Green Jelly Suxx
For those of you that were metal heads in the 90’s that loved costumed bands like GWAR, you may remember one such band, Green Jelly, along with their wildly popular MTV video claymation hit, Three Little Pigs. Growing up on these guys I was stoked to hear that they were coming back to Toronto with Geekpr0n’s own music aficionado, Matt Groopie, playing guitar for them! With that being said, we recently had a chance to talk with none other than founder, Bill Manspeaker, while they were on the road.
GP: Hey thanks for taking time out of your busy tour and spending some of it with us.
BM: Sure no problem, I am just in the car leaving Buffalo and going to Nebraska.
GP: So you guys have gone through a LOT of band members in your time, been around for over 32 years and had over 416 different band members. Some of those guys have gone on to become English teachers, film scoring, movie effects artists, and 2 members even went on to form the band Tool. You must be proud to be a stepping stone in their lives.
BM: Well, it’s been 34 years – we started in 1981, and it’s been over 633 band members at the last count. Oh yeah, of course. I love to inspire people. I like to give them the opportunity to be their own person and have a place to be creative.
That’s a lot of members.
GP: You guys have been on again off again with tours. What inspired you guys to get back together for a new tour?
BM: It was my son Damien, he was 13 at the time. Back in 2008 he wanted to go on tour with Green Jelly so we got it back up and running and have not looked back since.
GP: Your Wikipedia page says there is a new album coming out. Is this true?
BM: Yeah Nursery Crimes, going to be 13 songs. A twisted version of popular fables, we will even have videos to go with some of them.
GP: We heard you’re using your 5 Ontario stops, (Toronto, Sudbury, Oshawa, Niagara Falls and Meryersburg), to film your live video documentary. How did you guys decide to use these particular stops for this?
BM: From a fan Rob Gabriel we meet through Facebook in 2010. Rob was one of the first people to offer to be a member of the band whenever the band wanted to play in Ontario. It was his idea for it. He wanted to make a fan made film about a fan playing in a band that they were a fan of. He got the film funded through Go Fund Me and raised over $5000.00 for it. This is why we have so many band members. They are basically fans in every State, Canada, and Mexico. I got tired of the whole tour bus thing and after seeing an episode of Seinfeld, and got an idea to have band members in different cities that would play with us whenever we were in town.
GP: Green Jelly has been featured in The Fantastic Four animated series, there you guys played with the Thing the was Clobber Time, you did the soundtrack for Super Nintendo’s Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and you yourself did a voice for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. How did these opportunities come to be?
BM: Pure balls! Kevin convinced the record company to fly us out to a music convention in 1992 in New York City. We got bored with it and one day just went over to Marvel Studios dressed up in our costumes. The next thing we know we are getting invited inside and met some of the writers. The next day we got a call from the man himself, Stan Lee. He wanted to do a comic book about us. We said sure and we ending up doing a couple of other things for them. That’s it – right place, right time and a big set of balls.
GP: You’re pretty geeky then. So, how geeky would you say you are on a scale 1 – 10. 1 – being you’ve read a few comics in your life, 5- you can recite the opening Captain’s monologue from the Star Trek series, and 10 – you know what T.A.R.D.I.S stands for?
BM: I am going to go for 11, my office is basically a toy store, I have a massive collection of toys and comics and 13 arcade cabinets, items that I have been collecting since I was 5 years old.
GP: What are your most prized collectibles out of all those?
BM: I have this riding toy, a horse called Blaze, I got on my 5th birthday in 1968, a wind-up clock that I have had since I was born, and a Radioactive Homer toy from the Simpsons. I have over 10,000 toys all displayed for everyone to see and touch.
GP: DC or Marvel? Who’s your favorite superhero?
BM: Harvey comics and Richy Rich.
GP: Star Wars or Star Trek?
BM:1960’s Star Trek. Captain Kirk all the way.
GP: Who would you love to meet?
BM: President Bush, I would love to ask him how he fucked everything up and still got away with it.
GP: One of your albums I grew up on is Cereal Killer. What cereal is your go-to cereal?
BM: My number 1 would be Quisp. I also like Crunch Berry, Franken Berry, and Fruit Loops
GP: How can people get in contact with you?
BM: William Manspeaker on Facebook. I do a video documentary each day and I post it up there. it is called Green Jelly Vision.
Green Jelly Sux, it is a fan made site run by Rob Gabriel.
GP: Any words of wisdom to pass on to the kids?
BM: Believe in yourself, do not let anyone tell you can’t do something. Stop thinking about it and get up and do it. This is what I have done all my life, I have do what has made me happy. Green Jelly would not be the band it is today if I stopped years ago when people yelled out that we sucked. We know we suck, we know we mess up. (laughs) But it is about having fun at our shows. We get the crowd involved they put on the costumes and become part of the show.
As long as you are happy then no one can take it from you.
GP: Well, thanks so much for this opportunity to talk with you. All the best to you guys on the rest of our tour and we’ll see you July 1, 2015 here in Toronto.
BM: Yes we are looking forward to the rest of the tour and the Ontario shows are going to be great!
