Y Not 2014 | Interview | Reel Big Fish

American Ska Punk legends, Reel Big Fish – best known for the 1997 hit “Sell Out” – are currently in the midst of a 2 month UK tour.

Joining them halfway through a beer-tasting interview – matching the tasters to the 12 bottles of beer, all ranging from 7% to 18% – I was delighted, and a little apprehensive, to catch up with the notorious Reel Big Fish Horn section.

Johnny Christmas (John Christianson) – trumpet and backing vocals, Saxel Rose (Matt Appleton) – Sax and backing vocals and Billy Kottage – trombone and backing vocals were kind enough to share a beer and chat ahead of their headlining show on the Y Not ‘Quarry’ stage at Y Not Festival..

You excited to play Y Not Today?

J: Oh yeah – even more so now!

You seem to be on a mammoth tour – never-ending some might say – what’s the drive behind that?

J: Yeah, well it’s a two-pronged approach. Part of it is, yeah, we love it. We’re very lucky to be able to play music for a living. Not just play music for a living – this is the horn section – and we have a job playing trumpet, saxophone and trombone, which is absurd!

B: Absurd – nobody gets a job like this!

M: We don’t get free healthcare, but we do get free beer!

J: So yes, we love playing music for wonderful people, but another part of it is to make it work for a band of our size, we have to tour all the time

Is it hard?

J: Yes. Yes it is.

You’ve been here (UK), for what, a month now?

J: Yep. Been here for a month and have another 5 weeks to go. We did a tour of the States right before we got here too and only had 4 days off. I have a year and a half daughter at home, so that takes some getting used to. I miss her very dearly. She is awesome!

Key highlights of your summer so far?

B: Playing Sonisphere! Pretty awesome.

J: Playing Sonisphere and drinking beer here today.

What was so good about Sonisphere?

J: There was 50,000 plus people there.

B: So many fucking people!

J: All watching our set.

M: Jumping and clapping when we told them to clap….

B: It was the first show on tour, so we had just flown from LA, starting off tour first day like that was like ‘Yeah, alright! This a good start to the summer’, you know? Brooklyn Bowl last night was really fun too.

Is that why there’s only three of you here today?

B: Literally.

J: You’re not kidding!

B: Our bass player is literally still sleeping.

M: We’ve been up for hours. Mainly because we went to bed early! We had to be up early yesterday to tour parliament.

That’s awfully grown up, guys…

J: Yeah! It was awesome!

With all this touring, time for a studio album must be hard – anything on the horizon?

B: Yeah, we’re making a Christmas record – hopefully to be done by Christmas.

M: Yeah, we’re working on that, hopefully get it done by September.

Must be hard to get time though?

M: Yeah, we just have to – we have maybe 10 spare minutes at sound check to try sort something out. Same thing when we do a new record. You know, someone’ll bring us the new songs and we’ll have to practice at rehearsal. Sometimes people are watching, but it’s the only time we get. We don’t rehearse when we’re home – we’re never at home – so we don’t get much time in the studio.  But this fall is looking pretty sparse, so maybe we’ll get some time for recording.

You’ve been around and keeping fans happy for a long time – Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish got me through High School – do you have anything you’d like to say to fans?

J: So how amazing is it that our band and Less Than Jake are friends! One of the times I was at home, we had two dogs, my wife and I, I took them to the vet and the vet was about my age, he’s never met me. We got to talking and he asked me what I do. I said ‘I’m a musician’ and he was like ‘ oh, do you play with a band or anything?’ and I said ‘yeah, my main gig is playing in a band called Reel Big Fish’. His eyes went like this (mimes eyes popping) and he said ‘You guys got me through veterinarian school!’ To be able to touch anyone’s life like that…

M: To be able to touch anyone’s wife like that…?

B: Hiyooooooo!

M: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny…

J: Ok…shall we say, to be able to influence anyone’s life on that level in these days, its, we’re really lucky to get to do what we do.

A similar story, when I told people I was coming down here and was going to be talking to you guys, it went one of two ways. Either ‘Oh My God! I love them’ or – an extreme example – my neighbour asked ‘What? The Scottish Folk band?’

There is apparently a Scottish Country Dance band called Reel Big Fish – can we persuade you to tour with them?

J: OH! Reel Big Fish with Reel Big Fish…em…opening! You know what, if we get onto a Scottish festival we’ll do it!

Keep up with all things Reel Big Fish on their website www.reel-big-fish.com or on Twitter @ReelBigFish



%d bloggers like this: