American Psychos

On paper the combination seems at best unorthodox and at worst completely absurd: Old-fashioned country rock, otherwise known as rockabilly, combined with it's seemingly polar opposite, punk rock. Yet, as if in a night of drunken debauchery, these two musical movements mated and produced a somewhat mysterious offspring: psychobilly. In both music and style, psychobilly is equal parts rockabilly (the greased hair, the hollow bodied guitars, the standup bass, the rolled sleeves, the melodic tendencies) and punk (the tattoos, the frenetic pace, the loud guitars, the underground ethic). But it is also a separate species unto itself, one with its own subculture, its own set imagery, its own history and future. No band better embodies both the history and future of this music than Tiger Army.
Originally formed in the East Bay around the end of 1995, Tiger Army's first release was a vinyl E.P. in 1997. The next two years were spent writing songs, and in 1999, those songs appeared on Tiger Army's self titled debut on Hellcat Records. Following the release, Tiger Army has toured constantly, in the states with TSOL, Dropkick Murphys and Sick of it All, throughout Japan, and recently in Europe with Dropkick Murphys in support of their second full length, Tiger Army II: The Power of Moonlite (Hellcat). The band - vocalist / guitarist Nick13, bassist Geoff Kresge , and drummer Fred Telles - are now embarking on a headlining U.S. tour, known as the Punks vs. Psychos Tour, which will include Tiger Army, Danish psychobilly band The Nekromantix and The Distillers. The tour kicks off Tuesday, February 12th in Chico. The Synthesis recently caught up with Tiger Army frontman Nick13, who kindly took the time shed a little light on the world of Tiger Army.

How Was Europe?
It was really good. We went over there with Dropkick Murphys, and I was surprised with the response; almost everywhere we played there was some people there who knew the stuff. So that was really cool.

I've been reading the posts on your website, and the people over in Europe definitely seem to be more aware of psychobilly in general.
I think it's a couple of things. For one thing, in mainland Europe, the psychobilly subculture is really strong. It started in England, and definitely [there are] psychobilly bands still in England, but the scene has died out there to some extent, whereas in places like Germany the scene is still really strong. In general, I would say that people are more heavily into subculture over there, whether it's the psychobilly scene, the punk scene, the skinhead scene, but at the same time, the people who are at the shows seem to dig it, whether or not they're psychobillys.

So how do you feel about being put into the catergory of "psychobilly.?" It seems to be a subject of debate among people who are into that scene.
To me, I would definitely consider us to be a psychobilly band. It's not a restrictive genre so I don't have a problem with that. To me, putting your own style and your own influences have been a part of psychobilly in general, and a lot of the bands that followed in their footsteps did the same thing, and really took it in a lot of different musical directions. I think you can go too far; there's a certain point at which music stops being psychobilly and there are certain bands that aren't a part of the subculture and don't really understand where it comes from musically who use the word, and sometimes I take exception to that. But at the same time, for us, we're a part of the subculture and we don't have a problem with that.

At what point did you decide that you wanted to pursue this type of music?
I got into punk rock at a really young age through skateboarding. So by the time I was even in my mid-teens it wasn't something that was really new to me, per se. And somewhere kind of in my mid to late teens I started getting really into 1950s rock and roll and 1950s rockabilly music. So I had these two loves kind of concurrently side by side; I was definitely still into punk rock, but I also loved a lot of the older rock 'n' roll as well. As it happened, a lot of my favorite punk bands were bands that drew on both a little bit. A lot of especially 1970s punk rock had a lot of direct connections to 1950s rock 'n' roll. At a certain point, I started discovering bands from the European psychobilly scene, most of whom played with stand-up basses and were doing a really literal cross between '50s music and much more aggressive music which was based on stuff like punk rock. Another part of the psychobilly scene was the dark imagery that most of these bands shared, which is also something I had been attracted to since I was a kid, before I listened to music. When I found out there was an entire scene of these bands, who were a combination of all the things that I was really into, that's when I knew that this was the style of music that I wanted to play.

When did you realize that playing music was going to be your life, your career?
Probably sometime during college. I had been really, really into music for probably a decade at that point, and I'd played in bands and stuff. But it wasn't until the end of college, after college that I realized, although there were other things I enjoyed and was into, there was nothing that I could see doing that would capture my attention and that I had as much of a passion for as I did for music. It was at that point that I made a decision that I would rather put everything I have into playing music and risk winding up as what some would consider a failure than concentrating my energies on some sort of career elsewhere that didn't have any meaning for me.

Where did the name Tiger Army come from?
It was really just something that kind of popped into my head. As far as the imagery that surrounds it, basically I've always had an affinity for cats, and for big cats as well. To me, the tiger represents something that's really pure and primal, free of the artifice that you find in the human world. As well as something that's ferocious and brutal the way nature sometimes is. The metaphor behind the name is basically that people who are like the tiger, which is an animal who is very solitary in nature, are kind of a different breed apart from the sheep, the herd animals that society is mostly composed of. So people who think for themselves, who are independent, who have the courage to live their own way, and don't necessarily look at things the way everyone else does, those would be the people who are part of the Tiger Army.

The imagery associated with Tiger Army - the style, the artwork, the logos - seem to be of almost equal importance as the music.
I don't actually paint or use computer graphics programs myself, but any aspect of the visual imagery that has to do with the band - the album covers, the shirts, the fliers, whatever - I'm definitely very hands on with. And I think it's a very important part of representing what the band's about. I've always been attracted to bands who have a really strong style in everything, from album covers, to the shirts, to the music; that's just more exciting and interesting than a band of regular guys just playing music.

So what's the deal with the Punks vs. Psychos Tour? It was originally Lars Frederickson, you guys, and the Nekromantix, then it was the U.S. Bombs instead of Lars, and now they apparently aren't on it anymore either.
Lars was supposed to do the deal, but he has a pretty serious back condition that he found out was going to require surgery. The good news is I think he's going to be okay, as long as he takes the proper amount of time to recuperate, the bad news is he can't do the tour. The Bombs were supposed to replace him on the tour, but then they pulled off and that's caused some problems for the tour. Especially in the Midwest, some of the promoters cancelled shows. As far as the tour now, basically the first half is going to be us headlining and The Nekromantix, who are a great psychobilly band from Denmark who've been around since the late '80s and whose first album in America is about to come out on Hellcat. So the first two weeks of the tour will be us, the Nekromantix and local bands; I heard the Inverted Nines are playing at the show in Chico. Halfway through the tour, starting in New York City, The Distillers will be on the rest of the tour coming all the way to West Coast.

It seems like Tiger Army is growing pretty steadily in popularity, and now that you're headlining a national tour, are you at all concerned with getting too popular? Every other post on your Web site implores you to not "sell out." Is this something that you are at all concerned with?
To me, it's all a bit ridiculous. Psychobilly has never had the rules that sprang up in the punk scene, which was one of the things that really made me tire of the punk scene, in spite of the music that was sometimes great. There have been, in Europe, psychobilly bands on major labels; the first psychobilly album, like the first punk rock albums, came out on a major label. Not that I think major labels are great, I don't. But I think most of the people who complain about these things are Americans who have very little understanding of the psychobilly subculture and who've just gotten into it in the last year or two. Anyone who has any concept of the music industry knows that nobody on Hellcat Records is any kind of major music act. Most of the bands who get played on the radio sell more albums in a week than we've sold period. At the same time, we've had a lot of support from the underground and we appreciate that; we're not complaining about where we're at. But anyone who thinks we're mainstream in any way just doesn't have a clue. A lot of people really want something that's theirs that they can create and define their identity through and as soon as anyone else is into it, that threatens them, because that's the way in which they're defining themselves. So there are a lot of people in the U.S. underground scene that if they're the only person in a town who knows about a band, then that band's the greatest thing, but as soon as two or three people know about it, they're sellouts, they've changed, they're not cool anymore. Our music is something that I believe in with all my heart; we're not going to change out style to get popularity. I'm also not afraid to play the music that I want to play; if it evolves or changes somehow, I'm gonna play the music that I want to play. But as far as changing it with commercial success in mind, that's never gonna happen.

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