Rule #1: Be a fan.
Lee "Scratch" Perry is a 70-plus-year-old reggae icon. He is not some Williamsburg douchebag who just graduated from Vassar and made one catchy world/house 12-inch that got a lot of MySpace hits and a cover story in The Fader—he's from Jamaica. He didn't hear about reggae by listening to Jamiroquai or the Clash or by studying the music of former British colonies in a nine-week seminar at an elite liberal arts institution—he helped invent it. He didn't read about Bob Marley in Rolling Stone or catch some kind of Rasta fashion wave—he produced the Wailers. So don't go trying to, somehow, ironically interview Lee "Scratch" Perry like you might ironically interview, like, Britney Spears or Black Dice. This man is not a bumbaclot. He is a genius. And ironic interviews are worthwhile only when the interviewer and interviewee have shared experiences that makes the irony palpable and humorous. But, in the case of Mr. Lee "Scratch" Perry...

Rule #2: Don't expect "shared" experiences.
Unless you're from Trenchtown, have dreadlocks, and were a pioneering reggae producer who, after allegedly and inexplicably burning down your studio, equally inexplicably live in Switzerland, you probably don't have much in common with Lee "Scratch" Perry. So, just because you yourself happen to be in a band and have a studio of your own, and have a hard-earned appreciation for reverb and tape delay (two effects essential to the production of dub music), don't naively expect Lee "Scratch" Perry to respond to a question like "Why are you so fascinated with tape delay?" or "What's the deal with all the reverb?" which much enthusiasm. Because, even though this is an honest question ("honest" = a question that you sincerely yearn to know the answer to) and you ask it because you yourself have often wondered why musicians are so obsessed with reverb and delay in recordings and live settings that don't seem to warrant such effects, Lee "Scratch" Perry is not conflicted about his use of reverb and tape delay and, just because you might fancy yourself an engineer, Lee "Scratch" Perry doesn't necessarily want to talk about reverb and tape delay with you. Because.....

Rule #3: The stereotypes are true.
Rastafarians talk about ganja, and Babylon, and Jah, and "I." Now, I'm not sure if Lee "Scratch" Perry is Rastafarian–since, like many Rastafarians (or, at least, Bad Brains) his relationship to his presumed faith seems cursory or opaque (though, as a lapsed Catholic, I know that's true for me as well)—but I do know that Lee "Scratch" Perry is from Jamacia and, as a pioneering reggae producer, certainly spent a lot of time with Rastafarians and certainly has spent a lot of time smoking marijuana. Now, I went to an elite liberal arts college and spent a lot of time reading Karl Marx and Thomas Pynchon. For these reasons, I think and talk a lot about Marxism and have a Thomas Pynchon tattoo, just as one might expect me to. So, just as the stereotype of a "wealthy elite liberal arts graduate" fits me, so does the stereotype "he talks about ganja, Bablylon, Jah, and 'I' all the time" fit Mr. Lee "Scratch" Perry. Now, I don't only talk about Karl Marx and get Thomas Pynchon tattoos. Sometimes, I watch Summer School starring Mark Harmon and lose money playing 1-3 Texas Hold 'Em. So, I'm sure Lee "Scratch" Perry just doesn't want to talk about ganja, and Babylon, and Jah, and "I" all the time. Maybe he wants watch Summer School, or play 1-3 Texas Hold 'Em, or talk about the Brady Bunch or the tragedy of the commons. However, when I attempted to interview Lee "Scratch" Perry, he did not raise these subjects but seemed focused on ganja, Bablyon, Jah, and "I." However, I'm not quite sure if that's true, because I...

Rule #4: Don't expect to understand Lee "Scratch" Perry.
Now, when I say, "Don't expect to understand Lee 'Scratch' Perry," I don't mean that you shouldn't expect to understand—in a philosophical, political, or musical sense—where Lee "Scratch" Perry is coming from, or what he's been through, or where he is now, or where he's going. Instead, when I say, "Don't expect to understand Lee 'Scratch' Perry," I mean "Don't expect to understand the words that are coming out of Lee 'Scratch' Perry's mouth" in the Chris Tucker sense, at least not in a telephone interview conducted from your home in, say, Washington, D.C., on a cheap T-Mobile cell phone tenuously connecting you to a musical visionary who just got off a plane in Switzerland. Because Lee "Scratch" Perry has an accent, and boy...it really is an accent. Instead, expect an interview that produces notes that look a lot like this:

introduce myself
just got in from france...into switzerland...
how are things
very cold 2 degrees.
do you mis jammacia
we go to jammacia all the time. i 'm bored and want to see my house....i will own it forever.
where record now
in switzerland...in amacia...with michelle in the congo.
black ark...
I've got my own studio at home in switzerland...not every day and every night
black ark
after jammacia....
has your music changed?
the music changed because of sampling. when i was ijammacia, i ahd
black musicians. in switzerland, i have white musicians.
what's the difference
most of my fans are white. there is no difference. why. whatever suit the children suit me. I'll be a child forever. whatever makes them happy that what's makes me happy.
what's if you r fascination with delay?
i had a special sound. internationally. i had a sound that the tree of
knowledge...more knowledge than

And then expect to, in a moment of panic, invent a problem with your cell phone so that you can get off the phone with the unintelligible Lee "Scratch" Perry and e-mail his publicist to request an in-person interview in the hope of understanding the pearls of wisdom that drop daily from Mr. Lee "Scratch" Perry's mouth—an interview that will never be scheduled.

Lee "Scratch" Perry plays at the 9:30 club tonight.

How did you earn the nickname Giant J?

I’m a large character. It started from years back. I don’t wanna promote fistfighting, but I’m a little guy that will probably kick a big guy's ass. I always wanna be as big as possible. Everything about me and what I’m doing is bigger than it should be.

"Giant J" has nothing to do with THC?
The joint part of it...no. But that would kick in at any moment because there is always a joint hanging out of my mouth.

I'm really confused about your ideology. You guys are from the Northwest, but then you were a band in Southern California, but now you live in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, you are funky, but you're also positive punks, but also Rastas—
When you get into Black Flag or the Circle Jerks or the Sex Pistols, they weren’t necessarily negative. Maybe during their time they didn’t have a Hot Topic making their style cool. They were perceived negatively, but when you get into what they were telling kids to do, they weren’t negative. “God Save the Queen” is negative, but it is an issue for that time.

[The author contemplates possible positive meanings of the Sex Pistols sarcastic anthem "God Save the Queen" and supposes that, in a way, that anthem could be interpreted positively had the Sex Pistols not represented (and lived) total nihilism).] So you’re saying there’s a positivity in the negativity of the message?
There’s a negativity to be found in that moment, but that negativity was spawned by...the government of their time…I don’t think they were trying to say that we need to live in a world that’s worse than the one we live in now. I think they had rightful complaints and were singing in hopes of changing that.

We have a song called "Fight the World" on our first album. People take it as a negative thing…if you don’t hear what I’m talking about, you can put negative overtones on it. But it’s not negative. I want [kids] to fight back. I'm not saying they should grab pitchforks and put in it in the chest of every guy with a suit. [I'm saying they should] be Thomas Jefferson.

But you are also Rastas—
We just happen to have dreadlocks. I am not a Rasta—I’m not an anything. My mother is a Buddhist, my dad is a Green Beret. I’m on both sides of the fence. I’m fully willing to take a deep breath and tackle problems like a logical man. If you’re a drunken asshole at a show, I will knock you the fuck out. I don’t have a religion. I don’t believe we have answers to “What are we here for?”

What about your geography?
I'm from the West Coast. I’m from Southern California...We love reggae, but we appreciate the white boy's West Coast. Jack Johnson, Sublime…that’s reggae, but if you take that shit to Jamaica, they ain’t having it.

Our ideology is tattooed on all of our arms. "Think free, live free." That’s a vague statement trying to do a interview about it. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true.

So you're a positivist. A humanist.
We’ll take that.

But what about Vegas?
This band started as a joke to open up for another band. The joke became my fantasy lived out.

Southern Cali was my home, [but] I owned a 1,000-cap venue called the Old Shipwreck in Tacoma. [Giant J relates the FunkyJahPunkys epic genesis story: the head chef of the Old Shipwreck is "Mr. Black," the FJP's guitarist. After the band formed, it relocated to Southern California.] I got home and was looking for the scene I grew up in. The scene I was looking for wasn’t there anymore. We started playing where we could—playing Vegas once a month—and we found it here.

Some of the most hippie motherfuckers that I deal with are here in Vegas. There are drum circles in Red Rock. Vegas is a huge melting pot. It's a loving community that I dig a lot.

We don’t live on the Strip. We’re not down on the Strip hanging out looking for hookers...we live on an acre 8 miles from the strip. One of the houses is for the band, the other is for my wife, mother-in-law, and daughter. We all work together and live in one place and make it possible. Once a month, we host a PCP Family Barbecue to prove that Vegas isn’t the question you asked. [Author's note: "PCP" doesn't refer to the popular arylcyclohexylamine derivative, but to Pacific Coast Pirates, the FJP's Vegas-based record label.]

If I’m ever down on shit to write about, I just go to the strip on a Saturday night. I just go see the people that didn’t mean to spend their mortgage. When you put that much greed and sin all in one spot, you see some visible negativity. The best negativity is at the gas station at Stateline. That’s where you see the losers really losing. You see a poor guy with his wife and kids and see how bad every decision he made that weekend turned out.

I think I’ve been in that gas station a couple of times. [Author's note: this is, literally and figuratively, true.]
I haven’t had a drunk in nine years. I was a full-blown ulcered alcoholic at 22.

How’d you get out of it?
Hitting rock bottom. Seeing as bad as I could foreseeable be while knowing I had so much love and opportunity available to me.

I grew up in a Partyville, I knew the right people. I could do anything I wanted. My brother was older than me and involved in
selling everything. I partied hard. I love drinking to this very day. God, I wish I could have a drink...Alcohol owns me, bro. I drink a 12-pack of nonalcoholic beers at every show.

That's hardcore.
We tell every venue to have it. I’d love to have a real beer, but I’d have 12 shots of tequila afterward.

How did you guys get involved with Ice-T for the song "Corporate Takeover?"
One of the bands on PCP—a band called Colombyne—has a 400-pound rapper Pauly Mac used to be with 187. He lives in Vegas…he's a nephew of Ice-t. Ice put him through college. That was the personal connection that made this possible. Ice-T gave me a small chance for people to notice…if not for Ice,
you wouldn’t be talking to me from Washington, D.C.

[Author's note: Giant J is right. The author—a huge fan of Body Count, O.G. Original Gangster, the film New Jack City, and the survivor of a mosh-related injury incurred at a Body Count show at the Trocadero Club in Philadelphia in December 1993—received a press release from PCP Records in re: Ice-T's appearance on the FJP song "Corporate Takeover," contacted Giant J in the hope of interviewing Ice-T, and only requested to interview Giant J after finding his lifestyle, ideology, and general modus operandi, if not his aesthetics, diverting. In this small way, Giant J is a postmodern American hero: He, an artist who desires attention, has found a found a way to get it, and received it.]

Photographs of the author by Darrow Montgomery