Band: Mad Caddies Member: Sascha Lazor Label: Fat Wreck Chords Location: Edmonton, Alberta Date: March 10th 2004 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

I had the great pleasure to talking to Sascha Lazor, guitarist of the ska-punk band the Mad Caddies as they passed through Edmonton. He was kind of enough to sit down with me while the rest of his band members were eating at Hooters down the hall. We talked about everything from MP3s to cannibalism to major labels and I learnt some new things that I would never have guess before. I would like to thank the nice people and Fat Wreck for setting it up, Sascha for doing it and Derek the merch dude for helping me find Sascha for the interview. During the course of this interview I had some help from my friend Amber as well.

Sascha: My name's Sascha and I play guitar.

Bobby: How did you guys all meet?

Sascha: We went to high school together. Most of us did. Myself and Chuck, our singer, and Mark, our bass player and our original drummer and our other guitar player at the time, we all just kind of went to high school together and we all had the same common taste in music and that's how it happened.

Bobby: What distinguishes the Mad Caddies from other ska/punk bands?

Sascha: Well right when we started, we really tried to not sound like... Well the band on a whole pretty much doesn't like ska. You know? I think 99% of the bands that are ska-punk bands are pretty shitty. There's the great ones like Op. Ivy. I back some of them, but we just try to play other kinds of music. We have a big jazz influence and a big reggae influence and just because we have horns doesn't mean we're stuck to a certain kind of sound. So, basically it's the Dixie land jazz influence that distinguishes us, for sure.

Bobby: What would you say your favorite song of "Just One More" is, and why?

Sascha: Usually the ones that we're not playing because I get sick of them because I hear them every night. So songs that we don't play. "Good Intentions", I like that one because it's sort of different for us; it sounds more like Creedence Clearwater or something. I like "Drinking For 11" a lot, those are probably by two favorites.

Bobby: Why did you start off the album with a slow song, "Drinking For 11"?

Sascha: Just to be different. We thought about it and Fat Mike was the biggest factor of that. We thought about doing it but we were kind of on the fence and Mike kept on saying that he thought it was a good idea, he thought it would be cool. We said "fuck it, let's just do it!" Its definitely different.

Bobby: When do you think we'll be seeing a new album from you guys?

Sascha: I don't know, we're going to be working on new songs all summer long. So probably next year, this time next year.

Bobby: How do you guys normally write all of your songs?

Sascha: It's different. Sometimes Chuck will write a whole song, sometimes I'll write a lot of the song. But the majority is collaborative. Like I'll come up with a riff and Chuck will come up with a melody and we'd just jam it out with the rest of the band; and then we'd just work on it in the practice studio all together, when everyone kind of puts in their two cents.

Bobby: You guys have released five records on Fat Wreck Chords/ Honest Don's, how did you end up meeting them?

Sascha: Well we recorded our first record, it was self-funded, and we recorded it in a studio in Santa Barbara where Joey Cape, the singer of Lagwagon, does a lot of work. The guy who recorded our CD played it for Joey, he thought Joey might like it. And Joey liked it and he sent it up to Fat Mike and Fat Mike liked it and called us like two days later; said he wanted to put out the record. It was kind of by accident, like we didn't send it out or anything like that, it was through friends.

Bobby: Would you ever leave Fat Wreck Chords and sign to a major?

Sascha: Maybe if it was for a loooooot of money. I could say "ya", because it would have to be for so much money that it would be ridiculous and that probably would never happen.

Bobby: Why do you think major labels are picking up a lot of punk bands lately?

Sascha: It's another trend. It happens all the time in music, you know? Whatever is trendy, major labels are usually the last ones to figure it out, and then once they find something new, they sign a bunch of bands, exploit it, and kill it. You know? And punk rock is just like that.

Bobby: Ska is slowly dying out lately, why do you think that is?

Sascha: Because I think, like I was saying before, most of the bands suck. I don't think that they can write good songs. It's like any scene when everyone gets so into one thing, you know, it's better if you just like music as opposed to liking ska or liking punk or like heavy metal or whatever, you know? And it just got killed because everyone jumped on it and just made such a big deal out of it that everyone got sick of it.

Bobby: Alright, you guys are currently on the "Frostbite Tour 2004", why is it called that?

Sascha: Because its cold *laughs*. Actually, I'm surprised, it's down right balmy outside right now. We were here last year at this time and it was like negative 20, it was fucked up. I'm from California, I've never been in cold weather. It's going to get colder the further east we go. We've also played in a lot of ski towns. We played in Banff, in Whistler, so you know.

Bobby: How did all the bands get together for it?

Sascha: It was the two guys putting it together, Page and Duncan. They just called, made up a roster, called up the bands and asked them if they wanted to do it. In doing so, they wanted to make sure that there was a diverse lineup, you know. And that all the bands weren't all kind of like the same, which is good. You can label all the bands punk rock, but within that, there's a drastic different between like Choke and us and Pulley. So diversity too.

Bobby: If you could pick one person or band, dead or alive, to tour with, who would you pick and why?

Sascha: Probably Tom Waits.

Bobby: Why?

Sascha: Because he's an incredible singer/songwriter and I love his music.

Bobby: Nowadays you can find MP3s all over the Internet, Kazza, Morpheus, things like that. How do you feel about that? Good, bad? What's your opinion?

Sascha: I think its never going to go away. I don't mind it at all. I think for bands like us, smaller bands that aren't on major labels, it's a good thing because people get exposed to our music anyway possible. Because we don't rely on MTV or a lot of radio play, we need as much exposure as we can get and that comes through MP3s. I think for bands like us it's great because someone might have downloaded our CD of the Internet, but if we play in their city, they'll probably come to the show. And if they really like the band, they'll probably end up buying a CD sooner or later and get a T-shirt; so I think in the end things kind of work themselves out.

Amber: If you could be a woman for a day, what would you do and why?

Sascha: What would I do... I would probably lez out. *Everyone laughs*

Bobby: Why?

Sascha: I think that kind of answers itself. *Laughs*

Bobby: If you guys were stranded on a desert island, with no food and nothing to eat; which one of the band members would you eat to survive?

Sascha: Ed, our trombone player.

Bobby: Why?

Sascha: Because I think he has the right amount of fat to muscle ratio and he's Mexican, he'd probably taste good, spicy.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything in the world, what would you have and why?

Sascha: A new liver. *Laughs* Umm, if I could have anything at this moment... Anything in the world?

Bobby: Yes.

Sascha: I would have a killer state of the art recording studio with a engineer that could help me run it.

Bobby: I guess that's about it, do you have any shout outs before we end?

Sascha: Canada in general has always been really good to us, so I'd like to thank everyone that's come to the shows. I love this country, it's awesome.

Bobby: Okay, thanks a lot for doing the interview

Sascha: Cool man, thank you.