Sympathy For The Devil: Jesse Hughes interviewed

By all accounts, guns were blazing and Rose was flailing as Axl prematurely ejected the Eagles of Death Metal from the Gn'R night train during their winter tour late last year. The Skinny recently found out more on the matter from Eagles' front man Jesse "The Devil" Hughes as he sipped many beverages on his PR's tab...

How the devil are you?

"We just played a ladies only show. The thing went off like you can't believe, there were dudes dressing like girls to get into this gig. We served champagne and took their coats as they walked in, very formal, high brow, if you will. So there's 400 girls with champagne glasses at a rock show with a dude like me dressed like fuckin' Doc Holliday meets Sam Eliot, shaking it as hard as he can to the jungle rhythms of the night. I let in a Hell's Angel that we adopted, because I'm partial to bikers and even he was dancing, that's how swingin' it was."

What's all this about a brush with Axl Rose?

"I'm still somewhat confounded by the phenomenon. We weren't thrown on the tour like a typical corporate situation; we were invited by his touring band. The invitation itself was delivered under the auspices of being an honour. It was a 20,000 seat arena with 5,000 kids who weren't even born before Appetite For Destruction came out. We thought we were being brought out on this tour to bring the rock, but it was the Axl Rose Evil Knievel Show, they just wanted to see what the fuck he's gonna do next. But we won them over, we didn't have a bad show and then Axl came on and the spectacular aspect of it is that he lost his bass player, fired his sound man and asked the crowd: 'how did you like the Pigeons of Shit Metal?' all in the same minute, during the end of November Rain. He never even saw us. I don't know if I can buy into whatever the rumours are that are going round around, but I do know that he's very clever, because when you're going bald and you have hair inserts, to weave it like corn rows anyway is genius because it sort of covers up the fact that they're corn rows of fake hair."

You played the Sundance festival recently, how did that go?

"We had Lance Bass and Puff Daddy in the front row watching us play. Can you imagine being in a place with the sort of asshole who can't appreciate that? For the first time in my life I felt the fantasy element of it. When you play to a packed out crowd of people who are used to getting looked at it's a different show. My friend, this has been the most surreal fuckin' year you could ever imagine, just in general dude. It's a trip."

What are your aspirations for the band's future?

"This is my secret fantasy, which is probably absurd, but I want Joshua (Homme) and I to make a comedy album because he's one of the funniest motherfuckers in the world. And then I want to make a Cheech and Chong style comedy about Joshua and I and how he got me into rock n roll. It would involve transvestites, madness, drugs, rehab and all kinds of weird stuff."

You've just released the first EODM foray into celluloid on DVD. What's your own favourite band documentary?

"I love The Song Remains the Same (by Led Zeppelin). It's a badass rock 'n' roll concert and a weird drug induced story line that really makes no sense: about gangsters, middle earth and muscle cars, it's rad. I love 200 Motels by Frank Zappa, because it's a rock documentary presented as a movie. Dude, you've got to see it. It makes these statements on corporate rock that are really prophetic and Ringo Starr's got this awesome cameo in it as Frank Zappa. That's probably my favourite."

What's your memory of the first concert you ever went to?

"My father took me to see Kiss at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium in 1977 on the Lovegun tour. They had Chinese dragons in the middle of the stage, fire blasts on the right and Gene Simmons had his demon lamppost up, the candle opera thing. My dad got us fifth row, we were right in front of Ace Frehley. I just remember it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen and also the most terrifying. I remember my father being a little weirded out and cautious when Gene cut his tongue and started spitting blood, it scared the shit out of me. I was six years-old, man. He blew the fire, he did his weird walk, and then Ace Frehley did the solo on Shock Me… I'll never forget. That's actually the first moment I thought "my god, that's what I want to do." But it's the last time I thought about it until the year 2000 when I made Peace, Love and Death Metal."

Besides fire blowing rock stars with rickets, what does the Devil fear?

"The Lord! I fear the absence of the audience, the absence of belief. I need to be believed!"