Interview with Mad Caddies

Posted on Nov 18, 2004 by Skadude

The band that's gone and done it all. They've been through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Back in Europe for yet another tour and still just as good as before if not better. These are the guys that many people look up to as being one of the most original ska bands out there, constantly coming out with new and unseen material. To talk to someone of their stature was both an honour and an experience I will not forget. Without further ado I present to you the interview with Mad Caddies.

So hows it going?

Oh, it's going good. We've been on tour for about a week. Every shows been incredible, it's been great. We got to hand pick the bands this time. We especially chose Belvedere. So the shows have been great, the bands have been great.

You guys just started right? You're right into the tour just now?

Yeah.

Alright so it's been a while since Just One More was released and I know you just came out with a live cd so the question is can we expect to see a new album anytime soon?

Yeah. We're working everyday at sound check on new songs. After this tour we've got a couple of small tiny things to do, like we're going to Hawaii and Japan for about a week with Lagwagon but those are just small tours. Pretty much from the end of this tour, pretty much from the middle of november through to febuary, march we're continuing writing and rehearsing, we'll try and start recording around march or may. We were trying to get the record out before summer so we could do the warped tour but we decided not to do the warped tour, we don't want to rush it or anything, but we're definitely working on new songs, getting new parts and all that.

Can you tell us anything about the new album? Will it be themed like Rock the Plank, a pirate theme, or...

No it won't be a pirate theme, the songs that have come up so far are still diverse but nothing really new if you know Mad Caddies. Couple reggae tunes we got, couple of straight up punk rock, couple dixieland things, couple fast minor evil sounding dixieland stuff, and then when it's all set and done I'm sure we'll have some stuff that we've never done before.

So we're going to be hearing some more banjo type stuff?

Yeah.

Quickly on that note, do you ever play the banjo live, because we've seen you four times and you've never played it at any of those shows...

Yeah, I've done it a few times, I've done it in Europe maybe twice, but I mean its hard... there's not really an excuse except for the fact that it's kind of hard to make it sound good. When you have a banjo competing against the drums, the bass, the horns, and to have it sound good and not feedback, it's kind of difficult, it's a lot easier just to play the guitar and the vibe's still there but you know the banjos more for looks. But as far as the new record there will definitely be some banjo stuff probably more on this new record than any so far.

How did you get into the banjo? Did you already play it when you joined Caddies or did you learn it while with them?

No no, I never played banjo I only started it like two years into the Caddies. When we started playing music we realised there were so many bands that sounded the same that play ska, punk, reggae and what not and we wanted to be different so I got really into jazz music like Louis Armstrong and you know there's banjos in 99% of those recordings so I figured if I could play guitar I might be able to play banjo. So I got one and started practising, that's how it happened and then we incorporated that into the band to be different cause we wanted to have our own thing.

That's one thing that everyone says about Caddies, "Oh they're so original". How do you maintain that originality?

Every couple of weeks I listen to mainstream radio and I think "Fuck, this is bullshit". I don't care if we don't sell millions of records, we're proud to say we did something that was our own and sure we got some reggae tunes that might sound like other bands and what not but as far as the dixieland punk rock thing goes there's other bands that have done a kind of dixieland thing like the Squirrel Nut Zippers but we're the first to kind of mix it in with punk rock, we just got sick of all the bands sounding the same.

The best example of dixieland for you guys has got to be "Monkeys", are we going to hear anything like that on the new album?

More songs like... Not so dixieland like monkeys more dixieland punk rock, monkeys is more straight up dixieland, the ones we're working on now are more like Leavin' and Road Rash, more punk rock but a little bit more some minor kinda like Villains.

Can you give us any titles off that new album?

We don't have any names of the songs yet...

So what made you guys want to do a live record? Is it totally live or is some of it edited in a studio?

Well we wanted to do a live record because we thought it was time, we thought it would be good, you most of the songs on the live record seem to be people's favourite songs, it's a good compilation of songs most people like and that people in our band enjoy so we thought it would be good to put all those songs on one record because our band definitely has a reputation for being a live band and fun so we thought that a live record for us would be a good idea... And we made sure, you know theres been plenty of records even live in a dive that people go back in and redo guitar parts and the only thing that we did was during the show Chuck's microphone cut out on like two words so he went into the studio and redid those two words and that was it, no one was going to go replay or rerecord any parts, there was a lot of mixing that was involved to make it sound good, but there was no cheating as far as rerecording something cause we fucked up...

Live-wise you never seem to play anything off the holiday is cancelled, I'm thinking specifically Something's wrong at the playground, is there any reason for that?

Well probably because, that's a very heavy two guitar song and we only have one guitar now, that's one reason another reason is that we've got so many songs that, we don't mind that song but we've got so many others to play that it doesn't really take priority but what we've started doing recently is reviving a song and bringing it back but we've been playing recently Falling Down and SOS so we figure two songs out of a five song EP is pretty good considering we have five albums.

How is it that you guys get the set list? Do you all sit down and discuss it or does one person do it?

No we have to think about it a lot because you can't just write songs you have to think about it, we have songs in so many different genres, some songs are a little bit mid tempo, some songs are faster, you can't put too many of one genre next to each other. We have to make sure the set flows well musically and that there aren't too many reggae songs together, you know if someone writes the set and randomly three reggae songs are next to each other, people get bored because reggaes good and all but after fifteen minutes of it you kind of give up and then the rest of the set would be so fast so we're very conscious of our set list and how we set it out, we try to make sure that it flows.

Alright, sideprojects, I know some of you are doing them, hows that working out?

Oh it's going good, you know Keith and Ryan are starting a Pantera cover band. Keith is going to stay, and Ryan's going to play drums and then one of Keith's friends is going to play guitar...

That's an interesting change...

Yeah, we love every kind of music, people think that all we listen to is ska and that's probably the least type of music we listen to... so Keith's doing that, I'm doing a lot of reggae stuff, I've been in Jamaica a couple of times and I've produced some songs with Anthony B and B for a couple of records coming up and I'm getting into that I'm workign with a couple of artists in January, I've been buying a lot of drum machines and keyboards been trying to get into Reggae production...

Are these side projects affecting Caddies in any way?

No, no I think it's better at least for me personally cause I'll come up with so many reggae songs and there's no way Caddies can do them all, there's certain songs that I write for the band and there's certain songs that I write that wouldn't sound right for the Caddies and it's frustrating to not have a home for those songs because I don't think the band would like it and I don't think anyone would like it so instead of doing that you can start another band and it's like therapy you can try and get that out, then you can still do Caddies and not worry about changing our sound and completely disappointing people.

You say you write a lot of the songs, how does the band go about writing new songs?

Most of the time Chuck or I'll come up with an idea and the rest of the band will kind of collaborate on that, like sometimes I'll come up with a particular riff or melody and the rest of the band will arrange it sometimes Chuck will come up with the whole song and I'll just arrange it and sometimes we'll all just kind of jam...

Do you guys do that on tour or at home?

It's harder on tour because people are doing their own thing, we have to sound check early and ninety nine percent of the time people are hung over but I've been making it a goal of mine to get as much as possible done on tour because I want us to take time on the record but I still want us to work hard.

So when you guys get back to the US you're not going to have any freetime then?

Yeah, it's been a busy year, and it's going to continue to be busy, we're on tour and we're working on new songs. We took a lot of the summer off, took a couple of months just to chill out...

Ok, it's well known that you guys like Belgian stuff, so we were wondering how many waffles Chuck can eat, with whipped cream, in four minutes?

(laughs)Chuck's lost about thirty pounds since you last saw him so probably not as many as he could before. You know, I've never had a waffle from Belgium before...

Do you guys really like it over there?

Oh well, we like Belgium but we don't like it more or less than any other place. Sure we've had great shows in Belgium and Belgian beer is pretty good...

Is there anywhere else in Europe that you particularly like?

Umm, I don't know, you know it's a lot more different than the US. We're bigger in Europe for sure, and there's not as many restrictions, you can drink a beer outside and you can smoke a cigarette, in America there's so many things you can't do that it sucks. It's just fun to be over here, and we've done it a lot but it's still fun to come over and check out some of the differences, whether it's food or tv or people that you meet, it's just a good experience. But you know I get sick, like after I've been in Germany for a few days I want to get to UK and after I've been in the UK for a few days, I want to get to Holland, but you know it's good.

Do you guys get a lot of time in between shows?

No, I mean from now til November 15th we play a show everyday and... (He's drowned out by drunken shouting in the background) Hey Sean... Hey Sean... inside voice.(Sean, Mad Caddies tour manager, laughs and shouts over to us: "Red Bull and Vodka") Oh he's wasted. That's our tour manager.

Do you feel a lot of pressure just playing over and over again or is it good just to do show after show?

Oh no, you know, days off we normally just end up getting more hung over cause we're bored. This is work, but it's still fun. On days off you'll be like "I wanna do my laundry, eat something, then go to bed early" but usually you end up doing your laundry, grabbing a shower, watching a movie but then come midnight you're bored and you want to do something so you go out, then you it's eight in the morning and you're fucking destroyed. We like to keep a good schedule, we don't like to fuck it up by having time off.

Alright well we better finish off here, so I've got one final question, I like to end off with something random, so if you were a chicken, and you were extremely hungry, would you fry yourself and eat yourself?

(He laughs and pauses a long time before answering)... No.

Are you sure?

(He laughs again) No, no I wouldn't. It's the same as me cutting my arm off and eating it, so no.

Alright well do you have anything to add?

Umm, have a good time all the time, that's what I always say.

Well, thanks a lot, we really appreciate you taking the time out for this interview, and have a good show.

Thank you, good questions guys.

Interview Information

Taken At:

Gaswerk, Switzerland

Interviewees:

Sasha

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