Getting them all into one place to do the interview would take a little more effort. Phil, the band's frontman/keyboardist/bassist, etc. was schmoozing the night away in another area when the interview began. Zany rockstar antics, just the way it should be. It turned out cool though, because Nate and Sebastian informed the Slug a little bit about how Trans Am likes to party. Soon after the interview was conducted, a good time would be had by all on this Friday night at Emo's. After stumbling through the thick crowds, clutching our drinks and sweating ur asses off as we began our alcohol-fueled, pseudo-journalistic, high-powered turbo ride into oblivion. Our first stop on this trek of the sonic was the sound barrage known as Pansonic. Feeling the need to prove that they weren't just a two-bit Kraftwerk of the late nineties, they decided to disable the crowd mentally with crushing sound waves, accompanied by a reverberating black image which twisted and turned with the loud noise.

Pansonic

"Klaus, let's vibrate the ceiling until their petty little American ears bleed."

The highlight of the show had to be when they figured out the exact harmonic to manipulate the vibrating tin roof, making it another instrument all it's own. White noise genius. I would have enjoyed them a lot more if they had lost their smug European facial expressions which made me think they may break out into a Sprockets routine at any moment, while standing behind their Berlin Wall of equipment. These guys are rumored to have cleared out a place one night after vibrating the crowd into actually shitting themselves. There was a rush on the restroom lines. Tonight, it wouldn't be long before people up front were clutching their heads and wondering what kind of experiment was being conducted on their meek human bodies. The thunder rolled on despite the agony of the crowd. The next act would be the Champs, a long lost heavy metal throw-back from sometime back in the mid-eighties, minus the falsetto vocals (of course, I guess that would be going too far). Song after song of high pitched guitar solos in standard hard rock time proved to be what some are now calling "ass-metal" (Ass Metal - noun - an object, person, or lifestyle that may be deemed to be of the era of the "hair-blowing-in-the-fan, one-foot-on-the-monitor, lip-snarling" guitar solos). I could just envision my worst heavy metal nightmare, prepubescent, zit-faced yokels adorned in British flag short-shorts and cut-off baseball tees, yapping about same chick named Brandy who works at the DQ. The novelty wore off though halfway through the set, proving that it takes more than just a bedroom stereo knowledge of glam metal, butressed by a few years of classical lessons to be a fucking rock star. Like Tommy Lee's manager used to say, "More stick spins! More stick spins!!!"

Salt for Slugs: How's the new record and tour going?
Sebastian: Fucking kick-ass. We've been on this tour now for two weeks and a couple of days. We're going to Europe in September, and Australia and New Zealand in June, and Hawaii. We've toured Europe three times already.
SFS: How do they like you guys in Europe?
Nathan: They don't.
Sebastian: They do, but first of all, there are less people in numbers than there are at shows here, and second of all, the crowds aren't rowdy. They're like kind of intellectual and quiet.
>SFS: So, like a lot of the SFS crew, you guys are from Washington, DC?
Sebastian: Bethesda, Maryland. We all grew up in the same area.
SFS: Really, what high school did you guys go to?
Sebastian: They went to Walt Whitman. I went to high school in Argentina.