If there’s a solid piece of advice that Orange County, Calif.-based ska-rock act Reel Big Fish can offer listeners of their latest creation, We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy, it can simply be gathered through the title of one of the disc’s tracks, “Don’t Start A Band.”
Yes, 14 years of hard-learned experience maintaining themselves as one of the most successful and stable third-wave ska-rock outfits has definitely taught the crew something. Frontman Aaron Barrett just wishes he didn’t have to be the first one to dish the caveat emptor.
“I wish somebody would’ve written ‘Don’t Start A Band’ a long time ago,” he says. “Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”
Fortunately, no one had really penned such a track and Barrett ended up forming Reel Big Fish. Countless tours, five full-length albums, two stints on the Vans Warped Tour and over a million combined album sales later, Reel Big Fish are offering such advice — amongst a number of other self-explanatory (and self-deprecating) related bites such as “One Hit Wonderful” and “Last Show” — as a public service to the countless budding musicians they’ve inspired, and because it finally helped cap a series of themed recordings they’ve assembled as a part of their career discography.
“It’s like a triology – Turn The Radio Off, Why Do They Rock So Hard and this album,” says Barrett. “It’s like Turn The Radio Off is the band just starting and they’re trying to make it, but it’s so hard to make it with all the other bands. Why Do They Rock So Hard is like, ‘We’ve made it and everyone hates us for making it.’ And this album is like, ‘Ah, we quit.’ The next album will be like, ‘Wow, we can make a lot of money with a reunion tour!’”
But, fear not, as Reel Big Fish are not calling it quits. It’s just a part of the album’s overall character.
“I think the theme is, ‘f*** this s***. f*** you, f*** the music business, I quit,’” he reiterates. “But we still love to play and we depend on it to make a living, so it’s better to write about it than to actually do it.”
We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy marks the first album with new drummer Justin Ferreira and trumpeter John Christianson from Barrett’s other band, The Forces Of Evil. It’s also the band’s newest album since June 2002’s Cheer Up. Exhaustive touring schedules have kept the sextet constantly on the road, especially in the UK, where the band has received an unusually sizable chunk of attention and has toured several times since Cheer Up’s release.
Reel Big Fish has attributed a portion of their UK notoriety to a tour featuring a fellow band that was reciprocating a favor. In fact, We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy sports a brilliant cover of Morrissey’s “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful,” which pokes at those who’ve used Reel Big Fish’s generosity as a springboard for their careers. However, such success worked to Reel Big Fish’s advantage during this particular UK outing.
“There are so many bands that we’ve taken on the road over the years that ended up becoming super famous or at least very successful and have never returned the favor,” Barrett says.
“There’s actually one band that returned the favor, and that’s Sum 41,” trumpeter/guitarist Scott Klopfenstein recalls.
“We took them on tour when nobody knew who they were really in America,” Barrett adds. “And then they got really big and famous and they took us on tour in the UK. That really helped us over there.”
Another cover song on We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy has been earmarked as the disc’s first single, Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution.” The band’s reggae-fied rendition of the Chapman track was inspired by a “poor man’s iPod” that the act hastily assembled for a recent trek.
“Last summer we did a tour and we made this really weird contraption out of speakers and s*** called ‘The Reggae Machine’ and only played an MP3 CD with old reggae songs on it,” says Barrett. “And we listened to that every day in the dressing room. It’s that old, s***ty, lo-fi, badly recorded reggae that just sounds so good." So I heard the Tracy Chapman song and thought this would make a good reggae song. So we made a really s***ty sounding reggae song. And it’s awesome, probably one of my favorite songs.” “We also added a reggae version of Social Distortions “Story Of My Life” at the last minute that was going to be an international B-Side, but everyone loved it so much we had to add to the album” add Barrett.
Though Reel Big Fish has taken song cues from Chapman, Morrissey and Social D, the band has been equally inspirational in its own right. In fact, Reel Big Fish has even been noted in a college text for a History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll course. “I’m sure it’s the ‘What Went Wrong Here?’ chapter,” quips Regan.
The Barrett-produced album (co-produced with Shawn Sullivan) even features a college marching band performing one of the band’s tracks at the end of “One Hit Wonderful.” And it’s not inspiration at a recorded level that keeps people wanting more.
“Our fans are amazing to us,” Klopfenstein says. “I think a lot of what it has to do with it is that when you come see Reel Big Fish, you get a whole show. You’re entertained. We talk, we goof around, we do a lot of stuff and people want to be entertained. It’s important.”
The band has also recognized the importance of Barrett’s sanity (or perhaps lack thereof). “We have known Aaron for a long time and we love him dearly,” says Regan. “It’s Scott and my job to make sure that the men with the coat with the straps and the rubber room don’t take him away.”
Although the message of We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy appears pretty grim and pessimistic, it’s apparent that the only reason why Reel Big Fish still around is because they didn’t quit.
“As much as we wanted to quit a million times, we’ve been around over ten years and we’re still rockin’ it,” Regan says. “Kids ask us how we became successful. Well, we were lucky for like a year, but the rest of the time, we just made it work. We’re just going to stay a band. We’re not going to go back to working fast food or any of that s***. I wouldn’t even know how to do that crap again!”
“Just imagine what we could’ve done had we been positive,” adds Barrett. “This is not the end of our band. Even though the album’s about the end, this is just the beginning.”