Interview with Mad Caddies

Posted on Aug 28, 2003 by Tom

Having started somewhere like 6 years ago, under the obscure name of "The Ivy League", these lads have found themselves being supported not only by a sure string of fans but also found themselves being towed to the forefront of the scene by one of their biggest supporters, none other than fat Mike himself. Almost constant line-up changes sees the band grow and diminish in numbers (from five to eight to six again) but the lads keep on stowing album upon album. With their special blend of Dixieland reggae-ska/punk-rock coming of age with "Just One More", the time was ripe for a Caddies interview, or what did you think?

Your new album, Just One More, is more of a mix between all your former albums, with dixieland, rock, ska and reggae going hand in hand. Was this something that was discussed by the band after RTP, or rather something that flowed naturally?

I think it came pretty naturally. After RTP I think we realised we were kind of leaning way from the kind of ska reggae feel too much and that’s what we always kind of tried to make the most prominent part of ourselves. So I think it was a pretty natural thing to go back to it. We spent a lot of time writing this new one in our house basically. We built a practice space there so we just spent a lot of time hanging out together and we tolerated each other’s company for like 6 months strictly rehearsing and it just kind of happened like that. We definitely knew we should get back to our roots you know. Not that there is anything wrong with RTP but it definitely has a heavier sound.

What I think strange is that some people like RTP more than any of your other albums while others again are simply mesmerised by Quality Softcore and Duck and Cover. Some people even wish that you would have taken the RTP sound even more into extreme directions. Do you think then that this album is a good balance between those albums for all the fans?

Yeah pretty much.

The title can be interpreted in many ways, but is there any special meaning too it besides it being a bar?

Well yeah actually the photo we took is the inside of a “dive” bar that is one of our favourite bars in Santa Barbara. Chuck and I used to live a 5 minute stumble away.

So you were frequenting it a lot then?

Yeah it’s called “Jimbo’s”. If you’re ever in Santa Barbara go there. So above the door as you’re just leaving it says “Just One More”. It kind of got us thinking like: I mean it could be about drinks, it could be about a slice of pizza, about whatever you know, it’s a thing you say when you know you really aren’t going to stop right now. Oh I’ll have just one more or one more time and you always end up doing more of whatever it is you’re talking about.

Is this kind of a reflection of the philosophy of the Mad Caddies then? Just one more album, just one more tour, ..?

No we’re not ready to quit anytime soon. But maybe a couple of 100 kids snatched it up because they thought that was the beginning of the end so I’ll better get this while I can. [Laughter]

How happy are you just right now to play Just one more show in Belgium?

We’ll always play just one more show in Belgium because it’s great here. We dig it. We just played in Hasselt like three months ago with Rise Against.

This is something I really think weird because a lot of the American bands come here like only once a year or once in two years or even worse like Lagwagon has been 5 years now. It seems like the Caddies come here like once or twice every year.

Yeah it’s great for us here, and in Europe in general. It’s great in Canada. You know, we almost have a warmer reception away from home. But we don’t want to overkill and have people go like: the kids are back and I just saw them and so we might have to take a little break here soon. We’re definitely going to start writing again. We’re starting to get some new material worked on. We have been so busy touring that it is has been difficult to write anything in the meantime but I’d say hopefully by next spring we’ll start demoing.

So what direction are the new songs taking?

I think this one’s probably hopefully is going to be the most natural sounding album we have produced because I think we’re all in a good healthy mental state of mind right now and we’re happy with the previous album. We don’t really have the feeling that we have to try and produce anything. “Just One More” I’m happiest with as an album, as is the rest of the band, so there is a little bit of pressure for ourselves to produce something of that calibre but …

Is that something you clearly experience, the pressure to always deliver on every single album?

Not necessarily, because you can hear it in the music when someone is forcing something you know so.

But there are a lot of expectations every time again from a fan’s point of view. Surely you are aware of this. It’s like: hey it’s the Caddies, this better be good.

Right, so when you know they’re thinking that, we definitely don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

So, how happy are you right now to drink just one more Belgian beer? Because you have to admit, Belgian beer is the best damn beer in the world no?

It’s pretty damn good. Actually my girlfriend has a deck of cards with all Belgian beers.

So can you say you’ve tasted them all?

No, but last time in Hasselt I had a long night. Just me and my buddy Duvel. It’s a lot stronger than it appears. When you read the percentage it’s only like what: 8 or 9% or something. I mean sure it’s pretty strong in general but you just don’t think it’s going to affect you quite that much. One pint of that shit and you’re pretty fucked up. [Laughter]

Would you agree if i stated it is your most diverse and probably best album? Although I think nothing can touch the magic of DAC and Quality Softcore.

Well, I didn’t play on Quality Softcore but Duck and Cover I was definitely really happy with when we made it. I’ll always be proud of making that album but I think the process in which we wrote “Just one More” as a band like getting everyone’s opinions, demoing the album a couple of times, and listening to it and trying to improve on it was definitely the most painstaking effort we’ve taken to really be proud of putting out an album so I would say yeah. I speak for the rest of the band when I say we’re definitely happiest with “Just one More” but “Duck and Cover” is always going to be in our minds … that first … I don’t want to call it a classic because it’s our material and I don’t want to talk ourselves up but you know it’s the first one released on Fat wreck and it was a milestone for us to put out a full length that we actually ment to put out because Quality Softcore was just a demo and Mike just said hey it’s good enough we’re putting it out and that was that.

You already mentioned the different approach for this album, was that a conscient choice?

Yeah we approached it as an open forum kind of writing process like everyone was able to give their two bits and add their own parts and say I don’t like this or I don’t like that whereas a lot of times in the past someone would come to the table with a complete song and would be just like: play this, play that. Sometimes that’s good because it allows a lot less confusion. Here’s the song, play it you know. This one was a lot more across the board. Each member had a lot more say this time.

A thing i found peculiar was the fact that your two first albums were released trhough “Honest Don’s” and the ones after that through “Fat Wreck Chords”. Now we all know this is one and the same, but this makes it even weirder because I wonder if you see it like this the change wasn't even necessary. Did you perceive it like a "promotion", like a measure of your success?

actually Duck and Cover was fat as well. Quality Softcore was the only one on Honest Dons. I guess the main thing is the distribution. It is a lot harder to find Honest Dons releases abroad. Especially in Australia and Japan there is virtually no distribution of Honest Dons which sucks because there is a lot of great bands. I mean it’s the same office as fat wreck with basically the same staff. They just have their own department that’s just about it. Theres not really much difference. And theres something to be said for the mystique surrounding of fat wreck chords bands. The name is a lot more easily recognized. I mean of course if youre a fan of fat you also know about Honest Dons and pink and black. Maybe if you’ve never heard of a band and see they’re on Honest Dons you’re not going to associate that with fat wreck.

On the Holiday has Been cancelled you mention Fat Mike who wrote all your basslines and such, and where i DO believe that Fat mike has the songwriting prowess to pull it off, i doubt it will be true but i was wondering: How important has Fat Mike been as a person to the band?

He’s been a major part to getting us where we are. He has always supported us of course. I mean he put out our first album. I wasn’t in the band at the time but I know that everyone was just like: hey we are gunna go into the studio, make a little demo and give it to our friends or sell it at shows for a couple of bucks. Joey from Lagwagon was recording in the studio where we were at and I don’t know if you heard the story but I’ll make it quick. He thought it was cool, took it up to Fat, Mike just said I’ll put them out, just like that. So they took us on tour, got us some good slots, he basically made the decision to make us headline the Fat Package Tour just now recently. Just having him behind us and in our court has definitely given us some instant credibility and I think we were able to run with that.

So do you hope one day you can return the favor? Like having NOFX opening up for you when they are all old grey farts?

We’ll see, if we ever reach that level [laughter]

Is he kinda like the father type or more like the teacher type?

He’s more like the drinking-buddy type.

How have the different changes in line-up influenced the sound of "Just one More"? New Drummer needed to fit in and guitar-player left without being replaced? can you tell us more about the circumstances or is this internal kitchen and not discussed in the open?

I think the one guitar leaving us has made us less cluttered honestly and made it easier for Sascha to write stuff. Our new drummer Bryan used to be our road-manager way back in the day. He’s been to Europe with us before and did our tour managing stuff.

He was a drummer or he just learned things along the way?

We actually toured with him before. He was in another band called Buck Wild with Shawn Dewey. He wasn’t the original drummer but. Shawn has got a country band now though … it’s kind of different. The Good Old Goleta Boys. Bryan is just like a really close friend and we’ve tried a lot of drummers over the years. I think he’s our fourth drummer so … I think we finally got someone that actually wants to be there and will continue to stay in the band for a long time.

Carter is in Chuck's sideproject swet Action so i gather he left on friendly terms?

Yeah basically his parents own this sandwich shop chain in the Santa Barbara area. It’s pretty good though, actually, and they always told him: we want you to own and manage a couple of them individually. I think he just never was a big fan of touring and in Australia things just got a little bit weird. He’s always been a great friend but after that tour it was pretty obvious. There wasn’t really a discussion or such. We just knew he didn’t really want to be on the road anymore and it was kind of making things tough on all of us so we just kind of went separate ways but we’ll still go and have a beer. He’s still a good friend. Sweet action isn’t really doing anything anymore but he’s still all over town and we still see him a lot in Santa Barbara.

Back when you were still named ‘They Ivy League’ you recorded a demo by the name of “the pre green tape” how do you look back on that period now?

If people don’t like it they don’t have to listen to it you know. We don’t want to be a band that has got anything to hide so might as well put all that shit out there. There are just a lot of people who were curious what ‘namehere’ sounded like and I think maybe some day, we’ve always talked about it, we’ll take those songs into the studio and properly track the ones we like. Add some horns here, some harmonies there, whatever and have them as a B-side or something, that has always been a possibility. I don’t know. We don’t want to be ashamed of anything we did in the past so might as well put it out there for everyone to hear it.

There’s a recent series of Fat called “Live In A Dive”. When can we expect a Mad Caddies contribution there?

We briefly talked about it. It kind of seems they’re going in the order of the bands they signed. Knowing Mike, there’s no rhyme or reason about the order its been done in so we’ve always wanted to do a live album and with these series we’re definitely going to be part of it somewhere down the road but I think we are going to do another studio album before we tackle that one.

There’s a recent trend in releasing DVD’s. Any plans for that yet?

We are actually compiling footage from 5 years of touring even going to edit down VHS footage. Theres going to be some old old shit on there, some whacky stuff. I think we’ve got 100s of hours worth of footage.

Any footage there from your times with Consumed some years back? because i've heard some wild stories about consumed tour and stealing beers and such

[Laughs] Oh man … Well I mean it was pretty funny. Us and Snuff and Consumed all on one bus. That was a lot of people, like 20 or so. The bus was all bunks … nowhere to even barely sit. It was pretty hectic.

How do you feel about Consumed being dropped by Fat?

You know what’s pretty strange? Last night we actually had a little consumed party and listened to their EP and ‘Hit for Six’ albums. We just saw their drummer in Leeds and he gave us a new CD of a band he’s in and it’s pretty good. We were bummed for them too because it was nice to know we had good friends on the label and music we could support, not that we don’t know but they were part of the family and now they don’t so ... its pretty weird. Mike was just not in to what he heard you know. He would never be like: you guys are shit out of luck you’ll never be on Fat again, he just didn’t want to put this album out.

Same thing with Inspection 12 then maybe?

I imagine yeah.

So any last words, sticky one-liner?

Have a good time all the time.

Interview Information

Taken At:

Pukkelpop, Belgium

Taken On:

August 28th, 2003

Interviewees:

Keith (Trumpet)

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