Interview with guitarist Jarrod Miller, featuring drummer Dale Crover | By Mike Gaworecki
Las Vegas band, The Fat Dukes Of Fuck, are no joke.
Sure, the band don’t appear to take themselves too seriously. After all, their new album is entitled A Compendium of Desperation, Morality and Dick Jokes, and if you’re hoping that the title is literal, well… “You’re in luck, man!” guitarist Jarrod Miller says. “That’s exactly what this album is! No metaphor in the title whatsoever.”
But seriously, the new album is much darker than the band’s previous release, their 2012 debut full-length, Honey from the Lips of an Angel. That wasn’t necessarily deliberate, though, according to Miller. “We recorded quite a few songs and ended up grouping most of the ‘darker’ themed ones into the album,” he explains. “Originally, I think we were going for something polished and epic.”
Miller and his bandmates have described the making of A Compendium of Desperation, Morality and Dick Jokes—which they will self-release on Aug. 25—as a childhood and adulthood dream come true, and it’s easy to see why. The album not only features artwork by David Yow of The Jesus Lizard, but his musical contributions as well. Not only that, the record was also produced by Deaf Nephews, the production team consisting of Melvins drummer Dale Crover and longtime Melvins engineer—and former Big Business guitarist—Toshi Kasai, both of whom supplied various vocals and instrumentation for the album.
“We’ve been Melvins and The Jesus Lizard fans for years—26 years in my case,” Miller says. “That was mind-blowing and surreal.”
He’s also quite amped on the ways Deaf Nephews impacted the overall sound of the record. “Toshi and Dale’s input took us in a much weirder sonic direction,” he says. “There [are] so many gadgets and modified appliances mixed into this album, tons of kids’ toys perverted into making unnatural noises. It wasn’t unusual for Toshi to run out of the control room and come back with a bunch of things wired together and hook them up to my guitar. At one point, Dale played a 30” ride cymbal. He used mallets, and you couldn’t even be in the same room with this thing without hearing-protection! All that made the album quite a bit better.”
When asked what it was like working with The Fat Dukes Of Fuck, Crover responds simply, “I’ll give you the secret: [vocalist and bassist] Jason [Lamb] is their secret weapon. So, that’s what I got.”
He does elaborate a bit, though he consciously chooses not to delve into any of the more bizarre or perverted aspects. “It was fun, [it] was great to work with those guys,” he shares. “They’re really nice, easy to work with. Totally had their shit together when they came into the studio. Most of that stuff was done in one or two takes. Nice professional band; always great to work with people like that.”
Kasai’s take in the press release for A Compendium of Desperation, Morality and Dick Jokes is more succinct: “You will love it if you can tolerate thousands of profanities.”
Miller really isn’t kidding when he says that the album’s title should be taken literally. For instance, he says a standout song for him, lyrically, is “Side by Side,” explaining, “It was written from the point of view of an intolerant bully of a dad whose child is trans. That would be an example of the morality part of it—the wrong side of morality, anyway.”
Another standout track for Miller is “Full Metal Jack Off.” He reveals, “That’s a dick joke that morphed into a pisstake on second amendment types.”
Purchase A Compendium of Desperation, Morality and Dick Jokes here
