Columbia SC PhotographerSoda Citizen show - Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford - Alex Strickland

Sean: Do you believe in aliens?
Alex: No. I want to, but I just don't.

Do you believe that they don't exist or just haven't visited us?
If there is alien life, it's going to be super insignificant. It'll be like, "we found some cell," you know what I mean? We expect green googly eyes... but...

...You don't expect it to be advanced?
I don't know man. I'm scared of space. Space is fucking frightening to me. Space and the bottom of the ocean, it's essentially the same thing to me except one is way closer. I feel like once we go down there, or up there, and explore all we can explore, we're going to find something we're not going to like. Like Space AIDS.

More humans.
Exactly, it's just a whole planet of people from Jersey.

Of the things we already know about in the ocean, what would you least want to encounter?
Giant squid, fucking terrifying.

Bathe show at tapps may 2016 06666Bathe show at Tapps - Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford

If you could bring back one extinct animal, which one would it be?
I would love to live in a world where raptors exist. It sounds terrifying and I bet it would be.

But you wouldn't be at the bottom of the ocean.
Space raptors...?

I want raptors to be a thing. I feel like there would be stupid people that would go wander into the fields like in Jurassic Park. And in a bunch of tall grass the raptors are going to be hanging out and it's just to be advanced Darwinism. They'll take out all the stupid people.

How would you protect yourself from the raptors?
I would like to think I’d never go where they’d go and avoid tall grass and wherever they might congregate, but if I happened upon one all of sudden, I would try and kick it in the knee cap and run like hell. Or learn gymnastics. See Jurassic Park 2: Lost World.

If you could live in one movie, what movie would it be?
My initial instinct is 'Apocalypse Now' because it's my favorite movie. But, I also don't really feel like I'd really cut it in Vietnam. I don't know, that Camdodian village with the colonel's weird cult worshiping him. And there's heads everywhere. That would be dope. Colonel Kurtz' weird, in the middle of nowhere Vietnam, fucking cult village. I would like to live there.

Alex Strickland performs vocals in Columbia's Abacus and Bathe, books metal shows and and is the new head chef at Hunter Gatherer on Main. Abacus plays a free show with Bask, Vacation State and Galaxy Chief on Feb. 17 at New Brookland Tavern in West Columbia.

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