HATE, SODOMY, AND MODELSMike Bones Is Our Favorite Misanthropic Singer-Songwriter
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Photo by Ben Rayner
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We first came across Mike Bones while he was playing guitar with one of our other favourite singer-songwriter guys of all time, Cass McCombs. He then turned up playing with yet another band we have a big crush on, the Sian Alice Group. With those credentials and a background in the Lower East Side scene centred around the Social Registry label and much-missed all-hours spot The Tonic, coupled with several albums of unreleased melancholy gems, we couldn’t help but want Mike all to ourselves. So we decided to snaffle him up and put his new record out through Vice. A Fool for Everyone might just be the downer hit of the year. Vice: How did a punk kid with Johnny Thunders lyrics all over his arms become a singer-songwriter?
Mike Bones: To me it’s the same thing. It all comes from the same place. It’s just that the songs are slower now. That guy was huge to me, though. That contradiction of being so fucking dumb and yet so brilliant. There’s a lot of hate in your songs. On a scale of one to ten, how misanthropic are you?
How can you not be a hater? You have to comment on the things around you and it’s hard to write an upbeat song. I’m not interested in writing a catchy tune or a melody, I just want to make sure that the words are as good as can possibly be. Do you still have time to teach guitar?
Sure, I’ve been doing that for years. In New York you get a lot of models that want to play guitar and be in a band so my students are often these crazy model types. That, or people in bands. I’m not gonna say who but you’d be amazed at some of the people in big New York bands who’ve emailed me and asked for a lesson. Some of your numbers read more like novels than songs. Have you got a book in you?
I’d love to write a novel. There aren’t any other singer-songwriters around I’d rip off but there are plenty of novelists and poets: James Salter, Denis Johnson, and the Marquis de Sade. De Sade was an amazing writer. You should read Philosophy in the Bedroom, it will give you a fucking hard-on. I was reading it on the plane the other day and I thought they’d take it off me; it’s full of sodomy and these insane rape scenes. The basic premise is that these two men and a woman turn this 15-year-old virgin into a subservient sexual slave. It makes you pretty glad to be a guy. All the fucked up stuff in de Sade happens to the girls.
JUNIOR KNIGHT A Fool for Everyone is available now on The Social Registry in the US and Vice Records in the UK. myspace.com/littlemikebones
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Mar 10, 2009 wrote:
Not sure if you mean Violins the band or violins the instruments but you’re wrong on both counts. | |
| Fuck Russia, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
This is all true but every blue moon you have a band with chicks that are good and super fucking hot. I’m looking in your direction, School of Seven Bells. | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
does he always look so child molestery or is this like an in-between face? | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
theres a skeleton hanging in the room right behind him. bones and bones! you hipster types are so ironic. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
God, everyone is on bones bone. He isnt that fucking good. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
"he needs a smaller sweater, that one makes him look like a concentration camp survivor."
Its not just a catchy name. He is just bones underneath. see if you can catch any xylophone in his songs, thats him playing his ribs. mad skills. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
mike bones rules. latest album reeks of gold. VICE, you got lucky with this guy. Way to keep an ear out | |
| sweetpeen16, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
this guy has his shit going. may just check it out | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
violins are gay, NEXT! | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
before myspace gets flushed like the turd it is facebook is going to have to sort out some kind of music action. And for the people who are into it the ability to personalise your page. Bones is so so so good need to get to a show.
no! that’s what is good about facebook. i don’t have to worry about being bombarded with flashing neon light and a shitty remix when i view a page. keep facebook simple. myspace should drop personal profiles and make it only for music, then turn up the quality a few notches to make it worthwhile. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
looks like a shady shady man to me. has he taken de sade literally and got himself a submissive 15 yr old? hope not. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
before myspace gets flushed like the turd it is facebook is going to have to sort out some kind of music action. And for the people who are into it the ability to personalise your page. Bones is so so so good need to get to a show. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
Why is he touring with Phosphorescent? I guess sometimes you have to take a little shit with your giggles. | |
| anonymouse, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
for real, what’s up with myspace now leaving up old tourdates. i get excited then see that the show i want to attend happened a week ago. they must have been too busy making their purdy new music player and wondering how the fuck facebook made them their bitch within a year’s time. good riddence, myspace. nice to have known ya | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
MEH!! I dont see what all you hipsters are jacking yourselves off to.......average tunes with a solid solid whiney bitch. "so my students are often those crazy model types"......shit bones sounds like youve got a lot to be hating. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
haha this interview ends on a ridiculous note. But i wish it was longer! i feel like there is much more to be said about his music | |
| aahhhhB, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
Mike Bones is a poet! a lot of musicians dont care enough about their lyrics, but his lyrics are fucking brilliant | |
| joe bananas, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
This guy is awesome, I love his songs. May he continue to be full of hate and read about serious sodomy. c’mon the bones
| | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
i wanna know what’s going down in that room, shit looks insane. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
he needs a smaller sweater, that one makes him look like a concentration camp survivor. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
paul banks? | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
"I’m not interested in writing a catchy tune or a melody, I just want to make sure that the words are as good as can possibly be."
interesting because i never pay attention to the words in music until i’ve dissected every bit of the melody and nuances but i really like his stuff. | |
| Taylor, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
I just finished ’A Sport and a Pastime’ (James Salter) and you know what? That kind of makes sense. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
Uhh De Sade was alright...henry Miller’s "Under the roofs of Paris" is better..
-SiT
| | Anonymous, on Mar 5, 2009 wrote:
BONES. | | Anonymous, on Mar 5, 2009 wrote:
that pic reminds me of the sweeping grandeur of my high school prom decorating committee | |
| DabblesInPacifism, on Feb 26, 2009 wrote:
unless i’m a completely not-with-it music dork (completely possible) it’s on vice in the uk, social registry in the homeland. | | Anonymous, on Feb 26, 2009 wrote:
where do i get one of those "never a dj" stickers? | | Anonymous, on Feb 25, 2009 wrote:
i thought social registry was putting this out?? nice job stealing this guy. maybe the best new york songwriter right now. | | Anonymous, on Feb 25, 2009 wrote:
awesome. i’ve been playing "what i have left" on repeat for the past couple weeks. what a wonderful song. glad you guys are putting this out. | | |
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