Cheetah Chrome is one of the quintessential figures of punk rock. This former Dead Boy guitar god who's behind such classics as "Sonic Reducer," "Ain't Nothin' To Do" and "Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth," Chrome has seen it all - the good, the bad and the ugly. With the recent release of the Rocket From The Tombs recording, last year's Alive in Detroit record and the numerous projects he dips his paws in - everything has been coming up Cheetah.

Here are some excerpts from the conversation we shared. Sorry, you don't get to read all of it, some things are just none of your damn business. But pay attention kiddies - you may learn something from one of the true heroes of rock. (click here for more …)

Robyn: I just heard the Rocket From The Tomb release.
Cheetah Chrome: Yeah, what did you think of it?
Robyn: Actually, it's good!
Cheetah Chrome: I love it.
Robyn: It was very rough, but …
Cheetah Chrome: Well that's the point, it was a rehearsal.
Robyn: That's what's so amazing about it, it was a rehearsal. I think right now in the scene of rock and roll, it's the perfect time to have it released.
Cheetah Chrome: It seems like it's fighting against a worse situation than Rockets was as far as rock and roll's concerned [laughing]. Not only do we have to save it from boredom, we have to save it from rap - Limp Bizkit. Back then in the early 70s, it was much more creative than you could ever aspire to be now. We had so many good bands and now it's the deadest period I've ever seen and to have the first release come out now. I hope it actually does some good.
Robyn: What are you working on now?
Cheetah Chrome: I'm flying out to LA tomorrow to see Dee Dee [Ramone] and Paul Kostabi. We're recording with False Alarm. Oh man, they're great. Fat Mike from NOFX started out with them. Dee Dee and Paul have been jamming with them and writing songs. They're just a great band. They sent me their demo I put it on and was thinking, "oh, this is one of those tapes you get" and it was the best friggin' thing I've heard in years. So the silver tongued devils that they are, they got me out there and I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to get out there and play.
Robyn: Who else are you playing with?
Cheetah Chrome: I've got the Cheetah Chrome Band. Pat Albert on guitar, Matt Fox on drums and Andy Zachery on bass. Pat and Matt are from a band down here called Trauma Team that's doing very well. Matt, I think, played with Kenny Wayne Sheppard for a bit, a few gigs. Andy's with a band called the Doom Daddies out of Nashville. They have a CD out. We've been together for about a year. I have my new CD out now, the live one. I also have a new track out on the Vicious Kitten compilation. I don't know what happened to the U.S. version of the compilation, but it didn't go as good as it should have gone. I have a song on that, the real title of the song is "Love Song to Death," but on that it's called "Tomorrow's Gonna Come" [we both start laughing]. At least they got the band name right. Vicious Kitten has got a lot of integrity. They really plug along and get some good bands out there and try to keep the spirit alive right, one of the few bastions of it. And to have the ball dropped like that kind of sucks.
I'm getting ready to go in the studio and do a studio album. I have a couple of labels, they're independents, that I want to do it with. But I have a bunch of people behind me and it's gonna be good. One person playing on it might be Leo Lyons from Ten Years After. And I have a bunch of buddies from Cleveland who are engineers and producers who want to do it and are starting up a new thing, so it's gonna be cool. I live here in Nashville and we have the best studios in the world.
Robyn: What are your feelings on the Ramones and the Talking Heads being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Cheetah Chrome: The Ramones…oh man, I wish you hadn't asked me this. The Ramones deserve it. The Talking Heads - record sales is all I can say. I like the Talking Heads real well as people, I think they are some of the nicest people I ever met in my whole fucking life, but I never liked their band. That's just the truth and I'd say that to their face. They knew that then, and they can know that now. I like them a lot as people, but the band left me cold, although, it was some of the more interesting music on the radio in the 80s. It wasn't anything I would aspire to play, understand or even want to play.
Robyn: Do you think punk has its place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Considering it's quite the contradiction to what punk actually stood for?
Cheetah Chrome: Yeah I do because punk changed it, it changed rock and roll and it changed for a reason. We saw it going stale and we rebelled against that. Anything that changed rock and roll does have a place in the hall of fame.
Robyn: What is the weirdest rumor you ever heard about yourself?
Cheetah Chrome: That I was dead. [starts laughing like hell] I read it on the Internet. I saw my name printed there.
Robyn: What was that in?
Cheetah Chrome: It was some paper from New York, and I was in the dead rock stars column.
Robyn: Do you know how that started?
Cheetah Chrome: I have no idea, I just e-mailed the guy and told him I wasn't. He yanked that off real quick. Hands down, that was the weirdest. I printed it out, I'm thinking of framing it.
Robyn: How accurate was Please Kill Me?
Cheetah Chrome: It's as accurate as a book can be, where you have people who ain't there telling stories as if they were. A lot of backstabbing, a lot of artistic license. But, overall, it's accurate. The incidents in Please Kill Me happened, but a lot of it is how you heard it. The stories that I know are true, but the person who was telling the story in the book wasn't there, [laughs] and the facts were distorted. So no, it's not that accurate. Leggs just sat down with me and recorded what I said. My parts, to my recollection, are accurate. Any of the stuff I said, happened, I was there. Now, there's some other people in the book I'm not too sure about. Some being members of my own band, that I know for a fact wasn't there. Leggs didn't lead you on or try to lead you down the primrose path and get you to say shit or make up something for the bucks - there were no bucks involved. He had good questions. A lot of the funnier shit got left out of the book.
Robyn: There seems to be this huge resurgence of early punk rock merchandise, anything you can basically slap a logo on. So when I'm at a show and I see a kid with a Dead Boys T-shirt on, who makes the money off that?
Cheetah Chrome: It depends on what date your talking about…[laughs]…that's being worked out as we speak. Very soon the Dead Boys will be making all the money. Hundreds of dollars can be made from our T-shirts, we are finally grabbing back our merchandise. All the bootlegs will be off ebay.
Robyn: What's your take on the punk scene today compared to the late 70s?
Cheetah Chrome: You start out with money now. [laughs] Its a bunch of rich kids. Blink 182 is great without the singing, ya know. Green Day is really good. We're talking about today, right? Well there is nobody, really. The producers have taken over and the band doesn't have a chance. The Offspring probably has the most integrity of all the bands out there now since Nirvana's not around. I have to say the Offspring are commercial as hell, but they are better than anybody else. I like Claw Hammer. Where's their contract?
Robyn: How do you feel, now that you are older and wiser, and look back on the scene that was punk rock.
Cheetah Chrome: I think it was great. I think you need another one just like it. With Bush in the fuckin' White House, they are planning on making a war just for money and the music sucks. If you ever had hell to raise, now is the time to do it. Show your ass, man. Give them hell. They all deserve it. The world deserves it. Stand up and wave your freak flag, baby.
Robyn: Do you think the kids of today have it in them?
Cheetah Chrome: If they can fuckin' log off long enough they do.
Robyn: We didn't have that distraction.
Cheetah Chrome: Exactly. That has to be the biggest distraction in the world. If they quit looking at titties and get out and do something.
Robyn: I hope they take your advice.
Cheetah Chrome: It would be nice.
Robyn: What are your plans for the future?
Cheetah Chrome: I've got some gigs coming up in Detroit and Chicago New York and Boston. Play the guitar and do my thing - that's it, making music.
Robyn: Do you have any advice for those just starting out in the rock and roll world?
Cheetah Chrome: Yeah, go the other way kid - go the other way! [laughs] Naww….learn to play your fucking guitar, clothes don't make you cool, Limp Bizkit sucks, and that's it.