Credit: Rick Levinson

“At the time when we started we weren’t really sure if we could record with our own names; we weren’t sure if Mickey [Melchiondo, guitarist with Ween and Moistboyz] was supposed to record with another label. Mickey made a joke of it and said ‘hey, I’ll be Mickey Moist! We should just make your name rhyme too’, and he won’t get sued.”

Apart from the various band members sharing a Ramones-esque band-name surname, that’s where the extent of similarities between Ween and Moistboyz stop. After listening to it you almost want to go out and find the last person who pissed you off and smash their face into next week. It seems tighter, more solid than previous records by the band – was it a conscious effort to make “IV” this way?

“To tell you the truth, no. At first we really weren’t conscious of that;  it was later in the game when it was almost done that we decided to have certain things re-recorded for more of a live-sounding whole. The technology wasn’t available for better recording before and we were stuck with the shit machines – four-tracks and things like that. But it was simpler and it was also inexpensive. This time we had the resources to use more money, I guess. [sniffs] Not much though.”

The album itself is a short and unexpected sucker-punch of a record. It’s sneering refusal to back down on any and all subjects is summarised perfectly by “Roy”, a punk rock demolition of pumped-up false-machismo:

“There’s a certain type of male who you’ll only find working in a job like an emergency medical technician, you know, the guys who come to someone’s house to help them when they’re having a heart attack?