Triple Fast Action

A four piece band with loud abrasive guitars wrapped around rock pop hooks, dual leads and heavy melody lines. Yea, they sound just like everybody else…

Wes Kidd (Birth name)
AKA: Wesley Edward Kidd III
Band: Triple Fast Action 

SLUG: Why are you not up front in the picture?

WES: They wanted good looking guys up front! 

SLUG: There are no good looking guys.

WES: Because I am so ugly. 

SLUG: Tell me a little bit about the band, are you all from Chicago?

WES: Yes, we are all from Chicago. 

SLUG: How did you all meet? 

WES: Brian (the drummer) and I have played in a bunch of bands since we were kids. 

SLUG: Of any notoriety? 

WES: No. Just crappy bands. Then we found Kevin the bass player at some weird clothing store, and he played in a band with the other guitarist Ronnie. It all came together pretty quick. It wasn’t like a big struggle finding people which was good. 

SLUG: Are you the main song writer? 

WES: I pretty much write everything. 

SLUG: So you’re a ‘singer-songwriter’?

WES: Yeah, I have to take all the blame for everything. 

SLUG: Hey, I like every song on the album except one.

Wes: Which one don’t you like? 

SLUG: It’s the one with the repeating – naaanaaaa – thing in there. 

Wes: Over and over? Oh it’s probably DON’T TELL then.

SLUG: I liked the rest of it though. 

Wes: Hey we’re shooting pretty good though, that’s about 98%.

SLUG: So you’ve been together since when, 93 / 94 somewhere in there. 

Wes: Yeah like about three years. A little over three years. I guess we’re coming up on four years this Christmas. 

SLUG: How did you get signed to Capitol Records? 

Wes: Hell if I know, it was weird. We had put together a couple of singles and someone got a hold of some demos and then they came up to see us. And then once Capitol made us an offer then right away all these other labels came in and started making us offers and it got real stupid and nutty and fun too at the same time. But then in the end Capitol was the first ones there everyone seemed the coolest and that’s how we went with Capitol. Those were really strange times though. Cuz these people like you know their professionals at telling you how great you are, so it gets really scary. 

SLUG: They’re weasels, they’re all weasels. 

Wes: And the funny thing is though I started to believe them. I started for like a week going – Man, I’m pretty kick ass. Until I stood up and went “what the fuck am I talking about.” 

SLUG: Hey I am pretty cool, if this fucking guy from Capitol records thinks I am. I must be. 

Wes: Right. No it was a weird time, but it was good, free dinners, free CD’s. We could have milked it a little longer. I know some bands really took advantage of that stuff but we tried to make it a little quicker.  

SLUG: So have you seen any money yet? 

Wes: No, well, I mean I haven’t seen any but I know there’s a lot being spent. If that makes any sense. You know what I mean. There’s none in my bank account, but they’re spending a bunch of money, and you know you kinda see a bunch of money go by, but that’s about it. 

SLUG: Are you guys touring? 

Wes: We have been touring for awhile now. We were out for like a month or two before the record came out, like we went out with Super Grass… 

SLUG: How’d you like Super Grass? 

Wes: I didn’t like their record when I first got it, and then we played with them for a couple of weeks and I love them now. I think they are amazing. And you know they were the coolest guys too, I thought they were going to be…

SLUG: Stuck up Brits? 

Wes: Yeah, because they’re so huge over there. But they were so cool, you know they were totally helpful and their crew was helpful, so that was fun. And then we did some dates with Everclear and then, since the record came out we went out with the Figs, and then we just did five weeks with CandleBox if you can believe it. And then, now we’re out with Magna Pop. 

SLUG: Magna Pop’s not a Capitol band.

Wes: Nope but, they just asked us to go. 

SLUG: So, try and explain what it’s like to be in a band and then have Capitol Records kinda take over your existence, like now they pay for everything, now is it way different than before?

Wes: You know at first I thought it was going to be, I thought it’d take a lot of the pressure off me and the work off me and instead it’s doubled it. Because I have to, in order to get like a big company like this into a, you know focused in the same way and to try and get them to have your vision, instead of their own, is a really hard thing and you got to stay on top of everyone to you know, make sure everybody is doing the things for the right reasons and making sure their getting your ideas across. like there was some things that happened that you know that, that weren’t what I wanted and went out there and had to throw fits about that and stuff, but it’s great too because everybody is behind the band and there you know it is good to have people working for you, but you just gotta make sure that it’s the right idea. Because everybody’s got their own take on you know us and every band that they work with, so it just keeps me busy just making sure everybody’s doing their thing and stuff. But it’s a lot of fun too. 

SLUG: You really don’t have to worry about much when you’re on tour, right?

Wes: No, except for the fact that you gotta make sure that while you’re out there that people are, you know, sending out the posters and stuff, like a lot of times we’ll get to clubs and no one knows we’re going to be there. I can take care of that stuff on my own if someone lets me know, but instead, someone is supposed to be doing it, so I want to make sure that people are getting the posters and getting the other stuff. 

SLUG: That’s what I meant, I mean you would figure that it’d be taken care of.

Wes: Yeah, well that doesn’t happen the way you think it does. 

SLUG: Where’s the big expensive high paid tour manager guy? 

Wes: Well our tour manager is our drummer. We’re a fully contained band, I mean you know, we are self contained, our drummer carries this little brief case with all his information onto the stage when we’re ready to play, so it’s pretty funny. Well we like to do stuff ourselves to you know, if you let it get too far out of your hands you just fuck yourself.

SLUG: Well tell me about the, tell me about how the album came together, you did the demos and everything in 7” and singles and all that other crap and then they said lets do this record? 

Wes: Well then we actually have this small little studio at our practice that we’ve slowly built up over the years that everybody had like a little piece of equipment that kinda hooked it all up and so we recorded all the songs we had which was like 52 songs or something, we had a lot of songs then kinda sent out to all the people at Capitol to get their view on what they liked, and you know it’s good to get someone else’s view and then we narrowed it down to 22 songs and then we went in with Don Flemming and just started kinda banging them out, and then when it came time to mix the record it didn’t really sound the way we wanted it to, we did like two or three songs and it wasn’t quite right so then we called up a different guy to mix it and then he came in and did it, and then you know, it was done, it was, it took a long time just because of scheduling and stuff but all in all recording time wasn’t that long. 

We talked more about lots of shit, how we like Thin Lizzy, Queen, what a great record ‘Jazz’ is and how the world needs David Lee Roth (this was day one of David Lee Roth/Hagar Wars). Basically, Triple Fast Action is a band that is trying to resurrect rock in all its brash and bawdy fashion. Somebody has to do it. —Maxx 

Read more from the SLUG Archives:
Smart Brown Handbag
Napalm Death