Who is does the voices?
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ABOVE: BLADE the Vomiting Rocker, during a destructive stay at a Motel 6. Blade always requests EXTRA TV sets for his hotel room because he always "seems to lose a few out the window". Sleeping 4 stories below on the sidewalk (regrettably) was some homeless dude.
Q. Who makes and takes these Touch Tone Terrorist calls?
A. . Me. RePete. The dude in the photo above (wearing the wig and fake tattoos).
Q. Are you a REAL terrorist?
A. Is my name Sheik Mohammed Al-RePete??
Q. Do you electronically alter your voice to do characters like "Junkyard Willie"?
A. One name... Yamaha SPX-90
But don't run out and buy one of these, expecting to be all set to record calls. You also need to a mixer, a phone hybrid, and some other gadgets that will cost you upwards of $1,000.
Q. One guy? No way. Prove it!
A. MP3 (384 K) clip from the Stern show.
Q. How in the world do you generate these INBOUND calls?
A. 1) I used to climb up the telephone pole, cut and splice wires thus crossing lines. 2) An engineer friend at a call center used to tie up his boss daily for a few hours at a time and then redirect calls to me. 3) Lets just say I got fired from a few jobs in recording these calls!
Q. Junkyard Willie seems a bit "racist"; Are you a racist?
A. No. Your mother is a racist. I exaggerate and poke fun at stereotypes, including white trash, hillbillies, high class executive types, rock 'n rollers, etc. With my "Vladimir" character I make fun of Russians... and I'm 1/2 Russian! So go figure. George Carlin spelled it out perfectly.... "At the root of every joke is an exaggeration". Are stereotypes funny? Yes! Stereotypes are hilarious. Anyone who doesn't think so is in denial and they're being anal. From political cartoons to Saturday Night Live to the Phil Hendrie radio show, stereotypes have been building block of humor for ages. This is shock comedy, not Disneyland. If you like to patronize political correctness then listen to 95% of everything else that is out there.
Q. The Jerky Boys did a prank call movie that flopped. Now you're doing a movie. Don't you think you're making a big mistake here?
A. First of all my movie isn't even about prank calls. Secondly I'm NOT going to be playing my boring self in this movie; In this movie the CHARACTERS come to life. Thirdly I didn't write the Jerky Boys script. Every script is different. This is a completely different script.
Q. How did you get airplay on radio shows like Howard Stern?
A. The same way everyone else does. I sent my CD's unsolicited in the mail for them to review. If it's their cup of tea then they air it. Do you really think all those wackos on the show (like John the Stutterer and Gary the Retard) got on with a publicist? That's what is great about the show.
Q. How did you get your calls aired on Crank Yankers?
A. Comedy Central e-mailed me back in November of 2001 about doing calls for the show. I said "sure"!
Q. On Crank Yankers Willie, Jim Bob and Blade look different than on the CD's. Why?
A. Had they used my likenesses then I am assuming that they would have had to license the characters from me, thus costing them more $$. So their artist drew up original likenesses (based solely only on listening to the voices) without ever having seen my web site or CD's.
Q. Have any record companies ever showed interest in TTT?
A. Yes. 2 major labels and 2 small indi labels. But I signed with 3 distributors instead. After Howard Stern began airing TTT I had no real interest in signing a "record deal".
Q. Did you ever shop your TTT act to the Jerky Boys' label Select Records?
A. Yes. In August of 1997 TTT was solicited by an attorney to Select Records. They were NOT interested. BAD MOVE! Perhaps much to his surprise, TTT would go on to get a huge buzz on Howard Stern, and Permanent Lapse of Reason would peak at #5 on the Amazon.com hot 100.
Q. If you are just ONE guy doing all of the voices then how do you explain the overlapping voices on calls like "Trashcan Lid Beating"?
A. I simply pre-recorded 2 bits that I would play back from CD. For example the part that starts with Willie entering the room until when Jim Bob gets beaten and driven out of the room.
Q. Do you get permission from the call subjects?
A. Yes! (including recognizable people heard in the background) They are all paid well too (especially given the fact that it's only for independent CD releases). Some of my calls were recorded in New York. I got permission for those calls too! Contrary to what some misinformed people say, you need to get permission in ALL states to use someone's voice on a CD. You can legally record calls FOR PRIVATE USE in certain states without informing the call subject. You can even legally record phone conversations in 2-party consent states (like California) under certain circumstances. BUT to release phone conversations on a CD's without people's permission can expose you to lawsuits over copyright infringement and invasion of privacy. Therefore you eventually need permission in ALL states.
Q. How did the "Rude Lube" call come about?
A. I placed a casting call notice in an actor's publication. So I was always answering the phone by saying "Katzenberg Entertainment" (which is a typical sounding casting agency name that I made up). After a while I realized that THIS particular call was a wrong number call for an auto lube shop. So I played along with it. The couple got really angry! By the way this call was recorded, mixed and mastered entirely in the digital domain (as they say) on an AKAI DR-16. It's as clear of a sound quality as you can get.
Q. Are any of your calls staged?
A. The closest thing to a "staged" TTT call was on ONE call that appears on 1 of my CD's. I did not stage the call or make any arrangements with anyone to make the call happen. Unbeknownst to me a roommate instructed a friend of his (whom I had never met) to call me and pretend to be calling about tracking a package. Like clock work I can pick out an imposter caller a mile away, but just this once I was fooled. For about a month, as I waited for my 800 phone bill (no caller ID showed up) I wanted to get permission from the caller to put the call on my next CD release. Finally I figured it out, but by that time I liked the call so much that I said "what the hell" and put it on my next CD release. Again I never arranged for this call to come in. Technically it was not staged but rather unbeknownst to me, someone else arranged for the caller to call me. But other that this ONE call everything else on all of my 4 CD's was calls to and from complete strangers with NOTHING staged or planned in any way.
Q. Why bleep out the names? Why were some left in or changed?
A. An overly sensitive lawyer advised me that I should take them out or ask for permission. When I contacted some companies (like Penzoil, Southern Comfort, Dentyne gum) they showed no sense of humor and immediately said "NO". Only Jack Daniel's allowed mention of their trademarked name on "Kelsey's Liquor Store" but also said "NO" to allowing mention of JD on the call "Airplane Hubcaps". After a while I gave up on contacting these stubborn companies and used my own discretion as to whether products were used in a disparaging way or not. Later I found out that what these companies TELL you NOT to do, does not reflect or dictate law. Merely CONTACTING these companies for permission may possibly constitute a sort of admission of guilt. So I NEVER ask for permission anymore. Nevertheless I try to use parody names if possible. No more free advertising for real companies. I came up with my OWN products like "Old Chicken", "General Express", "Rude Lube", etc.!
Q. Why is this 4th CD your last? We want more!
A. With each CD I've tried to do something new. The first was outbound calls. By the 2nd CD I was running out of good outbound call ideas, but had just starting with the INBOUND calls. By popular demand the 3rd CD contained mostly inbound calls. For the 4th CD I set out NOT to do a repeat of the 3rd CD (shipping company calls). So I disconnected all of my numbers, got new numbers and recorded fresh new customer service calls. Right now I've kind of run out of ideas to carry through a whole new 5th CD. If I was like everyone else I would just wear it out until people got SICK of my calls. But I don't want to go there. What I DO have are lots of fresh new ideas to do for this movie thing, so it only makes sense to work on the movie.
On a business level, I am sick to the stomach from trying to get my CD's into retail stores that give MASSIVE favoritism to major labels. Independently released CD's are doomed from the get go. Last September my independent distributor initially shipped 839 copies of volume 4 to retailers throughout the US, whereas if I was on a major record label I would initially have shipped 10,000 to 25,000 copies of the same exact CD to various stores. The Federal Trade Commission needs to put an end to the blatant favoritism, and what is essentially a "Pay To Play" situation. With so many CD releases and limited shelf space, retailers have found that they can just charge the record companies to stock their CD's (known as "buy ins"). Retailers charge BIG BUCKS for buy ins, and record companies are desperate enough to pay for it. Retailers could literally shut their doors to consumers and STILL make a tidy profit off of fees charged to record companies for buy ins, special store placement, end caps, listening station placement, sale pricing, etc, etc. For example: Transworld charges $23,000 per title for special store placement (example at the end of a rack) in all of it's stores from December 26 through January 15th. Accordingly I hope that retailers eventually all fall victim to Internet CD sales and file sharing. They deserve to all go bankrupt.
When did you start doing prank calls and why?
RePete: I started back in like about 1995. I got a little burnt out on doing music for 13 years.
What kind of music were you doing? Did you perform the club circuit?
RePete: I started out doing hard rock like every other 80’s Los Angeles musician. Then I progressed into doing spacey, atmospheric rock. We played all the joints... The Whisky, FM Station, Exposeur-54, Gazzari's (before it got torn down and became Billboard Live and then the Key Club), the Central (now the Viper Room), etc.
What got you started with the prank calls?
RePete: I was a big fan of the Tube Bar Tapes, the Jerky Boys’ first 2 CD’s, and the Musacha Tapes. I just had a ton of ideas for calls. So I got one of those crappy sounding Radio Shack recorders and went to work.
What was one of your first prank calls?
RePete: There used to be a nightclub in Calabasas California called Pelican’s Retreat. (By the way, on Thursday nights this club was the coolest club on earth! Too bad they stopped paying their taxes and got shut down.) They had a pay phone in the ladies room. So I had a friend copy down the phone number for me. When I got home I called up pretending to be an operator with a phone company. I would demand 20 cents for overtime minutes. So basically I would accuse innocent girls of short changing the phone company. When was the last time an operator with the phone company said to you "Don’t give me any shit"?!! Of course I got some very surprised and defensive reactions out of these drunken felines. The closer towards 2 AM closing the better the reactions (because people were drunker!).
How did you come up with that Junkyard Willie character?
RePete: I wondered what it would be like to talk through a YAMAHA SPX-90 with my voice detuned. I then came up with "Clarence Washington" and "Stu Jaimison". Then about 6 months later I thought it might sound funny to talk in a raspy voice. At first "Willie" was a slow, low-key character. Then I finally decided that Willie needed to be more energetic and outspoken. Willie slowly evolved into the wacko that he is.
What about Jim Bob the Inbred Hillbilly?
This was only a few months before releasing my first CD called "Appetite for DisRuption." I made about 2,000 calls to auto repair shops across the US and came up with "City Brake" and "Scooter’s Transmissions". Then a friend of mine (Sam Halen) suggested that it would be hilarious if I first had Jim Bob get people angry THEN had Willie get on the phone to defend his retard friend. I was able to come up with "Scooter’s Roofing" just in time for the first CD release. But then 2,000 calls later I recorded "Scooter’s Refund" and "Scooter’s Generators" too late for the first CD. So those calls had to collect dust for a full year until the release of the second CD.
Wow! 4,000 calls to auto shops! Did you just go to the library and get these numbers?
RePete: Yeah. I would Xerox copy all of the auto shops in especially Southern states. Those rednecks like to rumble! Especially when Willie gets on the phone.
So you released Appetite for DisRuption and what happened next?
RePete: I sent censored copies to all of the rock and top-40 stations that wanted free promo copies (about 600 in all). I slowly started building a following. The biggest response came from WKLH in Milwaukee, WNCD in Youngstown(Ohio), and WKZL in Greensboro (North Carolina).
Did Howard Stern air Appetite for DisRuption?
RePete. No. It probably wasn’t hard core enough. It’s more of a light-hearted CD than what the Stern show is about. I didn’t have the budget to pay off some of the angrier call subjects for this CD. When I first released Appetite I thought for sure that everyone would flip over it. But after releasing "Customer Service Disasters" I feel like I’ve come a long way from there and can understand how it doesn’t quite fit the flavor of the Stern show. They like long, angry calls that involve "Junkyard Willie".
Did you ever think that Howard would air TTT?
RePete. Yes. I thought "City Brake" would get some airplay but it never did. When I released "A Permanent Lapse of Reason" in November of 1999 I thought they would probably air it. But that didn’t happen at first. By January I figured that (for whatever reason) they had passed on it OR that it wound up in the trash OR that they only aired stuff from major labels that PUBLICISTS tell them to air. But none of that was the case. Apparently my CD wound up in a pile of CD’s that wouldn’t get listened to until late January. KC listened, liked it and turned Howard on to it. So thank KC.
Were you listening to the show when they aired it? How did you find out? What was your reaction?
RePete: I was asleep when the phone in the other room started ringing constantly. At the time my hotline rang through to my home before being answered after 2 rings by GTE’s answering service. So I figured that my GTE answering service was shut down for repair or something. Finally I got up to find out who was calling. As it turned out my GTE answering service was working fine. I was just getting SWAMPED with calls from the East Coast. When I first picked up the phone there was this guy who wanted to order the CD. I asked him where he heard about TTT. He said Howard Stern just aired it. I was thrilled to death ...I felt like I had just won the super bowl or something! In Los Angeles we’re on about a 1 minute delay, so I was able to catch the tail end with Howard and Robin making comments about Junkyard Willie. They aired "We Get to Drink". I only got about 2 hours of sleep for the next 2 days. I was busy shipping off CD’s. Finally I just couldn’t handle all of the orders and had to point all of my web page sales to amazon.com until I set up an account with a fulfillment wherehouse that ships products.
Did good things come as a result of Howard Stern (ex- web hits)?
RePete: Good things? Where do I start?!! I got about 10,000 hits in 2 days after being on the show in person. I was able to finally get 3 distributors interested in putting the CD's into stores. About 4 record companies (including 2 BIG ones) contacted me about record deals. By airing the CD Howard sort of indirectly financed my 3rd and 4th CD's. I was then able to pay off some angry call subjects. Comedy Central aired two calls on Crank Yankers. Spin Magazine did a write up.
So have you had any other noteworthy airplay besides Howard?
RePete: The Steve and DC show, which is syndicated to a lot of stations from St. Louis, has aired TTT quite a bit. Johnny Dare in Kansas City has really got a sort of fan club going out there. KYLD (San Francisco), WLDI (West Palm Beach), WILD 104 in Binghamton NY, etc.
Now what is next for you?
RePete: I’m working on a movie. It’s gonna have lots of mailroom mayhem, wheelchair boxing, Willie dunking employees in toilets, drunken cargo plane flying, etc. It's gonna be a very sick and twisted movie!
Will you be acting out as each of your characters?
RePete: I’ll be Jim Bob. There will be actors playing Willie, and Blade.
Any more CD’s on the way?
RePete: Customer Service Crackpots is the last CD. I have already disconnected my prank call line. It's somebody else's turn.
No more?
RePete: Everything has it's life and I don't really have enough fresh ideas for prank calls. How many times do people really want to hear Jim Bob, Willie and Blade take prank calls? I don't want to wear it out by releasing a CD that is a warmed over version of the same thing. When you consider that I put over 70 minutes on each CD, it's almost like releasing 1 and a half albums in one. So think of this 4th and final CD as really number 5 1/2 and 6. I'm too busy working on doing the movie "Junkyard Willie's Mailroom" anyway. This is a huge undertaking because I'm doing it independently (rather than through a major studio). I'm also currently trying to write some of the music for it. Finally I'm also tired of wasting my time trying to get stores to stock my CD's. The retailers all kiss ass to the major labels while ignoring indi releases. Stores like Best Buy have scaled back their selection and almost no longer accept indi CD's. Wal-Mart, Target, Circuit City, K-Mart? FORGET ABOUT IT! I won't sign a record deal either because "record deals" are scams. After you pay for 1/2 the costs of the release (as record deals work) you probably wind up earning about 75 cents per CD. That's a total scam! I will ONLY go the distribution route (whereby you earn typically $6 per CD).
How many CD's have you sold?
RePete: My sales have been severely hurt by the fact that I just don't have adequate distribution (into stores). For about a year I had my CD's in about 200 stores, leaving about 4,300 left UNSTOCKED! The rest of the time I've had CD's in about 10 stores! I've sold most of 40,000 + CD's on Internet. This isn't bad considering that Internet sales typically only comprise 2% of all US CD sales. 98% of US sales occur when impulse buyers buy CD's in stores. Furthermore Billboard Magazine reported that of all 30,000 CD's released INDEPENDENTLY in 2001, 24,000 of those sold LESS than 1,000 units!
Who are your favorite comedians?
RePete: As far as standup comedy Sam Kinison, George Carlin, Chris Rock, early Dice Clay. As far as general funny entertainers and characters Don Knotts, Curley from the Three Stooges, Butthead, Redd Foxx, any of the Tom Green and Jackass stuff that is like Candid Camera. What else?... the 1st season of the Jamie Kennedy show (after that they ran out of material), Ali G, Andy Dick, the Phil Hendrie Radio show.
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