You may have seen him swinging his hair while jackhammering, power-sawing, and demolishing his way through homes, the Metal Construction Worker. Well, I happen to have found out that the dude’s name is George and he plays guitar with previous Racket interviewee Josh Sullivan‘s ska band so I was able to arrange an interview with him. By that, I mean, I got drunk and Facebooked him.
HOLA! Josh sent me your way to do an interview for my VERY illustrious (illustrious means “it’s all right, I think) blog/magazine: www.RacketMag.com. I’d love to shoot you a few questions regarding your metal as fuck video, Can’t Do It, and anything else you want to chat about. That cool with you?
Hey there, yeah sure is. (btw it means “well known, respected, and admired for past achievements.”) heheh
Look at Mr. I-Know-How-To-Google! So, I am currently studying at a bar in sunny Southern California and watched the video of you head banging while doing construction for maybe the 45th time and started cackling for about 20 minutes. When you did each little scene, did you start off with a hard hat, or are hard hats not metal enough?
Hahahaha, right on. I do use hard-hats when deemed necessary, but as I mainly work on smaller-scale residential projects they aren’t needed too often. I definitely do make sure to where PPE while I’m at work, I just didn’t for these clips.
Acceptable. YOU DOWN WITH PPE, YEA, YOU KNOW ME! Are there any home construction jobs where you will absolutely, hands down, use a specialist for?
Absolutely, you won’t see me windmilling on a roof anytime soon that’s for sure. Our team can handle most of the tasks but we do bring on subs quite often.
Is that the hardcore “dance,” or installing windmills like the Dutch? (Who are scum.)
Headbanging, windmilling, whatevs
Fair enough. Which construction task would you recommend people to do on their own?
See if you can paint your own house first, then take it from there. It’s amazing how many botched houses I’ve been through.
Brutal. I just bought my first house and it’s quite a fixer-upper. While I paid to have some trees removed, I also bought an ax and went bonkers removing some of the smaller stuff myself. Not only was swinging an ax while screaming very exhilarating, it actually didn’t take long to remove some unwieldy ivy and some shitty weed-like tree that smelled like rotten peanut butter. Do you have a preferred task? Like, yer boss tells you, “George, today we have to do ____.” And you’re like “FUCK YES, I LOVE ____!”?
Well done! Yeah definitely, framing kicks ass! I’ll throw some drywall up on aforementioned frame all day long too!
Is it because it’s easy? My walls are some weird shitty material that appears to be sand miraculously formed into walls.
Tile can be pretty fun, definitely challenging which is nice. It’s easy like most things if you know what you’re doing. I like working with wood as a material, use it in sculptures as well!
Plaster, bah hate it. It’s brutal and heavy and there’s always bastard metal mesh behind it. Most projects start with ripping down some sort of plastered wall and getting all shitty and filthy, lol.
LAME. Umm. True or false, the BC Rich Warlock is hands down the most metal-looking guitar in the world?
True, in my opinion atleast. hahah.
I’ve stuck with mine for the better part of 12 years now, woot!
YOUR OPINION MATTERS.
DOES IT? Sweet I’ve had mine for 16. Your answer is very extremely true. True or false: You’re actually in a ska band?
True, Can’t Do It. Since like 2004.
How’s that for you?
Excellent, it’s lots of fun playing shows with the crew. It’s pretty crazy that we’re still at it.
Is Ska metal in the fact that Ska kids don’t give a fuck what you think about them?
It’s still strange to me that I’m in a Ska band. Always thought it would be cool to try and mix the two. There’s definitely some good Metal in Ska out there so it’s Metal either way!
Any examples you’d like to give a shout out to?
Last year on Can’t Do It’s 10-year anniversary tour we played with an awesome band from New Jersey called “The Best of the Worst”. They were pretty rugged, we played a few times together and they got heavier each time! Looking forward to seeing them again.
Nice. Besides metal and being a goddamned man and fixing things, what else are you in to?
Hahah. Well I’m very much into art, sculpture primarily. And riding motorcycles. And soccer, Rowdies all day. Germany is probably going win it. Too bad Hungary didn’t make it, not even close. We kinda suck now. USA did pretty well though aye?? Maybe next time.
I think the AleMANIACS just brutalized Brazil, but I think give it a couple of more tries & the US team may have a legitimate shot. Do you create sculptures or just enjoy looking at them?
I agree. Guilty on both accounts there. I studied Fine Art at Ringling College in Sarasota, FL and have been making sculpture longer than I’ve been in Can’t Do It.
Any pictures of the pieces you’re most proud of?
Sure:
[divider_line]What’s the story on each?
I am in the process of updating my website because the gallery I have right now blows, but work can be seen at my site there [http://www.georgeretkes.com].
The first is a self-portrait of sorts. I had dreadlocks for ‘7 Years’ and once I chopped them off I cast them in bronze to make that piece.
That’s pretty metal.
Void 2 is apart of a series that looked to the insides of branches swarming with insects. The inner spaces were also cast in bronze in a chaotic dance of fire and molten metal spewing from the branches.
Also pretty metal. Any parting words of wisdom?
Indeed! Wear your PPE!
-Yost