With a set-up like this, it’s a shame the frontman of Say Like The French Say can’t cook. No worries, though; he’s recruited the band’s drummer, David Nicoletti, to cover the culinary portion of the interview.
“This isn’t a family blog, is it?” David asks right off the bat. “Because I might drop an F-bomb.”
“Definitely not a family blog,” I reply.
But this is a full house. Aside from a Man Eater, two dudes, two absent roommates, and a girlfriend, Adam has three dogs. He’d warned me in an email that the pooches would be present; what he didn’t mention was their gymnastic abilities. Within minutes of hellos and hand-shakes, the newest addition to the canine family jumps up and steals my pen and my pad of paper. His next target is my camera.
David intervenes in the nick of time and, after being scolded for pestering me, the dog moves on…to hump one of his own.
“Your dog is totally fucking your other dog in the ass,” David remarks.
“He’s just playing,” Adam says.
Dog one sinks his teeth into dog two.
“That’s not playing! Now he’s biting him!”
“People always project their own behaviors onto animals…” Adam sighs.
“Nah,” David says. “I don’t attack from the side like that.”
“Leave ‘em alone,” Adam says. “If they want to be gay, I support them!”
Aside from the gay dog farm and SLTFS (“slut-fus” as he calls it), Adam has had a potpourri of day jobs. His latest transition was from ESL teacher to manager of Glitz, a formal wear store in the Mall of America.
“You sell, like, prom dresses?” I ask.
“Yup,” he says, not an ounce of self-consciousness evident. “If you ever need a gown…”
I laugh—perhaps a little too loud—at the mere sound of the word “gown”.
“I haven’t worn a gown since…well, probably my wedding!” I say.
And quite honestly, I have no interest in putting one on any time soon. I’m much more interested in disrobing…
I tell Adam that being surrounded by teenage drama queens trying to squeeze into sequined things sounds like hell to me, but he seems to genuinely enjoy what he does…as long as he keeps producing tunes.
“When I was in grad school, I was really depressed and couldn’t figure out why,” he says. “Then I realized it was because I wasn’t making music. That’s my outlet. When a song comes together in a way it didn’t exist before…there’s just no feeling that compares to that.”
Say Like The French Say was a long time coming. Both Adam and David played in other bands for years. When they decided to form this group, they didn’t even do a musical run-through to see how they sounded.
“At this point in the game, it’s all about compatibility,” David says. “It’s not like you go on a date and ask a girl if she has a vagina.”
SLTFS’s sound is Death Cab for Cutie-esque, but the name of the group was stolen from a line in a Fugazi song: Say like the French say: bon soir regret a demain which translates to “Goodnight regret; see you tomorrow.”
“We had 20 pages of band names,” Adam tells me. “What I liked about this one was that it didn’t make me want to puke.”
I ask about their latest album, entitled This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, of which Candystore’s Kent Weis said, “There are no 'duds' on this record. You won’t be disappointed unless, of course, your taste sucks."
That’s quite the endorsement if I do say so myself. But why an album and not the ever-popular EP?
“We did an album because we could,” David says.
Adam’s dad, a voice talent, has his own studio, so there were no time constraints.
“It took four months to record,” Adam says, “But it felt like 16 years. Efficiency is one advantage of an EP, but I like the continuity, the flow, and the experience of albums,” Adam says. “An EP isn’t as cohesive. It’s over before you get into it.”
“So what’s the secret to getting airplay?” I ask. “Because I hear a lot of local bands are having trouble with that.”
“Back flips off the kick drum,” Adam says definitively.
“Or a hat,” David says. “I’ve gotta get a crazy hat.”
“These are the things City Pages doesn’t tell you,” Adam teases.
“Fireworks, maybe?” David continues. “Or dancers?”
“Seriously,” Adam says. “It would probably help if we didn’t swear so much. Someone pointed out to me that every track on our album has profanity in it.”
David isn’t so concerned with getting on the radio. “I gave up the dream of fame at age 18,” he says. “Now I’m just in it for the chicks.”
“I hope Heather doesn’t read this,” Adam says, referring to his drummer’s S.O.
“Girls at shows are just back-ups,” David jokes. “Heather gets it.”
“Speaking of which, I saw on Facebook that you’re in a new relationship,” I say to Adam.
He chuckles. “I really wanted to add and it’s complicated just to be funny, but I didn’t think Amber would appreciate that.”
“Is it complicated?” I ask.
“It’s actually the least complicated relationship I’ve ever been in,” Adam says, slightly surprised to hear himself verbalize that. Then he asks if I can explain why, when high school girls post their relationship status on Facebook, they say they’re married to their BFF’s.
“I didn’t realize that was a trend,” I say. “Then again, I don’t know many high school girls…”
“I do,” Adam says. “But only because of my job. I’m not a creeper!”
“A creeper?” David asks.
“I’ve never heard that, either,” I say. “There must be a story there.”
Of course there is…in the form of a post-performance escapade with a group of girls who were barely legal.
“You guys aren’t creepers, are you?” the ladies asked Adam and his companion en route to their home.
As the story continues, it’s actually Adam who got creeped out.
“This girl had arrows tattooed on her thighs, pointing inward. She said they were a reminder to keep her legs closed.”
(Readers, don’t you dare recommend I do something that drastic!)
“She said she ‘used to be’ a stripper…but she didn’t look old enough to say ‘used to’ about anything.”
The high schoolish hook-up soon went stale.
“They took me and my buddy in the sauna,” Adam says. “We were drinking and…”
(Does anyone else see where this is going?)
“What happened?” I ask.
“Nothing. The girls got sleepy.”
“Of course they did!” I said. “That’s just bad strategy!”
(Never combine heat and booze if you want to get laid.)
Adam is familiar with being left unsatisfied. On a trip to Guatemala (ironically, to learn Spanish in order to teach ESL better), he stayed with a woman who’d promised three meals included in the price of room and board.
“Breakfast was Cocoa Puffs,” Adam says. “Of course, they weren’t called Cocoa Puffs. They were called something crazy.”
“Like El Capitan?” David asks.
“Yeah. El Capitan del Cruncho!” Adam giggles. “That would be a great name for our next album!”
But day after day of cereal, no matter how exotic it sounds, gets boring.
“On the weekends I sang a song so she’d cook pancakes,” Adam beams. “And now I know how to make pancakes. Chocolate chip ones. Amber loves them.”
“Guys and breakfast food,” I say. “Explain this to me.”
“It’s pretty hard to fuck up breakfast,” David says. “Besides, when you wake up at noon, breakfast is the only meal you really have time to cook. I, on the other hand, have a real job, so I also know how to cook dinner.”
No matter what the meal, the dudes agree: bacon can’t be beat.
“My dad is a bacon snob,” Adam says. “He likes it cooked at a certain consistency, almost underdone.”
“I like my bacon crispy, just before it gets burnt,” David says.
I’m on David’s side when it comes to pork; but Adam and I agree on beef. One of his faves is The Bulldog’s Volcano Burger, which is topped with pepper jack cheese and pineapple.
"Avocado is really good on burgers, too," Adam says.
“The only three foods I really don’t like are avocado, onions, and mushrooms,” David says.
“I hate mushrooms, too,” Adam concurs. “They taste like dirt.”
“That’s because they’re a fungus.”
“The other kind of mushrooms, though…” Adam says, a twinkle in his eye. "When I did those, I saw Jesus on a wooden bowl!”
Per their Facebook page, I know SLTFS has hobbies other than drugs, including “Chipotle, PBR, frozen pizza, and a few different musical instruments. We are also interested in other things. Just not as much.”
Having covered music and booze, it’s time to get cooking.
David slices and sautés chicken and red pepper as practiced as though he could do it in his sleep. Adam observes.
“Why don’t you put the pasta in?” David suggests.
Mammoth sized pause. Adam peers into the pot of boiling water, utterly stumped. He has as much experience with a box of Barilla as I do with a sound board…which is to say: none.
“Read the directions,” David says.
Adam does: “Prepare pasta according to directions.”
After we all have a chuckle about the absurdity of the instructions, Adam continues reading and decides 11 minutes should do it.
“See?” Adam says triumphantly. “I can fucking cook!”
Or fuck-up cooking…as evidenced who-knows-how-many minutes later.
“How do you like your pasta?” David asks.
“Al dente, of course,” Adam says.
“How long has it been boiling?” David asks.
“Um…”
“You didn’t set a timer?”
“No…”
David shakes his head in a silent “I told you so” motion, removes the pot from heat, and drains the pasta.
“I feel like it needs more garlic,” David says as he transfers the skillet’s contents to the pasta pot.
“If this is a ‘seal the deal’ meal,” I say, “You might not want too much garlic.”
“I have garlic powder…” Adam says. “But it’s chunky…”
David and I are borderline disgusted.
“I have a garlic press…” Adam offers.
“Do you even know how to use it?” I ask.
Of course he doesn’t. (My latest theory—that men who have lots of fancy cooking equipment are trying to compensate for culinary ignorance—is confirmed.)
The least Adam can do is stir.
“I like wooden spoons,” he tells me. “I was paddled with them as a kid.”
As though on cue, Adam’s girlfriend Amber arrives. Thus far in the Rockstar Guest Chef series, Man Eater has always been the only female in attendance (excluding children and animals). Sitting at the table as a foursome—boy, girl, boy, girl—should feel weird. But it doesn’t. It feels like…family.
“Good job on the chicken,” Adam compliments the chef. “You wouldn’t believe how many guys I know who dry out their chicken.”
“You want it to be floppy,” David says. “You know when it’s ready when if, say, you threw it against the wall, it stuck.”
“I thought you were going to say that if you threw against somebody, it’d stick,” Adam says.
“That would be a good test, too,” I say.
“And a relationship saver!” Adam says. “Because if you threw chicken at your partner in the middle of a fight, two things would happen: either you’d start laughing or you’d get killed.”
“More?” David asks everyone.
“More chicken,” Adam answers.
“You’re such a demanding diner. I can’t take you anywhere!”
“We didn’t go anywhere,” Adam sasses back. Then he looks at me. “Forgive my word vomit. I am such an asshole.”
And with that, Adam goes to the kitchen for seconds…but doesn’t return to the table. Eventually we all stand up to clear our dishes…and there’s Adam, standing over the almost-empty pot with a ladle in one hand, licking the fingertips of the other.
“Don’t come in here!” he shrieks.
“Wait,” David says, pointing at Adam. “Is your chin sweating?”
Adam wipes away the shiny spot.
“No,” he says bashfully. “It’s oil from the pasta.”
This is when I laugh so hard I almost piss my pants. But first, I take a picture.
“Put that in your blog and eat it!” Adam says.
Touché.
***
Visit Say Like The French Say on their MySpace page for upcoming performances and view the photo album of our evening on Man Eater's Facebook page.
***
FRENCH ME PASTA
Ingredients
1 box penne pasta
12 ounces chicken breast, cubed
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 whole red pepper, sliced
1 cup fresh baby spinach
Dash each salt and pepper
1 tablespoon Newman’s Own sun-dried tomato salad dressing
¾ cup parmesan cheese, shredded
Method
• Prepare pasta according to package directions. :) Drain and return to pan. Set aside.
• Sprinkle chicken with Italian seasoning and paprika.
• In large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add minced garlic and chicken.
• Sauté chicken just until juices run clear. Add pepper and spinach to skillet; sauté additional 2 minutes.
• Transfer chicken and vegetables to pasta pan. Stir. Add salt, pepper, salad dressing, and cheese; stir until cheese melts.
• Serve hot, family style; then get hot, doggy style.
0 comments:
Post a Comment