There are really a lot of garage bands out there nowadays. Some of them are around since the early 90´s. But only a few started back in the 80´s. The Woggles are on of the few. After hearing several tales about their shows, my curiosity got aroused and I got their first record. And then I bought all of them. The Woggles are really one of the best bands around (if you like garage, that is), and they are far from calling it a day. Countless tours through the USA, several visits to Japan and even two European tours later, they have honed their skills. But I better stop praising the band and let Manfred "The Professor" Jones do most of the talking. Enjoy!

OK, as I don't know too much about your band (and I think not too many people here know), how about short band history?

The Woggles started back in 1987. It was maybe late August when we practiced first. Originally, all the players worked at the local student radio station. We were all into the same soul inspiring tunes & music. That is a mixture of R&B, rockabilly & early rock and roll, garage & instrumental, bar-b-que, and deep fried food. We were frustrated by the fact that at the time, and still for that matter, there was very little of what we liked going on. In the early 80's, the Lyres and the Fleshtones would come through every few months, and locally we had the Flat Duo Jets (I can go on and on about Dexter from the Flat Duo Jets, he is the last of the truly out of his mind genius rockers), but at this time those bands weren't playing very often, and we wanted to perform the music that we really dug. Music around here, whether hardcore/pseudo punk/art fag bullshit or jingle jangly pop, was pretty uninspiring. All these bands were shoe gazers for the most part. That is they get on stage and stare at their shoes, instead of feeling and moving with the music. So, it seemed imperative that we form and start playing rock and roll. Beginning in 1990 we started putting out 7"s and after that albums. Around that time we started playing our first gigs out of town. The first place we played outside of Athens was Savannah GA. I don't know what it is about port cities, but folks there and New Orleans, Mobile, Wilmington NC all really like to get very very drunk and rowdy. It's always a good time. Savannah is definitely a fun place to play. Over the years our touring schedule has increased and we've managed to play all over the US and been lucky enough to play Japan 3 times and Europe twice (Fall 1998 & 1999). Right now we're working on new material that we'll record in November for an album that will come out on Telstar next spring.

What about the name? Is there any story behind it?

The great thing about the name/word Woggles is that it has so many meanings. It really means nothing and over the years it turns out that numerous things have been labeled Woggles, but the word just never caught on in general usage. For us, we get the name from Sticks Mcghee and His Drinking Buddies song called the "Wiggle Woggle Woo." I think that song is from 1947 or maybe 1949. The song is about cutting loose and having a raucous good time. That's a great definition of "Woggling" to me. Other meanings of the term Woggle are quite fascinating. Apparently there is an architectural term called a "Woggle" that refers to a kind of decorative arch that serves no structural purpose. I like the idea of serving no structural purpose.
About 9 months ago an inventor died here in the US. He was responsible for no big inventions, just little things no one really thought about. In the late 40s or early 50s he developed a gadget in a refrigerator that would help cool milk. It was a "Woggle". Stick with the Woggles and you'll be cool. In the past couple of years researchers have been trying to give emotive responses to computers. They call these responses "Woggles".
I wonder if that gives us a connection to Kraftwerk. There have been several researchers that have visited our homepage by mistake. I have been told that "Woggle" is a golfing term. I don't play golf, so I don't know for sure. Supposedly, when you are about to swing and you have the club pulled back and raised above your head, the little waver it makes before you commit to the swing is a "Woggle". That's a pretty good definition as we do "swing" a bit, like we're groovy, man.
These are the main definitions. I think there may be a couple others, but I can't recall offhand.

You have been around for a longer period of time now. Has it gotten easier for you to exist as a band? Is it now easier to get gigs, or find labels?

It is definitely easier to get gigs and find labels to put out records. What always remains difficult is maintaining a commitment to what the band needs to do. Everyone has priorities in their life and understandably over the years people have had to come and go. We make very little money doing this. It takes up a lot of all our time. You have to really feel a need to play and promote the types of music we like to perform. The reward and satisfaction comes out of the performance.

Do you get tired of all this sometimes? Or has it turned into a kind of obsession?

My life is pretty basic. I need to eat, sleep, drink, shit, have sex, and rock and roll (not necessarily in the order I list things). I don't know if obsession is the right word. This is what I need to do with my life. Entertaining people makes me happy, so I must entertain.

What about playing live in front of an audience that has never heard of you, that doesnÝt know your sound? How do you react? How does the crowd react? (I am asking that question because some famous musician - John Lydon - claims that he liked playing in front of a stone-quiet and astonished audience)

I think I touched on this already, but generally speaking an audience that doesn't know our sound will try to relate us to their musical perspective or frame of mind. Most times an audience unschooled in the nuances of garage punk or garage rock or 60's punk (however loose these terms are defined) will enjoy what we do and try to relate/compare us to something they are familiar with. So, to the 18/19 year old punk rock fan we are "Like the Dead Kennedys", to an older 40 + year old guy we're "Like the Animals or even the early Stones", (very rarely does one of these types ever say the Kinks, I don't know why they never think of the Kinks). Sometimes we're "Like Jim Morrison and the Doors", and other times "Johnny Rotten & the Sex Pistols".
Honestly, it's pretty rare that people don't enjoy what we do. If they're in some shitty rock and roll club, they are obviously there because they like to go see bands perform and want to enjoy themselves. We enjoy what we do and try to communicate that to them, so that we can all have a ball together.

As for the John Lydon comment, I think he's alluding to the fact he's trying to get a reaction out of the audience, whether they like what he does or not. Types of reactions include the obvious ones of love or hate, but in this case he's including bewilderment or dumbfounding the audience as a reaction. Any reaction is better than being ignored. If John Lydon said he didn't care whether an audience ignored him or not, I'd say he'd have to be lying, because there is no incentive to be on stage. You can be ignored at home or in all other aspects of you life, but to take the time to be on stage, you are asking/demanding that someone takes notice of what you're doing. Certainly my preference is to get the crowd to enjoy what we do, so if they don't know us, we perform our songs/do our show in the hopes that they'll be entertained, and with luck they'll "Get it".
I mean that they'll hear the rock and roll music and enjoy it. Maybe they won't go completely crazy, but if we can get them smiling and tapping their feet that is a start. With enough time we can get them to loosen up and maybe by the end, things will get a little crazy.

As far as I know, your line-up has not changed that often but you have had several guitar players? How come? How do you manage to maintain your sound?

Since the beginning we've had two different lead guitar players and two different rhythym players. The original lead player is the original Zorko. He's a really talented musician. He can play everything. He left because he played bass in a different band called the Jack'O'Nuts and they were supposed to "make it" in a way that the Woggles could not, and that is that the Jack'O'Nuts were supposed to be on bigger independent labels and eventually a "real" record label, and so on. The Jack'O'Nuts broke up and Zorko 1 still lives in Athens. He still plays in many different bands and on a couple of occasions even filled in on guitar with the Woggles. There is no animosity between us and him, it's just that he wanted to do other things, and I respect that because what we do isn't easy and it's got to be a first love.

Zorko 2 took his place back in spring of 1991 and continued to play with us up until his wife had twins, the fall of 1996. In their household, his wife makes the better income, so Zorko 2 is a house husband. The upshot of that is that he can't tour. Mr. Moto was the first rhythm player and played with us till he moved to the mountains in winter of 1993. He's a very interesting fellow. Years ago he ran a really cool record store in Athens and even managed the Flat Duo Jets for a while. Most recently he built a bunker into the side of the mountain where he lives, in preparation for the Y2K meltdown. He has many firearms and knows how to use them. (What is he doing since the apocalypse didn't occur? I haven't heard yet.)

Back when Mr. Moto decided to leave, Montague was itching for a chance to play with the Woggles so we brought him on board then. In the fall of 94 he developed diabetes and because of his health took a break from the band and most other things for just over a year. After he left we kept on going without a second guitar mainly for economic reasons at first, but discovered we liked the sound as well, so we decided to keep it that way. While touring, 4 mouths to feed instead of 5, looked and felt better.
Later when Montague wanted to return to the band, we started working him in, but soon Zorko 2 couldn't tour anymore, so Montague became the sole player. The sound has been maintained because that is the sound of the band. The sound that our guitar has is what it's supposed to sound like for the band. Obviously there are variations on the sound, depending on what types of songs we're doing. But overall the sound has been maintained because the guitar players liked that sound and understood that when they joined the band that the guitar sound had that sort of parameter to it.

How long do you think a band can continue? Should it break up at the peak of its success or should it continue until all members are so exhausted that they cannot go on without risk for their health? (I am thinking of some bands like the Ramones or the Rolling stones)

I think that as long as there is a passion to perform and that the members are enjoying what they do as a band, then they should perform if they desire to. We've had the good luck of being able to play with both Dick Dale and Link Wray and in those instances neither of their performances were greatly diminished by time. The Remains are supposed to be amazing live, though they look like the 50+ year old men that they are. On the flip side, the Wailers still play occasionally and they're supposed to be a bit tepid, but hey it's up to you as an audience member to decide whether you want to see someone. I just hope that any band, young or old, that decides to perform, does so with the intention of doing their best. As this is done from the heart, the heart must be the barometer.

How would you describe a successful band? Is it more important to play in front of big crowds that are having a good time, without thinking about whether you like what you are playing and with whom? Or do you think it is necessary to like your own music even if the crowd is not that receptive? Is there an opinion which everybody in the band agrees with?

For myself a band or the band is successful as long as we are able to accomplish the things we want to do. For us that includes putting out records and performing. There will be no doubt some time when we can't do as much as we would like, but that doesn't mean that anything we have accomplished has any less merit to it. As long as we're happy with what we're doing and taking advantage of opportunities I think we are successful. Any crowd that is receptive to us or we are able to make receptive (win over) is an audience worth playing to.

If they don't seem to be receptive it's always a challange to try and win them over. Most times we do win them over, but when we don't, it was still worth the effort. Obviously for us we only play the music we like. We play the things that are relavent in our musical world, so there's never an issue of us not liking what we're playing. How does the rest of the band feel about this? Given we play the kinds of music we play is a good indication that folks in the band are happy with what we do and with the successes we have. If there was a way to make this full time that would be fantastic. Everyone would like to do what they enjoy most for a living I'd guess. But that doesn't seem like something we have to worry about now. We are a very rare breed of band. By far most of the bands that people think are cool are far removed from us, I believe. I'm not just talking about commercially successful bands, but here locally in Atlanta it is similar to how it was in Athens, GA. The popular local bands are far removed from the sources we cherish and often times don't really relate to us at all. If they have any sort of musical grounding it's not more than 10 years back. They seem puzzled by what we do and even more flabergasted when we get opportunities to tour the US or play overseas. A good example is the fact that a number of Japanese bands think we're "cool".

It's nice that they think that, and I also believe they think that because they have an understanding of where we come from and what we try to do. Here in the US these Japanese bands receive a lot of press (Guitar Wolf, Thee Michelle Gun Elephant) and do records on labels that the "cool" local bands think are "cool" labels. When these people hear that the Japanese bands like us, they just can't believe it. Now whether the Japanese bands like us or not doesn't really matter in the long run to us. We are certainly happy that they do, but we've been doing what we do for over 10 years now and with luck will continue at least 10 more.

What do you think of Europe and especially Germany in general? More specific, is it still possible to differ between gigs in the USA and gigs in Europe? (I have read the tour diary on your homepage - is it really that uncommon to you that most people at a concert are smokers?)

In general the bands are treated much better in Europe than in the USA. At times there is almost an antagonistic attitude between the bands and the bars/clubs where you play in the US. Although we might have a contract stating that we are to get a certain amount of beers, many bars are irritated when they have to give the band anything for free. Of course it's not like that everywhere or all the time, but it is not unusual for a club/bar to act like jerks or assholes to the band. Whereas in Europe, we have yet to have difficulties in getting food or drink. Most of the time there's plenty to spare! A couple of times there was confusion on the part of the promoter as to whether we had sleeping bags, when we crashed at their houses. We did not, but it all got sorted out and was not a crisis. Most of the time, when we're in Europe we're staying in hotels, which is nice. It is very rare for us to get a hotel in the US. The clubs almost never give us money for that or include hotel rooms in the guarantees. Since we are not rich, we can't afford hotels, so we crash on peoples floors. Every so often, we have bad luck and can't find someone willing to let us spend the night on their floor, so we'll drive towards the next town/gig and sleep in the van. But most of the time we can find someone. Sometimes the places are like a palace to us, other times they are a hell hole and the van looks better. I just counted that last year we played 118 shows and out of those at least 80 were on the road in the US. Out of the 80 shows we stayed in hotels (where we paid) 4 times and had to sleep in the van another 4 times. Now how many times we stayed in hell holes instead of palaces, I can't recall offhand, but we're still a touring band, so it must not be too bad.

Fall of 1998, was the first time we played in Europe. We only could get one show in Germany. It was at the Underground in Köln. At that time we were told that it was not a good idea to tour in Germany. We were told that people were all into techno music and that live rock and roll was dead. We were also told that there are very high taxes to play in Germany, and we wouldn't be able to afford to play there. Thankfully, Ritchie at Screaming Apple told us that we should tour in Germany and that it could be really good. He put us in touch with Dirk from Monogam Beat Agentour, a booking agent. Dirk is a fan of the band and he set up a really great tour for us this past November. We played 9 shows all over Germany and it went really well. We flew into Amsterdam and rented a van there. We drove ourselves. We had no extra person as a roadie/tour manager/driver. The only time we had driving problems were when we were trying to follow directions to the clubs. Apparently very few of the promoters ever have to drive, so they couldn't give directions worth a shit to someone travelling by car. One of my favorite directions was when a promoter told us to follow the signs to the main train station and then find a taxi stand there and ask a taxi driver where the street with the club is. Everyone (including Germans) told us that "Don't worry about being able to speak any German, everyone in Germany speaks English". I am able to speak a little German, and figured that I'd probably be using all that I knew. I was right. Maybe everyone in Germany speaks English, but only those people who aren't asked directions. The taxi driver I spoke to in the above story could barely speak German himself, much less English. Together we muddled through, my American German and his Turkish German. The shows were all a lot of fun to play. The biggest turnouts were shows that had some sort of 60s theme night and a DJ spinning some songs both before and after we played. Those crowds were a little over 200 folks. To us having 200 folks at a show in a country we hadn't toured in before, or had a record out that wasn't an import, we thought was a really good turnout. Several more shows had close to 100 people each and the early in the week shows had early in the week crowds at around 40 folks each. But regardless of size, all the places had folks dancing! There were always enough people enjoying it to make it worthwhile and fun.

This in spite of the fact that it was snowing every day we were there! One thing that was funny to us was the Autobahn. In the US we always hear about the Autobahn having no speed limit. When we got to Germany we thought, "Great! We'll drive on the Autobahn tomorrow! We'll go really fast! Yeehaw!" I guess there's no need for a speed limit, because everyone just sits in traffic. I mean we got on the Autobahn and just sat there for quite a while every day. Sometimes when the traffic would clear up we'd think, "Great! Now we can haul ass! Yeehaw!" We'd go maybe 2 kilometers and then slam on the brakes at the next traffic jam. But travel adventures aside, we had a really great time in Germany, just hanging out with people, eating, drinking and having a good time. There is no Schnitzel I have not tried. Test me on that. Ask me about any that I haven't had, and if it's true, I'm ready to eat it next year. There are, unfortunately, many German beers that went unsampled. I tried to try as many as I could, but there are only so many hours in the day. However, next year I will apply myself vigorously to this task. I don't know about the average person in Germany, but the average rock and roll fan is similar the world over. But to answer your question better, yes people smoke at our shows in the US. The tour diary you read was written by Dan Electro our Drummer.

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