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22 December 2023
DON’T LET OUR CURRENT ADMINISTRATION FOOL YOU-- GOOD THINGS CAN COME OUT OF TEXAS. OUR VERY OWN VINNIE BAGGADONUTS GOT TO SPEAK WITH 1/6 OF A REALLY GOOD TEXAS THING: JONNY MEYERS OF THE STINGERS ATX. READ ON TO LEARN ABOUT THE STINGERS, THEIR MUSIC, AND THEIR MANY WORLD TRAVELS.
Vinnie: I was wondering how you wound up in Texas having come from New York.
Jonny: You know, it was five or six years ago. I just got tired of Manhattan and the New York lifestyle, and I was looking for a reason to get out of there. I traveled the country a little bit, and came to Austin because there’re musicians everywhere, and everything in Austin was based around this music scene. I figured if I came down here, it’d be pretty easy to find musicians to play with, and have a little bit more relaxed lifestyle.
V: See, I’d wondered if maybe you and the band just crossed paths in traveling, and they recruited you.
J: Well, originally, we did one record with the original singer. He had started the band before I came to Texas, or at least before he knew me. But then we kinda hooked up and started writing songs together. He’s an Army guy, and one day he took off to fulfill his tenure with the Army. Actually, he’s over in Iraq now.
V: Damn.
J: But he left Austin three years ago, before any of the stuff that’s happening to the band now actually happened. But this guy, Walter, he kinda started the whole thing.
V: So, he was the singer on the self-titled album?
J: Yeah.
V: You know, when I listen to the old Stingers stuff, I can hear the difference.
J: Yeah, there’s a pretty big difference. The record and songs are cool-- it was the beginning of the band, you know? But we don’t really sell it anymore.
V: Really?
J: Yeah. We sold out of them, and we never pressed them again. (laughs) Not because it’s bad, but selling it as The Stingers, it’s not really the same thing anymore. It’s a few steps away from what we’ve been doing.
V: But there are parts in some of those older songs that sound like where you’re at right now.
J: Right.
V: So, This Good Thing was first put out by Grover Records, then it was rereleased on Jump Up! Records?
J: Yeah. How did that happen?
V: (laughs) Yeah.
J: Well, our old buddy Walter, the original singer, he got stationed in Germany. And Grover is the German ska scene, pretty much. You go to shows there, and it’s Grover bands, or Grover is putting on the tour. So, he was at a show, and he was either promoting himself or promoting us as a friend, and he passed that old CD to one of the guys working at Grover.
V: Cool.
J: They contacted me, and said, “Send us some new stuff. We might be interested in signing you and putting out a record.” So we sent him our EP, and they decided, “Okay, we’ll make your record and put it out.”
V: Is that weird, being a band in the States, and having your record out on a label in another country?
J: At the time that it came out, it didn’t matter. We were just happy to have a record.
Both: (laugh)
V: Yeah.
J: Somebody pushing our music, instead of just ourselves. You can’t do as much as a label, you know? Someone whose day job it is to push records. So, we were happy. We were also able to use the Grover thing in Europe to get in touch with some other labels here.
V: Right on. Well, you guys do write songs well. I think that’s why a lot of bands suffer, because their songwriting isn’t up to snuff.
J: You know what? I appreciate the compliment. The thing for me is, I was trying to write good songs for years before I started playing ska. I came from a different side. Instead of coming from punk rock, and when there was that big ska boom, I was listening to blues and soul and R&B. And then hit reggae and ska. I was trying to write songs in a soul and funk way. I had a band in New York, and we put out a record.
V: What band was that?
J: The band was called The Blue Bones. It was just a local New York band. But we played some shows at Wetlands, and we put out a record. I was writing back then, but I was struggling. Then, actually, when I met Walter, I started writing stuff with the ska beat, and realized that this was a rhythm that would help me write hooks. If you’re gonna write a good song in reggae or ska, you have to master the hook. And that was the kicker for me. When I started writing in the ska rhythm, I started feeling okay about the songs. And when people started really responding to the songs, I felt, “Okay. Well, I can write.”
Both: (laugh)
J: But I think it’s a matter of listening to different things.
V: Yeah.
J: Different genres. Even if you don’t really like the song itself, you can see that the songwriting and arrangement is phenomenal. It’s just the style that you don’t like.
V: Well, even listening to you guys, you start to forget that you’re supposed to be listening to a ska band.
J: Right.
V: No offense, but the soul element creeps over a little bit more.
J: That’s great. (laughs) You know, the last tour we did, we backed up Laurel Aitken for a couple shows. And I took a long ride in the car with him, from one German town to another, and we’re talking, and he said, “You know, soul music is music. Above ska.” And he started naming some of his favorite soul singers, and said, “It (music) really comes out of that. That’s the real thing.” I don’t know if I would necessarily put one above the other, but it’s interesting that he said that. So, what you said is a compliment.
V: So, what are you doing up in New York right now?
J: Oh-- actually, I’m back in Texas. I was in New York over Christmas, and stayed for New Year’s-- visiting people. And then I did some work with Vic Rice. They opened up Jammyland Studios. Have you been to Jammyland before?
V: No. But Vic told me about it.
J: Yeah. It’s the reggae record store in New York. They have a little room in the basement. The guy who owns the store had some equipment, and Victor had some equipment, so they made a little studio down there. It’s real small-- just one room-- but it’s nice.
Both: (laugh)
V: Were you recording new stuff?
J: Yeah! The way Victor works is, if he’s around, or if he’s in New York, or when I was with him in Argentina, you just get in the studio and you bring songs with you. He tells me, “Bring some songs.” So, he had people coming in and out of the studio. I showed up one night and Eddie Ocampo and Agent Jay were there, and they were playing some rhythms for Vic. Then Vic turns to me, like, “Okay. What song do you want to do? Give me a song.”
Both: (laugh)
J: So, I just hollered out the chords, gave the feel, he fucked with the key a little bit, and we recorded two tunes that night. I think he had some people come in and do horns. I haven’t heard them since, though. I’m sure he had some people come in and do some solos. I guess I’ll hear it when he comes here.
V: How did you end up down in Argentina with him? I knew you went down there, but no one mentioned how it all came to be.
J: Oh, man, that was cool. My girlfriend is from Mar Del Plata, so we went down there. It was the second time I had been down there. I knew Victor was in Brazil, so I just called him, and I told him, “Hey, we’re going down there. Maybe you want to meet us there or something? Maybe we should come out to you if we can.” He had just got back from doing a couple of gigs with a band out there, the Satellite Kingston. They had a great time, but he had to leave the country and work somewhere, as part of his Visa thing in Brazil. So, he did that, and he says to me, “Well, instead of me coming to meet you, let’s get some gigs.”
Both: (laugh)
J: He says, “I got a full eight-piece band. You send ‘em your disc, and they’ll learn a couple Stingers songs.” So, I sent them the CD. They were ecstatic. I did two shows with them, and the second show, there were like 600 or 700 people there. It was in Buenos Aires.
V: Whoa!
J: Yeah. It was incredible. We did a set of their music, then I popped in and did two of my tunes with their backing, and the next set was all Vic’s music, and I was playing guitar. It was really cool. We did a radio show. They did a big interview with us. My face was in La Nacion, which is the New York Times of Buenos Aires. (laughs)
V: No way!
J: My girlfriend was like, “I lived there 25 fucking years of my life and never got in the paper. You’re there for three days, and you’re in it.”
Both: (laugh)
V: Man, you’ve played in a lot of different countries. Where is the reception for The Stingers best?
J: Um,.. we do really well in Germany because of Grover Records. We’ve done really well at any gigs we played in France. Switzerland also has a really young scene going on. We played a show there on our last tour, and there were all these young kids there. And from the first sound to the last sound, they were dancing for every band.
V: That’s awesome.
J: Germany, Switzerland, and France are the best to us. We play in Holland, but only at Ernesto’s. Ernesto’s is incredible.
V: Really?
J: Oh, it’s insane. We came there on the heels of The Slackers doing that live record. When we got there, we didn’t know what to expect them to do to us. And this place is tiny, keep in mind. It can only fit about 150 people. But we come back there from the hotel, and the stage is right by the door, and it was so packed, we couldn’t even go to the bar to put our jackets down or get a drink. We had to walk in and go right on stage. It was totally insane! They carried Wayne (trombone) on their shoulder as he was playing some solos--
Both: (laugh)
J: --which was hilarious, because Wayne is not the kind of guy who would run up to you and give you a hug. And when they grabbed him and picked him up, it was hilarious to the rest of us.
V: So, I ask this of a lot of ska musicians that I talk to-- playing out and about in the rest of the world compared to the States, what’s the comparison?
J: We haven’t really done an extensive tour of the States. The reason is, we didn’t have a label that was setting us up like we did in Europe. It’s difficult to travel in the States because of distance-- because it’s going to cost a lot more-- so we haven’t done as much as we wanted to in the States. Our only real comparison is half of the country, from Texas, east. Our experience in Europe compared to our experience in the States is definitely different. Maybe it’s because we had a label over there, pushing it and promoting it, or maybe it’s because the scene in the States is a lot smaller. Here, you know, it’s harder to get people to come see you, saying, you know, you’re a rocksteady band on such and such label. Whereas, in Europe, when we went there our first time, people were like, "You’re on Grover, so we’ll come see you. We don’t know you. We haven’t heard the record yet. But we’re coming to see you because of the Skanking Around the Christmas Tree Tour, or because Grover’s coming with you with all their records."
Both: (laugh)
J: So, our experiences overseas are far better than our experiences here in the States, though we have had some really great gigs here.
V: Do you think it’s just hard because people here aren’t familiar with rocksteady music? I mean, it hasn’t really been given much attention or exposure here in the States.
J: You wonder why, too? Rocksteady music, you can find everything you want in London, because they have a huge Jamaican community. So why shouldn’t it be the same in the States when there’s just as big a Jamaican community here, too? I mean, if you’re in the cities where Jamaicans have migrated to, you can find what you want to find in small shops. But I don’t really know why it hasn’t gotten much attention here. In Europe, you know, people are really active about getting it. The Jamaican music industry is as fucked up as any music industry, but it’s also localized there. They cut the record, and they get it out quick-- they have to get it out to the sound system. There aren’t as many people seeking this stuff out here.
V: Yeah.
J: Down here in Texas, it’s a lot harder to find music like that than it is up North. It’s not so bad here in Austin, because Austin is a music town. You have enough people interested in a lot of different kinds of music here, so I can find most of what I’m trying to find here.
V: Well, since a lot of people here really aren’t aware of what rocksteady is, how do you guys bill yourselves for shows?
J: It’s difficult when people don’t know who you are, and you bill yourself as a "ska" band. You get lumped into a category that you may not necessarily want people to think of you as. Ska music is good music, but most people will associate it with the only ska they know-- the 3rd wave stuff. During that 3rd Wave boom, we would so often get billed as a ska band, and the guy at the door would have to tell people, “Oh, these guys sound kinda like the Bosstones,” or “These guys kinda sound like No Doubt,” (laughs) because people going to the clubs wanted to know what they were going to see. Every CD review would start off, “Although ska is considered Bosstones and Goldfinger, these guys don’t sound like that.”
Both: (laugh)
J: So, we went ahead and billed ourselves as a rocksteady band, and people would come up to us like, “Uh,.. what is that?” (laughs) So, it’s hard without being known to figure out how to bill ourselves. Now we just bill ourselves as the best thing we could think of, which is Jamaican-influenced music. Because we aren’t Jamaican; we’re a bunch of American guys who grew up listening to a lot of things before we discovered Jamaican music, but now we’re totally into Jamaican music.
V: Yeah.
J: And it’s true, because in the songwriting, yes, I tend to use the Jamaican rhythms. But the songwriting sensibilities, the pop sensibilities, are coming out of American rock or doo-wop or Dylan’s writing.
V: You guys also have a lot of storytelling in your music, too, which is one of the coolest things about your songs.
J: Aw, that’s cool, man.
V: When you sit down to write, are you looking to tell a story, or does it just happen that way?
J: Sometimes there’s a method to the creation, and sometimes there isn’t. Take two different tunes off of the record (This Good Thing)-- take “Artificial Tears” and “In the End”. “In the End” is inspired by a real thing that happened to me, in my life. And “Artificial Tears”, well, I have a lot of Artificial Tears sitting in my living room. I went to the optometrist, and he gave me a bunch of bottles of Artificial Tears because my eyes were dry. (laughs) We’re getting ready to go out on the road, standing in my living room, and someone picks up a bottle and says, “What’s this?” I said, “Oh, those are Artificial Tears.” All of a sudden, I had the chorus in my head. We’re in the van five minutes later, and I finish the song.
Both: (laugh)
J: So, sometimes, I’ll try and sit down and put my mind together to write, which I should be doing every night-- writing. And sometimes, stuff like that happens, and the song is done in three minutes.
V: Yeah.
J: I think that some of the new stuff that comes out of bands playing the music we play, and the music that comes out of bands who have been doing it for a while, like The Slackers, Hepcat, The Pietasters, I think the music is rooted the same, but there’s something different about it, and it’s the writing.
V: Yeah. And I read that you guys get compared to The Slackers a lot. Any idea why? Because I don’t really hear that.
J: Oh, wow! You gotta print that. That’s a first!
Both: (laugh)
V: I read that, and I kept listening to the record, and I really couldn’t hear The Slackers thing.
J: That’s great! I mean, I don’t mind being compared to them. At first, I might have because of an ego thing. But now, being compared to them is great, because I like The Slackers. They’re a great band. I listen to them, and love their writing, and everything they do is absolutely great. You know? Being compared to them is okay. (laughs) But I do agree with you; I don’t think you can make a direct correlation between bands. We have different sound, a different horn section-- we have NO horn SECTION. Just one guy-- a trombone player, you know?
V: I think that’s awesome, by the way. It’s just one man, and he’s the entire might of your horn SECTION.
J: Great, man. I’ll have to pass that along. I think the comparison may come from when I sing on a song. I’m from New York, so both Vic and I have a similar accent. Or maybe it’s just because there aren’t so many bands out there doing what we do, so comparison is inevitable. But there is a definite difference in sound on the new record.
V: When is the new record coming out?
J: We’re recording in February. Victor Rice is coming here, and we’re doing ten days in the studio. It’s supposed to come out before we get to Europe, which is April. It’ll come out over there on Grover in March, and Chuck at Jump Up! already said he’s interested in doing the same thing with the new record as he did with This Good Thing.
V: Yeah.
J: I hope he doesn’t want to wait too long, because he just put out this one. (laughs) We’ll have them, and we’ll put them up online until he decides.
V: Do you feel like there are more opportunities for bands like yours? There was that whole boom a few years ago, where everybody and their mother was putting a record out. The good thing about it was, really good bands were finally getting the opportunities they deserved. But when it died down, those really good bands wound up suffering.
J: Yeah. They had to go back to that real, hardcore do-it-yourself thing when the boom died. At least from our perspective, our increasing opportunities in the last year have gone away from us being compared to those acts from the ska boom, to more of us being known as a band that plays good music. It’s ska music, but it’s music. I don’t know what could directly be the cause of people listening to more Jamaican music. Dancehall has certainly gotten more and more popular.
V: With the new record coming out on Grover, and possibly on Jump Up!, do you think you’ll do an extensive tour of the States?
J: We definitely want to hit the West Coast. We’re thinking about, near the end of the summer, going from here to the West Coast. After that, we want to go up to Chicago, where Jump Up! is. Either we’re gonna put that together as a big tour, or we’re going to do a couple weeks here, a couple weeks there.
V: Yeah.
J: Unfortunately, we all gotta try and make a living, and it’s not through music, so we all have work down here. That’s the biggest thing holding us back from going out on the road.
V: Yeah.
J: And that’s an odd dilemma for a musician. I figure that, even if it’s this dilemma for the rest of my life, between working and music, I’ll always be playing. Always. I’ll always be writing. I’m thankful for these two labels to be putting out our records. I’m thankful that we have records that can put us out on tour. I’m thankful that the music I’m writing, and the music we’re working on, is out there for people to hear.
V: Man, I’m glad that things are working out for you guys, too.
J: Thank you.
V: Now, before I go, what’s this “acoustic rocksteady” thing I saw on your tour dates listing?
J: Yeah! That’s a side project I’m involved with, and Wayne, the trombone player, is, too. It’s an acoustic group: upright bass, acoustic guitar, Wayne’s playing melodica, I got a steel drum player, and a percussionist. We play rocksteady, mixed in with some ragtime-ish Americana music.
V: Oh, man!
J: We’re a local thing, mostly. We’re gonna put a record out once the new Stingers record and tour slows down a bit. It’s a really cool group; a bunch of really cool musicians from here in Austin.
V: Definitely keep me informed about it. I’ll buy a copy of that, too.
J: Oh, I’ll be pushing that on Grover, for sure. We have a great recording of The Stingers combined with that band. We did a radio thing. It was really nice.
VISIT THE STINGERS HERE. BUY THEIR RECORD HERE OR HERE.
Vinnie: I was wondering how you wound up in Texas having come from New York.
Jonny: You know, it was five or six years ago. I just got tired of Manhattan and the New York lifestyle, and I was looking for a reason to get out of there. I traveled the country a little bit, and came to Austin because there’re musicians everywhere, and everything in Austin was based around this music scene. I figured if I came down here, it’d be pretty easy to find musicians to play with, and have a little bit more relaxed lifestyle.
V: See, I’d wondered if maybe you and the band just crossed paths in traveling, and they recruited you.
J: Well, originally, we did one record with the original singer. He had started the band before I came to Texas, or at least before he knew me. But then we kinda hooked up and started writing songs together. He’s an Army guy, and one day he took off to fulfill his tenure with the Army. Actually, he’s over in Iraq now.
V: Damn.
J: But he left Austin three years ago, before any of the stuff that’s happening to the band now actually happened. But this guy, Walter, he kinda started the whole thing.
V: So, he was the singer on the self-titled album?
J: Yeah.
V: You know, when I listen to the old Stingers stuff, I can hear the difference.
J: Yeah, there’s a pretty big difference. The record and songs are cool-- it was the beginning of the band, you know? But we don’t really sell it anymore.
V: Really?
J: Yeah. We sold out of them, and we never pressed them again. (laughs) Not because it’s bad, but selling it as The Stingers, it’s not really the same thing anymore. It’s a few steps away from what we’ve been doing.
V: But there are parts in some of those older songs that sound like where you’re at right now.
J: Right.
V: So, This Good Thing was first put out by Grover Records, then it was rereleased on Jump Up! Records?
J: Yeah. How did that happen?
V: (laughs) Yeah.
J: Well, our old buddy Walter, the original singer, he got stationed in Germany. And Grover is the German ska scene, pretty much. You go to shows there, and it’s Grover bands, or Grover is putting on the tour. So, he was at a show, and he was either promoting himself or promoting us as a friend, and he passed that old CD to one of the guys working at Grover.
V: Cool.
J: They contacted me, and said, “Send us some new stuff. We might be interested in signing you and putting out a record.” So we sent him our EP, and they decided, “Okay, we’ll make your record and put it out.”
V: Is that weird, being a band in the States, and having your record out on a label in another country?
J: At the time that it came out, it didn’t matter. We were just happy to have a record.
Both: (laugh)
V: Yeah.
J: Somebody pushing our music, instead of just ourselves. You can’t do as much as a label, you know? Someone whose day job it is to push records. So, we were happy. We were also able to use the Grover thing in Europe to get in touch with some other labels here.
V: Right on. Well, you guys do write songs well. I think that’s why a lot of bands suffer, because their songwriting isn’t up to snuff.
J: You know what? I appreciate the compliment. The thing for me is, I was trying to write good songs for years before I started playing ska. I came from a different side. Instead of coming from punk rock, and when there was that big ska boom, I was listening to blues and soul and R&B. And then hit reggae and ska. I was trying to write songs in a soul and funk way. I had a band in New York, and we put out a record.
V: What band was that?
J: The band was called The Blue Bones. It was just a local New York band. But we played some shows at Wetlands, and we put out a record. I was writing back then, but I was struggling. Then, actually, when I met Walter, I started writing stuff with the ska beat, and realized that this was a rhythm that would help me write hooks. If you’re gonna write a good song in reggae or ska, you have to master the hook. And that was the kicker for me. When I started writing in the ska rhythm, I started feeling okay about the songs. And when people started really responding to the songs, I felt, “Okay. Well, I can write.”
Both: (laugh)
J: But I think it’s a matter of listening to different things.
V: Yeah.
J: Different genres. Even if you don’t really like the song itself, you can see that the songwriting and arrangement is phenomenal. It’s just the style that you don’t like.
V: Well, even listening to you guys, you start to forget that you’re supposed to be listening to a ska band.
J: Right.
V: No offense, but the soul element creeps over a little bit more.
J: That’s great. (laughs) You know, the last tour we did, we backed up Laurel Aitken for a couple shows. And I took a long ride in the car with him, from one German town to another, and we’re talking, and he said, “You know, soul music is music. Above ska.” And he started naming some of his favorite soul singers, and said, “It (music) really comes out of that. That’s the real thing.” I don’t know if I would necessarily put one above the other, but it’s interesting that he said that. So, what you said is a compliment.
V: So, what are you doing up in New York right now?
J: Oh-- actually, I’m back in Texas. I was in New York over Christmas, and stayed for New Year’s-- visiting people. And then I did some work with Vic Rice. They opened up Jammyland Studios. Have you been to Jammyland before?
V: No. But Vic told me about it.
J: Yeah. It’s the reggae record store in New York. They have a little room in the basement. The guy who owns the store had some equipment, and Victor had some equipment, so they made a little studio down there. It’s real small-- just one room-- but it’s nice.
Both: (laugh)
V: Were you recording new stuff?
J: Yeah! The way Victor works is, if he’s around, or if he’s in New York, or when I was with him in Argentina, you just get in the studio and you bring songs with you. He tells me, “Bring some songs.” So, he had people coming in and out of the studio. I showed up one night and Eddie Ocampo and Agent Jay were there, and they were playing some rhythms for Vic. Then Vic turns to me, like, “Okay. What song do you want to do? Give me a song.”
Both: (laugh)
J: So, I just hollered out the chords, gave the feel, he fucked with the key a little bit, and we recorded two tunes that night. I think he had some people come in and do horns. I haven’t heard them since, though. I’m sure he had some people come in and do some solos. I guess I’ll hear it when he comes here.
V: How did you end up down in Argentina with him? I knew you went down there, but no one mentioned how it all came to be.
J: Oh, man, that was cool. My girlfriend is from Mar Del Plata, so we went down there. It was the second time I had been down there. I knew Victor was in Brazil, so I just called him, and I told him, “Hey, we’re going down there. Maybe you want to meet us there or something? Maybe we should come out to you if we can.” He had just got back from doing a couple of gigs with a band out there, the Satellite Kingston. They had a great time, but he had to leave the country and work somewhere, as part of his Visa thing in Brazil. So, he did that, and he says to me, “Well, instead of me coming to meet you, let’s get some gigs.”
Both: (laugh)
J: He says, “I got a full eight-piece band. You send ‘em your disc, and they’ll learn a couple Stingers songs.” So, I sent them the CD. They were ecstatic. I did two shows with them, and the second show, there were like 600 or 700 people there. It was in Buenos Aires.
V: Whoa!
J: Yeah. It was incredible. We did a set of their music, then I popped in and did two of my tunes with their backing, and the next set was all Vic’s music, and I was playing guitar. It was really cool. We did a radio show. They did a big interview with us. My face was in La Nacion, which is the New York Times of Buenos Aires. (laughs)
V: No way!
J: My girlfriend was like, “I lived there 25 fucking years of my life and never got in the paper. You’re there for three days, and you’re in it.”
Both: (laugh)
V: Man, you’ve played in a lot of different countries. Where is the reception for The Stingers best?
J: Um,.. we do really well in Germany because of Grover Records. We’ve done really well at any gigs we played in France. Switzerland also has a really young scene going on. We played a show there on our last tour, and there were all these young kids there. And from the first sound to the last sound, they were dancing for every band.
V: That’s awesome.
J: Germany, Switzerland, and France are the best to us. We play in Holland, but only at Ernesto’s. Ernesto’s is incredible.
V: Really?
J: Oh, it’s insane. We came there on the heels of The Slackers doing that live record. When we got there, we didn’t know what to expect them to do to us. And this place is tiny, keep in mind. It can only fit about 150 people. But we come back there from the hotel, and the stage is right by the door, and it was so packed, we couldn’t even go to the bar to put our jackets down or get a drink. We had to walk in and go right on stage. It was totally insane! They carried Wayne (trombone) on their shoulder as he was playing some solos--
Both: (laugh)
J: --which was hilarious, because Wayne is not the kind of guy who would run up to you and give you a hug. And when they grabbed him and picked him up, it was hilarious to the rest of us.
V: So, I ask this of a lot of ska musicians that I talk to-- playing out and about in the rest of the world compared to the States, what’s the comparison?
J: We haven’t really done an extensive tour of the States. The reason is, we didn’t have a label that was setting us up like we did in Europe. It’s difficult to travel in the States because of distance-- because it’s going to cost a lot more-- so we haven’t done as much as we wanted to in the States. Our only real comparison is half of the country, from Texas, east. Our experience in Europe compared to our experience in the States is definitely different. Maybe it’s because we had a label over there, pushing it and promoting it, or maybe it’s because the scene in the States is a lot smaller. Here, you know, it’s harder to get people to come see you, saying, you know, you’re a rocksteady band on such and such label. Whereas, in Europe, when we went there our first time, people were like, "You’re on Grover, so we’ll come see you. We don’t know you. We haven’t heard the record yet. But we’re coming to see you because of the Skanking Around the Christmas Tree Tour, or because Grover’s coming with you with all their records."
Both: (laugh)
J: So, our experiences overseas are far better than our experiences here in the States, though we have had some really great gigs here.
V: Do you think it’s just hard because people here aren’t familiar with rocksteady music? I mean, it hasn’t really been given much attention or exposure here in the States.
J: You wonder why, too? Rocksteady music, you can find everything you want in London, because they have a huge Jamaican community. So why shouldn’t it be the same in the States when there’s just as big a Jamaican community here, too? I mean, if you’re in the cities where Jamaicans have migrated to, you can find what you want to find in small shops. But I don’t really know why it hasn’t gotten much attention here. In Europe, you know, people are really active about getting it. The Jamaican music industry is as fucked up as any music industry, but it’s also localized there. They cut the record, and they get it out quick-- they have to get it out to the sound system. There aren’t as many people seeking this stuff out here.
V: Yeah.
J: Down here in Texas, it’s a lot harder to find music like that than it is up North. It’s not so bad here in Austin, because Austin is a music town. You have enough people interested in a lot of different kinds of music here, so I can find most of what I’m trying to find here.
V: Well, since a lot of people here really aren’t aware of what rocksteady is, how do you guys bill yourselves for shows?
J: It’s difficult when people don’t know who you are, and you bill yourself as a "ska" band. You get lumped into a category that you may not necessarily want people to think of you as. Ska music is good music, but most people will associate it with the only ska they know-- the 3rd wave stuff. During that 3rd Wave boom, we would so often get billed as a ska band, and the guy at the door would have to tell people, “Oh, these guys sound kinda like the Bosstones,” or “These guys kinda sound like No Doubt,” (laughs) because people going to the clubs wanted to know what they were going to see. Every CD review would start off, “Although ska is considered Bosstones and Goldfinger, these guys don’t sound like that.”
Both: (laugh)
J: So, we went ahead and billed ourselves as a rocksteady band, and people would come up to us like, “Uh,.. what is that?” (laughs) So, it’s hard without being known to figure out how to bill ourselves. Now we just bill ourselves as the best thing we could think of, which is Jamaican-influenced music. Because we aren’t Jamaican; we’re a bunch of American guys who grew up listening to a lot of things before we discovered Jamaican music, but now we’re totally into Jamaican music.
V: Yeah.
J: And it’s true, because in the songwriting, yes, I tend to use the Jamaican rhythms. But the songwriting sensibilities, the pop sensibilities, are coming out of American rock or doo-wop or Dylan’s writing.
V: You guys also have a lot of storytelling in your music, too, which is one of the coolest things about your songs.
J: Aw, that’s cool, man.
V: When you sit down to write, are you looking to tell a story, or does it just happen that way?
J: Sometimes there’s a method to the creation, and sometimes there isn’t. Take two different tunes off of the record (This Good Thing)-- take “Artificial Tears” and “In the End”. “In the End” is inspired by a real thing that happened to me, in my life. And “Artificial Tears”, well, I have a lot of Artificial Tears sitting in my living room. I went to the optometrist, and he gave me a bunch of bottles of Artificial Tears because my eyes were dry. (laughs) We’re getting ready to go out on the road, standing in my living room, and someone picks up a bottle and says, “What’s this?” I said, “Oh, those are Artificial Tears.” All of a sudden, I had the chorus in my head. We’re in the van five minutes later, and I finish the song.
Both: (laugh)
J: So, sometimes, I’ll try and sit down and put my mind together to write, which I should be doing every night-- writing. And sometimes, stuff like that happens, and the song is done in three minutes.
V: Yeah.
J: I think that some of the new stuff that comes out of bands playing the music we play, and the music that comes out of bands who have been doing it for a while, like The Slackers, Hepcat, The Pietasters, I think the music is rooted the same, but there’s something different about it, and it’s the writing.
V: Yeah. And I read that you guys get compared to The Slackers a lot. Any idea why? Because I don’t really hear that.
J: Oh, wow! You gotta print that. That’s a first!
Both: (laugh)
V: I read that, and I kept listening to the record, and I really couldn’t hear The Slackers thing.
J: That’s great! I mean, I don’t mind being compared to them. At first, I might have because of an ego thing. But now, being compared to them is great, because I like The Slackers. They’re a great band. I listen to them, and love their writing, and everything they do is absolutely great. You know? Being compared to them is okay. (laughs) But I do agree with you; I don’t think you can make a direct correlation between bands. We have different sound, a different horn section-- we have NO horn SECTION. Just one guy-- a trombone player, you know?
V: I think that’s awesome, by the way. It’s just one man, and he’s the entire might of your horn SECTION.
J: Great, man. I’ll have to pass that along. I think the comparison may come from when I sing on a song. I’m from New York, so both Vic and I have a similar accent. Or maybe it’s just because there aren’t so many bands out there doing what we do, so comparison is inevitable. But there is a definite difference in sound on the new record.
V: When is the new record coming out?
J: We’re recording in February. Victor Rice is coming here, and we’re doing ten days in the studio. It’s supposed to come out before we get to Europe, which is April. It’ll come out over there on Grover in March, and Chuck at Jump Up! already said he’s interested in doing the same thing with the new record as he did with This Good Thing.
V: Yeah.
J: I hope he doesn’t want to wait too long, because he just put out this one. (laughs) We’ll have them, and we’ll put them up online until he decides.
V: Do you feel like there are more opportunities for bands like yours? There was that whole boom a few years ago, where everybody and their mother was putting a record out. The good thing about it was, really good bands were finally getting the opportunities they deserved. But when it died down, those really good bands wound up suffering.
J: Yeah. They had to go back to that real, hardcore do-it-yourself thing when the boom died. At least from our perspective, our increasing opportunities in the last year have gone away from us being compared to those acts from the ska boom, to more of us being known as a band that plays good music. It’s ska music, but it’s music. I don’t know what could directly be the cause of people listening to more Jamaican music. Dancehall has certainly gotten more and more popular.
V: With the new record coming out on Grover, and possibly on Jump Up!, do you think you’ll do an extensive tour of the States?
J: We definitely want to hit the West Coast. We’re thinking about, near the end of the summer, going from here to the West Coast. After that, we want to go up to Chicago, where Jump Up! is. Either we’re gonna put that together as a big tour, or we’re going to do a couple weeks here, a couple weeks there.
V: Yeah.
J: Unfortunately, we all gotta try and make a living, and it’s not through music, so we all have work down here. That’s the biggest thing holding us back from going out on the road.
V: Yeah.
J: And that’s an odd dilemma for a musician. I figure that, even if it’s this dilemma for the rest of my life, between working and music, I’ll always be playing. Always. I’ll always be writing. I’m thankful for these two labels to be putting out our records. I’m thankful that we have records that can put us out on tour. I’m thankful that the music I’m writing, and the music we’re working on, is out there for people to hear.
V: Man, I’m glad that things are working out for you guys, too.
J: Thank you.
V: Now, before I go, what’s this “acoustic rocksteady” thing I saw on your tour dates listing?
J: Yeah! That’s a side project I’m involved with, and Wayne, the trombone player, is, too. It’s an acoustic group: upright bass, acoustic guitar, Wayne’s playing melodica, I got a steel drum player, and a percussionist. We play rocksteady, mixed in with some ragtime-ish Americana music.
V: Oh, man!
J: We’re a local thing, mostly. We’re gonna put a record out once the new Stingers record and tour slows down a bit. It’s a really cool group; a bunch of really cool musicians from here in Austin.
V: Definitely keep me informed about it. I’ll buy a copy of that, too.
J: Oh, I’ll be pushing that on Grover, for sure. We have a great recording of The Stingers combined with that band. We did a radio thing. It was really nice.
VISIT THE STINGERS HERE. BUY THEIR RECORD HERE OR HERE.
artid
2011
Old Image
6_6_stingers.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 06 (feb 2004)
section
interviews