Parasite Diet

Parasite Diet are a power pop punk duo from the future, existing in a remote zone called Paducah, Kentucky when they aren’t hopping planets and decades, so it’s not certain where they came upon oldies like The Ramones, The Undertones or Devo to find inspiration. Perhaps they unearthed a few mp3's on some old MAC OS X laptop, covered in cow pies and buried in the plains, and then found some scratched laserdiscs of 50's sci-fi films and cartoons to help fill out their song’s themes.

The band is made up of “post-apocalyptic heartthrob Josey Juice on guitar and vocals and his robo sidekick Technicolor Kid on drums and backups,” though as they tell us, they’ve been known to take on “auxiliary genies and dinosaurs to fill in the live sound on bass guitar or kazoo.”

Parasite Diet’s debut EP, God Hates Parasite Diet, came out on Pug Face Records in 2009, and features a duet with Americana lovely Kelsey Waldon. They recorded a full-length, self-titled record released in downloadable form in summer 2010, with the CD and cassette, and possibly vinyl, version planned for the new year.

What year did Parasite Diet form?

It’s difficult to put into terms that would make sense. Technically we were formed around 2026, but on a completely different time plane. You’ve seen Back To The Future II. Doc Brown explains the concept pretty well. We’ve been playing music on this plane since around 2008.

How did the two band members meet?

Standard post-apocalyptic-guy-and-his-robot-sidekick-charged-with-traveling-backward-through-time-and-across-the-universe-to-save-the-future-with-power-pop-punk-rock story.

What is the band’s favorite venue/city to play?

We can’t narrow it down to a specific city, or country, or planet, or solar system, but somewhere out there is a little-known and disoriented Horsebody nebula. Anywhere there is fun.
What’s your funniest band audition story?

We once traveled back to 1975 because we heard that ABC was looking for a music act to build a variety show around. It was looking reeeaaaally good until Donny and Marie Osmond came in and rock-blocked us. They ended up getting the show. But it worked out alright. We get to travel all over time and those two are stuck in the 70's.

What was the strangest/most interesting thing to happen to the band?

In about twelve years (relative, of course), our story will be released on a 19-volume laserdisc collection in conjuction with a 60 pound, 14 page pop-up book depicting the rise (and subsequent demise) of our line of frozen “Digital Dude” dinners.


If you could meet any musical hero living or dead, who would it be?

It would most likely have to be Wyld Stallyns. We could definitely use some advice on running a time machine without a flux capacitor. Plutonium is expensive and Mr. Fusion only exists in the movies.

What do you simply hate about being in a band? You know, like the sound man showing up two hours late for a gig, buying guitar strings from “that guy” at the music store who is more interested in his Chinese food than ringing you up, or trying to find your drummer, (sorry drummers), or insert your band mate who always goes missing, two minutes before your set time.

We’re not the hateful type. Setting up a drumset every night can be sort of tedious. Having some miniature robots to do that would be pretty awesome. Sound guys can be pretty rude, but it’s usually because they spend so much time listening to bands that aren’t us. By far, though, the most obnoxious thing we really run into is someone insisting that we “kind of sound like Green Day.”

What is the band currently working on?

We’re currently shooting a video for our song “I Call It Soda, She Calls It Pop” with a production company out of Kentucky. And we’ve recently uncovered some dusty old footage of a video we shot for “Watergirl” on a recent trip we took to the mid 80's. And we’re working on putting together material for a split with Be My Doppelganger from Evansville, Indiana. Aaaaaand, you can look for our new album on CD and cassette in the next couple of months. It’s currently available for download on our website at www.parasitediet.com.
- The Sentimentalist

This self-titled full length from PARASITE DIET is a release which harks back to the early days of punk. It's a record full of short little ditties which are fun, retro throwback tunes. It's pure power-pop, unashamedly inspired by the Ramones - it sounds just like a Ramones record, from the lo-fi recording to the song structure, with a little bit of the Beach Boys surf-pop chic. Old-school pop-punk fans should enjoy this, but it'll even appeal to fans of bands like the Beatles too. It really does sound like a glorious 70's pop record. It's basic and it's happy and while it's not very inventive, they're doing something that not many bands are doing (anymore).

All things retro and kitsch are very much in fashion at the minute, so these guys, perhaps unwittingly, might be bang on trend. I can definitely see rockabilly hipsters having a boogy at a Parasite Diet show. It’s the sort of record that would blast out of the jukebox after the Fonz has given it a nudge. If you’re into old-school cool, then this could be the soundtrack to your very own Happy Days.

MICHAEL WILSON - Punktastic.com