, we’re working on a tour cassette. We’ve got some good songs that we’ve been jamming. Also, we want to put out a Halloween cassette—if we can finish it up by Halloween.”
Although they did record a few tracks in a proper studio, the band have abandoned that plan and are currently recording in their natural element: on a 4-track in Erin’s house. As for the lineup, chaos continues to rule the day as usual. Wood says, “We now have Tim Tim The Robot, Erin, me, and Lance Phelps. No, wait. Lance is our manager, I guess. So, I guess that means the band is me on guitar, Erin on bass, Tim Tim The Robot on keyboards, and Wayne Draves on drums.”
At any rate, the new tracks—the titles of which the band are keeping under wraps—find The Spits storming as hard as ever with their buzzy, chunky, ripping sound. “We grew up on old metal and old rock. I like it all,” Wood says. “We got into punk in our early teens, so we grew up on rock. We grew up rockers. I hate saying ‘punk rock.’ I don’t see a division between the two. It’s just rock. We play rock. We’re a rock band. We rock.”
Promo Photo by Keith Marlowe
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