Pinback features the Voltron-like combination of San Diego musicians Rob Crow (Thingy, Remote Action Sequence Project, Optiganally Yours) and A.B. “Zach” Smith (Three Mile Pilot). What originally started out as two friends sitting in a living room recording songs onto a computer has gotten to be much, much more. In the past 5 years Pinback have released three full length albums, been featured on TV's "The OC," and have toured all over the United States and Europe. Once you hear their music it's easy to understand why people are taking notice. Their sound incorporates beautifully layered vocal harmonies, intricate guitar playing, and interesting time signatures. It doesn't hurt that it's incredibly catchy either. Rob Crow and I had dinner at Golden Era, his favorite restaurant (and incidentally mine too), on December 18th, 2003 and this is part of the conversation we had. For more information on Pinback, check out their web site.

Is it hard to find vegan places when you're on the road?
It all depends. The west coast is pretty easy.

How long have you been vegan for?
5 years, 6 years, something like that.

Why did you decide to do that?
It came about because I was quitting things—I always have to quit two things at a time—so I quit drinking and dairy at the same time and I was exercising a lot more than I have been able to lately and I lost tons and tons of weight. I've gained some of it back already, but I got this new exercise bike at home and I've been trying to do 6 miles a day, but I haven't been able to.

Do you read anything or watch TV while you're riding the bike?
I try to watch television.

Are there any good exercise programs to watch?
Something without commercials is preferable, but not something you really want to watch. I don't know, “The Simpsons” or “Futurama” are probably good.

Do you have any hope for the next Star Wars prequel?
Well, there's always hope.

Why do you think the newer ones haven't been as good as the older ones?
I'm trying not to think about it. I figure when they're finally all done I'll be able to think better. All I know is that he already skipped out on— because remember he was supposed to make 9, and then he said, “No, I'm just making six.”

I think what's happened is he's (George Lucas) kind of lost touch with everyone and just isolates himself with all his adopted kids.
Actually yeah, I think that is a lot of it. He only knows what his life is. He hangs out with his kids and they like certain things...So yeah, I quit drinking and I quit dairy on the same day. And I was working at Tum Yeto and I lost all this weight.

What made you want to quit drinking?
I was a big fat guy with no life. So I was totally sober for 4 years, and now I drink again, but I'm not nearly as bad as I was.

And what about quitting the dairy, had you been a vegetarian prior to that?
Yeah, well since I was thrown out of my parent's house. So pretty much the day I turned 18 I guess.

Was that to go on tour?
No. That was one of those, “You're 18, you're out the door buddy.”

What sorts of jobs did you work at after that?
I worked at most of the fast food joints that there are.

Which one was the worst?
I was working at this McDonald's in New Jersey that was one of those places that people would stop at on the way to or from Atlantic City, and I worked the nightshift. It was 5 miles there and 5 miles back. I'd bike in the snow, sometimes getting home at 3 or 4 in the morning.

Did you have to deal with a bunch of drunken people from the casinos?
Yeah and just regular, you know, piney New Jersey weirdos, which I like, but it's hard to have to serve them every day.

What was the best fast food place you worked at?
I think they're all terrible. And then after that I did a whole bunch of stuff. I was a groundskeeper and I worked in lots of health food stores. I worked in 5 or 6 health food stores, but then I'd go on tour and lose my job again.

Where were you a groundskeeper at?
This weird apartment complex in Oceanside, CA . Which at the time had a really, really high crime rate.

Did you have to deal with any Marines?
Yeah, of course. It was really bad with that whole thing. It was like pissed off Marines or gang-bangers or wannabe either of those two things.

There were wannabe Marines?
Yeah, there were. So part of my job was that I had to be there at 6 in the morning and I had to do that leaf blower thing, so everybody hated me. And I was like, “I don't want to be doing this.” I'd have to clean out the places and people would think I was the cops or they'd come out and tell me they were going to shoot me.

How long did you work that job for?
I only worked there for a few months.

So were you playing music all throughout this time?
No. The day I got my first health food store job was the day I started my first band. It was a weird coincidence. The guy I played with was my boss for a day. He was like, “Let's get together.” I had just moved back to San Diego from New Jersey. I had never really had many friends, besides anybody that had a remote interest in the same kinds of music I did. But I ended up meeting my friend Travis (Nelson) and we started “Heavy Vegetable.”

And “Thingy” was after that?
Well while “Heavy Vegetable” was going we started doing “Optiganally Yours” and “Physics,” and after that came “Thingy.”

Is there going to be another “Thingy” album?
Yeah, I gotta finish it. It's on my hard drive. Anyway, the drums are and some of the guitars. It's hard. I'm not used to trying to produce that kind of record.

Have you ever had a marathon songwriting session?
There was one night where I wrote a whole album, but you know, it wasn't that great. It was a “Snot Nose” record. I wrote it one night and then the next morning I recorded it.

What was the “Remote Action Sequence” band about?
It was a band that I had between “Heavy Vegetable” and “Thingy.” But it was totally different, it was all mellow, in that there was no distortion. It was Jason Soares, this guy Matt Lorenz and I. We'd get together and ride our go-karts around.

Did you make your own?
Yeah. All the “3 Mile Pilot” guys and the “Physics” guys, and all the “Remote” guys had go-karts. We'd wear full uniforms and stuff, with fireworks and things like that. Those guys got to do it a lot more than I did, but it was a lot of fun.

Did you come up with personalities for the drivers?
Yeah. I didn't have one. I was just trying to get down the damn thing without killing myself. There was this one kid that built his with computer speakers on the front and would play his own theme music when he went down. That didn't last long.

How did you end up contributing a song to the “Power Puff Girls” soundtrack?
The guy just emailed me one day and I was like, “Power Puff? What's that?” I didn't have cable. So he sent me a videotape and I was all stoked on it and thought it was really cool. I still am stoked on it and like it a lot. “Optiganally Yours” did a theme for the mayor on the show. It was us and Devo and Frank Black and we got to hang out with Devo for the day. We were there to help mix it down but we didn't end up mixing anything. They had an extra optigan lying around, so Pea Hix and I played a song and Mark Mothersbaugh played with us and it was crazy. It's one of those things in my life that I can't really believe happened.

What sorts of comic books do you like?
Anything by Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, Frank Miller, David Mack, Brian K. Vaughan, Alan Moore, David Lapham. Lapham does “Stray Bullets” and that thing is brilliant. The first issue I read I was like, “Wow, this is so much like my life as a child it's crazy.” I also like Harvey Pekar.

Did you see the movie [American Splendor]?
Yeah, it was brilliant. I've watched it like 10 times. I watched it last night.

How does “Lord of the Rings” compare to the original “Star Wars” for you?
Well, the original “Star Wars” is in a different category than all other films. It's like a living, breathing entity.

Can't the same thing be said of “Lord of the Rings” though?
I don't know. I haven't seen the third one yet. So I'm going to find out. But I certainly love it so far. But you know what I really hate? The stupid “Matrix” crap. I can't get through the first one. It's so bad. But then again when I talk about my favorite films, I don't know if I can say “Star Wars” is my favorite film, because it's a different type of thing.

It's not a movie?
It's just different you know. I think “ Vernon, Florida ” is my favorite movie. I've seen it probably more times than “Star Wars.”

That's the Errol Morris one with the quail hunter right?
Turkey hunter. A couple years ago I went to Vernon, Florida and I met the turkey hunter. It was awesome.

Has he changed at all?
He has not changed.

How did you find him?
He was buying a sandwich and we saw him across the street so we ran over. Like the first thing I did in town was to go to city hall to see if anyone was there but it was totally vacant. I mean there were all these things there and there should be people there but nobody was. So I went over to buy some shirts and I had the turkey hunter sign them. And I bought one of his hunting caps.

Were you nervous at all when you saw him?
Oh yeah, petrified. It doesn't take much to make me nervous. He ended up taking us over to his house and he showed us all his stuff. It was awesome.

Did you ask to see it?
No, he was like, “I'm going home, you want to see some stuff?” And he was showing off his bears. He said he had the largest bear in history. And he asked us if we wanted to see it. We had the video camera going, so we got it all on film.

Are there any plans to put that on a tour cd or anything?
I don't know. I had a friend that was working for Errol Morris at the time and he happened to mention that we had the footage and he had us send all our footage over. I edited it down a bit and tried to make a sort of film about it, but there's not much to edit because you want everything. But they never called back. We didn't expect anything to come from that because they're going to put out a DVD finally. So now we show it when friends come over, because we all watch “Vernon , Florida” all the time, again and again and again. So we watch it when we get the jones to see it again.

So you can all quote from the movie?
Oh yeah.

Has the movie influenced the music at all?
Oh yeah, a lot. But I can't think of anything offhand. I can't think of any one instance.

Are there any other films that influence the music?
“The Seventh Seal,” “Dark Star,” “Alien.” See Zach and I don't have too much in common, but we like a few of the same movies and we latch on to that. I don't know if you'd call them influences, it's just what we do.

How did you and Zach meet?
Our bands had always played shows together and we were always at the same places, same friend's houses watching television, playing video games, or working on computers, go-karts.

How long have you been playing music together?
I don't know. I forgot. It still seems like it just started, but I know it's probably been about 5 years. It still seems like it's just a new thing. “Hey, it's that new thing we just started doing.”

Have you been surprised by the success of the band?
Intensely surprised. Because I still do everything else I do, but Pinback is the only thing that has really shown any…people go nuts for that stuff, and I love to play it.

Do you have any theories as to why it was Pinback and not any of your other bands that became popular?
I don't know. It's the most accessible thing I do, that's for sure. One of my things is that when I write I just go crazy usually, “I gotta make it so that nobody likes it, so that only 3 weirdos in a basement can listen to this,” and Zach's like, “I don't like that part.” And I'll be like, “You're probably right.” But all the rest of my stuff is stuff that 3 weirdos in a basement will like.

So does he kind of reign in your weirdness?
We try to reign in any each other.

What do you have to say to him about stuff?
“This is too long” or I don't know. I can't think of any one thing. But I don't even want to start talking about that, because it gets really hard. It's taken us forever to finish this new record.

On “Blue Screen Life” there were a lot of references to water, why was that?
There's always references to water in our stuff because we live by the water, we're always in the water, or trying to get to the beach. It's funny because with Pinback I spend more time with it than I did with any of my full time jobs. So I never have time to go to the beach anymore. I'm just in the studio all the time.

So it's more of a longing to be in the water?
Yes, I'd like to be in the water. I like to bodysurf a lot. I could never afford a surfboard so I never learned how to surf.

Why do you play so fast live as opposed to the album versions?
It all depends on the day you see us. Like tonight we could play half the speed of the record. But the last show we played was the fastest show we've ever played and it was too hard for me. I was like, “Please slow down, please.” But it's mostly because we write and record usually at the same time, so we just figure out tempo and go with it there. When it comes down to standing up and playing it, you get into it and your body gets into it and there's an energy. You just want to be a little peppier, just to keep interested. Sometimes I don't know what we're thinking, we're just going too fast, but usually it's not too fast. If there's a song on the record where we recorded the drums along with it then it's usually around the same tempo live, but if the drums came from other things it can be played at any sort of tempo. Plus it's never going to sound like the cd anyway, and I think it's really fun to re-interpret things.

Pinback was featured on NPR's “All Things Considered” show, on the Napster music program and was also played in Urban Outfitters stores for awhile. How did you feel about all that?
Well, I never self-advertise, I never give people CDs and say, “Check me out!” Not that I mind when people do that to me, it's fine. But I just like people to find out about things on their own. It's always more fun that way than some guy saying, “Check me out dude!” There are so many people who only like certain things because their friends do. And that's not how I want to be interpreted at all. I know all sorts of people who don't know that I do music at all. And I'm stoked on that. If they find out about it, that's fine and if they like it, that's even better. But still, I'm not going to say, “Dude, check me out, I'm playing tonight.” So like when the Napster thing happened it was very exciting for me, because I was a big Napster fan. I'm a downloading maniac, newsgroups and all that thing, bittorrent. NPR was great, because I love NPR. And when it happened I was working at Tum Yeto and I would just listen to NPR on headphones all day long while screening boards. I was already a fan of David Greenberger, the guy who did the review—because of “Duplex Planet,” which is this thing that he does that is brilliant. And I really liked him in “The Band That Would Be King” documentary on Half-Japanese. So I was like, “Wow, it's that guy, and he's talking about my crap. That's amazing! It's too weird.” It's like that Mark Mothersbaugh thing, it's like, “That didn't really happen.” The Urban Outfitters thing was just a label thing. We didn't have anything to do with that. It's not like I've ever been in an Urban Outfitters. I'm sorry to anybody that might be reading this and works at Urban Outfitters that has had to put up with us.

They're probably happy they get to listen to Pinback as opposed to the other stuff.
I don't know. You know, I'm a thrift store guy as far as clothes go, except for socks. I collect Halloween socks.

What about shoes? I've noticed you like the Velcro.
Yeah, I get the $9.95 Wal-Marts. Which is bad to shop at Wal-Mart, but all I need is just a $9.95 pair of shoes. Oh and when I saw Henry the turkey hunter (from “Vernon, Florida ”) he had the same shoes. I was stoked about that.

So at this point do you make enough money off of music to not have to do any other jobs?
Well I make enough money to get by, but I really wish I had the time to have a real job as well, because then it would be a lot more comfortable. I don't make enough money to start a family, which is something I'd like to do very, very soon, because I just got married a little while ago. Back in May. May 4th. As in, “May the 4th be with you.”

So that date was obviously intentional.
Yeah. And it was also the day we met. We met at a Wesley Willis show.

Does your wife like “Star Wars”?
She likes it. It's her decision. She's way into Transformers. I can't get into Transformers, but she goes nuts over them. And Wonder Woman.

Have you ever made her wear her hair like Princess Leia?
Yes.

Photo from Pinback.com