Did some of the songs get leaked on YouTube?
Yeah, we did some radio interviews and played a few of the new songs on the air and it’s amazing how fast stuff gets out there. I mean, if you do a search for the album, it’s already out there, you can go steal it if you want to. The thing about that is, that it almost makes me nervous the amount of positive feedback that we are getting on these songs. Traditionally, you make a record, you put it out, and the instinct of most of the fans is not to like it at first. Then they come around a few months later and are like, ‘It’s cool.’ But this record, pretty much across the board people have been saying, ‘Thank you! This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is the Powerman that we love.’
Of all the records, I haven’t received this much positive feedback, so I don’t really care if songs get leaked and it gives me a good gage of what people are thinking about the songs. I know that the majority of people don’t have time to go searching for downloads and all that crap, if it’s easy to buy on iTunes, I buy it. It’s not even necessarily a moral thing for me, it’s just like I don’t have the time to be that clever. You know what I mean? It’s not that expensive to pay 99 cents or a dollar on a song that I like.
You’ve always had costumes onstage, what’s it like onstage for you in the heat?
It’s still the same, it’s still brutal. We’ve been more strategic in what we wear. Now at some point in the show, the rest of the band puts these helmets on, and I don’t know how they get through it without passing out, wearing these robot helmets that they can’t even breathe or see out of. But then you play these ridiculous shows, but you have to suffer for your art, so it’s okay.
What’s this tour like, who’s on the bill?
This tour is pretty quick, it’s a four-week run around the States and we are doing the thing that we have been doing for a while now. We have local bands play, so it’s different every night, and it’s cool. You get to see a variety of bands and sometimes they are great and sometimes they are the worst things you have ever seen in your life. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing. It’s become so much nicer to have local bands that are just psyched to be there, and plus you get a little of that local flavor that represent that town. Put it that way.
What’s the most gratifying part of being in this band for you? Is it the fact that you have been able to do it for so long, the live aspect, or the studio side of things?
You get a lot from all those things, but I think for me it’s absolutely the process. Turning nothing into something, I mean it’s almost a magical process. These songs come out of nowhere and just when I think that I’ll never write another song, I’m tapped out of energy, I’ve got nothing else, suddenly, I’ve got ‘Super Villain.’ Then I am like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe I just wrote this song.’ It’s that whole process, and I love making the videos, I love designing the artwork. For me, it’s great to play live and it’s great to have people say, ‘Oh you’re awesome,’ and have them sing the songs. It‘s great to hear your song on the radio or see your picture in a magazine, but that’s not the thing that really turns me on. I just like making stuff. I just like being busy and being creative. That’s where I get the most satisfaction.
Somewhere On The Other Side Of Nowhere is out now. Catch Powerman 5000 Nov. 1 at Starland Ballroom and Nov. 3 at Gramercy Theatre. powerman5000.com.
