So how the hell have The Secretions kept it going strong for nearly the past two decades?

A genuine devotion to their music and fans would be the most obvious answer, as anybody who’s been to one of their shows can attest this group gives it their all every time they get on stage. Following that it’d have to be their inherent ability to make you feel like one of their oldest friends, a surprisingly welcoming attitude that can be a rarity in this community’s ever enclosing social bubble. At the top of the list though would have to be their dedication to keeping the unpredictable, chaotic, adventure-seeking spirit of punk rock alive, an ethos that’s ever-present in every song they write, chord the play, and tour they travel. While wrapping up the final leg of their West Coast Tour the guys sat down for an interview about the latest on the road and their new album Greasyhotmeatcheezy.

I know you guys are sporting some different wheels for this tour. Tell me about your friend Lemmy, I’ve been reading he’s seen better days.

Mickie: We bought Lemmy, our 1991 Dodge Ram Van from a band called The Broke after they lived up to their name and broke up. The guy we bought it from ripped us off and moved away immediately after without us knowing. He left us with a $300 repair bill so we’re hoping that we’ll eventually find where he lives now and shit in his mailbox. Rumor has it that Lemmy used to belong to the east coast KISS cover band Hotter Than Hell, the band that was secretly used as KISS doubles in the movie Detroit Rock City.

Danny: Lemmy has been a great van and a hell of a workhorse for many years now, but he’s now approaching 300,000 miles so we decided to give him the summer off and concentrate on fixing him up when we get back. We rented a Ford 15-passenger van with a much higher rollover risk to make the tour more exciting. It was one of those faceless boring white vans, but it did have AC and super comfy seats which was essential for the 100-plus degree days we had for most of the tour.

I wanted to ask about the picture I saw your guys’ twitter of the claw machine filled with $20 bills. Where was that? What’s the deal?

Mickie: That was a claw machine in Barstow CA at a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant. Every stuffed animal in it had either a twenty or fifty dollar bill rubber banded to it. The thing that struck us the most amusing about it is that it was out of order. It was a kind of abstract metaphor for the state of the U.S. economy.

Any of you guys been on the “ramen and a forty” diet since the tour started?

Mickie: On past tours we’ve lived on the “Dollar Store Diet,” consisting of dollar store snacks, PB&J “vanwiches” and gas station food. This time Paul and I decided to pay a bit more attention to proper nutrition–it ended up giving us extra partying stamina so I think we ate twice as well and partied twice as hard! Danny did end up unfortunately getting sick with a 104 degree fever and the beginnings of pneumonia but he’s hardcore so he toughed it out.There always seems to be at least one person in the band who ends up getting sick for part of the tour. It happens. If you are creative with food and a decent chef you can eat surprisingly well on ten bucks a day, it just takes a bit of effort and planning.

Can you explain to all the fine folks out there about the awesomeness of Capitol Dawg and how it has curiously become a part of the band’s history?

Mickie: I started going to Capitol Dawg because they had Chicago Style veggie dogs, which until now have been rare in Sacramento. I eventually convinced the owner to start serving garlic fries, which were some of the best in town. All of the Secretions love hot dogs, and cheap beer, and Cap Dawg has both, which eventually led to all of us eating there a lot. With the release of our CD Greasyhotmeatcheezy, it just seemed like a no-brainer to have the CD release party there along with hot dog and drink specials. The owner is also a big supporter of local music so he asked if we could sign a photo and post it in the restaurant, which was pretty exciting for us.

What have been some of the highlights of the current tour?

Mickie: The house shows for sure. After playing sleazy dive bars for the last 15 years it’s really getting old. Also, in this crappy economy no all-ages venues even have a chance of staying open without alcohol sales so the kids have nowhere to see shows. Punks have been forced more and more to do shows in their houses, garages, basements, or backyards. House shows usually circumvent all the things that I hate about venues: asshole security, high door prices, high drink prices, promoters ripping off the bands, and age requirements. All that’s left is people having fun watching music and playing music. You might think that with no set door price that you would get paid less, but most of the time people are so generous with donations and buying merchandise that we end up getting paid way more than we would playing a bar show.

Danny: The house show in Flagstaff, Arizona was easily the best show of tour. It set a bar for fun and excellence that was never topped. The Green Stripe House in Seattle came very very close, as did the Zombie House in Portland. Flagstaff was just so much crazy chaotic fun that we wanted every single show to be just like it.

Switching gears to focus on the new album…often times you hear veteran bands complaining about changes in the scene, but I take the song “Back In The Day Punk” as a proverbial middle finger to that sentiment. Do you feel change is an inevitable part of punk? Is it vital to its survival?

Danny: I’m glad you see the song that way because IT IS a middle finger to my “over 35″ punk rock peers who do nothing but complain about the current state of things and talk about “the glory days” like they had everything to do with it. Older punks can be some of the most self-righteous people on the planet. That song is pretty much me trying to capture where I am in my life at this point. I’m not an angry 17 year old who hates his parents anymore. I’m 40 years old, I love my family, I love my fiance, I enjoy doing yardwork, have a good job, and just happen to play drums and sing in one of my favorite punk rock bands. That song is directed to the guys who are my age and think that being a punk rocker still means hating your parents and drinking in the park at night. That was all good and fun in my teens and even in my 20’s, but I think a 40 year old trying to pass themselves off as a rebellious teen is laughable and pathetic.

Change is without a doubt vital in order for punk rock to survive. Not so much in musical styles or in venues for bands to play, but on a much deeper and personal note. A 17 year-old punk should be pissed at everything. That’s what’s great about being a young punk. But that attitude definitely needs to change as you get older. I don’t expect a teenage punk to find joy in the things I do. However, I totally understand why a teenage punk would have a blue mohawk, spikes, studs, and chains. I also respect the intelligence of those kids enough to realize that they can see the difference between an “old guy” trying to be a kid and a 40 year old who plays punk rock music and is comfortable being who they are.

How have you seen things change in the music scene in the Sacramento (or greater Bay) Area?

Mickie: The quick answer is that after being in the punk scene here for 20 years, I’ve noticed that it goes in waves in a never-ending circular fashion. It starts out with people complaining that there are no shows to go to. Some of those folks get sick of it and start putting on shows. The scene gets better and more people start contributing. After weeks, months, or sometimes years, some people get burnt out on putting on shows and quit. Then a bunch of clubs will get shut down due to mismanagement, vandalism or police harassment and the scene will start to suck again and it starts all over.

Danny: Just recently, there has been something that I have never seen before. There were so many people getting off their asses, putting on shows, and starting bands that there wasn’t enough people to go to shows. There was a show to go to at a house, bar, or music venue almost every night of the week. Shows started doing badly because there was simply TOO MUCH going on and not enough people to support it all. As a result, R5 Records closed, 16th Street Café/Javalounge closed, and Shire Road Club closed. Pretty much all Sacto has left are house shows and bar shows. No one else wants to take a chance with the underground all ages punk scene. There is much more money and less risk in putting on mainstream punk and generically appealing indie rock and folk music, so that is what is thriving in major venues in Sacto these days.

I noticed tracks like “Green-Eyed Killer” harks back to a classic 50’s rock n’ roll song structure and feel. Is this just a natural direction for some songs or is it influenced by anything in particular?

Mickie: I have always been heavily influenced by early rock n’ roll guitar slingers like Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins, and I can’t help writing a song like that every once in a while. “Computerhead” is another song with an old school rock n’ roll twist, but “Green Eyed Killer” was a direct homage to fifties’ rockers songs about girls who drive them wild. More specifically, that song was written about the woman I ended up marrying, who wished that there was a song like that for her.

Who is Tony Silva? The entire song “Tony Silva Rides The Bus” is about the guy! What’s your relationship with him?

Mickie: Tony Silva is a kid who comes to our shows. He lives in Woodland, CA, which is twenty miles away from Sacramento. When we met him he was 15 and didn’t really have any way to get to shows when his parents couldn’t take him. He would spend hours on the bus just to come to our shows and just Sacramento shows in general. That’s a lot of effort and dedication, and if that doesn’t deserve to be immortalized in song, what does? Tony is 18 now and has become a good friend and is still a strong supporter of the Sacto scene. He still doesn’t have a car!

Interview by Sean Logic
Photos by Samantha Sommatino
—————

Listen to “Hypocritical Mass”
Listen to “Back In The Day Punk”

Be sure to visit The Secretions online and at the Secretion Life Line for news, shows, and updates, or at Drool City Music to pick up a copy of their new album.

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2. Kepi Ghoulie
3. Make Me

As a Midwesterner, do you feel like you are seeing California with a fresh perspective, in a way that California natives don’t see it?

JW: I think so. One of the clichés about the Midwest is the law abiding, rule following. “Don’t cross against the light, you!” I still have that ingrained in me. Plus I think there’s a moody introspection in the music that all my friends made—and that I made, too. I think it’s still in there, even if it’s fantastical or gothic.

You’re touching on something there, the gothic. Your music has a west coast-meets-gothic sound.

JW: Carver Brothers Lullaby was definitely the theme we came up with, just to make an album about the vibe that we’ve soaked up being out here, not just in the city, but out in the rural parts of Northern California.

So what is the Carver Brothers theme about?

JW: We tried to come up with an integration of artwork that we collaborated on, it was supposed to be a little more gonzo and synthetic and B-movie—kind of Danny Elfman-esque, kind of crazed, lots of effects. I think it’s really shaped by our experiences out here. We just kept stripping it down and stripping it down and I hope that mood still comes through but it was almost more like a dark folk or country type of sound that came out.

You’re a fan of Denis Johnson, right?

JW: Oh, I love Denis Johnson.

Already Dead comes to mind.

JW: That’s probably my favorite.

PC: I love the spirit of personality [Johnson] catches in his characters. He shows the dark underbelly beneath all this beauty and majesty that’s along the coast. It’s a style of writing I wasn’t familiar with when I first got here.

Did you read [Already Dead] and think, “We’ll add that genre to the mix?” Or was it an ‘a-ha’ moment?

JW: It was one of those weird synchronicities where I found it at just the right time and it totally electrified me. He has that physical, emotional—like sentimental, skeptical—but very physical art that just resonates with me. There aren’t too many writers who can capture all of that in their writing. It’s pretty brutal stuff, but the kind of pure and vulnerable feelings that come through those brutal scenes are just magic.

Like what happens when you put a human being in an extreme situation and watch their reaction?

JW: I don’t have any idea how realistic that is in the real world, but I know in a dramatic setting it can resonate with people who experience outrage and fear and despair in their normal day-to-day lives, but just still try to keep going. Even if it doesn’t involve decapitation or whatever occurs in the dramatic situation.

I went back and listened to your solo work, Jeff Wagner’s Tunnel of Love. That stuff’s quite theatrical.

JW: I’ve been in a few plays with this one director, Karen Penley.

Circus Proboscis?

JW: Yeah. They’re really expressionistic and have a lot of music and movement and physicality, so it’s not like realism. It’s something that’s more akin to my music. And I think that’s why we really collaborated well. I’ve done some of the music for her plays, too. But she’s got the same thing, this really physical, primal, articulate way of expressing those emotions that don’t normally get expressed.

When I listen to you guys, I feel like you still have remnants of the theatrical thing going— but just remnants of Danny Elfman. The Tunnel has a harder edge.

JW: Yeah, totally, totally. Pat is super loud. And he’s really good with dynamics, texture, and telling me to stop clipping all my compositions. He’s helped open them up and that combination has really helped produce our style. It’s a physical experience playing with him.

Do you consider yourselves musicians who want to be storytellers, or storytellers who happen to have instruments lying around?

JW: I don’t really consider myself a musician. I feel like more of one with Pat around, though. I like to generate moods and stories and emotions. That’s kind of my goal.

PC: And I definitely feel like I have picked up on that and I try to fill that out. For me it’s always been music first. Being a drummer, you don’t always necessarily have as much input, musically, melodically. Structurally, yes, so I try to help with composition and the structure if I can.  But I rely on the other musicians to lay that foundation and I fill in the rest. Whoever I play with I try to get an understanding and an empathy for where they’re coming from and just try to fully realize that.

So what’s coming up?

PC: We have 3 new songs recorded as a three piece and we’re going to go back into the studio to finish other new stuff, with my brother Chris at a studio called SQ. We want to finish out these recordings. But we decided that Carver Brothers is the last CD we’ll do. I just don’t think it’s relevant anymore.

What will you do?

PC: Vinyl. Vinyl with an MP3 download. As a musician and somebody who works in design, not necessarily marketing, but you’re studying cultural trends, being in tune with music lovers, I only really buy vinyl unless a band I love has nothing else. I’ve gotten rid of CD’s. It makes the most sense to me with people listening to their music digitally; I wouldn’t give somebody a CD. It’s pointless. You put it in your CD, you rip it, you shelve it. People don’t get out CD’s anymore. I don’t. I have a turntable and my digital music. And they complement one another. So for us it makes sense. It’s safe to say we both love vinyl. Coming from the DIY scene. Coming from collecting records in the Midwest and going to all the little indie stores. We wanna put out a beautiful piece of vinyl with really nice packaging and have a free download. It’s the best of both worlds. It really ties in with our visual aesthetic of the beautiful packaging and they also get a really easy, simple download.

JW: Let’s face it, that’s one of the great things about vinyl: Bigger, better artwork.

PC: Especially when you get the record and it’s like a gatefold or there’s a nice insert, its something unique you were never able to capture with CD’s. Even with our CD’s that we went with a very tactile kind of packaging, recycle chipboard. It feels like a miniature gatefold LP.

Where are your favorite places to play on tour?

JW: Durango.

PC: Yeah, Durango.

JW: Durango people are crazy!

PC: We have some friends out there who organize cycling events and we’ve gone and played these big…festivals? Festival isn’t the right word.

JW: DIY extreme sports festivals?

PC: We played at the single speed world championships, which is a race hosted in a different city every year. What’s cool about it is they’re doing the same thing with bikes and with film and art that we’re doing with our music. We’ve gone out there to play The Rally of the Dead, which is a zombie-themed mountain bike race. Everybody dresses up as zombies, fully covered in blood and wearing skull masks and riding up giant mountains on their single speed bikes. It’s crazy! It’s a week of debauchery, drunkenness, and basically celebrating and being alive. We’re more in touch with people of that same spirit. If people are doing something artistic and inspiring, then we wanna be a part of it.

What is your favorite place to play in San Francisco?

PC: I think our best shows have been at the Hemlock Tavern.
The Hemlock is a cool space.

JW: It also has a very Lynch vibe, which I love. Speaking of David Lynch, in theory, I really like playing at Li Po Lounge. But it’s not really set up for acoustics, so that’s kind of the downside. It’s a bar in Chinatown. Talk about DIY…

PC: It’s very, very DIY. It’s the basement of a dive bar in Chinatown that has this crazy façade. It looks like a giant boulder landed in the middle of Chinatown. Then they bored a hole in front of it and added a door. And there’s a random assortment of shady characters hanging out.

JW: You could definitely write a song about the characters hanging out there.

PC: Our friends set up the show. They had a movie projector set up and played our favorite B-movies behind us.

JW: And I think we projected Electric Dragon 80,000 Volts, by Sogo Ishii.

PC: We also projected Perverella.

JW: That one got some negative reactions from the audience.

PC: It could’ve been the giant monster with a huge erect penis chasing that group of women. It was hilarious. I turned around at one point and said, “Yes! Perfect!”

So who makes up your ideal audience?

JW: Misfits.
PC: Social misfits. I honestly think it would be people like us.

Interview & photos by Matthew Monte
Illustrations courtesy The Tunnel; Stage banner by the Slow Poisoner

—————

Listen to “Drop Dead Delilah”
Listen to “This Double Cross”
Be sure to visit The Tunnel’s official website for art, shows, and new releases.

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3. Artist Profile: S.A. Richard

Surprisingly, Knight’s overseas contacts have led to a large audience in Malaysia (he was even covered in the Oct/Nov 2009 issue of M2 Malaysia!), where he records and tours from time to time, while he remains under-underground in the US. This local artist is a Malaysian sensation! He’s heading back to Malaysia soon to work on a new sound (with an electric guitar!) in an album titled Sycophant.

I wanted to talk to you about Mandala. Did you record that in Malaysia?

I wrote some of the songs in Malaysia. A few of them were written before I went. Certainly the concept of it was inspired by the trip to Malaysia.

What year was that?

2008. My band broke up around Spring 2008, for good. Luckily, I had already gone back to writing a lot. I figured I needed to augment what I was doing with acoustic guitar, because my interests are in digital audio, and I have a background in it. So I started adding the sampler and the loop station, and picking up other instruments. I took that concept to Malaysia. I went to this really amazing festival, the World Music Festival in Borneo. That got me out of the idea of looking at music from a pop perspective, which is kind of inevitable if you live in the States. You’re just so constantly barraged by it that it’s really hard to look outside. But when you’re in Borneo, in the rainforest, listening to a bunch of artists, who are never going to be Top 20 Artists, but who are all really amazing, you realize there’s a lot more out there. So I came back home with that experience.

Do you have a particular process for writing?

For me it really kind of happens the same way every time. I have a melodic idea and I have chords, so it’s usually voice and guitar and then the lyrics sort of come out in this gibberish language.

When you’re talking about singing in gibberish, what kind of sounds are we talking about?

God, how would I go… it’s mainly the vowel sounds, and those are really important to me, so I will listen and go, okay well this word definitely needs to have an “ooo” or an “oh” sound because an “eee” sound would sound stupid here, then later I try to find out which word I meant.

Is there a theme for this next album?

I don’t want to pigeonhole myself but it’s a bit of a commentary on social media, on pop culture. I’m hopefully contrasting the things I think are meaningful versus the things I think aren’t meaningful about our culture. I found that I have a lot of anger toward how hard work is not widely rewarded and how superficiality is highly rewarded, so rather than bitch and complain about it, I figured I should just put it into music, and that’s the feeling I’m riding on.

Do you feel like your Malaysian audience understands or receives your music the same way your American audience does?

No, the Malaysian audience is not only attracted to the fact that I’m American, but also to the fact that I don’t sound like an American singer-songwriter. It’s a culture that’s very used to emulating what’s going on in the world, pop culture-wise, so they really embrace the uniqueness of what I’m doing. The looping, the sampling, the sort of reinvention of what a singer-songwriter is supposed to do on stage, they really dig that.

Have any of your other travels influenced you as much as Malaysia has?

I think musically nothing’s shaped me as much as Malaysia has.

Why do you think?

Well, I think because the modern musician has to be a lot more resourceful. You can’t wait for a record contract anymore. I had an opportunity to play in Malaysia and I took it. It turned into something that gave me a lot of hope and confidence in my music. You can really suffocate in a day and age where there’s YouTube and everyone is self-expressing, which I have no problem with, it’s great, it’s just a bigger pool and harder to be seen, and so in Malaysia I feel like I stand out. Maybe that’s a very selfish reason to be going back but I certainly don’t feel the same attention being lavished on me here, and it’s important to stand out.

How do you feel about pop music in Europe?

I actually don’t follow pop music in Europe too much. I really am quite oblivious to what’s on UK charts right now. I bumped into some Irish tourists in Laos, they were listening to a lot of dance music. I don’t know, I have no issue with dance music; what I do have an issue with is feeling like people don’t have a lot to say. As a listener, I connect to a musician who is telling me a story that is enlightening me in some way or helping me to feel something that they’re feeling, and a lot of music I listen to… I don’t feel much of anything about. That’s not very articulate (laughs). Dance music is tough, it’s meant to put people on the dance floor. If you’re on the dance floor you’re probably having a good time, but what happens when you go home at night, what happens when you wake up the next morning, what do you listen to then? In some ways I feel like the pop world is limiting the scope of emotions that are covered in the discourse that is music. You really have to go indie, you have to go super indie to find those subtleties in music, things that are going to speak to your soul.

This might be really random, but do you have a favorite emotion?

Hmm can I… I’m going to think about that, favorite emotion…

What about sadness?

That’s a good point, I wouldn’t say sadness is my favorite emotion but it certainly predominates me emotionally a lot of times. Some early criticism of my music is “ oh, it’s so sad,” “it’s depressing.” And I wonder what’s happening to the world when there’s no room for sadness. I mean clearly it’s a vital part of the emotional spectrum. You can’t have happiness unless you experience sadness, you can’t have optimism without pessimism, and so I don’t understand when someone can look at what I’m doing and take that one element of melancholy of the other emotions, such as hope and reassurance and the upside, and fixate on that, and they can’t handle minor chords.…Okay my favorite emotion- humor- that’s my favorite emotion.

How do you think that fits into your music? Or does it?

Well there’s a lot of tongue and cheek in my lyrics, a lot of play on words. That’s me injecting my humor and I have very dry humor so you really have to look for it but that’s my humor. It’s maybe a little sardonic, maybe a little sarcastic but that’s my light note in my music.

One more question—what’s your favorite sound?

I’m not going to be so cliché as to say silence… you know I think probably my favorite sound is rain.

Interview & photos by Vanessa Ta

—————

Listen to “Tagore”
Listen to “Lonely Is My Friend”
For new tracks and tour dates visit  music.sleepcomabath.com, and be sure to check him out LIVE on April 6th at Hotel Utah.

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2. Please Do Not Fight
3. The Tunnel

“One common thread of our music is that it doesn’t tend to be about girls,” says Zen Zenith, the songwriter, guitarist and vocalist for Please Do Not Fight. “It’s different from the [Indie] genre, which really is a standard.”

It’s a Sunday night, an hour before they perform at one of their favorite venues in San Francisco, Café Du Nord. All four members are present lounging in the green room; Zen Zenith, Erin Keely (keys/violin/vocals), Geoff McCann (lead guitar/melodica), and Kubes (drums/vocals). For their performance, the band plans to open with “On the Other Hand, Fight! Fight! Fight!,” a single from their first album, Leave It All Behind. “It’s usually a closer, but now we promoted it [the song] to an opener,” says Zen. “We wanted to change things up a bit.”

The band possesses a witty sense of humor that’s not off-putting, but rather very welcoming as their video blogs (or vlogs) demonstrate their day-to-day activities and their quirky personalities. Recently, many of their vlogs take the fans a tour on their artistic expressions on making their second album entitled Move.

Move, which debuted last October, has the self-explanatory message of moving in whatever way possible. “My lyrics are about change,” Zenith notes. “They center on whatever happens to be on my mind.”

He describes Move as more “personal.” The writing process was different as Keely recalls. “Before, Zen had an idea, he pretty much had the song then came to me and some other people. We worked out the songs and, after that, he did what he wanted to do with them.”

Move was more of a collaborative effort as Zen describes the final product as more “polished” with regards to the recording process and the production of more people involved. “We had a producer with the second album: Aaron Hellam from Castle Ultimate [Studios],” says Zenith. “He had valuable input, fleshed out the songs, and worked out the kinks.”

As a songwriter, Zenith’s influences are very eclectic ranging from mid/late 90s power pop to bands like Ghetto Kids, Bright Eyes, and Weezer. Many of his lyrics focus on social commentary and observances. Keely jumps right in and mentions their song “Words Speak Louder” is about shit-talkers. “It’s about how people are negative to each other and how they’re fake about it,” she says. Kubes jumps in and loves how the song ends with a huge chorus and accompanying bell sound effects.

For the band, each member hails from different parts of the world: Erin from Dallas, Zen from England, Kubes from Minnesota, and Geoff from California. They’ve traveled for two major tours, spanning from Portland to Los Angeles, but they also have a special place for the Bay Area. “In San Francisco, we have a fan base here,” says Zenith. “People will definitely come out.”

For now, they have a few simple tasks in mind: keep writing, keep performing, and keep being creative as possible. For Please Do Not Fight, they’ve only scratched the surface.

Words by Chris Huqueriza
Photos by Sean Logic

—————

Listen to “Words Speak Louder”
Listen to “Up Up Up”
To stream Move, find shows, and downloads, visit the official Please Do Not Fight website

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So, I heard the Halloween [at 555 Haight Street] party was off the hook this year?

Yeah, that was a rager, we had a lot of fun.  Me and [DJ] 87 had people goin’, bitches getting naked on the dance floor and shit.  Solid dance floor, too.  It was packed the whole time and between the two of us we played like a 6 or 7 hour set til like 7 AM.

Was it the craziest party you’ve ever played?

Oh, yeah with that many people in such a small space.  I’ve never played in front of that many people and still had so much fun.  There were probably 250 people through the house that night.  Randoms started coming in off the street, at one point there was a line around the block and my homie had to go down and play like a doorman.  He was wearing a panda suit so it was even funnier.

What was your first party?

The first party I played at was when my buddy’s mom owned this school and on the weekends it would be closed.  They had big speakers and a mixing board and stuff, like for putting on plays and stuff.  So we would go in there on the weekends and throw parties.  We’d set up a little bar and everything, get a bunch of randoms in.  It was pretty cool.

(Laughing) Shit man, I never asked you the important stuff.  Who are you and where are you from?

(Laughs) Yeah, you skipped that.  My name is Matt Spencer, I DJ under the name Basspop, and I am originally from Orange County, which is a fucking hellhole.  Such a disturbing place.

And you’ve been living in the city for….?

Like almost 2 years, and I love it.

Why is it so much better than Orange County?

Just the people.  I love weird and open minded people and they seem to come to San Francisco in droves.  Also, this city really lets you do your thing.  As long as you’re not hurting anyone, you can be as weird as you want, express yourself any way you want.  I see crazies all the time walking around screaming at the sidewalk.  No one even cares.  In Orange County that same guy would have had 12 cops on him, you’d never see the guy again.  They’d drive him out and drop him off in Riverside or something. (Laughs)

You’re also an illustration major?

Yeah, I take illustration at AAU.  I’ve been doing that forever, drawing and stuff.  I love to draw…and I’m fairly serious about that.

I hate to sound like a stereotype machine, but aren’t the ones who groove the hardest usually on the largest amount of drugs?

(Laughs) Which I condone, by the way.  I think more people should do them.

So you usually get pretty lit before a show, too?

No, man I think it’s actually better to be sober when you’re playing live.  It’s like there’s so much going on and you have to pay attention to so many things.  In the lab it’s all good though.  Experiment, ya know.

What about when drawing or painting?

(Laughs) Oh, anything goes.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at Burning Man?

Craziest thing?  Actually one of our last days in camp this last year some Russian guy that didn’t speak any English wandered into our camp at like 6AM.  We don’t know what he was on or anything but he came up and grabbed a gallon of water off of our bar and chugged it.  Then he like doubled over and shit his pants, took his pants off and started screaming and woke everyone up.

(Laughing) Dude shit his pants?

Yeah, I don’t know if he got some kind of toxic shock from the water, or he just couldn’t handle it but he shit his pants and just started screaming in Russian.  That was probably the craziest thing.

So where do you think this electronic music thing is going?

Where is this going?

Yeah, is it gonna fall off like disco?

No way man.  It’s huge in other countries, all across the globe.  Not as much in the US but… I don’t know the west coast has it’s own sound when it comes to Breaks or Electro and Hip Hop and stuff is moving in that direction.  Like Dubstep is HUGE right now, especially in San Francisco, but I can’t really see Dubstep being huge in the Midwest, and maybe it is, I don’t know.  As far as the west cost goes though I think a blend of Hip Hop with a G Funk sound, like with more of a Breaksy kinda sound is really popular and I think it’s gonna continue to build steam.

Until the world ends in 2012, right?

I kinda hope it does, like I wanna be around to see it happen when it happens.

Erik Estrada or Harry Connick, Jr.?

(Laughs) That’s a good one!  I don’t even know if I can answer that.

Would you take death or an eternity of TJ Hooker?

What’s that?  Like you can’t stop fuckin’ a Tijuana hooker for eternity?

No, TJ Hooker is an old TV show….

(Laughing) Oh shit, I totally took that wrong.

Interview by Frank Summa
Pictures & Illustrations courtesy Matt Spencer

—————-

Listen to “Midnight Blossom”
For shows, music, and art, visit Basspop on Facebook.

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1. Andrew Jackson Jihad
2. Make Me
3. The Tunnel

You know that joke about how after the nuclear holocaust only the cockroaches will survive? I have a feeling that after the fires burn and the dust settles there will be cockroaches and Kepi Ghoulie. After performing for nearly two decades as the founder and sole constant member of the pop-punk band the Groovie Ghoulies, he’s ventured out on his own, simultaneously releasing both a rock and folk solo album on Asian Man Records. With an undeniable optimism and ever-ready attitude, Kepi has not only left of trail of albums, singles, and tours in his path, but an indefatigable mark on the underground music scene as well. I’m hesitant to use the word “iconic” when talking about him, if for no other reason that his own modesty, but it’s hard to think of any other word that’d do him justice. Regardless, there’s nobody quite like Kepi Ghoulie, and quite honestly, there never could be.

Interview by Sean Logic
Photos by Samantha Sommatino

This isn’t your first time delving into more country/folk style music, you were also in The Haints. How would you describe the set you’re playing tonight as different from that style?

Maybe a little less country and some different things, some pops songs maybe. I play my whole catalog; Ghoulie songs, Haint songs, solo–whatever the audience wants to hear. It’s kind of the same, but different.

How did recording Hanging Out and American Gothic compare to recording with the previous groups you were in?

Gothic for sure was the most different thing, where I recorded in three different places with three different producers. Usually I go into one room and record from a day to a week and that person mixes it. For American Gothic I had all these songs and I was recording with three friends; Kevin Seconds in his home made studio, Anton Barboe at his house, and David Houston at his totally professional rock studio. Whoever had time and whatever song was appropriate. It was really fun and I think it turned out good, I’m pretty happy with it.

What about doing Hanging Out?

The rock record was different in the fact it was the first time I just sang. We recorded as a 4-piece, and I was going to play guitar, but Danny [Secretion] just nailed everything and I ended up playing guitar on only two songs. I just sang and watched the recording process, which was a lot of fun.

In addition to this tour you’re currently on, you also spent some time touring in Europe. What was the highlight of that?

We were in Europe for three weeks. It was basically three chunks, first we did an acoustic tour with Kevin Seconds in England and Germany, so that was my first acoustic tour in Europe. While we waited for Danny to come over for the rock tour we did an art show in Berlin, so we were there for about a week. While we were there we recorded a couple of 7-inches, so it was crazy non-stop.  Once Danny got over we did a rock tour for five weeks. I drummed and sang, Danny played guitar, and Dino played bass. Dino is the constant in all these projects of mine, she wants to tour all the time and is around to record all the records.

So when you were ready to start putting out your solo stuff, was everybody just really responsive?

A lot of people were offering to play, and I knew Dino wanted to play bass, and Danny was into it. I just wanted the most enthusiastic players and they came together and we made this great record.

Everyone I’ve met from Sacramento has been really nice. It’s a really cool place.

I don’t why, but I’m just grateful. Sacramento is a great city, there’s very little rock n’ roll ego, everybody gets along, everyone pretty much likes each others band, helps each other out–it’s a really good scene. I’ve been around the US a zillion times and it really is a special town. There’s towns where people are cool and scenes are cool, but for sure it’s always good to come home and have all these friends and musicians waiting and hanging out.

You always cited Neil Young and Chuck Berry as influences, and you’ve even covered some of their work, but you’ve also done a few Daniel Johnston songs in the past too.

I’ve been a fan for years, San Francisco is actually the first place I saw him play. I’ve seen him three times now out here. At one time though I would have gone to Austin to see Daniel Johnston or Roky Erickson, but luckily they’re both touring now.

Any other artists you’d like to do covers of?

I would like to do a Roky Erickson cover, I’m trying to figure that out now–I always have a million things I want to do. I just recorded a bunch of fun covers with Vic [Ruggerio] from the Slackers, we just did a bunch of old rock and blues covers, that’ll be coming out pretty soon.

Speaking of new stuff, there was a good mix of more introspective material and fun stuff on Hanging Out. Do you think you’ll stick with that direction or will there still be songs about monsters and aliens?

I think both. I like everything. There’s definitely a couple themed projects on the books, like the Chuck Berry record with the Ghoulies, but there’ll always be monster songs. I just kind of do whatever comes out. As soon as I finished these records I got these tour offers, and then Kevin Seconds started touring again, and things just fall into place. I’m really happy about that.

One last question since I know you’re a fan of both–who’s better at fighting the evil undead, Spawn or the Ghostbusters?

I am a Spawn fan but I would have to go Ghostbusters. They keep a sense of humor like Spider-Man.

Interview by Sean Logic
Photos by Samantha Sommatino

———–
Listen to “Supermodel”
Listen to “Sleepy Hollow”
For tour dates and record releases, check out www.myspace.com/kepighoulie

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2. Make Me
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You guys have been spending a good amount of 2008 touring for People Who Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World and going full speed ahead for your new album Can’t Maintain–how’s the tour been so far?

Sean: It’s been really fun, I’ve been really lucky. I’ve gotten to spend the first three weeks of January on tour cause I did a solo tour with my friends Ben Barnett and David J for the first ten days, and we kind of collided with Ben (of AJJ) and Kepi and we’ve played a couple of shows together. My girlfriend always gets mad cause I have a lot of friends with the same name.

Ben: It’s really weird cause sometimes when Sean is specifying which Ben he’s talking about he says, “My Ben,” and I don’t know how I feel about that cause I don’t believe in possessions and private property.

Sean: Can I be “your Sean?”

Ben: If you want to be.

Sean: I always assumed I was…this band is over.

A lot of your earlier stuff was self-released, but for this tour and album it was put together by Asian Man. How is it working with them as opposed to working on your own?

Ben: It’s cool having different labels help us.

Sean: It works really well, and we still release things too. For this tour we made 300 copies of a tour EP; we get to plagiarize Luniz (a legendary Oakland hip-hop group) for their record cover since they were two guys and we’re two guys–we just put our faces over theirs.

Was it Asian Man’s idea to go with the variant covers for the LP and CD or was that something you came up with?

Sean: People are just willing to buy things if it looks different…I’m just kidding.

Ben: Cause then all of our stuff would look different.

Sean: We really liked the bee drawing that Ryan Piscatelli had drawn and it came in the bottom of the tray of the CD version, and it just seemed a lot classier. It would look good on the heavy cardstock we chose too.

Ben: Our friend called it the “hippie-crunchy-cardstock.”

On tour you play a pretty good balance between houses and clubs. What do you find yourselves enjoying more, the house shows or the venues?

Sean: It really all depends on the club and the house, and lately more people have been coming to our shows so it’s become a lot more responsible to play at clubs rather than houses for reasons of safety almost. We played some house shows in LA that have just gotten a little bit too crazy at points where I was worried about people inside. I don’t want anybody pouring beer on Ben’s face or jumping on us or crowd surfing into us.

Did somebody pour beer on your face?

Ben: Yeah, it was in Riverside. It was Party Marty’s house. But house shows…if kids run a good house and have a good PA setup and have something good setup like having donations at the door–some level of interaction with the people coming in, it makes for a really good show cause everyone feels they’re part of it. But we played plenty of house shows where it’s basically a party we’re playing at and sometimes that doesn’t really work out well. Like, “Sorry we don’t have a PA,” and then we play acoustic and we’re trying to play in some raging party.

Sean: And shouting till my voice is strained just to hear myself, and that’s not good for when you’re on tour. I’ve been thinking a lot about house shows being a viable alternative to clubs and the best way to do that, my theory at least, is when you throw a house show you’re basically inviting a bunch of kids to fuck up your house and there’s got to be a way to make that more sustainable. The way I suggested for houses that are having us is to have somebody at the door charging a cover, not turning anyone away of course, but at least having them consider that before they come, and taking an overhead charge for what it makes. So if the show makes $400, the house gets to keep $100 for repairs, maintenance, upkeep, rent maybe—

Ben: And keeps putting on shows.

Sean: That’s the way the Artist Area in Portland, Oregon runs and it’s the best place we’ve probably ever played. It’s a living space that has shows in the basement. They have a big basement and great sound systems so they have super high quality and they charge less of an overhead than any other club in Portland, and because of that they can put on good shows, pay the bands a lot, and take out enough overhead for their spot for having the show. They just pay rent from what they make for doing like 15 shows a month.

Ben: It’s hard, some of the best houses just get burned out cause it’s like, “Fuck, I’m sick of people coming to my house and destroying it and having nothing to show for it.”

Speaking of touring, you guys have a cameo in Laterborn #6 by Jason Martin.

(Both look through zine having never seen it before)

You remember any of that tour? How long ago was that?

Sean: It was like two years ago, it’s what happens every time a really good touring band comes to Pheonix, we have the talk about Arizona Mexican food versus California Mexican food and I take them out and show them what’s up.

Ben: San Francisco does it pretty good, but I think California would be second to Arizona in terms of quality Mexican food.

(Lengthy discussion incurs about which state has better Mexican food, and then we refocus)

It seems like folk music is continually gaining an audience in both mainstream and underground music, what’s your opinion on folk music as a motivating force today?

Sean: Folk music is awesome, it’s one of the only genres of music you can actually hear the words. I think that has a lot to do with it. All music says something, but with folk music it’s really easy to hear and distinguish what the words are and what people are saying. So on that basic level I think that’s how folk music can be really powerful. I think folk music kind of earning a place in punk rock is really cool cause folk music was around before punk rock and pretty much served the same purpose for youth culture. I’m afraid of it becoming a commodity, becoming an arbitrary title.

It’s funny you say that cause there’s a lot of other musicians that fall under that “folk-punk” genre even though they have their own style and distinctiveness. You ever get the impression you get lumped in under that banner?

Sean: Totally. I feel like every band is kind of being lumped into that and therefore it’s becoming a happening. Any folk punk band, if you ask if they’re “folk punk,” they probably won’t say that, they’ll probably just give a really complicated description of themselves. Genres are created by people to make things easier to explain and also to define what kind of people are going to listen to that music.

Ben: When we first started the band…we heard some comparisons to Re-Inventing Axel Rose, but we didn’t know any other bands. I wanted to play upright bass in a band cause I just got it and I assumed I’d play or jazz or something else but it seemed to work with Sean’s acoustic guitar. We started playing the way we play and been playing, but not to be a “folk punk” band, we didn’t even know that existed.

Do you think we’ll hear anymore conventionally sounding punk stuff like on the Partners split?

Sean: Yeah, we love playing electric. Another thing about the acoustic shit is it’s way easier to tour. And that leaves more room for merch!

I wanted to ask about that too. I noticed a lot of your catalog is available for download on your website for free. Do you think that’s beneficial for a band to put their music up for downloading?

Sean: Yeah, if you’re a smaller band. When I got my crystal diamond yacht it was because all these kids came to our shows and made us all this wicked scratch on tour. (laughs) We’re all pro-illegal downloading cause kids will listen to it and are more likely to come to shows. That’s how most bands make their money, through touring not record sales. Asian Man is giving us a pretty penny in record sales though, especially thanks to Hot Topic.

Your stuff is at Hot Topic?!

Ben: Yeah, they got us hard.

Sean: They have their own exclusive color vinyl!

Are you going to become Hot Topic media moguls?

Sean: I hope so.

Ben: They’ll have an exclusive manic hair color.

Andrew Jackson Jihad skullcaps?

Ben: Official spray-on beard!

Interview by Sean Logic
Photos by Samantha Sommatino

——–
Listen to “Rejoice”
Listen to “No More Tears”
For releases, tour dates, and more, visit www.andrewjacksonjihad.com

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1. The Secretions
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3. Kepi Ghoulie

A lot of bands have interesting back histories, but I know Wes had a pretty unique experience joining the group, anybody care to share that story?

Claire: We had just finished our third song at the Knockout when our drummer, Jesse, jumped out of the drum seat and ran out the front door. We kept playing for maybe a minute and when he didn’t come back Jeremy ran out to see where he went, he came back with no Jesse and no idea where he had gone.  So we asked the crowd if there were any drummers.  Lo and behold Wes climbs on stage, Zola gives him a basic drum beat for the next song.

Wes: I played a couple of songs that I’ve never heard before off-the-cuff. I almost felt as if I was back in high school band and doing some sort of sight reading contest.

Even before House Of Brakes came out you guys would still open shows with “Black Ants.” Was that one of those songs that you played and just ended up on the record?

Jeremy: We try to be pretty conscious of our set length and order.  We tried starting the set with a few different songs, build-ups, jams, and there was something really clean and energizing about that song.  Just four hi-hats and Bam!; the audience is with us.  It buys us a lot of credibility early on that we then punish the audience for giving us for the rest of the set.

Claire: It also ended up being one of my favorite songs that we play too.

I noticed a definite progression from your first album, It Only Hurts The First Time, to this one. Are slower songs like “Youth Without Youth” a direction you’re looking to head towards?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think we’d like to just expand into everything. Slower songs, faster songs. That’s a good one in particular because we kind of just blazed it onto the record. It was kinda kicking around for a while with some other songs and we decided to just do it. It turned out different than we expected, but surprising, and interesting.

I’m just curious, was the song ru486 at all a reference to the East Bay band RU36?

Jeremy: I’ve never heard them but I’ve seen the sticker though. Ru486 is kind of about the rise and fall of a fucked up drunken night, and the effect and feeling of it from two sides. Ru486 is inspired by a Cursive song call A Gentleman Caller. Also, our ru486 it is sort of a combination of two songs, and that seemed to work well. Plus, ru486 is the prescription for the morning after pill. It’s just referencing the things you do that you can’t take back, the things you do that you know are wrong but do anyway.

What’s the story behind the “Whatever You Like” Cover? When?  Why?

Claire: Jeremy had this idea and we all went along with it, well because it included Ranon.  Make Me has love for Ranon.

Jeremy: For WYL I just thought the song was so perfect in so many ways, just a perfect pop song, and it had very few instrumental elements. Ranon’s a great friend of mine and is a fucking superstar and just needs a spotlight on him, I’ll introduce you two sometime and you’ll get it. He’s Bay-famous. I just envisioned him doing it with us and it happened.

Interview by Sean Logic
Photography by Matt Polito

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Listen to “Black Ants”
Listen to “Sirens”
For tour info, downloads, and more, visit www.makememakeyou.com

Related posts:

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2. Please Do Not Fight
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