DJ Lazer and I got the chance to interview singer Ted Nesseth of the Heavenly States via phone on our 11/22/03 radio show. The written word cannot even convey how funny this interview truly was.

Nicole: So you guys are playing this Wednesday at the Orpheum with the Driftless Pony Club and Vox Humana.
Ted: Woohooo!!!

Rockey: Is this your first time in Madison?
Ted: No, I actually started a few different anarchic co-ops, vegan, politically correct coffeehouses and co-op youth hostels there back in my teenage days, and . . . no. This is my second time playing here.

Rockey: Excellent. Well, we’re glad you have you back, I guess this is kind of a homecoming for you then.
Ted: It is. You know, it’s always felt like a second home. I was actually the Onion’s Drunk of the Week one year.

Nicole: Were you really?
Ted: No, no I wasn’t. But I would have killed to get the coupon for six buffalo wings that I think was the prize for being drunk of the week. I always think, staring at the photo of the guy scrambling for the crumpled up coupon on State Street, I’m just waiting for that moment to be me. I wish I were that guy.

Nicole: So, Ted, how’s the tour been so far?
Ted: The tour has been awesome. Tonight we’re playing in this little town called Madison, Ohio, and I think it’s our 34th show, and we’ve got like, 22 left, and it’s been such a great time. But I’m seriously looking forward to the Midwest, since that’s where I’m from [Owatonna, MN], where the people are the sweetest, and the pockets are the deepest. No, just kidding. I’m just excited to go home because my mom’s gonna be there, and we’ve got family there, we’re playing with Driftless Pony Club and Vox Humana who are friends of ours, and then we’re playing with friends of ours in Minneapolis. So I’m looking forward to this whole week.

Rockey: I’ve heard that you have a big tour coming up next year in Australia- that’s really far from home.
Ted: Yeah, definitely. About two or three months ago, this guy just emailed me asking to send him a record. I was like, “oh, ok,” so I sent him a record, and he called me back and said he wanted to put it out. He was like, “what do I have to do to put it out in Australia?” and I was like, “uh, get us out there to tour!” Yeah, I’m definitely excited about it. It’s going to be their summer, too, so you people back in the Midwest in February are going to be mighty jealous. Although you won’t have 30 different kinds of snakes that can kill you at any moment, and a spider the size of a toenail that could also kill you. Seriously. It’s gonna be kind of scary. My friend Ian told me that when he was there he went in the outback, and . . . this guy said he’ll be taking us to do some tours in some tiny towns like, inland, and . . . Ian said he was inland in Australia and they were driving down this road and there was this 30-foot snake like, a foot in diameter, and the snake looked at the car driving by and grumblingly slithered off the road, then whipped around and smacked the car as it drove on by, and the whole car rattled and shook. That’s kind of scary! It’s like going to CMJ.

Nicole: Did you guys play there [at the CMJ music showcase in New York] this year?
Ted: Yeah. Just hundreds of snakes, killing you. But it was good preparation for Australia.

Nicole: Do you think you’ll get some good crowds there? Has this guy been promoting you like crazy?
Ted: They have been, yeah. They’ve just released a single with an exclusive B-Side, and they’re doing like three CD singles before we get out there. They said that people are really getting into it, so we’re excited. I mean, we are the best band in the universe.

Nicole: Have you all been able to quit your day jobs yet?
Ted: Do I look like I’m working now????

Nicole: No kidding! 34 cities, Australia . . .
Ted: I’m hanging at the Red Roof Inn, loungin’ like a playa. What up Red Roof?

Rockey: Where are you staying when you come to Madison?
Ted: Oh Red Roof, all the way man. I got a sponsorship. No, I think we’re gonna stay with friends. It’s always nice to stay with people you love and know. Not to say that the people at the Red Roof aren’t like family.

Nicole: Have you guys had friends in pretty much every city you’ve played in?
Ted: I’ve got friends in a lot of cities, but you know, some of them have to live in squalor, which I can’t do anything about. I’m like man, the least you could do is have a lid on your toilet. You could have a faucet and a toilet. That would be good. But no, it’s been good. We’ve stayed in a lot of hotels though, needless to say. We’ve had a couple of really weird situations and I won’t name the cities, because of course we love everybody, but we did sleep next to a cup of used band aids and live bugs, so you know, hey! And that was at a Red Roof Inn. Ok, no, it wasn’t. It was a Holiday Express. Maybe I should stop talking and you should play some music.

Nicole: No, we want to keep talking with you.
Ted: Well, you know, I’ve missed you Nicole.

Nicole: Awww, we’ve missed you too Ted.
Ted: Yeah, and I haven’t met you, Lazer.

Rockey: Oh, but I look forward to meeting you. I will stay in Madison [before Thanksgiving] just to meet you.
Ted: Awesome. And I heard that Lazer is an excellent wrestler.

Rockey: I think that was actually an American Gladiator.
Ted: With a name like Lazer, you have to be able to tear up some excellent wrestling. You’ve got to be a good tumbler.

Rockey: I do the fun flips on State Street. But anyway, you know we have been playing a lot of your music, and we’d like to hear more about your music. So maybe we can ask you some questions about how you’ve gotten the inspiration for some of your songs. What about [the song] “My Friends,” which we just played. What can you tell us about that song?
Ted: I can tell you that it was one of the first songs we wrote when the band first got together. It was the first time that we had Gen (violinist/keyboardist Genevieve) playing the violin, so. It was like the introduction to the beginning of the band.

Nicole: When did you all get together? How did the band start?
Ted: I’d guess a year and a half ago, maybe two years. [Drummer] Jeremy and Genevieve are brother and sister, and that’s been the core of the band as we’ve gone through eight different bass players. We are bringing [bassist] Brook back on this tour. Brook’s been great. But the band’s core for a long time was us three. I met Jeremy through my roommates.

Nicole: Was this all in California or back in Minnesota?
Ted: This is out in California, ‘cause I’ve been out there for like, seven years. So he was kind of, you know, not in a band, and he’s this amazingly great drummer, and I was going through- I was cleaning house musically, and Jeremy was the perfect guy to take over. Then Genevieve just moved out here through a series of coincidences, and it just made the most sense. We had been trying out these awful keyboard players. If you ever have to try out a person for a band, you try out the drummers, which is tough; you try out guitarists, that’s insane because they all want to give you their hot solo. But the keyboardist tryout is the worst of all tryouts. First of all, they take 42 minutes to set up their eight keyboard stacks, and it’s insane. After countless yahoos trying out for the band, it just made sense to take someone who was classically, I mean, just a perfect fit for the band. She was just- her presence was just missing, and finally we said, why don’t we just have Genevieve! It was sitting there, staring me in the face.

Rockey: I’m interested to know where you got your name from.
Ted: Well, this is actually great. We were Fluke Starbucker. At the beginning of the band, I was in a band called Fluke Starbucker, and this band was gonna be, well, we’re just gonna continue on as Fluke Starbucker because, you know, that was my thing. Then we started working with people and they were like, “you gotta change your name. You don’t own it [as the name of a character in a short film], it’s a terrible name, you don’t own the name, if somebody comes after you you’re gonna be fucked . . . I mean screwed . . .”

Nicole: Uh, we’d like to apologize for the fact that Ted just said that. [Note of FCC violation]
Ted: Oops, sorry. So we finally just bought into it and said, if people are gonna come after us we’ll end up owing them money or whatever. So one of our friends just came up with the Heavenly States, and we were like, that’s a really cool name, you can take that so many different ways. Though some people were like “it’s really religious,” and we were like, yeah, because we’re such believers, it would be perfect. Finally we have a name that clearly helps us celebrate the word of the Lord.

Rockey: You’re like a crossover band.
Ted: Yes. [In a mocking voice] Welcome to this glorious hour of witness with the Heavenly States. So then, people were like, “why did you change your name?” So finally we just started telling people, you know what, the people who own the name wouldn’t let us use it anymore, since essentially that’s what we were afraid was going to happen. But then the people who own the name got wind of it, and they emailed me. They’re the people who created this short film called “Hardware Wars,” which is like this cult film that’s a spoof on Star Wars, with flying toasters and a tin man, C3PO, whose name is actually 4Q2, R2D2 is RDDeco, it’s just this super funny little short film. He’s also the guy that created the counting series for Sesame Street. This guy, Ernie Fosselius, he did the animation for [singing] “one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve,” you know what I’m talking about? Well, it turns out that he was totally flattered by the name and was begging us to not change it, a year after we changed it, so we were really bummed out about it. But now, the same guy, he’s directing and creating our next video when we get back.

Nicole: What song is that going to be for?
Ted: It’s going to be for “Car Wash.” He’s doing these hand-carved marionettes of the band. We went to his house, and he’s just this amazing, brilliant artist guy and he took photos of us, and he’s doing these foot-tall, hand-carved marionettes, and we’re gonna do this really low-tech, spoof video. It’s gonna be really fun.

Nicole: Is there going to be a car wash in it?
Ted: I don’t know. It’s all up to him. He’s got a brilliant mind, you know. He also did a short film called “Pork Lips Now,” it’s a spoof on “Apocalypse Now.” It’s this guy who is a used car salesman who quits the used car business to start a butcher shop in Chinatown in San Francisco. He starts selling meat at unreasonably low prices, and the whole concept is that this guy is hired by the USDA to have him killed because his prices are insane. And then they do a scene by scene recreation of the climax, which took [Francis Ford] Coppola like, 40 days, and they did it in like 40 minutes. It’s definitely great.

Nicole: I was watching . . . something having to do with reality TV, and “Beyond the Great Beyond” was used to fade into a commercial. Did they buy the licensing rights from you to do that?
Ted: Yeah, people have been licensing the record, it’s been cool. We licensed it for the E! True Hollywood Story of the Real World.

Nicole: That’s what it was I saw. The story of the Real World.
Ted: Yeah, they’ve been eating it up. We licensed a couple songs for the Courtney Love one. It was just on a Road Rules, which is so funny because those shows are so tacky.

Rockey: Does your record label, Future Farmer, handle most of that, or are you involved in that licensing process?
Ted: I’m involved with it after . . . well, if someone wants to use it, they contact either Future Farmer, or me, or our attorney, or something.

Nicole: Wow, an attorney.
Ted: Yeah, but we’d rather not have him be contacted because then he’d have to be paid. So that’s kind of a nightmare. Plus, I think it’s just better to do everything that you can on your own. This guy who actually played Fluke Starbucker in “Hardware Wars,” Scott Mathews, who’s an extremely well-known musical producer and drummer, I mean he worked on Pet Sounds, which is why this is so amazing. He co-owned a studio with the band Morrison, and he’s never used a lawyer in his life. But for that same reason, he’s been able to stay on top of everything, because the less you know about your situation, the worse off you’ll be. So the first time you’re offered one of those contracts, you spend awhile looking at it, because it makes sense to learn how to do it, as opposed to paying somebody to know how to help you.

Rockey: You’re too busy writing songs anyways.
Ted: Oh we don’t write any songs. We buy them off the internet.

Nicole: I know you just released an album [Self titled, August 2003], but do you have a timeline for writing new music or putting anything else out?
Ted: Well, we have about two albums of material ready to go. We’re recording in December. After the tour, right before we go to Australia. Then we’re going to do another 25 shows. We’re going to try to stay in the south to stay out of the cold. So we’re gonna try to stay in the south, and then hopefully when we get back from Australia, we’ll be able to do another full 60-show US tour for the new record.

Nicole: Wow, you guys are out of control with the touring.
Ted: Well, it’s one way to stay unemployed. Plus, with the Red Roof Inn cutting me such amazing deals all the time, how can I- I hope somebody from the Red Roof Inn is listening.

Rockey: Now remember, everyone, Ted’s views are strictly his own; WSUM does not promote the Red Roof Inn . . . officially.
Ted: Yeah, the grind is kind of a bummer. It’s been fun, people have been really supportive, we’ve had a lot of really great crowds, drew a lot of people in places we didn’t expect to have anybody there.

Nicole: Like where?
Ted: Like Bloomington, North Carolina and El Paso, we had a huge show there. I had no idea people there even knew who we were. So yeah, there’s been some great places. New York was awesome, Burlington, Vermont, State College, Pennsylvania. There’s been some really great shows. Tonight’s gonna be really great too. Columbus was really excellent. (Something I couldn’t hear due to headphone difficulties)

Nicole: What?
Ted: Oh, I was just quoting a Neil Young song.

Nicole: Oh, sorry, I’m still having trouble with the headphone action.
Ted: Hot headphone action.

Nicole: Yup, that’s what goes on every show here in Studio A on State Street. Hot headphone action.
Ted: Well, you guys, it’s been great. I’m excited to see you guys on Wednesday.

Nicole: We’re so excited for the show too, thanks for talking to us.
Ted: The show’s at the Orpheum . . . it’s going to be a night filled of romance and intrigue.

Rockey: Once again, Ted from the Heavenly States, thanks so much for talking to us, and we look forward to having you come down here and to hearing your show.
Ted: We will rock it.