Hearingthevoice.com

There is just 1 band in the world which I know all the lyrics word by word and this band is REEL BIG FISH, in fact they were the first ska/band that I heard in my life and they were the first band that I saw live in my whole life, I remember it was June 1997 when I watch them on MTV spots and music festival and 2 years after I Got to be in their show In Guadalajara, Mx. And I have to say that they still have the most humorous and energetic shows than any other band can offer. This time I had the pleasure to interview them in Vienna, so dear readers I hope you enjoy the words of this band which was the pioneer of the 90´s ska revival. Here we go.

By: Miguel Guinness.

Johnny: (LOL) All depends generally the younger reporters or teenagers with fanzines or webzines, they ask the whole time the same questions, how did you get your name?, why do you rock so hard? And silly questions like that, but for example today earlier we had a really good interview, really well prepared and is really exciting to have that kind of interview. It´s part of the job I mean, I could be cleaning dishes instead of replying people questions.

Johnny: We are now coming up with 20 years of the band existence, it started in 1991, part of it it´s that is Aarons love so depends on him to keep us all together even that there were a lot of personal changes, even I am one of them, It´s really tough when you see younger bands fighting, quitting and stuff. And then you see that they get evaporated because they can´t keep a band together, they can´t learn to live with each other and to be in a band you must learn to live with 9 or 10 guys in our case, practically we live 8 months being on our bus and u have to learn to give any other people space and the reward is to play great shows with really cool audiences that is really special.

Johnny: Well at the beginning the band was a cover band, they were playing 80´s heavy metal stuff, we grew up with that music I love Poison and all that kind of bands, I enjoy to watch videos of them or like Scorpion, I´m a huge fan. But I think we just evolved it was part of being in the scene in that time and Aaron always has been excited about hearing these bands with horns, and him being in a band that wasn’t RBF and playing trombone and he developed his love of the horn sound and he just hasn’t given it u and he never dropped the horns which I´m really thankful because I still have a job (LOL) so that’s why the whole time when ask us about which kind of band we are we always say we are a ska band.

Johnny: Me personally, I enjoy people who enjoy what we do, it´s amazing to see people at the crowd and going absolutely crazy you know dancing, waving their hands on the air, singing every song that’s way better than seeing someone at the first row who has his arms crossed staring at you down the whole time, which in Germany and Austria there has been at least person like that is pretty distracting to have a person like that, because you start to think “I´m not doing my job?” but eventually you learn to ignore them but well the main point is that we like more the people who enjoy what we do.

Johnny: It was pretty terrible, you know recording a record with a band like this which is outside in the mainstream scene, you know being a ska band? The record label simply doesn’t know what to do with you, we made the majority of our money just by touring playing live shows and is really expensive to record with a major label, first you have to ask them if you can record a new record, then you have to submit to them some demos and then they tell you what you can and what you can´t record, and the producer that you are working with makes it to take years to record a new material, plus we release records which production was so high as 300,000 dollars, that just to record a record that’s really mad!! And now that we record everything for ourselves and Aaron has a really good relationship with our studio and our engineer, and that made our productions to go from 300,000 dollars to 10,000 dollars that´s huge, huge savings so we don’t have to recoup so is fantastic to be out of a label.

Johnny: I think is more than that, I think is over twenty, There has been more than 20 easily. You know the band started too early so a lot of us were in high school when we started and some of them played with us because it was fun at the time and they found out that they cannot handle it, they couldn’t handle it to be on tour or simply they didn’t take it seriously and so the performance level wasn’t the way everybody liked, but now all the people playing now is people who really like and enjoy playing in this band, we are all common in visions and there were a lot of personality conflicts as well musical differences, so if you have one person at the bus or in a submarine that likes to play everybody´s buttons, that likes to get in somebody´s skin, it makes life miserable, absolutely miserable and now all the members that we have, we get really, really good along.

Johnny: When that album was being recorded, I was playing in another band called The forces of evil, and I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and I think it was a good CD I really liked it, but that’s my opinion, but in those days was a really bad time for the band though. Because they were working with a producer who just disappeared, the guys were recording and the producer said “Oh I go to the bank” and then disappeared for four hours so Aaron had to do everything and I can totally see that why Matt said that, it was such a bad experience for them.

Johnny: Without a doubt, you know there are so many bands who take themselves so seriously, I think that the fans don’t want to come to a show and cry, they want to come to a show and have a good time, really they want to come and dance, hang out with their friends and forget about all the stuff of what they have to do everyday, they just want to have fun at the show and that’s what we are all about.

Johnny: I think we are looking for world domination (LOL) I think that would be part of it and other part would like to be paid on time because sometimes that doesn’t happen, but well it´s interesting because a lot of people think that because we play in a band we should be millionaires, no we barely squeak by, we make enough to pay for the bus and to keep us not having day jobs, but is not extravagant. But anyway is pretty cool.

Johnny: Wow…..woooow!! That’s pretty interesting how bands can mix different genres, normally we tour with bands which play ska but for example in Germany we played with a band that played metal/ska and for example we have Sonic Boom Six this tour with us and they are like hip-hop/ska, so I can just say right on Christian metal/ska (lol).

Johnny: Come to the show and we have a new DVD out called The Live at the concert, you should check it out and come to the show and dance. Thanks for the interview Miguel and enjoy the show you too.