JMewesBusDriver: Usual first questions, what’s your real name, location, etc.?
Steboost: Stephen Eardley. I'm 33 on a good day and I hail from sunny Buxton Derbyshire in England. With my two year old daughter Autumn and missus Pippa who's working on baby number two due in April.
JMBD: You’re the first overseas S-File and seeing as how I hope to visit the UK one day (it’s where my roots are) tell me a bit more about where you live...what life is like there. Things you find the most endearing about your town.
Steboost: Well it's about an hour from manchester in the peak distirct so it gets quite a lot of tourists. It's all rolling hills and dales so as I've said in a tweet or 2 it's easy just to say Hobbiton. Buxton is probably most famous for its water and for God knows what reason a massive Gilbert and Sullivan festival. It's all very "twee" except the bit I live in that's a bit tatty. Great roads for sports bikes. People come from all over the country to ride the cat and fiddle road. Quickest way to see what it's like is to watch Dead Man Shoes with Paddy Considine for the look and people...not so much the killing (and because its FUCKING STUNNING) it's filmed just down the road in Matlock bath.
JMBD: So, if I were to visit the UK what would you tell me are five things I could NOT miss visiting?
Steboost: I guess the obvious kind of answers would be Edinboro castle, the lake district, Stratford-upon-Avaon, oxford Rd London, and Cornwall. For something alternative I'd say Afflecks palace in Manchester: 4 floors of small stall/shops of alternative punk/metal stuff in an old georgian building its just unique. Matlock bath on a summer sunday if your into bikes.Its wall to wall bikes from one end to the other and no one knows why. Newcastle-upon-tyne is the best place in England for a night out as long as you avoid the Bigg market in the early hours.
JMBD: What do you do for a living?
Steboost: General grunt sums up most jobs I've had. Worked for a bricklaying company, been a binman but for now I try not to slip into a coma in an electonics factory. You know the bit on your Mp3/ipod you plug your headphones into? We make them by tens of thousand and lucky old me gets to visual every one. So I stare through a glass watching them wizz by for 6-8 hours a day which is nice*
(*Nice may not actually be nice but is used as an example of "really shitty" for display purposes)
JMBD: I read in your profile that you are an avid gamer. What’s one of the earliest games you recall as sparking your interest in video games. Me, I go as far back as Asteroids watching my dad play it as a kid.
Steboost: Our local swimming pool had a Donkey Kong and a Space Invaders machine in about 1982 that I always had to go on. I needed a chair to reach the cabinet so I'd be 4 or 5.
JMBD: What’s the first game you remember beating? Tell me how that felt.
Steboost: Probably something on the Sega Master system. Out Run or After Burner perhaps. The best game I finished was Mad Dog Mcree in the arcade with the gun and the bad video (think uncle Jesse from Dukes of Hazzard was in it). My finger nearly dropped off from firing so much but it was fun. I had a Spectrum ZX 48+ but most old games never ended they just got faster and harder.
JMBD: What are some more recent games you could recommend and why?
Steboost: Ok well I'll avoid the Big shooters like Battlefield and Modern Warfare. Portal 1 and 2, they are puzzle games done in first person (so you just see your gun) but the gun fires two ends of a wormhole so you walk in one and instantly out the other while being menaced by GlaDos (the computer in charge of the facility) and one of the funniest and most menacing characters in any game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TluRVBhmf8w
Limbo is a black and white platform puzzler set in err.. well limbo it is absolutly stunning.
And also World of Goo which is best described as Lemmings meets Meccano (think it was Erector set in the US).
JMBD: Okay, back to the UK for a second. This is something that has always entriged me. Why do you folk drive on the opposite side of the car (note, I didn’t say WRONG side) then in America. I mean, didn’t Ford role out the first cars and, thus, would have placed the steering wheel where it is here. Is there some reason why UK changed that up?
Steboost: Without Googling I'll take a stab at it going back to Roman times when carts would pass on the left to keep the sword arm to any potential attacker or salute a comrade and we just stuck with it. Now to google to see how wrong I am. He he.
JMBD: How did you discover Kevin’s work?
Steboost: A friend came round with Mallrats and Clerks on VHS. I think Chasing Amy was out too but not here yet. As for Smodcast, it was while in my current job having listened to music mostly metal (Motorhead, Iron Maiden, ect.), and a tonne of audio books (Harry Potters, Terry Pratchet, Niel Gaiman, Assimov) I spotted it on his Facebook page about a year ago. I think Babble-on was at episode 10'ish. Now most of my workday is Smodcast but also Nerdist and Joe Rogan too.
JMBD: Judging from recent packed houses for UK tour dates, Kevin has a big following over there. Would you say that is correct? What's his appeal in the UK?
Steboost: I'd say its because he's kind of the Thinking Man's stoner dick joke guy. Also his writing is quite dry and sarcastic and his charactars aren't the overconfident Joey from Friends type. They tend to be more Hugh Grant'ish. If you think about it Clerks is kind of Notting Hill with necrophilia and hermaphrodidic porn.
JMBD: What’s your favourite SIR show?
Steboost: I'm really enjoying the new Smorning Show now. Four hours every day was just too much to keep it fresh and the mix of Kev, Jay, Jen and Ming, Mike and Bry helps too. The only thing is the time difference (Smorning show starts about 5PM here). I`ll download Mondays show and start my Tuesday with it so I'm generally tweeting 18 hours late. Also Hollywood Babble-on. Ralph is on fire ATM.
JMBD: You’ve been very supportive of SIR judging from your tweets and such. What keeps you coming back?
Steboost: It's consistently entertaning and honest I've laughed like a loony more times that I can remember and even blubbed like a whiny bitch with a skinned knee a couple of times. That Kelly Carlin story about the tissue got me big time.
JMBD: If you were to have a show on SIR what would it be about?
Steboost: It'd have to be games as it's the thing I can talk endlessly about but probably not eloquently enough to inspire an interest. That's something Kev can do very well. I dont care about hockey but he talkes about it with a passion you can't help but enjoy even if the subject isn't of much interest to you.
JMBD: So, you and Jason Mewes are stuck in an elevator for 7 hours. Explain what you think would happen over the course of that time.
Steboost: Well first off I hope neither of us has to take a dump. After that who knows? He's supposed to be just the same of mic/camera so he`d probably want to see my uncut european nob then it`d get real experimental. Ok we'd probably just shoot the shit about games and he'd smoke all his fags in about an hour.
JMBD: Finally, what Kevin Smith character best describes you and why?
Steboost: Haha. People I work with would definatly say Willam from Mallrats but best fit for me would be a mix of Bry and Walt from TESD.
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