The Spin Doctors, a New York-based funk-rock band, came to the Black Rose Wednesday, February 12. The group is currently on tour (as it always is) in support of its most recent album, Pocketful of Kryptonite.

After the band's hour-and-a-half performance, lead singer/songwriter Chris Barron, mystic/poet/disgruntled ex-suburbanite/pothead, spoke with 15 MINUTES.

15 MINUTES: What did you think about the Harvard crowd tonight? What were you expecting?

CB: Pretty much what we get. Usually we get a cross section of everything; I'm kind of proud that we get a pretty diverse following. I really think we really have something for everyone. All different types of music. We don't have really one style. We try to be diverse and cover a broad range of dimensions.

15 MINUTES: Is Harvard different from other colleges?

CB: You can sort of measure it by sort of different facets of the crowd--rowdiness, drunkeness, receptiveness to certain phenomena. Just to give you an example, this audience was really receptive to the rap. When I spoke to them, they were really receptive to the words. Some places you go to, they just want a groove. These kids were really listening. They're used to being talked to.

15 MINUTES: Why do you attract such a large following of deadhead kids?

CB: These days kids dress like deadheads wherever you go. Walk into an A&P, walk into a 7 eleven--wherever you go, kids dress like deadheads. What do you know?...They're by no means a focus for this band. Our bass player hates The Dead. For me I'm more into things I read and stuff I listen to.

15 MINUTES: What's with the languages you speak?

CB: MOW B'Jow. It is an attempt at a translation of the sentiment of angels.

15 MINUTES: Is it in any particular tongue?

CB: In MOW B'Jow. Somewhere between a language of thought and speech, thought translated into speech.

15 MINUTES: What's the mystical angle of the music?

CB: This world is full of misplaced mysticism. If you have a problem with your car, that is the mystical car--where really the properties and possibilities of the car are the mystical thing. what's the question? A music concert is a place...it's an open format its like a play with the script being made up at the same time. There is also theatre. Theatre is from when people though a bear was going to come and eat them there are certain parts of the tribe that ventured forth from the cave to slay the bear. When they succeeded in doing this, they returned to the cave and told the rest of the people--that stayed at home and couldn't watch--how they did it. At that period of time and still on a subconscious level, all things were endowed with spirit, with a mystical essence. They'll never explain everything there'll always be a fring of human thought wavering in a breeze of unsurity. And that's where we are. It's imagination we're trying to entice people like pied pipers to the edge of their souls.

15 MINUTES: What about Blues Traveller?