SH: The point was that with the first few notes out of his horn, I knew exactly who it was, although I can’t tell you right now. But that was a long time ago. The same thing happened to a friend of mine. We used to have coffee in this coffee shop across from the Pasadena Playhouse. I was sitting in there one day and he came in. He said, “I have a surprise for you out in the car.” “OK.” “But you have to first close your eyes.” “Alright. Yeah.” So he took me out to the parking lot in back and I heard this harmonica, and instantly I knew it was Sonny Terry. I could not believe it. My friends and I spent the next four days with them. Somewhere we have about four hours of tape of them in our basement just talking and jamming, and talking about the old days.

K2K: Stuff like that is great. There are a lot of punk rock musicians who are now pushing young kids to start listening to old jazz and blues, to find the roots.
SH: Yeah.

K2K: So moving away from music for a bit, (referring to a previous conversation) you had mentioned Alice Merrill, the head of the drama department. Which high school was that?
SH: Roosevelt High.

K2K: How influential was she in your acting career?
SH: Extremely. I was in her class in high school. I was able to improvise really well, and without getting diarrhea of the mouth like most actors do. I guess she saw that spark there. The way that she cast the senior play, unlike today in drama class where kids do like six plays per year and learn very little, we did a senior play, a junior play, and that was it. The way that she used to cast the show was... she still had ties to people in Hollywood because she was a Broadway actress herself. She would call her friends to come up. After we had worked on our roles for about five or six weeks... it was double cast. She would ask their opinion on who they felt should play the roles. So Dennis Morgan, who was a big musical comedy star in the 1930s and 40s, came up and suggested me in the role. So she agreed with that and put me in. A couple of weeks later, she came up to see the show. After the show she came backstage and indicated that I should probably start looking at that as a career. She encouraged me all the way.

K2K: Back when teachers did a good job.
SH: Yeah.

K2K: So you’ve done over 350 TV roles and about 50 films so far. That’s... mildly impressive.
SH: Yup. (laughs)

K2K: When did you get your notoriety? Back then, or now with “House Of 1,000 Corpses”?
SH: Well, certainly now. With the advent of the internet and accessibility, I think that that had a lot to do with it. There were people on my message board who would say, “God, it’s great that you’re getting all of this attention.” And I’m saying, “I don’t get it.” The reply back was that, if when I was doing all of my work in the 1970s and 80s, the internet were around then, I would have gotten the same thing I’m getting now, back then.

K2K: Your career is speckled with variety.
SH: (laughs) Yeah.

K2K: Then you went into retirement in 1992 because you got tired of playing the heavy all the time?
SH: I just didn’t want play stupid heavies anymore. They just kept giving me the same parts but just putting different clothes on me. It was stupid, and I resented it, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

K2K: So Quentin Tarantino dragged you back to celluloid?
SH: Yeah, he did. As a matter of fact, there was a part... this whole thing kind of ties together. He brought me in for an interview on “Pulp Fiction,” and wanted me to do the role, and I wanted to do the role. Then a deal was offered, and part of the deal was that it was a day’s work. I didn’t care about the fact that it was a day’s work, but what I cared about was that there were four locations mentioned in the script. “There’s television all over again. Didn’t I tell you people that I don’t want to do this crap anymore?” OK? So the agents turned it down.

K2K: How do you mean by television?
SH: Well, that’s television. You can do four locations in a day in television, because they don’t care what they get on film, so long as they get something on film. So I said, “You can’t move to four locations and concentrate on getting good work done. This is one hell of a part, and I’m not going to be shortchanged by working for a day.” Nobody bothered to tell me that Quentin just shoots until he gets what he wants. Ultimately that one day probably turned into two weeks. But, I have a feeling... he and I haven’t talked about it, and maybe someday we should... but I have a feeling that pissed him off. So I’ve just been offered little roles here and there.

K2K: How was it for you in playing the judge in “Jackie Brown”?
SH: It was fun. I got to get together with Pam Grier again. I think he basically cast me in that role to see if people were paying attention. I got to play a judge. And he called me... I don’t know how the hell he got my home number, but he called me and said, “I’ve written a part for you in this film, and you’re going to play it, and you’re going to be at the Inglewood Courthouse on such and such day, and that’s it. “Oh, OK. I guess that’s it then.”

K2K: How was it working with Quentin?
SH: Great! The guy is a definite film buff. In the one day that I worked, he recited almost every line that I said in almost every film that I ever did. I mean, it was amazing.

K2K: You worked with him again on “Kill Bill 2.” How did that go?
SH: It was fine. I just got bounced around a lot from one part to the next, to the next, to the next, and finally wound up that I was playing the bartender.

K2K: Going back to music again... How did you and Rob Zombie meet?
SH: We met in front of the fitting room, at this wardrobe department in Universal. (laughs) That was it. My agent gave me a call and said, “OK, here’s the deal.” I thought, “Oh Christ, what now?” “You’re supposed to go to this office and sign a letter of nondisclosure. They’ll give you a script. Take it home and read it, and if you want it, the part is yours.”

K2K: And that was for the Captain Spaulding part. Interesting. Did you listen to his music before you met him?
SH: Yeah. I’d heard him, and then I went and got a couple of CDs, and really listened. Whatever a guy is musically, that’s what he is going to be as an artist, no matter what art form he takes on.

K2K: Yeah... hmm... that would make me... scattered.
SH: (laughs) Well, I don’t mean the style, the type of music... I mean the way he plays it.

K2K: What was your first opinion about the Captain Spaulding character?
SH: I knew it was going to be a hit from day one.

K2K: Was the movie meant to be played straight, or did you ham it up?
SH: I don’t ham things up.

K2K: Not in a bad way, but did you add any of your own ideas to it?
SH: Oh yeah. I figured, I put my trust in Rob. Until he would tell me to knock it off, I’d just keep going. That’s basically what I did. The skeleton for the role was there. He wrote a great part. I just added my own craziness to it. I didn’t change the role at all. I just stuck my own insanity in.

K2K: It had the feel of a low-budget 1970s film. Was that the intention, or was it low-budget?
SH: That was the intention AND we were on a low budget. The intention all the way along was to make a 1970s horror film. That’s when the last good horror films were made.

K2K: It was inspired, along with other films, by “Spider Baby,” which you starred in in the early 1960s?
SH: Yes.

K2K: Was that something that Rob had been a fan of beforehand?
SH: I think so. He’s a fan of horror all the way down the line.

K2K: You and I had talked before about this, but what other films were inspired by “Spider Baby”?
SH: “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” “Last House On The Left.” Anytime you’ve got a film... and I’m serious... anytime you’ve got a film about a crazy family living out in the country, killing and eating people, “Spider Baby” started it.

K2K: The sequel to “House Of 1,000 Corpses,” “The Devil’s Rejects,” is that now in the can and ready to go?
SH: We’re in editing.

K2K: Who is releasing that?
SH: Lion’s Gate. The CEO, whose name also escapes me... Do you get the idea that I have trouble with names? I’ve never had trouble with a face. I was in a House Of Pancakes, years ago, and I looked across the restaurant, and I said, “You know that guy at that table over there? I went to elementary school with that guy.” I walked over to the table and said, “Did you go to Lowell Elementary School in Fresno, California?” The guy looked at me like, “Huh?” and said, “Yeah.” So I introduced myself and he was totally flabbergasted. But, I couldn’t remember his name. Now I’ve forgotten... [John Feltheimer is CEO of Lion’s Gate. - ed.]

K2K: The CEO... now this is the next funny story...
SH: He had a press release in which he stated that, first of all, “The Devil’s Rejects” makes “House Of 1,000 Corpses” look like “Finding Nemo.” This is dirtier, grittier, more realistic. It has the flavor of “The Wild Bunch.” You do not want to mess with these people.

K2K: “House Of 1,000 Corpses” was a disturbing film.
SH: [“The Devil’s Rejects”] is even more disturbing.

K2K: What was the budget like for the sequel?
SH: About the same, maybe a little less. We didn’t have the same kind of production values going with this one. We shot a lot of [“House Of 1,000 Corpses”] on Universal. They charged such exorbitant rent that it jacked the budget up into the stratosphere. So [for “The Devil’s Rejects”] we shot everything on location and did not spend one day in the studio.

K2K: Well, that adds more realism anyway.
SH: Oh yeah! When you’re out in Lancaster, in Palmdale, and it’s 105 [degrees] and the heat is coming up off of everything, you get that feeling.

K2K: So this one will also have that 1970s grindhouse splatter film feel to it?
SH: Kind of, yeah. Well, because of the production value... We’re on the road, and we’re in the desert. You can’t get a whole lot of production value in the locales that we were in. We didn’t have a lot of fancy cars. We don’t have any of that stuff. Dirty, gritty, nasty stuff.

K2K: For the type of film that it is, you have quite an eclectic cast. I’m curious about some of them and the characters. For example, you have adult film star Ginger Lynn Allen. Tell me about her Fanny character. What an appropriate name.
SH: (laughs) Well, I can’t tell you too much or else they would have to shoot me. But she and I have a little sexual tête-à-tête. It’s pretty steamy.

K2K: Are you wearing your clown make-up then?
SH: Yes.

K2K: You are so kinky.
SH: (laughs)

K2K: Former 1980s star, E.G. Daily. I had forgotten that she is a voiceover in the “Rugrats” and “Powerpuff Girls.” Her character falls for Otis. How did you get her?
SH: In some cases, people just came in and read, and in other cases, Rob remembered people and said that he wanted to see if they could fit into this or that role.

K2K: She’s hot now, almost hotter than she was before.
SH: Yeah. She’s wearing a little bustier with the garter belts and the white stockings.

K2K: So, you’re character is getting some. Otis is getting some. So... is this more of a sex film?
SH: (laughs) No. There are sexual elements to it. For instance, Ken Foree plays my brother. He’s “a brotha from anotha’ motha’.”

K2K: I guess I should mention for anyone who doesn’t see the film that Ken is black, and you are not. And yet, you are brothers.
SH: (laughs) He [as Charlie Altamont in the film] owns and operates a whore ranch. E.G. Daily is one of the girls, and so is Deborah Van Valkenburgh. She’s somewhat... “Too Close For Comfort.” “Warriors.”

K2K: Michael Berryman. What’s his Cleavon character like?
SH: He is as dumb as a sack of hammers. It’s a very small role, but funnier than hell. He’s such an idiot, I can’t believe it. (laughs) Yeah.

K2K: Not that he would ham that part up or anything.
SH: (sarcastically) No!

K2K: Rosario Dawson. I can’t believe the cast that you have in the film.
SH: I’m telling you. She’s so hot. She plays a nurse in a hospital where a pivotal character (laughs)... She plays a nurse.

K2K: Does she “get some” also?
SH: No. She does get dead. The back of my t-shirt is absolutely correct. The “House Of 1,000 Corpses” t-shirt, on the back it says, “Everybody fucking dies.” That’s it.

K2K: Leslie Easterbrook came from some truly annoying films which would be the “Police Academy” series. She plays Mother Firefly. Nice.
SH: Yes. Beautiful. She’s great.

K2K: In what I’ve seen of “The Devil’s Rejects,” Leslie looks a lot like Karen Black.
SH: Exactly.

K2K: Had you thought about Karen Black for the film?
SH: Well, Karen was offered the role. For whatever reason, and I won’t even get into it because I haven’t talked to her and it would just be conjecture and that wouldn’t be right... but for whatever reason, she decided not to do it this time.

K2K: Natasha Lyonne of “American Pie” and Detroit Rock City.” What’s her role?
SH: Well, she didn’t show up. She missed like five flights or something. She was supposed to play a prostitute as well, and she just could not manage to get herself to L.A. And so a call went out, and out of the darkness came Deborah Van Valkenburgh. Oh my God, she is so great. Nobody knows how good of an actress this woman is. She’s great.

K2K: Diamond Dallas Page. Tell me about him.
SH: Funny guy.

K2K: How did you get him involved?
SH: He had been associated with Rob, I think, through the gym and working out, this, that, and the other thing. He had been to a couple of parties where we were all at. I guess talks went on and Rob decided to give him a shot. He really did a good job. You think of him as being huge, right? He’s a couple of inches shorter than I am.

K2K: You’ve got Daniel Roebuck in here.
SH: He plays a 70s talk show host, with the 70s hairdo and the funky Sonny Bono mustache. He’s hilarious.

K2K: How was it working with Danny Trejo?
SH: I worked with Danny one night. He’s great. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s a creative guy. He’s very cool. I like him.

K2K: How different was it in making “The Devil’s Rejects” as opposed to “House Of 1,000 Corpses” aside from what we’ve discussed already?
SH: For me, just the change in location. There’s nothing like sitting in an old Cadillac convertible, covered in blood, in 105 degrees for two or three hours to really make you feel gritty. (laughs) To the ladies, I feel your pain. Taking a blood-soaked shirt... a dried blood-soaked shirt off must be very much akin to getting waxed. I used to have hair on my chest. I don’t anymore.

K2K: Regarding the Captain Spaulding character... What’s the kinkiest fan mail or comments that you’ve gotten so far?
SH: Oh, please. (laughs) I’ve gotten proposal for marriage. I’ve gotten proposals to do sexually explicit things. (laughs) I’ve pretty much run the gamut. It’s pretty amazing.

K2K: Have you gotten any comments from any people who may have taken the character too seriously?
SH: Well, I think a whole lot of people took the character too seriously. When I go out to these conventions and stuff, I’ll put on the character for a little while. Somebody comes up to my table and I get the idea that I can clown around with this person, so I’ll on the character. That’s fun and it’s funny and everyone has a good time. But there’s people in the background that are really connecting with him [Captain Spaulding] and I think, “OK. Geez. Let’s lighten up here, folks.” It’s been a wild ride, let’s put it that way. And it’s not over.

K2K: So are you out of retirement now?
SH: I’m out of retirement. Ah! But, only if you come to me with something that’s got some teeth to it.

K2K: I wanted to go through just a few films that you’ve done and had some quick questions regarding them. In your wide repertoire, you did the [live action] film “Boris & Natasha.” What were you thinking?
SH: “Why the hell am I doing this?”

K2K: Was it fun, or did you see a bomb happening?
SH: Well, it was fun, but the deal is that, literally, three or four days before the principal photography, they had a whole bunch of money dropped from the budget. So now they were frantically running around, cutting scenes, rewriting this and that, and my character was supposed to be pursuing them throughout the film. What we managed was... a scene at the beginning, a repeat of that scene at the end, and then one line where I come in and ask for my egg and the guy shoots me, and that’s it.

K2K: “Galaxy Of Terror.” It has also been listed as “Mindwarp: An Infinity Of Terror.” How was that film for you?
SH: That was probably after somebody bought it from Roger Corman, they changed the name so they wouldn’t have to pay royalties. It was with Ray Walston and Edward Albert, “Joannie” from “Happy Days.”

K2K: Was it worth seeing?
SH: It was very worth seeing. If Roger Corman would ever get off his duff and do a DVD, it would sell through the roof.

K2K: “Death Car On The Freeway.” How was that? The title kind of tells me “no” to seeing it.
SH: (laughs) You’re right. It was a TV movie that Hal Needham directed... the guy who directed all the “Smokey & The Bandit” stuff... and it was... OK. It was a takeoff of, I guess, “Duel.”

K2K: You were in “Swashbuckler,” which has always been one of my all-time favorite films. How was that?
SH: Great! It was a dream come true. A very underrated movie. I had a great time because... I guess there are some times when you have to blow your horn because there’s nobody else around to do it... I am a better-than-passing fencer. As a matter of fact I was training for the 1964 Olympics. For me it was a dream, an absolute dream.

K2K: How did you like doing “Beyond Atlantis”?
SH: That was interesting. I really enjoyed doing that.

K2K: You did the James Bond flick, “Diamonds Are Forever.” How big of a role was that?
SH: Well, here again... (laughs) It was supposed to have been a much larger role. But because the English, in their finest snobbery, refused to let American actors into their country if they’re not playing a lead role, the part had to be, basically, cut out. So, everything that was in Las Vegas, I was in. I threw the lovely and naked body of Lana Wood out the window.

K2K: Always a fun thing to do.
SH: Always a fun thing to do, and somebody’s got to do it. (laughs) Past that, hey... you know.

K2K: You were in George Lucas’ “THX-1138.” What was your role in that?
SH: I was in the sequence that took place in limbo,I had intercourse with the young lady twice, I punched Donald Pleasance in the nose, I killed the robot, and then I was taken off to die.

K2K: Of course we have to talk about “Spider Baby,” also known as “The Maddest Story Ever Told.”
SH: “The Maddest Story Ever Told,” or “The Liver Eaters”...

K2K: For all the films that I’ve seen, to this day I have not yet seen that one.
SH: Oh, it’s the start of this whole genre.

K2K: Lon Chaney, Jr. was in the film. How was it working with him?
SH: It was great. First of all, as a kid, I used to go to all of the werewolf movies and all. So to be there actually working with him was amazing.

K2K: Were you a fan of Lon Chaney, Sr. too?
SH: Yeah, but not so much as I was of him.

K2K: I had read an interesting write-up about Jr. in that he was always chasing the dream to make his dad proud, but thus never realized how he himself was loved by people who didn’t even really know his dad.
SH: Yeah. There’s an episode on the E Channel called “The Chaney’s” in which I did a segment. I was cut out of most of the documentary except for the very last sequence in which I pointed out that, through a film like “Spider Baby” and other stuff that went on, he [Lon Chaney, Jr] had to have felt proud because he had surpassed his father immensely. Have you ever seen “Of Mice And Men”? If “Gone With The Wind” had not been released in the same year, Lon Chaney, Jr. would have won the Academy Awards for “Of Mice And Men.”

K2K: In TV appearances, you were on “Fantasy Island,” a former guilty pleasure of mine. What did you do on there?
SH: (chuckles) Yeah. Just about everything. I think I did two or three of those. At one point I think I played a genie. In another one I played an Italian gangster... (sarcastically) Oh, my, what a stretch. (laughs)

K2K: “Charlie’s Angels,” how was that?
SH: That was great. Anytime you get to hold Jaclyn Smith in your arms and dance with her for a while, it’s a good day.

K2K: “Electra Woman & Dyna-Girl.”
SH: It was a kid’s show. It was a Marty Krofft show. But then, see, I did a whole string of Sid & Marty Krofft shows. But, I always played the stupid heavy.

K2K: “Buck Rogers.”
SH: That was great when I worked with Julie Newmar. She is the most gorgeous woman who has walked the face of the earth.

K2K: I would love to do a photo shoot with her.
SH: Oh my God, please invite me. She was the female arch-villian in the first season of “Jason & Star Command,” and she didn’t know in the way that we were shooting the show, that she thought she was going to be working directly with me. She wanted to meet the person who was playing Dragos before accepting the role, because she didn’t want to be towering over somebody and making it look ridiculous. But then, when we did “Buck Rogers”... I love to watch people watching people. She got up to get a cup of coffee or whatever. Everything on the sound stage stopped. Everybody watched her walk the length of the sound stage to wherever she was going, and then things got going [again]. She is absolutely gorgeous. Alarmingly beautiful.

K2K: You also did a lot of shows like “Mission Impossible” and “Mannix”...
SH: Nine episodes of “Mission Impossible.” Let’s not forget that there were nine. No other actor in Hollywood has done nine episodes of “Mission Impossible.” “Mannix” was cool. Michael Connors and a relative of mine were great friends. They grew up together. So we had kind of a connection there. He didn’t realize that until I got on the show and this relative of mine showed up and introductions came on and everything was made. He was a very cool guy. [He was a} hard, hard worker. He carried that show.

K2K: “Gunsmoke”...
SH: Four of those.

K2K: “Get Smart.”
SH: Three of those.

K2K: The “Flying Nun” was interesting to see on your resumé...
SH: Yeah. Where I played a Puerto Rican heavy. (laughs) I’ve played Swedish heavies.

K2K: Any favorite stories from your time on TV?
SH: TV... Whoa, OK. I keep saying that things changed in Hollywood when the lawyers and the bean counters took over. Here is a perfect example. We were setting up a scene for “Mission Impossible” when all of the sudden we hear this ‘bang’ and everything went black. This voice came out of the darkness saying, “This is now a Gulf Western Production and we do not do overtime.” Gulf Western probably took a look at the books and said, “What is all this overtime money?”. So somebody from that night, until the next morning, obviously got to people in charge and said, “You know what? Don’t ever do that again.” That just shows where the mentality is.

K2K: You did “Star Trek” too.
SH: That was good. It was fun. Everybody... all the regulars on that show were quitting smoking all at the same time.

K2K: So there was a lot of bitching?
SH: A lot of bitching, and a lot of gum chewing. Joe Pevney was directing that episode [“The Return Of The Archons”], and he’s a nervous kind of guy anyway. The number of times that he had to cut and start over again, because somebody was chewing gum, was just staggering. One day, we were out on location and had about 80 extras. At lunch time, Bill Shatner went around and gave everybody a piece of bubble gum, and said, “When he hollers ‘Action’, everyone turn around and blow a bubble.” And that’s exactly what happened. He [Shatner] got the crew in on the deal, and the whole thing. So all the extras, and the actors, and the crew, all blew a bubble in Pevney’s direction. I thought he was going to just disintegrate. But he saw the humor in it.

K2K: We’ve talked about some of your hobbies and talents. What else do you do?
SH: Oh, about anything I want. (laughs) No. I’m a pretty fair potter. I had a couple of pieces on display in the administration building of Moorpark College for a few years.

K2K: Are you electric or foot?
SH: Electric. There’s too much walking involved. I have plans for a kick-wheel, but probably never will. I really relax behind working with bonsai. It’s kind of a way to calm me.

K2K: You do bonsai and pottery. Do you do any macramé in there?
SH: Yes.

K2K: I was kidding, but OK.
SH: No, there is.

K2K: Painting?
SH: No, I haven’t done that. I leave that up to my son who is an excellent artist. He works for one of the Sony sets, Naughty Dog. He was the art director for 989 Studios, a Sony company, but there was too much management involved. He was working with 21 artists and 10 programmers all at the same time. He said, “Excuse me, I’m an artist. I don’t need this.” And that was the last show that he was on.

K2K: You’re a licensed hypnotherapist. How is that for you?
SH: That’s great. It is as much instant payback as doing a play or singing or music. That instant gratification that you get from the audience. You get that same thing from someone who comes into your office all stressed out, and leaves feeling really good.

K2K: How did you get started in that, and how long have you been doing it?
SH: Well, when I bailed out of the acting profession, I decided that I should probably busy myself doing something. I had always been interested in the mental aspects of who and what we are. I did a lot of home study in psychology as an actor, just so I could better create a character that would remain constant throughout the span of the role. I was looking through the paper and saw an ad for the Hypnosis Motivational Institute. So I called and went over there, talked with the people, walked around, checked it out, and got a really good feeling about it. At the age of 59, took out a student loan and went back to school.

K2K: So you have an office?
SH: I did have an office. I’m traveling so much now that I kind of have to put my practice on the back burner.

K2K: Do you get requests for hypnotherapy while on the road?
SH: I do, but the setting is not right to do that.

K2K: You know, I can kind of visualize you in the clown make-up, covered in dried blood, and it’s 110 degrees outside... With a client, “I’m having a problem relapsing in smoking. Can you help me out?” “Yeah, just look into my eyes and ignore the make-up.”
SH: (laughs)

K2K: As a hypnotherapist... Do you believe that most of the “show” hypnotists, like in the carnivals, are crap?
SH: Well, in terms of being able to provide therapy... No. Unless you have brain damage, you can be hypnotized.

K2K: I’ve participated in a couple of those fairground shows with the hypnotist who says, “Now you won’t be able to let go of the rope.”, etc. You know the routine. It’s never worked on me, nor anyone I’ve been there with. The showmen would then cover themselves by saying to the audience that “Only people on drugs or alcohol cannot be hypnotized.”, of which we were neither.
SH: Being on drugs, or being drunk makes it more difficult, but not impossible. The thing is, you go into hypnosis at least once every day... on your own. That little twilight between waking and sleeping, that’s hypnosis. And if you’ve ever been driving down the road, and you look around and say, “How the hell did I get here?”, you were in environmental hypnosis.

K2K: I almost would chalk that last one up to sleeping at the wheel.
SH: (laughs) Well, it’s environmental hypnosis. You didn’t really fall asleep because your eyes were open, and you didn’t run into anything, you didn’t hurt anything, you just kind of went on autopilot. There is a lot of environmental hypnosis that goes on. It goes on in watching a film. You cry when we want you to cry, and you laugh when we want you to laugh, because we set it up that way.

K2K: What’s your success rate?
SH: I have a very high success rate. First of all, the subject, or client... as you have to call them, because the state of California is not in a position where they can license hypnotherapists at this point... because we’re broke. It takes money to set up a board and establish that whole thing. What you’re doing is affecting change in people’s lives. They have to want to have that change happen to them. If they don’t want it, for one reason or another... for instance, my wife said, “I have to quit smoking or she’s going to leave me.” You’re not quitting for you, you’re quitting for her. You have to want to quit for you. You have to want to lose weight for you. You want to have to drop a fear or phobia for you.

K2K: It’s a bit different than, I think, how most people look at it. It’s almost a form of psychiatry.
SH: Yeah. A very elemental form. I don’t want to get in trouble with my psychiatry brothers and sisters. Basically we work on the symptom. When we can relieve you of your symptom, then a psychiatrist or psychologist has it easier to work with you at their level. It’s almost like, we could prepare someone to go and work with a psychologist or psychiatrist.

K2K: In everything that you’ve done... What is your one ultimate career? Have you already done it, or is there still something that you would like to do since growing up?
SH: Well, geez. I know there’s probably something out there, because I always have to climb the next mountain for some reason or another. Actually, right now I’m planning to run for President. Do I want to run for President to actually become President? I don’t think so.

K2K: Would your party be anything to do with Bush’s party?
SH: (laughs) My party is the Clown Party. The Balloon Animal Party. I’m on a mission to wake people up. To stir them to the point where they take this country back. Unless it changes, I have been given an hour platform to present my panel at DragonCon. I was assured that there would be 5,000 people in the room at that time. I’m going to approach this very seriously, because we are in trouble. What happened here is... how old are we [the country] now? 226 years old? It’s taken us 226 years to go from taxation without representation to taxation with misrepresentation. It’s taken us 226 years to reestablish an elitist society. OK? What the hell is that?

K2K: Well, we are an anomaly. Historically all powers fall and crumble and then rebuild again. We might now be at that point where we are ready to disintegrate as we exist currently, and then the next power type will come in - whatever that might be. In “Fahrenheit 911” George W. Bush was shown saying, “A little dictatorship isn’t a bad idea.”
SH: Well, that’s what he’s establishing. Isn’t it odd that we had King George at the beginning and the end.

K2K: I don’t think people even realize the connections to the actual King George, and the Rothchild’s, and...
SH: And the Loeb’s, and the Rockefellers...

K2K: I heard the numbers recently about how many people who pretty much own the country.
SH: There are six families who own the world.

K2K: What I had read about recently... Even Hitler, the USSR, and all the great recent changes were controlled and set in motion.
SH: Have you ever read Gary Allen’s “None Dare Call It Conspiracy”? That’ll open your eyes. They have documented proof that the... let’s call them, for lack of a better word, the Illuminati... financed both sides of the Revolutionary War until England pissed them off. Then they tapped France on the shoulder and said, “How’d you like to go kick some English ass?” They financed both sides of the First and Second World War. They financed both sides of the Civil War.

K2K: That’s like the William Randolph Hearst story about him creating the Mexican-American War. “You give me a war and I’ll give you a story.” And it’s the same with Enron. No one realized that they bought a President. It didn’t matter which one, so long as it got Ken Lay into a cozy position.
SH: Yeah. There you go.

K2K: Aside from politics, what’s your next project?
SH: Hmm... walking up in the morning, I guess. Every day above ground is a good one. I’ve got a few things on the side that are too soon to talk about. New films. Music, if it’s something that happens, it happens and that’ll be great. I’ve always had fun playing music. That’s the one thing where I’ve been able to make money at. Actors don’t make any money. The more popular you become, the bigger your empire gets, and the more money you shell out. A year ago, I started out by saying, “I’ll do a couple of these conventions and see how it works out.” A year later I have a booking manager, a publicist, a personal assistant, a webmaster... What the hell’s going on here? I just wanted to try it out. Now I’ve got all these, what I call, obli-goddam-gations, and responsi-fuckin’-bilities.

K2K: Well, that’s how the industry works. I guess you have to accept it.
SH: Yeah. But I’m having fun and that’s the only thing that’s important right now. I’m having a good time. Getting to meet people, getting crazy with folks... the ladies are a little goofy sometimes, but hey, that’s OK. I love them.

K2K: It looked like you were having a blast in San Diego [at the Comic Con].
SH: Oh yeah. I have a blast everywhere I go. There’s not one place that I’ve been where I haven’t had a great time, because all the people are just fantastic.

K2K: What’s your convention schedule like now?
SH: Holy moley. We’re really picking it up now.

(Sid reads through a list of conventions that he is scheduled to appear at. As this interview is appearing online late, the list is being skipped as the events are over. But there is one place to mention - Hobb’s Grove.)

SH: Hobb’s Grove in Fresno. This guy’s place is amazing. He has a haunted house that is so complete that they shot a film called “Dark Walker.” They never had to build a set, they never had to bring any props or set pieces or anything. They just set up the cameras and away they went. [Hobb’s Grove is a Halloween amusement park that is actually located in Sanger, CA, near Fresno. - ed.]

K2K: With your hectic scheduling, how do you find the time to do any film work?
SH: I don’t. (laughs) But that’s OK. I’m riding high right now, traveling all over the country, meeting a lot of people. I’m having so much fun it should be illegal.

K2K: Sometimes it’s not about money, it’s about enjoying what you’re doing.
SH: Yeah. And the thing is... this I could prove, because I teach a class called “The Mental Bank.” When you are having fun with what you’re doing, and you are completely immersed in the act of doing whatever it is that you’ve chosen to do, the money will follow.

K2K: I’ve been preaching that for years. Everything that you do well eventually cashes in.
SH: Just like 85% of the population hates the jobs that they’re doing. Let’s all get together and change jobs. What is it that you want to do exactly?

K2K: Do you have any words to your fans as we wrap it up?
SH: Well, I put this at the end of the DVD, but it bears repeating... Never quit. Never, never, never quit.

And with that, it was time for us to say our goodbyes as Sid had other interviews to do and I had to get on with the rest of my day as well. A most enlightening chat indeed. Look for Sid in “The Devil’s Rejects” and other films to come. Make sure to visit him when he appears at a convention near you. It’s great to have gotten him out of retirement, now hopefully we - as a movie viewing audience - can keep him out of retirement.

For more information and convention appearance schedules, you can visit Sid Haig directly at: Sid Haig.com

Written by Philip Anderson / Photos © 2004 / 2005 Philip Anderson / Kristin Quinn