Jeremy Hunter was first introduced to me back in ~2017, when someone tagged me on their cover of the Chip Skylark song “My Shiny Teeth and Me” (which has since been re-recorded and released!). At the time, I was a bit indignant about being the designated “ska friend”—a moniker that was perhaps well-deserved, considering I loved Jeremy’s cover and immediately started following their musical journey. About a year later, I met Jeremy in-person when their ska band We Are The Union played a show in the accursed yet charming (or charming yet accursed?) city of Reno, Nevada. We’ve talked about doing this interview for literal years now, but life gets hectic. Who would’ve thought a global pandemic would be what finally made this interview possible?
You’ve definitely done a lot in the past few years, with not just Skatune [Network] but also We Are The Union, your solo projects, etc. What have been some of the highlights for you?
Definitely being able to do JER. That’s a project that is obviously personal. It’s my solo project. I haven’t had a band where I’m the focus and I’m writing the music and doing all that. Every band I’ve been in has been a group or a collaboration or something like that, or [I’ll] help write the songs. So it’s really dope to see that.
And the response that JER got right off the bat was really dope. Because Skatune Network is a dope platform, but at the end of the day, a lot of people listen because they want nostalgic covers, not because they want new music. And I get that. So I didn’t really know what type of response JER would get or whatever.
And it’s different, I’m doing a lot of new stuff and as I drop more singles and more music, people are going to start to see that it’s very different. I’m not going to [do] the traditional ‘90s ska punk sound that a lot of bands keep trying to do. So it’s just like taking a step into the dark. But to see the response be so good so far, to see people, especially outside of ska, say, “Oh, I really like this. This is dope”—that’s my favorite part.
I think this is me calling out some of my friends who don’t realize that you do things outside of the ska covers. I’m like, “Y’all know that they do everything, right?” So that actually brings me to my second question. Let’s talk about your single, “Breaking News! Local Punk Doubts Existence of Systemic Racism.” This is definitely an experience that is all too real.
There are a lot of, I’m doing air quotes, “punks” of a certain racial and age demographic who are all like, “Yes, ska ska ska, unity, I’m all anti-the system” and things like that. But then they turn around and say these questionable or just straight-up racist and particularly anti-Black things.
And I think especially in light of this year’s events, it’s been painfully obvious to me and I’m sure many other people, how many of these bigger ska bands, as well as their fans, have kept silent and that’s really frustrating. I guess I’m just going to alienate people at this point, but personally I don’t want people like that in my scene. But if you feel comfortable, could you share some of your thoughts on that?
That’s definitely a thing that I don’t really understand, and I’ve seen a lot of people’s responses, like there was a thread somewhere on the ska [sub]reddit a month or two ago where someone was talking about how happy they are that Reel Big Fish didn’t say anything [about Black Lives Matter] in June. And they were saying that they were happy that there were bands out there not saying anything because to them, it’s their escape. They’re like, “Everywhere I go on social media right now, all you see is politics and Black Lives Matter and I’m so happy that some bands are being vocal about it, while other bands aren’t so [you get] whatever you want. Like, if you don’t want to hear that, you have bands that aren’t talking about it.” And I responded to that person.
[I can say] this is definitely the mentality a lot of people in ska have, because I’ve seen that same rhetoric said a million different ways. And that’s such a privilege to be able to say that, and you don’t realize it’s a privilege. This music is built off of racial unity and fighting racism but then you’re being complacent to racism. The worst part is, racism is not just overt, you know, like someone wakes up like, “Ah, I’m [going to] hate Black people today,” like that’s not how racism works.
Racism is systemic. We are taught to be racist and most racism that is harmful is covert. It’s not overt. It’s not out there, [it’s] things like redlining, gerrymandering, like the doll test. I was talking about this recently with somebody else. [It’s a] whole test where they get Black youth—the kids were like 6, 7, 8 years old and they gave them the option to choose between two dolls. And all the Black youth choose the white doll because their whole life, they’re taught that the way they look is ugly. The way that their hair is [is] ugly, you know, things like that. And that’s just embedded in our culture. It’s embedded in the way things are marketed, it’s embedded in media, it’s embedded in music.
And all of that takes unlearning and the fact that there are so many people, especially in punk and ska, a genre that is not only built around being anti-racist, but built around saying, “We want to be better than the system, better than the status quo. The system is terrible.” And then they’re part of the system. They internalize things that are part of the system. So it’s like, are you a punk because you hate the system? Or are you a punk because you were 16 years old and you watched SLC Punk once and then you got a mohawk? And then you continued being a racist jock? Like… what is it? Make up your mind.
Go in on ‘em!! No, yeah, definitely. I think that’s something that even when I was like, 18, 19 [years old] noticed with these… I’m calling everybody out… these punks who are in their mid-30s or so, [and ska/punk] was the mainstream for them, which is really funny. They talk about how they’re so alternative and they’re like, “Oh, popular music is trash.” And I’m like, “But ska was literally on MTV in the late ‘90s, so….”
But anyway, kind of on that same wavelength, how can we better create, cultivate, and maintain community, particularly for Black [and/or] Indigenous POC, as well as queer/trans POC. Obviously, unfortunately, the quote unquote “mainstream” isn’t going to do this, although there’s definitely a lot of new bands, like folks like you, who are doing this amazing work to build community, but I think it is on us now. So how do we continue to keep this momentum?
I think [in] 2020 you saw a lot of good things happening. And so something that I talk about with my partner a lot is, how back in June and July and August, Skatune Network was doing great, in response to the Black Lives Matter thing. [2020] saw a lot of people finally uplifting bands, full of Black and brown people especially, and you started seeing people throwing them on their playlists, shouting them out and stuff like that.
And that momentum has kind of died down, and I think it’s kind of just like, Black Lives Matter isn’t the hot topic of the week the way it was back in June or July for a lot of people. So a lot of people move on to the next thing, like the elections are over, Biden won. So in some people’s minds, they think, “We’re good now. We won.” And it’s like… That’s not it. This [racism, etc] is something that’s going to take years and years of unlearning, and community doesn’t get built overnight. So I think it’s just maintaining that [unlearning racism] and always checking yourselves internally and doing the work that you need to do internally as well as within the community.
Like you look at tours. We don’t have tours right now. But you see things like bands shouting out other bands, or [web]pages that are dedicated towards shouting out ska music or punk music and you look at all the bands they shout out. And they’re all white bands, all white dudes. So to me, it’s that stuff that needs to [have] a little more thought put into it.
You know you have International Non-Binary People’s Day. You have a lot of bands, full of non-binary and queer folk. Why aren’t people shouting out these bands? [Why aren’t the bands/pages that shout out bands of all white dudes] creating the platform? And at the end of the day, there’s still a lot of white men who are taking up too much space on the internet and [taking up] too much real estate and their voices are super loud. And they’re kind of condescending and talking down to Black and brown people and non-men a lot of the time. And that’s the work that needs to be cut out from their side of it. I don’t think we should be like, “Shut up, man,” but they need to do the internal work, and that’s the hard part. It’s the internal work, and they have to want to do it. We can’t force it.
But us, as people of color, as Black and brown folk, as non-men, I feel like we need to work together to create scenes. Like, we’re the majority, if you look at it. There are more queer and Black and brown and POC people than there are straight white men, you know. And [yet] straight white men are the ones who gatekeep the music industry, they’re the ones who have the clout and the influence, they’re the ones who have the platform most of the time. I think it’s important that when we do have the platform, that we shout out and we support and uplift other Black and brown POC people that we believe in. And that’s kind of where I think we need to be as a scene.
Hell yeah, and I think… it’s frustrating because that’s kind of a rough question to ask you, or to ask people of color and queer/trans folks in general because we’re not the ones who are stopping this [BIPOC, QTPOC, etc bands from being more well-known; ending racism and transphobia in the scene] from happening. I do see a lot of, within these communities, uplifting each other. And unfortunately, as you said, it is these straight white men who are the ones who have this platform and who have a lot of the power.
And that’s something that I think about a lot. Like if I go to a show, and I think, “Wow, this band is really great.” And if they do a lot of really good work, with shouting out bands and stuff. But then when you look at who they actually bring with them on tour… it’s a little bit… questionable. But then that also speaks to these larger socio-economic issues of who can afford to take time off work to go on tour.
Yeah, and a lot of the time, too, that’s just a lot of quote unquote “tokenism” that these bands do. They’ll kind of just be like, “Yeah, we support all of our women in the scene.” And then you look at [the supporting acts] when they go on tour, and they take out a woman out of, like, four bands, that type of stuff. It’s like, you shouldn’t have to prove that all of your friends aren’t white men, you know. If you have to sit down and prove it, and prove that your band is quote unquote “woke” or “inclusive,” odds are you’re probably not inclusive and you’re just tokenizing people.
And you shouldn’t have to sit [and prove you’re inclusive]. Especially with how diverse music is, it’d be one thing if the majority of people making music were white men, then it’s hard [to be inclusive], but that’s not the case. The case is there are so many more people doing incredible things. It shouldn’t take a national uprising for [record label] Fueled By Ramen to say, “Maybe we should hire or sign a band with black women” and then sign Meet Me @ The Altar (MMATA), you know? They [MMATA] literally had said that they popped off in June, like a lot of bands popped off in June. Same thing with Pinkshift. Same thing with Magnolia Park. There’s a lot of bands, [so] why did it take until June, when Black people were being murdered, for the scene to start supporting Black artists? Why did it take that point? And that’s kind of like where I’m at.
Now, don’t get me wrong, MMATA is a phenomenal band, they’re from Florida. I’ve known them for like two years, as long as they’ve been a band. And I knew that they were going to pop off at some point. I just wish that people were paying attention to them more before June, you know? I’m not saying they popped off solely because they’re Black women, that’s not what I’m saying at all.
Yeah, it’s almost this reactionary thing [to support Black bands/musicians/artists]. And I’m like, but why isn’t this something that’s already organically happening? And that that’s something that gave me a lot of strange feelings anyway, because… obviously I’m not Black, but being in scenes that are very white and then having it be like a “Wow, look at this brown or Black band or look at this clearly queer/trans band” does feel a little bit strange sometimes, and alienating.
Yeah.
A lot of these questions are interrelated. So this kind of goes back to something that we already discussed, but personally I do think that these larger, especially third-wave ska bands, because they’re the ones who quote unquote “blew up” in the mainstream… you know, like you could ask somebody, “Who is Reel Big Fish or Less Than Jake, like who are these bands and people?” And a lot of people would know [these bands] but not even know what ska is. And so [people do] know these larger names.
And I do think that [these larger names] have a responsibility to highlight and to bring to the forefront newer bands, especially these queer/trans POC, and especially Black bands, given the actual history of the genre (ska) and all of these appropriations that have occurred. I don’t know if you have a take on that specifically, or maybe what these larger bands can do…?
I definitely think that there needs to be work done. Even without [the] given context of the history of the genre, the older bands should hype up younger bands. This is something I’ve always respected about Reel Big Fish. I’ve gone on two tours with them and Aaron [Barrett, vox/guitar] will watch every band opening up their show. I don’t know many bands who will sit there and watch their sets but to him, it’s kind of like, Reel Big Fish wouldn’t have this platform if it wasn’t for the support that they got from the people who start bands to swarm like that. So there’s definitely a lot of good stuff like that happening.
And I also empathize with a perspective that I feel like a lot of younger punks don’t understand, [which] is like: there was a huge backlash against ska, and then you had so many bands forming in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. I had a talk with Mike Park (Asian Man Records, the Bruce Lee Band, Skankin’ Pickle, the Chinkees, Ogikubo Station, Kitty Kat Fan Club, etc etc….) about this—it was just overwhelming; you’d go on tour and Reel Big Fish would have 10 ska bands opening for them, but [the opening bands] were like, not really ska bands. They sounded like vague late-‘90s music with horns and calling themselves “ska.” So I feel like [the bigger bands] probably just got burnt out, and they just never bothered to really look at what was going on anymore. Which, given that perspective, I don’t blame them.
But then it kind of sucks on the other hand, because so many new bands were coming up—you have a whole new generation of bands, the Kill Lincolns and the We Are the Unions and all of the bands on Bad Time Records—and it was just completely missing [the larger, ‘90s bands’] radar. I don’t think it was necessarily malicious. At that point you’re like 45 [years old], all you do is tour 200 days out of the year. [So] when you have free time, you’re not looking for the new era of ska bands. You’re back at home with your family and stuff like that. But I think now we’re getting the new generation of ska bands, [and] they’re poppin’, and it’s kind of hard to ignore now. Even though a lot of people in ska want to pretend they can ignore it. We’re creating ripples in a way that I don’t think has happened in the last 20 years. And it’s already getting on the radar, like Less Than Jake recently shouted out a bunch of new bands on Bad Time [Records] and off of Bad Time Records as well, which is really dope.
And Skatune Network played with Goldfinger last year at Skanksgiving. So I think it’s happening but I think it definitely needs to… To the next level kind of answering [your question], given the history of the genre… I blame the quote unquote “whitewashing” of ska less on the bands and more on the [record] labels and the music industry who pushed it. Reel Big recently posted the Skaturday with… [Carson Daly] I don’t even remember his name, but it was an MTV block that just aired ska music videos and then it’s this guy talking about the history of the genre. And the music videos are fine, they kind of edit them out so it’s just him talking, and you can tell [MTV] just paid extras to do ska dances on camera in the background. You look at it and no one’s really doing a dance you would see at a ska show; they just look like extras out of a Disney Channel show. They don’t look like real people, almost. And it’s [Carson Daly] talking, and he mentions the two-tone movement once. And he’s like, “It was about wearing black and white,” but then he mentions how Rancid mixed ska and punk together like 20 or 30 times.
So when you look at people not knowing the history of ska, of course that makes sense because millions of people would watch MTV and that was their introduction to ska; they would see Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, No Doubt, Sublime, all these bands. And those bands, they were playing shows and growing up on Fishbone, on The Specials, on The Selecter; they understand the history and they were out touring, but the bands themselves weren’t responsible [for educating (or not) fans on the history of ska]. It was MTV, you know, it was the labels. It was Sony and Warner when they were signing all of those ska bands for a few years.
So I kind of blame that more so on the music industry. And then the music industry up and ditched ska once they realized it wasn’t a moneymaker anymore, which left a lot of ska bands in a weird position.
So to me it’s kind of a messy question, but obviously the past is in the past. A lot of these bands have a huge platform, and they could be doing things like bringing us up to the forefront a little bit more. I don’t know. At this point I just wish they would shout out newer bands. Less Than Jake is kind of doing it and hopefully, as we grow bigger, there’s going to be more interaction. Like, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones recently commented on Bad Operation’s newest music video, saying like, “This is dope.” I think we’re finally just reaching the radar.
And with the pandemic, I think since so many bands are off tour, they have time to be with their family and relax, and now they’re at the point where they can get on the internet and figure out what’s going on [in the scene]. I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now. The forcing of not touring year-round has caused them to decompress, sit back, have a vacation that they much deserve after almost three decades of touring. And now they’re seeing the current state of ska and what’s happening, especially as Brooklyn Vegan and all of these influencers on the internet are starting to hype up new ska bands left and right.
It’s definitely complicated, especially from the fan/consumer/non musician side. Like the people who are reading this interview, right?
Something that you’ve posted about a lot, and continue to post about, is the fact that there are all these people complaining about how “Ska is dead.” But then they don’t keep up with any of the new bands and they ask “Oh, how come there aren’t any new bands? How come ska is dying out?” and all of these things. And in “normal times” (non-Covid) they don’t come out to these local shows, they don’t support these local shows.
Even when I was in Reno, people would say, “Why are there no ska shows?” and then only ever come out for Reel Big Fish. They wouldn’t come out to these little DIY spots or for these house shows or anything like that. And I was wondering, what do you think people can do, especially in a pandemic, to support these musicians and content creators? And this is a broader question than just ska.
The biggest thing you can do to support is to just do the things that are free and take minimal effort: following, liking, subscribing if it’s like a subscription thing.
You could always buy merch. If you just look at the social medias of these newer bands or bands in general, something’s always being pushed. And then if the account is quiet, then the account is quiet. But if the account isn’t quiet, like all the Bad Time Records bands, we all are dropping merch consistently. I’m always pushing merch. I’m always dropping new music and new content.
And I’m also always uplifting other bands and I’ve noticed that especially with Instagram stories and on Facebook, other bands are always hyping each other up. So the best thing a consumer can do is just do the things that are free. Subscribe. Like. Comment to boost engagement. It’s important to comment on posts, because that boosts the engagement more. We live in a social media age where the algorithm is hurting artists.
Yes, I was just about to ask: how do we beat the algorithm?
Beating the algorithm is definitely doing all of those things. Sharing posts helps a lot. Commenting on posts boosts up in the algorithm more. And also doing things like signing up for email lists. That sounds kind of like a throwback thing but we just made a Skatune Network email list and it works. It beats the algorithm. You get an email every week that compiles everything I’ve done in the week in one easy-to-follow way. And that’s something I’ve noticed bands are doing more now. Things like Patreon. I’m starting to notice bands are making Patreon pages. Patreon beats the algorithm because it’s specifically what you’re subscribed to. And the next thing that I think needs to happen—and I think everyone needs to do it, but it’s really hard to get everyone to do something like this—is we need to get off Facebook and we need to get off Instagram.
I think Instagram is at the point [where] from here on out, it’s not going to get any better for artists, it’s just going to get worse. Facebook: I’ve been a firm believer for almost two years now that it is a waste of time and energy for artists. I barely put energy into it. Now I linked my Instagram so when I post to Instagram, it posts to Facebook as well. But those platforms literally intentionally kill the reach for artists and they’re just not intuitive. When you look at what’s successful for artists right now, it’s TikTok. It’s Discord. I think more bands should make Discord servers. We recently made a ska Discord server for the ska Facebook group because we were tired of Facebook.
And then there’s a Skatune Network Discord [available via Patreon] and that Discord’s been going for like a year and it’s really dope. There’s a channel set specifically for updates, so whenever I post a video, a bot just auto-posts onto there.
And Discord doesn’t have an algorithm, so if you’re in the server, you get all the notifications. You can set up the notifications specifically how you want. And to me, that’s just the future of how social media should be and is going. People are really glued to Facebook and Instagram, especially in the ska community. Ska people will not get off Facebook. They will die [before getting off Facebook]. Ska people typically love to hang on to what they’re nostalgic for and Facebook is one of those things.
It will take Facebook literally dying, like, deleted off the internet, for them to finally get off of it and go to other social medias. [I say this] because my following initially popped off on Facebook. And when I stopped using Facebook, I made a post saying like, “I’m done updating this page. You can follow me on my seven other social medias.” I still get [Facebook] DMs (direct messages) to this day, because it’s the pinned post, and they’re like, “I really wish you would start updating the Facebook again because I miss you.” And I’m like, “Just subscribe. Literally subscribe.”
Facebook was never the main platform to begin with. You can go on YouTube, just type in ‘youtube.com/SkatuneNetwork.’ You can go on there. Like, I know you’ve never used Twitter before, but you could start doing new things. It’s not going to hurt you. If anything, Facebook is probably hurting you more because it’s a toxic, negative cesspool of, you know, it’s Facebook. We all know. I don’t have to explain it anymore.
But that’s kind of where I think it is, with just doing the basic engagement: liking, commenting, stuff like that. And then getting out of your comfort zone and taking the time to learn new social medias, following, adapting there.
And then lastly, just listening to music. A lot of people will listen to a new artist once or twice on Spotify or whatever and then they’ll fall back and play Turn the Radio Off by Reel Big Fish for the 1,000th time in a row. You know, they’ll play it every single day and then they’ll give, like, one stream to a new band and then people are wondering… We [musicians] see the analytics, too. We see the new release spike in the listens and then it goes back down and kind of averages back out and we’re not gaining the long-term listeners. We’re gaining the very short-term one-time listeners, which has its pluses in its own ways, but we’re starting to see a gradual increase in the long-term listeners and that’s great. But if you’re begging for a new wave of ska, the wave isn’t going to happen for you to hop on. People need to listen for the wave to happen.
And that’s kind of like what happened before, you know. Reel Big Fish didn’t pop off overnight; the Bosstones were making music and touring for 13 years before they popped off. And if it wasn’t for the works of Fishbone, the Bosstones, No Doubt… All those ska bands, if they didn’t do the work of touring, promoting, creating the national network of bands touring, the Toasters as well, then the ‘90s ska boom would have never happened. And I think people don’t realize that, they think it just came out of nowhere, so they think the return of ska will [be] one radio hit, like that is all it will take. Even though the Interrupters had a radio hit and literally nothing happened. So clearly, a radio hit is not what it takes. It being in a movie is not what it takes.
It takes the support of the local underground scene to build the platform that you want to happen. And I think it’s just… just do the work. It’s not that [hard], it’s not rocket science.
What you said about the social media really got me thinking, because I think a lot of people in their consumption of, just kind of like, everything—I’m not going to go on a whole rant about it—but they like to just scroll and see things and kind of be spoon-fed this new content. But I think if we’re really trying to build something, build a movement, I guess, to be kind of melodramatic, there does need to be that extra work and that’s something that I try to tell people.
And social media is definitely hurting artists in the fact that it’s making people want the instant gratification. Like, I’ll sell merch—I’ll sell an order and then three days later, I’ll get emails from those people like, “Why hasn’t my thing shipped out yet?” And it’s like, “No, we’re not Amazon!” I’m shipping hundreds of orders monthly and one person is shipping them. You have to understand. People are used to Amazon, people are used to Facebook, you know, giving you a link. If I put a link in a Facebook post, Facebook will kill the reach, like destroy it. So I will type out, “Just go to the Skatune Network webstore, link in the bio” and people will comment, “Can you just link the thing?” And it’s like, just go to my bio. Like you want to help new bands, but…
It’s just two extra taps.
It’s such minimal work and they say they want to help bands, but they don’t realize that their willingness to not do the very simple things like go on Spotify and type “Skatune Network” so they can stream my music—that’s the stuff that’s hurting bands the most right now. Because if I link it in a Facebook post, no one’s going to see my post because of the algorithm.
And that’s kind of what I’m seeing. So yes, social media is creating this instant gratification [habit] that is hurting artists, because we don’t have the resources to fulfill that gratification that they want and it takes very minimal work for them to do it on their end to support us. We can’t spoon-feed all the support, we can’t spoon-feed every release to every person’s mouth.
Alas… for sure. [Here’s] a question that I think I texted you about a while ago: the original question was, “How do you feel about this term ‘fourth-wave ska’ that’s been around for awhile?” Actually, it’s been around for a couple years, but then Bad Operation (because, of course, I have to shout them out) was labeled as “new tone,” which personally, I really love. But do you have a favorite term for what’s going on with the current movement in the scene?
Oh yeah, I dig new tone. I’ve always hated [the term] “fourth-wave ska.” I have a problem with the “wave” categorization already. The “wave” categorization kind of ignores a lot of what happened quote unquote “between the waves,” especially between the second and third wave. People think “third wave.” First off, the waves weren’t even coined until after the third or during the third wave; that’s when that term was coined. They didn’t call second-wave “second-wave ska” in the ‘80s and ‘70s. It was just “ska.” And so the “wave” thing makes people think that it just came out of nowhere, it was a wave, when there was so much happening in ska, both before the third wave and after the third wave that caused the events of the third wave and caused ska to be perceived the way it is today. So I hate the “wave” categorization for that reason.
Also, I don’t think the “wave” categorization will even work anymore because people kind of define it as being in the mainstream. But the thing about the mainstream is, we don’t have that culture anymore. The way we consume media has changed so much within the last 20 or so years because of the internet, like what is considered mainstream?
20 years ago, if you were a band and you weren’t on a label, you weren’t on the radio, you weren’t on MTV, people just didn’t know you and that’s a fact. You were maybe an underground band that toured a bunch and got your music into local record stores through going to them, maybe by doing that, but prior to the internet, you had to go through one of the gatekeepers—that was the record labels or the music industry—in order to get out there. And so it was very streamlined. If people listen to alternative music, they probably got it through a magazine or through a record label’s CD compilation if they loved a record label. If they love Fueled By Ramen. If Fueled By Ramen had like a sampler on a CD, that’s how you found out about new bands [editor’s note: Every day I thank their ‘90s comps for introducing me to The Stereo and the Impossibles!].
But now we live in a day and age where you can just go on YouTube and type in a genre, or go on Reddit and see a random post and you’ll find a random band from nowhere. So there is no mainstream anymore. People aren’t only tuning in to the radio or MTV to find music. Same thing with TV, like when you ask somebody, “What’s the big show people watch?” A lot of people will say a lot of different things. Some people will say the Umbrella Academy. Some people will say Stranger Things. Some people will say, The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, even though I believe both of those are done. I don’t watch mainstream TV like that. So I don’t even know. But there’s so many shows that are out there right now and streaming allows you to personalize everything you watch and everything you listen to.
So people have this expectation that the “fourth wave,” quote unquote, will look like the third wave, where ska will come back and it’ll be popular, but like, what does that even mean?
Jeff Rosenstock was playing on Seth Meyers, you know, but people aren’t saying Jeff Rosenstock is mainstream or famous. He was on late night TV. That’s huge.I recorded on the Steven Universe movie, Jeff Rosenstock’s writing ska for Craig of the Creek. Bad Moves was on Cartoon Network, but Bad Moves isn’t a huge band. [So] what does it mean? Like I said earlier, the Interrupters had a radio hit. “Where’s the fourth wave of ska?” “Where is it?” That’s not a thing. I don’t believe “fourth wave” is really going to be a thing, at least in the way that people did.
Now the reason why I love new tone, to counter that, is new tone is less of, oh, and this is my last problem with the “wave” idea—the “wave” idea, to me, sounds like a novelty…
That’s what I was going to say, it sounds like…
Like a gimmick, a novelty, that will die.
Or something that will crescendo and then end… Just like what happened in the ‘90s.
Yeah. “Fourth wave” to me sounds like it’ll be a very short-lived novelty of, like, “Oh, ska’s cool again because it’s quirky.” Where new tone is kind of establishing. New tone is a movement. It’s an idea. It’s the idea that we are not going to stand for racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia.
I’m glad that the new tone thing is kind of pushing forward because—this is something ska people hate to talk about—every time I brought it up, people [would] get mad at me…
Ska is historically homophobic. Original Jamaican ska bands? Fucking homophobic and misogynistic!
Like Prince Buster, one of the most idolized people, and [who] all the purists in ska love, was a homophobe and sexist. And that’s history. And I’m not gonna say it’s fine. But it’s fine to accept [that] the history wasn’t perfect. Ska people have these rose-tinted glasses, thinking that ska has always been perfect. But in America, Black and brown folk historically have kind of been excluded out of the scenes.
And then before that… trans people have just never had a [place], like that wasn’t even a conversation. In the ‘90s, they were a joke, and they just didn’t even exist, in the eyes of ska people, before the ‘90s. So that’s a whole ‘nother topic and conversation to have.
But overall there’s just so much that hasn’t been talked about, or these groups of people never felt comfortable in ska, so to have a new era of bands come forward and just be like, “We’re not standing for transphobia, for homophobia, for racism, for sexism” and have that be the forefront of the message is a callback to what ska truly is about.
The whole two-tone movement was about unity, standing against racism. And the new tone thing is like, we’re standing against racism, but [now] we know more about racism and how it operates, so we’re taking it to the next step. To me, two-tone is more being non-racist, and the new tone is anti-racist. And that’s [because] we as a people have grown consciously to that level, and [so] the music needs to grow to that level, too.
And I think that’s more lasting as well because… you know, Reel Big Fish’s “She Has a Girlfriend Now” will turn people off of ska right now, and that’s just a fact. A lot of ska people don’t want to admit it, but a lot of the times, younger people, people who kind of grow up knowing that joking around about being trans, like transitioning to be with your ex, is not funny, it never will be funny, but ska people love that and they think of it like, “Oh, you’re just being too serious.” But no, I’m not. Like trans people consistently tell me that they’re not okay with this song because of that reason. And then you have cis people talk over those trans people, telling those trans people their feelings are invalid and wrong because they have a gay friend. You know, that whole argument. Or one gay person will be like, “Well, I think it’s okay” so cis people will use that as their pass to talk over trans people.
But it’s super important that that message [of “We’re not standing for transphobia, for homophobia, for racism, for sexism”] is being pushed and that these [marginalized] people feel comfortable. And the new generation of people, especially younger people—younger people, by the way, dictate what’s popular and they’re the ones who support scenes and music the most—they’re getting into ska, because of that [message], and I think that’s why you’re starting to see so many people who are younger, for the first time, I think, ever since the ‘90s, at least, where you’re having a large youth generation getting into ska, like people under 30 for sure.
Yeah, it’s interesting seeing people younger than me even, because I remember being the baby in the scene, like 15, 16, 17 [years old] seeing people in their 20s and thinking, “Is that gonna be me?” And now it is.
I know you also highlight these queer/trans bands and/or Black and brown bands and there are just so many that are like, I don’t want to say “up and coming” because they’ve been doing things, but who are starting to be more highlighted, I think. And that’s really nice… So these [questions] are less about the scene and more about the projects that you’ve been doing. Let’s talk about that Undertale cover record which you know I love. I mean, I love everything you put out but this one… I was like, “Yes.”
Thank you.
Was there anything particularly difficult or, alternatively, easy about creating and playing these covers as compared to other covers that you’ve made before?
So the Undertale record—first off, that was a passion project ever since I played the game a little over a year ago, [actually] even before I played the game. The soundtrack is actually why I played the game. A few jazz video game YouTubers that I follow were covering the songs and I was listening. I was like, “These songs are great.” And then I listened to the soundtrack. And I was like, “I want to play this game” and then I loved the game. So just everything about that game and the soundtrack and music I think is really dope. I actually had to cut a few songs off the record, just because I ran out of time.
But I mean, I’m always down to do a second record because I didn’t even touch a percent of all of the music from that. But overall, with creating it, I wouldn’t necessarily say it was hard. It definitely took a lot of skill to play some of those tracks, because the music wasn’t easy. So that was definitely a thing to do, and that’s why I featured a lot of artists as well, like insaneintherainmusic (Carlos), Pat Barley (J-MUSIC Ensemble), video game collective (Max Boiko), Tom Shea, Esteban from Matamoska!, and then Woody on drums. He’s basically the Skatune Network drummer at this point, whenever I have live drums. So they’re the ones who kind of brought the whole record to life, in my opinion. And of course, Reed [Michael Wolcott, We Are The Union] mixing the record as well, he did a lot of good work.
But overall, that record was just a lot of fun to do. I think it was easy, in a lot of senses where sometimes I’ll cover a song and because it’s already in the formula of like a pop song. And when I say “pop,” I mean like, 4 chords, 8 chords, verse, chorus, verse. It’s already in that formula. So even though I’m doing my own take on it, there’s still a lot of things I have to follow. But with the Undertale songs, I was kind of completely rebuilding some of them from the ground up. So whenever I have that liberty and freedom, it’s a lot easier. And then video game fans love hearing things different. I feel like when I cover, like, blink-182, if it’s too different from pop punk, blink-182 fans will not like it and ska fans won’t like it. Like I did that cover of “All the Small Things,” which is my favorite blink cover I’ve done so far, and I did it as an emo-rocksteady cover. And people were mad. They were like, “This is so slow. Why did you slow it down? The vibe is completely different.” People were just mad. I mean, a lot of people liked it, but people were mad that I decided to get creative with it. But with the Undertale record, it’s completely different. People were praising me because the original version of a song would be energetic and then I took it and I made it really chill. Like “Hopes and Dreams”—in the game, that song is super driving, but then I took it and I kind of gave it more of an emo-rocksteady-jazz vibe.
And that’s another thing I loved about that record. Because the songs were so interesting and different and composed more like, you know, a video game soundtrack, I was able to mess around and experiment with types of ska that I don’t think anyone has done before. The specific type is “Hopes and Dreams”—I’ve been coining that term “emo-steady” because it’s like rocksteady but mixed with emo and I think those genres merge really well together. And I did a few more examples of that with the Christmas record. But just having the ability to do a lot of that dynamic contrast, mix around a lot of different types of ska with different types of punk and even jazz and indie and alternative, was a lot of fun. So it was challenging in a lot of ways where it’s stuff I’d never done before. But overall, the freedom that it gave me was very, very relieving to what I normally do.
Awesome. Thank you. And you mentioned how you were playing on the Steven Universe movie before—I want to circle back to that. I know you’ve been a big Steven and Rebecca Sugar fan in general for a while. But how did that end up happening?
So it’s really, really funny how that happened. So I guess I should backtrack and give a little backstory to this because it makes more sense when the backstory is there. The third or fourth cover, I can’t remember, I think it was the fourth cover I ever did, was “Giant Woman” from Steven Universe and it wasn’t that good. It was not that good. But Ben Levin, one of the main storyboard artists from Steven Universe loved it. And at the time—this was when Tumblr was still active because Skatune Network originally popped off, before anything else, [on] Tumblr. It gave me my first 20,000 subscribers, which is dope. And part of that was because Ben Levin reblogged the cover saying that they love this. If you don’t know about Ben Levin—Ben Levin created the show Craig of the Creek. He loves ska music. So he got Jeff Rosenstock to do the music for Craig of the Creek and his Tumblr description to this day is “the last straightedge ska fan,” which is a lie because I’m also here.
But there’s definitely not many of us. So yeah, Ben Levin reblogged it and I think because of that, a lot of people in the Cartoon Network realm found my page.
I have some friends that work at Cartoon Network and when they started working there, they would all hit me up being like, “Yeah, a lot of people here are very familiar with Skatune Network.”
And with the recent Skatune Skatoons cover record, I think half of the covers have reached the creators or the original team of the shows and they’ve shared them. Like the creator of Codename: Kids Next Door shared my cover of their theme. Of course, people who work for Craig of the Creek shared [my cover of] the theme. The people who created Pain had commented on the Jabberjaw cover I did. So the covers reach the people. I feel it’s more likely than people realize that it reaches them and they see it.
But dialing it back. By the time the Steven Universe movie was announced, I had already been mutuals with Aivi [Tran, Aivi & Surasshu], who does the music on Steven Universe, with some of the storyboard artists, with Ben Levin, etc. So when they announced the movie, I had tweeted at Aivi saying, “This is exciting. You’re doing your first movie soundtrack. Congratulations. Are y’all doing live instruments or is it going to be like the way you normally do it, where it’s kind of all produced with digital sounds?” I was just curious. And then Aivi DM’d me like, “Actually, we need a brass player, do you want to do it?” And I was like, “Uh, yeah, duh.” So it happened through a Twitter DM, which is really funny because I know a lot of people who want to get into this world, who want to compose and write music. They go to college and they do all this stuff, but they don’t network and they don’t use social media. So people are like, “How did you get this gig? Where did you apply?” and I was like, “I didn’t apply anywhere, they just like my stuff. They see the stuff that I do through social media and they asked me through social media.” And that’s a huge and important thing that they don’t really teach you, especially when you’re studying music composition or music performance, that social media is important. That’s how [it’s been with] all my gigs I’ve gotten. I had another gig playing Comic-Con for the Steven Universe panel; I was also asked [to do that] through social media.
And then I have a third gig, which I’m not talking about yet because it’s not announced yet, but that was also done through Twitter. And there’s a few more gigs that I’ve been getting. Almost all my gigs have been [gotten] through Twitter. I’m not gonna lie.
Maybe I should get back on Twitter. On a more serious note, that’s something that I’ve seen even in—obviously, I’m not a musician by trade, but like, [I’ve seen people networking on Twitter] even in my field (linguistics) and things like that. It’s a lot more than just being quote unquote, “classically trained,” like you do have to go and network with people and talk to people and let people know what you’re doing in order to be involved with these things. Nobody is going to just be waiting [for you].
So I have some questions that I’ve crowd sourced—three of them.
Jackie R. from Las Vegas asks, “What would you do if you weren’t a musician?”
Ooh. Ooh. Good question. This is a question I’ve thought about to myself a lot. I do talk a lot about this with my friends. I can see my life going down three potential paths if I wasn’t a musician.
I love science. I love science. Actually, this is a passion project of mine as well—very far off in the future, hopefully not too far off. But I want to create a ska record about science, specifically environmental science, and talk about things like global warming, climate change, and [talk about these things] in the form of ska and make a whole video series that goes along with it so people can like listen to music, watch the videos, learn about it. I love science so much, so I probably would have studied science if I was never into music.
And I probably would have eventually double-majored in some sort of environmental studies as well as nutrition, because I also love nutrition. As you know, I’m vegan and I probably would have started a YouTube channel talking about cooking or food. Upbeat Eats is kind of a manifestation of that; I always wanted to make a vegan YouTube channel as well. And I probably would have gone down the route of studying nutrition and ways that you can have a sustainable, affordable vegan diet and also talk about the nutrition behind it, debunking a lot of the myths behind veganism. [I] probably would have ended up being some sort of vegan person, like an influencer or something like that… I don’t know about influencer, but I definitely would have dedicated a lot of [my life/career] to studying climate change and environmental stuff.
Either that or I probably would have gotten a little more into movement work, activism work. That’s something that I also love to do. I’m kind of limited on how much of that I can do because I do teach high school. So there are a lot of limitations I have towards that, in terms of how public I can be about [activism]. I obviously can’t go tie myself to a pipeline. I can’t do stuff like that.
But everyone has their place in the movement. I do a lot of work to support movements: I donate money, I do fundraisers a lot, I use my platform to boost organizations that I believe in. So everyone has their place in the movement and that’s a thing that I feel like a lot of young movement workers don’t know. They feel bad because they can’t go out and stop a bulldozer; they feel bad they can’t do the direct action, but sometimes the indirect action is equally as, if not more important. Sometimes you need someone who, like—you could be a lawyer and not a lot of lawyers will fight for the activists and the movement people but your value [is] that you are a lawyer who gives up the ability to defend a murderer for, like, a million dollars. So like that. Everyone has their place in the movement. And I think that’s my place right now, to use my platform to uplift these voices [of activists, marginalized folks, etc]. That’s what I try to do a lot so I probably would have been doing that and then [I would] definitely [be doing something] between those two things.
The other third thing, this is just something that when I was younger, I was interested in: skateboarding probably would have been another thing. I’m a very coordinated person and I always wanted to skateboard, it was just something I didn’t have access to when I was younger, and now my fear with skateboarding is hurting myself and not being able to play music so that keeps me from getting on a skateboard and learning how to do stuff. So I feel like that’s something else I probably would have gotten into [if I hadn’t gotten into music].
Thank you. We’ve got another question. Floridalma M. from Reno… I feel like I’m a radio announcer… asks, “For Mx”… is that you pronounce it? “M X”? “Mix”?
I still don’t know… Yeah, yeah. “Mix” or or I’ve heard “Mixes” as well. But, “Mix.”
“For Mx. Jeremy, what are some of your favorite compositional techniques you use when it comes to making arrangements of songs?” Specifically for Skatune Network, but if you want to branch out, feel free.
That’s a very interesting question. So for covers, it’s different than when I’m writing my own music. For covers, I will listen to the song, and I’ll listen specifically to what makes the song iconic. Take my cover of “Rose-Colored Boy” by Paramore—when I was listening through that song, I was like, “Why is this song iconic and the way that it is?” And I noticed that it was the groove of the song. It’s a very funky ‘80s [-esque] song. So when I was thinking of the cover, I was like, “Well, the cover needs to groove. I feel like people who like that song like it because it grooves.”
So I took the the the main riff, and I put it in the bass, that *vocalizes* and I think that’s an important part of doing covers in general, is understanding what makes something groove. Like on the Christmas record, I did “Linus and Lucy.” And the thing that makes that song iconic is that bassline, that *vocalizes.* So I base the songs and how they’re arranged around whatever the iconic thing is.
But some songs, like a blink-182 song—no one’s listening to the bass for that song, obviously. It’s more of the lyrics, or the speed or whatever. So I’ll take songs like that and I’ll kind of do more of my own thing in the bass and just make sure that the vocal melody is present in what is at the forefront of the arrangement.
So I guess the question is, “What do you want the forefront of the arrangement to be? Where do you want the energy of the cover to come from?”
When it’s original music, this is my personal taste: I’m a firm believer in hooks. I think songs should be catchy. I think songs should not be too long. That’s just me though, obviously some people love seven minute-long songs that are very droney; that’s not my thing.
I like songs that are shorter. I like songs that get stuck in your head. I like pop music, that’s just me.
So I think of vocal melodies first. Sometimes it’s guitar chord progressions. But if I can’t put a vocal melody to it, I will shelf the chord progression, even if I really like the song, until I think of something. Like “R/Edgelord,” that *vocalizes,* that guitar part at the end of that song, I wrote that in high school and I had no use for it, so I shelved it.
I was like, “One day I’ll think of something this can go into,” but I couldn’t think of anything cool to go with it [at the time]. And that’s something that I encourage people to do: write, write, write music and you don’t have to make every idea into a song immediately. Shelve it, just keep it in the back of your mind, sometimes you’ll be writing something later and you’ll just throw it in and it works perfectly.
So that’s another thing to do, but for me, I [mostly] think of the vocal melodies and then I think of how the guitar accompanies the vocal melodies. And then I plug the bass and drums into the guitar. I think it’s super important for guitar, bass, and drums to be tight together. That’s something I noticed a lot of bands will lack, especially in ska. I feel like ska bands think of horns first, and they don’t think too much about the drums, bass, and guitar. And for me, it’s like, if you take the horns out of the song and the song is boring, then it’s probably not a very good song. That’s just my take. And a lot of people will be like, “I don’t want to listen to this song because it has no horns.”
A lot of people don’t want to listen to Catbite because they don’t have a horn section, or people will say stuff like, “Catbite needs a horn section to be good.” And I’m like, “Catbite slaps because they have good songwriting and like the organs and guitar are incredible, [those instruments] play the lead. They don’t need horns.”
In fact, I think they’d have to completely change how they write their music to incorporate horns in and that’s not a bad thing, I think that’s just the way they write and they create. It creates diversity. Not everything needs horns at every single second. My take for horns is, it needs to be icing on the cake, you know?
Eating a plate of icing sounds incredible until you do it, then your stomach hurts. And that’s it. Some people think that all they need is the icing, but you need the cake. You can have a cake without icing, it’ll still slap if it’s a really good cake. The balance of the two, I think, is important.
But then also sometimes, like with Catbite, in my opinion, at that point, it’s not cake. You’re eating a pie. It’s a different type of dessert. You don’t always need icing for it. For me, it’s the filling. Catbite has that filling.
I love this analogy.
I teach high schoolers. Especially in music, I use analogies all the time. So that’s how I think and roll. But yeah, at the end of the day, to me, icing, in theory, sounds like, eating it will be good by itself, and then you do it, and you’re like, “Oh, this is not what I imagined at all.”
Some people do like a whole can of icing. And will just eat it with a spoon, but *laughs*
Yeah, and at the end of the day, it’s that person’s preference… But to me, it’s just too much sugar. Too much fluff, not enough substance.
Seeing all of that musical diversity within [the scene] right now is really important because, going back to the accursed “waves” and third-wave type things, there were a lot of people who were trying to kind of continue that [third-wave and its sound] into the 2000’s, even like the early 2010’s or whatever they’re called. And it kind of became formulaic, I think. In a negative way, because sometimes you can kind of have formulaic and it works.
But I think a lot of people… Not gonna say any specific bands, but there were quite a few bands that had female singers or singers that were women who really were just trying to be like the next No Doubt. And that was always really frustrating for me, because there wasn’t a whole lot of originality going on there. And I think that’s part of why people were like, “Oh, ska is dead.” And I’m like, “Well, because nobody’s doing anything new, nobody’s doing anything refreshing or trying to go beyond the bounds of what we even think the genre is.”
Yeah, that’s definitely true. There’s a lot of double… not double-sided, I don’t know if “double-sided” is the word for that but I definitely agree with all of that. I agree with what you just said. And there is a place for bands if they want to do the throwback nostalgia thing, like I think it’s fine that the Interrupters exist. People say, “the Interrupters are a Rancid-knockoff band,” especially because Tim Armstrong writes the music.
Oh, yeah. I have a conspiracy theory about that!
But like, that’s fine if you want to have that. But we don’t need a million bands that sound exactly like Rancid. We don’t need any more bands that sound like the Interrupters right now, like they’re doing that thing.
And I think it’s super important that with, especially Bad Time Records—every time they drop a band, [it] sounds completely different than the last. Like Bad Operation has a very Specials two-tone vibe with this Blue Meanies energy. And then before that, like with [my project] JER, all of my inspiration comes from Jeff Rosenstock and PUP and all of these newer indie bands, and as you see more stuff that I’m putting out, it’s way more in the indie range as well.
And then before that, like Kill Lincoln, they’re taking ska punk, but they’re upping the energy more and they’re driving more from hardcore inspirations like Paint It Black and Kid Dynamite and Lifetime, like the super fast punk rock.
And then before that, you had Catbite. Catbite’s doing the throwback rockabilly sound but keeping it fresh. Omnigone has the straight ‘90s hardcore. Every band has a very specific different sound. And sometimes there’s purists and elitists who are like, “All these ska bands on Bad Time Records sound the same.” And I’m just like, “What are you listening to?”
Straight up. How are you?? Like sometimes [these purists and elitists] will comment on me posting Catbite, and they’re like, “I’m tired of all these ska punk bands,” and I’m like,
“I think you’re just talking shit and you’re not even listening to the bands before you talk.” Because [for example], I’ll post Bad Operation and people will respond being like, “Can you recommend me some two-tone? Like newer bands that sound like two-tone?” And I’m like, “You should listen to the bands [I post] before you ask because Bad Operation literally is a two-tone band, just not from the ‘80s.”
So I think a lot of it is, people aren’t [actually] listening, or people will listen and they’ll hear distortion and they’re immediately, like, “Oh, this is just another ‘90s ska punk band.”
But it’s like, just because there’s distortion doesn’t mean we sound exactly like Less Than Jake or Reel Big Fish or whatever ‘90s ska punk band you want to think about.
For sure. So last one. This one’s from Emily M. from Las Vegas, who you know. A question that she brought up when talking to me was, “For a while you were saying that Spotify wasn’t really worth it, since the first record wasn’t being streamed much. But we’ve gotten so many Skatune albums on Spotify in 2020 alone.” So she’s curious, “Why the change of heart? Like if these [newer albums] are doing a lot better. Or [what] motivated you to start being on Spotify more?”
So I learned two things. One, your Spotify payouts are delayed by a few months. Like, I just got paid out now in December, but that payout is from September, so there is about a three month delay. So for the first few months, [my album] was up and I just wasn’t seeing money, and then it was almost a year [after releasing the album] and I didn’t see that much money or any money at all. And then I realized that with the contract I made with Counter Intuitive [Records] for the original Pick It the Fuck Up! record, the Spotify revenue was going to paying back the original cost of that. [But] I didn’t realize that. So I was just like, “Oh, there’s not even like any money or whatever.”
And then I uploaded Ska Goes Emo. And so I saw the money coming from that. And Counter Intuitive Records is very transparent with the money and also because Counter Intuitive, they take care of the licensing. Originally it was the licensing. It’s like, I’d have to pay to license every cover. That’s a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of time I just don’t have. And the way I was looking into it, I’m like, “This just financially is not worth it. Especially with Patreon and stuff like that.”
But now that Counter Intuitive 1), takes care of all of that and 2) they’re very transparent and I’m seeing the money now, I’m like, “Oh, this is really easy.”
And it’s actually paying [for] itself. It’s paying well, so that’s something that I’m definitely into doing now, because of that, but also another part of it for me was, I don’t like just throwing things up. As you can see, I’ll commission an artist to make the artwork for it.
If you listen to the records I do front-to-back, I want [them] to have a flow.
I don’t want to just throw songs together and throw it up. I want it to sound like, if someone didn’t know it was a cover record, I want someone to think they’re original songs. And a lot of people think Pick It the Fuck Up! is original songs so I guess it’s working.
I think of the complete package and everything like that, and ways to promote it. So, there’s a lot of work that goes into that and originally for me it was like, “Well, I’m not going to make that much money back. And that’s a lot of work to do, so….”
But Counter Intuitive Records investing in me and putting faith in me and putting [my album] up is what kind of got me to see that, oh, this is actually something that is worth it. [In] 2019, I had the time to actually sit down and do [Skatune] and kind of get it going. I ran into a lot of computer issues this year; I was supposed to put out another record and it just never happened. But I just actually got a new computer and I’ve actually been setting it up all day and will be doing that, so [for] 2021 hopefully, the plan is nine Skatune Network records.
A lot of work. Some of them I’ve already started. Some of them are basically done, I just have to remix, stuff like that. A lot of old content, older stuff, as well as newer stuff will be going up. So it’s going to be a fun year hopefully starting right off in January. I don’t want to leak anything but January is gonna be a great month for emo fans.
Hell yeah. A real quick follow-up question to that: you mentioned how having this record label [Counter Intuitive Records] really support you and be transparent, kind of made all the difference. If a record label reaches out to a band and is trying to sign them, what is something that they should maybe be on the lookout for so that they don’t end up being, you know, fucked over by this record label in terms of streaming?
So there’s a lot of manipulation that goes down in the music industry that people are not aware of. Sometimes bands don’t realize they’re being manipulated. Like if a record label reaches out to you and you’re a young, new band: if they say, “You need to sign by this date,” and that date is next week, or even within the next few days. Same thing goes for if they’re asking you to go on a support tour. If they’re doing anything like that, and they’re not giving you enough time to properly think about it, there’s probably some sketchy thing within that contract that they don’t want you to have time to read because it’s hard to understand. They don’t want you to have the time to reach out to a lawyer to look it over.
That’s something that happens a lot. Or they’ll say things like, “You can’t get on this tour if you don’t agree in 48 hours and…”
Ooh, yikes.
This is something I’ve definitely seen happen to people. [Record labels, etc will] say, “If you don’t take this opportunity, then you’re going to miss out ever touring with bands like this ever again.” That’s manipulative language, and like, they want you to agree to do this tour for $50 a night, which is absurd. No one should ever get paid that little to go on a tour, especially when you’re helping them out by opening up for them, especially if you’re a band that has a following already.
A lot of the time it’s manipulative stuff like that. So if the label is not willing to give you time, first you should just ask, “I need time to think about this,” and if they’re kind of saying like, “Well, you don’t have time” then in my opinion, you should just tell them, “Welp, that sucks, you’re going to miss out on this incredible band.” Because at the end of the day, bands can exist without labels. I exist without a label for the most part. Counter Intuitive distros for me, but other than taking the little cut that they do, Counter Intuitive doesn’t do anything; like, they don’t promote for me. I do all my own promotion. They don’t do most things they do for bands, because I do my own stuff a lot of the time. Same with Bad Time Records.
Bad Time Records helps me out. But at the end of the day, they’re not giving me money for JER. I pay for JER out of pocket. I pay for Skatune Network out of pocket. For all the mixes, masters, art, and everything. Most of the time, labels will supply that for you. I’d reach [out to] promoters, like I haven’t really hit up a promoter for anything yet, but if I ever needed something to be promoted, I would hit up a promoter myself and pay them myself. So the way I work with labels with Skatune Network is a little different than most bands would do normally.
But another thing I was gonna say is, about labels: without artists, they can’t exist. What will a record label do without artists? So they work for you. You don’t work for them. That’s the mentality bands need to have when approaching a label. And my thing about labels is, if you don’t know the face of the label, you probably shouldn’t be on the label. And if you know the face of the label and they’re not a good person, you probably shouldn’t be on their label and you don’t need their label.
That’s why I love Counter Intuitive [Records]: everyone knows Jake’s [Sulzer] face. I love Asian Man Records; everyone knows Mike Park. I love Bad Time Records; everyone knows Mike Sozinski. I love Get Better Records. I love Father Daughter Records. There’s so many other labels out there where you know the people who run it. You know that they’re good people. They’re very transparent and their bands are happy. That’s the thing. Like, if someone’s on a label for multiple records, odds are their band is happy. If you look at a label and the turnover’s high, like [bands] put out one record and dip or they don’t seem happy as a band, odds are it’s because they’re not happy on their label because their label is probably doing some sus stuff.
So that’s kind of where I’m at. Definitely do your research and homework. You can also talk to other bands on the label. Sometimes labels will make them sign non-disclosure agreements, but if they’re not willingly openly saying, “Yeah this label is great,” then I just would not bother. And at the end of the day, there is no rush to making music. Going into my political views a little bit, capitalism pushes you to believe you need to do things quickly. Like, we believe we get out of high school, we have to go to college and get a job immediately.
You don’t have to do that. You can take your time in college. You can take your time starting your career, you don’t have to move out of your parents’ house as soon as you turn 18. If you live in a toxic situation, then yeah, maybe, but as far as to be successful in life, you don’t have to rush anything. Same thing goes for music. Your band doesn’t need to blow up before you’re 25, like look at Jeff Rosenstock, prime example. He’s worked hard, was an honest person, and did his thing, and slowly had a growth. Jeff’s like, what? 35, 40 [years old] almost? Somewhere around there, that age, because [the Arrogant Sons of Bitches] formed in the early 2000’s…
Yeah I was gonna say, he’s been in it, putting in time for decades.
He’s definitely older; he’s probably like pushing 40 soon [editor’s note: Jeff was born in 1982, one year before me], and he just had a steady growth because he’s just remained genuine, did his thing. And that’s how he became successful. I feel like a lot of people want instant fame. People say all the time, “We Are The Union’s too old of a band.” Like you’re not too old. You’re not too old to make art. [But] people say all the time, “We Are The Union’s too old, they formed in 2005.” And I’m like, “Yeah, okay, Fishbone formed in 1977 and they put out their first record in the ‘90s. What’s your fucking point?”
A band isn’t too old to be significant, like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones formed in ‘81 or ‘82, sometime in the early ‘80s [editor’s note: 1983, the same time I formed into a baby! Why is this interview making me feel so old lol], and then they blew up in the mid ‘90s. What’s your point, like a band isn’t too old, because they’re in their early 30s. And that’s the mentality that’s behind bands being pressured to sign quicker to blow up faster. It takes work and it takes time and there are a lot of faults in capitalism and how our society works.
For sure. And with art in general, not just musicians. Writers, and people who are in theatre and things like that. There’s like this rush to do everything.
It sucks.
And if you don’t [do everything] by the time you’re 30 then you’re like this failure, or whatever. And that’s just so disingenuous because we’re living a lot longer than we were, you know, 100 years ago. So we have time.
Yeah. And also, your 20s are not your golden years. It’s not like everything’s downhill [after that]. Maybe if you work a nine-to-five for a terrible company, and then your only goal in life is to retire, then yeah, maybe your life’s downhill once you get that job and you start that at 25. But to me, your 40s, 50s, 60s, those should be your golden years. That should be when you’re reaching the peak of your life and you’re starting to experience a lot.
When you look at artists that stayed genuine like MF Doom; this is going into hip-hop or whatever, like MF Doom or Freddie Gibbs, these rappers that are still rapping and they’ve stayed true to themselves, they never signed to huge labels. And you look at them just like on YouTube, chillin’ in their houses just freestyling. They’re just living their life and chillin’, and then they’re freestyling and doing these dope bars, you’ve just never heard flows like that, because they’re the OGs. They started rapping in like the ‘80s and ‘90s and they never succumbed to addiction. They never succumbed to [the] abusive music industry. And so you look at them and they’re living their best lives and they’re like 50, sometimes 60, so I think that’s where the goal needs to be, but a lot of people think, “I need to do this while I’m young or I’m never gonna have the chance.”
Yeah, there’s this idolization of youth, for sure.
Yeah, and idolization of money. Like, you don’t need to be rich. You just need to be able to get by. And it takes a lot less—especially when you don’t sign to a label and you own the rights to your music—it takes a lot less than you think to get by on your music. I never thought I would be paying rent on two rooms, a studio and a bedroom, off of music alone, but here I am doing that and I’m looking into buying a house soon because it looks feasible. That’s something I didn’t think would ever be feasible, especially being a millenial. But now I could set up a permanent studio and not have a landlord, because… if I’m going to be giving money to the landlord for the rest of my life, I might as well give money to a mortgage and own a house where I can make a permanent studio and not worry about the security of my home. You know, like any day my landlord could say, “We’re not renewing your lease” or “Your rent’s going up $500.”
So that’s just the whole thing, I think, the way we view what success is, what we value. and how fast we should do things is just all misconstrued. So if you’re a newer band, you can take your time. It’s okay. Just make sure you’re looking into your labels and make sure you’re building community. That’s the last thing I wanted to say: community is the most important thing. The reason Bad Time is successful… a lot of people are saying it’s because I’m hyping them. I think my hyping is definitely doing a lot because I reach a lot of people and I’m throwing it in their faces. But I think where the success truly is coming from is… You see Bad Operation post a new song this month. And then you’ll see Catbite share it, you’ll see Kill Lincoln share it. We Are The Union will share it, I’ll share it. [This success] is because we’re all hyping each other up and we’re creating this hype for each other. And that’s something you see [elsewhere], like Counter Intuitive Records was doing that four years ago: Mom Jeans would share something and then Grad Life would share it. And Insignificant Other would share it, and Pool Kids would share it. Even bands that aren’t on Counter Intuitive Records, but emo bands were sharing it. That’s what you’re starting to see: ska bands that aren’t on Bad Time, but they’re still sharing and hyping each other up because music isn’t competitive. We’re not competing with people on labels.
Yeah, I was going to say that people are realizing they’re not in competition with each other, which is nice.
And it works to all of our benefits when we hype each other up. I feel like a lot of ska bands felt that it was kind of competitive [during] the ‘90s and 2000s. Ska bands wouldn’t tour with each other. I always ask this question: “When’s the last time Less Than Jake took a ska band on tour? Not co-headlining, took a ska band on tour?” And the answer is “2007: Against All Authority.” Why have they gone 14 years without having a ska band go on tour with them? And Reel Big Fish rarely take ska bands on tour, like we did the We Are The Union one. But other than that, what new ska bands have they really taken on tour?
With the Bosstones, they don’t even tour, so when they do play shows it’s always like huge festivals. So I guess they don’t really count in this situation. But like Streetlight Manifesto. When’s the last time they took a ska band on tour that wasn’t a Mike Park ska band?
Yeah, it’s basically Mike always opening.
It’s always Mike; it’s always Bruce Lee Band, or Kemuri did one tour with them a few years ago. But then [Kemuri are] from Japan. So that’s a little different. International acts, I feel like, are always a little different. But yeah, to me it just seems like ska bands have not connected “if we all work together, we can do so much better and do so much more.” And I think that’s something that the Bad Time roster is figuring out. So hopefully with the new generation of bands coming up, we realize that we are community; we will uplift each other.
And I think that goes beyond music, beyond art; that just goes towards society. We live in an individualistic society [where] we value ourselves over others. We don’t think about the greater good of everybody, like I was on a Twitter thread the other day where someone was arguing that humans are inherently selfish and only care about themselves. And that’s not true. They were saying, “People won’t do work unless they’re getting paid. If there’s no gain for them, they won’t do the work.” And it’s like, monetary gain is not the only gain. Historically, societies have existed through community. Societies survived through community. People would work together, like they’ll build, they’ll do the crops in the field, not because they’re going to be paid money.
Literally! We just discussed this in a class I had, like there are so many languages that don’t have a native word for ‘work’ (as we conceptualize it here and now) because capitalism came through and the word for ‘work’ got borrowed in [from colonizing/etc people’s languages]. What you’re saying is so true. Because, people didn’t think of it as work. They were just like, “Oh, like let’s build a house for the community.” It was very different from the way that we frame “work” nowadays.
We need to get away from the mindset that what we are is a commodity, that we need to compete with each other, because capitalism can’t exist without competition. And I think that mentality has caused people to either intentionally or subconsciously compete with each other. And it’s hurting us in the long run because obviously the people in power want us not to be united, they want us divided. So I think that has seeped into the music industry as well. And I guess that’s where I’m going to end this, with my anti-capitalist rant of the day.
Hell yeah! The perfect ending to this. Thank you so much for your time.
Yeah, of course, thank you.
Interview by Julien Boulton. Edited by Julien Boulton and Emily Matview. Photos provided by Jeremy Hunter.
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