The Kids are Alright

The Kids Are Alright

Carter of The Mad Caddies talks about the past present and future of this young California ska-core band.

By Max Sidman

Ska is an interesting kind of music in that it never seems to die. Ever since its inception in the middle of the century, it has never really gone away, and every once in a while, the music returns to the forefront of pop culture.

Perhaps it’s because the sound of ska is so infectious—those hopped-up reggae hooks and melodies that ride up-timed beats and guitar strokes. Virtually every facet of sub-culture associated with ska is bubbling with hipness, from the British and East Coast American mods of the 1960s to the S.HA.R.P. crews (Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice) of the late ‘70s and 1980s. Ska music has been cool for decades, and it seems that its place in the great scheme of music is quiet yet strong.

Most recently, ska has resurfaced in contemporary punk rock, brought on by The Clash early on, and localized in places like the Bay Area and Los Angeles by bands like Operation Ivy, which spawned Rancid, one of the font runners in the current ska-punk scene.

Ska has really found a seat in the burgeoning ska-core movement, which combines all kinds of things—pop, rock, punk, reggae, whatever—with a heavy ska edge, high energy and an anything-goes attitude that can serve to push the boundaries of the music, and one of the band’s pushing the hardest is the Mad Caddies. This seven piece—Chuck (vocals), Mark (bass), Todd (drums), Ed (trombone), Sascha (guitar), Carter (guitar) and Keith (trumpet)—hailing from Santa Barbara and the surrounding locales specializes in blending several music styles under the ska label, creating something that comes from all over the place, but concentrates on fun. With two albums out (1996’s Quality Softcore and this year’s Duck and Cover) as well as some impressive tour credits, including a spot on the last Vans Warped Tour, The Mad Caddies have seated themselves at the front of the ska-core movement, such as it is.

Preparing for the current tour, Caddies guitarist Carter found time in his hectic schedule to phone the Synthesis and let us know what the group’s been up to lately. He also filled us in on the band’s past and future, explained why MP3s are good, why Fat Wreck Chords rocks and what it takes to get along with six other band members.

How long have you been together?

About three years now.

Is it still all the original members?

Every member is original except for our trumpet player, who is the first trumpet player we’ve had, and we used to have a sax player who is not playing with us any more. Our trombone player is original. We started adding horn players about four months after we started the band.

How did you all come together?

The five of us [Carter, Mark, Sascha, Todd and Chuck] all grew up together in the same area, and we were all just into music and we always played together in different combinations. It all came together when a couple of the guys were in a band together, and their bass payer couldn’t play a certain show. So Mark started playing, and then I started playing and we all just kind of came together like that in ’95. That’s when we recorded a demo tape and our singer brought that to a guy who did booking at a club that used to be in Santa Barbara called The Underground. Then we just started opening up for bands. Some of our early shows were with the Dance Hall Crashers, AFI, Skankin’ Pickle and stuff like that. Any time we could, we’d jump on a bill. That was with the original five of us. We started picking up horn players at Santa Barbara City College, where our other guitar player, Sasha, would just go up to anyone who seemed like they might be interested and that he thought were good, and just asked them if they wanted to play.

I read that Joey Cape of Lagwagon hooked you guys up with Fat Mike of NOFX and Fat Wreck Chords.

Yeah, pretty much. What happened was, we went in and did our first record self-financed, just ‘cause we had played around for about a year and a half and we wanted to do a real record. We had recorded something before, but we weren’t really happy with it; we had just added horns, and we hadn’t gotten down a lot of our better songs. So we went in and recorded this album, and literally right after—it must have been two days after we were done—Joey went into Orange Whip [studio] to book some time, and Angus, the guy that recorded us, is friends with him and said, ‘You gotta’ check out this band that I just recorded.’ He took the tape, and he liked it and said ‘I think Mike is going to be into this,’ so he sent it up to the Bay. We had heard that he was sending it up, but we were only really thinking about in the backs of our minds. Eventually, Fat Mike called Sasha and Sahsha thought it was joke and almost hung up on him. He though it was one of us pulling a prank. But Fat Mike told him, ‘Yeah, I like you guys and I want to do a record.’

Are you the only really ska band on Fat Wreck?

Yeah, uh… Lemme think. Yeah, I think so.

Do you get treated well by the label?

Yeah. We were on Honest Don’s [record label] for the first record and Fat for the second—they’re basically the same thing, but there’s more people working at Fat. What’s really cool about it is that they have the good aspects of an indie label and the good aspects of a major label. They’ve got a pretty good amount of money to work with; they’ve also got a staff that bigger then most indie labels. But I still know everyone there. At least half the people at the label go to our shows when we’re up in that area. It’s a really cool label.

I noticed on the Web site that you promote the practice of MP3 [Internet music files] trading.

As far as the MP3 thing, that’s totally my thing. I’m always preaching to the other guys about that. I mean, record companies are always bitching about how they’re loosing out on all this money. But we know how much money we get from CDs, and we know how much CDs cost to press, and we know how much they are in stores; it’s ridiculous how much they are, and they should be a lot cheaper. That’s just the way it works. Supposedly [the labels] are out to protect the bands, but I think that it’s a good thing for as many people as possible to hear your music. We’re not so greedy that we think everyone that listens to something should buy a CD. So in that way, yeah, I get really fired up, and you can get almost any one of our songs off the Internet.

You respond on the Web site to fan requests for lyrics to the first record, Quality Softcore, by telling them to figure it out for themselves or make up their own and send them in to be posted.

Yeah, I’m really lazy when it comes to that Web site, and I haven’t really done much more with that, but people have actually done it—they’ve written out all of the lyrics with the blank parts that they can’t understand. But the thing is, we don’t even know either. We don’t know what Chuck is talking about. So we told him to write out everything for the second record, because people want to know. I see people in the crowd all over the place mouthing the lyrics.

Are you pretty tight with your fan base?

Yeah, totally. People all over the place have been really receptive to our music. We play so much different music that we like to think that there’s gonna be something that anybody in any type of crowd is going to like. One the flip side, there’s going to be something that someone in the crowd in going to hate. Hopefully it evens itself out. I think that everyone gets along, so it’s cool.

What do you think it is about ska music that people like?

Well, you’re probably asking the wrong person, because I’m not a huge ska fan.

What do you listen to?

Well, I think everyone in the band pretty much listens to everything. Ska is pretty low on the list. I think that the worst kinds of music are bad rap and bad ska. I’d rather listen to a bad punk rock band. It’s just that some music can be really bad. As far as what I listen to, I like some stuff that’s totally mainstream, like Cake or Blur, and then I like old stuff like Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Ramones. I like new stuff. I love Lagwagon—they’re one of my favorite bands. NOFX; I’m into all the Fat bands. But if you asked our drummer the same question, he listens to a lot of Top 40 stuff. Our bass player Mark has like 4000 CDs, and I want to see him and [MTV’s] Matt Pinfield go at it, because he knows so much about music. It’s unbelievable. Our singer is a big Sublime fan, he likes Bad Religion too. We cover a lot of ground. Sasha probably has the most interesting tastes. He likes Dixieland jazz, and stuff like Glen Miller.

So how’d you settle on the kind of music that you’re making?

Everyone was pretty open to what other people wanted to do. To be honest, we’ve played some stuff on both records that I’m not too into. If I heard another band do it, I wouldn’t be too fired up on it. It’s that same thing with other guys in the band too. I think that everyone tries to respect what everyone else wants to do, and you just kind of put your own two cents into it. I think the way we settle on things is that no one has ever really said, ‘No, I don’t want to play that.’ That’s not to say there aren’t arguments, though.

Where are you guys going?

I just did an e-mail interview the other day, and they asked me that question. It’s funny ‘cause we’re not exactly the type of band that sets our sights really high because we’ve just always gone out and played, and people seem to like it. We just keep playing and keep having fun, and everything just kind of comes out of that. I mean, yeah, we give thought to it, because when you’re on a touring level, you learn a lot of things that they never told you when you were in the garage. So I think that we try to actively keep up this mentality of being really incompetent. A lot of people say we have to do this and that, market ourselves, get a manager, all this stuff. But we look at it like, the relationship we have with some people is that they help us out, and we go out and play music, and we see how it all works out. We just try to keep the mentality that we’ve always had of just playing and having fun.

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