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FROM HIGH TIMES - 8/27/95

"It's a Stone Groove Thang" by Steve Bloom

I'm smoking weed out of an ordinary toilet plunger with Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Weapon of Choice's Lonnie Marshall, the inventor of this rather unusual piece of paraphernalia. You push your face into the rubber suction cup and inhale deeply. Smoke spills out of the edges and soon you're doubled over, hacking to high heaven. Marshall calls it the "Nutmeg Potty Plunger." He smiles mischievously as he "takes the plunge."

What's brought us together today is Gossard's own record label, Loose Groove. With all the success he's had as the cofounder and rhythm guitarist of America's favorite rock band, Gossard has decided to play record-company exec. So far, Loose Groove has fielded a diverse lineup, leading off with Weapon of Choice, perhaps the most diligent P-Funk style outfit to come along since, well, George Clinton. Critters Buggin' offer fusion-jazz a la Weather Report. Prose & Concepts kick multi-culti hip-hop. Devilhead come right out of rock's stereotypical garage.

Gossard first began flexing his considerable muscle in 1993 with the side-project, Brad. This group included drummer Regan Hagar, who a decade
earlier started Malfunkshun with the Wood brothers, Andrew and Kevin. Andrew Wood went on to form Green River with Gossard and Jeff Ament. By 1989, Green River had evolved into Mother Love Bone. Wood's heroin death in March of 1990 inadvertently opened the door for Pearl Jam, originally called Mookie Blaylock after the pro basketball player of the same name. Gossard, a Seattle native, and the Montana-born Ament recruited guitarist Mike McCready, drummer Dave Kruzen and eventually a San Diego beach bum named Eddie Vedder. The rest, as Michael Jackson would say, is history.

Clearly, Pearl Jam, who have sold 18 million albums since the release of Ten in 1991, can't satisfy all of Gossard's creative impulses. The band's heavy rock sound and serious lyrical content leave little room for funk jamming and comic interplay. Brad's slow grooves and falsetto vocals (by Shawn Smith) have more in common with Prince than Pearl Jam.

"I definitely love funk music," he says. "I love stuff that makes me dance. I totally love Prince. I'm amazed by him."

"Prince is all the way nutmeg," chimes in Marshall, who goes by the handle Meganut.

Marshall is full of funny answers. When asked how he met Gossard, he deadpans, "The Psychic Friends Network. All props to Dionne Warwick."

Gossard actually ran into Marshall and his guitar-playing brother Arik on the 1992 Lollapalooza tour when the latter was with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At first, the LA-born brothers had their own group, Marshall Law, then Arik left to join the Peppers and Lonnie organized Weapon of Choice.

Marshall's allegiance to all things P-Funky led him to the conclusion that Weapon of Choice would play "nutmeg music," which is "just music where
whoever wants to be whatever they want to be can be that."

WOC's 1994 debut, "Nutmeg Sez 'Bozo the Town,'" is a pure funk free-for-all, featuring such tracks as "Cat-a-Chronic," "Inhale the Earth" and "Hi." Like Fishbone, who they share studio space with, WOC can rock out, but greasy grooves are more their style. On stage, it's nuttin' but a potty, with costumes, outrageous hats and a fancy dancer named Jellybean tantalizing the crowd with her flirtatious flow.

The band's newest prop is the Potty Plunger, speckle painted with a bowl drilled into the wooden handle. "I had the notion that it was time to unstop the potty," Marshall says. "It just came to me. I bought the prototype in Chicago. I knew there was a way you could smoke out of it. Some friends of mine in the crew drilled a few holes and, lo and behold, the Nutmeg Potty Plunger was born."

As the Plunger makes another round, it's time to get serious. Gossard's friend, Brad mate and Loose Groove partner, Regan Hager, may do time for a cannabis-cultivation bust. <Regan Hager was arrested for growing marijuana in his home.> When I met Gossard a couple of years ago, he showed quite a bit of interest in the legalization cause. Now he's right in the middle of Hagar's court battle. "We're trying to keep him out of jail however we can," he says. "It's a heavy-duty thing." Gossard has been politicized by this experience and wants to talk about it to HIGH TIMES.

HT: How has Regan's case affected your thinking about the marijuana issue?
SG: It's forced me to be involved in it. When it comes to somebody you know and love, and somebody's trying to put him away for something you don't know whether it realistically or logically makes sense as a law, then it's time to say something. I think there's a lot of support for changes in the marijuana laws. By going through the system and supporting people you love who decide marijuana is part of their lives, that's a great way of approaching it. It's real. It's significant in more ways than just saying we should legalize the drug. It really is a choice issue more than anything in my mind. It's a fundamental issue. I'm looking forward to a time when people that don't smoke it are aware that it's not this negative, evil thing.

HT: Are you a moderate smoker? Or do you wake 'n bake?
SG: I'm a moderate smoker. I've certainly smoked it every day for certain periods in my life. Once a day. Wake up and play music for a couple hours. I've abused it at times. But in general I'd say I enjoy it in moderation. That's a totally different state of mind and a different way to accomplish things and a different way to live your life.

HT: How do you deal with the harder drug issues?
SG: People are always going to be attracted to that world. Some people will find out that they don't like it and get out of it. Some people will decide that it's a path they're going to take. I don't think whether those drugs are legal or not is really going to have a profound effect on the percentage of people that decide to do it. And therefore the law seems less functional, like in some ways it's creating more of a bureaucracy. It's costing a bunch of money to put these people in jail. But as Amsterdam proves, it's difficult to be a legalized drug society because by the very nature of becoming legal you attract a lot of drug users. Things are fine in Amsterdam, but there is a big attraction to a lot of people coming to Amsterdam just to do drugs. That can be a negative thing too when it's an isolated place like that.

HT: Having gone to Washington for the Ticketmaster hearings and seeing how things operate through that process, what approach do you recommend to marijuana advocates?
SG: Lobby tobacco companies. The tobacco companies are going to be in the same position as marijuana at some point. They might be allies before you know it.

HT: Allies come from where you least expect it sometimes. Such as the conservative support for legalization.
SG: Lobby your Republican governors and legislators as much as you lobby your liberal ones. Republicans can turn that into a huge political victory if somehow they were able to distinguish between drugs that are really bad and serve no spiritual purpose as opposed to marijuana, which is much more of a freedom-of-religion topic. People organize and gather to say we want marijuana legalized. It would be very difficult to get a heroin user's
convention or a cocaine user's gathering. Anyone who's able to garner support in that way distinguishes their cause as one that's legitimate or at
least worthy of further investigation.

HT: Are you optimistic about seeing a change?
SG: I'm optimistic. You can smoke marijuana today and run a relatively low risk of suffering any major consequences. If you grow your own plants and aren't trying to make money off marijuana, you're pretty safe - especially in Washington state. That sort of approach is what's really going to influence the nation over a long period of time. It's not "I want to be able to sell." That's where you always get into trouble with the government. When it's about money, then it becomes big business. It's going to be tough to win a fight like that.

HT: Why does your state and city have such a fertile marijuana scene? I always hear about the strain that came out of the university.
SG: Folklore. It's good folklore. Urban myth?

HT: You're used to kind bud?
SG: There's certainly good pot in Seattle.

HT: What else in Pearl Jam's agenda as far as important issues?
SG: Well, you never know. We're about going out and playing music at this point.

HT: Could we ever persuade you guys to do a marijuana benefit?
SG: Oh, I don't know. I'm not the whole band.

HT: Do you think the band might want to at some point?
SG: Uh, you never know. You never know.

HT: Are side projects healthy?
SG: Absolutely. It's a beautiful thing. When you have a band you care about, that you feel like you can be true to and that cares about you enough to allow you to go out and do other things and not have it be a problem, that's a pretty high-powered situation. You know when you come back to the band you're going to be twice as ready to be excited about it. You're going to have new influences and new flavors. It's all good.

HT: Mike McCready has his own side project, Mad Season. Before that he went into rehab. How's he doing?
SG: He's doing great. He looks and feels better than I think he has in his whole life.

HT: Is he totally sober?
SG: Yeah, he doesn't do any drugs right now.

HT: He's not smoking?
SG: Not everybody in the band smokes pot.

HT: Who doesn't smoke?
SG: (As he walks into the bathroom) Ha ha ha ha.