***An Interview With Chris from Hot Water Music-3/17/01***
On March 17th Leatherface, Honor System and Small Brown Bike came to St.Pete to play with Hot Water Music. It was St. Patricks Day and ‘Hot Water Music’ did what they do nearly every night of the year-they put on an intense, high-energy show to a full house. They are one of punks hardest working bands, touring constantly in support of their 6 LPs. They recently signed to Epitaph Records and will be releasing an album with them on June 5th, 2001.
When their high energy show was over, haggard, sweaty and feeling the pain of 2 bad knees, guitarist Chris sat down for a good long conversation with me. There was drama early when there was a lot of cold beer and no bottle openers, but Chris was able to perform the decapitation with the slam of his hand on a table’s edge. The beer was drank, and his hand was not harmed. All was well, except his cigarettes were missing, but that was rectified 2 beers into our chat which covered music, shooting pool, skating, deep-sea exploration, punk rock parenthood and how much he loves Florida. Several more beers were emptied over the 3-hour meeting we had before we (got kicked out) called it a night...
‘Hot Water Music’ is: Chris, Jason, Chuck and George, (I talked to Chris)
SINK HOLE ZINE-So you guys are from Florida?
HOT WATER MUSIC-I’m from Flint, Michigan, but I moved to Bradenton (Punk Mecca) when I was in 6th grade. I had lived out in the middle of nowhere, I lived on a horse farm for a while, I lived on a lake off of a dirt road out in Michigan. I started trying to learn to skate out there in the boonys in Michigan, and when I moved to Florida there were a bunch of kids in my neighborhood who were trying to skate, too. We all started skating together, and then soon we were getting into punk rock. I was already playing the guitar and forming little bands. It was a lot of fun back then, hanging out, going to shows, having a good time. The older I got, the more places I went, and then I discovered Gainesville. The first time I went to The Spokehouse I looked around and I said to myself “as soon as I get out of high school, this is where I want to be, this is the town for me.” The other guys in Hot Water are all from Sarasota. We had some other bands we were working on, and we all decided, fuck it-let’s move to Gainesville. Well, when we got to Gainesville the bands all broke up within a month. The only people that were still into it were the 4 of us (Jason, Chuck, George and Chris). We all lived in the same apartment complex, and as it turned out there was a drummer, a bass player and two guitarists. We talked about it and we all decided to hang around and stick it out, and start a new band. So we started writing songs. That was the birth of Hot Water Music. We moved in August and by September of 1994 we were playing our own music.
SHZ-So what about the Gainesville scene in your opinion?
HWM-A few years ago in G-ville there were a shitload of clubs. There was the Hardback, The Covered Dish, they were great clubs, but now they’re gone. We have to improvise a little bit, now. There are some shows at Wayward Council, Common Grounds, The Arc, Market Street Pub, and of course house shows. Now it’s scattered and not as tight as before, but there is still a lot of activity. There are so many good bands. (name a few) Hello Shitty People, Bitchin, The Bodrees, The Joe Smith Project, Army Of Ponch, The Beltones, Burnman, Gunmoll, there are so many bands in the Gainesville area, it’s fucking great. Oh, and all of us are in other bands, too. Yeah, there’s always a lot of small shows going on. To me I think that there are a lot of people keeping busy trying to build the scene up to what it was and even better.
SHZ-Was it hard for you guys coming out of Florida, in terms of being accepted nationally, etc.? It seems that a Florida band would be at a disadvantage compared to a Los Angeles or New York City band...
HWM-We never even thought of it that way. We just wanted to play. We didn’t think about being a regional act, or a national act. Our goal when we started was to go on a tour, and when we did-our first tour was half canceled. I remember we were in New York-we had 3 shows canceled, then a little record store show, than 3 more days canceled. We stayed in New York for a week, playing only one show, and it ain’t cheap to stay in New York. You know, in the beginning people around Gainesville weren’t into us. Noone wanted to play with us, but we took every show that we could get. We’d play the Hardback twice a week, and play any other show we could get. We’d get on any split we could. We played around town, and in the summer we’d book our own tours and play wherever we could, every chance we got. We just kept on doing that and not letting up and I guess people started to notice us. That’s still our attitude, we still want to go out and play everywhere. This tour we’re hitting 2 more states that we’ve never played before and I’m happy about it. Ya know, when we started, noone dug us. We just played for anyone who’d listen. Now people are listening and we have a real chance to go anywhere, and we’re stoked about it. We got to play 220 shows last year.
SHZ-What is Hot Water’s message? What banners are you carrying, what message are you selling?
HWM-Ya know, I don’t think that the band carries a banner. We’re 4 people. We all believe that what we are doing is genuine, but we all have different reasons. We all grew up very differently and that’s good. I would hate for our stories and things we’ve been through, I would hate for them to become a generic banner. We are 4 guys moving through our lives playing music the way we want to play it and doing things the way we want to do it.
Personally, one of my main reasons and messages is that I want to show my son that you don’t have to be what they tell you to be. You don’t have to sit in an office and get treated like shit by a boss who doesn’t care about you. A lot of people in my family have had to do that. I’m from Flint, Michigan. GM town, factory town. If I can show my son that if you believe, try and work as hard as you can at something. If you stick it out when it’s tough...I want to show him that there is a reward at the end of it all. You can survive doing what you want to do. Whatever the fuck he’s into, I want him to be able to do it and be happy. I just don’t think that you should have to work every day of your life for somebody who doesn’t give a fuck about you and what you have to offer. If I can do what I love to do, if I can do that and show my son that it is possible, that will give him hope. He won’t just have to be a cog in the machine.
SHZ-You guys put on a pretty decent show tonight; I really like that you let the kids on stage with you. Not just diving, they can come up, stand beside you and sing in your mic-that is really awesome that you let them do that because so many bands won’t give people the opportunity to come on stage like that.
HWM-The first million shows we played were at a club that didn’t even have a stage (The Hardback). If you want to singalong, you just singalong. There shouldn’t be two different sets of people. Sometimes I’m the guy on stage, and sometimes I’m in the crowd getting my head beat in. Why should I be allowed on the stage and someone else not, thats bullshit. I know what its like to want to dance and want to stage dive, to want to get up on stage and act like a fool. As long as you’re not hurting anybody, it’s just a good time.
...halfway through the show an adult male in full bear costume appeared in the crowd, within minutes he was on the stage singing into a mic and growling. This was not a half-ass bear suit, it was furry, full body and had a hood with ears...
SHZ-So is there significance to the bear costume?
HWM-No, not at all...I was thinking about one year when I was little and I was Yogi Bear for Halloween-I had a similar suit. It was pretty cool though. I look down and I see a big guy in a bear suit and he’s waving at me. Next thing I know he’s at Chuck’s microphone. He’s singing along word for word, and then gradually the words turned into grrr, rrra, he’d just growl. That was fucking cool.
SHZ-After the show I heard a couple of guys talking by the merch stand while they waited in line to buy your shit, one was telling the other what a great show that was. He said he had never heard you guys before, but said this was the best show he had ever seen, then he bought some CDs.
HWM-That’s a great compliment in two ways. That means that one of his friends must have said even though you’ve never heard them before, I think you’ll dig them. Then what he said about having a good time. Thats great stuff to hear. There was a feeling tonight that there were some people checking us out for the first time and that’s great, too.
SHZ-Okay, its time to talk about Epitaph...how did you hook up with them, and how are things going?
HWM-It’s kind of weird how we hooked up with Epitaph. We were playing Warped Tour in San Francisco, and I met this guy (named Charlie) when we were done playing for the day. We were drinking beer and hanging out, he was a cool guy and we were partying and talking. He was like- “I work at Epitaph, do you have a demo or anything of what your doing?” Yeah, I had a couple out in the van, and I gave him one. We hung out for the rest of the night and he took the CD with him. Well, the CD was blank. There wasn’t a single fucking note of music on it. He called someone we knew and he wanted to know what the fuck was going on. I said shit and sent him my copy as quick as I could. They called us and said they were into it, that they were really into it. They started coming out to our shows and shit. Now we had sent out a bunch of demos (we never sent one directly to Epitaph) and alot of labels wanted it out, but none showed the interest that Epitaph did. Brett, the owner of Epitaph, was so into it. He would start coming to our shows and talking to us. The other labels didn’t do that; they didn’t come to our shows and follow us around like that. He’s a guy who you could talk to about anything, be it music, songwriting, touring or life. We just swapped stories and enjoyed each others company. He believed in us and that is what we wanted, to work with a label that did believe in us. That is how we have always worked. Sometimes it’s been a bad way to do things, but with others its worked. That’s why we still work with No Idea, the vinyl version of the new record will be released by No Idea. He is one of my best friends and he rules-we won’t do everything with them, but we’ll always do something. Ya know as far as Epitaph goes-I used to think of it as this big huge company, I think a lot of people do. When we got there and met everybody there was such a good vibe and I knew a lot of the Epitaph people already, just from going to shows and shit. It’s a label that really is behind us.
SHZ-So now that you’re on Epitaph, are you in for the Punk O Rama tours?
HWM-(laughing hysterically) I’m not laughing at your question...There’s this pizza place in Gainesville that my other band has played at that has a night-the last whatever of every month, and they call it Punk O Rama. We played it, Leo’s Pizza, it was so shitty and fun. But, to answer your question, who knows? Brett from Epitaph knows what it’s like to go on the road for years and I trust him to set up the right shows for us. If they want us to do that, it would be a ton of fun. The fact that Brett spent so many years on the road with his band (Bad Religion) means a lot to us. To have a label that appreciates life on the road and shit-that helps, cuz he’s been there. He’s made all the van rides and dealt with all the problems.
SHZ-So what other bands are you guys in?
HWM-I’m part of the Sheryl Cro(w) Mags, Me and Chuck do Rumbleseat with his wife. Those 2 bands play together a lot. Jason is in a band called Unitas. Unitas and Sheryl Crow Mags are going out on tour together as soon as this tour is over. George is in a band called Still. There are always new bands popping up and bands falling apart, too. It’s one of the philosophies of the band. As a band we try to work with as many people as we can. We like to play new clubs, record for new labels, and play with new people and new bands, just to stay fresh and try new things. It keeps us inspired and keeps us from falling into a shitty groove. You play with different people-you get better; you try new things-you get smarter.
SHZ-So you guys have been together for 7 years now-your punk veterans. Has the playing in other bands helped your longevity?
HWM-In some bands they don’t allow that, they won’t let you be in other bands. I understand that, and I understand why they do that, but that’s not for us. We are 4 different guys who are all on a journey together, but we’re also on our own separate journeys. So yes, it helps.
SHZ-Now for the really serious questions, what’s your favorite beer?
HWM- (he answers after a long sip of his Corona) I really like Jever, I like Becks. I really like different Mexican beers.
SHZ-Your favorite book?
HWM-The Drinker by Hans Falatta
SHZ-Your favorite movie?
HWM-Right now I really like the Coen brothers movies. Obviously Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Millers Crossing...I think Oh Brother is fucking fantastic. I really like their work, oh and Ethan Coen wrote a really good book, too. He wrote Gates Of Eden, it’s a collection of short stories.
SHZ-Now, your favorite record?
HWM-I couldn’t possibly give you a favorite record. I love records, I love buying records and listening to them. Lately, what I have listened to most has been Black Flag, Gray Matter, Junior Kimbro, Elmore James, Robert Townsend, of course B.B. King, The ‘Stones, Newtown Neurotics, The Wipers-I love the fucking Wipers.
SHZ-What’s up with the new album?
HWM-It’s all done; it will be out here in the States in June. It will be released in Europe sooner because we will be in Europe touring at the time. I’m not sure how different it is from our other stuff, but each album we have tried to move farther and farther away from one person writing all the songs. We are trying to make every aspect of the album a group effort. We all work against and with each other’s stuff. We all wrote songs; in fact we’ve become really comfortable writing with each other. I think its because we’ve played so many fucking shows together. The new album, I really love it. I am so happy about it. There is a lot of very deep soul searching on everyone’s part. It is a very intense emotional experience for me. This record is a chronicle of what has gone on in our lives this past year. It’s been such a heavy period of time and it really shows. There is alot of truth in it; the record is a search for all of us.
SHZ-We haven’t talked about Florida in a few minutes, I want to know some more cool stuff about Bradenton and Sarasota.
HWM-We played the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota once. It was our second show ever and we played in the cafeteria. (SHZ-what was your 1st show?) It was at Dirty Nellies. That’s an Irish pub in Gainesville. We were just trying to get whatever shows we could and someone was having a party and we were the band. After a couple of songs the owner made us stop-he said he wanted people to dance. He turned us off and put on some booty music. That was the end of our first show. We weren’t discouraged; we knew what we wanted to do.
SHZ-Have you ever played at a rest area off the highway?
HWM-No, but how’s this? We were playing Cleveland Fest...Well, I used to roadie for Assuck, and their guitarist roadied for us. We bought a van for $600 and we put $600 into it in repairs and we shared it. If they went on tour, they took it. If we went, we took it. It was a good deal for us. We went out to play Cleveland Fest and we got stuck in this traffic jam leaving the city the next day. Our van was so bad. There was a big hole in the engine block that we siliconed shut. Everything that went wrong-we just took out. When it finally died, it erupted every fluid in the fucking thing. We left the fucking thing in Michigan and all found different ways home. So back to the story, we’re in a bad traffic jam in the van; it’s a little Chevy C-10, 1979. It was overheating beyond control, we weren’t moving and it was just running, so we pulled over under this overpass and we just stopped. We pulled the drums out of the back of the van and set them up. Now there are cars slowly rolling by, very slowly. So we get out the guitars and start playing music. We opened a guitar case and people start throwing money in it as they drive by. We made more money on the side of the road than we did playing the show. Then, of course the cop came. He told us it was dangerous to be here and that we should pack up. This cop had Johny Cash’s autograph inside his logbook and he had to show it off to all of us. We tell him that we’re just trying to earn some money to get home. Now remember we are in the middle of fucking nowhere, out in Ohio...We shoot the shit while we pack up, we all look at the autograph, then he leaves and we’re back on the road. After an hour we finally get about a mile down the road, and we see the cop again and he pulls us over. He says “hey I got ahold of some of my friends around here and I know some people who own some farms-if you boys need some work, we can get you money to get home.” He said “Just pull over at the next exit and give these guys a call and they can give you work on the farm for 3 days.” We kept on going, we did it our own way, but goddamn...Yeah, that van is on the cover of the “Forever And Counting” CD, the red van-what a piece of shit.
SHZ-All right, how about some more horror stories from the road...
HWM-I remember we went out in the winter, on Christmas break up north (Jason and me were in school). There was no heating in the van and no insulation. It was so fucking cold and we were going through the mountains. It was so cold in there that there were icicles blowing sideways on the sideview mirrors and inside there was a sheet of ice on the ceiling. A fucking sheet of ice, that sucked, really sucked. Right now we don’t even have a van. Last tour we were on the way to our first show and we threw a rod and blew up our van. Our van and our trailer are sitting right in front of my house. It’s too fucking expensive to put a new engine in it.
SHZ-All right, they’re gonna kick us out the hell out of here, so real quick...I want you to describe yourself in 5 words...
HWM- (laughing hysterically) I...AM....A....BEAUTIFUL....FLOWER.....
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