Monkeyclaus proudly present the following interview conducted by Matthew Clark, with Jacob Ciocci.

EXTREME ANIMALS

Extreme Animals are a bit like the bastard twins produced from gang bang with Utah Saints, Amon Duul and Dee-lite all present in the back of a van on the way to the Burning Man festival. With everyone wearing rollerskates. The Pittsburg-San Diego duo Jacob Ciocci [keyboard] and David Wightman [drums] describe themselves as a noise/techno/pop band. The Extreme Animals are as much "performance piece" as a musical show with global meltdown on an engery consumption level by the two members during the show; maniac live drumming, extreme feedback malfunctions, slightly choreographed dance moves, encouraging the audience to get involved with group hugs or dancing under sheets like ghosts. Along with being an Extreme Animal, Jacob Ciocci is a member of American art collective Paper Rad, the prolific producers of comics, installations, websites and animations. David Wightman is studying for his PhD in Orchestral Composition. Recent projects for the band include a video on the Load Records DVD Compilation "Pick a Winner" and a 12" on FrequeNC records. (Above words written and granted by Emma @ Lektrolab.com)

MC: What is the origin of the Paper Rad Collective?

JC: We all met when we were living in Boston in 2001. Me
and my sister lived together and we became friends
with Ben Jones, Christopher Forgues (Kites), Andrew
Warren (http://www.amkw.org/), Joe Grillo
(Dearraindrop), Keith Waters (Dreamhouse) and through
these people we met alot of Providence people. All of
these people were very inspiring. we basically just
started making tons of comics and music together and
this gradually shifted into websites and animations,
and now installations, art shows, along with allot of
the same old hand-made comic zines and music
shows/tours. Now Paperrad is mostly 3 people (Jacob
Jessica and Ben) but we collaborate all the time with
others like Beau from Canada, Cory from New York, and
David from San Diego.

MC: What is a bro shake?

JC: A totally heavy moment when worlds collide and the
idea of finite "knowledge" is proven false. When you
realize you know everything because you are
everything, you are trees, animals, air and energy as
much as you are human. This can only come from
spontaneous bro connection with another loving soul,
as in a hand-shake.

MC: When did the Extreme Animals begin?

JC: Me and David met in 9th grade in high school and
always tried to play in bands together with little
success. After we both graduated from college we ended
up living back home one summer (2002 I think) and
decided to try a new band that we would try and go on
tour with. At the time we were thinking about East
Coast noise and 90s Euro pop-trance along with
everything else (commercial radio) and so that is what
came out originally. . .

MC: What has more joo joo...crystals or rainbows?

JC: Crystals=the true state of all matter, also if you
open up a computer there is a diamond inside its core,
thus a crystal is perfect mint future of technology
and human mynd. But it must also be understood that
computers have a dark crystal-matter side as well that
is slavery both mental and physical. . .

Rainbows=manifested positive connective energy that
exists between psyche and matter. What happens when
you leave the Nintendo on all night is a secret
spectrum hidden inside the TV tube. This TV spectrum
is also known as the robot god called "RGB", who
emmits the rainbow spectrum into the sky when you are
sleeping.

MC: Tell us about the "extreme music fest" yawl played
in Berlin?

JC: Weird- it was in a big big bar-type-place and it was
definitely the most people we have ever played for. I
am not sure how it went. After we played some Japanese
breakcore kids played and everyone went nuts. They did
not however go nuts when we played. It was a part of
this festival called "Transmediale". Earlier that day
we were interviewed for a TV show. The interviewer
asked us to run towards the cameraman like "extreme
animals would" so we were running towards the
cameraman and the cameraman was running away backwards
and fell and hit his head really bad and then blood
was pouring out.

MC: What inspires you to draw the way you do?

JC: ntuition, practice, habit, probably a little bit of
fear but I'm working on that part . . .

MC: Tell us about growing up in a religious community
centered around such a fine mustache?

JC: The interesting thing is that Meher Baba, the Eastern
guru dude you speak of, was not into religion that
much. He said "the world has had enough religions" so
he was just about sending out love vibes to the whole
world. It was a pretty loose thang--just lots of
pictures of him around the house and we would go down
to this retreat center for a square dance at new
years. His writings are pretty similar to allot of
other people's, just mostly about love and that "you
and I are not we but one."

MC: Do you see spiritual potency in all mustaches?

JC: I see spiritual potency in all facial hair styles. If
you take great care styling your hair without ego, it
will shine, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

MC: Do you prefer music, drawing or computer art?

JC: In contemporary times all 3 are inter-related and
cannot really be separated. computers caused this, but
it is a beautiful mess computers have made.

MC: How do you fell about astral planets?

JC: Totally into them. We are planning a tour for one
later this summer. If you have any contacts for DIY
house shows on planet URGLEYNOXENSTEINGERBOOOG please
email me.

MC: is it true that you don't even do drugs?

JC: TV is a drug. So is the internet. So is sugar. Any
habit-forming thing I guess has the same negative
potential that drugs have, which is that they keep you
from living truly in the present, because of
psychological addiction or just desire in general. So
I struggle with all types of drugs on a daily basis.

MC: Is being young at heart your key to happiness?

JC: As one band once said "health is the only wealth I
need". This means mental, spiritual and physical
health. Which is very very hard to balance. A healthy
young person has attained this balance, but an 80 year
old can also attain this balance, through the Atkins
diet.

MC: Tell us about your book?

JC: BJ AND DA DOGZ is like 260 pages long and has color
pages and fluorescent pages and is full of awesome
comics and photos and poems and just tons of the crap
we have been up to over the past year or so. This
great dude Dan Nadel published it through PictureBox,
INC. And it is available lots of places on the
internet and at some bookstores.

MC: What are the best things about living in Pittsburgh?

JC: Awesome people, trees all over the city, awesome food,
Steelers underdog magic, inexpensive, lots of support
for the arts, lots of cold, rainy days...

MC: What are your 5 top jam songs right now?

JC:
Bun B "drapped up"
"Gettin some" by Shana
Webbie "Like That"
Trina "Da club" feat. Manny Fresh
"Gimme That" by Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne

wait most of those are raps....

MC: What about Canada?

JC: Totally off the hook. Look out for Paperrad Canada in
2007. Their gonna make a California raisins movie that
is going to be fucking killer.

MC: Who would win a jam off between Fortress of
Amplitude (Extreme Animals' drummer david Wightman) and
Extreme's guitar God Nuno Bettencourt?

David needs to answer this question.

JC: Will the younger generation save the world?

Yes. But they will also destroy the world.

MC: Do you believe in the end of the Mayan calendar in
2012 and some extreme results?

JC: I believe yes something huge is gonna happen. But, for
example something huge happened today. I accidentally
stepped on an ant. This ant was on it's way to feed
his whole colony, so I destroyed a whole colony. This
was a particularly important ant colony that had
mutated a strange form of saliva (because of pollution
from the river near my house). This saliva actually
contained an all-natural cure for HIV but like I said
I killed the whole colony today by accident.

MC: Do you believe in ghosts?

JC: Yes, all the time there are ghosts everywhere. Mostly
brain ghosts and memory ghosts. But also really out there
calling my name. When you drink a lot of alcohol
ghosts who have yet to leave this plane of existence
can get inside your body and make you do stupid stuff,
because they want to feel what it feels like to be
alive one more time. So the next time you are drunk
pissing off a roof onto somebody's car, or making out
with someone you don't even like, or getting in a
fight, it is most likely a ghost living out some weird
karmic fantasy inside you.

MC: Thanks Jacob

Check out the Paperrad site and all the killer Extreme Animals stuff on the WWW...Buy the book aforementioned, it is killer and will be the coffee table envy of any neighborhood...

http://www.paperrad.org/extreme/

http://heavymedia.lektrolab.com/extreme_animals/index.html

http://www.pictureboxinc.com/

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