Reel Big Fish

It’s been almost 15 years since we were “selling out” with Reel Big Fish. In fact, with new generations getting into RBF each year, most fans are unaware Sell Out used to play on the radio. With RBF’s catchy, fun ska songs and lively, entertaining live show – they manage to tour six to eight months out of the year and still sell out shows. The band is currently touring on their new Best of Us for The Rest of Us album featuring covers, classics, and skacoustic songs. Self-proclaimed trumpet player, back-up singer, interpretive dancer, and show mime Johnny Christmas, and sax player Matt Appleton (who was also in Goldfinger) answered a few questions for The Punk Site before their set in Chicago. We were later joined by lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter Aaron Barrett, who’s comedic, sarcastic attitude shines as well off-stage as it does on.  

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Amy: Although you came out with an album of cover songs in 2009 and a greatest hits album this year, 2007’s Monkeys for Nothin’ and Chimps for Free was your last full length of original music. Have you been writing or working on new material?

Johnny: If Aaron was here, he would say that he wrote 500 songs when he was sixteen, he takes them slowly out one-by-one, and we record them. Since he writes all the songs, he has them all up in his head. His song writing process is really interesting in that it’s all up here, it will come out, and he’ll go,  ‘okay this is kind of what we’re doing,’ and then we’ll all jam it out together and figure it all out. There is stuff.

Matt: The songs are there, but we haven’t played them.

Johnny: We haven’t heard them.

Matt: They exist and I think it’s just a matter of us to stop from touring long enough to get together and actually do that.

Johnny: it’s like when Michelangelo carved David, ya know. He carved everything away that wasn’t David, right, so we carve away everything that’s not hit songs. That’s how we work.

Amy: You guys do tour a lot; I don’t know how eager you are to get together again and jam out when you get back home.

Johnny: Yeah, we kind of all go our separate ways when we’re at home. Not because we don’t like and love each other because we really do, but because we spend so much time in really close quarters; you need some time away.

Amy: How many months out of the year would you say you tour?

Johnny: I think six to eight.

Amy: You guys have been touring for a long time; what’s the craziest, funniest, or most endearing thing you’ve seen on tour?

Johnny: At one show in Australia we had a prosthetic leg fly up onto the stage. Shortly after, owner of said prosthetic leg was thrown up onto the stage, drunk and looking for his leg. He spent the rest of the show up there on the front of the stage enjoying himself and his prosthetic leg. When we went down to South America one time with Goldfinger they lost their guitar tech.

Aaron comes into the room

Aaron: I told you to not start without me; fucked over again!

Amy: Luckily, we’re only a few questions in and we were just talking about you.

Aaron: What did you say?

Johnny: That you were a handsome, handsome man.

Amy: Close enough. With all of the touring, how do you keep it from getting stale or redundant?

Aaron: Kick motherfuckers out every couple of years! I think it mostly never gets old because it’s so much fun to play music, and be on stage in front of people and watch them go crazy. That never gets old to me.

Johnny: Definitely, you come at it from the gratitude aspect. Really, we are so lucky to get to do what we do. There are so many people that would like to be in our situation, and we really love…..everyone in the band wants to be here.

Aaron: Plus we’re in a different city every single day so that keeps it interesting.

Amy: What do you love about you all being together in that bus, and what do you hate that you can’t wait to get away from at the end of tour?

Matt: I love the way Dan (Regan, trombone player) smells in the morning. Oh no wait, that’s in the hate section.

Aaron: We’re just lucky to be on a bus because the opening bands are riding around in vans with no air conditioning and they want to kill each other. We at least have little bunk beds we can go to, a front and a back lounge, little living room place where we can watch TV or play videogames; it’s nice to have that.

Matt: I like how I can sleep till 4 in the afternoon and not realize it.

Johnny: In the bunk area, it’s so dark that you have no idea what time it is. I end up waking up at 6 in the morning and am not able to fall back asleep and these guys end up sleeping all day.

Amy: Can I revisit question number one since Aaron is here now? In 2007 the Monkeys for Nothin’ and Chimps for Free came out, cover album in 2009, a greatest hits album this year.

Aaron: It’s called the Best of Us for the Rest of Us, nobody buys the Greatest Hits (and more). Jive records put that out after they dropped us to try and squeeze money out of people.

Amy: What a bunch of jerks! So to spite them, you came out with your own greatest hits collection years later. Have you been writing or working on new material or are you guys just having fun playing some cover songs.

Johnny: I said that when you were sixteen, you wrote 500 amazing songs and you’re pulling them out slowly one-by-one.

Aaron: There’s 14 left.

Johnny: And they’re all hits. They are all the best ones he’s been saving the entire time.

Aaron: Yes, I wrote a new album, but no one is ever going to hear it but me, hahahahaha. Can you see my middle finger thru the recording? No you can’t, but it’s there!

Amy: Would you say it’s tougher to be in a ska band because typically there are more members in a ska band? Do you think that’s a little harder to jam all those people in the bus and get along?

Matt: I have no experience in any other situation.

Aaron: I think it would be lonely on the bus, it would be strange.

Johnny: Who would we hang out with in the front or back lounge, or watch movies with, or drink beers with?

Amy: How many people are usually on the bus?

Johnny: There are 10 of us right now.

Amy: I feel like ska kind of gets a bad rap. I mean, Propagandhi even went out of their way to make a song about how they hate ska. Here we are tonight and the show is sold out and you guys tour pretty often; it wasn’t that long ago that you were in Chicago and the place was packed. Why do you think ska gets such a bad rap?

Aaron: Who does it get a bad rap from?

Amy: I feel like people shit talk ska over other genres, it seems to get taken less seriously. 

Johnny: I think some people just don’t like to have fun. Some people are so miserable that they just want to cry and be sad at a show, and a ska show is a happy show.

Aaron: We’re not cool enough for some people. I think just like any other genre of music, there’s an audience for it. Metal people talk a lot of crap on pop music and pop music talk a lot of crap on whatever. People just love to talk shit, that’s why reality TV is so popular. Everyone likes to watch douchebags argue and talk shit about each other. I think ska doesn’t get a lot of respect because it’s fun and silly, but the fans respect it and love it, so that’s all that really matters.

Amy: If you weren’t in this band, what would you be doing?

Aaron: Dead!

Johnny: This is all that I have! I get to make a living with a stupid piece of brass to my face, its silly! I’m very lucky.

Matt: I don’t think any of us have any other options. Do I have to make money in this whatever else I do? There are all sorts of things I would do, but none of them make money.

Aaron: I don’t like to think about doing anything else.

Amy: I think that you’ve been doing it long enough that you have nothing to worry about. Did someone’s girlfriend really leave them for another girl?

Aaron: Nah, I just made it up. I’m sure it’s happened in the world at one time or another, but not to any of us.

Matt: It happened to my roommate, there ya go. I think his ex-girlfriend is married to a girl now.

Amy: What’s everyone’s favorite kind of fish?

Aaron: Shellfish, crustaceans, crabs.

Amy: They’re not fish.

Aaron: They’re of the sea.

Johnny: I don’t eat fish. I am very anti-eating fish for some reason. I like the halibut that swims with the two eyes sideways, hilarious.

Matt: I don’t eat fish either, and I’m allergic to shellfish and crustaceans. When I go to the aquarium I am always really impressed with tuna, they’re really fast.

Aaron: You’re impressed with tuna? Boringggggg. I like those grey fish that are, ya know, they just…I’m just kidding man; you can like whatever you want, even if your opinions are wrong.

Matt: Thanks Aaron, you can like crustaceans too, even though they kill me.

Johnny: Those are the bugs of the sea; it’s like eating a cockroach.

Amy: Do you still laugh about how Sell Out was the blow-up single and how ironic it is?

Johnny: We laugh about everything because that’s what keeps us going, to be able to laugh at everything and ourselves.

Aaron: It’s pretty cool that we had a record label that really liked us and thought it would be really funny to put a song called Sell Out on the radio and MTV and push it, and it worked! We all had a hilarious chuckle at the irony of it all, and then they didn’t care about us at all.

Amy: What year was that?

Aaron: That was 1997

Amy: Time does fly.

Johnny: I think the song we really have to play if there was one song, it would be Beer.

Aaron: Beer and Take on Me have become the big hits because they’re in the BASEketball movie, that’s done more for us than any hit song or video. More people know us from BASEketball and word of mouth. Most people don’t even know Sell Out was a single anymore. It was so long ago, most of our fans were babies at that time.

Amy: What would it take for you to stop? You’ve been a band a long time and tour a lot.

Aaron: No one comes to see us anymore, can’t sell tickets, then it’s over. If there’s nobody there to watch you, you can’t do it anymore.

Amy: Fortunately for you, all these people are here and going to make the building shake (The floor of the Chicago House of Blues shakes when everyone on the floor is jumping).

Aaron: We are very lucky; that’s why we appreciate our fans a lot, try to play all the songs they like, and give them a good show every time.

Amy: Anything to add? Anything you want the people to know?

Aaron: Check out our bigger, better, bonus, deluxe version of the Best of Us for the Rest of Us. It’s out now and has three discs with all the classics, covers, and a whole bunch more skacoustic songs too; it’s really good.

Johnny: Come to a show, come hang out with us and say hi. We’re not scary guys, we’ll sign your stuff and say hello.

Aaron: Don’t wait until we’re three blocks away, down to street to yell our name out and see if we turn around. That sucks! If you recognize us, come up and say hi. It happens all the time, happened today like five times. I know that people get shy….

Amy: Until you get about a block away, then they’ll just scream your name at the top of their lungs.

Aaron: If you wait that long, then I’m not going to turn around, just to be a jerk to you. Sorry in-advance. Come right up and say hi, hey, it’s you, are you you? And I’ll be like, yeah yeah, I’m me.

Johnny: Then it’s only a semi-awkward situation and there can be an interaction, but when someone’s yelling at you (from down the street), that’s a little creepy.