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he first time I heard Home was in 1993. I was living in Tampa, dating this loudmouth pothead who lived in a warehouse where local bands rented practice space. As I writhed around in bed with him one night, this messy, beautiful noise in the next room began to seep through the walls; suddenly, the sex was tremendous. "This band is really good," I said. "Who is it?" "Home," he said, then came.
   And now, at last, Home has released the low-fi album Sexteen, a concept album about fucking. With song titles like "Juicy Ass" and "Come Like You're on Fire" and lyrics designed as much to make you laugh as blush, Sexteen is one of the frankest musical discussions about sex since The Teaches of Peaches.
   Home has churned out sixteen records in the past fourteen years, from homemade tapes sold at their local record store to the major-label Home IX, and now Sexteen on Brah Records, the label of indie-noise darlings Oneida. All five members (Eric Morrison, Brad Truax, Andrew Deutsch, Chris Millstein and Sean Martin) write and sing individual songs but meld into a collective voice.

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   During the recent New York heat wave, I called up Andrew and Brad to talk about cross-dressing on tour and their advice for teenage boys. — Jami Attenberg

You just got back from tour. Did the music's subject matter provoke any outrageous behavior from your audience?
Brad: You mean like getting blowjobs backstage?

Sure.
Brad: Nothing like that has ever happened.
Andrew: No underwear thrown at the stage.
Brad: It's kind of pathetic, really. We get a lot of drunk guys coming up to us who really want to talk to us about our first record.

When I saw you play in New York, I noticed Eric was wearing a negligee under his suit coat. Were there any other instances of transvestism on the road?
Brad: Eric is constantly cross-dressing.
Andrew: He did it every night.
Brad: He's working on some stuff. Plus, I think he comes from the Bowie school of rock.

How did you come up with the idea for a sex album?
Andrew: Sean Martin, who was our drummer when we first started out, thought of it. He wrote a really pretty album for his wife. Brad and I actually recorded it. He was telling us about how he had just been writing songs about sex, and Eric was like, "We need to do that." So the two guys who have adult lives jumped all over the songs about fucking.

Adult lives?
Andrew: They have mortgages and children and wives.

You two aren't adults?
Andrew: I'm not.
Brad: I'm basically an adult child.

What concept albums do you love?
Brad: I probably have at least two hundred concept records, so it's hard to pick a favorite one.
Andrew: Pet Sounds.
Brad: Pet Sounds, because it's about trying to find a spiritual life. I think there is a lot of spirituality in sex.
Andrew: The Wall.
Brad: Oh yeah, there you go. Pink Floyd. Any one of those records is great. And The Chronic. That's a great concept album.

So Sexteen is specifically about fucking, but it also seems like it's about a teenage boy's take on fucking. If a teenage boy were to listen to this album, what would you want him to take away from it?
Brad: Have a good time. You're young.
Andrew: Have a blast. And don't make out with too many people. There's not enough to go around.
Brad: Be a little less serious about it. I mean it's serious business, but you should be having fun. It's to be true to thine ownself.

Do you think sex is not fun, or, rather, that there's something out there in our culture that's making it not fun?
Andrew: Well what do you think? What do you think the state of sex is in our culture?

I think on one hand, there are a lot of people trying to impose rules and regulations, particularly on women and their bodies. And on the other hand, there's so much freedom that people don't know how to handle it.
Brad: I agree. All the freedom can take a lot of fun out of it. I feel like we're really inundated with sex by the media. Any kid in the world can go on a website and find it. It's constantly in your face, in ads, in television, and I feel like we wanted to restore a sense of wonder to it. I guess I'm trying to say there can be a lot of self-discovery in sex, and there should be a sense of wonder to that self-awareness, as long as you're mindful and cause no harm in the process.
Andrew: What's confusing to me is how much anxiety sex produces in the U.S. I haven't traveled much, but when I have I've noticed that there are some way healthier attitudes about sex out there in the world.

Andrew, there's a song on the album called "Bubble" (watch the video here), in which you call a phone-sex operator, and tell her that you really like handjobs. It actually makes me a little bit nervous every time I listen to it. A lot of women I've played it for feel the same way.
Andrew: Aw, I'm sorry. We were just having fun.

Was it real phone call?
Andrew: Yes.

Are handjobs really your favorite thing?
Andrew: No.
Brad: You like them.
Andrew: I like them, but they're not my favorite. I mean, my hand, that's way up there. But handjobs are not so high up. I like other stuff much better. Other jobs.
Brad: We wanted a parental advisory sticker on our record - which we didn't get - so we put in that phone call. We were really hoping for one.
Andrew: But we wanted it to be kind of boring.
Brad: I mean the thing is, Eric has kids, we have a lot of friends who have kids, so I don't think we wanted it to be like, "Yeah, I like doing a fucking 69 or blowjobs," or something like that.
Andrew: Also a handjob is just such an obvious thing — we were kind of hoping she would become bored. I mean, she totally was. I like to imagine her filing her pink, feminine nails while we were talking.

A friend of mine described Home the other day as "beyond a cult band." He complained that no one ever knows when you're playing until the day of the show.
Brad: We've had many other opportunities to break out, whether it was with another label, or whatever, and we've always said no
Andrew: We've seen a lot of great bands who started playing big shows. They get really tired and it doesn't look like they're having that much fun.
Brad: Also, when we had a major label release, we didn't sell a lot of records.
Andrew: Yeah, it's just not the best time. I keep telling myself that. n°

Click here to buy Sexteen

© 2006 Jami Attenberg and Nerve.com.