The members of the noise rock band HEALTH say that they want “Two Girls One Cup” to be their next music video. They also talk about how their song ended up topping the UK charts, what they prefer about L.A. crowds over New York crowds, their feelings toward Ozzy, and a time when a drumstick caused a trip to the emergency room. And they explain why drunk, 14-year-old HEALTH fans and glass tables shouldn’t mix.

Chief Magazine: Based on listening to your band, I guess I would have assumed that more members of your band would have a beard. Opening act Genghis Tron is two-thirds bearded, which is a decent ratio, while only one out of four of you guys typically has a beard. And today, no one.

BJ: John can’t grow a beard.

John: Yeah, look at my chest. [He exposes his chest.]

Wow, that’s hairless.

John: I’m not growing any beards, son.

I clearly touched a nerve.

BJ: [Laughs]

John: [Points to Jupiter.] This guy can grow a beard. Two of us can’t. These two guys can.

BJ: You’ve seen, I’m sure, I usually rock the beard, but I had to pull out the mustache for a couple of months. The handlebars were calling me.

How has the mustache been working out for you?

BJ: I don’t know. You tell me.

John: It’s made him really funny. He’s a comedic guy now. Everything he says is much funnier.

He’s like Tom Selleck, circa Three Men and a Baby.

BJ: [Laughs.]

John: Especially, have you seen TV Carnage? Oh wait, no—that’s Burt Reynolds.

Are you still based in L.A.?

John: Yeah, although technically we’re not living anywhere. We’re just on tour right now. But we’re still an L.A. band, technically.

You met in L.A.?

John: Yeah, we formed in L.A.

And you got your drummer from a Craigslist ad?

John: Casual Encounters, yep.

Nice. How many drummers did you guys have to see?

John: BJ was actually the number two guy, and we were like, “Fuck, this guy’s really good.” And there was this other guy who kind of just weaseled in there and moved all his shit into the practice space, so we had it for like a week or two.

That was a good effort on his part, though.

John: Yeah.

You use multiple drummers during certain songs though, right?

John: Jupe will play an extra floor tom, and there’s one song that I do.

What was the origin of that?

John: I think we were like, “Okay, we want to make a song with a bunch of drums.” Each of us got these drum things, and then it was kind of like, “Alright, we don’t really need three of us. We could just have two.”

BJ: It was kind of a process of elimination. There were cymbals everywhere, and we just started taking things away. The floor tom stayed, and it was really powerful.

Speaking of songs with a lot of drums, I saw a video of you guys—I think it was taped at The Smell with Aa.

John: Yeah, that was really fun.

It was just a cacophony of noise, which was awesome.

John: It was real loud in there. It’s a loud room already, and it got really loud.

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Since I brought up Aa, how would you compare the L.A. scene with yourselves and bands like No Age, to the New York scene?

John: We really love Todd P shows, and we really love New York bands, and that seems where it could be similar—Todd P shows versus Smell shows. The L.A. scene—we’ve got set venues. Shows don’t move. It happens at one of two or three venues. It’s really community-oriented, and everyone knows each other, so it’s definitely a “scene” scene. What I hear from people in New York, whether it’s true or not, is that there’s not much of a “scene” scene in that respect, where it’s like a community and everyone knows each other. But there does seem to be a lot of good bands in New York, and, with Todd P, there seems to be a lot of rad, all-ages, cool shows happening all the time. I think the crowds in New York seem to be older, too.

Older? Really?

John: Yeah. I could be wrong.

How young do the L.A. crowds get?

John: Really fucking young.

[Laughs]

John: Kids at our shows, Smell shows.... The bands are generally a little bit older, but actually tons of the bands are made of 18, 19, 17-year-old kids. And tons of the kids at the show are high school-age, or 18, 19. But lots of young kids.

Does that affect the show?

John: Yeah! It makes the show way better. We like playing to young kids. We like playing to old people, too, but young kids get hyped.

Are you still influenced by classic rock? Because I feel like someone here is an Ozzy fan.

John: Yeah, I was listening to Sabbath yesterday.... We’re really into classic rock. That’s not going to die. [Laughs]

Jupiter: Ever.

John: Best music ever.

You listen to some dance music too, no?

John: Oh, hell yeah. Tons of it. I am on blogs daily. Getting the hot new remix.

I guess I can’t picture you guys dancing.

John: [Laughs] Just you wait, son. I’m a dancing fool. I dance quite a bit.

Do you have an album of remixes coming out?

John: Yeah. HEALTH//DISCO. There you go. That answers your dance question. It [was] out in May, and that’s a fucking danceable album. That’s a lot of dance music on that album.

Jupiter: There’s great tracks on that. The people who worked on this CD did amazing remixes. It’s really exciting.

BJ: You can dance or you can be really fucking dorky and cerebral and just sit and listen. It’s really good music.

Who does the remixes for you? Did you farm them out?

John: Yeah, they’re all people we wanted to work with that we chose, hand-picked. If you listen to the album, I think you’ll be impressed. The remixes are fucking ace.

Do you have a rock album coming out in the near future?

John: Yes, as soon as we can get it done. We are touring for a very long time—I think until July something. We’re basically touring the majority of this year, non-stop. In the time off, we’re going to write and record the next album as soon as we can.

Do you see it going in a similar direction as the last one? Will it be dance-ier?

John: I think it’s just going to be everything more. It’s going to be more dance, more hardcore, more pop, more noisy. Everything harder, better, faster, stronger.

Jupiter: That’s the name of the album.

[Laughs]

John: It’s going to be Ride the Lightning.