Interview: Impaled (2002)

This interview took place following one of Impaled’s rehearsals at their cuboidal-shaped practice space in a particularly warehouse-strewn part of gritty, blue-collar Oakland, sometime in June 2002. At this point in time, Impaled was Ross Sewage (bass, vocals), Sean McGrath (guitar, vocals), Raoul Varela (drums), and Andrew LaBarre (guitar, vocals). They are probably the funniest band I’ve ever interviewed. A tiny sliver of this material was used in a July 2002 article on Bay Area metal that I wrote for the SF Bay Guardian. [Note: I didn’t turn on the tape recorder right away, so the conversation picks up abruptly after a few minutes of talking about who-knows-what.]

Impaled circa 2002. L-R: Ross Sewge, Raoul Varela, Sean McGrath, Andrew LaBarre

Ross: I swear, we’re a good clean band. We’re straight-edgers.

You’re straight-edgers?

Ross: Yeah.

I’ll put that in the article.

Ross: We’re really into Minor Threat. We don’t allow girls in here, either, just like Minor Threat wouldn’t allow girls in their practice space.
Sean: Well, even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t show up anyway.
Ross: Ok, I wasn’t saying that we didn’t get girls … but that’s the case.