Qué Sera Sera

Just trying to get 10 minutes on the phone with Alien Ant Farm these days is more of a task than doing such things usually is. The Southern California native quartet has nearly every second of their time spoken for these days - from touring to travel to publicity. Even their time off is strictly bracketed, and all this handling, micromanaging and meticulous scheduling is the result of the band\'s own popularity.
Alien Ant Farm\'s first (and third) single, \"Movies,\" garnered regular airplay on MTV2, but it wasn\'t until the group unveiled their cover of Michael Jackson\'s epic \"Smooth Criminal\" that they really got noticed by the masses. The song was an instant hit, and though the group wasn\'t invited to play at last November\'s Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Celebration, their version of the classic was enough to get them a gig at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards and enough album sales to justify the re-shooting of the video for \"Movies,\" which was re-released and did much better. But while the Jacko cover did give the band the big push that they needed to get off the ground, it also hurt their credibility with some of their fans and prospective fans.
According to Alien Ant Farm drummer Mike Cosgrove, this is something the band is fully aware of, and though it\'s obviously something that is on their brains, they\'ve got way too much work to do to waste time worrying about something they can\'t change. From the backstage area of the Sno Core Rock tour, which Alien Ant Farm is headlining, Cosgrove took a few minutes to break it all down.

The last time you rolled through Chico you guys were just starting to blow up. The first incarnation of the video for \"Movies\" was on MTV and things started to take off from there. Tell me about the last year and a half.
It\'s been moving extremely fast. The first five years felt like they were a pretty moderate build, but this last year feels like it\'s been shot out of a cannon. \"Smooth Criminal\" taking with the success that it had and raising us up to that level was trippy, and now I feel like we\'re kinda getting to the end of this cycle, we\'re getting ready to go write. We\'re taking all April off, but it\'s been 15 months of touring and it\'s been just crazy. I think that doing that MTV awards was really cool, playing the Big Day Out in Australia in January was sooo cool, and doing the big festivals in Europe was cool too. But we still have a lot to look forward to because we played on the side stage at a lot of those shows, so we still have a lot progress to make.

What\'s the one unexpected thing that comes with all this that stands out in your mind?
Well, I guess just the traveling and all that goes with that. There have been some times when we had to travel and travel to try and meet all the great opportunities that we have…they just happen to be in all these different countries. We were always so hardcore with our work ethic, but it gets to the point where it\'s a little more demanding than we\'d like - like, please, give us a day in between these kinds of travels, just to recoup a little bit. We\'ve been running a lot, playing shows the minute we arrived places, and I end up feeling like an idiot because I don\'t even have my wits about me. It\'s tough. The main reason that we want to take the time off next month is that we want to be able to perform well, we want to do it good for the fans. It still all goes back to a good work ethic, I suppose.

Is it tough to balance doing what you can, doing what\'s expected of you and doing what you want?
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, this is a good opportunity, and in those cases, everyone has to do something that they don\'t dig doing, so whatever.

The first single, \"Movies\" did moderately well, but it was the cover of \"Smooth Criminal\" that really sent your sales soaring. When you recorded that song, did you guys intend it to be a single?
No, it was just something that we did because we played it live and recorded it on the first little independent record that we did. It was just something that we liked to do, not something that we had expected to release. It got played by K-Rock in New York and that set a trend across the country. We tried to stop it, but once the radio stations start wanting to play something, how can you tell them no? It\'s tough because now we have kind of an uphill battle of coming back against that. It eroded our credibility to a certain degree in kids\' eyes, and we know that. We were once kids who were bitter toward music, the same way people are being bitter toward us now, and because we played that cover, there are people who are nay-sayers, but that\'s alright. I figure it\'s just something that we got a little exposure from it and now we have to go back out and do our job again. It\'s no big deal. It didn\'t insure anything, but it blew us up in people\'s eyes, and it still makes us have to work hard.

So being former music snobs yourselves helps you understand where the bitterness comes from?
Yeah, but it\'s not something that we did as a sellout. We liked doing the song, and in fact people hated us because we would do it. Interestingly though, it was a way for us to separate all the kind of narrow-minded kids, which we kinda once were. But we wanted to be more, we wanted to be expanding not necessarily our audience but our music, and along with that comes a more expanded audience, and we\'re welcoming that, but we\'re not trying to do it just for that. The kind of music that we want to play now is just more palatable on those levels. And you know, it\'s not ever gonna end, the kids say no, you know, that\'s not real. But you realize that you love it later on. I loved Michael Jackson when I was growing up, then I hated him through my metal days and came back to liking him again. Kids eventually realize that when your motive is music, they can\'t hate that. All of our favorite players grew up doing the same thing we\'re doing. It\'s just progression.

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