SHANNON SAINT RYAN
SPEAKS TO ROCKMONTHLY ABOUT THE
T4 PROJECT AND "MAD COW NINJA MOVIE"
RockMonthly was happy to chat it up with Shannon about the T4 Project, life, and his new film project, "Mad Cow Ninja Movie"...really.
SSR: I had no idea about Punk; I was completely isolated from it. The closest I got growing up was going to festivals and there would be groupies there for Punk bands that I had no idea who they were. I thought they were scary motherfuckers because where I grew up, you’d get beat up for wearing the wrong thing. You can only imagine I thought these people were insane, and they’d travel around in groups, like gangs and it was just a shitty area where I grew up. My first exposure to Punks was that they were insane and that they were all skinheads or something. It wasn’t until I was leaving school…in England you leave school when you’re about 16, but it wasn’t until then when I came to America that I met these two guys and they said, “Oh, you can play the drums?!” I bought a kit when I came out here and banged around on it something awful. They asked if I wanted to do this talent show and they gave me a couple CD’s, one was the Circle Jerks CD and a Pennywise CD. I took it home and listened to it and just thought it was dreadful; I couldn’t understand a fucking word they were saying and at least the singer for Pennywise was attempting to sing, but there was something about it. I started looking though the liner notes and I thought, wow, lyrics that actually have a thought behind it! Social, political…that was what got me because I grew up on bubble-gum shit and what was on the radio, wearing the school uniform, which is what everyone else was wearing. So going to school in the States, there was no uniform, which almost was encouraging you to be an individual. To me that was life changing and I feel really lucky to have been exposed to it. It’s funny that life comes full circle; putting together this record…you know, Circle Jerks and Pennywise are on there and the guy that introduced me to it, Mike, he plays guest bass on it, and he really changed my life.
RM: Tell me about the story behind the T4 Project?
SSR: It’s kind of an everyday story; I wanted to have a guy and a girl, and just looking at the structure of the story begins and ends. A good story has a beginning, middle, and end, and zoom in on those individual parts and expand it. The beginning, break it up into two sections, the middle, break it up into two sections, and you keep going. There’s a basic idea that you lay out, zoom in and expand. I was always knocking around this idea of the “Virus” and it must have been in Biology class that I learned about the T4 Virus and how it works; much like other viruses but I just thought, “Geez, this is a great metaphor to why all be old, and a symbol of youth”. For years it was in my mind, in artwork and in musical projects I was doing and had the T4 theme running through it. It wasn’t until I got off a U.S. tour with a band I was out with and I had got back to L.A. and I had been evicted and I didn’t have a job. It’s too hard to keep a job when you’re out on tour so much. It was an absolute low point for me, really scary. So I said, “Fuck it!” I think I’m finally going to tell the story of this virus and do something different and something that really feels good.
RM: How do you explain the sound of the album, especially with such an eclectic bunch of musicians, ranging 2 generations of music?
SSR: They all stand alone with their own style and quality. You know I thought of it like a kid thinking “what would be the ultimate rhythm section?” I thought Subhuman’s, Bad Religion, and I love the bass and the drums of the Subhuman’s. The idea of putting those two beats together. It was great talking with Tony from the Buzzcock’s and really went through a bunch of stuff, with the idea of it not being 4 or 5 dudes in a band versus getting a dozen people, more of a community, that way I can look at it as being you know drums; you’ve got the solid driving beat of Subhuman’s and the other drummer Spike, he’s a bit of a technical wizard behind the kit. So you have two very unique styles. For the bass you’ve got Bad Religion who’s got that tone and Tony from the Buzzcock’s who’s got that Rickenbacher, that really edgy, teeth-tone. I created a template, kind of like musical chairs, everyone comes in and does a few songs but it rotates so that you play with everyone on the album that way it’s consistent and each song changes shape a little bit with everyone’s own style. When Greg steps in on guitar, he’s got those bluesy bend beat on the upper string and I just went nuts. I was like a kid because I was there engineering the session and he was just putting down those licks and thinking “Whoa!! This is crazy!” I grew up on his stuff and then collaborating on this with him it’s almost like anything is possible, you’ve just got to work your butt off. You can do it if your intentions are right. It’s great because this whole thing has given me a lot more confidence and looking at the next project I’ve got in line looking at it like, yeah, it make take me a couple years to do it but you’ll get through. That whole thing rubs off on other people too and just hope it inspires other people to do the same thing. It ain’t a miracle, it’s just about being persistent with it. Somewhere along the lines of where stop focusing on what our dreams are, we loose site in the working-world and what’s going on.
RM: What is the overall meaning of the album to you?
SSR: For me, it’s about thinking before you act, not catching the “virus” and all that. You know, you may get cut off in traffic…not taking the usual hotheaded approach and response to something because you never know. Someone may cut you off in traffic because he’s rushing his wife to the hospital, you just don’t know. Just think before you act. It’s a world to escape in; people should it take it so literally. I think music has become…kind of selfish in a way, with all the digital stuff, you may not even know what a band looks like anymore. I think work is kind of a rebellion against that, looking at an album as a whole piece of artwork. Put the headphones on and spend an hour in this other world; people are like Zombies, the commercials are tongue-in-cheek, but it’s an escape from reality, like watching a good movie that moves you. I think it’s different for everyone but it’s an escape, listen to it. I think it took a long time but I think it shows. You know, when you’re done with a record you have that feeling like “Oh shit! I don’t think I can listen for that for a while” but if I hear a song from the record I feel good, I feel really good about this record and it captured a moment in time, and no one can take that away from you.
RM: What are you working on now?
SSR: I’ve got two projects right now, one of which is a music one and it’s just great. It will be another community thing, working with artists and musicians, and even some kids. I almost got a gig with some kids…probably about…13 years back I was doing some stuff for this show, an art show that was going to be on TV, and I went out and auditioned to be one of the hosts. I was always interested in doing stuff in film and TV, and I thought this would be great, it will team me up with some girls, I’ll get to play with goop and have fun with a bunch of kids. I got called back, then a 3rd call back, and then down to the screen test to see if you have the right chemistry with the other people. I thought, “Shit, down from a hundred people I’m one of the three people left!” At the time, the company that I was working with was kind of in a shit-hole with the Screen Actors Guild for child labor laws and then…I got the gig! But I had to turn it down, and that was a really hard decision ‘cause I would’ve really liked to have done that. I don’t regret it but I know I missed the opportunity to do something positive, but in a way, bringing the musicians and artists all together is just fucking great, and I can hardly wait to roll out with that.
The other project I’m working on is I wrote a dark comedy about mad-cow disease and they come to America and become Ninja’s (laughs). It got picked up; the rights had been bought to it so it’s been optioned and that’s where the producer picks up the rights and shops it around to different studios. All the studios are reading it laughing their asses off and finding out it’s a dark comedy about the food industry; “You can’t do that! You can’t write a dark comedy about the food industry!” Well, why not? I’m at the same point where I was at the beginning of the T4 Project; you have an idea and when I was talking to labels about it they said, “you can’t do this”, “ how are you going to promote and tour this?” And of course you have to keep a roof over your head and be careful with your choices but in the end we just said fuck it, and we did it anyway. We’re at the same point with this. It’s called “Mad Cow Ninja Movie” and we’ve already got a crew and assembly for it because they believe in this. One of the guys that worked on “Apocalypse Now”, a special effects guy that worked on “The Green Mile”, and another guy that worked on “Apt Pupil” and “Crash” all these heavy hitters and it’s crazy! It’s really nice to be able to get the support from all these individuals and they’re saying that they know that Hollywood may not be into this because it might piss off a few of their sponsors but we just formed it; with all our friends and family. Can you imagine if you eat meat if you were a vegetarian or vegan, the industry is playing Russian Roulette with what’s at the end of our forks. It’s not necessary and it’s dangerous. Well, here’s my social commentary and it is that I know people watch like heavy hitting stuff like documentaries, and it’s hard to watch, especially with all the shit that’s going on in our lives, let alone watching something that’s going to bum us out even more. So my approach to this was to have a laugh with it, to make a dark comedy of it and it’s ridiculous; Mad Cow and Ninja’s. But at the end of it you’ll go “whoa!” it’s a thought piece and you can make up your own mind about stuff but I think it’s an important thing to have out there.
There’s this guy named Howard Lyman who was a cattle rancher for 14 years and it’s funny…he went vegan! He’d had enough of it and actually went on Oprah because mad-cow came out in England where people started dying from it and that’s what I saw of it because I grew up around it. So seeing the same thing and going “Jesus Christ! We’re doing the same thing out here” and having seen it in the UK and it was a disaster. The only reason we’re really doing it is because of money. It’s not necessary, there’s an alternative. So here’s this guy that goes on Oprah and in the end of getting the shit sued out of him, because of the food laws that came out in 13 states which basically states, if you criticize the food industry, we can sue your pants off. So he got dragged out to court for about two years and thanks to Freedom Of Speech, Howard Lyman and Oprah Winfrey won! It was a great day. Then Oprah came out of the courtroom, all these microphones were shoved in her face and someone said “Oprah, do you have anything to say?” and she said, “Yep…Freedom of Speech! And I will never eat a burger again.” But of course when it played on the news that night “Oprah Winfrey wins case; do you have anything to say about it? ‘Yep…Freedom Of Speech!” Cut. Next clip.
You know I recently tried to give blood and they turned me down…because I’m British! Why is it that if we’re so worried about Mad Cow disease, that we’re directly feeding cows blood, the little baby cows, we’re putting it into their feed. It’s stupid. So I don’t give a fuck if you’re a vegetarian or if you’re a meat eater; it’s all about playing Russian Roulette at the end of your fork.
So I had to track this guy down; I tracked down Howard Lyman and told him that I was doing a dark comedy and he was fantastic. We hung around and we exchanged numbers and he said “Call me for anything you need and I’ll over see your script and make sure they’re based on fact” and that was that. It’s amazing you know; all you have to do is ask. I don’t know why it is in life that at some point we get the shit scared out of us and we’re afraid that things aren’t possible. We all grow up wanting to be a fireman or have dreams of being a doctor and at some point of being young and growing older, what was black and white is now all gray. I don’t regret it…it’s a lot of work. If you work at McDonald’s it’s a lot of work at the end of the day but I’m lucky and I get to work on what I’m passionate about. I feel like I’m doing something positive and I’ll keep it going.