20 Questions with Iann Robinson, 7/30/02

20 QUESTIONS WITH…

MTV’S Iann Robinson

How could we not do 20 Questions with the man who has worn our Metal Sludge shirt on MTV twice (and worn two different styles) and is also the only metal guy left on MTV? We’ve always wanted to talk to somebody at MTV to find out what really goes on and who’s to blame for half the stuff they air. So doing 20 Questions with Sludgeaholic Iann Robinson was a no-brainer. Not only that, but he sent back his questions within 24 hours, and that’s always appreciated!

The great thing about these 20 Questions is that Iann doesn’t hold back, gives his honest opinion, and isn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers. Exactly what we love! Enjoy!

1. What are you up to? This is your only chance to promote whatever it is you want.
Basically when I’m not working, my band Puny Human is finishing up songs for our new record. We somehow managed to convince J Yuenger (of White Zombie) to produce us, he produced Fu Manchu and others and that’s so fucking cool for us. Other than that it’s work and home life with my wife Shelley.

2. What is your broadcast background and how did you end up working for MTV?
I don’t have a broadcast background at all, I never even thought about being on TV, it wasn’t my thing. My and my two friends Josh and Jason Diamond (who play bass and guitar in my band) started a cable access show called Monkey Butt Sex because we hated the jerk off who was doing Squirt TV and we wanted to make fun of him. That got boring so we started ranking on bands and doing stupid things around the city. This guy who now works at MTV News used to watch the show and when he got into a position of power he found me and asked me to try out. I did and two years later they hired me.

3. Who do we have to slap to get rid of Fear, Sorority Life, Undressed, and the rest of the shit that’s on MTV?
I don’t know man, I’ve been looking for those people for a long time. I mean part of it is that the public watches those shows and gives them high ratings. I don’t know what it is about over priviliged college kids sitting around in ringer t-shirts and waxing philisophical but the MTV viewers eat it up.

4. What hard rock/heavy metal band should give it up and call it a day?
There’s so many, but I guess if we’re talking about an old school band that should give it up entirely because it’s embrassing, it would be Metallica. It would either be them or Aerosmith because it’s just sad. As for new jack bands, I could live with all this Nu Metal shit if Limp Bizkit broke up and Fred Durst vanished forever. I could also use the untimely demise of Crazy Town, Our Lady Peace, Linkin Park and The Strokes.

Iann interviewing Rob Zombie while wearing a No Frills Metal Sludge shirt!

5. Rate the following VJ’s on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being a VJ who had no business being on the air and 10 being a VJ God! Kurt Loder = 10 Marc Goodman = 7 JJ Jackson = 10 (He was there when Kiss took off the make up) Martha Quinn = 8 Riki Rachtmen = 6 Adam Curry = 6 Pauly Shore = 0 Jesse Camp = 0 Matt Pinfield = 10 Carson Daly = 5

6. You actually play in a band called Puny Human! Please, tell us about that.
IT’s about the best thing that ever happened to me. I had tooled around the NYC music scene for years playing with different bands and finally I gave up, it just sucked. Years later I was hanging out with Josh and Jason, who’d broken up their long term band Grey, and we decided to jam with each other just to keep playing. It was way cool because Josh and Jason are both amazing players and it made me raise my abilities so I could keep up. We wrote five or six songs and recorded them with this singer who was a dick, tried to sound like Sebastian Bach and it wasn’t what we wanted at all. After one show, opening up for the Unsane, we called it a day with Puny Human. A year or so later we went back into the studio to write some music for a show we were editing and also wrote four new songs that we loved. At first we were going to get Brian Childers from Crawlpappy to sing but he lived in Ohio and we really wanted this to be a band. We decided on a friend of ours named Jim Starace, who’d been the frotnman for Norman Bates And The Showerheads as well as playing with Sere. We did a four or five song demo and sent it to everybody we could. One day we got a call from Scott Hamilton at Small Stone Records in Detroit and he said he wanted to put an album out, so we recorded it. Truth be told we weren’t 100% happy with it but it got a lot of recognition and sol pretty well, especially since we don’t tour. We had planned on writing a second record pretty soon afterwards but I got the MTV job and suddenly I wasn’t around as much and before we knew it, 2 years had passed. We’re recording the end of this summer and the songs really fucking rock, I’m really proud of them.

7. What are your thoughts on MTV X no longer being around and being replaced by MTV Jams. Do they really need an outlet to play more rap videos???
I think it’s bullshit, total bullshit and that’s something that I’ve told every high up official I could find. It was such a disgusting display of favoritism. I stood silent when MTV2 started catering more to the hip hop crowd but when they just took of MTVX for no reason I had to say something. Not that it did any good but at least I tried. The best part was that nobody that I complained to could explain, they just told me to “relax”. I’m sorry to all the metal fans out there, I really am.

Iann interviewing System Of A Down with our Sludge shirt on!

8. Just for a laugh, let’s say MTV dusts off Headbanger’s Ball and gives you the job to host it. What are the first 5 videos you’re going to play? Iron Maiden “Run To The Hills” Slayer “Seasons In The Abyss” Kyuss “Demon Cleaner” Tool Every video they’ve ever done Puny Human “Jesus Has My Leg”

9. What’s the most ridiculous news story you ever reported?
Wow, that’s tough, there have been so many. One that made me the sickest was after 9/11 when we did a whole story on how Fred Durst was going to be a nicer person. I mean to reduce the horror of that day to what some jackass loser rap metal guy thinks was pretty sickening.

10. Which do you prefer and why?
Scott Ian on the Rock Show or Sebastian Bach on Forever Wild = Neither, I don’t watch either show.
Mandy Moore or Christina Aquilera = Neither, both suck.
Redman or Method Man = Hard to say, I like both of them. I don’t really care for new rap but I think they’re both awesome, it looks like a tie boys.
Cannibal Corpse or Napalm Death = Napalm Death, no real reason just like the songs better.
Duran Duran or Orgy = Who cares? I guess Duran Duran for nostalgic reasons
McDonald’s or Wendy’s = Wendys because if I eat McDonalds I’d have to be sitting on a toilet while eating it.
Skateboarding or Riding roller coasters = Well, since I can’t skateboard, I’ll go with rollercoasters.
Jack Osbourne or Kelly Osbourne = I like both of them, they’ve always been nice to me. I hang out more with Jack than Kelly, I don’t know maybe Kelly doesn’t like me, but I like them both.
Jenny McCarthy or Carmen Electra = Depends on which one would have sex with me first.
Iron Maiden or Judas Priest = I know my friend Jim (from Fireball Ministry) will kill me but I just think Iron Maiden blows Judas Priest away. Don’t get me wrong, Priest is still one of my fucking favorites but Maiden..Jesus Fucking Shit Man, they’re Maiden!!

11. Of all the rock stars you’ve been around, who came off the coolest and who came off like a dick? Ozzy and Sharon were super cool, treated me like I was in the family. Corey Taylor from Slipknot was so cool that we became really good friends, same thing with Serj from System Of A Down. Dave Grohl was really great and so was Kid Rock. Most everybody has been really nice, but I never know if it’s because they are nice or they feel they have to be nice to me. As far as people being dicks, Fieldy from Korn was to-cool-for-school with me, the singer from The Strokes and I almost got into a fight.

Horseshoes with Kid Rock

12. If you could put 3 videos in a fire to make sure they were never aired again, which 3 videos would you pick?

ALL Limp Bizkit videos.

Avril Levigne “Complicated”

Everything aired on TRL for the entire time it’s been on.

13. What rock star deserves a smack in the mouth and why?
Without a doubt, Fred Durst, he deserves that and so much more. There’s a bunch of reasons, starting with the fact that you can tell this guy was suburban jock-type guy who picked on kids, dressed like Vanilla Ice-complete with flat top-and thought he was so cool. Then he gets famous and tries to pretend like he can relate to kids who were picked on or who are outsiders so he can make money off of that. He uses his fame to bully people and he lies about everything. Scott Hamilton, the guy who puts out my band’s record makes some extra money working for local promoters in Detroit by doing things for bands playing in the area. He was assigned Limp Bizkit and Fred Durst treated him like shit. So whenever Scott tried to defend himself Fred sent one of his goons over to try and intimidate Scott. Scott’s a wicked cool guy, a family man, and this punk bitch thinks he can treat people like this. Of course all of this is outside the fact that his band sucks, his lyrics suck and he can’t sing. One of the best days I had at MTV was when Eminem released that song dissing Fred, it was like finally someone in the public eye saw through this jerk besides me.

14. The Last of Iann Robinson: The last what of Iann Robinson?
Last Rock Star you shook hands with = Coby from Papa Roach.
Last type of cereal you ate more than 1 bowl of = Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Last concert you walked out of let down = Slayer (sad to say)
Last time you visited a massage parlor = Not since I hooked up with Shelley, so 3 years.
Last decent video you saw on MTV = Parabola (the whole ONE time they showed it)
Last time you got new ink = six months ago, on my hand.
Last famous person you heard fart was = Me
Last time you wanted to push the head of programming at MTV out a window = I don’t know, what time is it?
Last time you did sit-ups = Never, rock hard abs like mine ar natural.
Last CD you purchased = Obituary Anthology

15. What TRL style band would you put onto a boat, send into an ocean, and blow up?
I don’t know, pick one and I’m down.

16. Since you’ve interviewed a lot of metal bands, give us the one question you’d ask the following bands:
Poison = Does Burger King pay well?
Warrant = Does Pizza Hut pay well?
Motley Crue = When did Tommy Lee turn into a homeboy?
Metallica = Bob Rock? What the fuck were you thinking?
Bon Jovi = How’s Johnny, who used to work on the docks?
Korn = Don’t you think you guys would rock harder if you actually had a bass player?

17. Do you have groupies?
Yeah, I’ve had some. It’s funny because when you get into this job all your friends are like “Dude, if you weren’t married think of all the pussy you could get.” But the truth is when some girl comes up to me and acts like she’d do anything with me because I’m on TV, it’s really sad and you feel bad for them. I mean I love to flirt but at the end of the day my wife is the only woman that matters to me at all. The one thing I do love is when teenage TRL type girls that you would think just think I’m some gross fat metal guy, come up to me and take pictures and tell me I’m their favorite, that’s cool.

18. Yes or no, has Iann Robinson ever:
Hung out with Britney Spears = Yes
Had dinner with Carson Daly = Yes
Drank a beer with Jack Osbourne = No, I don’t drink. Does soda count?
Wondered if Kurt Loder was collecting Social Security yet = No, don’t mess with Kurt, he’s the man.
Thought about entering Tough Enough = Yes
Made a small child cry = No
Been mistaken for Matt Pinfield = Yes, it’s the reason I started growing my hair out
Regretted a tattoo = Yes
Had a problem finding clothes that fit = No, but you guys are funny
Masturbated to Tabitha Soren = No

19. Has John Norris ever hit on you?
No.

20. Time for Metal Sludge’s Word Association. We mention a name and you give us your thoughts.
Anthrax = Suck, they should just stop it.
Kid Rock = lucky bastard, he’s rich and once he was done screwing porn stars and strippers he married Pam Anderson.
Fred Durst = Pain, cause him pain, give him pain may he always be in pain.
Gene Simmons = Phantom Of The Park, the ultimate Kiss movie.
Nikki Sixx = Who cares? Did anybody ever care? I didn’t.
Pantera = I liked two albums, after that, it was done for me.
Ozzy Osbourne = The man. He’s cool and-well-jesus fuckin christ man it’s Ozzy Fuckin Osbourne.
Ted Nugent = The man, one of the only truly honest people left.
Sebastian Bach = I hate to admit it but I liked Skid Row.
Slipknot = I love them, I think they fucking rule. Kids who don’t are just being bitchy, if they had come our on Relapse Records all these underground whiners would have loved them to.
Britney Spears = In her videos she’s hot as the sun, but in person, she’s not that pretty.

Now we enjoyed that! Thanks to Iann for taking the time out to do this as well as sporting our swag at OzzFest and on MTV News!

For more info on Iann, you can go to his band’s site at www.punyhuman.com or read his bio at http://www.mtv.com/news/talent/bio_robinson.jhtml.

Speaking of MTV, our 20 Questions for next week will be from a band that’s been featured on TRL a few times. Could it be N’sync? Or Britney? Fuck off. Check back next week for who it is.