by RAF KATIGBAK

Tucson, Arizona, is famous for three things. A giant lumberjack statue, "mystery spots" (or "vortexes") and the colour beige. Life in Tucson is so much like a David Lynch movie that, as a teenager, all you can do is eat acid and listen to 2 Live Crew and Clint Black over and over again. Well, at least that's what musician/sculptor John Sweeden did for two years straight. When his brain finally shook off its toxic la-la-land haze, Tron D was born. Equal parts Joy Division, Johnny Cash, Too Short, Kraftwerk and Nina Hagen, his music, like his personality, became a mish-mash of genres with hyphens like "electro-hop-goth-abilly." His album, Dance Songs in the Key of the Devil (under his Electroshockbox moniker), confounded critics while his live one-man show left asses across North America sore from rockin'. Famous for pounding laptop techno kicks, incendiary guitar licks (performed on his custom-built Dobro Theremin), and the strangest chrome guitar amp you've ever seen, Tron D is ready to take on Montreal for the second time. The Mirror recently caught up with him to chat about chickens, Satan and Midnight Cowboys.

Mirror: Describe an Electroshockbox show in three words.

Tron D: Fat ass nasty.

M: So what exactly is an electroshockbox anyway?

TD: Well, it's based on this Tijuana nickelodeon machine. It has a chicken inside and you drop a peso and music starts playing and the chicken does a funny little jig and then it's over. He's actually standing on a hotplate and there're bolts of electricity moving him to the beat. My cousins would tell me about it, I've only ever seen it in my imagination. I'm a sculptor, see, and three years ago, I had a real clear picture of what it looked like, and I decided to build one.

M: Where did you find the rooster?

TD: My uncle used to fight roosters in Tucson, and I became very attached to one particular one. He was just a mean bastard, he'd nick me every time I was around him. It was a real love-hate thing. Anyway, a pitbull ate him and so I saved all his feathers and bought a mould from a taxidermist and I just reapplied his feathers and he became the subject for my shockbox.

M: So it's not an actual working shockbox.

TD: No, it's more of a homemade amplifier.

The Devil, you say

M: Your album title Songs in the Key of the Devil suggests an unholy alliance with darker forces heretofore unseen. What exactly is your relationship with the Dark Prince? Are you bosom buddies with Beelzebub or more like Satan's squash partner?

TD: We're very tight. Truthfully though, "in the key of the devil" refers more to when you're doin' something you're not supposed to. Like you're out at the club and your girlfriend stayed home, and there's a tight little honey that wants you to roam a little. I'm sure you've been there - well, whatever your thing is. That's where it's coming from, from a soft hurt place you haven't yet healed.

M: So you wouldn't really count yourself as a card-carrying member of Mephistopheles' Minions.

TD: No, but I was interviewed by this guy in Tucson who was adamant that he'd met the Devil six months ago. He asked, "Your album wasn't as good as the last, did you really sell your soul to the Devil?" He was convinced I was evil and actually wrote his ex-girlfriend - one of my best friends - and told her to stay away from me. Now I'm not Mötley Crüe and I don't claim to have conversations with Lucifer -

M: Wait a second; this guy was convinced that he met the Devil? Where? At like, the 7-eleven or something?

TD: In a bar in Bisbee. You see, Arizona's a real special place, there're all these so-called vortexes and shit. Personally, I think the guy just ate some roofies and smoked some really good weed.

M: So what did the Devil look like? Was he rocking a pitchfork and goatee or was he all corporate, Armani, Christopher Walken style?

TD: He was wearing a cowboy hat and he said he was "very seductive and extremely charismatic."

M: Okay, so a charismatic and seductive guy in a cowboy hat, eh? Sounds to me like a case of Midnight Cowboy post-coital homoerotic Christian guilt.

TD: Well, to tell you the truth that went through my mind just as well! Oh yeah, "A devil in a pair of blue jeans" who was "seductive" and very "persuasive." Right -

M: "And he had the softest hands…"

TD: "And his mouth… so warm…" Now the guy won't even look at me anymore.

With Bloodshot Bill and Holy Moly at Barfly
on Friday, Sept. 19, 9pm, $3

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