Gear Interview with R.H. Bear
1994 - Gear Magazine

bile (bil) n. [<L. bilis] 1. the bitter greenish fluid secreted by the liver: it aids digestion. 2. bad temper. 3. horrific band of cretins from New York City known to wreak musical havoc and chaos. <rhymes with vile>

Urine stained subways. Carbon monoxide boulevards. Rat infested squatters rights. Can you spare some change?
R.H. Bear: Home. Most definately home. Oh please, that's New York. New York sucks. It's everything there that you just explained and more. Most of these people are trying to take you out most of the time anyway, so not only do they want money, they want everything from you.
Gear: How long have you all been sentenced to the island?
R.H. Bear: New York? I've been here for 32 years. We're different ages. I'm the oldest and the youngest is 22. I think. So they're still working on the fun that I've already gone through. It only gets miserable after 30. Then you really hate it.
A sexploitation of the inner child, violence of the mind, purging of the soul.
R.H. Bear: It's just fun. Sexwise everything is fun so there is no sexploitation. And children - I have nothing to do with them. They haven't grown body hair yet.
Ski masks. Stick em up. Bash the skull that feeds you.
R.H. Bear: Bile. That's it. Definately taking advantage of peopple. It's better with ski masks because you can walk out and talk to them after you abuse them and they have no idea who you are.
Gear: How important is the anonymity?
R.H. Bear: It's not as important as it used to be. It seems to be falling apart. In the beginning, it was very important because we thought it would be cool and it had that "everyone is replaceable" feeling, but it's not turning out that way. It seems as we go through the tours people seem to be finding out who we are because we have no roadies and too many people in the band so we have to set up all our shit. So people get to see us without the masks and they sort of fiture it out. So it really doesn't matter. It just makes it more fun with the ski masks on becuase you can abuse people a little better - slap them around, and sometimes they can't figure out who you are.
Gear: Why such a large troupe?
R.H. Bear: It's a little more fun. It makes it more interesting to play around on stage. It gives you more people to abuse and hard sex toys on stage. Like Bob and Sin-d. And then we have the clowns once in a while. So all of them just sort of simulate sex or rub each other. THen we get to beat them. Which makes it a little more fun.
Fetish, fetish, fetish.
R.H. Bear: Well, we're all into our own little scenes. Yeah, some of it extends into the New York clubs like Zone DK on Club Hell night and Ten and a Half Inch Club, which could be interesting from the name. I haven't found anyone like that there, but it's nice to see. I have run into a few of them, but not in that club. But at The Vault and all those things. We all have our own little S&M interests here and there. It's not a lie on stage when we're doing that stuff. We actually enjoy that. It's fun.
Rock and roll is truly dead. Music that reflects the real world. A mirror of what has already transpired.
R.H. Bear: No, no. It's more of a feeling than music. If we weren't playing this we would actually be listening to it. This is what we enjoy. It's more of something that we feel as opposed to just playing music. It's an aggression.
Gear: Now with the music being aggressive and violent the way it is, let's say there were some unforseen force that forced you not to be able to do this music. How vilent and aggressive would you be in your real life?
R.H. Bear: I'd kill people.
Gear: How do you think your ideals would differ if you grew up in a small midwestern town?
R.H. Bear: I'd probably be fucking goats and sheep and stuff like that. That's as far as it goes. But otherwise, I'd be doing the same thing. We'd all be doing the same thing actually.
Gear: So you don't think you're a product of your environment, the lower East Side? You don't think it had anything to do with forming your life?
R.H. Bear: No, I don't think so. You're bron the way you are. I don't think your surroundings make you at all. I mean, I hung out in the city and stuff like that. I didn't start getting bad until I realized what I can do. But otherwise, I probably would have either been a mass murderer or some sort, because that's just in me. I just love... I have a death obsession. I love to see dead things. I was showing my friends a collection of post mortem books yesterday on murders and stuff like that. I was into this when I was a kid. I wanted to be a mortician when I was like for years old. I was fascinated with cemeteries and all that stuff. I'm sure I would have turned out to be a wonderful Jeffrey Dahmer type person.
Gear: So what keeps you form doing that now?
R.H. Bear: Just having a little more respect for people. I feel everyone has the right to live.
Gear: Everybody?
R.H. Bear: Well, everybody up to a point. Until you really hurt somebody on purpose.
Gear: Here's another question. If you had one bullet with a license to kill, who would you kill?
R.H. Bear: One bullet with a license to kill... my mom! No. Probably Clinton at the moment because I voted for one person in my lifetime and it turned out to be a bit mistake. Year. Everybody's good until they get into a position when they're in control and then they turn into everyone else.
Gear: But did you really honestly expect anything to change?
R.H. Bear: Well, I'm gay, so he just promised so much to the gay people. I expected a lot more out of him. Well, I mean, we've come a long way in our lifestyle. I think he could have pushed things just a little bit further.
Gear: But do you think a politician is going to be able to really help change people's minds about sexuality, homosexuality?
R.H. Bear: Well, there's so many people out there who listen to these people and take them verbatim and live by their word. THere are so many Archie Bunkers out there who would listen to that and believe it. They wouldnt like it, but they would believe it. See, this is what people do with time. I'm in this band. Nobody would expect me to be gay by the way I look. And everybody's like, "well, that's just Rick. There's no difference." Yeah, but if I was some fucking screaming queen running down the street you'd hate me and want to shoot me. So there is no difference between anybody. I just think that as people become a little bit more exposed to things they're either a little more accepting or they'll turn a blind eye to it. I mean, I've slept with so many married men - with kids. And these peole are the ones that go out and gay bash and are homophobics.
Gear: Well, they're frontin'.
R.H. Bear: Of course. I just think if it was brought out a little more into the mainstream and was a little more accepted, which is what I was hoping Clinton would have done, it would have been cool. But it didn't turn out that way. It was just a big waste of time. That was the big thing that he promised he was going to pass and he just turned into everybody else. So if anyone deserves the bullet, he does.
Sewer life is highly underrated.
R.H. Bear: Well, living in New York is definately underrated because that's exactly what you live in. We live in dirt. People love to destory the things that they live in. People are animals. They shit where they eat. They destroy everythign that they have to live in everyday. They make it unlivable for themselves and then they complain about it. But it's a home. That's never going to change either because peole don't care. Recycle. How nice.
Gear: Why do you think there's such a demonstrative attitude towards destroying - and I don't mean in an environmental sense - but destroying the planet.
R.H. Bear: Destroying the things that you live in? It's your animal sense I guess. You just don't know better. It's laziness. The attitude of "if it breaks, I'll just clean it up later" or "if this falls on the floor, I'll clean it up later." Well, four years later when it's grown into something? People just don't care.
Gear: What about in a larger sense? Like abandoned buildings and closed down factories.
R.H. Bear: They should be taken away and there should just be an empty space left. Leave dirt. Leave something where something can grow in. But people just, again, turn a blind eye. They just feel that it will go away if they don't pay attention to it. I mean, I definately appreciate ugly, but I'd rather sleep with it than look at it all the time.
Hide your faces and prepare for the fall out.
R.H. Bear: That's what we're doing with this band. We're preparing for the end of the world. We want to be the music for the end. We want to be the most violent thing there. And we're hiding our faces at the same time, so we're accomplishing everything we want.
Gear: How serious are you about it? Where does the shtick end and the honest to God feelings come in?
R.H. Bear: Well, this is the way we feel. We come on stage the same way we go off stage. The only differnce is we take the masks off. Otherwise, we dress exactly the same. We show the porno and all those videos on stage with the sex and murder, that's all stuff we watch at home. There is no joke here. And we're not taking it seriously because everything's done with sarcasm. If you don't like it you're not going to see it anyway, so it really doesn't matter. If you don't like us, then don't pay the fucking money to come see us. We're just doing what makes us happy. It's definately a masturbatory type thing we're doing. I'm blind and my hands are furry too.
Gear: How oppressive do you think the 90's have been so far?
R.H. Bear: We live in a communist country. That's what it feels like. They tell you you're free and you're allowed to do whatever you want and I feel that we are a freer country. But we're so reserved We're a baby country compared to everywhere else. Everybody can show tits on TV in Europe and they're just more open sexually. They have more open minds than we do. I just feel that the government controls a lot here. You're not allowed to do half of the stuff that they tell you you can do. Because if you do it, you'll get arrested, fined, or go to jail.
Gear: Well, let's think about it. Twenty years ago, Bile could have never played a show live.
R.H. Bear: No. I feel it's happened, but it takes forever to get there. And in my lifetime I don't think I'll see half of the things that people are talking about right now.
Gear: How much do you think the millennium is going to change people?
R.H. Bear: I feel when enough people are dead and the younger people start to come in, then maybe it will start to change. I know people who are younger than me who could run the government better.
Gear: But don't you think that even ltitle humps like George Stephanopolis are part of the problem? I mean, look at him. He's Mr. young guy. What is he? 32 years old?
R.H. Bear: Because they turn into that as soon as they become that.
Gear: Any plans for a Bile Halloween costume for next year?
R.H. Bear: Oh, Lord. That would be great. We put out ski masks that say Bile on them. We want to see somebody hold up a bank with this on it. We think that would be great. We could put it onto a video screen. We don't know what we're going to do. There is no future for us. We just take it day by day.


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