A conversation with Redd Kross from 1997
Steve McDonand and Brian Reitzell talk about inspiring Stone Temple Pilots, covering Charles Manson, and interviewing Cher
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THE OPENERS
This week’s newsletter has a theme, and that theme is Redd Kross—the ‘80s hardcore punk brats-turned-underground glam sensations-turned-‘90s alt-rock contenders-turned-21st-century power-pop elder statesmen. The new self-titled double-album from brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald has become a summertime staple here at stübermania HQ, and I shared my thoughts on it this week at Pitchfork.
As you can see here, the album art for the new Redd Kross album is a ruby-tinged riff on The Beatles’ White Album, making it the second release this year from a veteran alternative act to pay colour-coded homage to the concept. Back in April, industrial drill sergeants Einstürzende Neubauten went with a yellow variation for their own double-album opus, Rampen (apm: alien pop music). Someone needs to release a blue version in the next six months to complete the 2024 primary-colour triptych.
As I mention in the aforelinked Pitchfork review, Redd Kross are one of those bands that don’t really have a definitive album on which everyone agrees, since they’ve gone through so many different phases and have picked up new fans/lost old ones with each aesthetic evolution. But the consistent high quality and holistic eclecticism of the new album might actually make it the best entry point for a newcomer… and then they can listen to my Redd Kross krash-kourse kompilation, featuring 45 highlights from across their 45-year-career:
THE HEADLINER
A conversation with Steve McDonald and Brian Reitzell of Redd Kross
Date: March 15, 1997
Location: The Second Cup at the corner of Bloor Street West and Lippincott in Toronto, just a few doors down from Lee’s Palace, where Redd Kross were about to open for The Presidents of the United States of America. Amazingly, footage from this very show exists online (thank you, YouTube user @heldopen!), highlighted by a performance of “Jimmy’s Fantasy” with a funny mid-song breakdown and adlibbed Spice Girls lyrics.
Album being promoted: Show World
The context: By 1997, Redd Kross were widely recognized as alt-rock trailblazers, with an impact that reverberated from the deepest depths of the underground to the top of the charts. Arriving nearly four years after their 1993 bubblegrunge triumph, Phaseshifter, Show World saw the McDonalds and co. catching the post-Weezer/Rentals/Fountains of Wayne wave of feel-good, radio-ready alt-pop. But Redd Kross’ record sales always lagged behind their influence, and at this point, they were still trying to court new audiences by opening for more commercially successful (if less critically acclaimed) bands like the Presidents. And while Redd Kross had been famously been crowned “the most important band in America” by Entertainment Weekly, they were still at the level where they were willing to sit down for the better part an hour with a Canadian university-newspaper writer/fanboy.
On top of being Gen X’s preeminent power-pop band—the Yankee counterpart to Canada’s Sloan, Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub, and Australia’s You Am I—Redd Kross’ most endearing and enduring quality is that they’ve remained voracious music fans at heart. They’ve always come off as the sort of enthusiasts who devour the music press and are conversant in all the latest buzz bands and industry gossip. In the mid-’90s, Jeff and Steve even served as occasional correspondents for Raygun magazine, interviewing ‘70s icons like Richard Carpenter and Cher.
Steve talked about that experience in this interview, as well as the early-‘80s L.A. punk scene, Charles Manson, KISS, the Darby Crash movie… pretty much everything except the album they were supposed to be promoting. Not that I came prepared with many questions about that—in hindsight, I think I was more excited to shoot the shit with some noted pop-culture junkies than interrogate them about their creative process. (For a far more thorough accounting of this band’s history, I highly recommend checking out director Andrew Reich’s excellent new Redd Kross documentary, Born Innocent, which, if you’re in the Toronto area, will be screening July 28 at the still very-much-operational Revue Cinema, where Jeff and Steve McDonald will be on-hand for an audience Q&A. Redd Kross will return to Lee’s Palace—without the Presidents of the United States of America—to perform the following night, July 29.)
So why are you doing this Presidents tour when you can easily sell out Lee's Palace on your own?
Brian: In America they're quite a big band.
Steve: We were bummed that it ended up here [at Lee’s Palace—capacity: 600] because we thought it was going to be at the [larger] Opera House. I think that the promoters were being really safe about it. This is the only Canadian date on the tour, and most of the dates in America are in, like, 1,000-2,000 seat places. They have a really big audience, even if their second album didn't do as well for them as their last one, so there are a lot of people who've never seen us before who we get to play for.
You seem to have a history of opening for the bands of the moment, who then experience a career downturn. Like The Lemonheads…
Steve: Do we have that history? Lemonheads are a good band, they've been around for a long time…
Their last record [1996’s Car Button Cloth] didn't do so well here…
Brian: I don't have the new one, but the one before [1993’s Come On Feel the Lemonheads] I thought was a great record.
Did you put a curse on the Stone Temple Pilots when you opened for them?
Brian: Yeah, we performed voodoo backstage every night.
Are they paying you royalties for "Big Bang Baby"?
Steve: Scott [Weiland] admits to us being an influence. I think of it more as a compliment, a homage to the sound of Jeff McDonald's voice.
So why did this new album, Show World, take so long?
Steve: The press release probably says four years, but it's closer to three. The record was supposed to come out September '96, which would have been three years even. But Jeff came down with mono, and then when he was getting better, Brian broke his ankle.
You guys are in worse shape than R.E.M.!
Steve: Well, at least his head didn't explode.
Brian: My god, don't even say that!
Steve: But we were touring our ass off. We came up here so many times—we probably played Toronto, like, seven times. We came here when the Switchblade Sister EP was out, and then we were out here at least four times for Phaseshifter. We did an entire tour from Halifax to Victoria supporting the Doughboys.
It seems like in the '70s, bands like KISS could put out three records per year...
Steve: Well, it's different now.
Brian: They didn't tour as much as bands tour now. I mean, nobody ever played in Spain back then.
Steve: And now people release all these different singles off an album, and they're working the album forever. The record label doesn't want you to release a record more than once every two years, because they feel your market is saturated at that point. For us, though, we just took a little bit of time off. But it wasn't even that much time, because we toured until, like, December '94 so basically all of '93-'94 pretty much was touring, except for a couple months to record Phaseshifter, and then we spent six months just recuperating. Then we started recording this album off and on for about a year. We went into the studio twice, and then wrote songs between those times.
What happened to [keyboardist] Gere Fennelly?
Steve: Gere played on a lot of the record, and she's kind of like an honorary member of our band for life, but she's not going to tour with this anymore. She's far too talented for us.
So in retrospect, was Phaseshifter a heavier album because of the post-Nevermind effect?
Steve: I think that it's not much of a reaction to Nevermind as it was a reaction to Third Eye, our album that preceded that, which was a really delicately crafted collection of pop songs, which is exactly what we wanted to do on that record. We had songs like "Bubblegum Factory," and we really went for it on that record. It was a real studio thing—it was the first time we ever had a chance to have a budget. And we liked that record, but we were really sick of trying to make everything sound perfect in the studio.
We wanted to have something that was more spontaneous, and we wanted to show off our live chops a bit more. So I think that record [Phaseshifter] was more of a reaction to one of our records rather than trying to get in with grunge, although I did like Nirvana and I liked a lot of bands that were happening at that time, but this record [Show World] is more of a combination of the last few records that we've done—I hear a little bit of Third Eye and Phaseshifter, and also maybe a little bit of Neurotica.
Brian: This record has more peaks and valleys.
Steve: Yeah, it's a little bit more well-rounded. I loved Phaseshifter but the only thing I would critique about that record is it was mildly one-dimensional in comparison to what we are as a live band.
[At this point, the band’s record-company rep from Polygram Canada stops by for a minute just to make sure the interview was happening on schedule, and then leaves.]
Steve: He works on the promo staff, so he has to deal with tempermental artists doing interviews and radio promotions…
And the size of ham slices and bread on the backstage spread…
Steve: Yeah, that kind of thing, like our in-store appearances with Artie Fufkin.
What's on your rider?
Steve: Simple stuff. We don't drink too much so get all this extra stuff.
Brian: We get lots and lots of water. We get batteries,
You've been operating at a consistent level for 15 years now, and you've seen a lot of bands come and go in that time. Are you happy with the way your career has turned out? Or do you ever wish you'd sold 10 million albums?
Steve: Well, I mean no one ever turn down selling 10 million records. But the notion that this should be an expectation is confusing to me, because there’s such a small percentage of people who ever have that kind of success. And I've been noticiing this is a theme in our interviews lately, and I don't understand why, because I don't know why anyone would expect that from music. Like, there's no in-between: you're either a garage band or… Bush X. When people ask me: Why do you like Canada in comparison to other countries? And it's because you guys made Bush change their name! I don't really like Bush the band, but I love Bush X!
Over the years, have you ever lost interest in playing rock 'n' roll?
Brian: Just my hearing. That's the only thing I've lost.
Steve: There are times when I'm at home and I only want to listen to Dr. Laura Schelisnger. But there are times when rock music really moves me. It's weird when you have something that's really had a profound effect on your and then you marry it with business. It can have a bizarre effect on your psyche. But I'm not jaded about it.
What's been your all-time worst experience in the music industry?
Brian: I know what mine is! My experience, and granted I've only been in the group for six years, which is twice as long as most British bands last...
Steve: It's as long as The Beatles were famous...
Brian: My worst Redd Kross xperience was playing a show in Las Vegas at a place called The Shark Club, and the opening act was a five-year-old Elvis impersonator.
Steve: That sounds genius!
Brian: I know, that part was genius! But it was an industry-type show, it wasn't a regular show. My drums were set up on a balcony with a railing...
Steve: I don't even remember that show—were we bad that night?
Brian: No, we were good, because we were angry. It was for Spin magazine—it was all these fashion-clothes people for their fashion issue.
You guys get a lot of nicely dressed people in your audience. People get really decked out for your shows…
Brian: It's an event!
...because you're the supposed ‘70s kitsch-masters of the world. Do you ever get sick of that reputation?
Steve: People obsessing on one particular era? If people want to obsess over one particular era, that's fine. Come to our show and live out your fantasy. But we're really into the '90s right now. There's just as much pop culture to pick out and worship in this era as any other era. We'd never pigeonhole ourselves to one era.
So, you guys were covering Charles Manson songs 15 years ago—what do you think of Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor playing up the "Manson is cool!" factor now?
Steve: You know what's cool about Marilyn Manson is they sampled me! It's one of their demos—a friend of mine did a search on the computer for Desperate Teenage Love Dolls, which is a movie I was in and Marilyn Manson’s name came up. All these quotes from that movie were sampled in one of their songs.
Can you sue them for royalties?
Steve: No, they're really savvy about it, because a friend of mine saw them and went backstage and told them about the quotes. And [Marilyn] was like, "I didn't sample that." And my friend said, "yeah, you did, on track number whatever." And he's like, "oh that's just a demo." He was all cool about it, but he knew what to say. They're advised by their lawyers to deny everything.
So is Manson passé now?
Steve: Charles Manson? We were fascinated with him on more of a rock-culture level. His whole story, about meeting Dennis Wilson and all these hippie chicks, and that Sunset Boulevard scene. It was very much about swinging L.A. in the '60s. That's what we found really fascinating. It wasn't just that someone killed people. I think that is a fascination that intelligent 14-year-olds should go through. But if Trent Reznor is obsessed with it right now, that's a little passé.
Brian: He was living in Sharon Tate's old house…
Steve: That takes it to a whole new level!
With Green Day blowing up, there seems to be a lot of nostalgia right now for early '80s California punk. At the time you were living in the middle of it, did you ever think that moment would be remembered?
Steve: Not really. We weren't thinking, "Oh, this is a historical moment." We weren't really part of the Orange County hardcore scene that's talked about a lot right now. The Black Flag guys started it, and they were good, but everything that they influenced was pretty much horrible. I won't try to glorify something from the past that was never good.
Brian: That's pretty harsh! Everything they influenced? They influenced you to a degree!
Steve: No, everything they influenced from that period, like 1980 to 1983, which was supposedly some great period for Southern California teen-angst music. It was really bad. I hated it.
I've read interviews where you said you ditched hardcore because of the macho element. But don't you run into the same thing when you open for a band like Stone Temple Pilots?
Steve: No, actually with Stone Temple Pilots, there's a lot of girls in the audience. The feminine element of a crowd makes it much more intelligent. If you just get testosterone-filled bald men in the front that are just moshing against each other's sweaty bodies, then—aside from being extremely turned on!—it gets really annoying and that’s when it’s really embarrassing. We could be mopping the floor—it doesn't really matter what we're doing onstage.
People will even mosh to the music they play in between sets. I was at a Neil Young concert and there was a mosh pit.
Steve: It's good that kids are moshing to Neil Young. It's like moshing to my dad. [Singing] "Old man, look at my life.."
So are they still making a Darby Crash movie?
Steve: Yeah, I think they still are.
Are you involved with that?
Steve: No, I know the guy who wrote and directed it, but I'm not involved at all.
Isn’t Allison Anders supposed to be involved?
Steve: No. There have been many incarnations of this movie and Allison Anders wrote a script that Madonna was possibly going to produce—I sound so L.A.!—and that kind of went away by the wayside, so now it's Rodger Grossman.
Who are they talking about playing Darby?
Steve: This is so Hollywood! Well, our first choice is Leonardo DiCaprio, but...
Brian: McCauley Culkin will do.
Well, I did just see a picture of McCauley with pink hair...
Brian: I think he's going to play Kurt Cobain in The Kurt Cobain Story, with Tina Yothers as Courtney.
Steve: McCauley Culkin has pink hair? That's so Ken Stringfellow!
What made you guys cut your hair?
Steve: What made me do it? The devil made me do it. What made me grow my hair?
Brian: You still have long hair. By today's standards, we are still considered hippies.
You guys were rivalling Crystal Gayle at one point...
Brian: From behind, he looked just like Crystal Gayle onstage. Actually Steve was onstage when it caught fire, he didn't actually cut it.
Steve: It's old news, I cut my hair two years ago.
So what was worse for you: the KISS, Beatles, or Sex Pistols reunion?
Steve: I don't think any were really bad, but I was least interested in the Sex Pistols reunion. The Beatles reunion... I wasn't too crazy about "Free As a Bird," it was a little too Traveling Wilburys. But I really liked "Real Love."
That song was in the Imagine movie…
Steve: Well, like part of it is. And then he turned part of that song into "Jealous Guy." And so part of that song dates back to The Beatles era, so it makes more sense.
Were you guys offered the KISS tour?
Steve: No, we weren't doing any touring then. We were working on Show World. But I bet we could have gotten dates.
Brian: Well, we were supposed to play one show with them, the Castle Donnington show.
Aren't you and Gene tight?
Steve: No. We know him, though. He's very business-minded. He probably remembers my name. He's the kind of person who remembers names—he remembers every radio programmer across the US' name.
Did you see any of the shows?
Steve: Yeah, we saw them at the Forum in L.A.
Where KISS Alive II was recorded...
Steve: I was at that concert, too, when I was, like, 10 years old. And I saw them a couple years previous to that, when I was like, eight years old.
So you've interviewed Cher and Richard Carpenter for Raygun. Is there anyone else you'd like to interview?
Steve: I would like to interview John Waters.
Did you see his episode on The Simpsons a few weeks back? He plays the owner of a kitschy toy store at the mall and becomes good friends with Marge and Bart, and Homer is afraid he'll turn Bart gay.
Steve: That's genius! I definitely want to see that. We were on tour in England [when it aired]... I would like to interview Jonathan Richman.
He just signed to Neil Young's label.
Steve: Just recently? What label is that? Is it a major label?
It's called Vapor Records. It's part of Reprise.
Steve: That's really good, I mean, I don't know if Jonathan will ever allow his music to be arranged in a marketable way....
Brian: Neil Young probably doesn't even care.
Steve: I'm sure he doesn't. Jonathan is the best songwriter in America, he's so good.
Which celebrities do you think, in 20 years, you'll look back as fondly upon as Richard Carpenter and Cher today?
Steve: Like, who will be the Cher of the millennium in 2010? Perhaps Cher!
Maybe she'll still be doing infomercials then.
Steve: We asked her about infomercials in that interview. Jeff had this whole angle that he thought it was really arty that she did them, but she was in damage control because she thought that they had fucked up her career. She could kind of see where we were coming from...Cher's a serious rock historian now, I mean, her stories are insane. We got along really well because we started talking about Phil Spector, and we were talking about L.A. in the 60s. Because a lot of people think of Sonny and Cher as The Sonny and Cher Show—like “Half Breed” and the mid-’70s kitschy stuff. But there was actually a much cooler story to them, 10 years prior to that. So she was really into the interview. Because most people just want to know about Gregg Allman.
[At this point, the interview devolves into random observations about Manic Street Preachers, Sloan, Chainsaw Kittens, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Flaming Lips’ boombox experiments, Brian getting his Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci CD from a Mercury Records rep who had no interest in promoting the band, and conspiracy theories about the Biggie/Tupac murders.]
Steve: Do you think if Blur and Oasis were American, they'd be shooting each other? Because that would be awesome!
Brian: Yes.
Who do you prefer?
Steve: I don't really know Blur's music...
Brian: I've heard their new record.
It sounds like Pavement.
Brian: It does! It doesn't sound like their last record.
Steve: Well, Pavement hangs out with Blur. What's-his-name [Stephen Malkmus] stays with Justine in London.
They just did a song for that movie Suburbia. An X song.
Steve: Pavement and Blur together?
Brian: Elastica with Stephen Malkmus.
Steve: Oh right, did they do [starts humming the riff to "Nausea"]?
It's "The Unheard Music."
Steve: That's so cool!
Any last words for the good people of Toronto?
Steve: Um... oh, yeah, our record's really good and you should buy it! I had such a nice Welcome to Canada moment yesterday. On MuchMusic, they were doing a Rush spotlight—like, the history of Rush in three parts. I think I just saw the first or second part. It was early, early stuff, but then it went all the way to '82 which was, like, their prime era. Signals!
Brain: I grew up on Rush as child, but I don't think Steve did. Steve wasn't influenced by Rush in the least.
Steve: My brother, who's four years older, bought most of the records and he never liked Rush, so I didn't really have any Rush records.
It's funny: in the States, they're just another classic-rock band, but here, they could run for public office.
Steve: Which they probably will in the next 15 years. That's gonna happen with rock 'n' rollers. That's already happened with Hollywood—we had Reagan as president. Pretty soon, you'll have Geddy Lee as Prime Minister of Canada!
ENCORES
Show World isn’t necessarily the first album I reach for when I need a Redd Kross fix, but it is home to quite possibly my favourite Redd Kross album cut—the lovely, Liverpudlian “Ugly Town.”
After touring behind Show World, Redd Kross would go on hiatus, during which their Phaseshifter/Show World-era guitarist, Eddie Kurdzeil, died of an apparent overdose in 1999. The McDonalds wouldn’t resurface with another album until 2012’s Researching the Blues. Brian Reitzell wasn’t part of that reunion, probably because, by that point, he had become the soundtrack king of Hollywood.
The Darby Crash movie, a.k.a. What We Do Is Secret, eventually did come out in 2007. Alas, neither Leo nor McCauley were available to take on the starring role, which was filled by the someheat lesser-known Shane West. Its MetaCritic score sits at a thoroughly unremarkable 54. I never saw the film, and don’t think I ever will after watching this trailer, but I can’t imagine it being any worse than Bohemian Rhapsody. Also, a fun fact: legendary L.A. punk promoter Brendan Mullen is portrayed by none other than Ray Park—a.k.a., Darth Maul!
For the record, The Presidents of the United States of America were actually a better, savvier group than their lingering novelty-tune reputation suggests. I remember digging the original version of “Feather Pluckn” that was featured on a CMJ New Music Monthly CD sampler, partly because it featured an interpolation of The Beatles’ “I Got a Feeling” that (for obvious legal reasons) was excised from the official Columbia Records release, but is preserved in this clip of an early TV performance:
If, after all this Redd Kross talk, you still desire more power-pop pleasures, here’s a shuffle-ready 700-plus-track playlist of jangly gems, sunny psych, giddy garage 'n' glam, peppy punk, bubblegrunge, indie earworms, hooky hard rock, tuneful twang, lo-fi lullabies, distorted delights, sweet slow dances, and all manner of Fabs Faux.
Next week’s Headliner: Elliott Smith
This is a free newsletter, but if you really like what you see, please pay a visit to my PWYC tip jar!