Trunk Stop

As Andreas tells it, "Bob was sitting on the cat's stool at my girlfriend's house, and his eyes started swelling up when we took the photo."

"So it looks like I'm fucked up," adds Smith. "But that's as cool as Abbey Road when Paul McCartney's not wearing a shoe."

Well, not really. You can hardly detect his red-eye in the insert photo they chose, thus squashing any potential for a "Bob Is Dead" rumor. I didn't have the heart to tell Smith that, though, much in the same way the band still hasn't informed him that he didn't, in fact, join an electronica band.

7. Trunk Federation demands your respect and won't do shtick to get it!
At one time, the band wore matching uniforms and tacky polyester clothes onstage to grab attention, but as Sanford elucidates, "The wool count in our threads has gone up and the polyester count has gone way down.

"There's the discomfort level with polyester, too. It feels like shit when it's wet and smells even worse. That's one of the things that has contributed to the downfall of Miss Kitty. It's the stink."

"We kinda changed our whole approach," says Andreas about the tapering-off of silly accouterments. "Just as some people were not too quick to embrace that, other people will be just heartbroken that we're not gonna be a cheesy band. That's just not what we wanna do right now. It's not about polyester or wool, it's about feeling like we've done it already."

This album and its accompanying shows officially end the band's "shtick" stage. "We're more into looking good," Andreas says. "We're evolving. We're in the Thin White Duke stage."

The band promises to keep the live shows highly visual, and will continue to pursue bigger and better props. But the "no shtick" decree also means a tapering-off of silly cover songs, like Right Said Fred's look-good manifesto "I'm Too Sexy" and Meredith Brooks' "Bitch." Says Andreas, "We don't want to be too much of a joke. We demand respect. And besides, who wants to perform a Grammy-losing song?