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Behind The Seen: Mustard Plug

Alternative Press - John Millin on 6/9/09 @ 5:21 PM - altpress.com

MUSTARD PLUG were one of the true pioneers of the '90s ska-punk explosion, skanking their way out of their home state of Michigan via constant touring and a commitment to making music not only groundbreaking, but also energetic and fun. Since their formation in 1991, much of the band's exploits were captured on film, thanks to an ever-present camcorder. Those countless hours of footage have been condensed into a comprehensive new DVD, Never Get Out Of The Van: The Story Of Mustard Plug, which is seven years in the making. Still together and going strong, MP frontman David Kirchgessner and guitarist/vocalist Colin Clive gave us the skinny on cramming nearly two decades of horn-filled hijinks onto one skinny little plastic disc.

How did you go about compiling and editing such a vast amount of material?
David Kirchgessner: For our first tour, we bought a video camera, and I just started shooting all sorts of stuff. I don't even have photos of our first tour, but I videotaped everything. We kept doing that and every time we went someplace cool and exciting, like Europe or Japan, we'd bring it along. We got a little more serious about it-figuring out what to do with it and how to assemble a DVD-at our 10th anniversary, which was seven years ago. [Laughs.]

Did you have a plan for what you wanted to catch on film, or did you simply film everything?
Colin Clive: We filmed whatever was there. We put black tape over the front of the light-so you can't tell if the camera's on or not. We always tried to make it seem like you weren't being filmed, and capture everything in as natural a way as we could.

Who is Benjamin R. Isbell, the person credited as the primary filmmaker, and why did you tap him for the project?
DK: He's a friend of ours who went to film school. He seemed like a natural choice to put it together, and he was into it. Then we started bringing bags and bags of random videotapes over to him, and we had no idea what was on them. We'd go through stuff, and 95 percent of the footage was complete garbage-just blurry, drunken ramblings that aren't the least bit interesting. He had to go through all that stuff and find the 5 percent that was usable, then we'd show up with another bag of tapes. It became a never-ending job for him.

There's an "Ann Clive" in the editing credits. Colin, I assume you're related, somehow?
CC: That's my sister. She's dating Ben, so she was around all the time and had to deal with his madness for so long, she got sucked into helping out with the process. It didn't break them up, somehow.

I love the bit about trying to figure out how to use the toilets in Japan. I was terrified we were going to see a live demonstration.
DK: Yeah, it's kind of a tense moment in the film.

It's also in the spirit of the deleted scenes, which make the DVD's "Special Features" section pretty hilarious. Did you intend to put most of the goofy stuff there?

DK: A lot of that stuff doesn't necessarily tell the story of the band, but it's still funny. [Laughs.] I was watching it a week ago, and thought, "This makes us look like Spinal Tap."

Was there anything you wish you could have caught on film, but didn't?
CC: We were playing the Ska Fest at the Michigan State Fair in the mid-'90s, and halfway through our set someone in charge came running over and made us stop, for, like, 10 minutes, because the guy next to us was going to wrestle an alligator. The music was going to scare the alligator, and possibly lead to the man's death. I guess our music is very disturbing to alligators. -Brendan Manley

Never Get Out Of The Van: The Story Of Mustard Plug is available now on DVD. For more info, visit mustardplug.com.

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