If it's possible to take four completely different songs, play them all at once, and have it sound like one cohesive, albeit alien, music, then the Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party would be the first band to do it. They're four musicians who each march to a different drum machine, on a mission to spread the gospels of something different (and speaking in third person), tastes like chicken's avant-garde spin jockey neogeo the prophet brought the crumpettes to the Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party.

neogeo: Just to get all the normal shit out of the way, how long has the band been together?
Justin: It's been a year with Bill, and two years all together in August.
n: And where'd you guys meet up?
J: I knew Tyler from school back home in Lima, Ohio-
Tyler: -as in Junior High School.
J: -and Tyler met Scott at school, and Scott knew Bill. It was kind of a chain reaction.
n: Was there any common musical thread that linked you guys?
(Everyone laughs and says a simultaneous, "No!")
Bill: Actually, no one had ever actually heard me play. Scott just knew that I liked death metal because we'd talk about it all the time.
Scott: Yeah, we'd talk about Cannibal Corpse and shit. Then I fell in love with Bill and we started having butt sex.
J: So yeah, I think we should refer to ourselves in the third person: "You see, Justin believes that the Yak Butter Tea Party is all about, ...(laughs) Yeah, Justin has been pretty much into his own thing this whole time, and now Justin has found a lot of good musicians to play with. Some of the best in town as far as being open-minded goes, playing whatever comes across. And Justin doesn't think that The Yak Butter Tea Party has ever been daunted in what we're able or willing to play."
n: Speaking of what you play; I have an idea of what you guys sound like, and I hate to do this, but if you had to make the comparison, who do you guys most sound like?
S: Well, and I ain't fuckin' ashamed to say it either because they're great bands that I consider us close to sounding like: Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, and the Melvins.
J: It's all reflected in the name. The Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party does not play conventional music.
n: Where did the name come from?
S: We were driving down Fourth Street in my car, and we still didn't have a name. This is when we were still a trio. Justin started talking about some show he saw on the Discovery channel about the Tibetan Monks and how they drank rancid yak butter tea. That's where Tyler jumped in and said, "Ah-ha! That should be the name of our band!" And I was like, "...uh yeah, and we should put PARTY at the end of it."
n: Why do you think music is the most accessible form of expression?
S: Music is more of a description of time, whereas visual art isn't nearly as close. All humans feel and live in time.
J: That's the reason our standard is 4/4, because it beats like the heart.
n: How important is stage presence in performance?
J: We never sat down and decided what we were going to do on stage. Our music is choppy and offers enough emotional ups and downs that we have the ability to run with it. Certain nights I feel it and I'm all over the place and some nights I just stand there. Most of the time Tyler flops around like a fish.
B: I think we're over the top compared to other bands.
J: We have a real problem with playing quietly, too. A lot of times turning the volume down is good for the overall sound, but we need to push our music so we can push ourselves.
n: How much response do you guys feel you're getting from the Columbus, Ohio area?
J: Fairly well known Jazz musicians around here consider us a rock 'n' roll phenomenon, simply because we endeavor to play weird times and odd arrangements. There are a lot of people that give us a lot of criticism as well, which I appreciate. I think that anyone who has ever talked to us has given us either a strongly negative or a strongly positive response, which is good.
T: I don't think it has anything to do with talent or ability. It's just that if you do something enthusiastically enough people will appreciate it.
S: And that leads back to us not restricting ourselves at all. I know that one thing I want to get out of playing live is to have people walk away feeling like they just got kicked in the fucking face.
T: I don't know about wanting to feel like getting kicked in the face. I want people to leave feeling loved.
n: Bands like Avail have a very strong theme lyrically and energy wise. Do you guys think that you could pinpoint a specific theme of yours?
S: I think we all ride on different themes.
B: And I think that's what makes us unique. Stylistically and background-wise we all bring something different. Scott is metal. Tyler is experimental electronic music. And Justin and I are closer together with more of a rock sound.
T: It's like making Devo and Slayer work together!
J: For the most part our lyrics just express our dissatisfactions. They're not neccessarily a window into our hearts. We don't get very emo like that.
n: So it's more of about pushing the limits of music?
J: When we started out we didn't think about pushing envelopes. But when people heard us, the response we got was like, "Ohhh, I've never heard anything like that before." Our music didn't strike us as strange.
n: What other Columbus bands would you guys pick out to play with?
J: Mortimur, OnePointThree or the Bloody Matt Dillons. And for no reason other than that they all represent something different. They never assume anything when they play. They don't go out to give people what they want to hear from a band. They're just playing what they want to play and they don't give a fuck whether you like it or not. I think they realize that when a band plays something thats honest, and you play it without being a fucking chicken, and you can go out and feel proud about it, then there's no reason why anyone else shouldn't be able to feel proud about it too.
S: Purity is a big issue and personally I don't understand how people can go out there and play music they don't feel a hundred percent about.
n: So how does the story go, about you guys going from playing in your basement to playing around town?
J: Columbus is pretty good with giving bands their first shots.
T: Columbus is a great city because if you're playing in a huge city there's tons of competition.
J: Campus is really great for bands that are willing to get out and do it. I mean, I think if we sucked we would've been squashed a long time ago. Columbus fosters a lot of first chances, but doesn't neccessarily foster shitty acts. I do think the competition here needs to increase itself a notch, though. There are so many kids around here that have the capability to play fresh, new, challenging music. I know we're not the only ones, and I hope that in the next few years things will move ahead here.
T: I'm glad you guys have goals, because I don't know what I'm doing.
S: My goal for this band, and this is secret so you can't tell these guys, is to slowly turn this band into a death metal band. (laughter) It'll happen one of these days.
T: My goal is to turn us into Duran Duran. (More laughter)
n: Anything you guys want to say to your audience?
T: If you've never picked up an instrument in your life, and you've got fifty bucks, go to the pawn shop. Get a trombone or something and go crazy. Just be different and don't worry about it.
S: Listen to death metal! No, really!
J: I would like to say that the Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party will be referring to themselves in third person in 2001.
B: It'll be a Yak Odyssey.