Blag the Ripper

The Exclaim! Questionnaire

BY None NonePublished Jun 1, 2003

What are you up to?
I'm always doing different projects for the Dwarves and for other bands. Right now I'm producing a band called the GodAwfuls. I write columns and shit as well as short stories and books.

What are your current fixations?
Young girls with braces are a good fixation. Pointless drug abuse and meandering around town are also big for me right now.

Why do you live where you do?
Because the best food in America is right here in San Francisco. It just doesn't get any better. I like the posh, classy food, but you gotta watch out for "atmosphere" places, the home of the $50 lamb chop. You gotta find the great places in the price range between the burrito joints and the rip-off joints.

What has been your most memorable or inspirational gig and why?
The Dwarves have been doing gigs for over 20 years and there's just been so much been insanity. I've been fellated on stage. I was actually stabbed on stage in London, Ontario. Honestly, there‚s just way too many to mention. We are the sickest!

What have been your career highs and lows?
The career highs are when the label signs you and gives you all kinds of money. The career low is when they get rid of you.

What's the meanest thing ever said to you before, during or after a gig?
"Are you through yet?"

What should everyone shut up about?
Everyone should just shut up. Period.

What traits do you most like and most dislike about yourself?
I like that I'm the best looking man in show business and my band rules and always has. As far as things I don't like about myself, I could be richer and I could be modest.

What advice should you have taken, but did not?
Get out of the music business.

What would make you kick someone out of your band and/or bed, and have you?
You get kicked out of the band if you don't like me. You get kicked out of the bed if you do like me.

What do you think of when you think of Canada?
I think of very beautiful women.

What is your vital daily ritual?
I like to masturbate and go swimming. I have a friend who runs a health club so I get to swim in this great pool for free.

What are your feelings on piracy, internet or otherwise?
When the music industry starts paying artists fairly, then they can bitch and moan about piracy. Until that time they deserve what they get and everyone should get as much stuff for free that they can.

What was your most memorable day job?
I used to deliver things. When I was dealing drugs I would deliver pizzas and bring them the bags of drugs along with it. That was back in high school. Sometimes I would have sex with my girlfriend in the car right next to the pizza. I tried to combine as many things as I could into the job description.

How do you spoil yourself?
Food. I love good food. Which sadly, is something Canada is not too famous for. You guys got a lot of the English part and not enough of the French part, cuisine-wise.

If I wasn't playing music I would be:
I'm a writer. I write fiction and stuff like that so I would just be doing that. I wrote a book called Armed To The Teeth With Lipstick. I've been working on another book that should be out in a year or so, which is a little more readable. Armed to the Teeth is a little abstract, but fine nonetheless for toilet reading.

What do you fear most?
I fear that people will eventually find out just how talented the Dwarves really are.

What has been your strangest celebrity encounter?
We just got off the road with Motörhead, that was pretty funny. I got to watch a bunch of old men try to import strippers to make themselves look more desirable. We got kicked off that tour. They're still living in the ‘80s — let's get real here. Don't tell me that I can't use the backstage bathroom. A lot of bands need to relax and get off the bullshit, especially heavy metal bands. Don't get me wrong, I love Motörhead, I ripped off plenty of their style and I've loved them since I was a kid, that's why I did the tour, but I didn't sign up to be told what to do by the third guitar tech with the poodle hair cut.

Who would be your ideal dinner guest, living or dead, and what would you serve them?
I guess it would have to be a woman if I'm going to bother doing this. I'd probably make some Italian food for Cleopatra.

What does your mom wish you were doing instead?
Probably anything but what I'm actually doing. She gets pretty nervous about it. She doesn't like hearing about the stabbings and all.

Given the opportunity to choose, how would you like to die?
As soon as possible. Instantaneous death.




Rock legends the Dwarves have taken many forms for over the last 20 years. In that time they've ascended from psychedelic Illinois-based garage rockers to the tightest, fiercest, and most hardcore shock band in the history of music. Nudity, violence and just about anything else under the sun is a mainstay of their live shows, and their Blood Guts and Pussy album still holds the title for the most over-the-top cover shot ever. Kicked off Sub Pop Records for faking the death of their guitarist He Who Can Not Be Named in the suicide and overdose-ridden mid-‘90s Seattle scene, the now San Francisco-based Dwarves simply cannot be stopped. With a new line-up featuring the first female in the history of the Dwarves, bass player Tazzie Bushweed, and a new album due out next year on Sympathy For The Record Industry, the Dwarves are digging in to defend their title as the self-proclaimed "sickest band ever." Lead singer Blag the Ripper has been the skipper at the helm of this booze-cruise from hell since its inception and he and his not-so-merry band of raiders are set to descend on Ontario and Quebec this month for a run of shows. Sure, you know the Blag the Ripper who hits the stage completely nude and hurls insults as deftly as he flings urine-filled beer pitchers, but let's take some time to find out about some other facets this complicated man: Blag the gourmand, author and swimming enthusiast.
Craig Daniels

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