STAY TUNED: The Premiere of PASSIONS JUST LIKE MINE, A Morrissey Fan Culture Documentary by Kerri Koch
Another awesome film to check out soon!
Yesterday, we chatted with crazy pop culture inversion filmmaker Jimmy Joe Roche. Today, for your reading and viewing pleasure, an interview with Kerri Koch…a recent Philadelphian, and creator of PASSIONS JUST LIKE MINE, a brand new documentary about Steven Patrick Morrissey, lead singer of epic UK rockers, The Smiths. This is NOT a typical rock star bio film. This film is a testament to Morrissey’s youth community of intense fanatics focused in Southern California. To these young teens, Morrissey is more than just a man or musician. To them, he represents a lifestyle and a state of mind.
I delved further into the making of the film and the lovely Urban Cowgirl who produced it…
Robin McDowell: Who are you and where do you come from? (Thanks, Ben!)
My name is Kerri Koch, and I’m originally from Jersey City, NJ. I spent 4 years in California, and now I live in Philadelphia.
RM: About the new film: Would you say that you, too, are a Morrissey “fanatic”?
KK: I have been since I was about 12, and still am. What was so interesting to me about the project is that I’ve never really met people who were as fanatical as me about him. I had friends who liked him, but grew out of it. They never shared the same kind of craziness. Like those girls in old live Beatles videos, that’s how I was feeling.
RM: Crying and writhing on the floor and such?
KK: Totally. So when i moved to LA and I met these kids who were just as crazy fanatical as me, but looked different that me and came from different backgrounds than me, AND were a lot younger than me, I was totally fascinated. I was like,” WOW – and you understand me?!”
RM: Were you and the kids in LA Morissey fans for the same reasons?
KK: Yes. It was just him in general, his lifestyle, what he stands for in his music and his life.
For most fanatics, it goes way beyong the music, it’s HIM – everything that he does, everything that he likes. It just goes beyong the music.
RM: What was the craziest fan behavior or ritual you observed while shooting?
KK: There have been some tribute bands that popped up. And in LA , this one band in particular, The Sweet and Tender Hooligans, became their own celebrities because they were mimicking him and his look and his songs. People get just as fanatical about them as everyone else does about Morrissey.
If you go to a Morrissey show, there are people trying to get up on stage, trying to touch him…but that would happen at tribute band shows. Jose, the singer of Sweet and Tender Hooligans, who is in my film, is an amazing guy who is totally true to what he’s doing. That was the most amazing fan behavior to me. That it could go one step beyond Morissey himself, and people were just as fanatical. It’s about sharing that moment together, and it became a whole different thing beyond the music..
RM: Some of the kids featured in your film cite Morissey as the reason for rising above poverty and drugs in their communities. While filming in these locations, did you ever find yourself in dangerous situations?
KK: Another tribute band from South Central LA lives in this really shady area and have to climb a fence to go to where they practice, but when I went to people’s neighborhoods and interviewed them, but there was never any immediate danger.
Morissey was an alternative to dangerous roads they could have easily went down. Even though the kids talked about being ostracized as a negative thing when they changed their style and separated themselves from everyone else in their neighborhood, that was the common bond that brought us together. We never seemed different when we started talking.
RM: What is attractive to you about the documentary genre?
KK: There are so many real life stories out there. Everyone has a really interesting story to tell. To give someone that opportunity is really exciting. If you’re feeling that same way, you’re like, “Oh hey! Me too! I can understand you!” That’s the kind of immediate connection that people can get to real life stories.
RM: Tell me about your upcoming trip to Dallas to promote?
KK: Passions Just Like Mine will premiere in conjunction with The Dallas Museum of Art. The evening will consist of a screening and Q & A session. What will be shown is a work in progress, because I had to submit the film prior to it officially being done. It’s the first time that anyone besides my really good friends are going to see it. Kind of scary!
RM: And one last question…How do you like your eggs?
KK: I don’t eat eggs. Tofu scramble, I eat that. So that would be how I take my “eggs”.
Now check out the trailer for Passions Just Like Mine, and get excited!
