California’s Mad Caddies are stressed. They’re raring to get back to the Great White North and play some punk rock, but it’s taking forever. After months of gearing up to cross the 49th parallel, the past few days have been like the Night Before Christmas for these Santa Barbara skanksters. Speaking across the continent on a half-dead cell phone, lead singer Chuck (no last names, please) wryly relates a deep sense of love and commitment to his Canadian brethren.
“We always get treated so nicely in Canada…possibly better than anywhere else. Or more than we deserve! It’s been at least a year and a half since we’ve played there, so we’re pretty stoked. We keep thinking we’ll be up there the next day, but we’re still in California!”
The stress doesn’t stop there. While they are chomping at the bit to get to those Calgary lassies, that means playing selections from their latest release, Rock The Plank (Fat).
An album that Chuck, ever the realist, feels is less than extraordinary. Under pressure to release a full-length immediately after almost two years of touring, Chuck admits that Rock The Plank isn’t exactly sub-par, but it certainly isn’t without its flaws.
“I’d give it three out of five stars,” he jests.
“It’s not an awesome album, but it is pretty good. I just got all wasted last night and listened to our albums—it’s pretty rare that I do that—and I think we’ve released some better CDs than Rock The Plank. When we got off our last tour, we were like, ‘Shit, we gotta make a record,’ so we didn’t work on songs as much as we’d have liked to. If we had the time to let songs marinate, they would have been more to our expectations.”
Ensuring that it’s done right the next time, the band have recently acquired the Caddyshack, a house in Southern California where all members will live, breathe and sleep Mad Caddies.
Feeling that proximity is the prime factor in producing stellar music, from this day forth the band will be roomies.
“Some of rock’s greatest albums were recorded when the band were living together. The Beatles did it … the Stones did it … shit, even Stone Temple Pilots did it! There are so many guys in this band (Chuck, Keith: trumpet, Ed: trombone, bassist Mark, drummer Derrick, guitarists Sascha and Carter), that it’s so hard to schedule rehearsals. By the time we all take a half hour to drive to the space, we’re like, ‘Ah shit, let’s just go get drunk and look at chicks.'”
Planning for a new album by next summer, the primary objectives are a shitload of jam sessions and exploiting the band’s brand of eclectic punk rock peppered with a ska/jazz/reggae edge. Not the kind of artist who can shit out songs daily, Chuck must be motivated by something major.
“Writing in general is hard. You go through these spells where you can’t write for two months, then you write four songs in a week. Sometimes you just have to subject yourself to these masochistic situations for enough pain to write songs. It’s like, I have to break up with a girl, then I write five fucking songs. But that’s just me…”
Hoping that things will run more smoothly with so much creativity under one roof, Chuck is excited at the opportunity to work in close quarters with his bandmates.
It’s a new kind of masochism.
“Moving in together will be the optimum thing for maximum creativity. We’re used to being in such cramped quarters with one another on tour, so having rooms to ourselves will be a friggin’ luxury.”
“And when someone feels like jamming, they can do it at four in the afternoon or four in the morning!”
