Lunch with . . .Marty Casey

He lists his favourite favourite pizza topping as Brooke Burke, Kiwi band Shihad is his CD of the moment and if he gets nervous he may ask you what you got for Christmas, six months after the holiday.

The Queenstown Times grabbed lunch with Marty Casey - fans of the reality TV show Rockstar INXS may remember him as the blond-haired rocker who wrote Trees as his original composition, now fronting LA Guns - comprising former members of Guns n' Roses, and Lovehammers, a band founded when he was just 13.

QT: What are you having for lunch today?

Marty: Um . . .I forget what these are called . . .

QT: Sausages?

Marty: No . . .I'm having bangers

QT: What do you normally have for lunch?

Marty: I normally don't have lunch. I normally eat, if I'm lucky, once a day. And that's it.

QT: Breakfast?

Marty: No . . .Some sort of whatever you can grab between a sound check and a show . . . which is maybe a piece of fruit and some beef jerky.

QT: What's your favourite food?

Marty: My favourite food . . . besides Kylie Minogue? Um . . . pizza.

QT: What topping?

Marty: Brooke Burke.

QT: I know it's hard because you haven't been here that long, but so far, what's your favourite spot in Queenstown?

Marty: For what I like to do, it's right down on the main drag in town. I would like to go spend the whole weekend there and just do the bar crawl; jump in each one and see what they're all about.

That's a great way to get to know the beautiful energetic settings.

QT: I highly recommend the bar crawl! What are your favourite hobbies or interests?

Marty: I love the Nevis Arc, that's my newest hobby. I love jet boating, I love taking helicopter rides to the top of amazing mountains and drinking champagne when you arrive.

I love making fun of the rappellers coming down the mountain because we have it so much easier and we're so lazy.

I like blog writing and . . . bragging about all of these great experiences in New Zealand and letting my friends at home really know what they're missing.

And I like writing songs with the members of CanTeen.

QT: How long have you been working with them for?

Marty: I'd say we got started a few months ago . . .I got to meet [the organisers] in Auckland a week ago. They have their once-a-year big festival party, camp, so we're part of that.

I get to perform and write songs with kids, so that's really the biggest day we're all looking forward to.

QT: So what's your favourite way to relax.

Marty: Definitely the sunset, chilled white wine, getting to overlook something like this, or whether it be even Chicago, just on a deck.

But getting a lot of work done during the day and then just getting to start your night with some wine and just chilling is something I really dig.

QT: Have you tried the Central Otago wines yet?

Marty: No we haven't yet . . . we'll hook that up.

QT: What winds you up?

Marty: Besides wine? The interesting thing is people are surprised when I'm getting ready to go on stage I'm so mellow. I'm the chillest dude in the room.

Sometimes you're about to perform in front of 30,000 people and sometimes it's 300 people, so whatever you're doing I'm so, so calm and the minute I step on stage it's not like it's a different person, but it really is . . . it's another person that just kind of emerges out of you and all the confidence, strength [comes out] . . .

I could challenge Mike Tyson to a brawl the minute I'm on stage. But the minute I step off I recede right back into this other normal mode.

So what gets me off is just really stepping on stage, because that's the only place I know that I can have ultimate power and control.

QT: What cracks you up?

Marty: I think people that are just completely reckless. People like . . .LA Guns for example, permanent vacation lifestyle. They truly don't care about tomorrow.

So there is so much freedom . . . they absolutely crack me up.

QT: Your favourite quote?

Marty: That would be my own quote for this year. I try to make a statement. 2008 was the year of hotness. 2007 was the year of reckless abandonment, but 2009 is the year of no fear of anyone or anything that gets in the way.

QT: What are you reading at the moment.

Marty: You know what, I picked up a book at the airport and I can't even tell you the title because I never even got to open a page. The stewardess came along and said "do you want any . . . peanuts".

And so I was more engaged with the stewardess. So I haven't been able to read anything. I haven't been able to write anything - I've barely even slept! I'm reading absolutely nothing at the moment.

QT: What's your favourite CD at the moment?

Marty: You know what CD I'm kind of getting really drawn in to? It's Shihad. But I knew in the United States they were called Pacifier, which is funny because pacifier is a thing you put in a baby's mouth.

But it's a great band name, I love that name. I just really like it. I think if I had lived in New Zealand that would have been my favourite band growing up.

The bands that I really liked growing up, they kind of were that band here. I wish I had of known them, but it's kind of nice to stumble on the bands like that - it's not the newest band with one CD out, it's like you discover this band that you like and then you go back and find they have five CDs.

I hope people get to do that here, maybe with Lovehammers.

QT: What's something that people don't know about you? Marty: Well nobody knows I have 12 toes . . . no. Um, I do have this interesting thing.

You know how your brain gets stuck? If I ever get really nervous I can't think of anything to say to people and a question that always pops into my head is 'What did you get for Christmas?'

It can be July or whenever, but if I'm really nervous - like when I met Ben Stiller - you're thinking about 'What am I going to say?' and what pops into my head is 'What did you get for Christmas?' I don't know why.

QT: So, did you ask Ben Stiller that?

Marty: I didn't ask him. But that was about to come out of my mouth. I should have though, I think he would have enjoyed that.

In May. 'What did you get for Christmas?'

QT: If you had to live anywhere else, where would it be.

Marty: This town. No B.S just because I'm here, but I was saying that I have had the opportunity to take three months before.

I was telling somebody yesterday there was this place [in] Mexico. It was something to do with the energy of the place - not the high-octane energy, just a particular energy that you feel.

That's a very beautiful place with sandy beaches and I got to live there for three months.

Stepping into here, it's finally a place that I'm like yeah, if I get three months . . .

I can chill here, get a nice apartment overlooking the water and the mountains and then just do a season.

I think my season would be a summer 'cos I'm not much of a snowboarder, but I love seeing girls in bikinis. I think I could definitely see myself living here.

Without a doubt.

QT: Finally, if you could do anything else, what would you be doing?

Marty: Out of respect for my dad, I wouldn't mind seeing what he did for a living.

Or experiencing it. Raising six kids as a union man operating a crane.

Just to get the ultimate respect for what he did for our family. A job that he didn't like put us all through college and had a great life on a really small income.

So I'd really like to get to experience it . . . he gave his life for his kids.