No Use For a Title

Chris, guitarist of the Bay Area punk quartet No Use For A Name, and the rest of the guys in his band—singer/guitarist Tony Sly, bass player Matt and drummer Rory Koff—are just back from a five week stint on the road with fellow Fat Wreck Chords recording artists Lagwagon, and they couldn't be happier about it. The tour, which covered much of the nation, was good for Chris and the guys, and his up-beat early morning attitude proved it.

"It was our first tour in, like a year. It was just fun to be playing again," Chris told the Synthesis from his house in San Francisco last week. No Use seems to have used the tour as an opportunity to warm up for a long term, upcoming road trip which begins in a couple of months. No Use will make its way up to Canada, where it will play the first in a succession of shows with contemporary punk rock icons, NOFX.

In the meantime, No Use is practicing, gearing up and getting ready. The group's upcoming tour schedule prevents them from planning any recording time until at least the summer time.

This quartet from San Jose fits nicely into the genre of music it plays—modern day punk rock with a happy overtone that makes it a hit with all the kids. And though the band has been referred to as hard core, that's a title that Chris prefers to leave to the real hard core bands.

"I wouldn't refer to us as hard core. Maybe melodic hardcore," said Chris. "When I think of hard core, I think of more East Coast stuff." The difference, says Chris, between those hard core bands west coast punk rockers like No Use, comes to down to the question musical brute force.

"We're really wimpy and they're not. That's pretty much the difference. We have happy-go-lucky melodies and they don't."

Despite the apparent wimpy-ness of No Use's music compared to the so-called real hard core bands, the Bay Area punks' music is still plenty fast and plenty loud. Chris, being the newest member of the band (he replaced Ed, former guitar player, about a two years ago) has not changed the sound of the band all that much since he joined, as Tony Sly is definitely the creative force in the band.

"Tony writes everything, for the most part, and then he brings it to rehearsal," explained Chris. "From there, we kind of arrange it, put it together and rehearse it. Lyrically, Tony just writes from his own life and experiences."

But just because Tony handles most of the song writing, that doesn't mean that Chris or any other members' opinion or influence is out of the picture completely, and Chris' tastes run from Jawbreaker to Radiohead to Son Volt—three bands that one might not expect a punk rock musician to listen to.

"I listen to a lot of punk rock, but we play punk rock, and we play with punk rock bands all the time. You can't limit yourself to just punk rock. [Limitation] is just too closed minded."

Chris may understand the importance of broadening one's listening horizons, but No Use is still a member of the Fat Wreck Chords stable, which places the band firmly in the contemporary punk rock genre, and that seems to be okay with Chris. He likes Fat Wreck and he thinks Fat Mike (owner, Fat Wreck and NOFX member) is an "awesome guy." And while Fat Wreck is primarily a punk rock label, they can claim more independent success than many "indie" labels out there.

"[Fat Wreck] is small, and we know everybody there. It's easy to get things done when we need them done. They've really got their shit together, and they've got incredible distribution. Everyone really knows what they're doing." As for the definition of independence, Chris could care less what all that means.

"It's ridiculous," he said. "People get so caught up in the whole `indie vs. major' thing, but it really doesn't matter, for the most part. We get kids that come up to us on tour and ask, `How come Fat Wreck Chords is a corporate sell-out label now?' Based on What!? It's all just pretty retarded.

"I mean, a lot of it's all so similar, independent labels are just smaller and cheaper. If you were on a major, you'd have to deal with each individual department within the label. It is difficult and you can get lost in the shuffle. Whereas at a label like Fat Wreck, a band that is our size is like a big fish in a small pond. With the amount of records we sell, if we were on a label like Geffen or Capitol, we'd get dropped. But we can put out albums for years on Fat and make a living, and continue to make music and tour."

The benevolence of Fat Wreck towards its bands is legendary, and it would take a lot to draw bands away from a label that treats its bands with care and respect. Still, that didn't stop the major offers from coming during the major-label punk rock feeding frenzy that occurred a couple of years ago. Chris recalls a few offers, but nothing worth leaving Fat Wreck for. Besides, Chris pointed out that No Use would probably have just been dropped from those labels anyway.

"Punk rock in the mainstream is pretty much over now. Its moved onto the things like Prodigy," scoffed Chris. "In fact, our next album is going to be a bunch of techno re-mixes!"

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