It’s been a while since I’d seen the ‘Skulls, but it all came back pretty quick to me. A tiny stage, a 7 piece band, lots of collisions, lots of sweat, lots of screaming, lots of skanking, lots of fun.
Yeah, I guess not much changes in 10 years or so.The guys are still the same, at least the “core-four” who formed the band 13 years ago. They still live in California. They still play that same skank-inducing, hardcore-slash-ska-slash-punk-slash-metal music with the rapid fire monotone vocals, metallic guitars and blistering brass section that they’ve playing for years. They’re still writing songs in both Spanish and English and they still tour like fucking crazy.
They’ve changed their brass section (a few times) and their record labels (twice). They’ve released a bunch of LPs (4 or 5) and have a new record out now. Yep, this tour was to celebrate the July release of “Steady As She Goes” on Chicago’s Victory Records. This one was recorded by the ‘Skulls, funded by the ‘Skulls and produced by the ‘Skulls. Believe it or not, this is the first time they’ve tried that combination. (DIY guys, Hello!)
Anyway, it seems to be working out for them. They love the new record, they love to tour and they love to do interviews. So, here we go...
The Voodoo Glow Skulls are FrankCasillas-vocals, Eddie Casillas-guitar, Jorge Casillas-bass, Jerry O’Neill-drums, Joe Helios Hernandez-saxophone and Brodie Johnson-trombone.
Jorge answered the questions and is labeled as VGS...
I (marck) asked the questions and am labeled as SHZ.
SINK HOLE ZINE-Typically, when the subject of chemistry comes up in an interview-so many people respond with a line thats become so cliché- “it’s like we’re brothers”. Three of you actually are brothers, how does that work out in terms of chemistry and the band in general?
Voodoo Glow Skulls-I think that one good thing is with 3 of us being brothers we all have the same early influences. So, in that aspect it allows our influences to be a heavy and personal part of the band. Then you add to that the other guys who have their own tastes and their own influences growing up. With that combination-it mixes it up and that gives you the Glow Skulls. As far as chemistry, I don’t know if the “brothers” thing means anything. We all just get along-we’ve been doing this a long time and we just get along. We all seem to like to the same type of shit. We all grow up listening to similar types of music and we all like to play music and have fun.
SHZ-What kind of music did you grow up listening to, what were earliest musical roots?
VGS-The first stuff was old rock and roll that my parents would listen to. We’d be in the car on the way to church listening to the old rock.
SHZ-Classic rock?
VGS-No. Real old rock and roll. Like shit from the 1950’s. We listened to that alot early on. Of course both my parents are from Mexico so we listened to alot of traditional Spanish music as well. Like Mariachi music. If you don’t know what that is-it’s kind of like Country, but Mexican style. It’s a little crazier though, cuz they can play it really fast. It’s alot like the style of our version of “Charlie Brown”. You know all that really influenced us, then as we got older and we started discovering our own music, that factored in, too. The first live band I ever saw was Iron Maiden and they are a HUGE fucking influence on us. Them, Judas Priest and a handful of other old real heavy, heavy metal bands. Later on, like in the early 80’s, we all starting getting into punk. Then, when the Two-Tone Ska shit starting hitting the States, we got into that, too. We started sampling that, buying records and getting into it. From there, we just had so much different shit we were into, it just took off and boom-here we are.
SHZ-At what point did you realize that you wanted to play music and be in a band?
VGS-When we were kids, me and Jerry (drummer) and my brother Eddie (guitar)-we started fucking around like we were a band long before we could play any instruments. Jerry had a shitty toy drum kit and me and Eddie had some old crappy guitars. Well, we built a stage in Jerry’s backyard and we would fucking hook the stereo up in his room which was behind the stage and we would crank it up and lip sync to metal bands. That’s how it started, then we actually starting learning how to play, it was a lot of fun and it just kept going. We all started off pretty young. I guess I was around 12 when I really started playing and I’d be in different little bands here and there. The idea of Voodoo came around when I was in 9th grade, and thats when we started playing. That was 1987. At that time it was just me, Jerry and Eddie. Then Frank, our singer, was like “hey, I’ll try to sing for you until you find a real singer.”
SHZ-And 15 years later...
VGS-He’s still here. So, after we did a couple of tours with the 4 of us, we decided we wanted to add horns. It was really because of the style we were playing. It was kind of a “frantic funk” sound, sometimes a little reggae stuff. We just thought that the horns would add to it, so we started asking around at our shows to see if anyone wanted to play horns for us. Thats how we ended with our first brass section. They are no longer in the band, but thats how we ended up with Brodie and Mason.
SHZ-With there being so few people out there who can play horns and actually like punk and hardcore music-how hard is it to find horn players, especially on short notice?
VGS-We’ve had guys sit in with us before when we were in a jam. Like we had a guy from Hepcat sit in with us. I don’t think he liked it all. Our horn players have to play super hard, and he was like a schooled horn player that played a lot softer, which is the correct way.
SHZ-So the moniker “Band Geek Mafia”, were you ever actually in the school band?
VGS-No. That was a dig that some other band said about us. They said we were like big, mean jockish guys who were geeks at the same time. They actually called us the “band geek mafia”. We took the name and went with it.
SHZ-So, who was it?
VGS-A band we toured with-Hickey
SHZ-So, I guess it’s the hyper-hardcore-ska thing in your music that reminds people of the circus? While listening to your new CD one of my friends suggested that you guys should have fire-eating midgets, a clown car, whatever. He thought that kind of a show would make you guys huge. Have you ever contemplated the “circus theme”?
VGS-Well, we do the fire thing already (with a burning Voodoo staff) and we recently made the monster biker guy. Like I said before, Iron Maiden was my first show and a huge influence on us. They have “Eddie”, so we figured since we already used the character on our covers and shit-why not make him up and go with it. Really, I don’t consider it circus music, though. Its fun, with a lot of energy and we try to put on a memorable show.
SHZ-Before I forget, I wanna make sure that I ask you about the new label. You put out your last few albums with Epitaph, now your on Victory. How did it all work out? Why did you leave Epitaph and how did you end up at Victory?
VGS-As far as Epitaph goes, I think they just stopped caring about us. The last few records we put out they didn’t seem interested in. They seemed to kinda ignore them (our records) and not push them or advertise them at all. I think alot of that may have stemmed from personal problems with the guy who actually runs the label (not Brett). I mean this guy isn’t even into punk. He plays music on the piano and puts out these weird fucking classical albums and he’s running a punk label? We had some things to say to him, and he didn’t like it. Basically, we had a problem because they weren’t pushing our albums at all. We had gone on tour to support a new album, and after a month on the road we collected a huge stack of magazines from every city we played in and there was not a single ad for us in there. We really didn’t appreciate that and we let them know. Another thing was that in the end I don’t think anyone at the label was really into our band at all anymore. I guess when it ended with them, it was a mutual thing. They didn’t want to put our next record out and we didn’t want them to-because we knew that they weren’t gonna do anything with it and probably wouldn’t like it.
SHZ-So basically your contract ran out and...
VGS-Yeah, it ran out, and I’m glad it did. We got the hell out of there.
SHZ-How much shopping did you do before you ended up with Victory?
VGS-We’ve always had the majors trying to get us to sign on, of course we’ve never liked what they had to say anyway. There’s some other indie labels that have had interest in us. Roadrunner tried to sign us. We actually tried to get signed to American Records (Rick Rubin’s label). We sent something to them, I don’t even know if they got it. Oh well. Ya know, we tried a handful of labels, but when it came down to it, Victory was just the best place for us. So far, they’ve seemed excited and they’ve been doing a good job for us.
SHZ-Now, you guys actually recorded and produced this album entirely by yourselves. Was this a first for you and how did it go?
VGS-Yeah, we did everything ourselves this time around. It was the first time we’d done it that way. Basically, the main reason we did it was to save money because we didn’t really have the bucks to pay a studio and producer and shit. Plus we have our own studio and we have always thought that only we (the guys in the band) know exactly what we wanna sound like and what we should sound like. We just decided ‘why not?’, I mean we know how to run all the equipment and we’ve recorded enough to know the routine, so like I said, we said fuck it, we’ll do it ourselves and see how it comes out. If worse came to worse and it sounded like shit, well, we hadn’t wasted any money. We figured if it didn’t work out, we always go out and rent a studio or hire somebody else, but fortunately it did and we didn’t have to. We really just didn’t want to do it that way this time. We felt like we could handle everything ourselves and we did.
SHZ-How long was the whole recording process?
VGS-Roughly a month. Maybe a little less.
SHZ-Is that standard for you? I mean how much time did you spend recording “Symbolic”?
VGS-About the same.
SHZ-Obviously, it did work out-the recording I mean. Do this mean that your done forever with outside studios and producers?
VGS-Yeah, I mean we can do it ourselves, so why bother? We will do the next album ourselves and we’ll try even harder to make it even better. Who knows though? It might come out sounding like shit, but we’ll see. I mean, we’re really happy with how this one came out. I think overall, it sounds just as good, if not better than some of the top dollar producers we had doing it in the past.
SHZ-You mentioned that a lot of the major labels were after you guys, trying to sign you. Was it a tough decision not to take the money and run?
VGS-No, it wasn’t a tough decision to make at all. I mean, we’re older guys, our singer has a couple of kids, we’re almost all married-so the money would be nice. Then again, we’ve seen so many bands that we’ve come across who go for the big money and sign on the line, then a year later they can’t even get a gig because they’re not the “big thing” anymore. We wanted to stay away from all that. We don’t want to alienate our true fans, we just want a small spurt-15 minutes of fame. We want longevity. If we do ever do get huge, well, we know we worked hard for it. We put the time in, the work in, we didn’t just jump at a bonus deal.
SHZ-So even though you don’t have the money for true rock star excess on tour, what kind of funky shit has been going on this time out on the road?
VGS-We haven’t had anything crazy go on, just dumb things. Let me think...Our drummer Jerry got kicked out of a strip club for stripping up on a table. He got real drunk, stood up and just started taking it all off.
SHZ-Is that standard practice for Jerry-get drunk, get naked?
VGS-Umm...yeah, I guess its happened more than once.
SHZ-Was anybody into it?
VGS-No, not really. Lets see, other funny stuff...Jerry and Eddie got kicked out of the club last night. They were really drunk and Jerry got kicked out for peeing on the floor, so Eddie took a piss on the floor and got kicked out, too. Its always just little stupid things like that, and they never remember the next day.
SHZ-So when drunken fun is going on, is Jerry always in the middle of it?
VGS-Usually yeah. All right, here’s one without Jerry...Last night the promoter was gonna give me some Cuervo. He poured me a double shot and I pounded it. Well, it wasn’t Cuervo, it was some nasty generic Tequila. So, drinking all that, it fucked me up pretty bad. We got a hotel room and I was up in it puking into a trash can. Well, this guy wanders into my room. He came up to me and says “Hey are you all right?”. I didn’t think too much of it, but I had never seen this fucking guy before in my life. I looked up and said “I’m sick”. He said okay and left. Two minutes later he came back in and said “hey man, do you have 3 dollars?”. I got kind of mad, I said “What? Get the fuck out of here, I’m sick!” He says “Oh man, I just need 3 bucks for gas”. I headed over to the trash can again and puked again. I mean normally I’m pretty generous when somebody needs a hand, but I was right in the middle of puking my fucking brains out. What the fuck was he thinking walking into a strangers room, then asking for money, while I’m on the floor puking? It’s a little too much.
SHZ- So aside from staying away from El Cheapo Tequila-what are your plans for the rest of 2002?
VGS-We’re gonna keep touring all year long to support this record. We want to hit every part of the country that we can to let kids know that its out. I mean not all kids read magazines, go online or even go to record stores. Thats all we can do. Victory does a good job, but they’re not a big money machine. We have to do our part to get people to listen to us. Thats pretty much what we’ll do. Tour and support the new record, play to as many new kids as possible and just play wherever they’ll let us.
SHZ-Are there any bands out there that you guys really dig and would like to play with or tour with?
VGS-The Groovie Ghoulies are one-we’ll get to tour with them this year. These two bands (River City Rebels, 10 Foot Pole) have been really cool. We’ll tour with anybody that plays hard, heavy music.
SHZ-Would you rather play with ska bands, hardcore bands or what?
VGS-I like a good mixed bill. Too much of the same thing gets real boring. If you could put a regular skate-punk band, a hardcore band, a hard punk band and us. Thats the perfect mix for me. We’ve played with everyone from Chumbawumba to Hatebreed to Neurosis.
SHZ-Do you have any favorites to listen to or tour with?
VGS-We really like everyone-but of course we have favorites. Guttermouth is a favorite of mine to watch every night. Its fun watching them onstage cuz they’re always doing something funny and stupid and its always something new. I like the Vandals-they’re fun. There was a band called Schlong that we used to tour with alot. We were on Warped Tour in 1998. We met a lot of bands that we hadn’t ever had the chance to play with before. Bands like L.E.S. Stitches were awesome. The Deftones were pretty cool.
SHZ-So what are you guys listening to in the van these days?
VGS-We listen to a pretty wide range. Of course we’re always listening to Slayer. We’ve been listening to the Groovie Ghoulies a lot lately. The Rezillos are awesome. Every now and then we listen to West Coast hip hop. Some Reggae, some Mexican music. If you look through our CD books you’ll find a hug variety of shit. R & B isn’t our style, and we don’t do the boy bands or Top 40 shit, but otherwise its a pretty big variety.
SHZ-So if the band got its start in 1988, then next year you’ll be celebrating 15 years. Have you thought about that milestone or thought about doing anything special to celebrate?
VGS-No, nothing special. We’ll just tour, its what we do.
SHZ-So there’s no thoughts about ending this anytime soon?
VGS-We’re not really showing any signs of slowing down. There’s some towns where the shows are kind of empty, but the next time we come through there are more kids. There’s times when its kind of hard, but this is what we do, this is all we do, and we love it.
SHZ-Is it weird for you when you guys are playing a tune where the lyrics are all in Spanish and you look out and see all these white kids singing along?
VGS-Its pretty cool. Kinda trippy really. A lot of kids come up to us and tell us that they liked a song in Spanish, so they went and learned what all the words mean, then it means even more to them. I like it. Thats why we do it, because when they do that, it’s like they’re learning our culture. I mean we’re not trying to push our language, but if kids want to learn it, its cool. For us, I guess it really just gives us more options for song writing.
SHZ-All right, I’ve taken up enough of your time, and your gonna have a lot of drinking to do if you want to catch up with everybody else cuz their really going already. We can end it here, but first, I need five words to sum it all up...
VGS-Come see our band play.
SHZ-I just did...
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