With a name that is almost a legend in itself but moreover representing a man whose work spans almost 3 decades stretching from the experimental Prong churned out’ve burned out squats in New York City to working with legends like Danzig on the sunshine coast of California, few others have withstood the test of time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tommy Victor!

-Shan Siva

Tommy: wow, I see what you mean about your favourite song being ‘Look Back At The Sun’ - well, we’re not gonna be playing that tonite so sorry friend ha ha! But what we’ve currently got a remix album out - ‘Power Of The Damned Mixxxer’ - based on the album ‘Power Of The Damager’ that came out almost two years ago so we wound up touring on that. We tried to get onto festivals like Rock Hard but ended up playing more clubs and that’s ok with the economy being horrible, so it’s not been easy getting exposure but the band sounds great.

Rock Hard sounds a little too ‘establishment’ for Prong.....I’m used to seeing you guys in dingey clubs like tonite ha ha!

Tommy: it was actually really good. Considering we had to take this gruelling flight - and then another flight so we got there for our set. But we rocked pretty my friend - and the response was unbelievable. Back in the day that you remember us we did other festivals like the Dynamo and even Rock Am Ring. The only thing that gets me panicked about festivals is it’s like running gun man, no sound check, you don’t know whether anything’s gonna be working and what it’s gonna sound like. And you’re there in front of 10,000 people ha ha! You just gotta make it work....

I remember classic Prong with Mike (Kirkland - bass) and Ted (Parsons - drums) so who’s in the new Prong?

Tommy: it’s more consistent and it’s better.....I mean, Mike wasn’t that great a bass player. He was a great artist and had great lyrics but I don’t think that rock stardom was his calling. And Aaron’s way better than Ted. Ted had brain cancer although I think he still plays. It was like, 3 years when we got back together and he was like ‘...dude, I can’t handle it, I can’t go on the road..’. He’s got two kids man. The last I heard about Mike was he was running a polk rock label.

Ok, so if that’s the line up, then how has Prong’s music itself changed since from the early days....?

Tommy: god, it’s almost gone back to those early days. That last album is so raw and even the design of the next album is going along a similar path. We come up with riffs and what we can gather and just jam ‘em out. It’s not as calculated as we were - or I was - during ‘Rude Awakening’. Funnily enough we’re working under similar budgetary conditions as during ‘Force Fed’ - ha ha I knew you’d like that - but without the rats in the basement ha ha!

When Prong came out there was a loada revolutionary bands around like Fudge Tunnel and Swans and looking back on it Prong was also an eclectic mix of different sounds - but always underground man, always underground y’know....

Tommy: yeah, I hear what you’re saying man, and it was a combination of all those things from the people to the situation to the resources. We realised the potential of doing something like that. We had the resources cos Ted was in Swans. And we were from the Lower East Side so it was all around us man. I worked at CBGBs so I got to hear a lotta bands so it was like ‘I could take a little bit of that...’. And the Bad Brains man, they were a huge influence...and the down tuning man, when I first heard that I was like ‘..wow, these guys are tuned down to C!..’ and it was almost like Sabbath. I remember when we went to do a record with Terry Date and he was like ‘man, how am I supposed to work with this low tuning?...I’ve never heard anyone tune down this low’ - and I acted like I didn’t know anything ha ha!

So you guys were another Lower East Side crew? I was back there last year and it’s all gone man, everything’s changed...its all corporate. Do you think the factors still exist to recreate something like Prong these days?

Tommy: yeah, it has, the city’s completely different, no more CB’s - like you say it’s all corporate. But there’s layers man, if you dig down enough you could probably find the original settlement. But they demolish and rebuild and that’s the city. That’s just the way it is man. But in terms of that melting pot, I lived there from when I was 18 to my early 30s until my wife and I couldn’t afford to live there anymore and we moved out to Brooklyn. I don’t think those social factors exist anymore so no, I don’t think you could recreate something like Prong these days. But I really respect that you recognise that man cos most people in America are like dumbasses - the most they get to is like (faking a hill billy drawl) ‘..oooh, you work at that Cee Baaay Gee Baaaay? I beenta thar place...” - that’s pretty much the gist that I get ha ha! America’s very suburban. Bands like Pantera, man they were hicks. Even Jak Wylde’s living out in New Jersey! Urban metal bands like Cro Mags, Prong never seem to have made it cos it’s a suburban mentality.

Is it any different in Cali? I mean, LA’s just a whole series of suburbs right?

Tommy: it’s one big surburb. But I live in Hollywood, so if anywhere in LA gets close to what New York was like, I’d say Hollywood is. It tries to emulate that kinda thing but I’m not part of the scene. I just go to a bar in my neighbourhood and that’s it. There are places to play like Space Van and see alternative music but alternative nowadays is more like pop music so I’m not part of what’s happening. But I’d say that LA still has more going on than any other city in the US.

Did moving out to Cally change you as a person?

Tommy: yeah, yeah. Good question. It’s just one of those things that happened that way - it wasn’t a decision to move out to LA. I just sorta got stuck there. But like you say it changes you man. And that’s a good thing not just on a rock level, but as a person. I’ve done a lot’ve growing up...

So do you feel you’ve accomplished everything?

Tommy: no, I actually feel I’ve fell short of accomplishing everything that I should have and wanted to. In Prong Ted and I always felt that we were always secondary as a band, other bands were always more popular y’know. There was always this cloud over the band...

But you were underground man, you were never destined to be popularist!

Tommy: yeah ok, but we were on a major label (Epic). And we were expected to sell a lotta albums. We were expected to have major hits. We were expected to be on the radio. Blah blah blah. We were expected to be on big tours and they threw us on big tours. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars getting us to open for Ozzy - and no one cared. No one cared!! So the first week the album enters the low nineties and they just dumped us right offa the back. But it was the start of the end for all these labels, they were charging too much for Cds and the whole thing collapsed. Massive fucking conspiracy man. Maybe they wanted to put themselves under. Maybe it was the Japanese. I don’t know....they made such bad decisions on the music. I was like ‘..man, you can’t charge $20 for a CD...’ but it’s not enough so whatever.

So was it a learning curve?

Tommy: you know, every now and then I get these realisations man but in general, without sounding cynical, it’s just a matter of survival. I try to keep it going for as long as I can. I’ve supplemented my income by playing with Danzig for example and more recently working with a restoration company dealing with burned out buildings.

At least restoring sounds creative...

Tommy: creative?! Man, it was just dirty work - it wasn’t building, it was demolition ha ha!

Speaking of Danzig, I saw you with him - all I could think of was those evil gloves of his - I still have nightmares about them ha ha!

Tommy: we’re very happy that he discontinued the use of those gloves ha ha!! He used to have trouble opening drinks and we’d haveta help ha ha! Dude, take the fucking gloves off ha ha!

So how did you hook up with the Evil One?

Tommy: when Prong got dropped, we were supposed to be on tour with Danzig and Ozzy on the first Ozzfest and Glenn found out. He was unhappy with his guitar player and so he called me up and said ‘..can you learn like, 15 songs in 2 days?..’. And I was like ‘yes, I can do it’. So I’ve been in and out of the band for like 14 years ha ha! I got fired but I quit at first cos he wasn’t working enough. He was saying that he was gonna tour and stuff but it never happened so I was like ‘fuck this’ but I should’ve stayed with it. I was out’ve the scene for a while and I was discouraged. Then I started Prong up again and then he had a falling out with Todd Youth, so he called me up, we did ‘Circle Of Snakes’ when you saw us - and got fired.

What’s he like to work with?

Tommy: he’s actually really fun. The more I get to know him, the more I deal with him, the more I like him you know? He’s like a....do you know that TV show ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’? He’s like a New York guy out in LA and he’s so critical of everything he makes you laugh - its almost ridiculous but we had a lot in common that way. But as far as working, you can’t interfere with his agenda. You can’t question anything he does. He’s almost so confident of himself that it’s crazy. He writes everything and then gives it to me and I do a sort’ve interpretation of what he has in his mind. I would like to be more participative in the creative process but that doesn’t exist with Glenn Danzig. But like you commented he allowed me to keep my own guitar sound so anyway, we did another tour and the band sounded so much better than on ‘Circle..’. Glenn was just in top notch condition. There’ll be a new album coming out and I’m in and out of that one.

I’m guessing you’ve been to his house, I’m intrigued by what it must be like...

Tommy: I haven’t been in the new one in west LA. But the old one was like a haunted house in Hollywood. Full’ve comics. He’s probably one of the biggest comic book collectors. In the world.

He used to have his own comic right? (Satanika -ed)

Tommy: yeah, he’s amazing, he’s always busy doing something y’know. He’s not like me, wrapped up in a relationship. He always on the phone hustling.

For more gloves....?!

Tommy: no, no gloves ha ha! You’ll have to bring your own for the next tour ha ha!

I might just! Hey, are you still working with Ministry?

Tommy: I’m still working with Al cos he’s supposed to be doing a new Prong record and I’m on his label. It’s unfortunate Ministry’s folded cos we were doing well. Al’s just crazy man. He likes being in the studio. Doesn’t like to tour. Likes to drink heavily - tons of red wine - and raise hell ha ha! Maybe lots of drugs and he does like to get naked but not really debauchery cos his wife manages the band - and Prong too ha ha! I’m not into that but used to have a drinking buddy who’s a huge hockey fan, I’m into baseball....

Ok, final question before we grab some chow - do you think this kinda music which in it’s time was supposed to be revolutionary, rebellious and creative is still that today?

Tommy: I think that the new bands are corporate. And todays kids in the main are corporate, they think completely different to when we first started. Even something fundamental like playing guitar, when we started we hadta move the stylus and scratch up our fucking Led Zepp records where they have all this technology to slow down the riffs and figure everything out. You couldn’t learn solos exact all those years ago, you’d haveta adapt trying to play and fiddle with the stylus. Eventually you’d just go ‘fuck it! I’ll just do my own thing!’. Nowadays it’s all copy music y’know. They don’t want to sound original. They want to sound like fuckin Iron Maiden. And they wanna sound like popular bands cos they want to be popular. My take on it is they’re a buncha pussies. And they don’t like this kinda stuff. I’m not gonna mention the bands that we’ve had open for Danzig, their music is good but they just don’t get it.

What are they lacking?

Tommy: I go back to the whole suburban thing - they have parents that want them to be rock stars. My father disowned me cos I wanted to play in a rock band! These kids are from a generation of baby boomers that say ‘oh, it’s so cool that you play in a rock band...’. I’m like ‘whaaat?!?!’. Now that’s disturbing to me. Metal’s not street anymore, even thought it tries to be angry or demonic it’s just phoney. Prong was real. We lived it. We did drugs, got fucked up with the rats and the hookers. These kids have a whole plan to try and look like they’re from there but their parents buy their tattoos. It’s all manufactured so it’s not real anymore. There’s just too many bands that I can’t deal with it anymore. It needs to get more selective otherwise it’s just fuckin mall music.