These United States play Thursday at The Rudyard Kipling (422 W. Oak St., 636-1311). We spoke with TUS’s Jesse Elliott.
LEO: The French: good or evil?
J.E.: Trés good. You would not believe how them French love and treat their live musiques!
LEO: TUS’s new record is called Crimes. List your figurative and literal convictions, in order of importance.
JE: Guilty of rotten acts in a good world. Guilty of good acts in a rotten world. Innocent of guilt.
LEO: Your YouTube footage from a Providence, R.I., show was so dark, I couldn’t see anything. What gives?
JE: Providence is a place of mystery. Its children are dark artists, spinning scant light. When it flashes, though … well, it really flashes. You would not believe the sights I saw in that room, even if you’d seen ’em.
LEO: Best rest-stop on tour?
JE: So far, the very first one we made — at the Geologic Museum on the side of the highway in West Virginia, wherein was a sign reading, “THERE ARE ONLY THREE BASIC KINDS OF ROCK ON OUR EARTH.” We took a picture and cherished the moment forever.
LEO: Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart?
JE: The Bush Administration, for years of fodder.
LEO: Connect Richard Crenna to Kevin Bacon.
JE: Crenna to Matt Dillon via “The Flamingo Kid,” Dillon to Bacon via “Wild Things.” Pleeeeease …
LEO: “These United States” yielded the following anagrams: “A Enthused Testiest” and “Detainee Tests Tush.” How do these make you feel?
JE: They make us feel grammatically uncomfortable, which turns us on. How about “Steadiest Sun Teeth”? Oh, yes. Yes.
LEO: Crimes has a song called “Six Bullets, (Five Complaints).” What happened to the sixth complaint? I need closure.
JE: It’s brewing. That’s the problem in the song: The protagonist’s got no closure either. Spells trouble, a disquieted mind drawing with a loose piece of fast metal.
LEO Music Editor Mat Herron is fond of anagrams, or a camaraderie Ed shuffling monitor moors tons.
