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| Speed Round Cliff Rigano Dry Kill Logic |
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| Dry Kill Logic's vocalist, Cliff Rigano Bottom Lounge 9/24/04 Interview: Karma E. Omowale |
| Karma: [Smiles] Now that’s a great story! Okay, here’s a quick Speed Round of Questions. Cliff: Sure! Karma: What’s your mantra? Cliff: I like that! Anything that I find myself saying a lot, the one thing I try to live by is 'Diversity not only builds character, it reveals character!'’ So that really the one thing I try to repeat in my head as much as possible. Karma: If you could be a cartoon character, which one would you be? Cliff: I would most definitely be Homer Simpson! [Smiles] Homer’s AWESOME!! That guy lives the life! He always makes it out in the end, Homer! That Homer!! [Laughs] Karma: [Laughs aloud] Favorite bands/musicians of all time, choice of 5? Cliff: Alice Cooper, Pantera, this is a really tough question… I’m sitting here looking through my CD collection going, ‘I could say that one or that one…’ Let’s say Alice Cooper, Pantera, Stevie Ray Vaughn and the Beatles. Karma: How would your worst enemy describe you? Cliff: Humph… As like a big, loud, barking dog [smiles] that just doesn’t shut up until he gets the f… what he wants! [We both laugh hysterically] That’s probably how people best describe me. ‘The dude keeps barking and barking and barking and doesn’t shut the “f” up until you give him what he wants and then he leaves you alone!’ [Laughs smugly] Karma: What’s a nickname your friends would give to you on the fly? Cliff: Pfft! My friends…I can only give you the topic that my friends tease me constantly about, they always call me short! So it could be anything from, ‘Hey Tiny!’ to ‘Little Inferno’ [Laughs] Karma: [Hysterically laughing] Cliff: I mean it could be anything in the world they feel like just coming up with on the fly! But then that’s usually the topic where the funniest taglines come from. Hopefully I’m not giving it all away in this interview doing that, ‘Well what is this dude talking about?’ Karma: That’s great!! [Loud guffaw] Spiritual or religious? Cliff: Spiritual in the sense that there’s definitely something going on and I definitely have no clue what it is! [Laughs] But as long as I try to lead my life the best way I can, and try to be a good person… I mean everybody knows when you’re being a good person and when you’re not. I mean YOU KNOW! Karma: Right from wrong! Cliff: EXACTLY! I think as long as you’re conscious of always trying to do the right thing by people, it comes back to you in the end. And when you don’t, it comes back to you in the end! So I don’t understand how it all works but there’s definitely something going on! Karma: What’s your favorite comfort food? Cliff: Dunkin Donuts coffee! ‘Large French Vanilla Light and sweet with cream, please!’ Karma: Okay! [Smiles] Cliff: [Chuckles] Karma: Favorite sports team(s)? Cliff: The Chicago Bears! Karma: Really? Cliff: Swear to God! And I’m not afraid to sit in Chicago and tell you that I hate being a Chicago Bears fan because the Chicago Bears SUCK! Karma: [Nods head and laughs] Cliff: They suck every year! And I live in New York and I can’t see any games but I love the Chicago Bears and I just wish they were good so ‘Go Lovey Smith!’ and I hope that you do it this year man! Please, please go 500 this year! Karma: And there you go! [Smiles] Favorite TV show? Cliff: Don’t watch a lot of TV but when I do watch TV I find myself watching a lot of BBC and CNN and stuff like that. I try to keep up on World events and just watch what’s going on. But I really like Law & Order. I really like it! Karma: What was the last book you read? Cliff: The last book I finished was Philosophy, The History of Dee Dee Ramone, which was very interesting. I’m reading Hit Men [Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside the Music Business] which is a music industry book about payola and the music industry over the 50’s and the 60’s and the ties through the Mafia. And the next book I have to read is a Hunter S. Thompson book which is on the agenda; I just need to read Hit Men first! Karma: Okay! Cliff: I mean I’ve been waiting for years for me to get my hands on it…so yeah! [Smiles] Karma: Guilty pleasure song or the one CD that no one would ever believe that you own? Cliff: I will say the one guilty pleasure song that people could do without me singing is my Mob Hits CD. Because I am a New York Italian, you see! [Smiles] So I love Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis and all of the Rat Pack. So Mob Hits, I play it all the time. YEAH!! There’s 3 guineas in the band too so that helps! [We both die laughing] So it’s like sauce on Sunday, a little Mob Hits, espresso… Karma: It’s all about the gravy and cooking! [Laughs] Cliff: Exactly!! I’ve been trying to get my mother into making some meatballs for the road. [As he starts to snicker devilishly] Karma: Which band would you commission to do a cover of your favorite song? Cliff: Wow! If I could hear Motörhead playing “Little Red Corvette” [Laughs] Karma: Oh my, that would be a gem! Cliff: That’s who’d I commission!! Someone would say to me, ‘What song would you like…I’d like to hear “Little Red Corvette”’ Karma: First job? Cliff: Pfft! I was a busboy when I was like 13. I mean I don’t even think I was legal to work but they hired me anyway. CHILD LABOR! [Laughs] I had no attention span! Karma: [Laughing] Cliff: [Laughing] They couldn’t possibly expect me to work; what were they thinking? was 12 or 13, for Christ’s sake, my whole life’s ahead of me, I’m not thinking about picking up spoons!! But I worked there; I think I worked there for about 3 days and it taught me nothing, and I got fired...and here I am! Karma: Well it did teach you something; it taught you that you didn’t want to go in to that line of work! [We both laugh] Cliff: Exactly! I’d never make a very good busboy. I don’t have the discipline to be a good busboy! [Laughs] Karma: What was your first car? Cliff: A 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a Rocket 350, red with a white canvas top! [Whistles] Karma: Ahh Cliff: Grandma’s car. My grandma was fast!! [We both laugh hysterically] Grandma was stylin’ back in the 70’s, I think it even had the nice rims on it. I took it and shit that thing up something fierce! That thing was awful by the time I got rid of it. I destroyed it! And that was sad! But life goes on!! [Snickers mischievously] Karma: What was your favorite childhood memory? Cliff: We used to have a house in Pennsylvania and we used to go there on the weekends and that was cool. It was in the woods and I’m a bug woods guy and I think I got that from being out in the woods and stuff when I was a kid and stuff like that. Going out to the cabin and what not so I think that was probably it. Karma: So how many candles, well 31, did you blow out on your birthday and which day? Cliff: July 3rd, 1973. So I’m a Cancer! 7/3/73!! Karma: If not music, then what? Cliff: Something in the music industry. I worked for Universal Records until I left about a week ago to come here; I was a Product Manager for them for 2 years. I worked in the music industry before prior to signing with Road Runner. I just enjoy the business of music and I enjoy business. Ultimately I like performing the most but I definitely aspire to be a label head or a manager or just working in the industry as a product manager again. I just enjoy working with bands and working with good music. And putting the pieces together and watching bands succeed. I don’t think it necessarily a hard formula. I just think a lot of red tape and egos have gotten in the way in the last 5 or 10 years. This record is actually coming out through my own record label, Psycho Drama Records. Karma: Well Congrats! Cliff: [Smiles] Thank you, thank you! It’s just another stepping stone in the evolution of my career. Karma: What’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? Cliff: Where am I going to get my coffee from today? [We both chuckle] That’s probably the first thing I thing I think of is that I wake up and I ponder if there’s a Dunkin Donuts near me and if there’s not then what my Plan B is. Then I usually execute that plan! And that’s the first thing I think about. Karma: Favorite household chore? Cliff: Cleaning dishes! I like cleaning dishes!! Karma: Really? Cliff: Yeah, I don’t mind cleaning dishes. I hate dusting, but I don’t mind cleaning dishes. [Laughing] I don’t know why. Karma: Wow! Cliff: Yeah! [Snickers] It doesn’t bother me! Karma: X-Box or Playstation? Cliff: Oh, I don’t play video games but I have a Playstation 2 for the DVD player. My drummer’s all about the X-Box. So I’ll say band default to X-Box. But for me, I have no real personal preference. Karma: Favorite drink? Cliff: Dunkin Donuts Large Vanilla sweet with cream, please! [We both laugh] Karma: I’m sensing a theme! Cliff: It’s all real simple; I wear it all right there on the sleeve ya know! Karma: If stranded on a desert island, who would you take with you? Cliff: Would it make me sexist and rude to say the hottest girl I could find? Karma: Nope! Cliff: Okay, then the hottest girl I could find! [We both laugh hysterically] I just wanted to make sure. Karma: And you have a choice of 5 CD's to take with you. Cliff: [Mumbles] Shit, this is hard… I’m gonna say Pantera Far Beyond Driven; Alice Cooper Welcome to My Nightmare; I’m gonna say Led Zeppelin Early Days, Latter Days; I’m gonna say Incubus Make Yourself? Is that the name of it? Karma: Yes, it is Cliff: And I’m gonna say the Richard Pryor box set! Now that’s funny!! We bought it for the van…that dude’s a genius!! Karma: Well thank you very much Cliff! I appreciate it! Cliff: Thank you! No problem! It was awesome. END |
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| Click here to access Cliff's in-depth interview this is an excerpt of the original interview |
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