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ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT/ HOT SNAKES (ROCKist 003) by Kevin S. Hoskins John Reis is one of the hardest working men in rock and roll. Best well-known as his alter-ego "Speedo" in Rocket from the Crypt, he been instrumental in the construction of three of the best full-length albums in the past year and a half: the Hot Snakes' Automatic Midnight (co-released between Sympathy for the Record Industry and Reis' own Swami Records), a powerhouse of a punk record that features his former Pitchfork and Drive Like Jehu collaborator Rick Froberg on vocals; Ghost Ship (Swami Records) by The Sultans, which John describes as "more of an innocent rock and roll band; and Group Sounds (Vagrant Records) the long-awaited return by Rocket from the Crypt, who could quite possibly be the best live band in the world. He is marked by a true love for rock and roll and consummate showmanship, where the audience is an equal player in the game. He was gracious enough to endure the questions of a nervous fan in this interview for Rockist. -Kevin S. Hoskins, 2001 ROCKIST: Do you think it's any different being in a band in San Diego now versus being in a band when you first started? JOHN: No, it's not really that different to tell you the truth. ROCKIST: What about the city itself? JOHN: The city's changed a lot, mainly just overpopulation. But for the most part, it's not what like what you have on the East Coast where the cities are built up to the city limits with no room for growth or anything. San Diego still has some open places, that they're still eagerly developing.. It used to be like a big city that felt like a small town and it was easy to get around and stuff. It's not so much like that anymore. Also, the downtown in SD used to be a little bit seedier, more desolate and now it's been a bit gentrified and it doesn't quite have the diversity it used to have. But it hasn't really affected the music here really. ROCKIST: At what age did you decide that you were going to play rock and roll? JOHN: I don't know exactly. I'm not sure. I've been playing guitar since I was twelve years old. And before that I played piano a little bit. Didn't really learn much. And before that, in the 4th grade, I played the trumpet. I always loved music. I always knew I wanted to play it someday. My folks always had tons of music around. It was never a decision to play music. I don't remember making the decision. ROCKIST: What about making the jump from banging around in the garage to getting up on stage? JOHN: Well, I don't know. Things just kind of happened, you know? "Let's make some music, okay, we got some music. Let's start a band. Okay, we got a band." Things just kind of go and it's never like "Hey, the name of the band's going to be this...and I got our stickers already made...and our website's ready to go and we're going to make it!" I think it's pretty obvious that it was never anything like that with us. Things just kind of happened and progress. And before you know it...I've been in Rocket from the Crypt for over ten years. Pretty wild. ROCKIST: Does that seem crazy to you? JOHN: Yeah, it does, because it doesn't seem that long. And then in other instances it feels longer. But the time went by pretty fast. * * * ROCKIST: How did the situation with your new drummer transpire? JOHN: Well, we needed a drummer so we tried out like 14 or 15 people. People from all over the country. A couple people from Europe flew in . A couple people from Japan flew in. And it wasn't happening. We were really happy with the way Atom played.. It wasn't because of musical preferences or anything like that. It's really hard. Atom was in the band for a long time. He was the Rocket drummer. So, we weren't going to settle for anyone. And the band had a reputation for being a really kick-ass, hot-shit live band. So we wanted to get a drummer who could pick up where we left off as far as that goes. I didn't want someone to stylistically play just like Atom. I was welcoming a change. I just didn't want to sacrifice any of the intensity that we have. So...it wasn't really happening. We knew Mario. He played in Black Heart Procession. He lived in San Diego before. We all knew him from this band he played in before that called Clickitat Ickatowi, this really cool band from San Diego. And he was pretty much the focal point of that band, being that it was pretty much improvisational kind-of hardcore type music. And he's just amazing to watch play. We knew he could do it. It was just a matter of if he wanted to do it. And he came out to San Diego and was like, "yeah, I'm moving out here and you know, 'I really want to do this. I dig it." Because we didn't really know where he stood as far as what kind of music he was into. And he decided, "Fuck! I want to rock and roll." It worked out really good. We owe a lot to him because the band probably would have just dissolved without him coming in. * * * ROCKIST: Was it frustrating after your Interscope deal fell apart? JOHN: Well, after it fell apart, it wasn't frustrating. What was frustrating was watching it all fall apart, being in the middle of it all falling apart. Once our relationship completely disintegrated and they finally decided to just let us walk, then everything was cool. The immediately the next morning was bright sunshine with expectations of a better future all in our minds. It was a real bum-out. It really sucked. But you know, I don't really want to dwell on it just because it's such a tired story. People always talk about how they were dicked by major labels. And I'm just bored with it. ROCKIST: Fair enough. It's always frustrating as a fan to watch a label give up on a band that you like. JOHN: Truth be told, what really happened was...Interscope got bought out by another company that merged with Universal. There was a hugh merger where all the labels in that family, which was Geffen, I believe Warner Brothers, MCA. They all merged, everyone got fired except for the people that were at Interscope. All the bands were basically on Interscope that were on all those different labels. And it was kind of like, "Just stand in line. Wait your turn." And we haven't come all this way just to be treated like that. and what we've built is our own. No owns it. We can have the same kind of success, if you can call it that, on our own that we did on Interscope. It really sucked. I was very stressful and wasn't conducive to making good music, that's for sure. But it's over, and things are really great now. ROCKIST: How did you hook up with Vagrant? JOHN: Well, we were off the label and some people started calling. And they were one of the labels that were pretty much immediately interested. We met with them. They seemed pretty cool. And after meeting with them a couple times AND seeing what our options were with everyone else...we knew we didn't want to make the same mistake again and we wanted to put ourselves in a position where we can just be left alone, not fucked with. "Here's a record, put it out." So, Vagrant's really cool. ROCKIST: Plus you have the benefit of having an artist-run label. JOHN: They've just been into the band for a really long time. It’s not like some people that have some idea of what we're about. They KNOW what we're about. And it's accurate. They've followed us from our very first record. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And although they don’t put out a lot of music that I would consider to be in the same genre as what we're doing, I think their enthusiasm and their genuine love of the music transcends any differences in taste. When we were on Interscope, they had the worst fucking bands in the world. It wasn't like I really felt allegiance with Marilyn Manson or anyone like that. It's a much better situation. The bureaucracy with being on a major label is very frustrating as well, having to explain yourself so many times and explaining your intentions to so many different people and what you want to do that your vision becomes completely deluded and you become completely exhausted by always having to justify and explain to everybody what you want to do. It's mind-blowing how it's run just like the government. It's just run so inefficiently. A major label will make posters and spend four times as much making posters than you or I would if we just called up a pressing plant. ROCKIST: And you're paying for them. JOHN: Everything is in excess. There's no attention paid to actually being accountable to the finances so that the band has the chance of re-couping without having to sell five million records. ROCKIST: What was the most ridiculous promise they made to you? JOHN: On the last record, they went into the record and they didn't like it. And we were like, "We really like it. And our contract says that even if you don't like the record, you still have to put it out and support it. Are you guys still willing to do that?" They said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it." And the record didn't even really make it to the stores. We would be on tour...and there was nothing in magazines...all the stuff we got used to. The expressed that they weren't into it but they would still get behind it if that was what we wanted. We said, "Well, why don’t' you use all the money that it takes for us to go on the road. We won't take any finances to go and tour and instead, you put all the money that you're contractually obligated to give to us and put that into only promoting the record. Only put that onto the promotion end." And they said, "That sounds like a good agreement." And they never did anything. So not only did we pay for our own tours on the last couple of tours that we did. And we didn't make any money because we were putting it back into the band, but then the label didn't live up to their end of the bargain and assure that there was awareness of the record. People didn't even really hear the record so that was kind of a bum-out.	ROCKIST: What was the biggest difference touring with the Hot Snakes versus touring as Rocket? JOHN: Well, the Hot Snakes is pretty much just like a vacation for me. I don’t have to sing and yell every night. It's very off the cuff. We just kind of get up there and that's it. The band only had about three practices before the last tour. It's not as tight as Rocket. It's more loose., but that's what keeps it fresh.. And we want to just be able to have fun with the Hot Snakes as well. And it's a totally different thing. You can't really compare it to Rocket except that I play in both bands and both bands have loud guitars. That's about it. It's pretty different all the way around. ROCKIST: Were you surprised at all by the reaction to the Hot Snakes? JOHN: Well, I was surprised. I mean, I really really like the record a lot. I think it's cool. And I was hoping that people would get it and check it out. Because I dig it and I want people to check it out. I put out the record myself and I didn't really do anything to try to gain any awareness. It's kind of cheesy, but it was definitely one of those things where you had the fact that Rick was in Drive Like Jehu and myself and you had that interest because of the people that were in the band. The reputation kind of preceded the record so I think there were a lot of people that would check it out just because people want to hear Rick sing again and stuff like that. I was surprised. I knew there would be people into it, but I was surprised by the amount of interest definitely. ROCKIST: I think it grew from being something where people were intially intererested because of you and Rick into something where people were telling everyone, "Here's this great rock record...you HAVE to hear it." Word of mouth had a lot to do with it. JOHN: I think punk music has really evolved over the years and there's things that have been done in the past that I really like by certain bands that could have been elaborated on and could have spawned just so many other ideas of other people doing things that, but they just kind of get overlooked. And people are getting a lot more introspective now, people that are part of whatever you want to call it...the punk scene has kind of changed and people splinter off and it's not so defined anymore. What is punk? Is it Blink 182 that's selling 8 million records. Who knows? Who really knows what it is? I can't profess to say that I know what it really is. What I think punk music is...my idea of it...it's not the clothes, not the stylistic imprint, and not a drumbeat. It has much more to it than that. It's about a fierce, independent, no-holds-barred kind of spirit that just drives it...it's music that's created almost more so for the people that are playing it than anything else. It's not a complete catharsis. Part of it is just that I really enjoy hearing these sounds. And it's not just for release, it's just wanting to be creative and make some interesting music. For me, the whole Hot Snakes thing was, "Let's make a really great punk record." ROCKIST: Were the other guys talking about the same ideas while you were recording the record? Were you talking about that? JOHN: Well, it's kind of weird because the record was just recorded with just myself [on guitar] and Jason on drums. There's no bass on the record. I didn’t know what it was going to be at first. We recorded twenty songs, over an hour's worth of music. Who knew what it was? It was just these parts and these songs. And some of them were songs and some of them were parts. And a lot of it didn't really have an identity. There was definitely a sound that was forming, but it wasn't as clear-cut as it became after Rick started singing on it and started putting lyrics to it. When I talked to Rick, I was like, "Do you think this is something you'd want to do?" And I made him a tape. His initial reaction was like, "This is exactly what I want to be doing right now"...as far as being something just a bit more stripped down, a lot more easy, a lot more lethal and more direct. [Drive Like] Jehu had direct parts. But that was basically what Jehu became for me was just a whole bunch of parts, separate parts, because of the dynamics of the band, the songwriting of the band, the way it ended up on the last record. ROCKIST: So do you think of Hot Snakes as more of a band now or just a project that you'll pick up when you have the time? JOHN: It's a band...because when we play it has a life of its own and it lives and it breathes and even when we're not playing together, there's things that still connect us. And so that makes it a band....It's just not the kind of band that plays all the time. It's just a thing where we'll play a couple times a year and that's it. We plan on making another record. And I think the next record is going to be better than the first one, because it'll have more involvement with everybody before we make it. ROCKIST: Are you using the songs that didn't make it onto Automatic Midnight? JOHN: We went back and visited them. Because I haven't listened to them in a long time, we went back and visited them the other day when we were on the East Coast and I think we decided that there were about four of them that we might want to do something with. And then the band has another two songs that were written after the record. The progression of the band's going to be really slow. And it might become tedious to watch because we don't play together very often. But it's really cool because when we get together we don't take that time for granted and make the most of it. And that's what matters. ROCKIST: What was it like working with Rick again? JOHN: Oh, it's awesome. I mean, it's the third band I've been in with him. In a lot of ways, he's the voice for a lot of my favorite stuff that I've written. His voice goes so well with it. He's the voice of it, it's not even just that his voice singing with it sounds good. I mean, that's the fit. I think I've really found someone I can collaborate with and get so much more than what I could accomplish on my own. I consider myself lucky to be able to play with him. I'm pretty lucky. ROCKIST: So do you end up thinking about what will become a Hot Snakes song versus what will end up as a Rocket song? JOHN: The Hot Snakes, a lot of that stuff was all written within one or two months of each other. I rented this space where everything I was writing was very dense and had more of a sinister sound to it. It just didn't sound like Rocket from the Crypt. I was trying to come up with some words and some vocals for it and I was just having such a hard time. And it was just really obvious to me very early on that this wasn't Rocket from the Crypt music. It kind of sucks to make that distinction because I don't really need to make that distinction. Rocket could do the songs and they'd probably be pretty cool, but it wouldn't be the same...it wouldn't be the way I've envisioned it in my head. They're really similar in the sense that both bands when we play just love to have a good time. And there's not the pretension of "Oh, this is so difficult, only we can be doing this stuff. You should be bowing in our presence." Because we all come from the same mentality where the audience is just so important to the success of a show, whether a show's good or not. The audience is just as accountable as the band is, I think, in a lot of ways. Even both these bands are really different, it's not like I have split personalities where I'm one person in one band and another person in another. It's still just me.
ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT Discography (U.S. Albums / EP's) Paint As A Fragrance (Headhunter, 1991) Circa: Now! (Headhunter, 1992) (reissued by Interscope, 1993) All Systems Go (Headhunter, 1993) (reissued Sympathy for the Record Industry, 1998) The State Of Art Is On Fire (SFTRI, 1995) Hot Charity (Perfect Sound, 1995) Scream, Dracula, Scream! (Interscope, 1995) RFTC (Interscope, 1998) All Systems Go II (Swami, 1999) Cut Carefully And Play Loud (Flapping Jet, 1999) Group Sounds (Vagrant Records, 2001)