In this week's 10 Questions we get to know Captain Chemical, a rock band from Arizona

Their song Drive Into The Ocean is currently featured on the NAS Spotify playlists

You can follow Captain Chemical on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and on their website

1. Tell us a little about where you are from.

Captain Chemical is a musical celebration of human stupidity. Try to imagine fun songs at the intersection of WTF and OMG. Can't? Well then you will just have to start listening. Energetic music, crazy videos, screaming guitars, growling blues voices backed with 60s-style harmonies... it's a celebration of all that is ridiculous in the world. The band is notorious for their genre walking - you might find anything from pop to techno to rap to country to Latin jazz in their catalog - but the core of their material is something they call ""junk blues"" and ""stupor rock"" - high energy guitar and keyboard music, accompanied by relentless bass lines, and drenched in vocals. The one thing that unifies it all is the amazing fact that most of what these guys sing about are absurd events that actually happened!

Captain Chemical originated as an underground act in Washington DC in the early 1980s. Version 1.0 of the band was characterized by outrageous lyrics and boisterous live shows performed by a band that underwent frequent personnel changes. After several decades of silence, the band was reconstructed in Arizona. Captain Chemical 2.0 continues their snarky social commentary in the great tradition of artists like Mojo Nixon and Root Boy Slim, but with a solid musical foundation powered by guitarist Hozzy Hashbourne's six string pyrotechnics and Medicine Man's mojo and voodoo inflected drumbeats. As if the lyrics aren't entertaining enough.

2. What inspired Captain Chemical to start playing and making music?

This is a boring question. I mean, who really cares about piano lessons at age five? As a child, the Captain listened to everything: classical music, Broadway show tunes, and all flavors of what was then called "Top 40" music: rock, pop, funk, soul, blues, prog, disco, metal, psychedelic, jazz, even Spanish flamenco guitar. Amazingly, all of that comes out in his music to this day. Hozzy Hashbourne's roots lie with the blues, and his teenage obsession with metal still lurks barely below the surface. However, a long stint as a session musician in Las Vegas forced him into country music, which he plays quite well despite that not being his favorite style. Medicine Man is pretty rooted in classic rock, but he dabbles in a little bit of everything. We all do. And the genre-less Captain Chemical Band is one of the few places where a musician can explore just about anything he or she wants.

3. Who are Captain Chemical's biggest musical influences?

The Captain owes a huge debt to the pioneers of insane music, geniuses such as Root Boy Slim, Mojo Nixon, the Dead Milkmen, and Tenacious D. While "novelty songs" have existed since the 1930s, these artists made their entire careers out of a single concept: making music fun. Root Boy Slim was a particular influence on the development of the Captain Chemical persona. Root was a giant of the underground music scene in Washington DC, and his rambunctious musical depravity had a major influence on a young Captain. Over the years, the Captain's lyrical focus shifted from sheer debauchery to the absurd, with an increasing emphasis on snarky social commentary. So we've moved from songs like "Rat Trap In The Glory Hole" to "Selling Farts In A Jar." Still stupid, still far outside the mainstream, but perhaps slightly more relatable. But that's just the lyrics. Musically, the band incorporates a LOT of different styles, and you'll hear the diversity immediately if you browse our catalog. Hozzy's guitar pyrotechnics are prominent on most tracks, too. So we have no discernable genre, but the Captain Chemical Band could perhaps be described as "original songs that recall every known flavor of popular music from 1960 to 2010, with outrageous lyrics that celebrate absurd events and the foibles of human behavior.

4. What are your goals in the music industry or as an artist?

Captain Chemical really has only one single goal: to have fun. Hopefully, that comes through in everything we do as a band, from our crazy songs to our entertaining low budget videos and our boisterous stage shows. We do have a secondary goal, which is just to be heard and enjoyed. If a Captain Chemical song puts a smile on your face, then we have been successful. Not everybody is going to love everything we do, especially people who think that songs have to be deeply meaningful, or people who take anything we sing about seriously. There's no deep meaning or emotional significance in any of our songs. We just find the most outlandish news stories and trends and sing about them with a heavy dose of snark. But as we do this, we also try to keep the music itself professional and listenable. So even if you cringe hearing about exploding breast implants or idiots following their GPS map straight into the ocean, at least you can cringe while you dance, tap your toes, and sing along to upbeat Beach Boys-esque choruses. But to address the original question directly, we'd be thrilled to open for Primus or a Dead Milkmen reunion.

5. Tell us about your creative process.

LOL. Our lyrics usually start as news stories. We troll the internet every day for news of the weird, anything that triggers an OMG or WTF response. If it involves someone doing something stupid, then it's fair game for a Captain Chem song topic. The musical genesis of our songs is more interesting. Often one of us will suggest a similar-to concept. "Let's do something like Alice In Chains, or Sly and the Family Stone." That leads to some jamming at rehearsal, and then either the Captain or Hozzy will go off to record a riff or a prototype. The Captain has a knack for putting diverse pieces together into one song. The depth of the chosen lyrical content typically drives song length. Our songs tend to be a bit longer than most, just because there's often a lot of story and/or commentary about it. Another thing that we often discuss is what the song video might be. Although we only make videos for about 25% of our songs, we're often thinking about the possible visual aspects of our songs. Our ability to perform a song live also influences what we record; we try not to get too elaborate on most tracks, since there are only three of us to perform it.

6. What is your all-time favorite song by another artist and why?

Captain: "Light My Fire" by the Doors. Hozzy: "Me and the Devil" by Robert Johnson". Medicine Man: "Hooker With A Penis" by Tool. Hey, you asked.

7. What is the best advice you have either given or received in terms of music?

"Don't worry about getting rich from music. You won't. Just focus on having fun and creating the highest quality music you can." This has been both received and given.

8. What is your proudest accomplishment?

It's always a thrill to hear your original songs on the radio. However, the best feeling comes when a total stranger reaches out to tell us that they enjoyed a song or a video we did. At our last show, a woman visiting Arizona from Liverpool actually told the Captain that 'your band is better than Beatles.' That was either an unbelievable compliment, a drunken lapse, or some fine Scouse wit.

9. What's been your most embarrassing moment so far?

With songs like "Gator In Your Pants," "Butt Chugging," and "Weasel Poop Coffee" in our repertoire, we're not easily embarrassed. But at an early Capt Chem gig many years ago, an old Farfisa organ blew up as we were about to start a song. Horrible loud BBRRRAAPP sounds came blasting through the sound system, while smoke poured out of the organ itself. Someone in the crowd shouted "Stop farting!" Ah, if only we had done our song "Farting On A Plane" at that time...

10. Tell us about your lowest and highest points in music so far.

After 45 years, Captain Chemical still has no high points in music. Although when our song "Dude Needs A Job" won a Golden Funkbeard Award, that was pretty special. But we have had lots of fun, with no shortage of low points! On stage, we're a virtual Spinal Tap, from stolen equipment to exploding amps, a guy who started humping our inflatable alien stage prop, the cowbell that literally fell apart when we asked the Captain's Cowbell Army to come up on stage and bang along with us, and the time when the Captain tried to remove his disco pants between songs and ended with shiny silver pants inextricably wrapped around his ankles while lying on the stage. One outdoor festival gig ended with 50 cops marching up a hill to bust everybody in the audience.