Cole Alexander On How the Black Lips Punk’d India

You'd think after Richard Gere sparked a national freakout by kissing Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in New Delhi two years ago, the Black Lips would reconsider before making out with each other on stage during a recent tour in India. But the notoriously uninhibited punk rockers from Georgia were too drunk and too frustrated by crowd indifference to actually give a shit. "I mooned the crowd and made out with Ian and then I played the guitar with my dick and rolled around," says lead singer Cole Alexander, on break from recording a new album in Berlin.

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But their onstage antics were not some reactionary desperate measure meant to inflame passions. “We were just doing it for fun,” explains Alexander. But what in America would be considered nothing more than anarchic antics caught in the spirit of punk, were deemed obscene by the tour’s sponsors. The Lips pissed a lot of people off, and suddenly found themselves on the run from police. News of the fracas hit the U.S. almost immediately, and speculation over what happened ran rampant. Here, Cole Alexander tells all. 

I know you’ve probably talked about this on end, but I want to ask about India.
Shit.

What brought you guys to India in the first place?
We just wanted to plays shows and we got invited to go so we thought it’d be cool to check out India. We’d never been there before. They’re not really used to our music there. There should probably be globalization with punk music.

During your first show, it was reported that people were throwing plastic bottles at you. True?
Yeah, but that’s something they do to us. We get that kind of stuff all the time. In the States typically it means they like us. I don’t know what that means in India. Yeah, it was just fun-loving. I didn’t take it as These guys suck! Fuck! It didn’t seem like that.

How did you compare to the other bands on the bill?
They were like 80’s metal bands. I mean, they sound like 1999. Like Nirvana, Tool and Nine Inch Nails.

And what did they look like?
Like Tools. I’m not trying to knock their scene. All the Bollywood music we heard was really cool. But as far as stuff that was trying to be Western, we didn’t find ourselves listening to it. All the traditional Indian music we heard, we loved. But indie bands trying to sound like American rock bands sucked.

Because you were aware of the conservative laws in India, did you make an effort to tame down your shows?
Yeah, we came with the notion that we were gonna dumb it down a little bit. Like a lot of places would be no smoking, no drinking, done by midnight. And we were playing with horrible bands. And people weren’t digging us that much, so we just started to get kinda frustrated. And we were staying at dumpy hotels and we started getting tired from the road. Eventually a lot of people were like Are you guys gonna go crazy? Cause we wanna see what it’s like in America. So finally out of frustration, we were just like let’s just go balls out. And we were playing a college university and the kids were a little more rambunctious and more open to us. We just went balls to the wall, got a little too drunk before we went on. And we just went all in, fucking pulled out all the stops.

Did you pull out your cock?
Yeah, I mooned the crowd and made out with Ian and then I played the guitar with my dick and rolled around. I’d originally written in the statement to our label that it was indecent exposure we were getting in trouble for. But from what I’m starting to understand, it was the kissing with Ian that was really not cool.

And when did you realize that something was wrong?
Not for a while. We got off stage and the kids were just going nuts and it seemed like everything was fine. When we got back they let a bunch of the kids backstage and we started smoking a joint and it was all good. And then our tour manager started looking a little nervous. He was just like, Oh shit. He started getting word from the promoters that they were they were fucking livid. He was like, I think they might call the cops or something, like freaking out. So we were like , Let’s get the fuck out of here if it’s getting edgy. So some of the kids came back to the hotel with us, and basically the main sponsors were freaking out on us and all the press was there. and it was really embarrassing to them, so they were stopping funding for the tour. They’re not even gonna pay us for the shows that we did. And they think they’re gonna press charges. And we were like, Fuck that, that’s bullshit. Some security guards were giving us looks. We thought we were straight in the hotel. But the tour manager was like, We’ve gotta go, because if they do press charges, you go to jail. And it’s bad. Really bad. 

So how did you escape?
We had to drive for 10 hours to get out of the state jurisdiction. Once you get away, the cops can’t do anything. The cops there are shady, they’ll fuck your world up. We drove all night in this tiny car and didn’t sleep all night. People thought we exaggerated running from the cops. But did they really expect us to sit around and hang around and wait for that to happen? That’s not what happens. When it gets hairy we fucking book it.

What was the vibe like during that ten hour car ride?
I couldn’t sleep. The guy who booked the tour was freaking out because he lost all his money. And the tour manager looked so stressed out. They started driving us to the town that we were supposed to leave from, but we wanted to go to the next show. So once we got to that town and all our shows had fallen through, they started asking for money. They said we owed them six grand and at that point we were like, Fuck it. Let’s just get out of here. We have no shows and this guy is saying we owe them money. Then he started holding our passports and that made us really nervous so we surrounded him until he gave them back and got out of there.

Are they hassling you now that you’re in Germany?
I think they’re waiting for their money but I don’t think we’re going to pay them. They’d never booked shows before, it was a new business they started. In America, if a booker books your band and the sponsors fall out, that’s between the sponsors and the booker, not the band. They wanted us to pay all the money that we were supposed to get paid. It didn’t make any sense at all. Everything is backwards there.

So how do you feel about the mentality of that part of the world now?
It’s a great place. For what we do, they’re just not ready for that.

Is it a relief being in Germany?
I’m loving it here. I don’t go to bed with roaches every night.

See footage of the Black Lips in India below.

Homepage photo of Cole Alexander courtesy of Andrew Kelly