Alex Estrada of Silver Snakes just needs a big plate of spaghetti

Touring vegan Alex Estrada, of Los Angeles post-hardcore band Silver Snakes, doesn’t want any fancy vegan gourmet meal for his final one on this mortal coil. Instead, for his Death Row Dinner, Estrada would opt for a big ol’ bowl of spaghetti (hold the meatballs).

If you had to choose one final meal, what would it be?
It would definitely be a very, very large bowl of spaghetti. That is, hands down, my favourite food in the world.

Any particular sauce?
It would have to be homemade; I’d have to make it myself. I wouldn’t trust anybody else to make my last meal [laughs].

So you’d bust out the pasta maker and just get going on it?
No, I’m pretty sure I’d keep it simple. Just basic tomato sauce. A bunch of vegetables. A lot of mushrooms! And then I like to put fried shallots on top of my spaghetti; that’s my jam.

You’d be at peace eating that as your last meal?
I definitely think so. That’s something that I eat enough of that it would put me in some sort of sleep coma-like state, so I’d kind of forget what was about to happen.

Has spaghetti been your favourite meal since you were a kid?
I think I came to that realization in the last year or two. It was something that I had a lot as a kid, because that’s one of those go-to meals for single mothers, just something quick and easy to throw together that my mom would make a lot. But I didn’t eat it for awhile because spaghetti sounds boring on paper, but once I started spicing it up a bit, it makes it more than what you grew up with.

Well, here’s the elephant in the room question for this. Because if you’re vegan, would you throw in a meatball for the last meal, or would you go out with your convictions intact?
I would have to go out on the vegan road. I wouldn’t want to die with any ethical things on my conscience.

I know some people turn to religion at the end, even atheists, so I thought you might want to go back to the dark side?
Yeah, I’d just go back to my last non-vegan meal and say, “You know what? My last meal on this earth is going to be a Chicken Little from KFC.” [laughs]

-Jason Schreurs

Silver Snakes‘ Year of the Snake is out now on Bridge Nine Records.