🟥 This article is translated from Russian.

I think Goulash is actually Squid!

AND OTHER REVELATIONS, INCLUDING AN OBSESSION WITH MARKER SNIFFING, PATRICK'S HAIRCUT UNDER KEFAL AND RYAN'S LOVE FOR REPTILES. THE VINES ANSWER YOUR MOST PERPLEXING QUESTIONS.

Our readers have sent in a huge number of questions for the band The Vines, but getting answers to them proved to be quite a challenge. At the bar in central London, where I arranged to meet the musicians, only drummer Hamish Rosser and bassist Patrick Matthews have shown up at the appointed hour. After taking a good dose of sleeping pills after a night party, guitarist Ryan Griffiths and vocalist Craig Nicholls are peacefully asleep in the "Trafalgar" hotel, resembling sleeping babies. They will wake up around ten in the evening.

Two days later, we are heading to Glasgow to attend The Vines concert. This time Patrick is feeling very unwell; he has the flu. "I don't know how the other guys are coping," he says, clutching his stomach. "But I can't go on like this anymore." Patrick tries to get some rest in the tour bus, while Craig, Ryan, and Hamish settle backstage and answer your questions about pirates, astronauts, and broken guitars.

What did the TV host David Letterman say to you when you went wild on stage during his show? (Adam Richmond, via email)

Craig: "He didn't say anything."

Hamish: "He just had a very strange expression on his face. As far as I know, people from American television don't want to invite us to their shows anymore."

How much do the extravagant performances of your vocalist cost you? (Susan Day, Auburn Hills, Michigan)

Craig: "Well, thanks for the compliment, if it was a compliment, that is..."

Hamish: "It doesn't cost us much. Because after each performance, our technician Tony repairs the guitars."

Craig: "For example, if I drop a guitar on the floor and it breaks in half, he can fix it with tape."

Where does Craig get his hair cut, and what does he say to the hairdresser to make them understand how to cut it? (Don Perk, via email)

Craig: "I get my hair cut anywhere because I usually just do it myself in front of a mirror. I don't have to explain anything to anyone."

Hamish: "Just the usual, please. Thanks, mate!" - that's what he says. Ha-ha-ha!"

Craig: "I talk to myself, but not about hair" (starts sucking on his hair ends and continues doing so until the end of the interview).

Craig, what the hell are you doing on a can of Coca-Cola?! (Fay Powers, via email)

Craig: "I didn't give my permission for that, and I hope we'll come up with something to make those cans disappear. Um... I was told not to discuss this story, so there are no cans, and I'm not on them. That's it. The end."

Perm or a haircut with a mullet (when the top is cut short like a man's, and long hair hangs down at the back)? (Alex Lawson, via email)

Craig: "Neither one nor the other. Or both. A perm on top and a big straight mullet at the back. It'll be real hardcore."

Patrick: "Mullet. My hair grows very low, almost on my neck, so it'll be easy for me to grow it out."

Craig, at the Big Day Out festival, you went on stage with a wet spot around your zipper. Did you pee yourself? And if so, why? (Scott McLellan, Adelaide)

Craig: "Um... well, hmm... maybe it was an optical illusion. Or perhaps I spilled coke from a can with my own image on it onto that spot (everyone laughs). I don't remember, mate."

Hamish: "Or maybe it was that joke I told you before going on stage."

What are the best markers to sniff? (Jenny Ward, via email)

Craig: "Blue ones, black ones...But I don't recommend anyone do it. I sniffed markers but never deeply inhaled. Sniff, don't inhale."

Do you sniff solvents too? 

Craig: "Well, you know, I can always stop in time - you gotta give me that. I'm gonna fuckin' kill somebody! No, just kidding, I wouldn't do that shit. I think it's really dumb. Although I used to drink lighter fluid when we played Truth or Dare."

Did you pass out after that?

Craig: "No, I don't remember that happening."

Hamish looks a bit like Crocodile Dundee. Have you ever actually got into the Australian outback? (Hannah and Suzie, via email)

Hamish: "That's a question for Ryan."

Ryan: "No, never got into it."

(All three laugh hysterically)

Hamish: "Oh come on Ryan, tell them about your pets!"

Craig: "Okay, I'll tell them! He's got a fuckin' tiger!"

Ryan: "We've got a white tiger."

Craig: "It's just a baby one."

Hamish: "And how did you like that reptile park you went to?"

Craig: "Hamish, you fuckin'...shut up!"

And how did you like the reptile park?

Ryan: "It was a good day out. A change of scene. The reptile park."

Craig: "I actually think Hamish is like a cross between Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd."

Hamish: "Ryan's our animal expert."

Ryan: "He's the one that drinks the lighter fluid, not Craig!"

Craig: "Hamish takes real 1960s LSD."

Ryan: "And doesn't share it with anyone."

Craig: "The liquid kind. Old school."

What are your views on Britain/America/Australia's involvement in the Iraq war? (I. Wo, Dunfermline)

Craig: "No comment."

Ryan: "No comment too."

Why not?

Hamish: "We're not a political band."

Ryan: "It's not that, it's just..."

Craig (shouting): "ALRIGHT, alright! Okay! I'm a fuckin'...I want to be a politician when I grow up, but until then I try to keep..."

Is it because you're afraid it will hurt your album sales in America? 

Craig (after a pause): "Listen, it's got nothing to do with America or anywhere specific."

Ryan: "It's about poison."

Craig: "Yeah, rat poison killed lots of monkeys, so...I mean, if we go through all that, history will repeat itself, but what's it to me? We have no comment on it because personally, when that bridge comes, we'll cross it. All I can say is it starts with an 'R', and The Beatles had two songs named after it."

Revolution?

Ryan: "Shoo-bop, shoo-bop-bop."

What's your best dance move when you're not on stage? (Sam Cheater, via email)

Craig: "The Twist."

Hamish: "Robert Harvey from The Music is teaching us his moves, so we're dancing like him now."

Patrick: "I've got this huge dent in my head from trying to do the 'fall and spin' move."

If you had to go six months without a body part, would you prefer no arms or no genitals? (Lisa Lunt, via email)

Hamish: "What about having one arm and one ball?"

Craig (building a logical chain): "What do you like better - vampires or monsters? I think goulash is actually squid."

There’s a flood in musicville. (More Vines mass hysterics) You all successfully get away in a helicopter but poor old Jack and Meg White are stuck on their roof that – gasp- is about to collapse. Which one would you save, considering there is only space for one in the helicopter?” (Kate, via email)

Craig: “That’s just a very sophisticated way of saying ‘Who’s your favourite White Stripe – Jack or Meg?’ Oh man. Read the question again. OK, I would jump out and I’d want them both to be saved. How’s that?

Ryan: “I’d take Meg, as primitive as that sounds.”

Hamish: “You’d take Meg? I’m on Jack’s side. We’ll have to thumb-wrestle for it.”

Ryan: “He’s pretty cute.”

Hamish: “On those tight daks – damn!”

Craig: “I’m torn. Let’s just hope there never is a big flood in musicville.”

Ryan: “Let’s just get a boat that we can all fit in.”

Craig: “We’ll get one of each from each band. We’ll get one animal as well.”

Hamish: “We’ll just take an elephant.”

Craig: “No, fock the world. Fock the world, yeah. That’s the point.”

Patrick: “I’d have to say Jack. You’ve got to let the music live.”

Why do you enjoy touring with The Music so much? (Kayley, Nashville)

Craig: "Because we really hate them. Because they have a lot of drugs."

Hamish: "We have to tour with them because they can't get served beer in America without us."

Would you rather be astronauts or pirates? (John Peach, Kent)  

Ryan: "I think about this a lot. Probably an astronaut."

Hamish: "No way, you wouldn't like being an astronaut. You'd explode!"

Craig: "We would enjoy exploring space much more - I mean the musical recording possibilities - than just going on a pointless journey there." 

Hamish: "And how do you think recording would go in zero gravity?"

Craig: "How do you think recording would go if you had a fuckin' parrot on your shoulder?"

What's the weirdest thing about Craig? (Emily, Ontario)

Craig: "That I like the Teletubbies."

Ryan: "That he records bird songs."

Craig: "Yeah, I've become a crazy nature lover."

Patrick: "He nearly got a black belt in karate when he was 15. It was just before we met. He still remembers all the moves and stuff, but now he can only do them really weakly."

At the St Louis show you said twice that you were going to kill Hamish, then actually threw a full can of coke at him full pelt. He only just managed to duck out of the way, a bit further and you could have killed him...

Craig: "We had a little argument backstage after that, but then we drank and everything was fine again."

Hamish: "So what's the question?"

...Do you actually want to kill him? And if so, can I come audition to take his place? (Rob Morrow, St Louis)

(Hamish almost dies laughing)

Ryan: "No one could replace him."

Craig: "If Hamish dies, we'd break up the band. But if the three of us other than Hamish were killed in some freak accident, we'd want him to finish the tour without us."

Hamish (changing the subject): "And where are we playing in Glasgow?"

Craig: "Yeah, we're all floating in glass boats and can see the bottom of the ocean through them. Seeing everything underneath us. It's very interesting. Goulash!"

Craig continues shouting something about goulash for a while, then stops, says "Big thanks to the Chili Peppers for keeping the old school alive," and starts singing "By The Way." Anyway, that was the last question. "We did it!" Craig shouts, and The Vines start to disperse - Craig and Ryan heading back to the hotel, Hamish into town. "That was hard for you, that was hard for us, that was hard for everyone!"

At the end, it turns out Hamish has one more confession to make: "Ryan has reptiles," he says. "Lots of them."