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KILLER
ROBOTS ORLANDO CITYBEAT INTERVIEW
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In may of 2006 Killer Robots guitarist Samuel Williams and bassist Sam Gaffin sit-down with Tod Caviness of Orlando Citybeat to talk about the band. Q & A: Killer Robots By Tod Caviness
I was recently able to sit down over an oilcan cocktail with Gaffin and the Robots' lead guitarist / battle strategist Strobo (aka Samuel Williams). OCB: The Killer Robots: here to save the world or destroy it? Gaffin: Good question. We don't know. I think we were sent here to destroy it, but we're so confused by the world and distracted by the many … Williams: Distractions. Gaffin: … the many distractions of earth life. We're confused by our mission. Williams: Actually, we crashed here. Gaffin: That's true, we did crash here. Williams: We actually stole a ship … OCB: You stole that ship? Gaffin: Well, we had to make a beer run. Williams: We've been accused of some debauchery. Gaffin: All lies! OCB: Standard renegade robot stuff. And yet you guys have a love song (“Love Ditty”). Explain yourselves. Gaffin: We do have a love song. Williams: Actually, that was Max's idea. (aka Mike McGowan, keyboards / aerial recon) He was singing about this Pleasurebot 5000, (Natalie Cacace) who is a female mechanized killing machine. She'll give you the best night of your life and then kill you afterwards. No man can resist her. No robot can resist her. OCB: And I can't help but notice she's not weighed down at all (by armor). I keep wondering why you don't have her play the instruments. It would seem with the costumes, you need the guitars to be about two stories high. Williams: Actually, we designed each costume with playability in mind. We each designed and made our own costume to accommodate our instruments and altered them as time went on. Because we rushed like crazy to have these things done for Megacon 2004 and I mean, we were working up to the last minute to have them ready. Gaffin: We were in the bathroom at Megacon just trying to put this costume on, and the little person that played Twiki (from Buck Rogers) ran in and said, “This is worse than my dressing room!” Williams: And then the guy that does the voice for Space Ghost (George Lowe) came in while Twiki was in there and had this conversation while we were getting dressed. Gaffin: Very surreal. OCB: I don't know that I'd want to be less than two urinals from George Lowe. You guys find that you get a good response at the conventions? Gaffin: Outrageous. We went to the San Diego Comic Con and could barely move, there were so many people taking pictures. Gene Simmons got up from his lunch and came over with his camera crew to interview us. We forgot to tell him who we were … Williams: We were overwhelmed when Gene Simmons came over. Gaffin: He was still chewing his food. OCB: God knows what the captions under you read. But back to the show: from what I've heard, guys are awfully hard on your equipment some of the time. Gaffin: Really? Williams: Trog (aka Charles Harris, drummer / berserker) is. Gaffin: We bought a little Toys R' Us drum kit for the first show a year ago just so he could start hitting it in the beginning. It lasted pretty long, it's just … over time people would take a piece and it would sort of get scattered. The audience would just take it home with them. OCB: Other bands toss a drumstick out. With you guys, they get the whole drum. Williams: We do encourage audience participation at our shows, but it kind of gets out of hand. And that's no pun intended when I say out of hand, one of the fans actually grabbed one of the claws off of (one of our monsters) and took off with it. We're still trying to find that claw to this day because it belongs to Bob Burden (creator of cult comic hero the Flaming Carrot). OCB: We'll be sure to put the word out. Williams: It happened at Will's Pub, actually. OCB: Of course it happened at Will's Pub.
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