 "Photo: Greg Elliott")
Booze, girls and better clothes than Wayne Newton, The Small Stars are bringing the Reno lounge scene to Austin.
Imported from Reno due to questionable circumstances, The Small Stars have spent the past year boozin', usin' and cruisin' the Austin music scene. The Daily Texan ran up a bar tab and sat down with band members Guy Fantasy and Buddy Llamas, who flatly deny any resemblance to Miles Zuniga and Jeff Groves, along with their manager Vic Odin (supposably for legal reasons) for the first ever installment of the "Drinks With" interview series.
Daily Texan: Vic, I noticed your accent, where exactly are you from?
Vic Odin: Birmingham, England.
DT: Did you manage any bands in England?
VO: I managed this band called Last Boy on the Block. It was a boy band. They were kind of like N'Sync.
Guy Fantasy: All of the guys in the band were 35.
VO: They were rehashed, but they were great. They had a real thing going.
Buddy Llamas: I think some of the guys from New Edition were in that band.
VO: Completely broke after that one.
DT: Is that what brought you to America?
VO: You ever heard that song, "Band On the Run," think about "Manager On the Run." And so I ended up in Reno and stumbled into this dirty club and Guy Fantasy was there hosting his nightly events.
DT: What was the show like in Reno?
GF: It was cool, a lot of the working girls would come down, and gambling is legal there...
DT: How long were the shows?
GF: About six hours. We were in this little place tucked behind the casino called the discovery room at Harrah's. we were supposed to go from 9 to 3 am but it would vary. That's were we really learned how to entertain people because we had to cover such a huge amount of time and we only really knew about three songs.
BL: It is a good thing they pump so much oxygen into those casinos.
VO: I managed to pump a lot of extra things in there too.
DT: Which lounge singer are you hoping to get a leg up on?
GF: It's not really to sing better than them, it's to live better than them.
BL: To make more money
GF: We'd have to set our sights pretty low. I can't even think of a lounge singer... maybe Mel Torme? We'd probably never hit his level.
BL: He wrote the Christmas Song.
GF: How are we going to top that.
VO: Lou Glam and Foreigner have a new show in Vegas.
BL: Celine Dion plays in Vegas now.
GF: Does Wayne Newton have any kids that are performing?
BL: I think Juice Newton is performing.
GF: Yeah, we could be better than Juice Newton.
DT: Which member of the band is the biggest booze-hound?
GF: In The Small Stars that's pretty tough, its like the NBA.
BL: We may be The Small Stars, but in that arena, we are large stars.
DT: What's the biggest bar tab you have run in Austin?
GF: 300 bucks.
DT: 300 bucks?
GF: Yeah, we just don't like to drink Cuervo. It's gotta be, like, Patron...
BL: I don't know how that got started. How did we become such an aficionado low-rent band.
GF: When your circumstances are so meager, the only true chance you get to be a star is at the bar.
DT: Did you have to pay for the drinks in Reno?
GF: You see in Reno the drinks were free. They would pawn it off on the gamblers.
BL: The rubes.
GF: Basically tourists from Iowa were buying our drinks
BL: In Austin, people generally don't want to pay you to play music
DT: What kind of side jobs do you take to make ends meet?
GF: I think one of our guys is an associate professor at Austin Community College. They gave him a chair and told him to go away.
BL: We never found out what he did with that chair...
DT: I noticed that the band is very fashionably conscious, now that you are not in Reno, where do you guys get your clothes?
BL: We have a huge steamer trunk
VO: You see in Reno, people on the street would offer you clothes.
BL: Or you could find some people that just died. a lot of good clothes.
GF: We'd hang around funerals.
VO: Free booze and food
GF: It's actually a really good scene
BL: ou can't beat it. best clothes you could get.
GF: Plus when your at a funeral, no one's going to ask you if you belong there.
DT: That would be impolite
BL: Then you go to the wake, there's more food.
GF: And possibly clothes. "where's your bedroom?"
BL: And then you have a new suit.
DT: If things ever get to heavy in Austin, what kind of car would you take to get south of the border?
GF: The thing about mexico is that you don't want anything flashy. you want the most durable piece of shit car.
BL: Something you can work on.
GF: Pre-1980
VO: Something that can take leaded gas. 1970 VW bus.
BL: That's not a bad car.
GF: I'd like to arrive in style. Lincoln Continental.
BL: Or a Cutlass, Oldsmobile. Something about 18 feet long that you could fit several guys comfortably in the back seat.
GF: And you need a big trunk, in case you want to come back and bring some of your new friends along.
VO: That would fund the trip.
DT: According to "I Make Music Into Money," Vic seems to have questionable financial practises. How do you keep him honest?
GF: I think he still uses an abicus to do our books.
VO: I liked you a lot before the interview started. Let's move on to the next question.
DT: Who are some of the Austin bands that have caught your eye?
VO: I really like that Dale Watson. He has really nice hair.
BL: I really like those bands that have girls in them.
DT: Really?
BL: Do you know any of those bands with girls in them?
DT: Can we talk about Fastball for a second?
GF: Sure.
DT: Do you guys still stay in contact with them? I heard that you were kind of close.
GF: We send them Christmas cards. Whenever we need money.
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