by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“Look out for that Internet,” says Dick Valentine. “I keep saying it, but nobody listens to me.”

As the frontman for Detroit’s most discolicious rock ’n’ roll band, Electric Six, Valentine has the Internet to thank for the band’s worldwide cult status. Not only did their hilarious, Abraham Lincoln-themed video for “Gay Bar” sweep across the WWW, but two independently produced alternate versions covered even more ground: one featured Dubya and Tony Blair mouthing the lyrics (if not each other) and the other, ultra-cheap creation cast Viking cats and a guitar-playing teddy.

The U.K. press was also instrumental in the band’s notoriety, embracing their singles and fanning the flames of their 2003 album, Fire, and its 2005 follow-up Señor Smoke (delayed until Feb. ’06 in North America, due to label troubles). As a result, Valentine says, Electric Six are an international bar band rather than a regional one, although they only recently played their first Canadian bar—an ex-member’s criminal record kept them out in the past. The Mirror asked Valentine about the apocalyptic allure of the Backstreet Boys and dancing vs. push-ups.

Mirror: I hear Detroit has been named the USA’s most liberal city.

Dick Valentine: People in my hometown have seen the liberal beacon and have pointed themselves towards it.

M: Too bad more people can’t see it.

DV: Well, the political pendulum swings back and forth, and you can see that it’s starting to swing back to the middle now.

M: Yeah, things are going pretty bad for Bush.

DV: You could say it started going bad a long, long time ago—like when he was born.

M: I’ll second that. I notice that there’s more social commentary on this record than on Fire. I especially like the juxtaposition of apocalyptic imagery and the Backstreet Boys in “Jimmy Carter.”

DV: That’s the whole point of that song. It’s about the end of the world and pop culture. But in the U.K., they do have a sense of humour, but it’s a different sensibility so sometimes it gets lost on them. They were like, “That’s the worst song ever written! The Backstreet Boys are awful!”

M: What?! They think you guys are praising the Backstreet Boys?

DV: I don’t know what they think.

M: I read that your tendency to do push-ups on stage dates back to a [ex-MC5 singer] Rob Tyner show.

DV: Yeah! Everybody was just sitting there listening to his solo stuff, but of course he ended the show with “Kick Out the Jams” and the entire place jumped off their chairs. I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran on stage and started doing push-ups, and I’d never had that kind of attention from my friends or people in a bar before. It was like I was a hero, so I just kept with it. If you don’t know how to dance, might as well get a workout in. Plus, stupid frat guys love it, they can’t get enough of it. “DUDE, THAT WAS SWEET!”

M: But are you saying you can’t dance? At least three of your songs have “dance” in the title.

DV: I was 18 then, I’m 33 now, so I’m getting better at it. But like I always say, never forget who you were, never forget where you came from.

With Crosstide at Petit Campus on Saturday, Sept. 24, 9 p.m., $15

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