They are probably the most, they are furious and they are coming from Chicago, or maybe I've to say Chicago Rock City. Some of their songs are programmed by MTV and they got positive response with a lot of good reviews about their full-length "Lick'Em And Leave'Em" released by Get Hip. We know them also because of their 7'' split with Bible Of The Devil released by Italian Scarey Records. They are a hurricane, and they are called The Last Vegas. We will see them soon on Italian shores. Our questions are answered by: John Wator (guitar), Nate Arling (drums, percussion) and Adam Arling (guitar, backing vocals). Read this interview and then you'll know why you have to lick'em and leave'em. A new chapter of neverending sleaze...

Hy guys, where, when and how The Last Vegas was born? Let's go, introduce the early days of The Last Vegas to our Exploders:
John: Well, I wasn't in the early days of the Vegas but we've been friends long enough that I know the whole 9 yards. The Arling brothers were in different bands in Rockford, eventually joining forces and adding original bass player Nate Tovo (Turbo). They jammed until they left Rockford and relocated to Normal (Illinois) where they found the one and only Vinnie Maddog Hearn, who was the singer for the first few years. They were officially the drunkest rock band in town and every show was a complete party. After about two years of getting paid in beer and blowjobs, they got a new singer/harp/organ player, Mr. Rory Davis. This line-up rocked for about four years and lasted through another move up to mighty Chicago. Band had good success and toured a bit until Rory and Tovo left, which allowed me to come onboard and add a guitar while we stole Tanner from back in Normal, where we knew him from working at the music store. This has been the line-up for exactly two years and has been a fucking blast so far. But the old days were really fun, cause we all partied together and I saw them play about a million times. We definately roasted out a few vans over the last six years.

Why did you choose The Last Vegas as name of your band?
John: I guess it came from Nathan way back when. Everyone has their own view on what it means. We'll leave it open for discussion when we come to town. You can ask him over a few shots of Jager.

Which are the artists and the bands that influenced you the most, since the beginning of your career?
John: We all have some of the same favorites, and we all have some definate unique tastes. Growing up, mostly big rockers from the 80's, Guns'n Roses, Skid Row, Van Halen, Metallica... We were surrounded by lots of mullet havin' whitetrash dudes in the 80's that jammed hair metal out of their beat up cars. That was the early days. Nowadays I like heavier music, Nathan's into blues and Zepplin, Adam is a bonifide hair rocker and digs music that is in the stonesy style of things. It is really hard to specify. We appreciate tons of different bands that cover a huge span of musical styles. The Last Vegas all melt in the pot to become this mix of our own influences. That's what you hear on the album and see in the live show.

Get Hip published your debut album "Lick'Em And Leave'Em", and it received a lot of good reviews from international music magazines and webzines. How did you reach the deal with Get Hip Records? Would you have expected such success and are you totally satisfied about "Lick'Em And Leave'Em"?
John: We set up tents in front of their office and wouldn't leave until they put out our record. No seriously, we played a show with the Cynics. Their guitar player, Greg, owns Get Hip. I guess he felt us on to something cool so he offered to give it a go. Honestly, the whole record started as a free demo session that we pushed as far as possible. We owe a huge debt of pabst to our engineer for getting it to sound so good on such a small budget. Everything else was completely unexpected and an awesome surprise. I think we are all very satisfied and happy that we surpassed everyone's
expectations of this band.

How does the song-writing mode work in your band? Can you define it as a team cooperation or an individual composition?
John: Usually one person brings and idea in and it gets mushed around until we feel it rocks. None of us are amazing sonwriters, but when we put our heads together we get the Vegas songs and that is what we love about being in this band. Sometimes I bring in a song and demand that it stays the same and it either works great or sounds terrible. But on the whole, we just let it all fly around and grap the good stuff while we can.

Is there any song of "Lick'Em and Leave'Em" that you feel closer to for some reason? Please, explain us why:
John: I would say "Do Me" or "EZ I", just because they remind me of seeing the Vegas play back before I was even in the band. Just gettin drunk ass at the shows and goin to their house all the time to get fucked up. Good times, good times.

Scarey Records published a 7'' split with you and yourfellow-citizens Bible Of The Devil. Who has had the idea to publish this great stuff and how's working with this Italian label?
Nate: The Bible guys knew them from somewhere. They approached us about it and we said yeah. The Scarey camp has been cool and the record sounds and looks great! Pickit up and support cool labels/bands. And Marco from scarey's band, the Nerds rocks!

You're on MTV with "You Wanna Know How to Love Me" and "SheWon't Go"! Let me know some more about it!
Nate: Yeah, they play our songs on a bunch of shows, so that's cool... Can't hurt to have millions of kids hearing some Last Vegas rock n roll. We are working on a video that should be done soon. And yes, it involves lots of half naked women and guitar solos stading on the top of moving automobiles... and since cool David Lee Roth videos went off the air, I'm not a big MTV fan, and never watch TV, but guess sort of a double edged sword and happy they play our music.

How's the state of rock scene in Chicago? Except Bible Of The Devil, are there some great bands that you want recommend to our Exploders? Vicerversa, are there some bands that you particularly dislike for some reasons? Dudes, try to be as nasty as you can!
Nate: Yeah, a lot of great rock bands in Chicago right now. Knife Of Simpson, The Phenoms, Bible Of The Devil as mentioned, Beer Nuts, Velcro Lewis and His 100 Proof Band, Buried At Sea, Treaty Of Paris, Indian, The Dutchmen, Local H, Imperial Battlesnake... Probably a lot I am forgetting, but those are some that come first to mind. The scene is rocking. We have traveled all over the United States and Chicago seems to have the best and most hard rocking cool bands. And a lot of dirty bars to hang out at, play at, and drink for cheap. That is impossible in a lot of bigger cities in the States. I'm too much of a stoner to rip on someone. Bands that have attitudes egos suck!

Tell us about the greatest and the worst The Last Vegas gig of ever? Describe us what happened!
Nate: The greatest may have been in Juarez (Mexico). We had been told by people that Juarez is the murder capital of Mexico and all this crazy shit. We drove ourselves through the border and didn't know what we were getting into. Ended up being a totally crazy show with all these wild kids. Before the show, we went bar hopping to a bunch of Mexican strip clubs with the opening band (Super Cobra who kicks ass!) and the promoter bought us tons of tequilas and beers. At the end of the show all the kids got on stage and lots of the gear sort of got smashed. From what I remember, that is what happened and it was great! The worst may have been about 6 years ago in Piquoa (Ohio). It was the first tour we did and it was three show tour. We played with bands called Window Pain and Skin Curtain. They both wore make up and only a couple people showed up to the show including a midget who was the father of the singer from Skin Curtain. We still had fun though and was an experience..No show has ever been a total waste or that bad. You're on the road, playing in a band, can't be that bad.

Which are the maddest bands that you met on stage during the tours of your career? Do you wanna tell us some crazy event occurred?
Nate: Hmmm.... as mentioned before Skin Curtain was pretty mad, but we also played with Vince Neil of Motley Crue and he was totally pissed. He didn't know any of theCrue words, was totally drunk, and looked like a pissed off girls softball coach. He threw his microphone at the monitor engineer cause when he couldn't hear his vocals and stormed off stage many times. It was still a fun show though, and girls were throwing panties at us when we played. And we toured with Urge Overkill from Chicago for a while. Those guys were pretty angry. But I probably would be mad also, if my name was Ed "Burger" King Roeser and I now looked like Meatloaf/Vince Neal! (laughs).

What do you usually do before going on stage? Do you have any particular usage or kind of spell against bad luck?
Nate: Nope, no spells, and I don't think about it too much. I'm always excited to play and I never know what's gonna happen before, during, or after a Last Vegas show! Here are a short list of things we usually do in these town though: in Mexico tequila and strip clubs, in Philadelphia cheesesteaks, in Los Angeles we go to a strip club called Jumbos. $2 cold beers and good rock music. In Vancouver BC weed, sushi and $1 pizza. In Canada strong beer and strong weed. In Seattle Seafood and John always visits Kurt Kobain's grave. In San Francisco weed & seafood. In Austin barbecue!

What are your future plans? I know you'll be here in Italy to play some gigs. If I'm not wrong it's the first time for you in our country! What do you expect from Italian rock'n'rollers and what do they have to expect from a Last Vegas show?
Adam: Fire-breathing, lots and lots of fire-breathing. That's what our whole gig is about. If the crowd dislikes us we simply burn the audience one member at a time into full, rock submission. We expect the best from Italy. We have heard rumors there's a vibrant metal scene. Our friends in Scarey Records and The Nerds live in Italy, and if their enthusiasm is representative of Italian's taste and passion for raw hard rock music, then we're in for some good times. I forsee Italian crowds to be adorned in tight leather outfits, the girls beyond beautiful, and the music to be loud, sweaty and played long into the night.

Which are the things you love the most and the ones you hate the most of the r n'r world?
Adam: The rock'n'roll world is an alternate reality. It's la-la land, where someone can have a greater sense of personal freedom and expression than in mainstream society. You meet a lot of insane people who have a burning passion for life and artistic expression. The R'n'R world believes in the power of a live performance to change a life, bring out the animal within us, to become primal and to feel raw emotion ripping through your veins. The rock'n'roll world is a breeding ground of style, fashion and freaks. An association with the rock'n'roll world probably gives one the attitude that they believe in something beyond the standard growing old and dying thing. The only thing I hate about it is there's not enough of it currently, almost like a fading movement. Revitalize people, it's the best thing out there.

Ok, this is The Rock Explosion mad quiz! Choose one of the following options and let us know the reasons why:
Sleaze's into you or you're in sleaze:
Adam: About 5 years ago sleaze was definitely into me. Now vice versa...big time.
Are you ready to scream : "Silvia, c'mon, lick it up!" or "Jenna, c'mon ridin' with me":
Adam: Obviously "Silvia, c'mon lick it up!". Licking is such a dirty concept that we had to name our album "Lick'Em and Leave'Em". Buy it today.
Sweet Leaf or Snow Blind:
Adam: Musically I prefer "Snow Blind". As to the underlying meaning in your question...I prefer primo 'Sweet Leaf'. I heard Sabbath also released a great Italian single called "Sweet Hash", that we're very anxious to pick up while in Italy.
Sex Dolls or New York Pistols, maybe I've done some confusion:
Adam: Confusion is the point. I love the swagger attitude of the Dolls, however I'm also a huge Steve Jones fan. The Dolls challenged perception, whereas the Pistols were about tearing down walls. Without either of them, the music world would be a much worse place.
Live fast die young or ridin' a lot and die as old as possible:
Adam: I'm growing old as possible to be a pain in the ass of as many people as possible, for as long as possible. "Live fast die young" is so been there done that. When you're dead, you're dead for a long time, and I imagine it's quite boring.
Are you afraid of Freddy Kruger or Jason Vhoorees, or maybe me for these psychopatic questions:
Adam: How about we create our own Last Vegas Euro-Tour monster entitled, "Jason 'Bruno' Kruger"? Bruno, you could come on stage at our Italy shows with a hockey mask and a razor-fingered hand weapon and slice off the head of our guitar player John each show!

Your fav food and drinks and your personal top 5 albums of ever.
Adam: The Last Vegas collectively love meat (all kinds), sushi, shellfish, seafood, pasta, red peppers, espresso, juice, thick beer, and whiskey. My Top 5 Albums (off the top of my head): "Gish" (Smashing Pumpkins), "White Light / White Heat" (Velvet Underground), "Rocks" (Aerosmith), "Are you Experienced" (Hendrix) and "Appetite for Destruction" (Guns'n'Roses).

If you had the chance to change something in the world, what would you do for sure?
Adam: The world just confuses me. I think I'd make it 70 degrees and sunny everywhere.

What is the craziest or the most dangerous or stupid thing ever done in your life?
Adam: Hmmm... that's a tough one. I can remember flipping completely upside down on a motorbike in a trailer park a few years back, almost getting killed. Punching hands thru windows, being in a riot, lighting a shopping cart full of wood on fire and rolling into busy intersections as kids, small-time theivery, smashing up vans, not remembering periods of 2-3 days, and having the first few years of band life being a complete black-out. We were all pretty stupid growing up and I guess its a wonder we made it this far.

Ok guys, the interview is over. Now you're free to greet our Exploders and all your fans as you like. Thank you so much.
Adam: Check out The Last Vegas when we come come through Italy, I think both shows are with The Nerds, so it'll be rockin. Also check out www.thelastvegas.com for tunes, pics, and a full February Europe tour schedule. We'd highly suggest picking up the new 7 inch single out on Scarey Records "S & M / You Wanna Know How To Love Me", along with the full-length CD/LP "Lick'Em and Leave'Em" on Get Hip Records. We're looking forward to our trip and meeting all the cool people and fans we've had a chance to meet doing advance press stuff. We'll see ya out at the show. "Drink your face off, Dance your ass off, and Get your rocks off to The Last Vegas". Amen.

Questions are submitted by Bruno Rossi
Translated by Monkey M. from The Nerds
Thanx to Garbage Dump & Scarey Records for their kind help and cooperation