Dark Meat are from Athens, Georgia. Bryan saw them at the Vice SXSW party this year and says it was a riotous time - he was picking confetti out of his hair long after he returned to Brooklyn.

When we caught up with frontman Jim McHugh the band was in Denver, waiting out a bad storm that eventually forced them to cancel their next show in Salt Lake City. “The wind’s blowing over eighteen wheelers,” McHugh said. “We can’t go anywhere right now.” Instead, he told us about ruined music and his cat. Look for their forthcoming record on Vice next fall.

RM: So do you have any songs that have been ruined?

JM: Yeah, actually. Probably my all-time favorite band is the Velvet Underground, and one time I had a roommate who was going through a bad mental breakdown because of family grief, and he was doing a bunch of really terrible drugs. He was just losing it and acting out. And he, for some reason, took a girl home and didn’t go to his bedroom. He went into the front room, and we lived in this tiny apartment.

RM: Oh no.

JM: They started fooling around really loudly and drunkenly, knocking over tables. I was studying at that point - I was staying up all night reading Shakespeare for college. And my roommate turned on the second side of Loaded on repeat. So it played for five hours while they trashed the room and wrecked everything - it was like exorcism sex. I couldn’t tell him to turn it down or stop, I was too mortified. I couldn’t listen to the second side of Loaded for years after that.

RM: Well, that’ll do it. Have any of your songs been ruined for other people? Have you had people tell you they can’t listen to your music because of something like that?

JM: I’m trying to think. Besides obvious ones, like ex-girlfriends of mine who don’t want much to do with me any more… that’s probably it. A legion of pissed-off ex-girlfriends.

Random Cat Question

RM: Do you have a cat?

JM: Yeah, I have the fucking coolest cat in the world.

RM: Okay, tell me about it.

JM: His name is Little Black Monk. We call him Monk for short. Eight years ago I was walking down the railroad tracks in my hometown, and I found this tiny little kitten. He’d barely opened his eyes, but he was almost dead from flea bites. I took him to the restaurant where I worked and washed him off in the hand sink. But he’s just a total motherfucker, man. I can be out on the road a long time, he totally takes care of himself. He’s always killing things three times his size. He’s fearless. He’s a small black cat and he’s fighting raccoons, killing huge rats.

RM: That does sound like a badass cat.

JM: He’s great, man. He’s sweet too.

Dark Meat on Myspace.