INTERVIEW: Reel Big Fish chart busy summer with friends
Photo: Reel Big Fish are ready for a busy summer of co-headlining dates, including a stop in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for Vans Warped tour. Photo courtesy of Jodie Cunningham / Provided by Earshot Media with permission.
Reel Big Fish know how to throw a party, and this summer they are throwing more than a few parties with their good friends. They begin with some international dates in the coming weeks and then kick off a summer-long co-headlining tour with Bowling for Soup. In between different legs of that tour, they’ll make stops at the Vans Warped dates in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and also another co-headlining tour with The Aquabats!
For the uninitiated (are there still people who fit this category?), Reel Big Fish are one of the most respected ska-punk bands in history. They emerged from the southern California scene in the 1990s, during the so-called third wave of ska, joining other groups like No Doubt, Sublime, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Aquabats! and Suburban Legends.
They have traveled the world and back again, and along the way, they have racked up many an accomplishment. Their albums are eccentric creations that highlight their unique style of rockified energy and humorous lyricism. Albums have included Life Sucks … Let’s Dance!, Candy Coated Fury, Cheer Up!, We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy and Our Live Album Is Better Than Your Live Album, among many others.
Recently Aaron Barrett, on vocals and guitar, exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about the upcoming summer tours. He is joined in the band by trumpeter John Christianson, Matt Appleton on saxophone and vocal harmonies, bassist Derek Gibbs and drummer Ed Smokey Beach. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
- What can your fans expect on this co-headlining tour with Bowling for Soup?
Lots of awesome music, wacky onstage antics, hilarious between-song banter and more fun that you’ll probably be able to stand!
- Both of these bands have played Vans Warped before, but this is the first time you are together on your own concert tour. How did this collaboration begin?
I think in 2017 on the Warped Tour cruise, we really realized that both bands were all about having fun and putting on an entertaining show, and we both had similar senses of humor. And then at Warped 2018, we really just started to agree more and more as the tour went on that we had to go on our own tour together. It just needed to happen!
- What was it like last summer to be on the final Vans Warped cross-country tour?
Would I be the 956,078,765,234 person to say this if I said that it was ‘bittersweet?’ Warped Tour has always meant so much to us and played a huge part in our career and in our lives, so we were very honored to be there to wish it farewell and so sad to see it ‘end.’
- What inspired Life Sucks … Let’s Dance?
It’s all about focusing on the positive for me nowadays. In the past, I’ve definitely gone a little too far into hatefulness and negativity in some of the older songs. I just wanted to put a little more hopefulness into the music while still keeping that sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek RBF type humor in the lyrics.
- When do you know it’s time to head into the recording studio and produce a new album?
Well, I just put it off as long as I can, you know!? haha
- In real life, are you all as funny as some of your music lyrics?
I’m definitely way funnier on stage than in real life. Something comes over me when I get up there in front of people, and I just become a different person. The real me is very boring! haha
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Reel Big Fish are gearing up for a co-headlining tour with Bowling for Soup and a separate co-headlining tour with The Aquabats! The band’s new album is called Life Sucks … Let’s Dance. Click here for more information and tickets.
