Interview with The Flaming Tsunamis
by Matt Wixson
Saturday, August 20, 2005
His Rock Café in Macomb, MI
Matt Wixson: Alright, numero uno. State your name and what you do in the band. Andy of Flaming Tsunamis: Andy, vocals. M: Andy, vocals. Is this your first time in Michigan? A: Yes. M: And your first national tour? A: Yes it is. M: And how is it going? A: It’s fucking amazing. We’ve only had a few bad shows and the whole thing has just been an amazing experience for us. M: And this show is not one of the bad shows, I hope. A: No, definitely this was, uh… crowd size it was pretty good. Crowd reaction, it was… we’ve had better. M: OK, obviously you have strong influences in both hardcore and ska. When you book a tour like this do you play to more ska or hardcore kinda crowds? A: We play with whoever will book us. But we end up playing with a lot of punk bands and stuff like that. We rarely seem to get on full hardcore bills, sometimes we get on all ska bills, but usually we find the one or two bands in the state who kinda play along the lines of what we’re doing, and then they usually book us and help us out. And we play with whatever weird bands they put on the bill. M: Have you come across any bands on this tour that really grabbed your attention? A: We played with a band in Chicago called Not Too Good and they were amazing. And then there’s a band in Tallahassee, Florida, called Call for Fire, and they’re just all these punk kids that just started playing in a ska-punk band. They’re amazing. In Florida there’s a band called Shenanigans, they were awesome. M: I’ve heard A Billion Ernies [motioning to Andy’s A Billion Ernies t-shirt] A: Oh, A Billion Ernies, yeah. They’re from Florida, they’re like a screamo ska band, and we did a couple shows in the Northeast with them and we did a show in Houston, and they’re all really cool guys. We always like playing with them. M: And you’re from Connecticut. A: We’re from Connecticut. M: From an outside perspective it seems like the tri-state area has a real strong ska scene. A: Definitely, it has a really good scene. Like especially back when the third wave was really big, New York and Connecticut was like huge. We had Spring Heeled Jack in Connecticut and of course in New York you’ve got Toasters, Slackers, and all those bands. M: What do you think makes it so strong today? Is it just the history, it got big ten years ago and it’s still going? A: I think we started up actually when all these big bands were breaking up, like Spring Heeled Jack and Sgt. Scagnetti. And then we were kinda the only band with horns. Like there was a couple of us for a few years, and it’s just building back up with the help of like CTSka.com. And there’s just lots of kids getting into it again and it’s definitely building up to something big. I think the history in Connecticut definitely helps a lot, and a lot of kids who weren’t around for Spring Heeled Jack are finding out about them now and are starting bands like that, so that’s what’s helped it so much. Plus, everything’s so close together. It’s a small state, it’s a really close-knit scene, pretty much everyone knows eachother. Bands are coming up and people are always trying to help each other out, so it’s a good strong scene. M: There’s a phenomenon in your scene and you probably don’t know that people all over the country are aware of it. I want you to tell me the story of Skankin’ Richard. A: Skankin’ Richard! Oh man, he’s just this guy, and I guess he’s been going to shows forever. I just remember a Bloodshot Hooligans show like three or four years ago, I saw this old guy in the pit, doing a circle pit. M: How old are we talking? A: He’s like mid-50’s, mid-60’s? I heard he’s 56, something like that. Somewhere between 50 and 60. And we see this old guy in the circle pit and we’re like “Who is this guy?” And he’s at every show. He’s in every ska show in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, some in Massachusetts, and he just drives everywhere. And not only ska, but some punk shows and hardcore shows. He’s just a really cool guy, he’s always supporting the local bands, and he’s just a really cool guy. And I don’t know where he came from, but everyone loves him. M: You have your own label. Does that make things easier or more difficult? Is it just something else to worry about? A: Well it is something else to worry about, but we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t love it. Myself and our bass player Ethan, we run it together. There used to be more people but it’s whittled down. It’s a labor of love, obviously we’re not making money off it. It is more work, but it’s also more satisfying, and we make sure things are done the way that we want them to be done. And when we’re doing booking, it helps that people think we’re on a label, and then they ask about it, and we’re like “actually we run it ourselves” but, I mean, it’s a legit label. We just put out our ninth release for a band called Call It Arson. M: When you started Kill Normal Records, it was basically just for the release of your first CD, Focus The Fury? A: Yep. M: And is there a different goal for it now? A: We just want to put out good music. It started off as just something to put on our CD, and then we were like “oh, we can do more with this”. At the time, the band was kinda taking a break, and me and Ethan and two other guys at the time wanted something to occupy ourselves with, so we were just finding bands from all over. [Ethan adds to the discussion] Ethan: Plus it didn’t take the money. We were going to have to use the leftover Flaming Tsunamis money and that’s what we started the label with. We had some left after we broke up. M: I haven’t heard all of the new CD yet, but I understand that it’s sort of like a concept album, like it kinda has a theme? A: Sort of. M: Can you elaborate on that? A: It’s the most genius metaphor for the war in Iraq. Or, it means nothing at all. You can decide for yourself. M: Alright. [Andy laughs] So you have begun writing and recording the follow-up, like a full-length? A: Yes. M: Is there any kind of surprises we should expect from the band? A: Well we just started, we have a few songs down. After this tour we’re taking a lot of time off from shows, we’re only doing a few here and there, to mainly write. We sort of have an idea where it’s going to go, but it’s definitely going to be something big and something special. M: Is it going to be themed again, or… A: We don’t know, we haven’t really thought about it yet. We’re just going to see what comes together. M: You’ve covered a few genres. Is there any kind of musical idea that would come up in the band that you would say “No way, we can’t do that as a band?” A: No. M: Like polka or country or some kind of jazz fusion? A: Well, you’re going to see our country polka masterpiece on the new record. [Greg, guitarist/vocalist, throws out ideas] Greg: Death metal polka. A: We’ll do it all. Death metal polka. G: We’ll do death metal reggae dub polka. A: … trip hop. E: … with slide guitar. M: And the last question. What is a flaming tsunami? A: It’s a drink served at a bar? M: That’s it? Damn. A: Or it could be… in Japan, when an oil tanker has broken open and spills and is lit on fire and then a tsunami occurs… M: I’m guessing that’s not happened, but… A: It has! M: Has it? A: If you search “flaming tsunami” on Google and go past what our band stuff says, you’ll find actual events about that. G: As P. Diddy once put it, Diddy is not a name. It is a state of being. [Laughter.] Tsunami is not a name. It is a state of being. E: I like that, let’s go with that.
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