Cretin Mouth

One cold January night in 2013 the four members of Cretin Mouth decided to interview themselves. They were high from just having had a very productive practice where no one got hurt and no guitar strings were found broken. They sat outside the Cretin Manor to reflect on the events leading up to becoming a real group. Bubba was enthusiastic, obviously proud to have found himself a creative leader amongst friends. Terri was mildly restrained as she recounted dark memories that led to such a positive thing. Killer stood silent, occasionally grunting and laughing as the others took up all the air. Steven was bewildered, for the first time in many moments someone was talking more then he was. This is how it went… Steven Donald Morris: This is the band Cretin Mouth. This is… James “Bubba” Baltz: Bubba S. D. M.: Who plays? Bubba: A guitar S. D. M.: And writes? Bubba: Some songs. S. D. M.: And then there’s… Terri “T. B.” Martin Baltz: Terri S. D. M.: Who plays? T. B.: Hates everyone and everything, fuck you. S. D. M.: She also plays the drums. And then there’s Killer. Tony “Killer” Southers: Yep. S. D. M.: Killer, who plays the bass and sometimes guitar. There’s some other guy named, Steven Donald Morris who is guitar also. Okay, so this band Cretin Mouth, when did we start? Bubba: 2010, early 2010, we played our first show January of 2011. T. B.: As a three piece. Bubba: As a three piece, but we were quite unprepared… T. B.: It was an awesome show. Bubba: It was a FUN show. S. D. M.: So the thing that happened was Bubba started writing songs and Killer moved back from Richmond. It all happened at once and Bubba was like, “Hey guys lets start a band.” right? Bubba: That’s exactly right. We felt around for drummers at first. S. D. M.: We played as a three piece and we practiced with another drummer then Terri taught herself how to play drums for the band, and she’s awesome. Is that pretty much it? Bubba: That’s pretty much it. T. B.: Except you can leave out the “she’s awesome” part. Bubba: She’s real cute. That’s the cute girl. T. B.: NO! See that’s the thing if you’re like a hot chick you don’t just walk into a bar and lift your top off and have your titties all hanging out. You have to let people figure that out for themselves and only the luckiest few will. Bubba: I like that. T. B.: Are you recording this? S. D. M.: Yes I’m recording this, this is the band bio! Bubba: The name, Cretin Mouth, where does the name, Cretin Mouth come from? What’s the origin of the name, Cretin Mouth? T. B.: Because I’m a dental assistant and I use to only work with Medicaid kids. Which is awesome because kids are fucking awesome, but it was not awesome because you saw a lot of neglect and abuse and just crazy shit that you just don’t want to fucking see. I remember I would come home some days and Bubba would ask me about my day and I would say, “dude, you would not believe the case of cretin mouth that I saw in a fucking two year old today.” It was unbelievable and some how in the back of Bubba’s mind it just fucking stuck. S. D. M.: Wow, even the band name is saying something about society. T. B.: Sorta, yeah. S. D. M.: I didn’t even know that. Makes it better for me, I enjoy it, and it’s sad. T. B.: It is sad. Bubba: Yeah, I don’t even know why the name just stuck in my head. It was just funny. T. B.: Funny, but not? S. D. M.: It kinda has a Ramonesesque quality to it. Bubba: Because of “Cretin Hop”, and there’s a bunch of bands called, Cretins already. Like you know, I like that…sure. I also love that film, The Class Of Nuke 'Em High. In Nuke 'Em High there’s this group of kids who where like the honor society and once they get all fucked up from the radiation and shit they turn into mutant punk rock fucked up kids. They call themselves the Cretins. That’s another thing about the name, it’s a way to pay ode to Troma. Something I like a lot. If you look at Cretin Mouth songs, you’ll see that a lot of them are based on B films, which a lot of bands do. S. D. M.: It’s been done. Bubba: It’s totally been done a million times and I love it, it appeals to me. S. D. M.: But you’re a die-hard B movie fan, as are Killer and Terri. Bubba: Yes, we love good BAD movies! S. D. M.: I think it’s important to state the fact that we have all been friends for a really long time. Before we even started playing music together. T. B.: We used to only talk about playing music. Bubba: Terri and I met in 1992 when I was in the 9th grade. S. D. M.: Holy fucking shit that was a long time ago! Bubba: I was in the 9th grade and she had a boyfriend and I was just this loser skate rat. T. B.: You weren’t a loser you were awesome. Bubba: I would always hound Terri all the time. T. B.: It was cute. I admired that. Bubba: Eventually we started dating, we dated forever. Then in 1997 or 98, me and Killer started hanging out. S. D. M.: It was 97; you went to community college together. Bubba: We took art classes. S. D. M.: Me and Killer had been hanging out a little bit. There was a set of foreign exchange student twins. One went to my high school and the other one went to his. We would all meet up downtown. Me and Killer became friends and started hanging out doing art. I remember Killer starting bringing you and Terri into the pizza shop I worked at. Bubba: Yeah, and I remember you two came to my mom’s house in Christiansburg. We hung out in my little attic space there. S. D. M.: You had all the Incredible Hulk cartoons. Bubba: We talked about doing shit for years and years and years. T. B.: We drank too much in twenties maybe? We weren’t motivated. Bubba: No, we weren’t motivated and it just wasn’t right. I wasn’t really ready. S. D. M.: We played a little bit of music, we goofed off, because I‘d had bands during that time and you guys would come over and jam sometimes. Bubba: Yeah, you’d always had bands. You’ve always been in bands. T. B.: I always tried to play bass but it just never worked out. S. D. M.: I remember one show with one of those bands. We played to like four people and you guys all came. Bubba spray paint me while Terri cut my hair on stage while I was playing “Sonic Reducer”. Bubba: Yep. T. B.: At Chili Pepper’s, I remember it like it was yesterday. Bubba: That same show you gave Killer your guitar and walked out! S. D. M.: Yeah, I gave him my guitar and left. I was like. “This sucks I’m done!” Bubba: That was one of your most professional shows. Ha ha! T. B.: That was an awesome show; I’ll always remember that show, because it was audience interactive, at least for me. Bubba: Me too, I got to spray paint your ass and Killer was forced to play your guitar! S. D. M.: But, anyway we’ve been together for a few years now, we’ve played some good shows. We’ve had fun and we’re friends and we haven’t killed each other yet. We’ve made a really good cd and we’re working on our next really good cd. That’s pretty much it. Bubba: That’s it. Killer: Yep. attic rock / folk punk, from the mean mean streets of Roanoke VA