It smelled like pomade and piss. It's this very smell that makes me want to punch most of the people here in the throat. Hair piled high, excessive eyeliner and enough Sailor Jerry merch to make you wonder if you stepped into the fall catalog. I've never understood the need to spend so much time primping and curling in hopes of looking like everyone else, and usually I'd hold it against most people. I get a little nervous about every new venue (well, new to me). As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I see the dude with the pack of Luckys rolled up in his black T-shirt, combing his meticulously trimmed pomp and guzzling PBR, I discredit the whole joint. (For the record, yes, I am aware this blows right passed me being a music snob and lands me neatly in the "total bitch" category). I don't know. I guess I just feel like it's too easy. I come to places like this and I expect to hear avid Tiger Army fans discuss the unfortunate descent of Green Day. Well kids, I was wrong about this one. Even with its kitschy 1960's decor, Asbury Lanes deserves it's beloved following. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anywhere else where you can bowl while sipping a mean whiskey sour and avoiding flying elbows from the pit. Clearly the people running the place know what they're doing. With a reasonable cover and a decent line up, it's no wonder bands continue to hail Asbury Lanes as one of their favorite places to play.
A good venue cannot stand alone, however, and these kids weren't there to bowl. They may have been dressed to the nines, but certainly not to show off their victory rolls. They were there for the Koffin Kats and they weren't going to be disappointed. Even completely shit faced, these motor city rockers disembowel your greased up rockabilly and mix it with brash, in your face punk roots to create a whole other monster. Often, music snobs will discredit "psychobilly" bands, labeling them as being cheap for their B-list horror movie lyrics and campy themes. Put the Koffin Kats in that group and prepare to wipe the egg from your face. Sure, with songs like, Vampire's Curse and Graveyard Tree the boys tend to cater to a creepier crowd but are anything cheap and sure as hell not lazy. With an extensive tour schedule and an impressive four albums in almost eight years, they work non-stop, and they do it with heart. You'll be hard pressed to find another band that truly values their fans as much as they do. Even when it came time for my interview all three of the band members took time out of their night to let me know they appreciated what I was doing. Aside from that fact they did this AFTER putting on one of the most exhausting, rebel rousing, high-energy sets I've ever seen. Even with all their go-go-go touring, they found time to compile a new album that I'm beyond stoked about. Forget that it's a split with 12 Step Rebels. Forget that it's totally and completely independently released. If nothing else, just take into account the look of pride and excitement that comes over them as they discuss their newest work. They have clearly worked their asses off and have every right to be proud. It's that sense of loyalty to their fans and undying determination that will keep the Koffin Kats playing for adoring fans and doing interviews for crappy (and not so crappy!) music blogs for a long, long time.
Vic Victor of the Koffin Kats was kind (and drunk) enough to spend some time chatting with me about what it means to release a record independently, Bad Religion, and assholes who care WAY too much about their hair. Read on young sailors! Read on!
Mamba!Mamba!: So, my first question to you would be, with the music business putting such a heavy emphasis on big labels, and big business, do you feel like bands like The Koffin Kats get left behind?
Vic Victor: Well, it really depends upon on the promoter. I mean if you’re asking that question to us based directly upon what we tour on, it depends upon the promoter and it depends upon the city. I mean, you know there are promoters that say “Hey, you guys do really good in our local record shops, so you’re awesome and you get this much”. I mean, I don’t know how to say it because a band like us doesn’t get played back in Detroit. We don’t get played except for the local shows. We don’t get played on no fucking mainstream radio. We get played by people who want to play us and we play music for people who want to hear us. It is what it is, you know? And I don’t know how to explain it any better.
M!M!: Are you content with that?
VV: We do what we do. And we do what we do for people who want to hear it. You know? If we wanted to be cute to people and comb our hair off to the side and play screaming lyrics about how much we are sad that we have girlfriends and things like that, we’d be awesome in Hot Topic. It’s pretty fucking sad that those bands that sell five times over, ten times over, twenty times over, thirty times over what we sell. And yea, we have our CDs in Hot Topic and I’m not ashamed of it because you know why? Because in this day and age, if you’re a kid in Omaha, Nebraska you aint gonna find our CD in your corner record shop because your corner record shop don’t even know what they’re listening to. You know, they got metal and metal’s gonna prove it. Metal, metal, metal. But you’re gonna go into Hot Topic and maybe you’ll find our CD. I don’t judge where you find our stuff at. Whether you find it on the internet or you find it at Hot Topic, I’m no amateur at this shit, none of us are. We’ve been doing this for a long time. Sometimes we make CDs happen where music gets put out to places we didn’t know it was gonna get put out at. We’re in a position as a band that, we get to put music out as we want to. In fact, our next CD is going to be put out independently. You don’t get to find it in stores. It’s straight out of our hands. You know, you get your name out there so much that people think, “Oh, you’re a fucking sell out.” Really? Are we sell outs? We’re doing a split with 12 Step Rebels, and the best quote, even before we were a band, is that 12 Step Rebels got so much shit, they were called sell outs and blah blah blah. Kids today probably don’t even know who 12 Step Rebels are, but they were THE band that was right up there with Tiger Army before Tiger Army took off to Warner Brothers and all that shit. But, they got all that shit, and the best quote I can get is that Nate, the bass player from 12 Step Rebels said, “Yea, I found out that I was a sell out when I went out to Best Buy to buy our CD on my debit card and I couldn’t. My bank account was so depleted that I couldn’t even buy my own CD”. And that’s how we roll, that’s what we do. You look at bands on tour, we live on tour. We don’t make money off of being on tour, but we live being on tour. That’s all I can say, I don’t know how to say it any better. You aint gonna find anything else. I don’t have anything more to say about that.
M!M!: Do you think that people appreciate what releasing a record independently means?
VV: No. No, I don’t think people appreciate it. I think a few people will, otherwise people will always say if you’re out there playing shows, if you’re out there playing big shows, I think people are just going to fucking throw you down there with “Hey, a lot of people came to your show tonight. You guys just make money off of the people”. That’s what I think. Maybe I’m very bitter. I don’t know. But I appreciate everyone that comes to our shows, I appreciate all of it. But I think in this day and age everyone is so jaded by all these bands that get on record labels and all that when there are still bands out there that actually work for the music. There are very, very, very few people out there these days that understand that bands work. The Reverend Horton Heat, people think that it’s this giant band and all that, but Reverend Horton Heat work their assholes off. Bands like us are going to end up like that not a lot of people understand that. Most traveling bands live off of people coming to their shows. Not off of what they buy offline, not off of the CDs they buy offline. We don’t live off of that, we live off of you coming to our shows and buying a sticker, or a T-Shirt. That’s how we survive. We go out there and play music for the people. Fucking A’ if I could make every show free, I would, but we need five dollars at the door. We need ten dollars at the door to pay for our diesel, to pay for the next city. If you want to think of us as assholes for charging that, well you know what? We aint charging thirty, forty, fifty dollars a show to see us. We’re charging what you make an hour sometimes. Even more, it’s what I make an hour when I’m back home working. We all work normal jobs. We’re just a working class band trying to go out there and make it happen.
M!M!: So, I’m a huge admirer of Bad Religion, and Greg Graffin…
VV: Well, let me tell you. It was Bad Religion, I heard Infected which was actually played on mainstream radio at one point in Detroit, Which might not seem so big but whatever. Out west maybe that was normal, but back in Detroit, you had to sit all day in front of the radio to hear that song you really, really liked when you were a kid. And I was that little nerd who sat next to my little Panasonic one speaker cassette player hoping, hoping to hear that song. I was at Myers, which not everyone knows what Myer’s is but Myer’s was a grocery store that had a CD selection and they actually had Stranger Than Fiction. I would bug my mom when I was a kid. I would bug my mom all the time. “Can you buy me this CD? Can you buy me this CD, it has a song that I really like on the radio.” I’m a little kid, I’m like eleven . If it wasn’t for Bad Religion, what I do wouldn’t exist. That’s what turned me on to music. And that’s also what turned me on to, well, Bad Religion wasn’t a band you heard all the time on the radio. You had to search for them. And what did you find when you searched for those bands you don’t hear on the radio? You find Pennywise, you find NOFX, you find all these other southern California punk rock bands. And then, you evolve with your music. You find all these other bands. You go, “Wow, just because I listen to the radio I’m missing out on all these other bands that people really like and are good shit. Why don’t I hear this on the radio?” You know, everyone grows up, everyone starts somewhere. People want to get in my face and go “Oh hey, well what do you think about all these young kids coming and getting into your scene and like Koffin Kats just off of something they bought in Hot Topic?”. I think it’s great. And they get all offended and I go, “Well, fuck you”. You know? Fuck you, you all started somewhere. You don’t want to get in my face but when you get in their face, you get in my face. Fuck you. You all started somewhere. I don’t jump on anyone who appreciates music for what they like. You know what? You jumped into it, you like it? Whatever. And maybe I’m a little harsh towards emo music and all that because that’s like the worst thing ever…but if you can branch out of that and appreciate music and look beyond that, and like older bands, I will never stomp in anyone’s face. There all these people who go, “Well all these young kids are just now getting into all this old music”. Well what do you fucking expect? They’re young! They’re getting into it! You’re really going to get mad at somebody because they weren’t born before your band began? Fuck you, dickhead!
M!M!: Do you think that guys like Greg Graffin, the guys who promote the working man, we do this because we enjoy it…do you think that will make fans appreciate what you do more?
VV: Eventually, yes. You know, we’ve come and gone so fast for a lot of people who decided that the whole psychobilly-I-put-my-hair-in-a-little-pomp-fashion-bullshit. To them, we came and gone really fast. Just as much as they did with Horrorpops and Creepshow and all that shit. It’s the ones that really appreciate the music. Not the ones who were there just to look cute for their boyfriends or girlfriend…I don’t give a goddamn about them, it’s the ones who appreciate the music. So, it might be a small scene, but if they really appreciate the music, awesome. Awesome. I tell you what, there are just so many people that just fucking latch on to so many used chord progressions and so many used hooks in music. And even the old punk rock bands. They still latch on to old shit, they use that and just try to make records off of it. There’s one beauty to the whole idea of an upright bass with music be it psychobilly, or rockabilly or whatever. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Koffin Kats are just a punk rock band with an upright bass. For god sakes, give a damn about the music I write! I aint gonna listen to the hip radio and try to write a song you’ll like so that you buy it.
M!M!: I was just recently at your show in Brooklyn and I showed up in a T-shirt and jeans and I got funny looks but then there was couple there, an older couple who showed up with their beer in a lunch box. I think that’s what it’s about.
VV: You live in America, ok. You see this hair fucking, right here? You think I give a goddamn fuck about how I look on stage? If you’re gonna think twice about how I sound and the music you just listened to from me because my hair aint perfect, then go the fuck home. I aint playing that game. I’m not gonna do that. For so long it was the whole pompadour, it was the, “hey you gotta have the perfect hair to play that kinda music”. Fuck you. I live in the fucking bus. I’m a fucking homeless person. I really am. I aint got no home when I’m on tour. You’re gonna tell me how my hairs gotta look? No. And you know what? I rock my dickhole off so that I can make shit for you to happen. I aint gonna put no hairspray up for you, I’m gonna give you good music. I do what I do and that’s all I gotta say.
M!M!: I think that’s awesome.
VV: I’m not trying to be an asshole about it. Because believe me, if you come up to me, I’m not going to hide all day before I go on stage. I’m not gonna hide in that little transit bus you see right there in front of you. I know no one can see it, but that aint no home. That’s a place to sleep. I like hanging out with people. I like drinking with people. You come to see our show, I have the most respect for you. Thank you so much. I respect the people who actually listen to what we have to do. And anybody else who takes anybody for granted for paying money to come and hear us then fuck you. Fuck you hard, I live my whole life, this is what I do. This is what I’ve done for the past seven, going on eight, years now. I’ve lived in a goddamn van, I’ve lived in a bus.
M!M!:You guys have such a crazy tour schedule. I mean even now, its ridiculous the places you’ll be inside of a week.
VV: We just go. If you’re gonna come and see us then, whatever. Sometimes we make enough money to eat, whatever. What’s to understand is that just because you see us maybe in a Hot Topic, you see us maybe in a store, it don’t mean we’re making any money. And nobody understands that back home, and people don’t understand that on the road. We’re a fucking working band. We don’t go oi, oi, oi, we’re working class, blah blah blah. We don’t. But we are working class as fuck. It is what it is. We work our assholes off because we appreciate the people who come out to see us and we love to play music.
M!M!: And honestly, I feel like the people know that. Everyone here tonight clearly appreciates it.
VV: Everyone hear tonight, you heard it. It’s a family. I recognized so many faces tonight. It’s a fucking family.
M!M!: To me, that’s what its about. The people willing to show up outside of the run-down bowling alley to see you.
VV: And we’re not gonna stop. You see that rig out there? That’s hardly limping itself across the country. But we’re going. And we’re going to keep going. When it stops? We’ll find a way to make it happen again and keep going.
