Overdoses, stabbings, and "Blood Runs"
Unsane’s infamous “Scrape” video
Since 1988, New York City’s Unsane have been an underground institution, churning out the kind of knee-skinning, face-ruling noise rock that became synonymous with the Amphetamine Reptile label (onetime home to Helmet, the Melvins, Today Is the Day, and Unsane themselves) in the early Nineties. But the band has had more than a few interruptions in its 19 year run: In 1992 Unsane lost original drummer Charlie Ondras to a heroin overdose (he was replaced by ex-Swans hammersmith Vinnie Signorelli) and two years later enlisted Dave Curran (also of the J.J. Paradise Players Club) to replace original bassist Pete Shore. Then vocalist-guitarist Chris Spencer was nearly stabbed to death in Vienna in 1999, leaving him with a lacerated intestine and a scar from sternum to pelvic bone. As such, the band went on hiatus, eventually resurfacing with 2005’s devastating Blood Run. Revolver checked in on Unsane’s metal health and the making of their latest release, Visqueen (Ipecac).
REVOLVER Isn’t Visqueen technically a brand name? Are you worried about running into trademark issues, like the Melvins did when they put out Lysol [in 1992]?
CHRIS SPENCER It might have been a brand name at one time, but it’s also used as a general term to refer to those huge sheets of plastic, like the one that the girl on the [album] cover is wrapped in. [Visqueen’s cover image is of a body wrapped in plastic in a field.] I’m not worried about it, though. I mean, we’re not a mainstream band, and we’ve never wanted to be. We just do this because we love it, and I guess we don’t feel like we have to answer to anybody.
So you had the cover image in mind before the title?
Yeah. Me and my friend James, who’s an awesome photographer, have been doing these things called “blood runs” for a while, where we get real blood, get a friend, and set up a murder scene to photograph. The one I’ve wanted to do for-fuckin’-ever is sneak onto a subway train, throw blood all over the walls of one corner, and have a body laying there on the seat sideways. But after 9/11, that became incredibly difficult to do.
Unsane’s “Sick” video
The last time I saw you guys play live was at Spaceland in L.A. in 2003. Vinnie’s shoulder was all wrapped up in duct tape—what happened to him?
Oh, man—you saw that show? A few years ago, my family bought some land in Northern California, and my brother, who’s a fucking maniac, started a vineyard, growing grapes and shit. I’ve got a dirt bike out there, and we stopped by on that tour. Vinnie, being from Brooklyn, has never really ridden on dirt and didn’t understand that you can’t just pull in the clutch and hit the brake. So he went flying off into a ditch and broke his collarbone—it was sticking out like an inch and a half.
Jesus.
Yeah. So we took him to the hospital. Vinnie, being the fucking gladiator that he is, played the next two shows in San Francisco and L.A. We duct-taped his shoulder together, and he couldn’t lift his right arm all the way, so he had to lower a cymbal and the drums on the right side. He had Vicodin and stuff like that, but he did those two shows. It was unbelievable.
Unsane have been around for almost two decades. Have you noticed your influence on other bands over the years?
Every once in a while, I’ll hear something that is almost exactly something I’ve done on an Unsane record, but I don’t care, man. I think Helmet even ripped off a few riffs, but what can you do? There’s no point in getting mad. [Laughs] Besides, I’ve got a million more. J. BENNETT
