The Ataris

The Ataris are eating lunch. A spikey-haired Kris Roe and a much less imposing Mike Davenport (the vocalist and bassist, respectively) have ordered a vegetarian dish and a chicken dish. Mike, opting for veggie, he says, for various reasons mostly having to do with the fact that it’s just better for you. Kris, it seems, is nursing a bit of a hangover as he sips his ice tea, explaining that last night got a little out of hand in San Francisco as the band was invited to party and get wild and weird with Fat Mike of NOFX, owner / founder of Fat Wreck Chords and oft proclaimed fan of the Ataris.

With a new record pressed and ready for release on Feb 20^th, Santa Barbara residents, the Ataris, are getting ready for another big year in the life of a fledgling power-pop punk band. Already in the works in the coming months are some shows supporting friends NOFX and then onto a coast to coast headlining extravaganza with tentative support from fellow Kung Fu Records label mates Useless ID as well as some pick ups along the way with Chixdiggit and Armchair Martian. What’s it like being the Ataris? Kris and Mike break it down for us Synners in their own words.

Kris: It was great. Fat Mike is cool as hell.

Mike: Man, Fat Mike is my god.

Kris: And he's buying us drinks.

Mike: My god is.

Kris: So we're down at some place on Haight St. and there were all these people there; our friend Joey (who produced our record), people from Fat Wreck Chords, other bands like Limp, one guy from the Swinging Udders, Dance Hall Crashers, just a big fuckin' party. A bunch of cool people and I was just flattered to be hanging out with these guys. I was about to not go, almost blow it off, but sometimes you gotta just go for it.

Kris: Well I had just told my wife that I quit drinking so I felt all bad about going out. It was cool later though.

Mike: I wouldn't say we're looking for a new label, we're just sort of floating the idea around.

Kris: We have an option for the first time ever to be free to do whatever we want. We signed for three records and this is the end of our contract. So we fulfilled our obligation and now we could do whatever we want. Who knows? We could even stay on Kung Fu if we wanted to. I don't know what we want to do. I think we might want to try something a little bit bigger. Not to say Kung Fu didn't do a really good job pushing us, they did. But to get to the next level where we want to go, I'm not sure what that would take. I'm not saying a major label, that's not what we're about. It's just that we still do a lot of stuff ourselves, that's the way we've built our band. It's modeled in a sort of DIY ethic, anti-rock star shit. And to give up all that to sign with a big huge company, we don't think it would do us much justice. They wouldn't have the same vision as us, like some A & R guy at the top of the ladder that also handles Smashmouth and fuckin' Third Eye Blind coming to us saying "You guys should write songs like this..." That's happened to so many of our friends' bands. It sucks.

Mike: I'm not going to name any names, but already one of the labels that's been courting us got mad at me after one of our shows for some stuff I had said on stage about how the radio station sucked or something, basically just talking shit. And he got mad at me about stuff I should or shouldn't say — this is a label that's just courting us, not even one we've talked to seriously or have any commitment with. Nothing. That's the kind of stuff I'm totally against right off the bat, somebody telling us how to be, to act. I fucking hate that. I was like, instantly appalled.

Kris: We started a band so we could say what we wanted to say. We don't want anybody to censor us in any way. Maybe that works for some bands to have some help conducting things, big boy bands or something, but not us.

Kris: Here's how the industry works, the only stuff that comes out in Nov / Dec months are like big blockbuster shit. So any indie label records don't get put out at those times because stores won't push it. They're only focusing on the new Britney Spears or some Christmas shit. Indie records don't sell at all because they get lost in all the rest of that crap. So basically the last quarter of the year you just avoid. You wait until the first of February.

Mike: The easier explanation is that stores order their stuff by October 6 for Christmas and if you're album isn't done by then you don't put it out.

Kris: So we'll put it out in February and do a full U.S. headlining tour for like the first time ever, having a new album right then to support while being sure of ourselves that people are going to come out to see us.

Mike: Not like the "VFW across America" tour where you're not sure who's going to show.

Kris: I mean we love that stuff, playing small shows and all-ages gigs and all that, but it’s no fun when along the way you're like trying to scrounge up enough money to buy a sandwich or get a room. Although I'm not saying it's not good to stay in people's houses. It's just that there's always the time when there's this dude that goes, ‘Oh yeah, you can totally stay at my house.’ And then you get there and the guy's like, ‘Oh man, my mom says it's not cool. You gotta bail right now.’ Then the dad comes out yelling, ‘What're all these punks doing on my front lawn at two in the morning! I'm calling the cops on you guys.’ So we're like, shit, should've spent the 40 bucks and just gotten a hotel room in the first place.

Mike: How bout the time we stayed at the guys house and he tells us, ‘My big brother is violent. He might come home later. He sleeps in the room above us.’

Kris: Oh yeah, he had like a hairlip. I mean, we're not making fun of people with hairlips or anything, this guy just talked real funny, with a lisp. [imitating] ‘My big brother might come home so you guys better watch out if he's drunk.’ [laughs] And then he like, lifts up his mattress and there's all this porno. And we're like, ‘Whoa, dude!’ he's showing them to us, going, ‘I really like this one.’ And we're just thinking this is gnarly. Then he just goes into the bathroom and leaves us all there in this little room that's like twelve feet by twelve feet, eight guys all sleeping in there on the floor and everywhere. Crazy.

Kris: I think a lot of bands today are afraid to still call themselves a punk band, but for us I think the reason we're still categorized as that and not the whole indie rock thing, or emo, is because a lot of those bands, ones like Eliot Smith, Jimmy Eat World, Jets To Brazil, or Jawbreaker (who I like a lot), those bands seem to shy away from the energy of punk shows. But we like it — the energy. We love when the kids crowd the stage. I couldn't hang with just sitting there watching the show. We love the feeling of just being crammed with kids. We modeled our live show after all the stuff we grew up liking, like when you'd see a band live and you could get up on stage and sing along, or when a guy would get into the crowd and sing. Bands like ALL, the Descendants, or Avail, those bands had fucking energy and the whole audience participation and that's what they cared about. And they totally cared. Like any time I would write to those bands they'd always write back. Or every time I'd go see those bands they'd be hanging out after the show and signing stuff. It's just so easy to do, and it goes so far, you know? But whatever. When I'm 30 I'll probably be a bitter old man, like ‘Fuck the kids.’ No, not really. I love the kids.

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