Rob Rotten Interview Part One
By: Timothy Snarr
TS: How are you?

RR: I'm doing dandy, man. Today is an awesome day, though. Nothing but bong loads and pizza! [laughs]

TS: [laughs] Speaking of that, I had just finished reading something about you shaving your Mohawk specifically for the smokability aspect. I thought that was pretty funny.

RR: [laughs] Yeah. That was kind of funny. I was kind of just joking around about that, but yeah, it was a pain in the ass. It was for a bunch of other reasons, but that was definitely one of the deciding factors. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. [It was] like, ‘Fuck! I need a girlfriend to shave my sides. God damn, it's the worst. God damn, I need a girlfriend to help me put up my hair because it's too big.' It's a pain in the ass to put up. It sucks when it's down. And now it's just the ultimate thing that just was like, ‘Okay, it's gone! That is it!' [laughs]

TS: I had a friend that had a Mohawk at one point and for him it got to be a pain too. I guess he was using sugar water to have to put it up. He didn't use a product from a store. Is that what you used for yours when you had one?

RR: I used Knox unflavored gelatin, which is the original. Not the one for nails. They look the same. It's like a weird thing for making Jell-O. Not like flavored Jell-O, but what you would use a lot in cooking things. I used that with water...really hot water and after that you blow-dried that until it was hard and then you put Elmer's glue...or I did...Elmer's glue. Just the regular, kids, white Elmer's glue. And then once you blow-dried that dry, then you would freeze it or...fuck, what was that other hair spray I used to use? Aquanet. Like, the 24-hour hold. Meanwhile, you just devoted like three hours of your life to doing hair. It's like, ‘Damn!' That's not something that I'm into. [laughs]

TS: I was going to ask how long it must have taken you to do that, because I knew one guy who used to hang upside down and try to set his hair that way.

RR: I did a lot of spikes, because that was easier. It would take about an hour or an hour and a half. Or, if it was all fanned out it would take a little bit longer. But, it was still done in sections. The cool thing about it was using the combination of those three things you could file them to a sharp point if you really wanted to, they would be as hard as pencils, and it would stay up for as long as you could stand it until your scalp was, like, itching uncontrollably, because that Knox stuff, dude. After like three or four days, it got crazy itchy and it felt like that dude from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a coat hanger scratching your head, you know? [laughs]

TS: How do you sleep with that? I get the feeling it would be like the Elephant Man where if you fell asleep just wrong you were going to die. So, if you fell asleep or passed out you were going to impale you head.

RR: [laughs] I always just slept on my side. I don't move very much when I sleep. It was like I had spikes coming out everywhere. But, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was a huge part of my younger years being a punk rock kid. It was like a total status thing, you know? Like, the big Mohawk hair. Dude, honestly like being in your teens, having a Mohawk and going to a punk show you could get any chick that you wanted. It was ridiculous. So, there was lots that went into it and then it was finally like, ‘Alright, dude. It's time. I'm over it.' [laughs] Now I just wear funny hats all the time.

TS: So, now you're trying to be a respectable porn producer...if that's not the biggest oxymoron that people always laugh about.

RR: Actually, I am not. I am definitely not. The movies that I'm making...have been making even from the get-go have been so different than normal porn and that is something that I'm stoked on. Personally, I don't really like porn that much. I mean, like, sex is awesome and I love chicks. But, as far as, like, porn? It sucks! How boring is it that you've got a couch in Chatsworth, California, and you have this ditsy blonde and she's walking up the stairs and the camera follows her up her ankles, up to her ass, and then, like, oh, my God. She's naked and there's a dick in her mouth! That is so horrible. It's like, ‘Wow. You guys are really fucking creative.' And then, to make up for the lack of creativity, there are a lot of directors in the business who go like, ‘Okay. Well...hmmm. We've got the couch, we've got the blonde, and we've got the guy. Now, how are we going to make it different? Hmmm, let's stick 50 chopsticks in her ass and see what happens! It's just like, ‘Wow. That's all you can come up with?' So, I don't know. I'm not really stoked on a lot of that. Granted, it needs to be there because there are people that like it, but me personally, I don't like it. So, I try to go a totally different angle and the angles I go it's not like ‘Okay, I'm only doing punk rock movies.' And that's like the path I'm trying to cut. I'm trying to take a way broader approach. Like, I'm doing everything from punk rock movies to horror movies to zombie movies to comedies to, you know, just anything that I am interested in at the time I will try to incorporate into a movie. So, it's been pretty cool and the method to my madness has actually proven to be successful for the companies I've been shooting for. I don't know why or how, but it is. If you step back and look at it, it looks like a shock approach and we're just blasting shit onto the walls to see what sticks, but it's actually working out very well and the consumers and fans seem to be pretty stoked on it because its not the same shit over and over and over again.

TS: Right. As proof of that you were just nominated for three AVN awards this past year for Swallow My Children, if I'm not mistaken...

RR: That movie...sorry to interrupt you...that movie is, like, the funniest thing I've ever done in my life. [laughs] I had pitched an idea called the Texas Vibrator Massacre to [a company called] Metro. I had also pitched it to another company. I'm not going to mention their name. I ended up going and taking a hit on the budget and going with Metro. I love Metro. Don't get me wrong. They're like my home base. I've shot more movies for them...I love those guys to death. But, I did take a cut in the budget and a few other things, but I went with them because they trusted me enough to give me tons of rope. Not only that, they said, ‘Oh, yeah. We have no problem with gore and blood.' The other companies I was talking to were like, ‘Well, can't you make the blood blue? Or green?' I'm like, ‘Alright. Get ‘em out of here.' [laughs] So, I pitched it to Metro and I was racing superbikes for the year prior, so I didn't shoot any movies for, like, almost a year and I was kind of out of the loop. Granted, I kind of kept in touch with a lot of good friends and companies and people. But, as far as the talent, and, you know, what things were going on, I was really out of the loop. Especially with chicks, because they're in for six weeks and then they're gone and then a year goes by. It's like you've got to look at porn chicks in dog years. One year is like fifteen years in the outside world. Anyway, to make a long story short, I pitched Swallow My Children as like, ‘Hey. This is a lower budget, quick gonzo movie. There are no thrills...nothing. Just let me shoot it to get my chops back pretty much.' They said, ‘Okay. No problem.' They approved my budget, which wasn't very much and I went into the movie with no preparation for anything other than just literally like what I was explaining I hate so much: on the couch and just straight blow jobs. That was it. Immediately, I couldn't do it. It was like, ‘Fuck. I can't do this. That's everything I hate, you know? So, immediately I started improvising skits, one after another, after another. For some reason, that worked so amazing. The whole movie is funny from beginning to end, but the ultimate topper on it was on the second day of production...the last day. Me and my crew started popping back a couple of brews and bullshitting like, ‘Oh. It's almost over.' I was like, ‘Fuck. How am I going to introduce this movie?' It's, like, the greatest title ever: Swallow My Children. How funny is that? It's like, how am I going to introduce it? So, I tried doing it. I'm like, ‘Hey. I'm Rob Rotten and thanks for watching Swallow My Children.' It was horrible. I tried a chick doing it and I was like, ‘Fuck. It's even worse.' So, after a few beers I was like, ‘Fuck. I need a drunk guy. I need, like, a homeless drunk guy. So, the dude, my [personal assistant] who had gotten the booze for the set was like, ‘Oh, my God, Rob. There's this gay, drunk, homeless guy begging for money at the liquor store.' I was like, ‘Dude! Whatever it takes, get that dude up here.' So, he went back down, he bought him a six pack of Corona and the dude was up there, had an I.D., filled out the model release and we started rolling camera on him. The guy was fucking priceless, man! His name is Angus McGillicuddy. He was just a total mess and it was perfect. Angus McGillicuddy actually got nominated for best non-sex performance at AVN [Awards].

TS: I was going to ask you what that means, because I had never seen that category before and I wanted to know what that is defined as?

RR: It's like an extra in the movie or, you know, like the dude...not this year, but the year before...Bryan or Bryn Pryor won for some role that he had. There's no sex. You're in the movie, but you're not performing a sex act. It was kind of a slap in the face...I took it as to everyone else who was actually an actor that even a gay, drunk, homeless guy can get nominated, you know? The other side is that people didn't get nominated. It's like, ‘Dude. A gay, drunk, homeless guy got nominated. What's up with you!?' [laughs hysterically]

TS: [laughs] Well, that doesn't speak well of the industry as a whole if you're kind of doing things to be tongue-in-cheek and sort of...I mean, you've said in a previous interview that you like to do these movies to get laughs as opposed to...you know for the actual sexual content. So, what does that say about the current state of porn if they take your work, which is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, so seriously that you get nominated for one of the really prestigious fan awards?

RR: You know, I think it's awesome. Don't get me wrong. I love AVN and the people over there...I know they have a great sense of humor and I think they nominated Angus McGillicuddy because he was that ridiculous. He is so ridiculous that he has his own section on the DVD. He is so ridiculous that the soft-core trailer is nothing but him; there are no chicks in it. He's that priceless. As far as the adult industry I personally think most people in porn take themselves too seriously. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but ever since you were a little kid, you've seen sex. When you're a little kid, usually you turn red and start giggling. The act of sex is funny. It really is to the viewer, you know? As far as you doing it, it's not so funny. It's kind of cool. So, me as the director shooting movies...I'm actually watching them and I'm making them for people who are going to watch them and I think it should be funny, because there's no real way to make sex not funny. You know what I mean? It's always going to be funny - at least to me. So, I try to incorporate that into a lot of movies.

TS: You're opposed to the term "alt-porn" because I remember reading that you thought it equates to trannies more often than not. So, what do you like to call your type of movie? How would you describe your style?

RR: I don't like to put a brand on things. You know, I've been in the business...fuck...for a long time...since I was eighteen. I'm twenty-six now. So, it's been a number of years. When I first got in...one of the reasons I've been able to slide in so easy when I was so young was there was this thing called Gen-X porn going on at the time. It was, like, this horrible, extreme sports crap...dude/bro' guys...you know, it was just crap. But, it was really popular for, like, thirty seconds and I kind of slid in at the tail end. So, that went away and everyone who was on that ship literally just disappeared. I don't know if there is anyone left who can be considered Gen-X porn stars, even male performers. So, when this alt-porn thing started coming out, I immediately was like, ‘Oh, God. Here we go again. It's another Gen-X porn movement.' That's what I was thinking. So, immediately I wanted to distance myself from it. You know, that was before I even saw any movies that were considered "alt" just based on past experiences. Then, some of these people...I mean, they're nice people...and they wanted me to watch their movies. So, people started sending me movies. I watched some of them and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is fucking horrible! This is worse than the porn I hate!' This is...it's not only just like the couch with a chick, now it's the chick has a few tattoos on a couch with really bad lighting and let's call it alt-porn. It's like the same fucking shit! I was like, ‘Oh, my God!' You're branding something...it's like you could have taken a regular scene and put a filter effect on it in post production and called alt-porn. I'm not trying to knock the creativity of some people, because there are a lot of creative people out there, but as far as I'm concerned, I just don't even want to be a part of it. I'm not trying to brand myself, because I shot a movie called Swallow My Children that was up for best comedy sex film. I shot Porn of the Dead, which is a zombie movie. You know, they don't even go together. I just finished shooting the Texas Vibrator Massacre, which is a fucking phenomenal movie. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but everyone who was involved in that movie: cast, crew, people that helped with pre-production, people who did the post-production...everyone put in 120%. It was, like, a super special project, because of that. Everyone was like, ‘Wow. This thing is really amazing.' They put everything they had and more into it. The combined group effort just made that movie fucking phenomenal. Christian Mann from Metro...you can say he has a biased opinion or not, because it was a Metro movie. But, he's pretty honest. He said it was one of the best movies since Edward Penishands and I love Edward Penishands. But, maybe I'm biased. I think it's better. But, that's still pretty rad to hear that, you know?

TS: I agree. Well, let's go back a little ways. Getting your style into the companies that would distribute the stuff was really difficult from what I've read. People didn't take you seriously. A lot of people didn't know what to do with the type of girls you were putting in your movies...

RR: Believe it or not, it's still going on. [laughs] The only person that had an ear for me was Jim Powers. He's the guy that got me into the business. I love the guy to death and I owe him everything. He runs camera for me. He got me in the business. He shot me when I was just getting started as a performer. He totally got me in the business and showed me the ropes. So, I owe everything to that guy. He's really cool...awesome guy and very talented. He was the only guy in the beginning that would listen to anything I had to say. I remember trying to pitch movies to...fuck...you name the company and I pitched a movie to them. I was in my early twenties and late teens and everyone was like, ‘Yeah. I don't think so. You can just pretty much leave.' It was like that. It was ridiculous. They were like, ‘Yeah. No one wants to see tattooed chicks. No one wants to see any of this stuff. So, I was bitching to Jim about it and Jim and I both love these old Penelope Spheeris called Suburbia and we collaborated and we made this movie. This was years ago. It was released in 2000 or 2001 and it was called Little Runaway. It was pretty much just an adult version of Suburbia. We even had D.I. in it...U.S. Bombs. I worked the ropes on getting all the bands I could. It was a phenomenal movie. We did it for a really low budget and I don't think either one of us really...I know I didn't make any money and I don't think Jim really made any money off it either. But, it got nominated for, like, eleven awards the year it released. It was just insane. All these companies were like, ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What is this!?' You know, we were up against Snoop Dogg for best soundtrack and we had D.I. and U.S. Bombs...you know, it was Snoop Dogg and all these weird punk rock bands we've never even heard of? What's going on? So, I think that was really like a changing point at least in the company's eyes. It was like, ‘Wow. I think there's a market that we haven't even touched.'

TS: What was it about the timing then of that movie that just hit everybody exactly the right way? Obviously a whole bunch of events have to conspire to come together at a focal point. What was it that made that whole scene happen right then?

RR: Obviously it was a combination of a lot of things. You've got to give Hustler Magazine credit. In the 80s they had a chick on the cover with a Mohawk. There's all these things, little things, little spurts throughout the years. You know, Jim Powers using NoFx on a soundtrack of a movie in '88. Little things like that that didn't really work that well, but for some reason they left a mark. Even the Gen-X porn kind of opened up the door a little bit, you know? And I think that towards the late ‘90s, porn was at its lowest point. Maybe we're getting lower. I don't know. But, it was really shitty. If you go look back at late ‘90s porn, you're like, ‘Oh, my God. This is horrible.' It really is. So, I think that people...the internet was starting up and I think people of my generation, who are probably a lot more open than the previous generations, were like, ‘Wow. We want to see something that we're interested in, not something our dads are interested in.' There are just so many little things that just worked. The music in porn? It had been done before, but it had never been done like a full, music-oriented movie. Like, we had bands in the movie. Band members were performing sexual acts in the movie. It was everything that people kind of beat around the bush with we just took it and did it times ten. Another thing is we didn't go into it with plans of making a cult classic fucking porno movie. We just did it for fun, because we wanted to see it and do it. I think that's probably, in the end, the coolest thing about it. I remember when the pre-noms came out and the review came out Jim and I were on the phone with each other going, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I can't even believe...oh, my God!' Like, we knew it was cool, but we didn't think anyone else would think it was that cool, you know what I mean? It was a really cool time, you know?

TS: Well, you've talked about how there was a lot of reluctance about what you were doing when you first started getting into the business and you just mentioned a little bit ago that you still encounter a lot of resistance to some of the things that you want to do. So, I guess my question is: now that you've been in the business seven or eight years, which is pretty well established considering how quickly people come and go, what is still the reluctance to what you want to do as a performer/director/company owner?

RR: I really don't perform for anyone but myself anymore and I think that's largely because I'm really lazy and it's a long drive down to L.A. [laughs] But, as far as shooting movies, the problem I usually run into is that...and this is why I love Metro so much. If I pitch them a movie, and they go yay or nay...they're pretty much like, ‘Yeah. I don't think so' or ‘yeah. That's pretty cool. Let's do the budget.' But, Metro - at least to me - won't ever go, ‘Okay. We need this girl to star in it. We don't like that guy, so you can't use him.' So, when I go to companies, I tell them - and this isn't really negotiable - but I tell them I'm going to provide everything from pre-production to production to post-production and you get a finished product. That is it. I will make the box cover. I will make the ads. My editors are going to do all the post-production work. Obviously it's going to go through your [quality control] and all your crappy little commercials are going to get put in it. But, everything is going to be done by us. I'm not trying to be a Nazi about it, but, you know, my name is attached to it. I'm super-anal about my movies because my reputation is on the line in every single one of them. I want it to be the way I saw it, the way I wanted it to be from the beginning. That immediately scares away companies right there, because they're like, ‘Oh, my God. How do we trust this guy?' I don't know. I don't know why they're so scared. I've never had below a 4-A review on any of my movies, but they're still freaked out.

TS: That's why I'm asking. It's seven years now. I can understand them having an attitude if you're six months in or a year in and you're just taking your first crack at directing, but seven years in with nominations out the ass...

RR: Every year.

TS: Yeah. I mean, how much does it take to prove yourself?

RR: You also got to look at me. I don't live in the valley. I'm not down there rubbing the inner thighs of all the general managers of the companies and all the right people. And I have a real job too. I do this shit for fun. So, unless all the conditions that I want are going to be there, and it's not really a money thing it's an artistic control and oversight things, then I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to shoot volume 72 of some movie that some other dude started. I'm going to start my own line. I'm going to start my own movies and they're going to be stylized the way I want them to be. It's understandable that a lot of companies are going to have problems with that, because they have this cookie cutter mold that has made them money for the last twenty years and they know if they do this, this, and this they're going to make x amount of profit and they don't want to break that system. It is a risk, but it's pretty proven already that it's a beneficial risk and it's not really a risk if they're making money.

TS: It sounds a lot like the music industry. They're just reluctant to change. I just read an article recently about a lot of the kids who were getting tattoos and stuff back in the early ‘90s and stuff when it was kind of a new, hip thing again. There has been a lot of tattoo removal going on because they are finding they are limited in the corporate world by having neck tattoos and face tattoos and all that stuff. So, I was going to ask you if that movement towards cleaning up one's body from a lot of the artwork has hurt the demand for movies with that style of girl in it.

RR: Like I was saying earlier, I don't shoot one thing and stick to that. I'm all over the map. I've shot movies that don't have one god damn tattooed girl in it. So, the way I kind of imagined my movies it's, like, they are not meant for one type of person. Like, I want the stupid frat boy with the sweater tied around his shoulders to watch it and be like, ‘Oh. This thing is kind of funny.' I also want the punk rock kid to watch it too and go, ‘Oh, yeah. That's rad. This band is in it.' But, I also want the total straight-laced normal dude to watch it and go, ‘Wow. I've always wanted to be with a chick with a Mohawk.' You know what I mean? There is so much more than meets the eye when you just put in a movie. Most of my movies...most of the time they are vignettes. There are, like, five different skits that don't make any sense at all together, but by themselves they stand alone. So, there' something for everyone in all of my movies which is kind of cool and I think that's why the sales are fairly high or higher than most people's movies.

TS: Well, let me go to the music for a minute, because I know that's a big part of your repertoire of films. I went to your MySpace page and I see that quite often, when you are going to do a production, you actually ask for submissions from bands around the country to send in their tapes and, if they are good enough, they'll make it into your movies. I was curious: what are some of the bands you've come across, if you can name them or if you are allowed to name them, that you found in this way that you didn't know about before?

RR: I've found amazing bands that are usually unsigned, because it's really easy for me to go through my iPod and go, ‘Okay. I want to use Rancid. I want to use D.I. I want to use the Bad Samaritans.' That's really easy. It's like I just contact the band or I contact the label, which takes about ten minutes. Then you have to get a few lawyers involved, but for the most part it's very easy to do that. I got kind of bored, I guess, with just cherry picking the bands, so I started doing, like, this...I started on Craig's List, kind of before MySpace and said, ‘Hey. Any punk rock bands want to be in movies?' I got a lot of cool replies and over the years I've just been kind of collecting the signed releases and the CDs that they send or the downloadable music, [which] I'll put on a hard drive and save it. I've found some really great, totally no-name bands that I've just been so stoked on, not just punk rock, but death metal, metal, even, like, backbeat, and reggae...so many different types of music. I've been like, ‘Wow.' It totally opened my eyes up to all this talent out there that I probably never would have seen unless I was looking for something like that.

TS: Now, you said these are all signed bands typically?

RR: Usually unsigned. It's pretty rad, because over the years I've become friends with a lot of music labels. So, if there's a band and I'm like, ‘These guys are amazing' then I'll totally send their demo to the label and go like, ‘Dude. Check these guys out. They're pretty rad.

TS: Do you get any kind of fee for that? [laughs]

RR: No, no, no. The way I look back at it is someone gave me a chance, you know? They kind of trusted me and were like, ‘Wow, dude. You do have some good ideas and you might have some talent.' If you would have known me when I was eighteen years old and blacked out drunk and on every drug I could get my hands on, that was a pretty rare occasion that anyone would trust me with a twenty dollar bill let alone any movie ideas, you know? So, I always try to...you know, someone gave me a chance so I always try to give other people a chance too.

TS: That's really cool. Let me ask you this question: where do you get all the body parts and blood? I've read you've gone through a hefty number of gallons of blood in some of your flicks. Do you have somebody that provides that for you, because that must make production costs start to skyrocket using all of that stuff?

RR: With Porn of the Dead, the zombie movie, there was a lot of, you know, full-on zombie make-up that far surpasses normal zombie movies, because in normal zombie movies [the actors] aren't naked and they're not fucking. So, we had to go a little overboard. It takes tons of time, but that's another thing where I've been fortunate enough to know a lot of really cool people who are in the special effects field that do mainstream stuff and had down time to help me out. You know, obviously I don't have a budget like mainstream people do, but they are usually willing to work for whatever I have to give them, which is pretty rad. So, I've gotten really lucky with that. The guys who did all the special effects for The Texas Vibrator Massacre...those dudes actually made all the aliens for Men in Black I & II. They did the Garfield robot. They did I Robot...all the actual real robots in that movie. They did the Dell commercial...all those robots. And, they're actually working on a G.I. Joe movie in the U.K. right now for all the gore. So, it was, like, a total honor to have those dudes on set. At first, I'm not going to lie, it was a little intimidating. It was like, ‘Dude. These guys have been around total pros. Super pros.' I don't even know what you're supposed to say like, ‘Speed. Light. Action.' I don't even know. I just say, ‘All right, dude. Roll.' [laughs]

TS: So, you knew them ahead of time...before you needed them for your movie?

RR: Yeah, see the Porn of the Dead movie, like, totally opened the doors up way more than I had ever expected. It wasn't just a zombie movie. It was, like, five zombie death metal music videos. The bands...I was so lucky thanks to Earache and a few other labels. I was able to score the top death metal bands, you know? They really are. They're world known, so to have them on the soundtrack...it was amazing. So, that also brought maybe people who didn't care too much about porn, but they're, like, death metal freaks. They're like, ‘Whoa. Deicide is on a porno? What the fuck!?' So, they're going to go out and get it. Likewise, for zombie people that are like, ‘Oh. I love zombie movies. They're making zombie porn?' They're going to pick it up and it's going to cross-promote the bands, me, the movies, the company, everybody who is affiliated with it. So, through that movie I actually met a lot of really cool people in the horror movie genre, because they were like, ‘Dude. No one has ever done anything quite like this before.' Obviously, there has been zombie and horror porn before, but not like that one, you know? I don't know if there has ever been a movie prior to that where there was disembowelments and fingers eaten off and, you know, it's some pretty gross stuff in there...hearts torn out and eaten...it was pretty rad.

TS: You mentioned Porn of the Dead. I wanted to ask you about your movie Fuck the System for a second. You had a scene with Gia Paloma in a dive bar where you guys are going at it while a live punk show was playing. It was the Smut Peddlers, I think.

RR: Yeah. I had the Smut Peddlers from TKO records come in and do the soundtrack and they also played live in the movie. I really love those guys. They're a great band. And we actually played at a real venue. The Anarchy Library is what it's called. It was open door. I had a [personal assistant] at the door to take people's I.D.s and let them know what's going on and if they wanted to come in and drink beers and watch it that's totally cool. [laughs] So, that seemed like a good idea until the owner of the club called me later and was like, ‘Yeah. We have fifteen cops here.' [laughs] ‘We have a report of someone choking a chick to death on stage while the band was playing.' So, it seemed like a good idea and we got out of there right in the nick of time. But, I'm not doing that again.

TS: Someone actually choked someone to death during your shoot?

RR: No. Supposedly I was the creepy guy and Gia Paloma was the chick, who was getting choked to death.

TS: Oh. Okay.

RR: So, someone just saw something and was like, ‘Oh, my god,' and ran out and called the cops. Luckily they took 45 minutes to respond. [laughs]

TS: [laughs] If there is one benefit to slow response times, I guess that was it. Let me ask you about your Scurvy Girls series. For people who don't know, that was basically chicks who had never been in the industry before, never done films before. I wanted to ask you what kind of problems that posed putting together movies with people that had no experience. How much more difficult is that?

RR: There are pros and cons to it. I shot two of them, so I think the pros outweigh the cons just by a slight amount. It's really fun because I get so many...ever since my first movie, I've had a thing at the end of my movies that says, ‘If you want to be in one of Rob Rotten's movies, please visit PunxProductions.com,' yada yada yada. They can go on there and send e-mails with pictures and stuff like that. It's still like that. I get a lot of people that send me e-mails and go, ‘Oh, I want to be in one of your movies.' So, it's pretty easy to get the new people, but it's just getting the logistics down. It's like when I'm shooting a new girl I really like to take care of them. Even like a regular porn chick I try to take care of them, because there's so many fucking douche bags in this business. I've been on the other side of the camera and, like, seen it and been there and I've been treated shitty. I know everyone in the business has been treated shitty by some crew or director or something. So, I try to do the exact opposite. I talk to the chicks and make sure they actually want to do it. I straight up tell them the pros and cons of the business, whether they just want to be in one of my movies or whether they want to go on. Regardless, I'm going to help them. Regan Reese is a prime example. It was a new girl I found. After she did Scurvy Girls she was like, ‘Wow. This is something I want to go on and do,' so I hooked her up in Asian and she went on from there to have a fairly successful adult career. But, she initially came into it saying she..."

Just then a bolt of lightning from a stray thunderstorm knocks out the power and the phone lines. Rob and I get disconnected.

As the lights reappear and my computer begins to reboot, I quickly redial the number of adult writer, performer, filmmaker and producer Rob Rotten. Just moments earlier, a powerful lightning strike had ripped through an angry sky knocking out power for about five to ten seconds. Working in a windowless office adjacent to the AEBN studios, I had been unaware of the stray thunderstorm that had wandered into the area that afternoon. The high voltage blast was enough to scramble the phone lines, temporarily pausing my interview session with the self-styled godfather of horror and punk porn.

"Dude, you can't control Mother Nature," jokes Rotten, clearly finding humor in the whole incident. "Is the computer all right?"

"Yeah. Everything is fine," I reply. "That was bizarre. I guess I pissed off somebody somewhere," I tell him. But at that point, having reached the midway mark of our discussion, I couldn't help but think that it was perhaps Rob who has made Mother Nature a bit jealous.

The carefree, multi-pierced, omni-tattooed twenty-six year old with the punk rock soul is living the life most can only dream about. The creative force behind the films Swallow My Children, Fuck the System, Porn of the Dead, and the Scurvy Girls series is nearing the eve of the release of his newest film The Texas Vibrator Massacre, a film he calls his pride and joy and his own personal Driving Miss Daisy.

For eight years, he has done it his way or no way. He has piled up awards. He has shown Hobson's choice to be an extremely lucrative blueprint for the porn companies he disdains. He has forced the adult industry to take notice. Possessing a highly charged personality, a jolting sense of humor, and an ability to give fans maximum shock value in his films, Rotten is the embodiment of electricity. Mama Nature is now feeling somewhat threatened. She is on to him.

---

When Little Runaways ran away with 11 AVN awards back in 2003, what began as a figurative way to extend a middle finger to an increasingly stale adult market became a corporeal cottage industry, which flew directly into the chemical peeled face and augmented breasts of the porn status quo. "Towards the late ‘90s, porn was at its lowest point," Rob says. "It was really shitty. The internet was starting up and I think people of my generation...were like ‘Wow. We want to see something we're interested in, not something our dads are interested in.'"

But shaking up the rote behavior of an entire industry is never an easy task. There are entrenched power structures and millions upon millions of dollars exchanging hands. Yet, as with most revolutions the precursor to it was the overall feeling that only a select few were benefitting from the spoils. "Forty-nine dollar DVDs that are absolute shit," blisters Rob as he describes how for years porn companies fleeced the consumers. Something had to change. The industry needed new ideas.

Still in his teens, Rob was full of ideas. Day after day he made pitches to any studio that would listen and day after day, the studios dismissed every one of them. He would be the first to admit that it is difficult to put one's best foot forward when that foot is attached to the punctured, metal infused, inked up body of an 18-year-old, drug-addled, high school dropout. Synchronicity intervened when Rotten met a man named Jim - whose last name, coincidentally, was Powers- at the filming of a punk rock show. Powers saw something special in him - a spark. "I owe him everything," Rob would say. "He was the only person that had an ear for me."

Like the first generation punk movement three decades earlier, Jim and Rob shared a mutual dissatisfaction with the established order. And, just like the original punk rock movement, they both sought change through chaos. It was a theme explored in the 1984 Penelope Spheeris film Suburbia, the inspiration for Little Runaways. Life imitates art. Electricity.

---

"Hold on one second, dude," Rob says after a long pause. Right in the middle of a discussion about his Scurvy Girls series and how to avoid the pitfalls of amateur talent, Rob pauses in mid-sentence. Somebody is at the door. "Twenty-two fifty," I hear a voice say in the background. "Thanks, dude," replies Rob. Picking up the receiver once again, he says with a tone of satisfaction, "Pizza."

Like a scene out of Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Jeff Spicoli has a pizza delivered to Mr. Hand's history class, Rob, who sounds strikingly like Spicoli, has a pepperoni and mushroom pizza delivered during the interview. The tame choice of pepperoni and mushroom toppings notwithstanding, I shouldn't have been surprised. For someone like Rob, it is that type of unorthodox spontaneity that helps to define who he is. Just ask Angus McGillicuddy.

Rob laughs at his recollection of poor Angus, a homeless drunk who provided the introduction to the AVN Award winning film Swallow My Children. At the time, Rob was a bit out of touch with the porn world after a one-year hiatus. "I was really out of the loop," he claims. "Especially with chicks, because they're in it for six weeks and then they're gone. It's like you've go to look at porn chicks in dog years. One year is like fifteen years in the outside world."

After a last ditch burst of imagination, everything eventually came together, except for the introduction. Nobody was able to deliver the lines the way Rob wanted. Not even Rob himself. "I need a drunk guy," he would muse. "I need a homeless drunk guy." That evening, on a trip to the liquor store to get booze for the set, one of Rob's personal assistants noted such a guy begging for money outside the store. Offering him a six-pack of Corona as payment, the assistant convinced Angus McGillicuddy to come back to the studio to record the introduction. "He filled out the model release and we started rolling camera on him. The guy was fucking priceless," Rob says proudly. "He was just a total mess and it was perfect." Damned if Angus McGillicuddy wasn't nominated for best non-sex performance at the AVN Awards. Electricity.

---

"Personally, I don't even like porn all that much. It sucks!" reveals Rob. It's the big secret that betrays all the legitimacy brought on by his string of awards and nominations. "How boring is it that you've got a couch in Chatsworth, California and you have this ditsy blonde and she's walking up the stairs and the camera follows her up her ankles, up to her ass, and then, like, oh, my God. She's naked and there's a dick in her mouth." The Couch is one of Rob's ultimate pet peeves. It symbolizes all that is and has been wrong with the inert levels of creativity displayed time and time again throughout the entire adult industry. It is why he has tried to push boundaries. It is why he prefers a vignette style of filmmaking. It is why he goes through gallons of fake blood during his shoots and why he has tried to incorporate guts, gore, zombies, dismemberments, and even disturbing scenes of masturbation with intestines as a way of further warping the already twisted imagery perceived to exist in most porn films.

"And then, to make up for the lack of creativity," he continues "there are a lot of directors in the business who go, ‘Okay. Well...hmmm. We've got the couch, we've got the blonde, and we've got the guy. Now, how are we going to make it different? Hmmm, let's stick fifty chopsticks in her ass and see what happens!'"

Perhaps even more telling is that porn is just a part-time gig for Rob. "I'm don't live in the valley," he remarks. "I'm not down there rubbing the inner thighs of all the general managers of the companies and all the right people. I do this shit for fun." Smart enough with his dog years analogy to realize that it is just as likely that he could be here today, gone tomorrow, Rob long ago hedged his porn bets by learning a trade. "I don't think there is ever going to be a time when I'm going to be like, ‘Wow. Cool. Later, real job.' I just don't ever see that happening," he laments. Oddly enough, Rob is okay with that prospect. The fact that porn is not his only lifeline has allowed him to lug a rather large bargaining chip to the negotiating table. "If these companies are contacting me for one of my movies...they're going to have to kind of step back and let it happen, which is something they're not used to." Rob's trade? A foreman for a San Francisco electricians union. Electricity.

---

After talking for over an hour, I tell Rob I should let him go as his pepperoni and mushroom pizza has probably gone cold. "Yeah probably," he says. "But it's no big deal." Nothing really is a big deal for Rob. Not eight years in the business, not holding down a real job, not an upcoming release in The Texas Vibrator Massacre, not updating his website punxproductions.com, not running his new merchandise website, rottenmerch.com, and most definitely not a cold pizza. Rob Rotten is totally at ease with himself and his intriguing portfolio of work. He is the embodiment of electricity. The adult industry has already taken notice. Mother Nature has him in her sights.