A staple diet

In Harmony Korine’s 1997 movie Gummo – an exhilaratingly ragged, non-conformist collage of scenes putatively filmed in a Southern US town decimated by a tornado – there is a scene in which a group of white-trash hicks (discounting the black dwarf), all hopelessly drunk, take turns wrestling a chair on the kitchen floor of an anonymous, dilapidated house.

Fast forward five years, and Korine’s under-seen arthouse gem would appear to have been an unlikely template for one of the biggest youth culture phenomena in recent years. The irony is that at least one of the main players in the quintessential lowbrow, white trash humour-fest of Jackass hails from an archetypal middle-class background. Steve-O, a man who these days makes a living through such stunts as stapling his penis to his scrotum, is the offspring of a successful businessman whose work took him and his hyperactive child all over the globe.

However, this is an aspect of his life Steve-O isn’t particularly willing to discuss (the relevant enquiry having been unceremoniously deleted from the list of questions I’d sent to him via email). Subjects he is happy to talk about include teenage encounters with Motley Crue, horrifying Danni Minogue and literally swimming with sharks.

Hot Press: Have you been surprised at the global phenomenon Jackass has become?

Steve-O: I never doubted that the stuff we do would be popular with the public, I was just surprised that it was ever allowed on television in the first place.

Hot Press: The Jackass movie premiered in Ireland recently. Did you get up to much mischief while you were here?

Steve-O: I was in Ireland a few days before the premiere for a tour date at Vicar St. We behaved very badly, most of our crew got themselves thrown out of the venue before we even got on stage, we were lucky to get everyone back in to do the show. It was nuts, Ireland was cool.

Hot Press: When you appeared on Born Sloppy in the UK a couple of months back, you stapled various feminine under-garments to your torso in front of a clearly mortified Danni Minogue. Did she keep a discreet distance between the two of you in the green-room afterwards?

Steve-O: Danni wasn’t exactly trying to have sex with me, at least she did a good job of concealing her urges if she had them.

Hot Press: Johnny Knoxville has said the movie will be the last we will see of Jackass.

Steve-O: I suppose that work we do in the future will go by a different name. Just because Jackass is over, it doesn’t mean that our stupidity will come to an end.

Hot Press: I’ve read that when you were a teenager, you tracked down Motley Crue and hung out with them. That must have been an interesting experience for an impressionable young man!

Steve-O: I was thirteen and when Motley Crue came to my town, I called every single hotel in the Yellow Pages asking to be put through to a room under the name of the band’s manager. I called hotels for three hours before I got through, but I got through and was able to talk to the manager’s brother. He agreed to put me on a list for backstage passes. Everyone was cool to me and the experience was very empowering.

Hot Press: When you were 23, you were accepted into Barnum & Bailey Clown College. Was that a good experience?

Steve-O: I just wanted the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey name on my resume to bring legitimacy to all of my reckless and idiotic home video footage. It worked, the experience was excellent.

Hot Press: I have to ask about certain Jackass stunts and what they were like to go through – the all-over body-wax, including the eyebrows. Was it as excruciatingly painful as it looked?

Steve-O: The bodywaxing didn’t hurt my body nearly as much as having no eyebrows for over a month hurt my feelings.

Hot Press: You also strapped yourself with bloody barracudas and went swimming with hammerhead sharks.

Steve-O: That was probably the dumbest thing I ever did for Jackass. At the time I was just thinking, "How the hell can the lawyers be letting me do this?"

Hot Press: One of the producers on Jackass is Being John Malkovich/Adaptation director Spike Jonze. How important was he to the overall set-up of the show?

Steve-O: The only reason our filthy show ever became a reality was because Spike Jonze picked up the phone one time.

Hot Press: What are you working on at the moment?

Steve-O: I have a gruelling tour schedule in the States starting in two days. I’ve got a deal with Playboy TV, here in the States, that involves me producing a segment for each of 13 episodes. I’m currently working on my third DVD release (PCP Saved My Life) and, once the lawyers hash out a deal, there are plans to start filming my own television series with Chris Pontius.

Hot Press: What’s your overall ambition?

Steve-O: Life isn’t just about having a lot of fun and being ridiculously cool, life is about making people giggle. I make people giggle for a living, hopefully I’ll still be making people giggle for generations after I die.