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JEFF NOVAK

TB: So Jeff, tell us how old you are and how long you've been playing music for...
Jeff: Right now, I�m 19, but I�m turning 20 in June. I guess I�ve been playing music since I was 14 or 15, but I wasn�t in any real bands back then. I just recorded stupid stuff on my 4-track.

TB: Exactly where is Henderson, TN in relation to Memphis and Nashville? What goes on there?
Jeff: Henderson is in-between Memphis and Nashville. It�s about an hour from Memphis and around two hours from Nashville. It�s just south of Jackson, TN, home of the Rock-A-Billy Hall Of Fame, which is probably the biggest joke of a museum I�ve ever seen. Henderson is just a shitty boring town with nothing going on, and I�m really unpopular around there. I�m banned from playing most places, and everyone seems to hate my music. I don�t know why I still live there. I keep saying I�m going to move. The closest city for me to see and play shows is Memphis.

TB: Did you have a chance to get to see any of those bands while they existed, or was that before your time? What was the first live show you saw that really made an impression?
Jeff: Well all the best Memphis bands of the 90�s are long gone, but most of those people still live in the area and still play music in other bands. Like Jeff Evans still plays a lot with his band the Roadmasters or occasionally with the CC Riders. Luckily, I got to see the Oblivians� reunion show the Halloween before last. That was one of the best shows I�ve ever seen. I had somehow never heard of the Cheater Slicks before that show, and they blew me away. I couldn�t get over the way Dana Hatch was playing his drums. It was perfect. But Memphis still has the best local bands like the Dutchmasters, River City Tanlines, Tearjerkers, Final Solutions, and the Reatards might be getting back together. Maybe? Jay�s putting out new records.

TB: You've played Memphis several times now, and even had the chance to play with Jeff Evans. Was the Memphis scene initially very supportive? Did you feel any pressure playing shows with guys you've cited as inspirations on your records?
Jeff: Yeah, I guess. I had sent a copy of the first CD I put out to Jeff Evans, because I had covered one of his songs, and he wrote me back and told me how much he liked it. Then he ended up getting me my first show in Memphis opening for the Roadmasters, and he introduced me to everyone. Apart form being one of my favorite musicians, Jeff is just a really nice guy.

TB:Tell us about your other projects: Rat Traps?
Jeff: The Rat Traps are my new band with my sister April and her husband Joe. I play drums and they both play guitar. I guess it�s sort of like KBD-style punk rock or whatever. It�s the first band I�ve ever played drums in, and I�m not very good. We�ve played a few shows, and we just did some recordings in my garage.

TB: I've heard something called Bodie Green mentioned too. Is it a band? Is the name a reference to John Waters or the "Dirty Boogie"?
Jeff: No, it�s another band that my sister April and I have. She plays drums and I play guitar. We recently just played our first show in Memphis. I don�t really remember it, but everyone told us it went really well. We did do a fucked up cover of the End�s �People Talk.� The End was Jack Yaber and Jimbo Mathus� new-wave band after they were both in Johnny Vomit & The Dry Heaves. They put out this really cool 7�, which I found at Goner last year. We played our second show at JMM�s BBQ, and we�ve been asked to play some more shows this summer around Nashville. We are both big John Waters� fans though, but April took the name �bodie green� from a dirty dance that she saw while she was living in New York.

TB: What stuff can people still get from Sonic Assault Records? Do you have any releases upcoming? Any plans of doing vinyl?
Jeff: I keep putting out more of my stupid one-man band stuff, but I plan on putting out stuff by other bands. I was planning on releasing the first Rat Traps 7�. I had wanted it to be a split 7� with the DC Snipers, but they didn�t want to do another spilt 7�, so now I don�t know what we�re doing. I had asked King Louie about doing a Loose Diamonds 7�, but he told me they had already recorded a whole LP, so they were looking for someone to put it out. I don�t know if I could afford doing an LP, but I still plan on putting out some real records sometime in the future. As for the CD-R�s, I�m sold out of everything, except for this outtakes/demos collection called "Go Way Out" that I put out for the tour I did in March. I still have a few copies of it.

TB: A lot of people seem to be down on bands/people releasing CD-Rs, but I think you did the right thing with them. Did putting those CD-Rs out help you get the singles and LP released? Did you send a ton of them out?
Jeff: Yeah I couldn�t believe people would actually take CD-R�s seriously! It�s crazy! I got the idea from Alicja Trout. She�d been putting out all these really cool limited edition CD-R�s on her label Contaminated. It�s great, because they�re so cheap and easy to make. The first one I put out was called �To Hell In A Handbasket,� and I mailed it out to people not really expecting anything. But a couple zines actually reviewed it. Then this label in the Netherlands, A Fistful Of Records, contacted me because they had read the review I got in Savage Magazine, and they offered to put out my first 7�. Around the same time I had mailed out copies of �Jungle Beat Stomp� to all these labels I liked, and Ronan at Yakisakana offered to put out my second 7�.

TB: What do you record on?
Jeff: It�s just a Tascam 424 mkIII 4-track. It�s real basic, and you can record live on all 4 tracks, so it works well for my one-man band stuff. I use to record stuff in my bedroom, but now I record most stuff in my garage. I also record some stuff on an old boombox. I�ve gotten offers to record at places with better equipment, but I like recording my one-man band stuff myself.

TB: How much stuff do you have recorded? Rumor has it you recorded something like 28 albums worth of stuff in one year, including a cover of the entire first VU record?
Jeff: Well I have a ton of 4-track stuff recorded, but most of its not one-man band stuff. It�s old weird bedroom band shit from when I was 16. I had nothing better to do, so I�d just record a new album every other week or so for about a year straight. For a while, I was writing around 20 songs a week. Most of that stuff sucks though. No one needs to hear it, but that Velvet Underground record was interesting. It was the first album I recorded on my 4-track. I recorded the whole thing on a Sunday afternoon. I had never really played any of those songs before, so I had to learn each song, and then I overdub all the different parts. I actually broke a bottle for that part at the beginning of �European Son,� and I still haven�t gotten all the glass out of the carpet in my bedroom.

TB: What are some covers you do live? I've heard you did the entire Persuaders LP once? Cheater Slicks?
Jeff: For some reason I kept playing Persuaders songs on that tour I did in March. I never played the whole LP or anything, but I do know most of the songs. I�m planning on recording either �Ain�t Your Daddy� or �Las Vegas (High Stakes)� for this 10� that�s going to come out on Perpetrator Records. I�ve played �Murder� at a lot of shows, and when I played at Goner last summer, I did an extended version of �Thinkin� Some More.� I don�t know what I was thinking. I think Eric or Zac might have recorded that show, so I�d be interested to hear it.

TB: When is the LP set to be released?
Jeff: It�s coming out this summer on P. Trash Records in Germany. I put out an advance CD-R version of it on Sonic Assault with a bonus track that�s not going to be on the LP, but I only made 32 copies with two different covers. Hopefully Peter will have the LP will be out in time for the tour later this summer.

TB: You recently did a Southern tour, how'd that go? Did you find any good bands we should know about?
Jeff: That tour actually went really well. Thanks to Rich Evans for setting it up. I was really surprised. Most of the shows were great, especially in Orlando at Will�s Pub. The best band I played with was probably the Hex Tremors. They�re from Orlando, but we ended up playing several shows together in East Tennessee. The Hibachi Stranglers in Mobile and the Buttercups in Orlando were really good. Plus I ended up playing a show with Eric Apneas� band the Boos in Gainesville. Eric had almost died a couple days before that when he had slipped on some mustard and fell on some glass. He cut his wrist up pretty bad, so he wasn�t able to play drums in Quest For Fire, but he still played bass in the Boos.

TB: Any plans of touring further and getting around the country more?
Jeff: Defiantly, I working on it right now, Rich is helping me set up some stuff. We�re going to try to do a Rat Traps/one-man band tour in July. We want to hit the Midwest, and the East Coast, and maybe play some shows in Montreal. Then we want to play around the south and head back down to Florida for some shows at the end of the summer.

TB: Final question: What's wrong with kids and their musical tastes these days? How can we steer the youth of today towards non-mainstream music and keep the kids out of Hot Topic?
Jeff: I don�t know. That�s a hard question. I don�t really hang out with anyone my own age. I�m just lucky that my older sister was always turning me on to good music.