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Interview with Fireball Ministry
By: J Sherrod
 I was recently backstage after a
Fireball Ministry sound check and had the opportunity to sit
down with singer/guitarist and co-founding member James
A. Rota II as he restrung his guitar. Guitarist Emily Burton
and bassist Johny Chow were hangin' around backstage
listening in and getting ready for the show.
Rota began our conversation coming across as a man of few
words, but opened up as the interview went on. I certainly
enjoyed talking to such a nice guy.
NowOnTour: How's the tour been treatin' y'all so
far and what's some of you're favorite cities to
play?
James Rota: It's been a lot of fun. I think our favorite cities
are our home cities which are anywhere from Los Angeles to
New York. Ya know, every city has it's own thing.
In the past you've opened up for some heavy
hitters like Anthrax, Dio, Motorhead and Slayer as well as
legendary hard rock bands Blue Oyster Cult and Uriah Heep,
what are some bands that you would like to open for
someday?
Well, I don't know. I think we've pretty much hit it other than
AC/DC maybe.
Are there any young, up-and-coming bands you
would like to take out on the road to open for
y'all?
This tour we took Artimus [Pyledriver] because we really like
those guys. There's a band called Grand Magus from
Sweden I like. I'd like to take them out too.
Fireball Ministry is on Liquor & Poker Music, which
has some great artists. How's the label treatin' y'all so far?
All right, pretty good, it's our label and they're pretty much
all the same. I mean if we made millions then they would put
millions into us. Until you sell 150,000 records you're pretty
much just a tax write-off. That's kinda how it
works.
I'm still waitin' to get there. That's why I moved to
Nashville.
You're waitin' to be a tax write-off? [Chuckles]
You could put it that way I
guess.
You have some labelmates that I'm really into, The
Illuminati, who released an album earlier this year. They
have a similar sound to y'all. Do you know much about them
or have you ever played any shows with those
guys?
Oh yeah. I think we did the CMJ Music Fest in New York with
them. We don't really get paired up with too many of our
label mates. I know Fu Manchu just got signed and they're
really good friends of ours, so that's pretty cool.
The band formed in Cincinnati, moved to New York
City and finally ended up in L.A. That's a lot of bouncin'
around. I can somewhat understand movin' out of Cincy but
what were some of the decisions from makin' the move to
NYC before L.A.?
Yeah, originally from Cincinnati. I would rather live in New
York than California but I realize that living in New York is
not really the place to cultivate a rock band. It's kinda one of
those things that I would rather live where I'm from but
unfortunately the industry doesn't think that would be an
easy thing to do. Bands that get to make it from their own
hometown - like Shadows Fall - are really lucky.
Fireball Ministry is known to your fans as the "First
Church of Rock N' Roll" and your shows are the "sermons."
Have you ever thought about passin' around a collection
plate at your shows and seein' what you end up with when it
comes back?
[Emily and Johny both laugh]
Johny adds: That's a really good idea!
JR: [Laughs] That'd be great! The only problem is that it
would probably get back to the IRS ya know?
I've seen the band play certain late night talk
shows. Any you enjoyed more than others and are there any
you wish to play on in the future?
The only one we've really done was "Last Call with Carson
Daily" and that was a lot of fun. We'll play anywhere that'll
have us. We'd like to play "Conan" I guess. He seems like
the kind of guy that actually enjoys the bands. You can tell
the stuff he really likes.
I played a gig up in Ohio a few weeks ago and I
had to have some of that Cincinnati chili. Bein' a southern
boy the thought of puttin' chili on a heap of spaghetti is a
little out there. Do you dig that, and if so do you prefer
Skyline or Gold Star?
[Johny laughs again]
Wow! That's a good question. I don't really eat the spaghetti
chili. I would eat the hot dogs more...or the 'Coney's' as they
call 'em. I wouldn't really say that Skyline chili wins over
Gold Star although, in a pinch - because there's only Gold
Star at the Cincinnati airport - there's not a Skyline, so if it's
all you can get it's fine.
That was a beautiful question.
Did any member of the band dress up for
Halloween last Tuesday or did you just go as rock stars, and
what's one of your most memorable costumes of the past?
No, we didn't dress up as that [rock stars] either. [Chuckles]
I went as a mummy one year and my dad was a physician
so my mom got all this gauze from his office and actually
wrapped me up in it. It took her what seemed like 120 hours
to do it and about four minutes for it to all fall
apart.
Finally, other than kickin' the shit outta Nashville in
a few hours, what's lined-up for Fireball Ministry in the
future?
We'll cut a new record and see what next year brings. This is
the last tour for this record so we'll go back, regroup and
come up with some new stuff.
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