“I always feel he most comfortable in the punk world because they want to be hated, which I find funny,” John Waters says, calling in from a brief stop in his hometown of Baltimore in the midst of his 80th birthday tour. “Pink Flamingos was a punk movie. We even had the yellow, the color hair. You couldn’t buy the color back then, you had to do it with India ink and magic marker. So we were always punk. In a way it was a great freedom when that came. And punks are my people still.”
Filmmaker, provocateur, author, hitchhiker, tastemaker, Sub Pop and Third Man Recording Artist, festival MC and all around legend John Waters is currently on tour with a new one-man show, “Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration,” that leads up to his actual 80th birthday on April 22 (he plays Miami that night). I talked to John about that and lots more on the new episode of BV Interviews.
What can fans expect on this tour? Waters says he talks about “How to use humor to win any war that we’re in. How to get ahead, how to change people’s minds. I talk about sex, I talk about politics. I talk about movies.” He also notes, “But I’m in the middle now. For the first time ever in my life, I’m in the radical middle. I hate the left and the right for the first time ever. Because neither side have any humor anymore.”
Other topics of conversation: how Donald Trump has ruined bad taste for everyone, how John has influenced punk and vice versa, his first punk show, casting The Dead Boys’ Stiv Bators in Polyester, getting L7 to be in Serial Mom, his long-running gig as host of Oakland’s Mosswood Meltdown, rules of etiquette, fashion, and lots more.
Listen to the episode below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
John’s 80th Birthday tour hits NYC on April 19 at Adler Hall. All dates are listed below.
Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration Tour
April 13 – Portland, OR (Aladdin Theater)
April 14 – Los Angeles (The Luckman)
Sun April 19: New York (Adler Hall)
Wed April 22: Miami (Adrienne Arsht Center – Knight Concert Hall)
Thursday, April 23rd Washington DC (The Birchmere)