The Bellrays

The Bellrays are the greatest band that more people need to hear about. This group is exactly what a rock band should be. It is versatile and creates straight up rock ‘n’ roll, punk rock, blues, funk, and no matter what, the music always has soul. The two principal members, the married couple Bob Vennum and Lisa Kekaula created The Bellrays over 30 years ago, and has consistently created quality music that eclipses the vast majority of what is considered popular today. The drummers and bassists have come and gone over the years, but whoever is in those positions is always an experienced and spot-on performer. The Bellrays is one of the few bands that has never created a bad song. Not only is the music well-performed, and astonishing, but Lisa’s voice is powerful, evocative, and simply mesmerizing. The latest album is “Heavy Steady Go!” and it is available from their own label Sweet Gee Records. Get it. Every song kicks ass. At the time of this writing, The Bellrays are on tour with Social Distortion. Do yourself a favor and pick up on this now. 

Marcus: With the new album and the upcoming tour supporting Social Distortion, you have a lot going on, so you must be very excited.

Lisa: “Super duper excited.”

Bob: “We’re really excited.”

Marcus: How did that come about?

Lisa: “We got a direct request from Mike Ness. I read the email from our booking agent, and I had Bob read the email from our booking agent. Then, our booking agent called and said: “Did you read your email?”” 

Bob: “He [Mike Ness] had asked us to do a show years ago.” 

Lisa: “In 2008. A local show at The House of Blues, and he lost his voice.” 

Bob: “Yeah, we couldn’t do it then, but now…”

Lisa: “It was nice to have been asked, but when we got that email, we were like, “Wow!””

Marcus: You are going to be doing arenas and stadiums?

Lisa: “No stadiums. They are playing big houses. These are all of the smaller cities except for like Seattle and Toronto.” 

Bob: “Probably like 1,000 or 2,000 seaters.”

Lisa: “For some of them, we are going to be there for like three days. It’s going to be a really great time, and the best thing is that it is happening. It was supposed to be happening in the summer of 2023, and Mike Ness got diagnosed with [tonsil] cancer. Everything is better now, and that is winning.”

Marcus: The singles you have released from the new album are really kicking ass…

Lisa: “Yay! That is what they are meant to do!”

Marcus: Phinky at thepunksite says to tell you hello and he has loved your band for many years. Are you familiar with the website?

Bob: “Sure.”

Lisa: “And everybody wants to get their stuff on there.” 

Marcus: Tell us about the new album. 

Bob: “Heavy Steady Go!”

Marcus: How did you come up with that title?

Bob: “When we got all of the songs recorded, somebody said: “What are we going to call this album?” and literally, that is what came to mind. And it fits!”

Lisa. “Yeah, especially with all the time and work we put into it.”

Marcus: I like the artwork too. Who did that?

Lisa: “That was Lori from Armidelicous.” 

Marcus: I like how Bob is on the back of the motorcycle holding his guitar and looking very stoic.

Bob: “Yeah, she did that artwork from a couple of pictures of us.” 

Marcus: How many albums do you have now?

Bob: “Eleven? Twelve? Something like that. I have added them up before, and then we add one and I lose count again.”

Lisa: “I keep forgetting, but now we can just look because we have our own label.” 

Marcus: I often wonder about the meaning of your band name. It makes me think of a strange sea creature.

Lisa: “[Laughs] That’s a good one. I have not heard that one before. I like that.”

Marcus: Where did the name come from?

Bob: “Our old guitar player Tony [Fate] (Symbol Six, The Grey Spikes, The Reactors, The Sins) and I used to sit around and think up band names.”

Lisa: “He’s had years to come up with a better story than this, but he just won’t do it. [Laughs]”

Bob: “It was on a list, and just thinking about it…it just seemed to hook with what we are about. There’s a sound component and a visual component. The “bell” is the sound and the “rays” is the light…”

Marcus: And the radiance. You mentioned Tony Fate. I love Tony’s Fate’s guitar work. What’s he doing now?

Bob: “No idea. He won’t talk to us.”

Marcus: Anyway, how did you two meet each other?

Lisa: “We both went to UCR [University of Riverside] and we worked at the Bull ‘n’ Mouth. It was a food place; a burger joint. We both got hired as cooks.”

Bob: “It was like a bar/greasy spoon place. Short order. Burgers, sandwiches, pizza, and on the weekends it turned into a dance club.”

Lisa: “That place was dangerous.”

Marcus: So you two just immediately fell in love?

Lisa: “We got scheduled together all the time. That was the only job I was allowed to do because I was still underage. That is how we got to be friends, started hanging out, and eventually it became more than that.”

Marcus: Were you both already involved with music at that time?

Lisa: “We were. I was in the school jazz band [singing], and Bob was doing a band.”

Marcus: [To Bob] How did you get involved with music? When did you pick up a guitar and go: “Yeah!”

Bob: “I was thirteen, and I went: “YEAH! I need a guitar!” The “yeah” came first. I had been at this all-night movie thing that my mom had dropped me off to, and one of the movies was called “The Rock ‘N’ Roll Movie.” There was Jimi Hendrix doing “Voodoo Child.” It was just one of those things. I left the theater and told my mom: “Can I have a guitar?””

Marcus: “Voodoo Child” is my favorite Hendrix song. Lisa, how did you get started singing?

Lisa: “I cannot remember ever not singing. I was just always singing. My mom always sang, then I would sing. I never looked at it as something different or out of place.”

Marcus: Do you have any formal training?

Lisa: “None. I know a bunch of people think: “Oh, you must have sang in church.” I was raised Catholic. Not even the choir.”

Marcus: [To Bob:] Are you self-taught?

Bob: “Pretty much. When I first started playing, I took lessons for about a year from a guy named Billy Paris in Fontana. He showed me how to figure out songs. Put ‘em [records] on the turntable and figure them out. Once I knew that, the lessons lost their glow. I would then just sit in my room and figure out the songs I could play.”

Marcus: Do you know how to read music and all that?

Bob: “No.”

Marcus: How do you write music when you cannot read it?

Bob: “I don’t write it. I just do it. I play it and have a tape recorder. I remember it that way, or I write down the chords that I play.”

Lisa: “It’s a different school of thought. I think a lot of people, like when we were kids and we were in school, this is how you do blah, blah, blah, and this is how you read music. It’s not really about that when you start playing guitar or writing your own songs. I know some people who grew up playing jazz and for them, it is part of it where they are going to write music, but most of the people that I know aren’t that way. They come up with an idea and they go: “Okay, this is going to be the song. This is what we are going to go with.”

Marcus: I remember seeing a video of Buzz Osborne of the Melvins on YouTube, and he said you don’t play music from here [pointing at the head]. You play it from here [pelvic thrust.]

Bob and Lisa: “Yeah!”

Marcus: He also said that if you make a mistake, don’t get upset. Follow that mistake and see where it goes. 

Lisa: “Yeah! That’s why he is a professional. [Laughs]”

Bob: “One of the things Billy Paris taught me is that is you make a mistake, do it again. That way, they don’t think it was a mistake.”

Marcus: What inspired you two to create this band?

Lisa: “We both had separate things we were doing. And then we had a kid, and we said, a band is too much for a family trying to raise a kid, so we need to cut this down.”

Marcus: You were in different bands and that was too much?

Bob: “No. At the time, we were both college students, we had jobs, we were raising a kid, and we were trying to do the band. One band is still too much to do all of that. And, she was doing her jazz singing, and I was doing my band. I would be over here, and she would be over there. Doing all that and trying to arrange baby-sitting and all that was too much.”

Marcus: The punk, funk, rock, soul you do…is that a conscious creation or did it happen organically?

Lisa: “My vote is always for organic. You have been subjected to everything you have ever listened to so…I’m not sitting here saying: “Oh, it would be so cool if we did this thing and that thing.” When we first got [the album] “Let it Blast” sound like it did, that was just from being in the rehearsal studio for weeks, and trying new songs out, and hitting this point where, “Oh man! That’s what it sounds like!””

Bob: “There was a point when we [Bob and Lisa] were together and Tony [Fate] had his band The Grey Spikes, and they kind of fell apart. We needed a bass player and he needed to record something so I said: “Hey man, you come and play guitar, and I will play bass, and we’ll call it The Grey Spikes. We did it, and the second run through a song, we were looking at each other like: “Man, this sounds just too good!” Let’s just do this! We’ll call it The Bellrays and we’ just keep doing this.”

Lisa: “Which was a big sacrifice for Bob, because he was guitarist back then, and we never had a solid bass player until he started playing bass. That is what really kicked the band into high gear.”

Lisa: “It was when we were doing that thing with Tony that he switched over to bass. That was when [Bob] moved over to bass, that was about ‘96.”

Bob: “In 2001, I went back to playing lead guitar for a little bit, and then Tony came back, and he left again…so I went back to lead guitar.”

Lisa: “That was in 2007.”

Marcus: You were in the revolving door of your own band. 

Bob: “Yeah! [Laughs]”

Lisa: “That is a huge sacrifice to give up that sacred spot for someone.”

Marcus: You hear that Tony? [Everyone laughs]

Lisa: “To be clear, Tony did appreciate it. Things happen.”

Marcus: Please explain your songwriting process. Do you just think: “Oh, I hear this thing in my mind,” or how do you do that?

Bob: “There are so many different ways, but sometimes it is that. One song in particular, Lisa called me on the phone and there was someone who was dying, and she was telling me about it, and the song just came out. All at once. All the words, the music, just like that. It happened in like 15 minutes.”  

Marcus: What song is that? 

Bob: “Anymore.”

Lisa: ““Anymore,” on the “Black Lightning” album” 

Bob: “Then there are other songs that I’ve taken 15 years. It all starts with a riff, and then I can’t think of a bridge or I can’t think of something to sing about.”

Lisa: ““Hard Drive” was like that [from the new album.]”

Bob: “Lots of times, I’ll be driving…the rhythm of the freeway…I can hear a riff, then I gotta make it to a guitar so I can bang it out. Other times, I will be [in another room] and Lisa will be in here listening to music, but the way the room reverberates, and I am hearing something, but it is inside out. It may be a familiar song, but it does not sound familiar to me…it sounds like something else.”

Marcus: Because the acoustics is doing what it does. 

Bob: “Yeah. I will be hearing the bass overtones, but not the bass line. Then it turns into another bass line and I’m able to work with that.”  

Marcus: That reminds me of the time I spent the day with [surf guitar legend] Dick Dale. He asked me: “You’re weird right?” I said I was, so he took me to his airplane hangar that was an arch made out of corrugated steel. He told me to put my face into one of the recesses, and make noises like a didgeridoo. He did that, and I did that, and the sound traveled up, across the top to the other side and it bounced back to us with a very strange reverberating sound. He looked at me like: “Do you get it?” I said: “Yeah, I get it.” 

Bob: “Uh huh.”

Marcus: That can be a segue for your drummer. You now have surf legend Dusty Watson on drums?

Lisa: “No. Not anymore. He’s playing with Nashville Pussy.” 

Marcus: That sounds funny out of context. 

Bob: “He is with Nashville Pussy, The Sonics, and surf bands.” 

Lisa: “The last show you saw us, he was on drums, but Dusty came down and did all the original songs for getting this new record together, and then the pandemic hit. We couldn’t be around each other for a couple of years. I remember he got a call to go tour with Nashville Pussy in early 2022. He let us know, “I gotta take these gigs.” It wasn’t like: “Oh, I’m not going to play with you guys anymore.” Then, we got our old drummer Craig Waters back. Craig has been on [the albums] “Hard Sweet and Sticky,” “Have a Little Faith,” and he’s been the drummer on a bunch of our stuff. Now, he’s back in the saddle again. He is a force of nature.”

Marcus: He’s played with Agent Orange too.

Bob: “He’s played with everybody. Jon and the Nightriders.”

Marcus: We can’t leave out the bass player now. He is going to feel bad if we do that.

Lisa: “He is a newbie. His name is Nico Miles.” 

Marcus: That sounds like a cartoon hero. 

Lisa: “He is a hero. [Laughs]”

Bob: “We’ve known him for a long time. A local musician. We met him through Lisa’s yoga instructor years ago.”

Lisa: “He’s a young, pumped blood from way back who’s been educating himself on music and getting into this kind of thing for most of his life. He was one of those few people who knew: “Oh, this is what I want to do with my life.” He’s also been doing his own solo stuff and he’s been in other bands.”

Marcus: I think I will go check that out. Everybody reading should go check that out too, right after you buy the new Bellrays album “Heavy Steady Go!”

Lisa: “That’s right! And all the other albums that you can buy now on our own label!”

Bob: “Sweet Gee Records.”

Marcus: What does that mean?

Bob: “This is suite G. [The semi-industrial space where The Bellrays rehearse and where this interview took place.]”

Marcus: Oh, I literally walked into that one. 

All: “[Laughs]”

Marcus: I have always wanted to ask about a lyric from the album, “Punk Funk Rock Soul.” What do you mean “We’re all going to junior high?”

Lisa: “No. We’re all on a junior high.”

Bob: “There was a long period of time where the only thing anybody cared about was how young you were. All of the stars were young. All of the music people were young. As soon as they weren’t young anymore, [the public] moved on to the next group who were young, and often younger than the other group. It’s a junior high. You are high on the junior kind of thing.”

Marcus: Is that your personal critique of things? We are not so young anymore, but here we are, so deal with it?

Lisa: “Not so much that, but how people are looking for something because it is young. That is the weird part of it. Not trying to get somebody to listen to me because I am not that young. I am fine with that.”

Bob: “[It used to be] all of the old blues guys were still around. They were still putting out records and doing stuff, but they weren’t getting any radio play. Nobody cared [because] all these new guys were coming up. Even though their music wasn’t as good. Even if you asked the people who were putting it out there they would tell you it was not as good, but nobody wants to hear the old guys.”  

Lisa: “It wasn’t about hearing anything. It was all about visuals.” 

Marcus: Oh, like that Machine Gun Kelly guy. 

Lisa: “I’ve heard that name so many times, but I don’t know about him.” 

Marcus: Good. Don’t bother. There is a lot of money behind him and he is popular and all that, but I hate it so much I don’t want to talk about it. 

Lisa: “[Laughs loudly.]”

Marcus: You do make a good point. I remember being a teenager in the ‘70s, and the listening public had more patience with a band. The first album might not be that good, but the fans stuck with it, and the industry was like: “Okay, let’s do that again, but better.” The band would develop, but now its more like: “Okay, you did an album and we are through with you.”

Bob: “Sure.”

Lisa: “It’s mathematical. They [the music industry] never know what works, but everybody thinks: “They are the industry, so they know what works.””

Marcus: They know the math of the bottom line. Sales. 

Bob: “They know a bottom line. It always seemed to me that the money they threw at those acts, and the reason the music industry sort of went down is that they did not prepare. They did not foresee all of these artists that you could throw just a little bit of money at them and something might hit. You don’t have to throw a bunch of money just because someone is young and hot. The return on the investment seemed to be upside down. I equate it to all of these superhero movies. They were all about these young kids getting their powers, but the first one to make a billion dollars was “Iron Man” which is all about older people. Then, they try to skew it all toward a younger audience and those all fail or they do not do nearly as good.” 

Lisa: “You want to believe that the people [in the film] that are doing it, to actually believe it. If you try to put the words into too young of a skin, it does not make sense coming out of this person. Someone who is too young does not have any road wear and [the public] does not believe it.”

Marcus: That reminds of of some young kid, I forget his name, but he was a jazz/blues phenomenon, and he said: “I play well, but I am not old enough to feel this yet.”

Lisa: “What a great comment to come from somebody.”

Bob: “There are a couple of blues phenom kids that are on the circuit today. There is this one overweight black kid. I think he was like 8 or 9 when I first saw him. He is like 20 now, and he plays exactly the same.” 

Lisa: “That is probably all he ever wanted to do.” 

Marcus: Have you seen Nandi Bushell yet?

Bob: “That name does not sound familiar.” 

Marcus: That kid is rescuing the future of rock ‘n’ roll. She showboats too much, but she is good enough to get away with it. She is a multi-instrumentalist. She is incredible. 

Lisa: “That is really hard for me because I am super harsh [laughs.]”

Marcus: Onto another subject. Your songs are not particularly political, but I could easily guess your leanings. 

Lisa: “The fact that we exist at all seems to be political in the realm of rock ‘n’ roll.” 

Bob: “I am not a Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against the Machine kind of guy, but there’s messages in our songs for sure. I am not going to be a quixotic, windmill-chaser kind of guy. I am singing to whoever is in front of me and that is all I worry about. Most of the time, I am not worried about them because I am more worried about me. Like, I gotta get this off of my chest and you can do whatever you want to with it. I don’t care. That has always been the point of my songs.”

Lisa: “It’s kind of like praying.” 

Marcus: I like what you said about praying, because for me, music is music is the most religious thing I have ever experienced. Well, except for an out-of-body experience at a Buddhist temple. 

Lisa: “Absolutely. It is one of those things where you are re-feeding yourself. These things that make you feel good. Not to necessarily experience the same things again, but just to reiterate: “Oh yeah. That’s what I believe in.” That’s what I see with people…like my mom. I see she is praying a lot, but I tell her to remind herself that it’s not for somebody else to see. I think that is what you are talking about.”

Bob: “Maybe your life’s body of work is a search for the truth. It’s more like you are searching for truth in the moment. Whatever it is, you are trying to find it, and get it out there.” 

Marcus: This is true magic to me. You can take these inner feelings and channel them through all this equipment, and it creates this response in a large group of people. 

Bob: Sure. “Even for a small group.” 

Lisa: “Music is magical. I feel like that all the time. Music is taken for granted and people are like: “Oh, what next song do you have?” or “Can I get that for free?” But…we are doing some pretty magestical shit. Like, how we create a song. How to massage that song into being the song that it is supposed to be, because a song is not always just born.”

 Bob: “I think that everything is spiraling out of control. Every ill in the world, I think could be fixed with a greater attention to the arts. Develop it when they are young. Like we had access to it in school. Sure, nobody wanted to play the violin, but it was a thing. It was like: “Here’s these musical instruments. Play them. Pick them up and play them.” You come to realize that music is not just this voice from the void. No. Somebody learned how to do that, and they did it. Then, as you get farther into it, you realize everything they had to do to get to that point. All the practicing, the gear they bought, all the…”

Lisa: “It’s in the math; it’s physics. All of the stuff they say is in the hard sciences that we need to be concentrating on…is in the arts. Those things do not even have to be separated out.”

Bob: “Everything is driven by the arts; by creative people. Everything. You could go: “What about a car?” Well, somebody designed that car, somebody did all the advertising…”

Marcus: Somebody dreamed it first. Everything tangible started as a creative idea. 

Bob: Right. “So, go right ahead and try to make a lot of money without creative people. You will starve to death.” 

Marcus: That makes me wonder about people who appreciate creativity, and it seems to me that your band is more appreciated in Europe than here in the US. 

Lisa: “It is easier to see there because it is a smaller pool.” 

Bob: “Well, they grow up with an art appreciation that we have no idea about. They walk outside their houses and across the street is a 900 year old church. They have like a thousand years of history they can draw from.”

Lisa: “But here, I feel like everybody in Detroit got a really good music education.” 

Bob: “I think the reason it looks like we are more appreciated over there is because they have a greater appreciation for art on its own. Also, things uniquely American, [the Europeans] look for that sort of thing and appreciate it.” 

Marcus: It has always bothered me that your band should be super-ultra famous but it’s not. 

Lisa: “That bothers us too. [Laughs]”

Marcus: One time, I asked Stan Lee, the lead guitarist of The Dickies: “Does it bother you to see people with half your talent being super famous?” He told me: “Yeah, but I cannot imagine doing anything but this.” 

Lisa: “Right. You have to do it. But it’s a comparative thing. Well, this other person is making all this money and is more famous, but it’s really not….”

Bob: “It’s not a race.” 

Lisa: “But as long as you get to do what you want to do…you are winning.” 

Marcus: That should be a bumper sticker. But even so, it is nice to buy luxuries like gas and food with your creations. 

Lisa: “It would be nice if it was fair. What you put into it is what you get out of it. We work really hard. And we are very fortunate. We are appreciative.” 

Bob: “We have had like a 20 year music career.”

Lisa: “[Gives Bob a look] We’ve been doing this band for over 30 years. Your math is all wrong. [Laughs]”

Bob: “This is the only thing we have been doing for so many years.”

Lisa: “Yeah. We stopped doing day jobs a long time ago.” 

Marcus: That is great. I was wondering if you were able to make a living from your music alone. Even so, how are you able to travel so extensively?

Bob: “They pay us to play.”

Marcus: Promoters will fly you over?

Bob: “Well, we usually have to pay our own airfare, and that comes out of gig money.” 

Marcus: That works. On another topic, I have wondered if fans have ever contacted you and told you that certain songs have changed their lives, or this song has saved their lives.

Lisa: “Oh yeah.”  

Bob: “Both of those. It’s awesome. I can tell you the same thing. Like Jimi Hendrix…that completely changed my direction in life. I’d never thought about playing guitar before that, and then I had to. And then I did for the next 45 years.” 

Marcus: When I went through a really bad break-up, “Stupid Fucking People” really helped me a lot. 

Bob and Lisa: “[Laugh loudly.]”

Marcus: Hey! I wanted to thank you for those little shows the two of you did on Facebook during the pandemic! They helped get me through. It was also fun to watch you fiddle with the equipment, trying to get things to work. 

Lisa: “That’s what I remember most; trying to get everything to work. It did work and it fed a lot of people emotionally…but I was on the verge of quitting. [Just before] the pandemic happened, I was like: “This is over. I don’t think people appreciate what we do, and I don’t think people really understand it.” Then the pandemic hit and I was thinking: “Aw shit. Maybe I broke the world.””

Marcus: You can’t quit. You know why not? Because this is who you are. That is like me saying I am not going to skateboard anymore. You are what you do. 

Lisa: “Yeah, that’s part of it, but also, I am not here to be that thirsty artist either. I am not here to be out there and not be appreciated for what I am doing. There’s a bunch of people out there and they are like: “Oh, The Bellrays! They play all the time. I will just catch them the next time.” But when the pandemic hit, it was an opportunity to reach out to people when they couldn’t go to shows. You could talk to people and see what music was actually doing for people. It made me put it into a different perspective. Maybe it is all about making people feel good and as long as I am one of those people. The pandemic saved us because it made me rethink everything. Also, we all get to quit at least once a day…as long as you come back.”

Marcus: How long will you keep on not quitting?

Bob: “Who knows? As long as we can keep doing it.”

Lisa: “As long as it feels good. There are people who have had strokes that still do it.” 

Marcus: [To Lisa] I also wanted to ask you about MC5. How did you get to sing with that band?

Lisa: “Wayne [Kramer] is a super expansive kind of musician. He was always listening to what is out there. I was one of the musicians that was fortunate enough to be asked.”

Marcus: That was quite a treat when I stumbled upon that online. As for the tour with Social Distortion, I wish you much success and it seems like you are not fazed by the crowd size at all whenever you play. 

Bob: “Most of the time, the show for me ends at the edge of the stage, or not even that far. The band you know? I am always paying more attention to the other band members than the crowds. It could be 50,000 or it could be two, but it really doesn’t matter to me.”

Lisa: “We’re here to give everything.”

The Bellrays‘ new album Heavy Steady Go! is now available via digital platforms and through the band’s own Sweet Gee Records imprint. The Bellrays are currently on tour in North America with Social Distortion.

You can read The Punk Site‘s review of Heavy Steady Go! here and a live review of a 2024 headline show at California’s Zebulon here