Last Wednesday dusk, the aged, yet indefatigable Meat Puppets filled Chelsea’s Café to the tippy-top and played one of the most rewarding live shows I’ve ever seen. If you missed this show, kiddies, you deserve three slaps on the wrist and a hearty SHAME ON YOU! But I won’t hold it against you. Since I am the milkmaid of human kindness, I’ll tell you what you all so sorely missed.

First of all, I was utterly shocked when I found out a few months ago that The Meat Puppets were even playing at Chelsea’s—a venue that I was convinced could not house the number of die-hard fans that would likely attend—so I got to the show a whopping four hours early to avoid having to punch someone’s lights out to get through the door. But even as show time grew nearer, the crowd was relatively sparse compared with what I’d expected (a kind of MeatPuppetsMania), and I grew increasingly concerned that perhaps no one gave a flying flip anymore about a couple of indie rock’s most influential pioneers—the tried and true brotherly duo, Curt and Cris Kirkwood, who have been together with various drummers as The Meat Puppets for over thirty years.

But, alas, I was proven wrong (thank heavens!) After openers The Tomatoes cranked out a rock solid, clearly MC5-influenced set, the Brothers Meat jumped up from out of nowhere and plucked out the first twinkling notes of “I Am a Mindless Idiot.” Needless to say, the crowd rushed the stage like fire ants to a cupcake, and what followed was the set to kill all sets.

The Puppets played beautiful renditions of the beloved numbers “Plateau,” “Oh Me,” and (an extended, 15-minute version of) “Lake of Fire” from their 1984 formidably badass countrified punk album Meat Puppets II, a trio of tunes perhaps best known for being covered by Nirvana during their 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York performance, where the Brothers Meat joined them onstage as special guests. In addition to playing this holy trinity, the Puppets brazenly belted out their radio rock hit “Backwater” along with “Comin’ Down” and the title track from their Certified Gold album Too High to Die. The Pups even managed to squeeze in killer covers of Freddie Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B,” only to came back for the encore to kill all encores—an angelic, swirling, 20-minute version of “Up on the Sun,” featuring strung-out, wobbly wailings of Curt Kirkwood, after which the sweat-drenched band jumped offstage and into the arms of screaming, insatiable, and equally sweaty fans.

But now for the meat of the matter (heh heh). Since the band made themselves quite available for autographs and conversation after the show, I was able to get an informal, impromptu interview with bassist, harmony-maker, sometimes songwriter, and enfant terrible Cris Kirkwood – a surprisingly upbeat fellow for someone who has been through so much god-awful shit—his wife’s death by overdose, his own dope addiction, his incarceration, etc. My questions, as well as the questions of autograph-seeking fans, resulted in a delightfully random, quickfire amalgamation of tidbits and anecdotes, on everything from partying with The Butthole Surfers to the merits of spandex, from his (and the Puppets’) punk rock past.

(A fan approaches with a vintage Meat Puppets concert poster to autograph)

Is that your artwork?

Sure!

Do you still paint?

Yeah, I paint all the time. It’s relaxing.

Do you draw a lot of monsters?

Yeah, I draw a lot of amorphous, humanoid creatures. I like to draw hands a lot, too.

So, did you guys actually cover “Pee Pee the Sailor”?

Oh, sure! Paul wrote that.

Paul Leary?!

Yeah, it’s about Gibby! We covered the hell outta that.

The Butthole Surfers are my favorite.

Yeah, mine too. The first time they came through town, they stayed at our pad, right, that’s how we met ‘em, probably in, like, ’81 or somethin’, and we all took psychedelic LSD and hung out, and they had this brown dog with ‘em, and I noticed it’s butt was bleeding! And I’m like, “Butthole Surfers? Why is their dog’s butt bleeding?! I don’t know if I want these guys stayin’ at my house….” Then later that night, Gibby and I made sweet love.

Jealous!

Yeah, so Meat Puppets II doesn’t really sound like anything else that came out in that 80’s…

Yeah, but it does sound like a lot of stuff that came out in the late 60’s an early 70’s.

Yeah, you guys sound like a more strung-out Neil Young!

Way, way! Such a heavy Neil Young influence on us.

(A fan approaches with Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York album and asks Cris if he’ll sign it)

You know what I got outta this? Buttkiss. I got like a fancy wallet or something. Actually…I got a triple platinum album out of it!

You know, I didn’t even know that “Backwater” was a Meat Puppets song until like two weeks ago. For some reason, it doesn’t sound like you guys to me. For years I just thought it was just some douchey radio rock song!

So did we! Check this out, when Curt wrote it, Derrick [Bostrom] and I (our old drummer Derek, the original drummer of The Meat Puppets), we didn’t have a title or lyrics for it yet yet, so we just called it “Radio Radio.”

Ha! That’s perfect.

Okay, here’s a great story. One time we were driving out of London, we were just little kids, it was ’87, we went shopping, and I was like 27, so I went and got some fancy duds, you know, for sure spaz style, but I thought it was cool, and we’re leavin’ town and it’s just stormin’ like FUCK, right? So it was the last night of the tour, and we’re gonna go out to Portsmouth to stay at our tour manager’s house and then go to Stonehenge the next day, then we were gonna fly out the day after that. So we’re leaving London, it’s stormin’ like fuck, and we went by the South African Embassy, and apartheid was still goin’ on back then. There were dudes outside the fuckin’ embassy protesting in the middle of the night. It was a 24/7/365 protest, right? And it’s stormin’ like SHIT, and these dudes, they’re like three dudes out there who are like, “DOWN WITH APARTHEID.” And I’m like, “Yeah, definitely down with apartheid, but shit it’s cold!” So as we drive by, Dave-O (our sound guy) screams out the window, “Party till the world obeys!” So, Curt wrote a song called “Party Till the World Obeys.”

Classic!

(Laughter)

So how did you guys get signed?

We got signed, basically, because our clothing style got popular. You know, it went from like leather and poufy hair, to like jeans and clothing your mom gave you at Christmas. We weren’t even conscious of what we were wearing.

I think the indie rockers need to start wearing more paisley.

Dude, I used to wear spandex! At one point, I had these orange spandex pants an this pink shirt that was real loose knit and these pink gloves that I’d cut the fingertips off of, and the punkers would be like [sarcastically] “Oh, I like THAT,” and I’d be like, “You fuckin’ like my guitar in your face!”

So anyway, we got signed to a major label after having been together for ages, like a decade at least, and we made an expensive record, Forbidden Places. We’d been approached by majors before, but they wanted us to be like Gene Loves Jezebel, or somethin’, and we were like, “No, that’s really not where we’re comin’ from.”

So, Nirvana kinda helped things along for you guys, major label-wise.

As far as exposure goes, yeah.

Yeah, he did bring you guys onstage for MTV Unplugged…

Yeah, I love what he does in “Lake of Fire.” He’s like, “See ‘em again till the fourth of JoooolllyyyyyeEEEEEE!!!” Like, Axl Rose style, or somethin.

Ha, hell yeah!

Yeah, nobody knew who the fuck we were at the time. Kurt told MTV he wanted to bring “special guests” on, and for sure they’re like, “EDDIE VEDDER!” And he’s like, “No no no, The Meat Puppets,” and they’re like “NO WAY.”

Well, they clearly said YES WAY in the end!

Yeah, it was real cool of Kurt to insist on us playing. We did a lot of shows with Nirvana there toward the end, and you could tell Kurt was startin’ to freak out a little cuz they were gigantically popular then. One night in Canada, we all hung out with Scott Thompson, the gay one from Kids in the Hall, and we’re having a conversation about being gay, or whatever, and Cobain’s like, “I’m gay in spirit,” and I’m like, “I’m gay right now, motherfucker, wanna get busy?!” And anyway, somehow cover songs came up, and Kurt started saying he wanted to cover some of our shit for the MTV thing comin’ up.

Rad.

Yeah, he was having trouble learning some of the wiggly guitar parts, so he told us he wanted us to come on and play the songs with him. But The Meat Puppets weren’t an easy sell, for sure.

So, how do you think The Meat Puppets influenced Kurt?

As far as our influence on that dude, you know, I thought, if anything, was to make him open his little noodle up and use his fuckin’ fame, which is just the luck of the draw anyway, cuz he was such a good-lookin’ little dude and had some really catchy songs, and you get somebody like David Geffen, who’s no fool, and he [Kurt] gets to be on TV—I like to think that, if anything, he helped open up the minds of the gullible masses to bands like us.

It’s tales from the punk rock past!

And you’re the crypt keeper!

You know, the first time we came to Louisiana was with Black Flag in ’83. We get to town, New Orleans, and I’m trying to park the van in front of the club, and there’s this security-guard-lookin’ dude who says I cant park there, but then immediately afterwards, he let someone else park there, and I was like, “That’s injustice!” So I rolled down the window and asked him what the fuck, and he sticks his gun in the window—turns out he’s a cop—and pulls me out of the fuckin’ window by my hair, gets my head on the ground with the gun to it, and starts screamin’ at me, and I’m just like… Huh?”

Shit, man. Yeah, Nola cops can be intense.

So do you write any of the songs?

Yeah, but my brother is the main songwriter by far. He used to let me horn in on the songs occasionally, you know, I’d be like, “I got a part for you, a little middle break for that, it goes like ‘Diddly Diddly,’” and then eventually that part would get cut. See, Curt has the ability to edit himself and bring only his best work to the table. We got a lot of records, you know, and 98% of it is Curt.

Did he struggle to play guitar at first?

He’s never been a technical guy, you know, that’s never been his thing. He sorta uses the guitar as a paintbrush. Sonically, there’s nobody who can touch on as many different styles and get it as cosmically fuckin’ lunar. You see guitarists that are so into the finger parts, and they’re like, “La Laa La Laa La Laa,” and that takes a long time to practice, but I mean, it’s like fuckin typing or something. In a way, there’s nothing behind it that I actually give a fuck about, you know. It’s like watching basketball, or somethin’. It’s like, “Yeah, those guys are definitely tall and athletic!”

Ha, great comparison!

Yeah, I just really dig what Curt does. He and I have a thing. I’m the guy who insists on playing the bass sloppy, like, “DooDooDooDooDoo, FUCK YOU!”

But The Meat Puppets have gotten significantly less sloppy over the years, if you ask me.

Well, I still feel like I don’t care. I think I still play like I’ll smash the fuckin’ guitar over someone’s head.

You guys have a pretty deep cult following.

How couldn’t we? It’s so novel to be in an art project that’s this old. I mean, I’ve been in this band since I was 19.

That’s impressive.

Actually, I think we’re terrible.

No way!

Yeah! And you’re all being bamboozled!

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Don’t forget to check out the Meat Puppets 2011 album Lollipop from Megaforce Records as well as the spankin’ new vinyl reissue of Up on the Sun.