Supersuckers

Not only because talking with the frontman of such a renowned rock band is awesome in itself, but because for a time there, the possibility of no-one talking to him became a genuine, harrowing concern. After being handed a diagnosis of stage three oropharyngeal cancer, the Arizona singer-guitarist underwent intensive surgeries. But now, with a series of Australian tour dates planned in support of 2015’s Holdin’ The Bag, Spaghetti is ready to rock.

“I’m much better these days than I was for a while there, for sure. It’s a real relief to start feeling like myself again. I’m so glad that it’s behind me. It was really scary, of course … The support from people, though, that was the best thing that came out of it, for sure. If you’re going to find a silver lining in the cloud, that was definitely it. The support, the outpouring of goodwill was really, really awesome. I liken it to dying without the dying. You get to hear what people really thought of you, how awesome you were. Kind of an incredible thing. That’s also why I relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles, to receive treatment that was going to be designed specifically for me to recover and be able to sing again. That was always on my mind, and when I got to my doctors, that was the thing on their minds as well, and that was a relief.”

Spaghetti’s vocals have had an unusual evolution even without the health scare. When the band first formed back in 1988, being the singer was the furthest thing from his mind. It’s an odd jump to these many years later, where not only does he continue to front Supersuckers, he has also carved out a respected solo life.

“I definitely didn’t want [the focus]. In fact, my heroes were the ones who worked behind the scenes. I envisaged myself as the wizard behind the curtain, you know? I’ll just play the bass, write all these songs, maybe sing back-up; that’ll be fine. So I was reluctant to be the frontman. I had this mindset for the first couple of years that, ‘We’re still going to get someone else to do this.’ Solo is a different animal altogether. I feel like the smaller shows really flex my entertainer muscle. I don’t fancy myself this serious singer-songwriter type of dude. I don’t force people to sit there and listen, you know? I want people to yell and scream and get involved. But it involves many of the same songs. I’ll play a lot of Supersuckers songs because they’re, well, me. Those are still my thoughts.”

It’s also Spaghetti’s hope to try and find space to work on new material as he criss-crosses the great, empty Australian distances between gigs.

“I find inspiration strikes at any time. The secret for me is to capitalise on it immediately, to write something down or record it into your phone. Nowadays it’s so easy to document something with these phones, so there’s really no excuse for letting something slip through the cracks. I hate when I wake up the next morning and think, ‘Man, those lines last night were so good!’ and I have no documentation. So it never really matters where I’m at, because a lot of time I’m on the road, writing in hotel rooms and the backstages of the dirtiest shitholes across America,” he laughs. “That’s my creative environment. The dirty shitholes of the world.”