Reel Big Fish says there is a message
behind its light-hearted lyrics.
Warped
Polo field hosts music
By John Berger
and skateboarding extravaganza
Special to the Star-BulletinAttention, crowd surfers and mosh-pit ragers. Tavis Werts and the other members of Reel Big Fish have a simple request: "Don't do it during our set!" "All the people in the first couple of rows who are really there to see the band are getting slammed in the back and kicked in the back of the head (by the crowd surfers). If other bands want to encourage it, it's cool (for them), but there have been several times we've stopped playing because we don't want people getting hurt while we play."
Werts was calling from just outside Tokyo as Warped Tour '98 roared into the Japan leg of the odyssey. Several other Fish were close enough to interject comments as he talked about crowds, tours and the music.
"What we'd really like to do is arrange a tour with us, Fugazi, Propagandhi and Beck and do an anti-crowd-surfing tour. We don't know if it'll ever happen but it would be really cool."
The Fish, originally from Orange County, Calif., is one of the more whimsical bands in a line-up that includes the Mighty Mighty BossTones, Blink-182, the Vandals, 311, the Royal Crown Revue and Germany's anti-Nazi rockers Die Toten Hosen (a literal translation is "The Dead Pants").
The Fish have been described as "a frightening example of why young children shouldn't drink Jolt Cola," and band members pride themselves on being simultaneously cynical and self-deprecating.
Fish vocalist Aaron Barrett is the resident lyricist. The group's 1996 album, "Turn The Radio Off," addresses such subjects as rejection, superficial and trend-conscious people, the treacherous nature of the music business, and having your girlfriend leave you for a woman ("She Has a Girlfriend Now").
"On the surface the songs are light-hearted, but at the same time there are some serious messages," Werts said. "(Barrett) writes most of the songs based on experience. You have to have been involved in the local Orange County-Long Beach scene to understand some of them, but most of our songs are fairly universal -- especially if you've been in a band. (Band member) Scott (Klopfenstein) says they all have to do with naked people."
The Warped Tour's stop in Hawaii is a long-awaited homecoming for Daniel Glass of Royal Crown Revue. He's a 1984 graduate of Punahou.
Glass was the final member of the original Dambuilders and played on the group's 1989 debut album, "A Young Person's Guide." He's been living in Los Angeles since 1990 and plays a very different style of music these days.
"We call it 'hard-boiled swing,' " Glass explained, calling from Melbourne last week. The LA-based septet plays a blend of ska, modern punk, jazz and swing that draws on 50 years of American pop and rock music. The band's first major label release, "Mugzy's Move," is a refreshingly original musical journey through the seedier side of the SoCal scene -- retro but contemporary.
"We pay tribute to the era of classic American music but we do it in a way that doesn't deny the fact that we grew up in the '60s, '70s and '80s, with all the styles that come with it," Glass said. "We can do jazz-oriented gigs like nine weeks in the lounge at the Desert Inn in Vegas and then do a punk-ska tour. We opened for KISS last year in Omaha, but also played the Playboy Jazz Festival in L.A."
The Revue's unconventional sound and style made it difficult to get a record deal even after the band appeared opposite Jim Carey and Cameron Diaz in that morphed-out dance number in "The Mask."
"We'd been a popular club band around LA, but people would say, 'This is cool but what do you do with it?'," he said. But Warner Bros. producer Ted Templeman "saw where we were going with it and took us the rest of the way."
Warped Tour '98
Featuring: 16 bands and skate-boarding exhibitions
