Recently, LA.CityZine was given the opportunity to speak with Scott Klopfenstein from Reel Big Fish, an American Ska punk band from Huntington Beach.

For all their LA fans, they will be playing at the Warped Tour in Ventura on June 22nd at 11:30am, then in Fresno August 14th at 11:30am, and then finally in Los Angeles August 17th again, at 11:30am.

Lucky for you, we had the opportunity to ask Scott about their recent album, stalker stories, Warped Tour, showering, and divulging secrets…

WJ: So your new album Monkeys for Nothin’ and the Chimps for Free came out a little while ago – it was your first independent album after being released from a major record label. What were the challenges and/or benefits of recording without a major record label?

SK: One of the challenges to doing the album ourselves is that it’s an expensive process to record and put out a record. But if you put the positives and negatives on a scale, the positives definitely outweigh. I mean, we didn’t have to get songs approved by anybody; we could do anything we wanted, which was nice. But even with We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy, we still had to submit demos to Jive. Like we hadn’t proven ourselves to sell records and make great albums and be okay. So that was always frustrating.

So [with this new album] we could just make it kind of how we wanted it to be. I mean, I understand that people in the music industry have a job and I appreciate their job, but we kind of know our fans better than anybody else. They’re not the regular kids that listen to radio nonstop. I mean, they might listen to a little radio, they’ll watch a little MTV, but they’re not your typical kids. Because we’re not your typical band. They don’t fit well in our demographic all the time. I mean, some kids do, but not always.

WJ: How do you feel about your fans’ reactions to the new album?

SK: Um. It’s awesome! (laughs.) No, actually, they seemed to really like this album right off the bat. Which was really nice for us, ’cause normally the way it works is you put an album out, and they hate it, and then you put another album out, and they like the one you put out before it and they hate the one you just put out. Then you put out another record, and they only like the last one you put out. The one you put out before the one you just put out. But this one they seemed to like more once we started to play the songs live, and they started asking for them and that was nice. Makes me feel like we’ve done a really great job when we get that. Sometimes we’re always trying to progress musically and it takes the kids a little while to catch on and we’re like, “Oh well did we move too fast?”

WJ: Well, you were saying that your fans always like the album before the most recent one. I know that you’ve been in the band for a really long time. What do you feel is your strongest album?

SK: Oh wow, gosh, what do I think is our strongest album? I mean, I think they all have – and I’m not just saying this for the you know, for the diplomacy – I think they all have really great properties to them. Each one is so unique and interesting. I guess I feel that way because they’re so personally reflective of where we’re all at at that point. Just looking back on how hard some of them were to make, and the arguments, but then all the fun times, and all that stuff, you know, I think they all reflect the band so well, whether or not we think that musically that they’re superior than another one. I think if anything, it all gets evened out with the honesty.

WJ: How do you feel your music has progressed over the years?

SK: Well, we’ve definitely gotten better at writing songs. We used to just put a bunch of insane parts and stuff. I mean, that was cool. It always works with the time, but we’re in a period of craft, which is writing and performing songs. And I feel the songs make a little more sense, we can deliver the message. I consider the message delivered whether it’s that I have a crazy girlfriend, or my life sucks, period, now. But with a little more freedom. A little more color on our pallets now, shall we say.

WJ: Haha. Well, you guys are playing Warped Tour. What’s the most exciting thing or part about playing Warped Tour?

SK: The free time. There’s a lot of free time on the Warped Tour. I’m really excited to spend a lot of the time reading.

WJ: What kind of books do you like to read?

SK: All sorts of things. Let’s see, what are the books that I have lined up for the Warped Tour? I have a stack of books that I’m bringing on the Warped Tour. They’re sitting next to my bed, actually, as we speak. One of them is a book called All You Need to Know about the Music Business.

WJ: I have that book!

SK: Great book, it’s the 6^th revision of it. I’m reading a music theory book. I’m reading a book called The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton. I am also reading a Tom Waits Biography, and what else? There’s something else I know I’m missing here. Oh, there’s two more things! One, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and what’s the other thing? I can see it right now. Um. I’m just kidding, I don’t know.

WJ: Haha that’s ok. Well, what are the worst parts about Warped Tour?

SK: The hot. The dirty, and the loud.

WJ: How often do you get to shower?

SK: Well, we never shower on our tour bus. But I shower everyday. I have to shower everyday. If I don’t shower everyday, I’m a Grumpy Gus.

WJ: Well, Warped Tour goes all over the United States. Do you have any favorite stops on the tour?

SK: Well, on the tour, it kind of all starts looking the same. On the festival grounds – you’re generally in the middle of some giant parking lot, or field, or stadium, or some such thing.

WJ: Do you get to walk around and explore? Or are you just confined to the festival grounds?

SK: You know, we’re mostly just confined to the festival grounds. I mean, we have signings and stuff that we go to during the day, but we don’t really chill. I mean, it depends on when we’re playing ’cause our times change everyday and what type of forum we play in, and um, so I don’t know, we’ll see. Plus another thing is that the New York City show is not in the city. It’s actually kind of far away. Which is sad, because I wanted to go home, but I probably won’t get a chance to.

WJ: Aw, I’m sorry. Something I’ve always wanted to know – I saw you recently at Bamboozle Left, and I thought you were one of the best shows of the night.

SK: Oh, thank you!

WJ: There was a lot of bantering back and forth between the band and the audience. My question is: can you hear what the audience says to you?

SK: Uh, sometimes.

WJ: Do you look for a specific person in the crowd when you talk to them?

SK. It depends. So many people are screaming so much stuff. It depends on what kind of mood you’re in. If you want to have a little fun with somebody, you know, you find like the middle finger guy. Some joker who feels like it’s his responsibility or like he’s got the right or what have you, to flip off the band he came to see so he won’t be bored. You usually don’t want to humiliate anybody. So it depends where you’re at on your spiritual being that day, whether you’re going to refrain from finding pleasure in someone else’s humiliation or something. We sometimes lay back and enjoy having a conversation with the audience just for the people further back. But more times we are actually speaking to people in the audience.

WJ: Oh, ok. So also at Bamboozle Left – I remember you guys started playing Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” out of the blue. I’ve heard that covers are usually a staple at Reel Big Fish shows, so what kind of songs do you usually cover and why do you choose to play them?

SK: I mean, anything that’s good, anything that seems to be catchy and fun and people connect with. I mean, that one, that song’s kind of teamwork and a joke. A lot of the things we do – a lot of it is jokes. We play the whole song as a joke that we do on stage ’cause we think it’s funny. I mean, the whole 10 different styles of S.R. came from a joke. We didn’t sit down and work on that. That was just something that was funny to us at the time. We feel more comfortable on stage than anywhere else. Most bands, I think, have to really work on it, try it, because they’re focusing and working. That’s where we feel most comfortable, so that’s where we get to goof off.

WJ: I’m sure you get this question a lot, but what are some of your influences?

SK: Oh gosh, you name it. You know, we’re so many dudes in the band that the influences range. You know, it could always be something like Cannibal Corpse.

WJ: Did you just say Cannibal Corpse?

SK: Yeah, Cannibal Corpse. Aaron loves Cannibal Corpse. I mean they’re a death metal band, they truly are. I’m not a huge fan of them, but I can appreciate what they do. I don’t own any Cannibal Corpse albums, but Aaron owns every Cannibal Corpse album, so I’ve heard them here and there, and for a death metal band, they’re amazing!

WJ: Ok, so this band has been around for a while now and you’re still touring. How do you keep your music fresh?

SK: We’re constantly revising things. We’re always messing with the arrangements and melody and things like that to try to keep things interesting. And I think the live show also has a lot to do with it. You never know what you’re gonna get. We don’t even know what we’re going to do, so, that’s definitely how we keep kids coming back to the live shows. And then the search for the perfect music is always, I think, the ultimate goal of any musician. So as long as we’re pursuing something, as long as our music sounds imperfect to us, we’re going to constantly be pushing forward and trying to sound different and new and find that thing. A lot of great musicians, you know, our culture – we’re all searching for that perfect note from the situation. I think we’re all trying to do: find that perfect note to go with right and perfect form of music.

WJ: Because you’ve been on tour so much and for so long, I’m sure you’ve had a lot of stories to tell. What kind of fans do you encounter on a day to day basis? Do you have any stalker stories?

SK: There’s a few stalker stories, none of which I feel like really getting into, because in case some of these people are still around, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But there are definitely people who have overstepped the boundaries of personal space and good taste with us. There have been a few people who have been escorted from out of backstage or escorted out off tour buses, things like that. It has happened on occasion. And considering, it kind of comes with the territory. I mean, I don’t even understand it all. But we try to treat our fans very nicely. There have been people who have finagled ways of getting onto the same airplane flights as us. And getting themselves seated in between us on certain flights. From cities that they’re not from! That was a little creepy. There was a young lady who had to be ejected – borderly ejected from the tour bus. She would not leave. She did all sorts of terrible, awful things because she just wanted to be on the bus. And we did not want her there. At all. Not Morrissey proportions – nothing of Morrissey proportions, but you know, not too many jump up and have to be torn away by security. A few. Not a lot.

WJ: I read somewhere that some of the tracks on your latest album were re-recorded versions of rejected album demos dating back to 1999. How do you guys choose the songs you wanted on the album?

SK: They were just songs that we well, the album originally started out as a b-sides album. We just had certain songs that we liked but couldn’t see on a regular album. But when we work on songs, we work on them. We try and make them the best they can be, and they are turned around and shifted, and things didn’t work out, and by the time we were done, we had written brand new songs, and we had better songs that never worked before, but for some reason did now. So, a few b-sides album kind of turned into a full length, bigger album.

WJ: Off the topic now – have there been any good bands that you’ve been listening to lately?

SK: I’ve had my iPod on shuffle, actually. So I haven’t really been listening to anything in particular, per se. There’s a band from Seattle, actually, it’s just this one guy called The Microphones, and it’s this incredible, really lo-fi, creative production and song writing, and there’s a band from Canada, called Destroyer. Just great song writing, great lyrics. I listen to a lot of I can’t seem to put my finger on what it is. There’s a band that’s this old punk and soul band from the 70s that I’ve been a huge fan of since I was a senior in high school. I’ve been listening to them a lot lately. The Mars Volta. I get bored real easy. Oh! Pedro the Lion. Been listening to a lot of Pedro lately.

WJ: They’re really good. Ok, so, a press release recently reported that you guys were “in the studio working on a hush-hush, top secret project of epic proportions.” Feel like spilling any secrets?

SK: Well, since I live in New York, and the rest of the band’s in California, I haven’t been there, so I don’t really know what’s going on. I don’t know until I get the phone call and they ask me to go out to California and work. It’s really good, it often works that way, and they work really quickly. I think I did all the vocals the latest album in 4 days or something like that, and I never really heard most of the tunes. You know, I think I really like to work fast without having to think. Because if you really have to start thinking about things too much, you ruin it.

WJ: If you could tour with any band you haven’t toured with before, who would it be and why?

SK: Oh wow, any band we haven’t toured with before. That’s a good one. I don’t know, we tend to tour with a lot of bands we like to, we haven’t toured with the Rx Bandits in a long time, and I’d love to do one with them, but we’ve toured with them before. Yeah, I don’t know. Gosh, there are a lot of shows that would be fun, but I don’t think it would make a lot of sense.

I’d love to tour with Maroon 5 – they’re guys that we’ve known for a little while, and they’re great guys, and I think it would be fun, but I don’t think that the crowds would mesh. At all. I know Tom Waits is doing a tour. I know that would be fun. We’ve never toured with Tom Waits. But I don’t think that would work out so well. I’m slightly envious of some bands. They get to go on something with Bon Jovi. Something like that would be cool. Or Def Leppard. That kind of stuff would be fun, but I don’t think that would be great for the fans. That’s one of the main reasons why we generally go on headlining tours, there’s not a lot of bands that we fan-wise mesh with.

WJ: I think you said earlier that you were in New York, but what were your favorite places to eat or hang out in Los Angeles?

SK: In LA? I don’t really know anymore. I never really spent a lot of time in LA to begin with. I kind of hung out mostly in Orange County.

WJ: Well, favorite Orange County spots then?

SK: Well, I liked hanging out at the Orange Circle a lot. Whenever I’m there I go to a place called Cafe Loca that my friends and I go to and drink coffee and talk, and then I just sit in the circle there and I read. My brother lives near there too, so I go hang out with them, and we go down to the circle and chill. I like going down to Long Beach. If you’ve ever been to Long Beach, they have a lot of great spots. Portfolio Coffee Shop, which is a place where a lot of my friends and I hang out. Seal Beach Pier on a late night. I don’t have a lot of free time, that’s the thing. I’m constantly working, even when I’m here at home in New York I still have stuff that I need to work on, so I don’t have a lot of free time. Plus I’m married, so I spend a lot of time hanging out with my wife. My big thing everyday is that I go and run in Central Park, but that’s pretty much my outside time for the day.

Time for our random quick fire round!

WJ: Ok, first question. Have you ever eaten a crayon?

SK: Yes!

WJ: Dream Vacation?

SK: Fiji.

WJ: Worst injury you’ve ever had?

SK: I came down with a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome where I was paralyzed from the neck down for like 2 weeks.

WJ: Describe yourself in 3 words.

SK: Manic. Pensive. And childish.

WJ: Song that you can’t get out of your head?

SK: Oh! There was actually one that I had today. “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler!

WJ: Ok, and last question – Favorite type of cheese?

SK: I love Blue. I’m a blue cheese guy.

WJ: Is there anything else you’d like to add for our readers?

SK: If you’re a fan, thanks for your support! If you’re just now experiencing the Reel Big Fish, welcome to the loving arms of the Reel Big Fish. Visit our website at reelbigfish.com or our MySpace.

WJ: All right, thank you for your time, Scott!

Reel Big Fish will be storming the Vans Warped Tour Main Stage this summer. Catch them at a Warped Tour near you!

Pictures from Reel Big Fish’s MySpace

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