Joe LeSte of Bang Tango Interview

JOE LESTE (BANG TANGO) INTERVIEW:
July 28, 2010

Websites: www.myspace.com/bangtango
Interviewer: Skid

In the world of rock ‘n’ roll there are often two sides to every story — and sometimes even more than that. When Sleaze Roxx talked to one-time Bang Tango guitarist Mark Knight a couple months ago, he announced that the original members would be reuniting as Bang Tango Redux for a few select shows — and, unable to contact vocalist Joe LeSte, they decided to try their luck with a new singer. Now Joe LeSte wants to tell his side of the story, saying that none of the other Bang Tango members tried to contact him about a reunion, that he is still slugging it out on the road, re-recording a brand new CD with the latest addition to the band guitarist Scott LaFlamme and what really happened with rumors of his death circulated around the internet late last year.

Sleaze Roxx: Hi Joe. I figured you wanted to talk about the announcement that your former bandmates are returning as Bang Tango Redux.

Joe LeSte: My current guys were like, ‘don’t you want to do an interview or say something?’ But to be honest with you, I love those guys. Those guys are great and if they want to do some stuff then more power to them. I’m not the kind of guy who holds ill feeling towards anybody really. Those guys are magnificent musicians. The only fine line difference between us and them is that they quit in ’94. I didn’t ask them to leave, they quit. You spend the next 15 years of your life working hard to try and keep this fucker alive and then all of a sudden 15 years later — ‘hey man we should do Bang Tango’ — it’s kind of weird. It’s kind of strange, but at the same time they have the right to play that stuff, they wrote it and played it. I wrote it, they played it… so go ahead, more power to you. Awesome.

Sleaze Roxx: When I talked to Mark Knight he said he tried to contact you for the 20 year reunion of Psycho Cafe.

Joe LeSte: That’s the problem right there. That’s what is so funny because when I heard that I was like ‘wait a minute!’ I went to my MySpace thing, went through it, going all the way back to last year or the year before. There was no attempt to contact me at all.

There was never an attempt to contact me, not once. The only time Mark Knight and I talked is the minute they saw me in Rolling Stone, they called me up and said, ‘wow Rolling Stone that’s great’. But I didn’t do the Rolling Stone interview because of those guys, I did it for what I’ve built and because of where I am right now… from building this thing and these people believed in me. It wasn’t because of 15 years ago when those guys used to be in the band. I’ve got guys in the band right now who have been in Bang Tango longer than they were. My bass player Lance Eric has been with me for 8 years. Bang Tango was signed in ’84 and they all quit. They all have great jobs, they’ve got families, they aren’t really touring people.

But I love every one of them and I have nothing but great things to say about them and I think Mark Knight is one of the most brilliant guitar players, along with Kyle Stevens as well, and I’m a big Worry Beads fan. Unfortunately I never got any phone calls or email or anything. Nothing. That was the only thing that kind of bugged me, everything else is… let them do the shows, let them do their thing. They deserve it. If they feel that much passion for what they did in the past — I don’t know if it’s the success they had in the past or whatever it is, but go ahead and do it. I’d be proud of what I’ve done — I still am. So they have every right to do that. I’m going to be the last guy to say anything about it.

Sleaze Roxx: If the old band ever did get a hold of you for a reunion then you’d probably be up for it?

Joe LeSte: Hell yeah I’d do a few shows. But my normal touring band have been doing this for years now. Say you were a writer for Rolling Stone, or whatever your normal job is, how would you feel if a member of your staff left… then you guys built your magazine up to a point where it is getting bigger and you hired guys who are doing their job and this guy is like ‘now that it has got somewhere, I know it’s been 15 years but I want my job back’. Put yourself in the position of the other guys. What am I going to do? Turn around and say, ‘I know we traveled the world together for 10 years’ — which is almost twice as long as those guys were in the band — and say, ‘you’re fired now, the other guys are back after they quit 15 years ago’. I can’t do that. I don’t have that in me. I’m not a mean person.

But if those guys ever want me to sing some songs or do some shows here and there I’d do it in a heartbeat. I love those guys. I grew up with Tigg Ketler. Tigg is one of my best friends. Mark Knight is a brilliant guitar player, so is Kyle Stevens. You don’t have to say anything about Kyle Kyle, he speaks for himself — he’s a bad ass, the best bass player I’ve ever known in my life. But my guys aren’t no slobs. I’ve heard things were they were hacking it up and things. Well yeah, but don’t forget you see stupid YouTube videos of some dude that we couldn’t care less if he is in our band or not, that we are doing shows with, and he screws up and other guys are hacking up shit. It’s because we had a guitar player in the band who didn’t really give a shit whether he knew the songs or not, so we ended up changing.

We’ve got this new guy who is like Mark Knight, he’s a fucking genius on the guitar. There’s not one note missed in the whole show. It’s a cool thing. As far as playing is concerned, those guys are ridiculously good — the original guys. You know what my band feels about it — they are just, ‘dude I just want to go and see them play’. My band are fans of those guys. They are great guys and to come out and say we tried to get Joe and it didn’t work out and some of these guys are hacks and blah blah blah. You know what? Go ahead and say it. If I see some guy up there hacking my songs I would say it too. But the guy that was hacking the songs is no longer in the band. So give us a break guys. We are out here, this is our living, this is how we feed our children. We’ve been doing it forever.

Those guys — one guy has a furniture company, one does web site design, one guy manages a sporting goods warehouse and one guy does some sort of painting thing. They are all very well off at what they do. This is what I do. This is what I’ve been doing since 1989, never stopped, still doing it. So it’s very difficult 15 years later to have somebody go, ‘we’re back, fire your staff!’

Sleaze Roxx: That was going to be one of my questions. Alex Grossi has taken a temporary leave to work with Adler’s Appetite. With so many musicians in different bands and projects is it hard for you to keep any consistency within your own band?

Joe LeSte: Well, they call it temporary (laughs). My bass player has been with me going on 9 years and my drummer Trent Anderson is going on a full year now. But as far as guitar players is concerned, it is very difficult for a guy like myself. Alex is an amazing guitar player, he’s great, but once again it comes down to business and business with him is I don’t have the money Steve Adler has, you know what I’m saying? As time was going on we knew he wasn’t going to be in the band and we got Scotty LaFlamme in the band now. Scotty is like… this is his passion, he believes in it. It’s something he has always wanted to do and the guy is a master on the guitar. He is a music teacher and the guy who found him for us was Alex.

I keep a tight knit family. It’s not like I hate that guy or that guy hates me. It’s not like that. I’m a singer, I’m in a rock band. I’ve been doing it forever. I’m a blue collar worker. We’ve got a new album that we are getting ready to put out. I love what I do. This is my life, this is my world. With the original guys, when we first got together… I don’t know how to tell you this, I’m not getting on the shitty side of anything, I’m not that kind of guy. The band I got together with was Mark Knight and Kyle Kyle, and they had a band called City Slick. I don’t know if you know that?

Sleaze Roxx: No, I’ve never heard them.

Joe LeSte: That was their band, then I moved up to LA. When I joined with them we got rid of the fucking drummer, he was horrible, and I got my buddy Tigg that I grew up with in San Diego. When we got him in the band I started changing the music to chop things up because I came from a more alternative background as opposed to your typical Lynch Mob and things like that. It was like, ‘why don’t we do it like Southern Death Cult right here or something really cool like that’. Then we changed the music and then I changed the name of the band and I called it Bang Tango. Then all of a sudden Mark was like, ‘this is my baby, I created this and I did that’, and I’m thinking that’s great, if you did why didn’t City Slick get signed? That was Kyle Kyle and Mark Knight’s thing. I don’t know if that comes across as a negative shot, I don’t want it to. I owe those guys every bit of thanks for helping me with starting my career.

But my point is, guys come on, give me at least what I did. Give me the fact that when you guys all decided to make a living and have a family and get out of doing music that I kept the last 15 years alive. Don’t come out of nowhere and start taking shots at me. That’s just rude.

Sleaze Roxx: I didn’t really feel he was taking shots at you, aside from what you say that they didn’t try and get hold of you, that would be the only thing.

Joe LeSte: Well he never did. Mark and I talked right after the Rolling Stone thing and it was pretty much what I said. They looked at me like, ‘fucking great man you are in Rolling Stone, we should capitalize on this and put the band back together’. What do I tell the other guys I’ve been with for years now? Bye? You don’t have a job now because the guys I used to jam with 15 years ago have now suddenly decided we now want to get it together. We still have our families and we still have our jobs and our lives but we might take a little breaksy and put the band back together. As if what I do means nothing and I didn’t think that was very fair.

But otherwise, as I told you, I have nothing but great things to say about those guys as far as this is concerned. Those are the dudes who helped create Psycho Cafe, Dancin’ On Coals and Love After Death. We wrote that and it meant the world to me. But what do you do? You’re ship starts to fall apart, you jump ship or your rebuild it — and I rebuilt it and I continued on and I’ve had let downs and I’ve had some major successes out of it. I’m not embarrassed or bummed out about anything that has happened to me in this crazy world as far as music.

All those guys have to do is go, ‘hey Joe, you want to do this one show with us?’ Fuck yeah I’ll fly right in and do it. I love those guys. My bass player looked at me and went, ‘I’ll tech for Kyle’. We’re not idiots, we’re not assholes. We are a bunch of nice guys that are making a living.

Sleaze Roxx: Are you worried Bang Tango Redux might affect the drawing power of your band or confuse fans?

Joe LeSte: I don’t know. I’ve been spending 15 years of my life touring around the world and making relationships with pretty much every venue across America so when they go to do a show, if they decide to take it real and move on and tour and all that, it’s going to be really hard for them. Because it will be like, ‘is Joe LeSte in the band? I only know Joe’s Bang Tango, who are you guys?’ That is basically what they are going to do. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Kyle lives in Vegas, he’s a web designer and Kyle Stevens lives in Malibu right on the beach. He runs a furniture company, he’s fucking rich. He’s the president of his company. Can you see him saying, ‘hey guys I’m going to go out and make $500, maybe a thousand, a week so I’ll be gone for a couple of months on tour, bye company’. Can you see Tigg walking out of his job that he’s had for over 10 years and saying, ‘I’m going on tour, see you guys’? All that shit goes into play. It’s not going to happen. But if they wanted to do a select gig somewhere and wanted to know if I wanted to come in a do it… fuck yeah. Don’t even call it Bang Tango Redux, call it Bang Tango reunion or something. But no one has tried to get hold of me, someone is yanking your chain on that part. Unless he is referring to the time we talked about 2 years ago.

Sleaze Roxx: I don’t know. That is just what he said.

Joe LeSte: I didn’t take it one way or the other. The only thing that kind of bummed me out was that they were trying to get a hold of me. I’m like that’s bullshit. There are comments made here and there but I don’t really care to be honest. I have a new Bang Tango album coming out and have got a huge producer. We are doing this and it’s what we do. We’ve got festivals coming up. I can’t say, ‘hey guys quit your lives and your world and just come along with me. You might not make any money compared to what you are used to but don’t worry about it. I’ll just fire these guys who have been working their asses off for the last 10 years to be able to do this. But that’s cool, let’s just fire them and out of respect for you guys quitting 15 years ago, I’ll just have you back’.

Sleaze Roxx: You wouldn’t be the first guy to do that! So, how is the new CD coming along?

Joe LeSte: We are doing a deal with our buddy Anthony and it’s through Sony and he’s a marketing guy, he’s really good. You can go to any Best Buy, maybe a Walmart, those sort of stores, and you will see the record right there and that is all I ask. So Anthony is involved now. We have one producer that worked with R. Kelly that wants to do our shit and then we’ve got another guy who wants to work with us on some other stuff because we decided to rewrite because I wasn’t happy with the way things were going. So we are rewriting and now we have Scott in the band and this guy is ridiculous — he is fucking crazy good. I don’t even know where they found him. Our agent — we are with Big Time Entertainment, he has like KIX and he has a lot of the ’80s big bands — and he goes this is my friend Scott and this nice guy comes up to me and I’m ‘right’. Then he got in the studio with us and I’m, ‘Jesus Christ that guy is stupid good’. It was a business decision on Alex’s part and nothing to do with I hate you guys, you hate me. We love Al, Al is great. He went out with Steven Adler because once again, it’s like a sports team. Bang Tango is like a sports team. If somebody isn’t as good we have to let them go and maybe trade it off with somebody else and get a better player. You have to look at it like that.

I’m still here, I’m still the voice of the band, I’m still writing songs. I don’t plan on quitting. I spent 22 years of my life working on this band whether it’s been Mark Knight or Alex Grossi or anyone else. The only time I took off was to do Beautiful Creatures which had somewhat semi success. Otherwise I’m just doing my shit. I’m out here once again, at another club, walked in and they were all, ‘glad to have you back, can’t wait for tonight’. I do believe, in all honesty, the only cynical person behind that whole Bang Tango Redux plot would be the agency they are dealing with right now. I won’t go into that for political reasons, but there is a reason why I got a much better agent now and a much better guy. I don’t know what they are telling them over there, but I feel bad. I actually tried to get hold of Mark Knight but I didn’t have his phone number. I’m so mad I want to call him and go, ‘what the fuck are you doing? You’re my buddy’. Mark’s not like that, he’s a cool guy. I can hear him talking to you. ‘Yeahh well Joe, I don’t know about that’. That’s how he is. He’s a laid back surfer boy — fucking genius guitar player I’m telling you. I love those guys and I don’t think anybody on the planet can touch Kyle Kyle. But you know what, I have Lance and he’s a fantastic guy, great bass player and he’s part of my family. I haven’t seen Kyle in 10 years. You put yourself in my position. Let me ask you. What would you do?

Sleaze Roxx: It’s hard. You don’t want to turn your back on the guys you have now, but it’s a tough spot.

Joe LeSte: I don’t want to turn my back on the guys I was with either. The only right thing for me to do is to look at it is like this. I have great guys that tour their asses off. They will go anywhere in the world and we have a great time. People don’t leave Bang Tango because they hate the band or anything like that. It’s the same with Beautiful Creatures. My guys didn’t leave because they hated me or some fucking reason like that. The only reason that people leave is because somebody goes, ‘wow that guy is really good and I’ve got 20 times more money than Joe’, so they just buy them off me. Is it frustrating for me? Hell yeah, but you know I’ve got guys right now that are sworn in and they do nothing but care about Bang Tango. They work every day on it. If we are home we are working on merchandising. If they are home they are working on bookings. They are working on anything they can constantly.

My job is to stay healthy and sing as good as good as I can, and that whole thing about the hospital… what a rude comment. Want to know the real reason I was in the hospital? It was because my bag got lost going through the airport which had all my medicine in it. Figuring I could go 4 or 5 days without it… it was a big mistake on my part. But it didn’t mean I was being unhealthy or drunk or crazy. I got shit faced one night in New York City, one night, and the whole world goes crazy.

Sleaze Roxx: Next thing you know you are dead. That must have been a bit of a surprise.

Joe LeSte: I almost died because of losing my medicine. I mean you don’t turn around and go, ‘I don’t know, he just isn’t taking care of himself’. It’s not like that. If you don’t know the real story don’t make comments like that. The real story is, yeah I almost died, my bass player basically saved my life. What happened was I didn’t have my medicine because it got lost at the airport in my bag. So here I was going through the same thing that Bret Michaels went through — pretty much had a minor stroke. Then I see the guys I love and care about and spent many years with say things like that. That really bugs me out. I will never take anything away from their musicianship or their personalities or their friendship. But I did take that as kind of as a cold shot.

You know what I did to stop drinking? I almost had a stroke and ended up in the hospital, but it wasn’t my drinking that got me there. You want to know what really stopped me from drinking so much?

Sleaze Roxx: What stopped you?

Joe LeSte: It’s very simple. I had a doctor, and guess what the doctor said to me… you are going to love this. I didn’t smoke marijuana, pot. I don’t do any drugs, I don’t take pills and I don’t touch cocaine. I’m not really that guy. I’m a healthy guy. I’m an Irish dude, I drink like a mick but at the end of the day, in all honesty, when I was in the hospital the doctor said, ‘this is obviously a very serious hyper tension issue. You can’t ever go a day without your medicine, you almost killed yourself’. I didn’t realize it was that important. I’ve been doing it for so many years I didn’t know that would happen. So here I am with this cardiologist heart doctor and he looks at me and goes, ‘you don’t do drugs?’ I said ‘no, you guys have plenty of my blood you can see’ and he goes ‘no, you don’t do drugs’. He goes, ‘have you ever considered smoking marijuana?’ I go ‘why?’ He goes, ‘because your hyper tension is like pushing too much pressure through a small hose and eventually it’s going to do damage on that. Obviously we aren’t in California right now, but try it.’

I was thinking, fuck I used to smoke weed back when I was 18, so I tried it. Go back for my doctor’s appointment… 120 over 80, perfect. Can you believe that? (laughs) The funny thing is I don’t drink hardly at all anymore. I have a few beers here and there but you don’t even see pictures of me on stage with a beer on my hand… I’m stoned out of my mind (laughs). The funny thing is my singing has got a lot better too. Everything is more clear to me. I’m not stressed out, I’m in great shape, I’ve lost a ton of weight. I’m really honed in on what we are doing now. It’s a great feeling and we are still doing it. Like I said, unfortunately I don’t want to see those guys put through shit by a piece of shit agent.

So if Mark wants to call me here, or whatever the connection is, I don’t give a shit. I’m totally open to that and I love those guys. It’s just a difference in lifestyles. I don’t wake up in the morning and kiss my wife goodbye and go to some normal job like everybody else. Those guys do, and I respect that and I’m very proud of what they have accomplished from not being in the band. They are very talented guys at whatever they do, but at the same time you can’t expect somebody to just turn around to a bunch of really nice guys that you have created relationships for a long time, and gone through hell and high water through 10 different guitar players and everything else. You can’t just turn around and go, ‘bad news the other guys from 15 years ago are back — you are done.’ I can’t do that, but what I can do is let the guys know I’m open anytime for something like that and I love you guys. This is tearing us apart and this isn’t anything business wise. I don’t give a fuck what the pay is, I would love to do that.

At the same time I am going to respect them right back by saying I’m not going to take you away from your wife and your 4 kids and your job to go out on the road and make hardly any money, beating ass and driving around in a van. Those guys aren’t going to do that.

Sleaze Roxx: It sounded to me like they just wanted to do a few shows for fun. We will see what happens with it.

Joe LeSte: If things go really well for them, then cool. But using the Bang Tango name is very strange. It’s strange to everybody. It’s not affecting my job at all one bit. It’s my job. I’m running around the country doing this, I’m doing festivals and doing shows with major bands. So looking at something like that, it’s like well if you guys like playing together so much, I’ve been doing this for so long, why don’t you come up with a new name? What is the purpose of calling it Bang Tango? The only reason they are doing this is the same reason the dude put together the BulletBoys again without the singer. It’s just one of those sneaky things.

Sleaze Roxx: Plus the name is what is going to make you any money or any chance of making money.

Joe LeSte: I know, but if you quit a band back in ’94 and the singer, the main guy who helped name the band and who helped write pretty much every song — I wrote everything with Mark and those guys in like a 5 piece way. I’m not taking claim for everything, I’m saying I equally wrote with those guys.

You left in 1994 why would you want to come back in 2010 and call it Bang Tango when I’ve been doing it since then? That’s stupid. But you know, fuck guys if you think that is the right thing to do. They don’t even know what is going on behind their back. I’ve got people at festivals and shows that I play and they look at me and go, ‘what were those guys thinking? Everybody knows Bang Tango is you, you’ve been doing it forever’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what to tell you’. Some people also said their agent said to hire him and they said, ‘fuck no, if Joe isn’t in the band he can’t get the gig’. I don’t mean to make this a me thing, not at all, what I am trying to say is give me a break — I’ve been doing this for 15 years since you have been out of the band. Doesn’t that mean anything to you, don’t you have any kind of feelings inside? Could you actually be my friend and come back and say I quit in ’94 good luck with you. They were successful, did their thing, have their families and everything. Well I missed out on all that because I’ve been busting the bricks doing Bang Tango. Now I go up to the company and go I want to be part of it now. I don’t know why, I just want to. It doesn’t make any sense. The only thing that makes sense to anybody is that they are being led around by an asshole.

Sleaze Roxx: There are always people around like that.

Joe LeSte: God are you kidding me! I spend a daily basis running into them. It’s tough out here. These guys, I can’t even imagine picturing Kyle Kyle with Tigg and Mark Knight and all of us driving around in a van going to shows. Listen, these guys aren’t going to be going out there and make five grand a night and drive around in a bus like we used to. They don’t understand, the economy has changed, the music sounds have changed. I’ve already been signed again to a major label and put an album out and toured with OzzFest and Kiss and Marilyn Mason. This has all happened within the last 15 years when they’ve gone. So I’ve built the success of the band thing up and they turn around and go ‘woo it’s been 15 years, I think I’m just going to take it back’. It’s not going to happen and it has nothing to do with me. It’s the rest of the people out there… the fans and everybody. They are like ‘no, we know Joe’. Again I go back to the same thing — they should have just got a hold of me. If they just want to go out and jam a couple of shows, just call me up. I would get a boner over that. Did I just say boner? (laughs)

Listen if you talk to Mark will you give him my number and tell his ass to call me.

Sleaze Roxx: Yeah I’ll let him know.

Joe LeSte: For instance, I needed a guitar player really bad. Don’t you ask yourself why I didn’t call Mark Knight? Think about it. I’ve got tours set up for the next fucking year and have an album coming out. Why wouldn’t I call Mark Knight?

Sleaze Roxx: Like you say, I’m not sure those guys want to be on the road all the time.

Joe LeSte: No, that’s why I don’t call Mark Knight. I got tours, I’m already booked through to September right now. Let me put it to you this way. If I said to Mark, ‘you are going to get this amount of money, this is how it goes and I need you to be out the road for the next couple of months’. He would go ‘fuck you dude’. I know because I already tried it years ago. He would be, ‘no way man we can’t do that’. So it’s not like I haven’t tried in the past but at the same time I’ve got very comfortable with my life. I’ve got very comfortable with the guys I’m with and the guys I’m with have to play this shit every night. So they have mad respect for those guys. Some of them… the other guys who aren’t in the band anymore don’t give a shit about anything. But it’s like, ‘hey dudes look at reality here’. If you want to play a few shows, call me up. I’ll fly to LA and rehearse and do a show or two or whatever it is they want to do as long as I’m not out of town.

Sleaze Roxx: Sounds like life on the road is kind of tough, but did you see you were mentioned in Roxana Shirazi’s new book The Last Living Slut? Did you have a chance to read that?

Joe LeSte: No I haven’t read it. But I know that chick is completely… she had this planned for years. That girl is absolutely… it’s just been one long plan. I even talked to her and went ‘don’t put me in your book’ and then she puts me in her book. Everything she said about most of what she did she completely fucking made up. I’ll tell you straight out right now I never even touched that chick. But her friend gave me a blow job (laughs).

Sleaze Roxx: It made for good reading anyway.

Joe LeSte: You should meet her man, she’s the biggest whore in the world. Whatever she said I don’t give a fuck. One of my producers said a long time ago, ‘if they are saying bad things about you Joe, don’t worry about it, if they are saying good things then cool. If they aren’t saying anything, that is when you have to worry about it.’ I’ve done a lot of crazy shit and I’m pretty notorious for being a wild man, but at the same time I take my music very seriously and obviously I’ve gotten older and quit drinking. It’s been a year now, well since my New York gig where I fell on my ass (laughs), but otherwise everything else is going great.

Sleaze Roxx: You said you were re-recording the new CD, does that mean Alex will still be on the album? Also, will Anthony Focx be involved this time?

Joe LeSte: We are working with Anthony Focx on mixing the album, he’s going to produce the guitar candy on it. Anthony is what we call air candy. The other guys play the root and the main part of the songs, then Anthony comes in and says, ‘it would sound cool if you did this’ and we just go along with him because the guy is a fucking genius. As far as Alex is concerned I don’t think he is going to be on this album because we have this new guy and he is really really good. Al’s dedication is to Adler, Alder pays him big bucks and from what I heard they are recording a new record. So I don’t have time to wait around and see what happens with Al. I’m constantly on tour and I’ve got a record label now that is looking at us going ‘ok, let’s get this thing done’. I’ve already started with the new guy.

Sleaze Roxx: So when do you expect the new CD to be finished? It’s going to be later now isn’t it?

Joe LeSte: You should ask Trent that. One minute for 6 months it’s going slow, then all of a sudden we’ll get a phone call saying, ‘ok we have to meet with this producer, we have to do a photo session’ and everything gets turned right back up again. It’s cool, I’m very happy, I’m in good company with a lot of good people. Now I’ve talked to you and you seem like a cool dude. I appreciate you hearing my side of things. In all honesty I hope I didn’t come across like an asshole or anything.

Sleaze Roxx: No. Anytime I do these interviews people always seem to have a different opinion about things.

Joe LeSte: I have to say if Kyle and I didn’t have irony between us and conflict of things in our lives, in our past, we wouldn’t have made such great music together.

I’m not going to stand on a pillar and go ‘I own Bang Tango and this is what this is all about’. This isn’t what I’m doing. All I’m saying is, hey guys I spent 15 years of my life doing this. This is my life, this is how I support my family. This is how I pay my bills while you guys have been doing completely something else. So you can’t expect me to drop everything and say fuck it all.