10 Questions with Naked Beggars

10 QUESTIONS WITH... (Kris Casamento, Kristine Brasuell, Eric & Inga Brittingham, Shawn Hughes, Jeff LaBar)

Today's 10 Questions is with rising stars Naked Beggars. And if you're a fan of bluesy glam icons Cinderella, you already know two of their members! Guitarist Jeff LaBar and bassist Eric Brittingham have teamed up with a bunch of talented newcomers (including Eric's hot wife Inga) to create some kick-ass new rock & roll! Earlier this year, the band made headlines when their tour bus skidded off the highway and hurtled headlong into disaster! Talk about a Gypsy Road! Fortunately they survived to tell their tale and address the Sludgeaholics in their official Metal Sludge 10 Questions!

As an added bonus, here to conduct their interview is our returning correspondent, C.C. Banana!

Take it away, C.C.!

C.C. Banana with 2/3rds of Naked Beggars!

Howdy Sludge!

The Banana is back for another installment of insults and interrogation! This time around I cornered the band Naked Beggars when they played local hotspot Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ. The Beggars offer up a tasty blend of classic, modern and southern rock with a subtle shot of blues. If you like bands like the Black Crowes or the Rolling Stones, I think you'll enjoy Naked Beggars! After the show I spoke with singer Inga Brittingham and guitarist Kris Casamento, the two founding members of the group. I may have been a little hard on them that night, but they rolled with the punches and even slung a little sludge of their own.

Anyway, read on and enjoy!

C.C. Banana http://www.CCBanana.com http://www.myspace.com/CCBanana

Who better to interview Naked Beggars than everybody's favorite naked Banana? You do realize he's naked most of the time, don't you? Check him out, not a stitch of clothing over that banana skin! Woo-hoo! Anyway, without further ado, we present the next installment of Metal Sludge's 10 Questions!

Inga Brittingham and Kris Casamento of Naked Beggars

Hello there! This is C.C. Banana and I'm here interviewing Inga and Kris from Naked Beggars. How are you doing tonight, folks?

We're good!

We're fucking great!

1. Out of the thousands of bands out there trying to make a name for themselves, what makes Naked Beggars worthy of a Metal Sludge 10 Questions?

Well, I think we represent a return to good, old-school rock & roll. If it weren't for old-school rock & roll, you'd have nothing but pop and hip-hop.

I may be biased, but I think our music sounds great. And we're getting a great response to it! Eric and Jeff have lent us their expertise, which also helps. Plus, we will do anything to slut ourselves out!

Naked Beggars' Inga and Kristine slutting themselves out!

2. Do you honestly think anyone would care about Naked Beggars if you didn't have half of Cinderella in the band?

That's fine, people can think what they want. But Inga has drive and she's gonna do whatever she wants to do. Yes, I'm speaking of myself in the third-person because I'm a fucking freak!

I do think that having Jeff and Eric in the band gets us attention and gets people coming out to the shows, but I'd like to think that once they see the band and hear our songs that we stand on our own. This band has its own legs.

It's really cool when people come up and say, "I didn't think you were gonna be so good!"

Yeah, we get that a LOT. "We didn't know you guys were actually good!"

In that case, let me ask you this -- you two started Naked Beggars together but it wasn't until after Eric (and later Jeff) joined the band that you started to get some real attention. Do you ever feel as if your project is being taken over or overshadowed by the presence of two such heavy hitters?

They've got their shadows, but I think it's just because they've gained weight!

I don't think they overshadow us, I think it's just that right now they're the ones that have the name recognition while we're all relatively unknown. So as the band grows, people are getting to know the rest of us, show by show and year by year.

3. What's it like touring the country with 6 band members, 3 crew people, 1 driver and all your gear all crammed into in one RV camper?

Stinky!

After a couple of days you start playing "Where's the Smell?" At which point you'll usually come upon a rank sneaker or something.

I'm usually the kind of person who likes to be by myself, but sometimes I like to be around a lot of people. So when I want to be alone, I feel like karate chopping everyone's heads off! But then when I want to be with everybody, I'm pissed that they're not in the same room with me.

You're a complex woman, Inga.

She's an enigma wrapped in a riddle, surrounded by a conundrum.

The complex Inga plays a quick round of "Where's the Smell?"

4. What hard rock or heavy metal band should be dropped so that you can take their place?

How about Guns N' Roses! They're just sitting around doing shit! It's like, WHAT new album? What year is THAT gonna come out?

Probably right after the new Cinderella record.

Well, yeah. But Cinderella's actually not on a label. Naked Beggars will have 5 albums out by the time Guns N' Roses release their next one.

Oh yeah, we're working on another one!

We're starting to write new material. We're doing it like Kiss used to do it in the '70s, they released something new every 6 months.

5. How does it feel knowing that the most press Naked Beggars has ever received came about because your tour bus skidded off the road and you all nearly died?

Oh, I love that! I love almost dying, it's great! And the press is great, too! I will get into many more accidents just because of that. I just slit my wrist right now!

As far as the accident goes, that shit just happens.

And we weren't drunk or anything!

It was just snow and black ice. We went on a 300-yard sleigh ride! Through a fence, through a ditch, across another road...

And I was scared! We had just run off the road and everyone was freaking out and Eric said, "Call 911!" And I said, "What's the number?"

You're kidding!

No! Because it was a cell phone! Sometimes you have to call a different number to reach 911. "What's the number?"

NOTE: It is not known whether or not the phrase "What's the number" was in fact the inspiration for the new Naked Beggars song "What's the Question." We'll have to ask them about that one day. In the meantime, you can check out a more thorough account of the accident in Kris' MySpace blog. It's actually pretty amazing that they weren't all killed!

6. If you're supposed to be the NAKED Beggars, how come you don't perform in the nude? Can you take your clothes off for me right now?

Sure!

Yay!

Actually, I would but I'm waiting for "Hustler" to ask me. Although Jeff does get partially naked during the show. And Shawn gets partially naked. I've tried to get Kris naked but he doesn't wear underwear, and when he changes his pants he won't do it in front of us.

Is that true, Kris? You don't wear underwear? What's wrong with you?

He's freeballin' it!

Underwear is very constricting and it hurts.

Maybe you've just been wearing Inga's underwear.

And Eric just doesn't feel comfortable naked, unless he's really drunk and passed out on the bus.

If we play a nude beach we might play naked.

Naked Beggars (fully clothed) rock the house at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ

7. Upon releasing your debut CD, you announced a contest to give away $50,000 to one lucky fan who purchased the album (once it has achieved gold status of 500,000 copies sold). Are you even remotely close to giving that money away?

We're still doing that! We just haven't gotten there yet.

How many more copies do you need to sell?

Um... 5 or 6...

We're keeping track. But I'll tell you what -- I'll give you $1 if you buy the CD then send me a nudie picture of yourself posing with it!

NOTE TO THE SLUDGEAHOLICS: Do it! Then use the money you receive to buy something from the Sludgendise store!

8. Out of all the bands you've played with or hung out with, who were the coolest and who were the biggest dicks?

Well, most of the coolest bands we've played with have been the bands that opened for us. Like Bellevue Suite out of Wisconsin. Hollywood are a bunch of fun guys. Hair Force One are cool, they're an '80s cover band. Foster Child are awesome.

And Cinderella were the biggest dicks!

I'll tell you who the biggest dicks were -- L.A. Guns! They tried to fuck us over the second time we played with them. Although it might have actually been their tour manager or somebody like that, we don't really know. We'd played with them once in Allentown and it went really well. They'd shared a lot of their board channels with us and everything. But then we played a second show with them in Myrtle Beach, and they came to us and said we could only have one channel on the board. One channel!

If you know anything about live music, you know that one channel means you'll hear only me singing or Jeff playing or whatever. Just that one channel will be on the PA.

Don't get me wrong, I like L.A. Guns. But I think they did this to get us bumped from the show. Because they didn't expect us to get such a great reaction in Allentown! This was just their way of sticking it to us. "One channel, you can't play! You're bumped!" I'm not dissing the band members themselves, somebody in their management probably did this. Luckily we had a guy down there who was able to run sound for us. He actually popped his own board and his own mics out of the closet. So it worked out alright in the end.

We have friends in low places!

9. You play a few Cinderella songs during your set. Is that so that people coming to your shows can have something to actually sing along to?

We play a few Cinderella songs because we thought it would be nice for everyone involved. Jeff and Eric are in Cinderella, and since some people are coming out to see us because of them, why not throw a few Cinderella songs in there? So we do it for the fans... but it's also so Jeff can remember how to play the songs!

Kris reminding Jeff how to play the Cinderella songs

I actually enjoy playing "Shelter Me" because that's the type of song we would do anyway. It's very close to our style. It's fun playing those songs.

And I have fun singing them! We've experimented with a lot of Cinderella songs but I couldn't sing most of them because I have such a low voice. I have a masculine voice. And I've got a huge dick, too!

10. Name 3 high points and 3 low points from your career thus far.

High points? I'm high right now!

Congratulations!

A low point would be... the accident! I was already sick that night, and then I thought I was gonna die on top of that. And then we tried to find a hotel, because we were afraid we'd have another accident if we kept driving, but when we finally found one it was full!

Another low point was playing in Albany, NY. That kinda sucked because of the low attendance. We probably played for 3 or 4 people.

Ouch!

But then a high point would be when we opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd. That was great, there was like 16,000 people!

That's when I literally became a Naked Beggar! I took my shirt off.

Wow! That's actually more like TWO high points, if you ask me!

And with that inspiring visual we end our latest installment of Metal Sludge's 10 Questions! Everything you need to know about Naked Beggars, whether or not you even cared. Not only did they step up to the plate and answer our insulting questions, but they even dished a little dirt on L.A. Guns. And that's always fun! Our thanks to Kris and Inga for sitting down to talk with us and thanks to C.C. Banana for yet another excellent interview! Be on the lookout this summer for a scaled-down version of the band called Naked Beggars Stripped, to be out on tour while Eric and Jeff are back on the road with Cinderella. For more information about tour dates or anything else Naked Beggars, be sure to visit their official website and MySpace page below.

http://www.NakedBeggars.net http://www.myspace.com/NakedBeggars

6 Naked Beggars and 1 Naked Banana

Metal Sludge Sludging Down the Highway

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