JOHN GARCIA - Kyuss My Eye Page 2
by Martin Popoff

'Scuse me... veterinary medicine? Don't you gotta go to school for that?

"Not much; I'm pretty much self-taught. I'm not a doctor of veterinary medicine, nor do I want to be. I carry out the doctor's orders, whether it be spaying or neutering or de-clawing or x-rays or drawing blood. It's a dirty job but I love it. I'm very fortunate to have two things I like to do, one, working with animals, two, playing music. So it's fun."

So enough joking about the Slayer-esque timelines for these records. John's a really cool guy, and in a sense, he's semi-retired from music - sorta the reverse of all the twee black and power and melodic death metal bands we usually talk to, who have the non-music job browning onions and figure the next step is leaving it.

"I have the freedom to do a lot more things," begins Garcia, his surprisingly smooth and comforting voice rising in intensity. "And family is a very, very important to me. My job is very important to me. My wife is very important to me. And that's what counts the most, is family. And there's a time where you have to step up and be a man and support your family. You have to step up and be a man and be a father. And that's what's important to me, right now. Everything else is secondary. Music is very, very, very important to me as well, but I can't let that be... I can't be trying to make it, living in a cardboard box behind Green Hell Records in Hollywood, trying to make it. I can't do that. You have to step up and go, you know, who am I?... like this 36-year-old guy trying to get a record deal? That's not going to happen with me. Those days are gone and past and f**king over. So just to be able to have a hobby, a fun hobby, a good, clean hobby, where I can actually go with my wife, go off to Toronto for three days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, fly in yesterday, get in at three o'clock, have a nice dinner with the Danko boys, go shopping down on Queen Street today, come to sound check, talk to a nice guy like you, do a show tonight, and then I'm out of here at 8:15 in the morning. Now that's a good, clean, fun hobby to do. You've got to be able to paint, you've got to be able to go fishing, do whatever, and this is still fun for me. I have had the nucleus of my solo project over at the house, Rich Mullins and Ed Mundell, and that was still fun. But it's not consuming me. It's just a fun hobby to have. And to get some of the music out to some of the kids via the website or a small independent label, I'll do it. I can't tour. I can only tour two weeks tops a year, and that's my vacation. That's my paid vacation."

JOHN GARCIA - Kyuss My Eye Page 3