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Interview with Mad Caddies

Posted on Jun 11, 2007 by Stephen

Mad Caddies have recently been sweeping across European shores with their eclectic blend of ska, punk, polka, dixie and anything else in between so I took the chance to catch up with Sascha on their tourbus at their Newcastle date.

Hello, just to start off can you introduce yourself please?

Sascha Lazor: My name is Sascha and I play guitar and the banjo in Mad Caddies

Do you actually bring the banjo on tour ever?

SL: Not on this tour no but we’re coming back in August and I’ll bring it for that, we’re doing some festivals. I haven’t played it on stage in a long time but I’m going to bring it when we play Reading and Leeds.

Chuck started playing guitar too I noticed, is there any reason behind that?

SL: Just cos he can play guitar and we haven’t done it for a long time, it was partially laziness and partially there wasn’t that many songs where it really needed it but a lot of our new songs theres not necessarily a lot of guitar parts but it just sounds more full.

You’ve gone through quite a few lineup changes and in some of the albums you state there’s no specific lineup, do you have a big group of people who all contribute to things or do you get people in when you need to?

SL: No, myself, Chuck, Keith and Ed have been around since almost the beginning and our drummer Ryan – he’s been around for a long time too so really the only person that changed is the bass player.

Europunk: Yeah, just with the albums saying things like theres too many people to list and there’s always a load of additional musician’s.

SL: Oh yeah well that’s more additional musician’s that’s not necessarily band members, those are just people that come in and help and we try to do that a lot cos it’s more fun to bring in friends, so if we need something we’re not afraid to put accordions or any other instrument in there. On this new record our travel agent played castanets, we had the horn players from the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies come in cos they were in town, it kinda makes the studio more fun when you can bring in your friends to contribute.

EP: Are Cherry Poppin’ Daddies still together then?

SL: They do some shows every once in a while, they do casino shows and big parties, corporate parties in America so they were playing a show at the same time we were in the studio so we had ‘em come down the studio

Your music has lots of different elements, where do you get your influence from, especially for the more unusual stuff like the Dixieland and that sort of stuff, the polka and all that sort of thing.

SL: Most of the Dixieland stuff comes from really old Dixieland, Louis Armstrong is a big influence, this guy named Raymond Scott who’s like one of the first creators of the synthesiser, really really cool. This guy Bix Beiderbecke, he’s an old trumpet player. Just started listening to Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson kinda back after I’d gotten into punk rock I just got sick of it so I started listening to that kinda music and got really turned onto it and there’s a lot of artists but the main ones are Louis Armstrong and Raymond Scott, Fletcher Henderson. Duke Ellington is really huge.

EP: Cool, my granddad used to be into lots of really old swing stuff and he gave me a ton of CD’s and that’s all really cool as well like Glenn Miller and all that kind of thing.

SL: Yeah! That’s more on the swing side of things, Duke Ellington got more swing later on but the stuff from the 20’s and 30’s was the more Dixieland kinda based and then from there there’s so many more influences, I’ve been listening to a lot of cumbia music, which is Columbian music and just anything really, I don’t stop listening and trying to find new music.

With the new album you’ve kinda gone along a reggae route more than other albums have been and dropped some of the more punky stuff, was that anything to do with Wayne Jobson coming in as producer.

SL: Wayne Jobson came in when most of the record was done and he only really dealt with about 3 songs. Most of our records we do in batches, we don’t do it all at one time so he came in around the last batch. He helped to hook us up with Duckie (Simpson) from Black Uhuru and he helped us with some formatting things, even then he is known for doing a lot of reggae things but he’s really talented and he really appreciates music and it’s not necessarily all about reggae for him, he likes good songs and it doesn’t really matter if it’s rock or reggae or whatever. The less punk rock comes from us having been doing it for a long time and a lot of our records are really fast and kinda chaotic and we wanted to slow down and make a groovier record and I think reggae stuff has been a consistently big influence on the band. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff in Jamaica working on records with Anthony B, I started doing it a couple of years ago and I just came back a couple of weeks before this tour and just being in the studio a lot down in Jamaica and playing on other people’s records started affecting how our song’s started coming out.

EP: Who’s records did you play on?

SL: There’s Beenie Man I did a full record with this guy, he did a more reggae record instead of a dancehall record. So I did a bunch of guitar and he sang on a bunch of beats that I brought down and then I worked on stuff for Sizzla, Elephant Man, Anthony B, lots of different rhythm’s and beats for other reggae guys.

So how many song’s did you write for the new album? Do you have any spares that might appear?

SL: Yeah we have a bunch of spares, another reason why the record is a little bit slower is we had about 4 or 5 other songs and those were all a lot quicker and a couple of those Fat Mike in particular didn’t think that they were stronger than the slow ones so we said ok that’s cool because for a band like us it’s different, we do so many different styles you can’t just start clipping songs as it’ll end up sounding different. But in the end we decided it’d be better to put on the best songs as opposed to keeping songs on there to make it stylistically similar to our other records. So yeah we have a bunch of songs that are faster that we’ll probably put on our Myspace pretty soon. Hopefully by the next time we come around and they’ll be used for B-Sides and what not. They’re already finished, recorded, mastered and everything so they’ll be around.

EP: Do Fat not really do compilation’s anymore?

SL: They haven’t done much anymore no, they’ve been doing internet compilations too.

EP: Right yeah they do the podcast and stuff like that too.

SL: Yeah.

This is the 5th studio album you’ve done and you’ve survived through a few years where a lot of bands have split up so what are they plans for the future?

SL: The immediate future is just the continue these tours which we have, which is here and Canada, some of North America, Costa Rica, Russia, we come back here for Reading and Leeds, the late summer festivals like Pukkelpop and some in Italy and then after that we’ll be doing Japan and just basically touring til the end of the year – Japan, Australia.

EP: There can’t be many places you haven’t been yet then I guess?

SL: No we just came back from South Africa too.

EP: Yeah I saw that on the website, you were there when the album came out.

SL: Yeah we flew down there the day the album came out, it was pretty fun! So the immediate future is just that, we’ll tour to the end of the year and just see what happens. Probably get some more tours going and I know I’m supposed to be headed down to Jamaica again soon to complete some records and we’ll see where it takes us to.

EP: So you’ve just been on tour constantly since you went to Africa?

SL: We’ve been on tour since February 14th in the US.

On the website it says you’ve started to sell your own brand of hot sauce, how did that come about?

SL: Oh (laughing), our drummer has a friend who has a Hot Sauce company and he was talking to him one day and he’s like “yeah I can make you some Mad Caddies Hot Sauce if you want, come up with a blend and put you guys logo on it” so we said sure. It was more for fun, it’s not like a serious attempt to break into the Hot Sauce market (laughing), we didn’t actually hunt someone down to make it or anything. We just said yeah lets make 500 bottles y’know.

EP: Are you selling it on the website or on tour too?

SL: We started selling them on the American tour that we just had but our merch guy hates ‘em cos it’s so bulky and heavy, they break then theres hot sauce and glass all over. He’s not very into it.

On a completely different thing you’ve always had a little bit of a hometown rivalry with The Atari’s.

SL: Ohhhh (laughing)

EP: Or have you fell out completely?

SL: Well I don’t think it’s really The Atari’s anymore, it’s just Kris Roe. You know I think we’re too old now for any kinda wars or anything, we just kinda mind our own business. We just played a festival with them a couple of weeks ago in Belgium.

EP: They’ve got like cello’s and all sorts now

SL: Yeah, I respect Kris, he definitely took the new record and just said “fuck it” and just decided to play exactly what he wanted to which I think is admirable because they were known and popular for being a pop punk band. So the fact that he just said “fuck it” and did what he wanted to I respect.

EP: Yeah I think it probably alienated some people but it’s cool that he did that if that’s what he really wanted to do.

SL: Yeah! As far as us and them, there used to be some shit but now it’s just, we’re old enough to ignore it.

Ok so back on the Caddies, you’ve grown and grown in popularity since you first came to Europe with Snuff and you’ve gradually started playing bigger and bigger venues and you’ve always been faithful to Fat. Have you ever had any interest from other labels or bigger things at all?

SL: Yeah every once in a while there’s been a label that’s snooped around a bit and I can’t necessarily say that maybe in the right circumstances – right now we’re happy with Fat but we have a very open relationship with them. We’ve told him (Fat Mike) on numerous occasions and he’s like “if you guys ever want to leave it’s no problem, I totally understand, I totally support you in whatever you wanna do” but there hasn’t been any situation that’s come up that would make sense cos even if you sell an additional 40,000-50,000 records you’re not going to be making as much money.

EP: Yeah everybody’s always happy on Fat, really happy with everything about it.

SL: Yeah and the thing about a major label is they’ll drop you in a heartbeat. Whereas on Fat unless you really are an asshole or you sell only 2 records everytime you put a record out, Fat Mike is never going to drop the Mad Caddies. Just solely based on he’ll continue to put out records as long as Fat Wreck Chords is around. And to know you always have a home is a very comforting thing. I only realised that recently because a lot of bands don’t have homes, because if the record’s not good their label will ditch ‘em. So it is very cool to know you have a home, it’s something that I totally appreciate.

EP: It’s like a sorta friendly thing as well, a lot of the bands are good friends with Fat Mike.

SL: Yeah, definitely!

Because of all the different styles you play do you have a really wide fan base?

SL: Yeah it’s mostly younger kids and that’s something we’re trying to work on too because I think, everyone in our band – we started the band when we were really young so we’re still in our 20’s and early 30’s but it’s cool, we always love that young kids come out but we like to be able to, not necessarily the age group, but theres no reason we shouldn’t be able to go out and one day play a more like reggae festival and then the next day be on some weird side stage at some jazz festival and I think that we could appeal to more than just kids who like NOFX.

EP: Yeah like do a different set.

SL: Change up our set a little bit, that’s something we’re trying to do this summer, we’re not trying to abandon punk rock we want to be able to one day play on a punk rock show or play a rock festival like Reading on the punk stage and then the next day be able to go to France and play a reggae festival and that is a big goal of our band, that’s what we’d like to do.

EP: It must be working because my Dad loves the band!

SL: Oh yeah?

EP: Yeah he’s here tonight!

SL: Oh? No way, that’s cool man!

EP: He liked the last album the most and I’ve just played him the new album and he likes that and some of the more crazy stuff too.

SL: (laughing) Cool!

Oh there used to be a side project when Carter was in the band, Sweet Action, is there any side projects at the minute?

SL: No, Sweet Action is done. It was Carter’s thing and Derrick the drummer who was doing it with us, he passed away.

EP: Yeah I heard about that.

SL: So I mean Carter might put something on the internet just for kicks and as far as anything else the only thing that’s been going on is the stuff I’ve been doing in Jamaica. Everyone else has been too busy with the band and their own personal stuff. Our trumpet player was in this cool band with one of our old drummers called King City and it’s really cool instrumental jazz, but really quirky and quite cartoony and that was amazing! He lives in Santa Barbara and they all live in San Francisco and it was Chris the drummer for Lagwagon and Keith trumpet and Boz our old drummer playing drums little Joe from this band RKL who now plays in the Real McKenzies playing bass who all are amazing musician’s, stand up bass and it was really really cool, the band’s still together but Keith hasn’t been doing anything with them.

EP: Oh right that’s a shame, have you ever heard of a band called Youngblood Brass Band from New York? They’re just kinda like a brass band really but they do all sorts of different styles, they do hip hop and everything’s acoustic, they don’t have a bass player but they have like a sousaphone that does the bass line instead.

SL: Yeah that’s kinda like a New Orleans thing, I love New Orleans brass band kinda stuff.

EP: They do like rag time and jazz stuff then mix it up with hip hop too. They have this guy with a snare drum strapped around his waist and a guy hitting a bass drum.

SL: Cool, can you write that down? I want to check that out that sounds really cool actually. And they’re from New York City?

EP: Yeah but they play around quite a bit, they’ve been over here a few times. I just heard them by chance in Belgium with a band some of my friends play in and some guys in a band over there told me about them and gave me a CD. They have like trumpets, trombones, sax, sousaphone, the guy with the snare, another with a bass drum and a cymbal on top

SL: Wow that’s cool, I’ll have to check it out, it sound’s rad, remind me about that tonight!

Interview Information

Taken At:

Carling Academy, Newcastle, UK

Taken On:

May 23rd, 2007

Interviewees:

Sascha Lazor

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