| TOTP: What is the earliest memory of an idea that you had?
Johnny: Well, when I was a kid, I remember telling my mom about a revolutionary new way to measure the weight of things. I totally invented something when I was about eight or nine years old. My idea was, you take a big pot of water, and you make little marks along the inside of the pot, and you fill it up, and then when you put something in the water, like potatoes, then however high the water rose, to whichever mark, that's how much they weighed.
TOTP: Interesting. Did you create a weight to volume conversion chart?
Johnny: No. My mom let me know that she thought that that had already been invented, fully thought out, and abandoned from use in society.
TOTP: She must be disappointed that you ended up in a band. She probably thought you were headed for NASA or something...
Johnny: Not a bit. She was definitely the artist in the family and was always prepared to support me in all of my artistic endeavours.
TOTP: So, what were your worst ideas as a child?
Johnny: Well, I always tended to make friends with the trouble makers. Their parents always seemed to think I was a bad influence on their kids. So it seemed like I was always the one who got in with the kids who lit things on fire, or threw lizards at girls. Breaking into empty warehouses. General childhood mischief. It seemed like I was always getting my knuckles rapped for getting into trouble with the crazy kids.
TOTP: Did you get a short sharp shock, Johnny?
Johnny: Erm... well, no, not really. I continue to be a bad boy to this day. Actually, these days, I'm pretty respectful. I got all of that behaviour out of my way during my teens.
TOTP: What was the last bad idea you had?
Johnny: You can always notice them in retrospect. Erm... [Erms for some time] I don't know. I'm pretty pleased with the way things have gone. There's been some pretty minor asinine things. I spent almost all my record advance on furnishing a home for a girlfriend and myself only to move into London and put everything in storage in LA. The rest of the guys in the band though... Ha! Ha! It's not like they're out of money like me... pft!
TOTP: Oh dear. Do you owe money all over Orson?
Johnny: No. I owe money all over Visa.
TOTP: What about bad ideas involving... the ladies?
Johnny: Well, er, general early twenties drunken behaviour. I wouldn't say that my behaviour was any worse than the norm. One time I brought a girlfriend to a club that I knew my ex-girlfriend was at. It escalated into some kind of stare-off, and then my ex took off her shoe and threw it at my new girlfriend. And my new girlfriend was kind of a bad ass from Texas and she was like: "I'm gonna go over there and kick her ass!" I thought maybe it wasn't such a good idea.
TOTP: But has it taught you any lessons?
Johnny: I think all of that stuff has shaped my character. All of it. I think you're definitely a product of the road you walk...
TOTP: Animals, Johnny, animals and bad ideas...
Johnny: One time I was camping with my family in Lake Tahoe and me and some other boys were trudging through some reeds. We tramped through a wasps' nest and ended up getting stung about twenty times.
TOTP: OK, now usually, a bee or wasp sting can make someone very nervous in the future about being around them, so twenty stings in the middle of a swarm, your brain must just shut down surely?
Johnny: Nah, I'm OK around them. I think it went the other way.
TOTP: You're cavalier around the bees...
Johnny: More nonchalant than cavalier.
TOTP: Well done. Now then, stealing. You're in a band, all those hotels, all those dressing rooms. You've stolen stuff haven't you, Johnny?
Johnny: [Pauses] Oh nooooo! Stealing is never a good idea. I know this because I have a conscience and I believe in certain aspects of karma and nothing good from come from it. I don't steal stuff. I did when I was growing up, but now I try to make a point of not taking things that don't belong to me.
TOTP: Yeah yeah. What have you chucked into interviews that you later wished you hadn't?
Johnny: Oh well, when you do a lot of interviews, you do end up answering a lot of the same stuff, and if they're gonna keep asking the same thing, you might as well throw in something interesting. Especially about how we got the damn name of the band. God!
TOTP: That's fair enough. I'll probably make this about 50 per cent more interesting when I write it up...
Johnny: That's cool.
TOTP: Who in Orson has the best ideas? Who's the Egon Spengler?
Johnny: Who's Egon? [We explain he's the boffin in Ghostbusters. He laughs raucously] Jason's probably Spengler, for sure. We depend on him. He's the front guy and he has to sell it. He's the focal point and that's just how rock band world is. People expect more from the lead singer, so the pressure's on him.
TOTP: So has he had ideas and some of you have thought, 'Oooh, I'm not sure about that trilby'?
Johnny: Not really. But if that happens, I'm the guy who's usually expected to speak out and say that 'that's wack'.
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