MY DINNER WITH BOB LARSON

Interview with Boyd Rice by Brother Randall

originally published in the print version of Snake Oil #2, 1994

BOB LARSON should be a familiar name to anyone reading Snake Oil. His high-pitched tirades against rock music and, indeed, all aspects of popular culture can be heard for two hours a day on Christian radio stations across the country. From Beavis and Butthead to Howard Stern to the latest death metal band, you haven't arrived until Bob does a show about you. Bob sees the influence of Satan everywhere and is big into worldwide Satanic conspiracies, generational Satanism, ritual abuse, and demon possession. A good episode of Talk Back With Bob Larson is scarier and more lurid than The Exorcist. The term "Christian Pornography" has been aptly applied to Bob, but like all good Exploitation peddlers, he justifies his sensationalism with moral outrage.

BOYD: Yeah.

SO: OK, well how many times have you been a guest on Talk Back?

BOYD: Three.

SO: How did you first connect with Bob?

BOYD: Um...I'd listened to him for a number of years before I actually moved to Denver, and then when I came to Denver I did this kind of music/performance installation someplace, and somebody turned up who everybody was sure was Bob Larson, but he claimed he wasn't Bob Larson. He claimed he was a sociologist or a social anthropologist or something, who kept asking all these weird questions with a kind of Christian slant to them. I didn't see this guy, but everybody swears that it was Bob Larson. I eventually got linked up with him...this CD had come out that had a song by me, and it had a song that another group had done where they had sampled Bob's vocals, and I thought he'd be interested in hearing that. So I sent him a copy of this CD, and shortly thereafter they got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to come be a guest on the program.

SO: What's the name of the CD?

BOYD: It was called Sacred War. It was a compilation of different bands.

SO: Does it bother you that Bob kind of uses you to scare people into sending him money?

BOYD:No, uh uh. I think it's a reciprocal thing.

SO: What's in it for you?

BOYD: Well it's like free advertising for me. Say I have a new record out, I go on Bob Larson's Show, and it plugs that. People who might not have known about me will know about me, and people who did know about me will know a little bit more, because alot of times the stuff people hear is pretty exaggerated and cartoonish. When they can just listen to me talk over a period of a couple of hours, it's better.

SO: Do you think that if a Christian who was, perhaps, wavering in their faith, heard you talking on his show that it might change them around to your way of thinking?

BOYD: Uh, no. And I don't even know if I'd want to. I mean, I think Christianity is sort of a slave creed that is out in the world to fulfill a really specific function. I think that certain people need that creed, it keeps them in line and gives their life some sort of direction or order, and if they didn't have it they'd put all that energy into something else equally misguided or unfocused. So I'm not necessarily going on Bob's show to change anybody's mind or to show them that I'm correct and he's wrong.

SO: In a weird way it seems to me that you and Bob have a mutual respect for each other.

BOYD: Um...Yeah, I can appreciate Bob on a whole lot of different levels. I mean, I don't know if Bob has respect for me...except that, the first time he had me on I think he was really a bit taken aback because he's not used to having to debate people on their own terms, and it kinda threw him off the first time. But I think the other times I was on he realized that he couldn't debate me on my own terms, and he'd keep going back to the stuff about me being cast into a lake of fire. He just used completely different tactics which had absolutely nothing to do with anything I was saying. But, I mean, I respect him. I can respect anybody that has a certain level of competence. He's good at what he does, and there aren't alot of people in the world you can say that about anymore, whether you agree with him or not. He's always entertaining -- at least if you tune in [only] once every couple of months..

Whatever anybody says about him, he's definitely earning that money. Can you imagine going on the air for two hours a day and yelling at the top of your lungs and getting your adrenalin up that much? That's probably gonna cut fifteen or twenty years off his life. Even if it's fake, even if it's manufactured rage ... that's alot of stress he's under for a couple of hours every day, and I think that's gonna send him to an early grave.

SO: Well, it's effective ... some of the best radio I've ever heard was the time he had you and your friend on defending Charles Manson, and then he puts on Sharon Tate's mom! Did you know that was coming?

BOYD: No. When we went into the studio they said there was going to be a fourth guest today, and instantly we thought oh, that'd be great if it's Sharon Tate's mom! Then right before we were supposed to go on the air they sprung it on us like it was gonna be some big surprise or it was gonna shock us or make us draw back on what we were saying.

SO: If anything you went on the offensive!

BOYD: Yeah, I'm just so sick of seeing people like that who get an identity of

of victimization, just parade around that victimization for years after years after years. So I was glad to...I mean every time there's something on TV about Charlie Manson they'd have her on too, talking about her daughter and her daughter's unborn baby, so it made me feel good to finally have a chance to say something to her.

SO: Anything else particularly memorable about that show?

BOYD: Actually I thought that show didn't come out very good because they just had too many guests on. It got to the point where whenever somebody started saying something intelligent, he would just switch to the next guest.

SO: Well, that was still a lively bit of radio. To change the subject a bit, isn't it true that you had Bob Larson over to your house for dinner?? How did that all transpire?

BOYD: Well, one of the times I was on his show he kept characterizing me as this evil person and bringing up Hitler and stuff and I said, "well, if you'd come to my house and visit, you'd see that there's Hitler stuff on the wall, but there's also autographed records by Tiny Tim --it's a whole wide spectrum of stuff, and you keep focusing in on one angle." And he said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa -- did you just invite me over to your house? Because if that was an invitation, I'll come." So he just basically invited himself over for dinner.

And we said, yeah, that's fine. So, um, we made some spaghetti, and he brought a couple of pies from Marie Calander's, and he came with an entourage of people...

SO: Were they to protect him do you think?

Boyd: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think he was a little bit frightened, because there are alot of these people...not everybody takes him on the same level as I do. Most people who think that they agree with me hate Bob and see Bob as being their enemy somehow. I don't perceive him that way at all.

SO:What'd y'all talk about over dinner?

BOYD: He talked about alot of the same things he does on the air, just these weird moral absolutes and different stories illustrating what I would do in any given situation, whether I would step in front of a gunman's bullet to save his life if he were threatened on the way out of my house. I just said, "Bob, I've got guns in here. If somebody's threatening you on the way out of my house, just yell for me, and I'll come out and I'll shoot Ôem. I'm not crazy enough to give up my life for you, that'd be a big mistake. But I would protect you."

Ironically, his life was saved that night. Because he came over with, um, what's the guy's name? The son of the guy who publishes Penthouse

SO: Guccionne?

BOYD: Yeah, Bob Guccionne, Jr. came over to dinner as well. I've got these shelves of all this weird stuff in my kitchen, and there's a gun on one of them. And just before they came over I took the bullets out of the gun, just in case. And as they were leaving, Bob Guccionne, Jr. picked up the gun, pointed it into Larson's stomach and pulled the trigger. If I had not taken those bullets out an hour before, Bob Larson would have been dead in my kitchen.

SO:What an idiot! Why did he do that?

BOYD: That's what I asked. Why would anybody pick up a gun, point it at somebody else...I mean you don't even point a gun at somebody unless you intend to kill them, let alone point it at a friend of yours and pull the trigger.

SO:What'd he have to say for himself?

BOYD:He said, "Oh, I thought it was a cigarette lighter."

SO:Was Bob shaken up?

BOYD:No, no, it didn't seem to bother him. I don't think it really sunk into him, the gravity of the situation. So, in fact, I actually have saved Bob Larson's life! So he owes me one!

SO: I guess he and Guccionne are buddies?

BOYD: Yeah, they kinda have that old friendly rivalry thing going, that old friendly antagonism. Bob is kinda impressed that he knows the son of this famous pornographer. He even said during dinner, "Imagine, I'm having dinner with the son of a famous pornographer and one of the world's most famous Satanists! What other Christian would be in this position?"

SO: It sounds like to me that he must believe the stuff he espouses on the air, but at the same time he's this tremendous egomaniac who thinks he's above other Christians.

BOYD: I wouldn't say that. It's hard to determine with Bob where his belief system stops and where his sense of showmanship takes off, because there's obviously certain things he does that he knows are just done for effect. And there's certain things he does on the show that he knows aren't strictly true, but he feels he's doing those to serve some higher purpose or something.

SO: Like the bogus on-the-air exorcisms he always has around Halloween.

BOYD: I think his rationale there is, even if this man is not possessed by demons, his soul has been overtaken by something which is bad and evil, and I'm helping this young man heal, even if he's playing a joke on me, just the fact that he would go this far shows that he's still a "seriously hurting individual."

SO: So would you say that Bob is a particularly compassionate individual? He certainly likes to throw that word around.

BOYD: [Laughing] I don't know. I thought, oh, when he comes over to my house I'll see the real Bob off the air, and I'll have more of a feel for precisely what's going on. But after spending a whole evening with him I was no closer to understanding what his motivations were -- whether he was just a huckster or whether he really believes it. I wonder if he knows, himself. It seems so nebulous and ill-defined that I wonder if he, in his moments alone, thinks these things out and knows precisely what he's doing, if he's that cold-blooded about it. I mean, he's been doing it forever. Have you seen any of his old record albums?

SO: Yeah, I have one, the one where there's a song on it about his being on the same plane with the Jeff Beck rock group.

BOYD: Yeah, I have that one, and I have one called, I think, "Bob Larson Speaks Out" He's real young, and he plays an electric guitar in front of an auditorium of kids, like a fuzzed out version of "Inna Godda Da Vida," and the kids just go crazy. Then he'll explain why it's the devil's music.

SO: I read somewhere that he had a pre-Christian rock band when he was a teenager in Nebraska called The Rebels.

BOYD: Really?

SO: Yeah. Have you read either of his two novels?

BOYD: Oh! in his new one, Abaddon, in the description of the headquarters of these people that are trying to take over the world, is a description of my house!

SO: Really? You must be proud!

BOYD: It's where he enters this place and it says, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter," and he describes it, and it's basically him describing where I live.

SO: I guess that's what makes him good at what he does -- he goes the extra mile and actually gets some first-hand experience.

BOYD: He really does. My roommate goes to these death metal concerts -- I can't stand the stuff -- but he was at one of these concerts here, and he sees these really weird people standing up in the back. And when the lights come on and it's time to leave, it was Bob Larson and his little entourage -- these gals that look like you'd see at the mall or something, all done up.

SO: Well to kinda wrap things up, I want to run my theory about Bob by you: he seems so egotistical and power-hungry, I think perhaps he's a repressed Satanist himself, and that's why he's so fixated by Satanism.

BOYD: [Laughing] Yeah, if it weren't so much work, somebody like me could write some Christian tell-all book about the horrors of my life inside the Church of Satan, and I could go on the lecture circuit and probably make a million bucks in no time flat!

A transcribed highlight from Talk Back:

Bob Larson: Don't sit there with that stupid grin on your face. This, this woman's daughter was sliced to pieces by your hero Charlie Manson, by the people he sent in there to kill them.

Boyd Rice: That's not true what you just said, and that's not my world, that's not my reality. That's her reality.

Doris Tate: Reality is reality, and the reality of this is that my daughter was 81/2 months pregnant, strung up by the neck after being stabbed 16 times. Is that formulated enough for you?

Boyd Rice: The reality of it is, Doris, that this has given you an identity for the past twenty years or so. This is probably the best thing that ever happened to you because you get to go on...

Bob Larson: No, no, no, no! Wait a minute. How dare you say that this is the best thing that ever happened to her. The idiotic insensitivity...

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