Concert Klatch Interview with Ken Stringfellow – 1997

Ticketmaster, 1997

CK: As a performer, what’s been your most memorable concert experience?
KS: Its weird, you know. They kind of blur into to a whole Zen experience; they’re so repeated in a way. No one’s ever showed up at a show with a donkey or died; nothing extreme has ever happened. We did a little tour of Spain last year that just in its extremes was, probably, …it’ll sound horrible…all of us crammed into the smallest van, using the worst equipment, playing the smallest clubs, but for some reason, it was the most fun. We would play shows where the equipment was so bad that I can’t imagine that anyone could hear anything any of us were doing, but it was great.

CK: And as a concertgoer?
KS: Probably just a lot of the shows that happened in Seattle in the late 80’s, early 90’s. It was so easy to be involved and there are certain shows where I’d go to see Mudhoney or Screaming Trees and end up part of the show — being thrown on the stage…..the audience was so small that all of the audience as just pushed around like a liquid at one point. At one Screaming Trees show I was thrown up on the stage on my back and my legs were pinned, so I couldn’t move. I was looking up at Mark (Lanegan) and I guess Van (Connor) for like 10 songs. I was trapped and I couldn’t move; they were standing over me during the show and looking down…It was pretty awesome.

CK: Finish this sentence. If I hadn’t become a musician, I’d be….
KS: I don’t know. A lobster fisherman? I don’t know what I’d do because I’ve been a musician since I was 12.