I was going to write a 300-word article about the band Mac Sabbath, until I met its manager, Mike Odd. After my interview with Odd, he said too many things I wanted to quote, so I had to include more of the interview in the story.
Odd is one of the coolest, funniest… and oddest people I’ve ever interviewed. Learn the story of the legendary fast food metal band, Mac Sabbath, along the way. Catch all the metal, Monsanto madness and “mutated mascots” at the Domino Room on Sunday, Feb. 19.
Source Weekly: Can you introduce yourself?
Mike Odd: My name is Mike Odd. I am the manager of the mighty Mac Sabbath. And I am sent to be the conduit between a present and past, or fantasy and reality, however you want to look at it.
SW: How did you get involved with the band?
MO: I was running an oddities shop, kind of a freak museum, in East Hollywood in the 2000s. People would be calling me up and saying, “Hey! Come out to my shed in the back, and I’ll show you my two-headed otter skeleton” and stuff like that. So, I got all these weird calls. Even after the shop closed, the calls kept coming, because the weirdness follows you around.
I got this call, “Come out to Chatsworth to this burger place, and it’s gonna change your life.” I figured, it’ll probably be like the Virgin Mary toasted on a hamburger bun or something. Maybe to make a deal to put it on eBay or sell or split it, or whatever. Cause I was just an oddities guy, you know. I’ve also been in the music scene, as well and have my own band, a metal theatrical/horror/costume kind of thing. But I didn’t think it had anything to do with that. So, I go out there, and it turns out to be this weird kind of fight club meeting in the basement of this place, this very secret thing that I’m sure the general manager knew nothing about. All of a sudden, I’m in the basement, crammed up against freeze dried condiments and hamburger buns, watching these mutated mascots do these Black Sabbath riffs and scream about GMOs and Monsanto. I thought I was on a hidden camera show or something.
And then this Ronald Osborne guy informs me that he’s teleported, somehow moved through the time-space continuum in a wormhole, to warn the society about the current state of music and food. And to follow him back in spirit to change things so the future doesn’t go bad.
And he’s like, “You’re gonna be the manager. You’re gonna be the one to take us above ground and carefully plan this out, so we don’t get a tear in the dimension.” I was like “Yeah, yeah, right. You want me to book you a couple of shows cause you know I am in this other band or whatever.” And no, that’s not what happened. I ended up having a full-time career off of this gig.
SW: How long was Mac Sabbath together before you started managing them?
MO: It’s hard to get straight answers out of this crew. It’s hard to say. I mean, they made it sound like this was a very regular meeting that they were doing that way. It was really cult-y and weird. Everybody, there were like [fast food] employees, of multiple franchises. I don’t even know why I am that much because that’s the whole thing. I’m supposed to be keeping all these secrets and just doing this thing. All sudden, right now, talking to you, I seem to be saying more than I usually do.
SW: So, you’re the manager/secret keeper of the band?
MO: Half the time, I don’t know what’s going on myself, because I think it’s part of the fair joke to keep me in the dark. What’s interesting about it and humbling, is there are parts of it that I think that I’m being joked and pranked about, and then I realized that they’re real. As it goes on, I’m worried about the future, robot police dogs and stuff that I’ve been warned about from [Ronald Osborne] seven years ago. It gets a little scary because this isn’t like all yucks. This guy is actually prophetic. We do need to watch out for robot run and mock food restaurants.
SW: How does the band’s music come together?
MO: I try to stay away from that as much as possible. But yeah, Ronald’s definitely the ringleader and all these things. All those guys have lots of ideas and lots of input. It’s a creative team, those four. I don’t even know if I would say “guys.” I am not even sure the gender or level of humanity going on there. I don’t really consider clowns to be totally human. Do you?
SW: How would you describe the band’s music?
MO: The music is very Black Sabbath intense. But the lyrics, like Ronald says, Black Sabbath was here to warn us about evil and, and Mac Sabbath is here to warn us about the evils of fast food. It’s a very niche section of evil that you’re being warned about.
If you look into the lyrics of “Organic Funeral,” he’s calling out the government control of food and talking about chemicals in fast food. The same material they use in hamburger buns is basically the same material that they use in yoga mats. It’s just this terrible poisonous foam and is illegal in any other country to serve people. There’s this, dare I say the word, conspiracy going on in the way that this country eats.
SW: What do you think sets Mac Sabbath apart from other bands?
MO: It’s a whole experience. It’s almost like watching a Vegas show with a Broadway play mixed into a standup comedy act. And then these creatures look like something walking around at Disneyland or something. It’s too many things that aren’t regular rock ‘n’ roll, put into one thing.
Every single time this happens with promoters, venues and fans. They’re like, “We had no idea it was going to be like this; we didn’t understand it until we saw it live.” It gets real cult-y because it’s very different. It’s very specific.
SW: How can people listen to Mac Sabbath’s music?
MO: That goes back to the technology thing, with the time travel and all that. Ronald insists on all 1970s technology. He’s very fearful that if any new technology is used, that it’s going to cause some sort of chaos in society, because it’s going to mix things up.
I can’t bring up mp3 or even CDs, much less streaming, to him without getting a pie in my face. He gets angry and confused and starts spouting about the end of the world as we know it. I poo-pooed all that in the beginning. If you want [the music] you got to buy the pop-up book vinyl or come to a show.
This article appears in Source Weekly February 9, 2023.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
