Interviews

Rx Bandits

By Rich Balling.

   Spending nearly the entirety of the years 1997-2001 with Rx Bandits was one of the most magical periods of my life, and it's the reason I was deeply honored to conduct this interview. Rx Bandits began in 1996, covering songs by everyone from Megadeth to Reel Big Fish in their garage-turned-practice space in Seal Beach, CA. 1997 brought with it the self-released CD entitled THOSE DAMN BANDITS, and 1999 a record deal with Drive-Thru Records and another full-length album, HALFWAY BETWEEN HERE AND THERE. Many member changes, much touring ,and their second Drive-Thru Records release (PROGRESS) followed. Much like one's search for the self, the band's albums each mark a stage in their search for a sound. The result thus far is their latest offering, THE RESIGNATION (Drive-Thru Records), which stands alone as one clear example of why this collective of musicians is hands down the best in Southern California.

    Considering the fact that SKRATCH is the only local magazine to ever give a consistent damn about this group of sound innovators, I am pleased for you to crawl into their heads through the pages of this special issue. Ladies and vampires, I present to you Rx Bandits.

SKRATCH: Confirm our suspicions of when the band formed.
MATT: It must have been 1996, because I was 15 and had met our drummer, Chris Tsagakis, on Halloween of 1995. We played our first show on March 3rd of 1996 in Kelly Floyd's backyard.

SKRATCH: Back in 1996, what clubs were open in Orange County that aren't now?
MATT: There was a really cool club called Viva Las Vegas that was in a warehouse in the city of Orange, and they had a lot of shows there. Side by Side was open then. It was a roller rink that you could rent out. Music City was open, and Showcase Theater was really big back then, too. I don't remember exactly when it was that Chain Reaction began—it must have been about 1998ish—but it started as Public Storage. The Huntington Beach Library was also around, and that place was a lot of fun.

SKRATCH: I know that now the band transcends many different genres, but when you started, you were a ska band. What was O.C. ska in 1996, and what is it now?
JOE: Ska was just getting huge. Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, and The Aquabats were all getting huge and playing shows all over Orange County, and everybody was going to ska shows.
MATT: Ska was definitely a more powerful, independent scene. There was a unified feeling with the people who went to the shows. I had been going to shows in '94 and '95, and around 1996 was when I started to see random people coming out to the shows—a more radio crowd, I guess—and I noticed a separation between people that wasn't there before.
STEVE B: It's interesting to see the different takes on ska and how different cultures interpret it. The first interpretation was in England, because a lot of Jamaicans arrived there and began to affect the youth culture. It's crazy to listen to those old records and see where everyone is from just by the content in their songs. As far as ska today, there are a couple bands that are coming up that are more traditional and really talented, like Chris Murray.

SKRATCH: If you were to sit down with Tim Hill and John Halperin of Chain Reaction right now, what would you say to them regarding their contributions to the scene?
MATT: As far as our band is concerned, those guys really helped us out by building up our band in Orange County and letting us play there until we started being able to sell it out, and then selling out two nights. They have done a really good job being the only Orange County venue that lets small bands that are just starting out and haven't built up the strongest draw yet play. In the old scene, there were many places to play, but in the current scene there isn't nearly the same amount of places to play as a local band. You can tell the scene has a lack in a local movement now. I give those guys props, and I hope they continue doing what they do, because Orange County really needs a place for new bands to start.

SKRATCH: Do you think Orange County is capable of sustaining a scene similar to the one that Fugazi and their label Dischord has the D.C. area?
CHRIS: There are certainly enough people here to support that, but they have to get out of the mentality of only being interested in what is hip and what is cool. It is important to just listen to music without subscribing to a culture.
MATT: Being that Dischord Records is in Washington, D.C., there is a huge subculture and backlash culture that rises to support such bands that a label like that produces. The scene there is the antithesis of what is going on in the nation's capital, because people don't wish to act the way our politicians act.

SKRATCH: How possible do you think it is not to subscribe to a culture and just listen to the music in our current state of celebrity worship? After all, we are right here in the heart of all of that. Hollywood is right down the street.
STEVE C: I definitely think that there is a certain level of integrity in the artists and performers that complement the longevity of a scene. I think if there is enough mutual respect and open-mindedness existing in a scene that it won't dwindle as fast as a trend that fades away. As long as people keep their minds open and as long as the bands stay prolific and keep creating, a scene can not only keep going but keep growing.

SKRATCH: You have been hired to give a state of the union address to music fans regarding the current and future status of the music industry. Can you give us a short summary of its main message?
STEVE C: This is a very delicate thing, because you can't really judge other people, but I feel the intentions behind a lot of the creation has changed. I feel like the integrity has gone away. We have had this discussion 50 times over amongst ourselves and our peers in the music scene. There are so many more stars in people's eyes now, and so much of the attitude of wanting road cases for everything on your very first tour and have [needing] to have a guitar tech even if they don't know what they are doing. They look at the [trappings] of success that other people have shown through their hard work or even acquiring it through labels, and people just want to blow up huge fast. I can't claim on anybody that wants to start a band just to get famous and write a hit single. That's all well and good, [and] that is their life and their decision. However, it's not helping the musicians and community of artists who are struggling to do it on their own terms with integrity. It's not helping the way that the music industry exploits bands.
CHRIS: Until people change and decide they are sick of the product and the made up ideas and lifestyles created to sell millions and millions of records, the situation is not going to change. People need to decide what they want to get out of their music: if they just want to be entertained and numbed for a little while, or if they want something deeper than that.
MATT: I would like to see more organization with like-minded musicians. I feel that there is a lot of competition between musicians. Art is an expression of one's personality and where they are in their life, and it would be very cool to see more collaboration between like-minded musicians and less of people trying to appeal to the masses.

SKRATCH: Do you think the band having horns carries a stigma, even though your new material is so much different than the old? Do you think the people and press oftentimes discount you as a ska band simply because you have horns and don't give your new material a fair listen?
CHRIS: A closed-minded person will definitely see a band with horns and think ska or ska-punk. I don't really stress on it, because I know what we are doing transcends genres. We make music, and we are a band that has horns. I would never classify this band under any label. We make music, and we have horns and keys and everything else.

SKRATCH: Do you think people have become jaded about political content in music? Does it still have the same impact that it did when punk was flourishing?
JOE: I think it has a similar impact but depends on who the audience is. In the '60s, you could definitely see it in the media. It was in your face that there was change, and people were listening. It was on the news and in front of your face, it was Vietnam, and there was no question that people were paying attention to change. Now, people are saying things, but it's not breaking the surface as far as the media. The majority of people that are not listening to music for change would not have any idea that there is anything like that even out there anymore because of what is on TV and what the pop charts say. There is nothing in those songs that have anything to do with being pro-change; they're all just songs. There is a lack of interest when it doesn't make the headlines. Also, the people playing and writing punk back in the day were swept under the carpet and labeled as punk, which gave punk negative connotations. So now people over the age of 35 associate punk with being negative. Punk was getting attention from the media, but it wasn't there because of what they were saying, it was there because they looked different.

SKRATCH: What might be a solution to get change happening again?
MATT: People are tired of hearing the same old thing, of people pointing the blame and not offering any solutions. I am guilty of that, too. There are definitely some younger-minded songs I have written that are accusatory. Right now, it seems like it is popular to be a political stint, with people saying "fuck Bush" and focusing all the blame on one guy with no solution. If you focus all your blame on one guy and your solution is to get rid of him, you aren't changing anything. I feel there needs to be a change in the way people state their problems with the world, the nation, or society. I feel like hip-hop now is more punk than punk is now. When KRS-One came out after doing the first couple Boogie Down Productions records, he started doing more intelligent stuff about getting out of the ghetto and stopping drugs and killing. With punk music now, instead of pointing our fingers, the message needs to manifest itself like that: in a more intelligent way that relates to our actions and where they need to be placed. It is a really good projection of where we are in this life, because art imitates life. There are a lot of leftist authors like Michael Moore and Al Franken and a lot of leftist bands now. The only way for people to not become jaded with that message and that sound is to change that sound and that style in a way that is new so people start listening again.

SKRATCH: What is Mash Down Babylon Records?
MATT: It is a community of musicians all over the country and some in Europe. We all play together and put out records. There are a lot of the same musicians on the records, and I guess I'm the overseer. I'm trying to do something that is free of any commercial stipulation. (Not to say none of the music is commercially accessible, because there are a lot of catchy tunes on the records.) We aren't putting the music out for any other reason than we want to. There are three records out on the label right now: Satori [rocksteady], Seekret Society [hip-hop], Two Drunken Poets [hip-hop], and soon the Rx Bandits DVD. The DVD has the two benefit shows we played in 2003 almost in their entireties, a photo gallery, some bootleg stuff, and acoustic stuff. We are doing it all ourselves, and that is pretty empowering. It's going to be cool to see how many people help us out. It will be released April 27.

SKRATCH: Top CD for a desert island?
JOE: Rudimentary Peni, DEATH CHURCH.
CHRIS: Refused, THE SHAPE OF PUNK TO COME.
STEVE B: Stevie Wonder, TALKING BOOK.
STEVE C: Built to Spill, PERFECT FROM NOW ON.
MATT: Do Make Say Think, & YET, &YET.

Order the new DVD and support this band and their endeavors by visiting mdbrecords.com, rxbandits.com, and adastrabooks.com.

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