Perfect Pitch Online: How are you?
Ruyter Suys: Good. We're just embarking on a month and a half long tour and we just got kittens at home, so I'm feeling like I'd rather be at home playing with the kittens.

PP: You couldn't take them on tour with you?
RS: No, I wish I could have, but they're little - only about two weeks old. So by the time I get back they're going to be completely different, and now's the time that I want to impose my love on them. So I'm a little heartbroken over that - but at the same time we're going to Europe next, we're playing the Le Mans festival. We're the headliner and that's going to be awesome. Everything that we've got laid out is excellent right now.

PP: What are some of your favorite international venues?
RS: There's a club in Holland called the Vera, which is one of the best clubs in the world. They find everyone right before they get big, it's bizarre - they had Nirvana play in front of like 80 people, and two months later, boom. We sold out there a couple of times, it's fucking great. Holland can be uptight sometimes. I'd blame it on the weed, but I really don’t know what it is. When people set up the stage in Holland, I wish they'd legalize speed. [laughs] Then Spain is just the most rock and roll country in the world, other than Brazil, but we've never been to Brazil. Spain is great - most people are really smart. You get the most amazing questions in interviews.

PP: More amazing than this!?
RS: No, nothing could be better than this! [laughs] But some of the questions that come out of people who can barely speak English are great. They'll ask, "What's your all-time favorite live album? Have you ever heard of Al Green Live at El Mocambo Club?" Like, what the fuck? How would you ever think to ask us about Al Green? How do you know that?

PP: You're Al Green fans?
RS: Oh, fuck yeah. Half of the songs off of our fucking records are mutated Al Green songs. But yeah, Spain is just amazing. We played a couple of festivals last time we were there. We were kind of the headliner; Hanoi Rocks went on after us.

PP: Wow, Hanoi Rocks.
RS: Yeah, those guys, that’s another story. They're a fashion disaster, wearing boas and sequined pants, and those guys are so loaded that they can barely walk. Supposedly one guy shot so much heroin that he has like, no veins left in his legs. He's just walking crazy. And then he was talking and I didn't understand a word he was saying. I was like, "Oh my God, they're completely bonkers." Then I realized he was speaking a whole other language and I was like, "Oh, that's why they're not making any sense!" [laughs]

PP: Then it wasn't just the heroin. So, tell me something about you that I don't know.
RS: I drove a tractor for 7 summers.

PP: When was this?
RS: It was right out of high school, and I did it all through university. And I didn't know I was learning how to be a rock and roll star. Once you can handle 12 hours in a field, then getting to go in a straight line for 12 hours on the road is an adventure.

PP: Indeed. What was the one moment that made you want to play guitar?
RS: I think the biggest moment was when we removed the piano from the house. Then it was like, "Okay, I gotta do something else now," so I turned to my dad's guitar. I've played piano since I was like, 3. It was good, but it wasn't what I wanted. I was never good at reading music. I always played by ear, so I instantly got behind in class as far as what I could do compared to my classmates. They could just look at shit and play it, but I could play it if you played it for me first, so I could fake my way through all the classes. It wasn't good for learning but it was good for playing.

PP: Sight-reading for piano is hard, but sight-reading for guitar definitely isn't any easier.
RS: I can't sight-read for shit, but I can "human jukebox" most everything. I could fake my way through most songs and no one would be the wiser. But anyways, when I picked up the guitar I was about 8. And of course, there were the teenage years where you want to be the loudest thing in the house, and you're not getting laid yet, so what else are you going to do? Smoke weed in your room and make sure you're the loudest person in the house. You've got to cause shit somehow.

PP: Tell me about your first axe.
RS: It was a Telecaster copy, I got it because it looked like what Jimmy Page had. I bought it for $100 out of a newspaper ad. I actually had an acoustic guitar before that, my parents bought me an acoustic guitar for graduating from elementary school and it wound up burning down in a fucking fire. It killed me, man. But I got a duplicate, I went out and found it again.

PP: Give me three rules to eating on the road.
RS: Bring your own hot sauce, no more Denny's and don't be scared to try the regional delights. Like boudin in Louisiana, crabs in Maryland…

PP: Did you try rocky mountain oysters in Montana?
RS: No, but we had bull balls in Texas.

PP: Were they good?
RS: No, they're not good. [laughs] They're alright, it's just another organ meat. Plus it's a ball, so it's kind of funny, but it's no big deal. It freaked the shit out of Jeremy, he wouldn't come near them. But we'll definitely eat what the locals eat as much as possible.

PP: What's been your worst touring experience?
RS: That would have to be Insane Clown Posse.
[Drummer Jeremy Thompson enters. And it is good.]
Jeremy Thompson: People were throwing stuff at us. But on the bright side, I did get lots of change and free lighters.
RS: I think we made $30 in change one night. Someone even threw a 2x4 onstage. I took a CD jewel case to the eyeball - it was awful. But it was only every other night that they were bastards.
[Ruyter leaves so Jeremy and I can finally be alone. And it is even more good.]

PP: How's the tour going?
JT: Pretty good. We're all scrunched in a van because at the end of this tour, instead of going back to Atlanta we're just flying to Europe from L.A., so we just brought one van with a trailer. It's not that bad. It's not what we're used to but it could be worse.

PP: Since you guys tour so much, you must get on each other's nerves a lot. How do you keep your personal space and maintain your sanity?
JT: Any time you spend that much time with somebody, obviously you're going to have moments where you have to get away. I just take long showers. That's the only time you really get to be by yourself. But considering how much time we spend with each other, we get along pretty well. Better than you'd think.

PP: When do you irritate each other the most? Does it ever come to blows?
JT: It's just little shit, like when you're tired or hungry and someone's telling you what to do but you don't feel like doing anything. But the cool thing is, if we get pissed off, we can scream at each other for five minutes and then not hold a grudge about it. Everything goes back to normal. We just get it off our chest and then it's done.

PP: What have you been listening to lately?
JT: Lots of Led Zeppelin. I got this box set that's basically every studio album from Led Zeppelin I up to Coda, so I've been listening to shitloads of Zeppelin.

PP: Where can your stalkers find you in the next few months?
JT: We're going to Europe, Japan and Australia, so basically tour, tour, tour - and fight. [laughs]

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