The Renfields on The Renfields!

The picture above really does a good job capturing what The Fiend’s reaction might be when he’s again being starved for an extended period of time. Since there was so much good conversation with The Renfields for our Gazette piece, (and good pics via Mike Winland Studios,) we thought we’d put something a little special together on the band for its first show back in five months tonight at The Sound Factory, and why the band starves its mongoloid bassist…


Dr. Von Renfield IV: “I remember the very first show, seeing them, was at The Elbow Room. [To Vincent] I don’t know if you remember this one?”

Vincent: “I do.”

Dr. Von Renfield IV: “Yeah, it was a Dangerkat show, and we were playing with you guys, and I was like ‘Look at these jerks walking around in costumes!’ Then, you guys started playing, and I was like ‘Oh, this is kinda cool!’

“And you guys had, like, 3-minute long [movie sample] intros between each song, (laughter) and I was like ‘Oh no, I hate these guys!’ (laughter)

“My girlfriend just had to explain our band to her parents like a week ago.” (laughs) “She said it didn’t go over very well. She ran into the same thing, like ‘How do I explain that they wear costumes and are covered in blood, but they’re not some evil metal band?”

[Vincent, on Dr. Von Renfield IV]

“When he joined the band, we still had Herbert III, and we became friends because we always played with Dangerkat. He joined as Lucio on guitar. Then, the next practice, Herbert III quit. And we were like ‘OK, well you just bought that guitar and bought that amp but now, you’re the drummer!’” (laughter)

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The Fiend: “First impression? Seeing their pictures on MySpace, and thinking, ‘What the hell is this [expletive]?’ (laughter) And then I listened to it, aaaaannnnnd, I loved it.

“The catchy tunes: just like with the radio when people turn it on and hear pop tunes-- it’s catchy! And that’s what people like; something that they hear, and then, hours later they’re doing something and all of a sudden, it creeps in your head, and you start bobbing your head. And that’s how The Renfields are, they’re catchy.”

“Then I wanted to play a show with them.

“And we got a show with them, somewhere near Beckley. And I remember pulling into the parking lot and seeing them, and thinking, ‘That has to be them!’” (laughter)

Vincent: “And we weren’t even in costume!”

The Fiend: “They were unmistakable.”

Dick Ramsses: “The first time I’d ever heard of them I was playing in [REDACTED] -- [Fiend] would talk about them often.

“The first time I ever saw them, we played with them at Fright Farm, and I remember thinking the same thing; ‘What the hell is this [expletive]?’ (band laughter)

“And I saw ‘em play, and for me too, it was “Machete a Go-Go,” I was like ‘Oh my god, this [expletive] is catchy!’

“Then, it was the half band, half set show in Huntington. We went out there, like hanging out, and I was like ‘Man, what happened to these guys?’”

Vincent: That night, I’d called [Fiend] the week before and said ‘Hey man let’s do The Jasons,’ it always happens like this, and he said ‘Yeah,’ and when we lost the bass player and it was just like with [Dr. Von Renfield IV] ‘OK you can be the fiend now.’”

Dick Ramsses: “That show was actually right after we’d quit playing with [REDACTED]

Fiend: “It was.”

Dick Ramsses: “Right after everything just went…”

The Fiend: “To Florida.” (laughs)

Dick Ramsses: “And we just kind of hung out, and I remember you talking about possibly joining The Renfields. And we actually sat in his dining room, and just messed around, we did an acoustic version of what was it, “Prom Night?”

The Fiend: “Probably.”

Dick Ramsses: “We were just jamming around on that, just for fun. And I was like, ‘Man if they need anyone else, I’ll do it.’”

The Fiend: “The band never had a second guitarist.”

Vincent [to Fiend]: “When you said [Dick Ramsses] wanted to join, I was like ‘YES!’”

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*on booking shows…

The Fiend: “You can’t expect a response from every venue owner to every text, every e-mail, saying ‘Sure, this is my place of business, come on over, play a show!’ and, you know, some of the hardest places to get in, are sometimes the crappiest places to play.”

Vincent: “Yes, they are.”

The Fiend: “I don’t know why that is.”

Vincent: “[Fiend] books the shows. But it’s frustrating when you’ll want to play a show, and they have no idea you’ve been a band for ten years. And you just wanna say ‘LOOK at what we have been through!’”

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*on starving The Fiend (Renfields intervention breaks out mid-interview)…

Dick Ramsses: “It’s always his own fault.”
Vincent: “Yeah!”
Dr. Von Renfield: “He really makes us do it.”
Dick Ramsses (to Fiend): “Quit making mistakes, and behave well, and you’ll get food.”
Vincent: “Here’s the key: don’t be who you are, and we won’t have to do what we do to you.”

The Fiend: “A lot of kids like us.”

Dr. Von Renfield: “When we played ShockaCon, there were little kids wearing Renfields shirts there. Like 6 and 7-year old kids.”

Dick Ramsses: “Kids are either really scared, or they love it.”

Vincent: “Just like Barney!” (band laughter)