Was there ever the problem of people labelling The Mumps as an east coast version of The Quick?
KRISTIAN: Actually, I think we predated The Quick somewhat, so there wasn’t a large problem of being compared, but we were very fearful of Sparks comparisons. Although we loved Sparks, we didn’t want to be perceived as latter day Sparks. And even though a couple of our songs were very Sparks-ish, we identified much more with The Kinks. In fact, many of our early reviews mentioned how much of a British feel we had, or how we sounded like The Kinks. When punk finally came along, that’s when we felt very inspired by it and decided to give our music more of a rawer edge. JIM: While The Mumps were out and about in Los Angeles in the late ’70s, Hollywood playboy Kim Fowley was involved somehow with just about every band and scene. Did he ever have any involvement with The Mumps? KRISTIAN: Not really, although I knew we met him many times. One thing I do know for sure is that John Cale wanted to produce our first single and we were so stupid because he wanted to do “Before the Accident,” the
