Peter Prescott (Minibeast) – Thanks for Asking!

Peter Prescott (Minibeast) – Thanks for Asking! – by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: What was the very first reaction to your music, from the first person to ever hear  so much as a practice jam or the demo of your first song?

PP: Each band that I have been in, played out when we were still “forming” so, each had awkward, imperfect beginnings. Minibeast began about 13 years ago with skeletal, sorta childish, rhythmic pieces on a digital recorder. Volcano suns [mach 2] had a shambolic start with the bass amp breaking down halfway through. Embarrassment and humiliation was usually met with politeness!

RRX: “The best laid plans of mice and men…” I don’t really know the quote, but I know  this one; sh*t happens. When we least expect it, calamity befalls us. Sometimes just  comic inconvenience. Please tell us a story about some comic inconvenience that  happened to you whilst performing?

Volcano Suns played a college [Princeton?], ingested psychedelics, fought with the audience, each other……..post show doused each other with soda. Ugly at the time, sorta funny in retrospect. In a far more jolly version of that band, we opened for Overkill, drunkenly murdered a watermelon on stage. First appearance of Bob Weston with David Kleiler.

RRX: My singer punched my drummer out. Memorable moment, though nothing to brag about. But we have these things that, when summing up your endeavor, an incident 
comes to mind. What do you got?

PP: Early version of Minibeast where the drummer relentlessly corrected and verbally beat up the bass player after every song. That had a short shelf life. Mission of Burma played our last show [back in the day] opening for PIL. The PA suspiciously shut off mid way through our set. Hmmm.

RRX: We have to play somewhere, and sometimes those places have more going for them than a stage and a power outlet. What is a memorable place you played, and bonus points if it’s not a well-known place.

PP: Mission of Burma [second round] played Detroit in a dilapidated building leaking water from the ceiling with scary looking extension cords everywhere and lived. And at a college outside [I believe the rapper Common was the headliner] where it was so dark we literally could not see each other. Minibeast played at an enormous used clothing store in New Bedford this past summer [called Circa] filled with youngsters and oldsters.amazing!

RRX: Playing out is tricky because you never know what’s going to happen when you  get there. Sometimes everything goes wrong. What was your worst show like?

PP: As noted, each band I have been in has had “worst shows”, because you are forged like steel in fire by playing live. That said,the worst show i can remember was a V Suns show opening for Government Issue [one of my fave bands,by the way]. It got worse,when Jon and Jeff informed me on the way home that they were breaking up the band. I responded by finding Bob Weston and Chuck Hahn, recording “Bumper Crop” and going on tour for 6 weeks.

RRX: Would you rather have one of your songs blow up and make you a one-hit wonder and household name, or would you rather have all your songs be solidly received, but no 
chart-climbers?

PP: This is easy. Though a few Burma songs are kinda considered punk rock staples, I am with the solidly received, but no chart topper thing, 100%!