"Which punk band do you think is most underrated?" "All of 'em."

What punk band do you think is the most underrated?
All of ‘em. I just finished telling you they never sold anything. Who sold less? I don’t know. Who was the most undersold band? But now it doesn’t matter because they are all in TV commercials. So they didn’t get on radio but they got on what was better. “Lust for life, hey…ho.” It’s great. I turn on the TV every night and my whole childhood is there. It’s great.

That’s not depressing?
No. What’s depressing is that they all died, that’s what’s depressing. But they would have loved it you know. That’s what’s kind of sad. You know, Joey would have loved it. Joey was really the eternal optimist as Holstrom says in the movie…or one of those movies. He always thought he was going to have a hit single.

So they just wanted to make money…
They were all trying to sell out, that’s what you try to do. Try to sell as many records as possible, not sell as few records as possible and be an underground cult sensation...who wants that, there’s no money in that. We all want money and pussy.

But, what about the integrity?
Yes, but you can make a lot of money not changing your mind and doing it the right way. It’s just that America is a huge fucking country and if you are the group that wants to hear Iggy and the Ramones and the majority wants to hear Billy Joel, well that’s what wins. We live in a country where whatever gets the highest ratings wins, so you hope that you get a high rating so you can win and be popular and stuff.

It takes people a long time to catch up to things. If you came up with a new idea today and you said I’m gonna call this art movement “mud,” the “mud art movement.” And a bunch of people have a scene and you get lots of press in New York and stuff. It will probably take 5 years for the kids out in the suburbs of Denver to get into the “mud art movement.” It takes a long time for things to get out there. That’s why they hammer you over the head with advertising, “please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” I know that because they spent a lot of money telling me that. But if you don’t have a TV and you can’t be on the news all the time, you got to use other ways. And now with the Internet, it will be interesting to see what happens. It’s always interesting to see what happens. Don’t you think?