Karlie caught up with Mo'Royce Peterson and Robin Gibbens from Tragedy The All Metal Tribute To The Bee Gees to talk about things such as thier first ever show right up untill their final tour and much more.

Hello and thank you for taking time out to do this interview

Can you give us a brief history of the band and the basic understanding of how you became a metal tribute to the Bee Gees.
R: Well Mo’Royce and I were working in the coal mines in Western Pennsylvania in the 1970’s and everybody was infatuated with Hard Rock at that time, but him and I, we got trapped under a rock for about 31 days, grew to love each other, as boys and then as men, and then, obviously that kick started the love for disco.

Can you remember your first ever live show and how you went down with the audience?
M: We played our first show ever with BB King in New York, and we opened for The Aquabats, a superhero ska band and they battle evil-doers in the middle of their show. It was great, it was really funny, there was probably about a thousand people there and their audience took to us even as we were rocking out, ‘cos y’know, we do like to dress nicely, they were right there with us. Some audiences like when we opened for Murphy’s Law. A lot of their audiences liked us, but a lot of their audiences very vocally......not.

R: When you’re really pretty grown men in Spandex, we know people are either gonna love you or hate you. Every now and then they hate us, but even then every now and then when they hate us, all of those times, except once, we’ve managed to make them love us.

You have toured the UK over many times now and supported some great bands such as Electric Six, The Wildhearts and not to forget opening up for Motorhead at Guilfest but what has been your biggest UK tour highlight so far?
R: Playing Guilfest right before Motorhead, and having Lemmy tell the crowd that it was an hour to share the stage with Tragedy.

R: Do most of the people that read your website live in Bristol? (AV: No, we cover almost all of the UK) R: Oh, I was gonna kiss up to the people that live in Bristol but I don’t wanna make the other people angry.

R: Actually, one of the highlights of a tour every time we come over here is proving everybody wrong in every town, ‘cos everywhere we go everybody tells us that every other town is going to be shit. It’s always ‘’Where are you going tomorrow?’’ ‘’Swansea’’ ‘’OH lock your doors!! Don’t let anyone in your hotel room with you!’’ ‘’Where were you last night?’’ ‘’ London’’ ‘’Oh that is the worst!!’’ We’re yet to find a shitty city. (pauses) Telford wasn’t so nice. A lot of people in Telford don’t have the internet so we’re alright.

Being in a touring tribute band must of seen you share the stage with various other tribute bands, have you played alongside any that you would recommend or class as good as yourselves?
M: Definitely not as good as us. (thinks) No, no one is as good as us. But there are some pretty good bands out there.

R: Misstallica are good, the all girl Metallica tribute band. Are Steel Panther a tribute band? (AV: No) They’re a tribute to herpes. And yeah, Electric Six and The Wildhearts are both great bands. Sadly, neither of which are as good as us. They can rock, but we look better on stage.

M: An amazing one is Dangerous – the metal tribute to Micheal Jackson.

Do you have any special rituals before taking to the stage for a show?
M: A special ritual that we can let you in on.... i mean, we have secrets, but we’re not telling you.

R: Right before we take to the stage every night we all put our fists in the air and scream ‘’Let’s make Tragedy..’’ M: SHHHHHH!!

R: I like to do squats and push ups, the bass player does pull ups, Peter does curls, Rob the drummer does press ups until he falls asleep.

If you met someone in the street who had never heard of Tragedy what would you tell them to get them to come to one of your live shows?
M: Well, first I’d tell them they’re an idiot for not knowing who Tragedy are, and then secondly, then, I’d apologise. Really, just that, we’re a heavy metal tribute to the Bee gees, we’re heavy metal versus the Bee Gees. That’s enough to get them interested, If they ask, it’s always the first of many questions they’ll have.

R: Someone once said ‘’Oh, you’re in a band, i can tell by your hair you’re in a band’’. So I explain, yeah, we’re called Tragedy, a metal tribute to the Bee Gees, it’s always ‘’Really, how does that work?’’ So I’m just like, (shouts) ‘’ Yo! Who wants to tell this guy about Tragedy? Then we go from there.

I understand that you played your last ever gig back in March in America, was that a special show for you and did you know at the time that Tragedy wasn’t fully over?
M: We really thought that was it.

R: We felt we had done everything we needed to do, we started this band as a joke, well, not necessarily as a joke, but we started it one night in New York City. We thought we would do a couple of opening shows for a friend of ours, we didn’t know what kind of magic we would create. We played over 150 shows in 2 years, came over to the UK four times, it took way much more time than we ever planned on commiting to this project, we all have other things we were doing with our lives. Some had kids, you know real lives outside of this, After a while we were like, you know what? We’ve done with this, let’s just go out on a high note, and we did, and 6 months later the emails and letters just didn’t stop, people asking us to come back, we said we’d come back but only do specials circumstances and special shows. We’re not gonna be playing nearly as many shows as we did in the states, there was a lot of demand for us to come back here, so we were like, you know what? Fuck it. Just don’t get used to it. If we’re going to wrap ourselves up and do this we’re gonna do it really well and have a great time doing it.

Tonight is the first show of your farewell reunion UK tour, are you glad to be back in the UK and what can your fans expect from the tour?
R: Well expect it to be raining kisses from me.
M: We love playing the UK. In the states we’ve got a lot of rock and roll but here, it’s just like it’s really a part of the culture and from little kids to older people, they all come out to our shows here. It’s just not like that in the states. There’s so many cities, not so much New York, but so many places in the states if you’re over 25 to 30, then you don’t go to concerts anymore.

R: Maybe they’ll go see Elton John, maybe one show a year.

Once your UK tour is over you are playing a few one off shows in America, after that is it Farewell for Tragedy or do you see yourself touring more in the future?
R: Never say never.

I understand that Steven Spielberg is working on a Bee Gee’s film, surely that is going to give you a good excuse to tour again to coincide with the release?
M: We’re not allowed to talk about that.

Considering that the Bee Gees have created hundreds of songs during their lengthy career, how you go about creating your set lists and are there any Bee Gees songs that you love but have still not managed to play live?
M: Oh, plenty.

R: We tend to create our set lists with what the most popular songs are, and the ones that we can play, that we can give a really good treatment to. There are scores more Bee Gees songs that deserve the treatment but the question is, are people going to get it.

M: We’re doing a twist on something that you know, so if you don’t know it then you’re not going to get it. There is one song that we do, that most peple don’t know, and we came up wit the version of it and we just love it so much.

R: That’s one that even if you knew the original, you wouldn’t necessarily guess that’s what we were doing, Because not a lot of people knew the original we felt we didn’t have to stay to true to it.

If you had to choose a favourite Bee Gees song what would it be and why?
M: That’s kind of impossible, I could tell you some that I love. All these songs we do are amazing.

R: Massachusetts is probably my first favourite, then 2nd place would be a tie between all the rest of them.

M: I think their stuff from the 70’s is so prolific in writing for themselves, writing for so many artists, everything is so brilliant, Musically, their lyrics are so good. It’s just amazing, one song after another

Your website states that you have a live album from the Bowery Ballroom in New York coming out soon, can you give us details of when it is due for release and what is to be included on it?
R: We actually scrapped that, and we came up with a live dvd from the Bowery ballroom that’s being released tonight (12/01/10)

So what can we expect from that?
R: Your eyes to be fucked silly.

One last random questions that we ask everyone, if you could be an animal out of a Zebra and Giraffe which one would you be and why?
R: I would be a ziraffe. With my long neck I could bend down and make love to my black and white self.

M: I’d be a zebra ‘cos I like the stripes and they’re kind of like a horse.

Thanks for your time guys, we’re looking forward to your show!

Interview by Karlie M