The Giraffes: The _Heeb_ Interview

Giving one listen to The Giraffes third full-length, Prime Motivator you can easily understand why the Brooklyn quartet is hell-bent on making the soundtrack to the most wild party of your life. While their self-described "surf metal" calls to mind Queens of the Stone Age partying at a beach, it’s their enigmatic lead singer Aaron Lazar, who is truly worthy of your attention. The hulking front man moves around the stage like Glen Danzig had he been a member of The Rat Pack and not The Misfits.

You had a heart attack prior to recording this album?

Yes, I had two prior to recording the album and another since then.

A lot of these songs seem to be more personal and (seem to) deal with you getting sick and having a defibrillator implanted. Is that the case?

I found myself in a position where I had always dismissed lyrics as a way to get people to listen to the melody which in heavy music is always the lead guitar. Suddenly all of these insane things happen things that I would never have been able to make up in million years, so it was only natural that it would come out in the song writing. My major theme seem to always be dishonesty. Now this whole defibrillator narrative has been added to that, involving death, cheating death and not learning from it.

Would you say this is the most personal album you have written?

Definitely, though I really dislike identity based work, unless it utilizes a heaping dollop of bullshitting.

When people ask you what sort of band you are in, what do you tell them?

Usually hard rock, loud and snotty. Though recently its beginning to seem like The Giraffes are the last main vein in the torso of hard rock. All the sub-genres have detached from the core and are wandering about on their own, like zombie limbs looking for fresh brains or something even stupider. We don’t take anything too seriously, so the whole label thing leads me straight to being frustrated with myself and the world

What exactly is the prime motivator?

A random phrase that’s been used a lot is crappy self-improvement circles, like scientology and other crocks of piss. When you say it it turns you into a total jerk full of mock gravitas. We thought that was fun.

You guys toured with Eagles of Death Metal, there has to be some pretty crazy stories from that.

We love those guys and yes there are a ton of crazy stories to tell but like I said we love those guys so I’ll keep them to myself for the most part. On the lighter side, just picture an all-day political debate between an ultra-conservative on speed and a dyed-in- the-wool liberal on mushrooms in the middle of the desert and you have an idea of where our spare time goes to die when we hang out with the Eagles.

What do you think?

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