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Sometime after Spring Break 2001, Dave Fuller showed up to band practice oozing studliness. 'Why was he oozing this substance,' you ask? Because he was sporting a new jacket he purchased for seven dollars from Gates Resale. When he showed up to the next practice a week or so later, he was surprised to find that every member of the band was wearing a seven-dollar jacket just like his. Since that day, the band known as Seven Dollar Jacket recorded two EPs (watch for a new one this summer) and played shows everywhere from Idaho to Washington to Nevada. After pounding Chico's Riff Raff last Wednesday, Dave was nice enough to sit down with me and explain further the workings of the band.

Do you do most of the songwriting in the band?
Yeah, I write most of the songs. I'm the older guy in the band - the grandpa. Basically, I've gone through a lot of crap. The songs are pretty much just a testimonial of all that crap I've been through.

Care to elaborate on the crap?
Well, the one song that people respond to really well is "Open Door." Basically, it's about how my dad walked out when I was only five. I can remember it extremely vividly and it pretty much screwed me up for a long time - not to get too emo on you. It's kind of cool because a lot people can relate to that. Lots of people come up after a show and ask, "Hey, what's that song about?" It's cool that I get to share that with them. Now, I pretty much forgave [my dad], but it was a hard thing to get through.

So, songwriting is definitely cathartic for you?
Oh, yeah. It's a great release. It's a way to just get things out in front of you. When you put your emotions down on paper, you can look at it and scribble things out - it's great.

How does that release show up in your live show?
Well, we like to bring across a lot of energy. The last thing I want to do is look fake up there, and if I'm not into a song, I don't want to act like, 'Hey, look, I'm energetic.' We really just want to bring across a high energy and [we] hope that our music is as therapeutic to others as it has been to us.

Do you have a worst experience from being on the road?
Oh, man. You know, I don't think we've ever gone anywhere without the van breaking down. We got stuck in Carson City one time. The people that got us out there paid us, put us up in a hotel for two nights and gave us food. We were all thinking, "Wow, this great," but when we got to the venue, it turns out that [the show] wasn't advertised - I think that maybe 20 kids showed up. They actually got up between bands and played games like Bingo and their own version of Family Feud. As soon as our set was done, we packed up and attempted to leave, but the van broke down on us. That van is a piece of crap.

Tell me about the beginnings of Seven Dollar Jacket.
The band started out as a worship band based out of a neighborhood church. We got together and covered a song for my wife, and from there, Jeff from NumberOneGun met with us and got us started playing different venues. At first we did a lot of youth group stuff. It's really funny, the kids are into it and some of the adults are into it, but we've had this shunning recently coming from the older people in that area. We're excited to get away from that and start playing more bars - we're playing at Tower Records, Spin Records and stuff like that so we can actually start playing for a different crowd.

Do you still consider yourselves a Christian band?
Yeah, definitely. Well, we hate to say that we're a Christian band because people automatically think, "Amy Grant," or something like that. There are actually a lot of Christian bands that are cool, but they're all in the underground scene. Though we don't like to call ourselves a Christian band, everybody in the band is Christian, and whatever is most influential in your life is going to affect your music in some way.

Where do you hope to go with this band?
Of course, it would be awesome to get signed and go on a national tour, but I don't think any of us want to be MTV-bound or anything like that. Our biggest goal is to be able to play as many shows as we can. I think the only reason we would want to be signed would be to take away the financial burden that holds back most bands. We also want to spread out from the Chico area - we play a lot of shows around Chico and we'd like to get more into Oregon, Washington, Southern California and Nevada.

What do you think of the current music scene, particularly that of MTV?
You can't turn on MTV without it focusing automatically on some girl's tits or ass. Unfortunately, music has become a visual art since MTV has taken over. I think it has just destroyed a lot of good music and it's hindering a lot of great bands from being noticed. Now there are a lot of artists that look good, but they can't sing - looks sell, I guess.

What would you like to see happen to the current music scene?
Well, being an art major, I'm going to sound all artsy fartsy here. I'd like to see a lot more people backing the artists with funding. I'd like to see more venues open up. I'd like to see a lot more acceptance of different styles of music because, let's face it, not everybody is going to like the same thing. I mean, we had people yelling at us tonight that didn't like us, but that's okay - I don't expect everyone to like our music. I hate to admit this, but I love bluegrass…well, I don't really hate to admit it. I like real country music, not that Shania Twain stuff. I love punk, I even like a little bit of hip-hop and I love emo [laughs]. No, I don't love emo - there are some guys in the band that do. Accepting other music is what is going to make people's hearts grow.

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