Aquabats

The Aquabats hail from the lost continent of Aquabania. They are superheroes who fight for all that is good. They also play music. Their sound has been described as “Post-apocalypso-spudrock.” If you couldn’t tell by that definition, DEVO was, and still is a huge influence on our boyz, the Aquabats. The Aquabats released their second full-length album at the end of October 1997. They have been getting plenty of airtime with their song, “Super Rad!” along the Wasatch Front since thanks to X-96.

When the Aquabats are not visiting Aquabania, they hang out in Southern California. The men behind the mask– the alter-egos of the Aquabats – have close family and friend ties in Bountiful, Orem, and Provo. They held their CD release party right here, in Salt Lake City. The event was hardly publicized; in fact, most of the publicity came by word of mouth, but the place was totally packed that night, and somehow everyone knew about this great event. They held it at Bricks, a private club for members, and to tell you the truth, the scene was pretty funny.It looked like all the squeaky-clean youth of Provo and Orem migrated to Sodom for that one night. There were clean-cut kids, families in tow, with sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, you name a branch of your family tree… it was there. I’ll bet you bucks that was the strangest crowd Bricks has ever seen within their walls… Go figure!

The Aquabats are made up of eight members, plus one. Each of them is multi-insturmental and incredibly talented.. For the sake of space and time, I’m just going to rattle off their alter ego names. Chad Albert Larson, James Randall Briggs II, Sir Boyd Terry, Courtney Adam Pollock, Travis Landon Barker Esq., Charles Wallace Gray, Adam Warren Deibert, and Christian Richard Jacobs. The multi-talented Parker LeGrand Jacobs does artwork, fills in on whatever, and generally just plain takes care of our boyz.

I had the chance to speak with the Bat Commander himself, Christian Jacobs. I took that chance like President Clinton takes… well, never mind. At the time that I spoke to Christian, the Aquabats just got done playing the Salt Lake City gig, along with The Huntridge Theater in Las Vegas, and The Roxy in Hollywood, all in the same week, (and by the way, if you want to see young Christian Jacobs, pre-Aquabat days, go rent Pretty in Pink, he’s the kid in the record store that gets shot at with a staple gun!)

Slug: … You were telling me how you got together. You said it was basically for fun and just a big joke, right? A bad just for parties on the weekends?

Christian Jacobs: Yeah. It was totally just something fun to do. It was just something silly, to be in a band with all of our friends. In the beginning there were a lot more Aquabats. As it got rolling, we lost some members and it just sort of snowballed into this thing.

Slug: How was your gig at The Roxy last night?

CJ: It was really good, probably one of our best shows. The sound of The Roxy is really great. We had some different stage props, and it was fun!

Slug: Did the kids love it?

CJ: Oh yeah, it was good – it was pretty chaotic.

Slug: (me laughing…) Man, growing up did you ever think you would be playing The Roxy?

CJ: No, not at all!!

Slug: That’s wild, huh!

CJ: It’s so crazy.

Slug: That just makes me laugh, man! I think it’s great.

CJ: It makes me laugh. It’s hard to believe. At the same time, it seems weird; it doesn’t really hit me. It’s kinda like, “…huh, oh yeah, we just played The Roxy,” you know what I mean? At the same time, it blows me away when I think about it, ya know? Like, what am I doing?

Slug: What bands have you seen at The Roxy in the past?

CJ: Oh man, Nirvana, The Vandals, Luna, a whole bunch of bands, I can’t even think of them all.

Slug: So you’ve got the DEVO twist happening, but with ska, did you just fall into that, or did you always follow ska, or were you into that? Because I know early on you and I were really into early 80’s hardcore punk and stuff like that.

CJ: Right, I think in all honesty, the reason we started playing it, was that it was fun and that it was kind of an excuse to have all our friends in the band, ya know? Because there are so many instruments involved in playing that style of music. We just had all of our friends in the band. Even if they couldn’t play their instruments it didn’t matter because we would have them up on the stage with a horn, anyway. Hitting some bongos, or something. Growing up listening to music I didn’t ever make the distinction between what was ska and what wasn’t. I made that distinction with punk, because that was pretty obvious. Although punk talked a lot about how they didn’t want to be labeled or whatever, and they said they were punk, so they labeled themselves. I don’t remember The Specials, or Madness every saying, “We’re Ska,” you know what I mean? Maybe because I was younger, or whatever, but I don’t remember that.

Slug: Right: they didn’t come out with a category or anything, they just played their music. (Note: Most of the music labels come from outsiders or the media, very few bands come up with labels or try to categorize themselves, unless of course you are Creed or Days of the New who really, really want to be Grunge/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden in 1998).

CJ: Yea, they didn’t seem like that, ya know? They probably admitted that their form of music comes from a Ska background, yet I can’t remember ever seeing where they labeled themselves as Ska, ya know what I mean? We probably fall closer into that. Less likely to label ourselves as Ska, yet at the same time we play music that is pretty Ska, yet at the same time we play music that is pretty Ska flavored. The last time I saw you, I was listening to The Specials right along side with Minor Threat. It’s weird, because we get so many kidz coming up to us and asking us if we are Ska, or if we are punk, or whatever. It just seems like, that as time goes on people want labels even though it’s such a bad word, you know what I mean? People want to be able to know what you are. And not necessarily music, but what kind of style are you, or what’s your faction, man?

Slug: Yea, it’s all pretty stupid, and it makes me laugh.

CJ: Yea, and sometimes it gets hard too. The Aquabats have always been about having a good time and being silly. We are about the music too, it’s about making music that’s fun, to have a good time too, that tells a story, and it all can be pretty retarded too, ya know? Well, last night at the Roxy there were some kids there shouting “Sell Out!” all because they are playing our songs on the radio down here. It’s kinda funny because it’s like I don’t know what’s going on, you know what I mean? If you like a band you should want to see them succeed and go for the gusto, right? But I can understand because it’s kind of the same thing that happened a little bit, when I was younger with band like Oingo Boingo. I really loved Oingo Boingo a lot and when the sounded started to change a little bit, it became more mainstream sounding, then they started to play them more on the radio. It was definitely a sound change and I’m not accusing anybody of being a sell out, or anything. But we haven’t changed anything. If anything, we’ve just gotten better at playing our instruments and stuff. It just so happens that it’s kind of a good time for the sound, this type of music and they are playing us on the radio.

Slug: I think of two things when you tell me a story like that. You’ve got some kids in the audience yelling “Sell Out!” and talking about how you’ve sold out and yet they’ve paid money to come and watch The Aquabats. So, in essence they’ve bought into the “sell out,” if that is truly what they believe.

CJ: Right—

Slug: And then I think, for some strange reason, some fans and some kids take it personal the more popular you become, because it’s like their little secret is gone now.

CJ: And that’s just sour grapes, and yet I did some of that when I was younger. It must be this young kid thing.

Slug: How do you guys like playing in Salt Lake, when you come here?

CJ: It’s great! We always have a good time playing Salt Lake. It’s pretty wild! Salt Lake and Provo were the first places we played when we first went on the road just because we had friends and family that live in Utah. It always feels like it’s our home away from home. Obviously we started our following here in Orange County, but when we first started going on road trips, we would go to Utah.

Slug: (me busting up laughing-) Oh, I was going to tell you man, that when you guys were playing I’m out there, standing in front of the stage and you said something that was way funny, something about, “… got to do it for the kids,” and these two girls standing in front of me were talking, and I overheard them, and one girl leaned over to her friend and said real loud, “He is sooo cute!” Ha- ha-ha-ha So chicks are diggin ya, huh? Do you get a lot of dates that way, “Hey baby,… one word, Aquabats! Me and you-”

CJ: “Hey sweet pea!” Oh man, not really because they are all usually too young.

Slug: (Me, just laughing my ass off now—) Yea, it doesn’t help you when they are 12 years old, huh?

CJ: No, it doesn’t. It’s hard. If anything it’s a little bit of a hinderance. It’s hard to find a girl, any girl even close to my age at one of our shows.

All right riot grrrllls of the Wasatch front… now is your chance to meet some real super heroes! The Aquabats will be playing Saltair this month, February 13-14th. They are a part of the Swatch Sno Core 98 tour. (Primus, Blink-182 and the Long Beach Dub All Stars are scheduled to play, as well.) Shake off that cabin fever, peel your butt off of that couch and come on out for some good clean fun! —Royce

Read more interviews from the SLUG archives:
Foo Fighters
Descendents

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