Interviews

Mad Caddies

Interview with Sascha Lazor on Jan 7, 2010 by

Interview with Sascha Lazor lead guitarist of the Mad Caddies on November 20 at Reggies in Chicago, IL

By: Amy Meyer

PB: So you guys are on tour right now, but you don’t have a new record out; why did you decide to go on a headlining tour?

SL: Most of the shows on the tour were in Canada. We did just two on the West Coast, but a majority of the shows were the East Coast and Canada. We haven’t been there in 2 years and we had taken a year off. We did a European tour in the summer and we figured we would do one of these just to get back into the swing of playing. We’re working on new songs. Technically, it’s not really touring on our last record, but we have not been to a lot of these places in a long time. Hopefully by the time we get back to California we will be in shape musically and that will help when we start completing some songs.

PB: Prepping for the new album? Have you guys not practiced for awhile?

SL: Prior to this summer took at least 10 months off.

PB: News just broke on a live album not too long ago, and you’re letting the fans pick the songs. Isn’t that a bit risky? Not to say any of your songs are shitty, but what if they pick the craziest mix ever?

SL: I think for the greatest hits we’ll have a pretty good idea of what the songs are going to be. I’m sure there will be a couple surprises here and there, but if they’re too surprising and the band does not want it, then we’re going to have to decide what we’re going to do about that.

PB: Yeah, I was wondering what the pull was on each side, band side and fan side.

SL: I’m curious, but I think in general we have a pretty good sense. You can tell just from playing live what people request and what not. You can get a sense of what they’re going to be already.

PB: Are you going to throw some new songs on there?

SL: Definitely, I don’t want to just repackage a bunch of things that we’ve done. It’s really boring if you don’t do something new, whether it’s an unreleased song or a brand new song from the new studio record. There will definitely be some other things on there.

PB: Did you decide to do the greatest hits since you’re coming up on your fifteenth year anniversary?

SL: Honestly, Fat Mike just called Chuck our singer a couple weeks ago and said, ‘hey, I think you should do a greatest hits record.’ We talked about it for a bit, but it’s not to commemorate anything. Sure, we have been around for awhile, but there’s no specific timeline to it or strategy to how many years we’ve been around or whatnot.

PB: Do you have any plans to commemorate the fifteen years in anyway; I mean it is only a year away?

SL: Oh man, I don’t know. Maybe at that time.

PB: You have been around a long time, and since you’ve taken off for awhile, you clearly have other things going on. What do you guys do when you’re not doing the band? Do you guys have families?

SL: No, no families really. No one has any kids yet. Chuck, our singer, has another side project that he just started relatively recently called Elwood, which is more reggae type stuff. Our drummer, Brian, and our trumpet player, Keith, have a band called King City with some other guys from Lagwagon and RKL. The music is a mix of instrumental cartoon music, Dixieland, country, surf, tango, really cool stuff. They play a lot in San Francisco. Myself, for the last year off and on I’ve been living in Jamaica and New Jersey working on a couple different reggae albums for different people. I was traveling between Kingston and New York and Jersey, that’s a lot of the reason why the band has had that hiatus because of those music projects.

PB: So no pressing 9-5 job or anything, music is pretty much life?

SL: My goal whether I’m touring or not is to be hopefully supporting myself thru music.

PB: Going from a big tour with Pepper, to a small headlining tour on your own again, how are the crowds coming out? Do you think less people are coming out to small punk shows with the economy still doing so poorly?

SL: In general in the states, it’s been bad in certain areas. Our shows in Canada and Europe, and pretty much everywhere else are much bigger. It’s hard to tell even in America because we haven’t been to some of these cities in so many years. You can’t tell what’s from the economy, or it’s just been so long. It’s the economy, but it’s also touring. There’s been so many times when you’re booking a tour and there are other bands that are coming through. It’s never great to have to play within a week of another band that might be from a similar genera or share a similar fanbase. I think that is a bigger factor, especially that combined with a down economy is really bad.

PB: In regards to the new record, have you started writing for it yet? Is this tour getting you guys back in the swing of being together and playing again?

SL: We have tons of ideas. We’re playing a new song on the set already.

PB: How has the reaction been thus far?

SL: It’s been really good. It’s a rock reggae type tune. The new record will be different from the last one; all of our records have been different from each other. I think it’s going to be a bit more rockin, but still a punk rock reggae album. We have one we’re playing and we’ve recorded five minus vocals and horns. We still have a long way to go, but we’re definitely on the way.

PB: You guys include a lot of styles in your music, and it seems ska gets a pretty bad rap, especially in the punk scene.

SL: Yeah, well most of it is really horrible (laughs).

PB: But with you guys, I feel like you draw a lot of the punk kids, a lot of ska fans, and everyone in-between. Over the years, as you said, your records have been really different from the last, have you seen a big change in the crowds you draw in over the years?

SL: We’ve never really catered to a younger audience too much. Not that we’re anti young audience or anything, but we never really have. We’re not punk enough to be accepted by them, but then again we have ska songs, but we’re not flying some ska banner. A band like Fishbone, sure they do metal, ska, they do all different kinds of music, but you don’t consider them a ska band, they’re just Fishbone. Whether people like us or hate us, as long as they’re not like, ‘well they’re just like all the other bands. I might not really like them much, but at least they have something to bring to the table that’s different.’ That’s something that we’ve wanted to do since day one. Our new record is slow and people bitched about it at first, but I think in our live set we don’t go for playing a bunch of new songs and three old ones. This tour we’re doing four songs from the first record. We still keep it really quick and do as many songs as we can, and obviously play a lot of new songs but just as many old ones as well. No one has ever complained after a show because we’ve played too many new songs. The crowd has gotten older because we’ve gotten older and a lot of people have been with us since back then. In some areas we get more girls come out, I think because we’ve gotten a lot slower and they know they can go out and dance for a couple songs and have a good time instead all of the sudden getting hit by some drunken, fat, sweaty guys.

PB: What keeps you going after all these years, what keeps the spark alive?

SL: We do all get along really. Sure, there are times we don’t like each other too much, but those times are few and far between. We know how to stay out of each other’s hair so there’s usually not much band bickering. We all can have a good time every day. We have a lot of really good times. Honestly, it sounds cheesy to say, but being able to travel, I think everyone in this band is addicted to that. Having the possibility of going new places keeps us going.

PB: Kinda my staple last question; why should my readers check you guys out? Why should I listen to the Mad Caddies?

SL: That’s a good one; I don’t think I’ve been asked that in all these years. Uhhhhhh. Because all of your other records are scratched, all of your other CDs are scratched.

http://www.madcaddies.com/

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