Bigwig

The Frostbite Tour has become a yearly ritual for me, and while it’s never as popular as tours like Warped Tour, it always has a nice selection of varied bands and makes for a fun night – this one was no different with Bigwig, Death By Stereo, Big D & The Kids Table and The Flatliners. I had the chance to talk to Bigwig‘s drummer Keith after their set for a few minutes and ask him all about their new album, their lineup changes, and even the naked guy that ran across the stage that night. It was a good interview, conducted in the comfort of the Starlite Room’s bathroom as that was the quietest place we could find at the moment which added to the overall atmosphere of the interview. Thanks a lot to Adam for setting it up, and to Keith for taking the time to do it.

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Bobby: Okay, I guess starting with the basics, you guys have been on this Frostbite Tour with Death by Stereo, Flatliners and Big D for a couple days now how’s that going?

Keith: It’s been really good. Canada’s always good for us and it’s always good to be a part of tours up here. We’ve always had a chance to tour with good bands and always good promoters and good people backing the tour. So it’s always good, comfortable, family, just awesome vibe all the way around. Good times for sure. And all the bands fucking rock in their own right, you know what I mean? You got a good mix, you got Big D who’s like a more ska-punk band, and then Death By Stereo who’s heavy, got us whose like a punk band. So it’s like, just good times.

Bobby: Well, this is the Frostbite tour, which seems appropriate considering we got 25 centimeters of snow on Saturday, what’s it like touring through Canada in the winter?

Keith: Actually, we’ve done it a couple times. Sometimes we come up in May or later and tour in the summer, but when we do do it in the winter time it’s not that bad. You get your spots here and there where it could be bad weather, but it’s like rolling the dice, you know what I mean? It’s always a gamble, you never know and you just gotta do it and hope for the best. We got a lot of snow driving out and it was sketchy, but you know, we got through it.

Bobby: Personally, what are some of your favorite winter pastimes?

Keith: I grew up snowboarding. I love extreme sledding, like just grabbing an intertube and finding a golf course and going sledding and shit like that. I don’t know, anything. They’ve got those snow skates now where you can just slide around, so whatever, it’s all good.

Bobby: You guys are from New Jersey and you’re very proud of that, it’s on your website and all over your artwork. Lately there’s been a lot of bands coming out of New Jersey, what do you think of the growing scene there?

Keith: Well, the New Jersey scene has always been pretty thriving. There’s always been tons of bands, and again, it’s always been like a really friendly, everybody knows everybody, everybody helps everybody. So Jersey has always been good, and just the fact that more bands are coming out of there now is just the fact that people are recognizing it as a good place that bands are coming out of. It’s like anywhere else. There’s always tons of bands, but it’s wherever the focus of attention is and that’s why people find these bands, you know. There could be great bands in like Phoenix, Arizona, but other than certain bands, you never hear of any others. I think it’s like that everywhere, it just matters where the attention’s focused and who pays attention.

Bobby: What are some upcoming New Jersey bands that people should be listening to?

Keith: Well, the number one obvious one is, I think, My Chemical Romance. Those guys are good friends of ours, we’ve known them forever and we’ve done tons of shows with them. That’s self explanatory, their huge, whatever. Great band, great guys. Other than that, I mean, there’s tons of other bands that are coming out, I’m just trying to think right now. The Super Specs are really good; we just did a bunch of shows with them. Just in general, Jersey’s a good spot for bands – the whole tri-state area is, Jersey, New York and PA is great.

Bobby: Last February, you guys released you’re new CD “Redemption”, are you glad to have a new CD out there?

Keith: Oh yeah, for sure, we’re definitely happy. We spent a good amount of time on it; we wanted everything to be the way that we had hoped it would sound. We wanted to spend time on it; we had a little bit of a better budget to work on stuff. We were able to put ideas together and write in the studio, you know we went in with a bunch of ideas. But we’re just so stocked to have it done and to be touring on it and supporting it and we’ve had a lot of good feedback so far, so we’re happy right now. Everything’s going pretty well.

Bobby: Your CD before that, “An Invitation To Tragedy” came out five years ago, why such a long wait in between CDs?

Keith: Well, I think number one, everybody knows that we’ve had some lineup changes and things like that. Me and Tom have been playing together for, I think, five years; almost since “Invitation” was put out. So it took a little bit for us to find the perfect mix of guys to make the band right again and have everybody writing and have everybody involved. And I just think that holding period of five years was just us trying to be the best that we can be and waiting until it was right for us to do a record. Because you know, bands do like, every two years they try to put records out. But you don’t have to do it that, but as soon as you don’t, people look at you like “well, why aren’t you putting out a record?” It’s not that we’re not; it’s just that we want it to be the way that we want it to be and I think that’s fair because it’s our band. You know what I mean? So of course we don’t want to keep our fans waiting, but we just want to do it the best way that we can as a band. From now on, you know, we have a bunch of things in the works. We’re gonna do a live record. We already have a bunch of new songs, some songs that didn’t make it to this record, and some songs that we’ve been writing for the new record and we’re gonna be putting out a DVD. We’ve been filming everything from like the last couple months. Jeff, our guitar player, always has this killer camera with him so we’ve been getting a lot of good footage. A lot of funny shit, a lot of live shit, a lot of us just fucking around and being us.

Bobby: When do you think we’ll see the DVD?

Keith: Hopefully towards the end of the year. I mean, we’re gonna try and tour most of this year, and stuff like that. So like I said, one hand washes the other, when we’re on tour, we’re still preparing for that.

Bobby: Like you just said, over the past five years you guys have had a lot of member changes, how do you think that affected the song writing process?

Keith: Well, there’s always been different members on every record, and I think every record has always been an amalgamation of who was on that record and different influences and stuff like that. Everybody’s gonna bring something different to the table. Tom is the principle song writer, so a lot of the ideas are coming from him and the rest of us, me, Jeff and Zack, pretty much just arrange things and we just try to make things right and hook stuff up, things like that. It’s gonna change, no matter who you have in the band. You know what I mean? Whoever’s on the record is going to be different, and we’re trying to keep the band the way it is, so we want everybody to be happy and tour, and everything’s going really well as a band and it’s really working out.

Bobby: While “Invitation To Tragedy” was political, I found that “Redemption” was much more political. Why do you think politics are becoming much more prominent in the punk scene?

Keith: Well, I mean, I think in general that punk rock means to go your own route and be against the majority. It’s such a huge part of everybody’s daily life to turn on the TV and turn on the radio and hear everything’s that going on in the world. And for us, being from the States, a lot of people hate us because of who our leader is. So because of that, it’s fucked up. Like we’ll go to Europe and people will be all mad at us and shit and it’s like “it’s not us.” So this is like our way of fighting back and our way of laying our ground work and saying what we think. Music is really a form of expression; you know what I mean, so it’s all about whatever you’re feeling. If you don’t have that, then what are you writing about? We don’t have to be political; it’s just what we choose to write about, what affects us and what we feel strongly about, so that’s what comes out.

Bobby: While you guys were in the studio recording “Redemption”, you guys also did a cover of Shakira’s “Objection” which was released on PureVolume a couple of months ago. Do you think you’ll ever release it anywhere else?

Keith: That, I don’t know. I mean, you never know, anything could happen. But we just kind of did that song, we got in the studio and we were working with a new engineer and we just wanted to try and get down and try to see what it was like working with him. Shake one hand after the other and stuff like that, so we just laid that song down really quick and sent it down to Fearless so they could hear whatever was going on and shit, and eventually they wanted to throw it up. They put it up and people heard it and a bunch of people liked it and everyone was like “where can I get that song?” or “is it available for download?” or “can I get it here or there?” or whatever. It’s just kind of whatever right now; we’ll just see what happens.

Bobby: Why did you decide to do Shakira’s song?

Keith: Tom has been wanting to cover it for a while. And we were sitting up stairs, totally smoking a bunch of weed and watching TV, and we were like “we should do that Shakira song.” We were already thinking about it and we had the CD ironically enough. I don’t know why, but it was there, so it was kind of like meant to happen or whatever. So we put it in and we just figured it out really quick. I did the drum tracks right to the actual CD and then we just did everything from there. It was like totally random and totally like, whatever. We just thought it was a cool song to do.

Bobby: Last year, 2005, was your guy’s tenth year as a band. Did you do anything to celebrate the landmark?

Keith: Not really. I mean, it’s kind of weird, like it’s a different bunch of guys now, and we all work towards a common goal. We don’t look at it like as a timeframe or anything. We just do our thing and just kind of ride with it, so yeah, hopefully we’ll stay together for a long period of time and we’ll have a twenty year anniversary. I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.

Bobby: Okay, I love going to concerts, over the next couple months I have a dozen or so that I plan on going to, and of course, some are always more memorable than others. Thinking back to when you were a teenager, what were some of the concerts that you went to that were memorable for you?

Keith: I remember a band that I used to play in called Feeble; we used to play shows with like Vision of Disorder, H2O, just a bunch of different shows. I remember going to Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies when Danzig played and shit like that. My parents took me to it, it was like my first concert or whatever. I’m pissed that I never got see Nirvana. I could’ve, but I was just like a little too young I guess to go to a concert or whatever. I’m trying to think what else. I saw Quicksand back in the day that was awesome. I don’t know, there’s a bunch of shows, too many to list. Being a spectator at the punk shows and being in a band, I’ve seen a billion fucking shows and been on tour with awesome bands, you know what I mean? So it’s like, so many memorable fucking nights, so I don’t think I could single it down.

Bobby: If you could tour with any person or band, dead or alive, still going or broken up, which band would you choose to tour with and why?

Keith: I think we would always, we’ve always wanted to do a tour with NOFX, just because it’s like they’re the God Fathers. We grew up listening to them and they’ve had such a positive influence on us and it’s just like crazy thinking about it. Them, I mean, Fugazi would be awesome to do a tour with, just because their approach to everything and what they represent, it would be cool to be a part of that. We’d love to do a Dinosaur Junior tour because Tom loves Dinosaur Junior and all those bands in that whole Merge Records scene, all that stuff. So tons of bands we’d love to tour with. Anything, we’d take anything you know.

Bobby: Okay, now onto a bit more unusual questions that I just like to ask at all my interviews to keep it interesting. First off, if you guys, as a band, were stranded on a desert island with no food and nothing to eat, which one of the band members would you eat to survive and why?

Keith: I think we would have to eat Zack because he’s the biggest. He’s the biggest; he’s like six foot six inches tall, like a freaking beast. He’s a nice guy but he’d probably be nice and tender. I don’t, we don’t eat meat. Three out of us four in fact don’t eat meat, so maybe we’ll eat his canvas jacket or something, I don’t know. Yeah, definitely that.

Bobby: If you were the member of the opposite sex for a day, week, month, however long you wanted, what would you do and why?

Keith: I’d be a stripper. You know, just the power that a woman has. Just go in, and shake her butt and make a bunch of money and be totally crazy, you know what I mean? I think I’d definitely had to be a girl and be a stripper for the day.

Bobby: Could you tell us something about the band or one of its members that not many people know about, like a little quirk they do on the road or something like that?

Keith: Let me think here. Tom smokes a lot of weed and drives really fast. He’s crazy, but it’s a good time, you know what I mean. Zack, at face value, seems very nice and very concerned person, but he’s by far the craziest person I know. The other night he was doing front flips into snow banks and he was ripping down signs and he was hitting the poles with snowballs and shit. Like he’s nuts. And Jeff, Jeff’s a pretty mellow guy. Jeff doesn’t really say much, he’s like the sketchy guy, you know, he’s quiet and everyone’s always wondering what he’s up to. But Tom’s a funny man. He’ll be sitting there, driving, smoking tons of weed and he’ll just be driving the RV just totally crazy. He loses his mind sometimes because we’re in the fucking van for like hours upon hours, like ten-twenty hours at a time. Everybody gets a little crazy.

Bobby: If you could have anything at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Keith: I think I would love to have the financial backing to do everything in our band by ourselves and to be able to run our band the way we want to without any sort of outside influence or anything like that, you know what I mean? Not that anyone is telling us what to do or anything, like we’re on an independent label, but it’s like we would love to be able to finance everything ourselves, to be able to do what we want to do and put out whatever we wanted to whenever we wanted to. You know what I mean? It’s not like a financial thing where “yeah, I’d love a million dollars” but I’d just love to be able to run our band completely self-sufficient. Like we do most of the time, but it would be nice to have that little extra to do anything we wanted to. That would be pretty cool.

Bobby: Okay, after seeing you guys live tonight I have to ask you this, how many naked guys have you guys had on stage over the years?

Keith: Well, the best part is that I didn’t even see that naked guy. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but I was like “oh whatever”, I was doing something or whatever. But apparently, there was this guy with his pants down or something. I don’t ever know. Um, not often, I’ll say that much. Not often, so don’t think you’ll come to a Bigwig show and see naked dudes everywhere.

Bobby: I liked how when he stage dove, everyone just moved out of the way.

Keith: I didn’t even see it; I wish I would’ve saw it. Everyone was just laughing, I missed out on that one unfortunately.

Bobby: Okay, I guess that’s about it. Thanks a lot for doing it, do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Keith: Nope, thank you for doing the interview. Thanks to the city of Edmonton, you guys fucking rock, we love coming here. And that’s it, see you next time.