How did you come up with the persona, the image of Powerman 5000?
It’s just like the music. It’s always changing and evolving. When we started out it was much more organic. I always like when there’s a line drawn between the audience and the band. Some people might say that’s not very punk-rock, but it is if you think about the Clash and the Sex Pistols. There very much was a line between who they were and who the audience was, but there was also a connection and the crowd could see themselves in the band. We always try to make and effort to make sure you knew who the band was. When we got signed and had a little more money to play around with different ideas, then I got to sort of indulge in some things that I’ve been interested in. I’m a huge science fiction fan and we made one record that was very much based on a lot of those concepts. When we did the next record, I made sure to sort of make a clear statement that we were heading in a different direction. That’s where I sort of indulge my early influences much more of a like a ’70s-Vivien Westwood
