Scaring the Natives

Hellyeah is a rock “supergroup” featuring members of Mudvayne, Pantera, and Nothingface. Their self-titled debut sold 45,000 copies in its first week.

Hell Yeah is a San Diego rock band and the brainchild of singer/guitarist Matt Casper. Casper estimates that he has been operating his band under the name Hell Yeah for four and a half years, and he’s not very fond of the other Hellyeah on Epic Records. “They are retread metal,” says Casper. “It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s easy to confuse them with a dozen other bands out there.” Casper says it’s easy to tell the two bands’ MySpace pages apart: “Our URL is Myspace.com/hellyeahtheband. It’s the one without all the fire and heavy-metal dudes in cowboy hats and stuff.”

Casper does appreciate the other band’s name choice. “Hell Yeah is a fun name, and if it was up to me every band in the world would be called Hell Yeah. It’s an upbeat name, and I could see why someone would want to use it.”

Casper estimates that his Hell Yeah MySpace profile has received in the neighborhood of 5000 extra hits due to the name mix-up — some free exposure for this ferocious local act with Casper on guitar and vocals, Sean Lawson on bass, and Corey Moors on drums. Second guitarist Mike Eckhart left the band this past fall, and Casper states that the band would be more than willing to pick up a replacement if the right guy came along. “We’d like to become a four-man power trio,” says Casper.

Desert-island discs?

1. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane over the Sea. “The mix is so loud, the songs are so perfect, the lyrics are so ponderable…and on any desert island, you have a lot of time for pondering.”

2. The Pixies, Doolittle. “I love this record so much I can actually masturbate to how good it is. Again, very important when one is on a desert island.”

3. The Beatles, White Album. “Like a different band on each tune. Hell, ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’ is seven songs in itself.”

4. Drive Like Jehu, Yank Crime. “To scare the natives on said desert island. Also, an SD band, and this is an SD paper, so I’m playing to the crowd.”

5. Boat Building Bob, How to Build a Boat. “Don’t know if this record is out there, but I sure would want it with me on a desert island.”

Desert-island DVDs?

1. The Godfather. “Perfectly shot, perfectly paced, perfectly acted, perfectly scripted, perfectly over the top. Almost every scene is iconic.”

2. The Godfather: Part 2. “Second verse, same as the first. This time with De Niro, too? Sheeeit. ‘Sheeeit’ is actually a quote from Clay Davis, the corrupt state senator from The Wire. You don’t watch The Wire? Then put down this paper and go spend 60 hours in front of the TV watching it all right now!”

3. Dumb and Dumber. “‘Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?’ Yes, I do, Lloyd Christmas, yes, I do.”

Best gig:

“It was a Tuesday at Scolari’s Office back in 2004. Maybe 20 people there, 5 of whom were there to see us, but by the end of our set we had all the people screaming, ‘That was f***in’ awesome!’ at the end of each tune. Sometimes things just click. Sometimes they clack.”

Most prized possession:

“I’d say ‘my kids,’ but they own me. So it’s easily my guitar, a beat-up Les Paul Special, that I love.”

The smartest thing I ever said was:

“When I auditioned for MTV’s Idiot Savants…1997? During the audition one question was, ‘In the male reproductive system, this gland is “the switch” between semen and urine.’ The other guy buzzed in before me and said, ‘The urethra.’ Wrong! I buzzed in and said, ‘Between his answer and the right one there’s a vas deferens…’ Another one: I once had a coworker say to me, ‘There’s no I in team.’ I responded, with no delay, mind you, ‘Yup. And you can’t spell ‘suck’ without u.”

The most amazing thing I ever saw was:

“Recently I came home to find my wife and son — he’s 2, she’s 29 forever — jamming in the garage. She was on bass, and he was on drums, and he was keeping time — hitting the cymbals and hopping up and down, using all of his weight, all 35 pounds, to press the kick-drum pedal. Corey [Hell Yeah’s drummer]: be warned.”

Carne asada or veggie burrito?

“Carne asada. Through smoking, I show animals my mastery of the fourth element, fire. Through carne asada, I show them that I will kill and eat them.”

Worse versions of a band named Hell Yeah than Hellyeah:

1. Fran Drescher (vocals), Gilbert Gottfried (vocals), Joanna Newsome (vocals), Elmo (vocals), G.W. Bush (dancing fool).

2. Andre the Giant (bass), a female Andre the Giant (guitar), Arnold Schwarzenegger (keytar), Vin Diesel (vocals).

3. Rikki Rockett (drums), Bobby Dall (bass), C.C. DeVille (guitar), Bret Michaels (guitar and vox), the Unabomber (unabombs).