After my original plan to interview my good buddies Honor Among Thieves was foiled by some kind of jogger’s party at Otto’s Shrunken Head we retired upstairs to my sitting room (literally, there are no chairs) and conducted the following interview. Honor is a fast rising hard rock band with a charismatic lead singer and solid backbone of rip roaring riff rock – check 'em out.

I’m sitting here in my, I guess it's a living room, with Honor Among Thieves, so everyone introduce yourselves.
E: Eric Z., guitar
S: Sebastian, bass
D: Dave, drums
C: Cherokee, pain in the ass (laughter). No. Cherokee on vocals. 

All right so, tell me how the band got together.
D: Uh, I guess my last band broke up, which was "lick" and I wasn't ready to stop playing music and then I met meet Sebastian and he and I and Eric were working for about two days with someone else.
E: She quit as soon as I joined.
D: Yeah, I guess she didn't like Eric. So we went on a search for a singer and we listened to a slew of singers who just weren't doing it. Then we went over to Bitch at Don Hill's one night and...
S: We were blown away
D: Cherokee was singing and we were like "well, let's talk to her”, and I talked to her about it and she was like "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah"
C: Is that what I did?
D: Yeah! It was actually pretty cool because instead of giving her a cover to learn for rehearsal we gave her a tape of music with no lyrics and she wrote words for it and it was a finished product right there, then she walked out of the room and we all looked at each other and we're like anyone who doesn’t think she should be in the band say so now and I think we called her before she got home.
C: I think so too, you called right away and it's been downhill ever since. (laughter)

 So tell me a little bit about how you feel about the neighborhood and how you feel about rock and roll in the east village?
S: I think there's an awesome music scene, there's a lot of good bands and we've been lucky enough that we've had a chance to play with a lot of them, I think it's on the way up.
C: Yeah, I think the kids in New York are totally original and they're awesome!!! You go into any other city and it's not like that, I mean the rock scene here is really worth appreciating.
D: It's definitely on the comeback, I can remember a time when there wasn't much of a scene and the bands were pretty cutthroat actually, people walked around and bad mouthed each other and would rip the other bands flyers down, but now there's definitely a scene of bands working together. I think we were lucky to get in just when it started happening and now it's beginning to take off a little. 

A lot people think that partially that shit came together because of Steve Blush.
C: Blush has been very good to us.
D: And he played a very big role in that coming together. For the first time in my recent experience bookers are starting to book like sounding bands, it used to be you play a bill and it's a death metal band with a Britney spears cover band and something else and a Dave Matthews type band, a jam band or something.
E: Yeah, this is the first time I’ve experienced a scene and I’m really thankful for it, I’ve been in a lot of bands where people just don't get together and work together. 

It's like a support network. A lot of bands on the scene help each other out.
C: Yeah yeah, everyone's been really good to us; we've had a lot of support. 

Yeah and you guys haven't really been playing out for all that long.
C: No, but we have been really well received and we've been given a lot of really nice favors from people like Steve blush.
S: Supervillain
All: Yeah!!!
D: For some reason we constantly find ourselves on bills with Supervillain, I guess that's a good thing.
C: The waste does us good too, they give us good mention a lot, we love 'em for that. 

A lot of the reason why I started writing for the waste was that I didn't feel that there was enough coverage of the hard rock side of the scene, they tended more towards punk rock style bar bands.

D: There's definitely a resurgence of that, a lot of the bands that we play with or go to see are like bands, you know, hard rock and metal bands.

 It seems to me that Three Of Cups is the nexus spot where most of those bands from the hard rock side hang out now.
C: The vortex. (laughter)
S: The black hole. 
D: Keep walking, do not go in !!!  

Danger.
E: I’m pretty happy about the diversity of the rock scene though, 'cause you still have punk bands and you have the metal bands and there doesn't seem to be a split between the two that there probably was in the past.
D: There's a lot of fan crossover. 

Yeah I’m noticing that there's a lot more camaraderie now than in the past, less jealousy, some bands are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed while others are trying to gang up with like bands.
D: Yeah, I think we all got together and realized that what's good for one band is good for all the bands.

So tell me about the band's message, what do you sing about, topics, politics?
D: You gotta ask Cherokee.
C: Yeah, it's all fucking and fighting, but the main objective of rock and roll is to have a good time. I mean I don't want to go to a rock show and get bummed out and I don't think that anybody else does either. So the whole thing about rock and roll is to go out and have a good time. So, yeah, the lyrics, a lot of them are just kind of nasty. Fucking and fighting, I guess that's basically the things that motivate me. 

So when are you going in to record some of the new material?
S: We're hoping to go into the studio somewhere around January/February, we have some new songs that we're all really excited about. 

Full length?
D: Yeah, hopefully enough people will come to our shows so that we can make enough money to record.
C: Buy a t-shirt or a c.d. 

Who did the last record?
C: We went to Videoland and Sean pierce was the engineer. Sean from the Toilet Boys. Recently married Sean. (congrats Sean & Theo!)
C: And he was awesome and we did it in two days, and we were psyched, it was exactly what we needed. Five songs. 

I know I have the demo. (laughter)
D: I think one of the best things about this band is that we were able to go in and kick out five songs in two days.
C: We rehearse a lot. 

You're catching banana fish zero's heels with the amount of shows you're playing.
D: Well, you know we are four people who want to do this, it's not a hobby. 

You got to be committed if you want to get anywhere.
C: Well it's not even that, we love to play too, we wanna be doing it all the time because that's what's fun to us.
D: And fucking and fighting. 

Don't forget the getting fucked up part.
D: We seem to be real good at that.  

Let's talk about how you all like to get fucked up.
S: Cheap beer and expensive Tequila.
D: You pick and we'll partake.
S: PBR.
E: I’m a little bit of everything guy, just spread it out.
C: Yeah he likes crack, heroin - hahaha. 

Psychedelic frogs.
C: Only on weekends.
D: Pass 'em around, you know your buddy licks a frog, you don't wanna lick it right after, then you gotta go out and catch another one...
C: If you lick a frog after your friend does that make you gay?
E: The three of you though can't keep up with me.
D: Yeah, we discussed doing an album cover where Cherokee, Sebastian and me are laying in the gutter covered in newspapers and Eric is just standing over us shaking his head (tsk tsk). 

So what's the ultimate goal?
D: World domination.
S: Just rock really hard for as long as we can and then do it some more.
C: Have a good time. 

Cherokee, I know you do a lot of the artwork for the band.
C: Yes I do, I just drew the cover and what we use as flyers.  

And you have an art show coming up next month?
C: I do, December 11th in Williamsburg, I don't know the name of the gallery yet.
S: Well if they come see our next show Cherokee can fill them in about the art show.
D: You can always stop by the website, www.thievesrocks.com.
C: Everything will be listed on there. 

So Is there anything else you guys wanna say?
C: Rock out !!! Party on dude !!! Awooo !!! (sarcasm)
D: Come see us live, read the Waste, come out support all the bands, support local rock and roll in new York city, it's alive and well and if you don't know that then you're fucking missing out. 

Right on, all right. Well, thanks guys.