Kevin Murphy didn’t really ask me if I wanted to interview Mickey Avalon for a piece in the Arizona Republic, it was closer to a dare. Like when you’re 12 years old and you tell your friend that you’ll give him $5 if he runs into a cinder-block wall as hard as he can, wearing nothing but a bike helmet and a cup. Seeing that at 26, I’m apparently not much wiser than a judgmentally challenged pre-teen, so I accepted Kevin’s challenge and agreed to do the story.
For those not familiar with Avalon, he’s essentially created the soundtrack for LA’s coked up scenester set for the past two years. A former junkie, prostitute and drug dealer turned white rapper, Avalon is essentially the bastard child of Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, which means that he’s due to sleep with Pamela Anderson in roughly 15 minutes. I accidentally caught Avalon’s act once, when my friend’s ex-girlfriend opened up for him at the Roxy one night. I left well before Avalon came on, but in my drunken stupor I forgot to close my bar tab. When I returned, Avalon was in the midst of his set and it was pure pandemonium as his excruciatingly attractive female fan base rushed the stage. As for me, I waited patiently for the bartender to get my card while trying not to gawk at Cisco Adler and Mischa Barton simultaneously playing paddy-cake and stealing a bottle of vodka.
Needless to say, the experience (coupled with being subjected to “Jane Fonda” at Sharkeez in Manhattan Beach surrounded by ex-sorostitutes) led me to conclude that Avalon and his ilk were everything wrong with Los Angeles. And maybe probably they are everything wrong with LA, but our conversation sort of felt like Marilyn Manson’s scene in Bowling from Columbine, where strangely enough Manson seemed to make way more sense than everyone else in the film. Hands down, Avalon was one of my favorite interviews and while he might not be nearly as sharp as Manson, regardless of what you think of the man’s music, at the very least he makes for an interesting story. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be a cold day in Hyde before I bump his “My Dick” from my car stereos, but rather than re-enforce the mythology he’s created around himself, Avalon spent most of the interview talking about how much he misses his daugher when he’s on the road, how lame and pathetic rich coked-up LA girls are (he’s a fan of Texas), and how much he loves Public Enemy, Slick Rick and Red Gone Wild. And honestly, how was I supposed to argue with with that?
My Mickey Avalon Feature in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Mickey Avalon-“Waiting to Die”
MP3: Mickey Avalon-“So Rich So Pretty”
