Steve McDonald, the bassist in Redd Kross, enters the room joking and having fun. When he talks there is an enthusiastic air to everything he says . It comes out in the story of his first trip to Canada. "The first time we came here we played the SilverDollar (a Toronto strip club). We did a two night stand and both shows sold out. It was crazy for us at the time. We were used to playing these tiny clubs.

"I can remember the first night we played; this woman in an insane go-go outfit got on stage and kicked the heat on the top of my brothers amplifier off, and then she got up on his amp and just started go-go dancing wildly. lt was an expensive amp, but we were just so impressed with what she had going, so we just let her stay on my brother's amplifier go-go dancing away." After a brief reflection, he finishes by saying: "You know, that sort of set the tone for us coming to Canada.We make a point to go to Toronto every time we go out on tour."

Redd Kross may just be one of the most exciting bands to come out of the nineties. However, things started for them a little bit before this decade.

In 1979, while other children went to summer camp, played baseball, and spent their money on comics and chocolate bars, Steve and his brother Jeff McDonald on guitar formed a rock band called Red Cross: Their first demos were payed for by Steve, who was only eleven years old bassist at the time . "I had a paper route and I was the only one that had a job, so I payed for the demos." The agency with whom the band shared their name was not to impressed, so the spelling was changed to the now familiar Redd Kross.

By 1982 the band had released several singles, an EP and an album, making them rock veterans before they had even hit puberty. With the help of an enthusiastic Los Angeles DJ, their careers began. Of course, it sounds like some kind of tream come true, but in actual fact, things were never what one could term as easy. The band had the misfortune of being bounced around from indie label to indie label and finally Atlantic records, which also turned out to be a disaster.

"(Because) we were one of the first bands that got signed to the major labels scene, they didn't know how to market bands like us... it was treated more like an experiment by record company. Kind of a 'try a little of this and a little of that, and if it doesn't work then, no skin off my back' attitude.

"We were kind of casualties of that. We were kind of naive too, and really we still are. We hate to deal with that (record industry) end. I mean we've been signing contracts since we were kids, and we were screwed by every independent label we ever signed to. So that mystique about corporate rock still sucks' didn't go any where with us, because all I know is that when I was twelve years old I had indie labels ripping me off. It's not like anyone has more integrity because they started from the ground up.

"We just try to play music and when we get too involved in the intustry side of things it ruins the fun for us. We made some stupid mistakes but I still like playing music, and it's probably because I've tried to divorce myself from a lot of that (industry)."

In many ways that divorce has worked well for the band. They have remained focused on the music, and have never given up. Even when Atlantic uncermoniously dumped them from the label, the thought of ending the band never entered their heads. "When we lost the Atlantic deal, a lot of people were surprised we weren't breaking up. Like somehow in losing the deal we lost our will to play music. But I enjoy playing so much I never thought twice about quiting. I mean there are times when I get on stage and I'm tired and things aren't going right, and I get the fake smile on. But luckily that doesn'thappen to much. Really nothing has happened to us that would make us want to do something else, like becoming a trucker."

The list of admirers Redd Kross has is long. Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), Paul Westerberg, Flea (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. In fact a taped interview of Moore and Redd Kross accompanied several thousand promo copies of Phaseshifter when it was first released. The strange circumstance about the support from their peers is that while Redd Kross has been around much longer than most of them, the band members are all still younger.

Steve McDonald sees humour in that situation and believes there is no resentment about that. "Anyone who says they've been inspired by us, well, that's flattering. But usually they're like ten years older than me and that's pretty weird." As for the band resenting peers who enjoy more mainstream success than them selves, Steve says "it doesn't matter. As long as they're playing music I respect when they break into the mainstream, and they're doing what they want to do, then I'm totally behind that and it should be celebrated.

"But when Poison first made it pretty big, I was freaked out. They were talking about the New York Dolls while they sounded like VanHalen. (Laughs) It was awful. But as far as bands like Nirvana, I'm grateful for their success."

The irony of the situation is that the band seems to be embraced by people that say punk is their main influences, but Redd Kross were outcasts of the LA punk movement.

"Punk rockers hated us, but they were most of the football kids who yelled Devo at us. However, the only bands we could play with were those trashy kind of garage (punk) bands. So we started geting into all kinds of different styles and things . Then we opened up for people like the Circle Jerks and DOA, but I was wearing platform shoes and hot pants, and they seriously wanted to kill us. Which in some way made us even more punk rock than any of them in terms of rebelling." Yet for the McDonalds, who took their cues from the earlier New York punk scene, it mattered little.

"The New York scene is what really turned us on to playing music. You know, Blondie and Patti Smith. But I think the Ramones are the first band that really demystified the role of the rock star and the idea that you had to be a Jimmy Page wizard to pick up a guitar. Johnny Ramone said in an interview that: 'I don't even practice guitar I only play it when I'm on stage.' ...We looked and agreed anyone could do that."

The Ramones are clearly not the only influences the brothers share . As each album progressed, there was television pop culture jumping out of the music. "Linda Blair," "Ghandi's Dead (I'm the Cartoon Man)" and "Ballad of Tatum O'Tot and the Fried Vegetables" all hinted towards the influence of the television screen.

"When we're kids it's just what we knew. That's what we were raised on. . . television. In North America that's what we have. The Italians have Rome, that's their culture. It's ancient and really cool, but you can't really participate. For us, for some reason we really embraced TV... we're very sincere about it. When I was a kid I listened to the Rolling Stones, but I also listened to the Partridge Family. I thought of them as some sort of cool garage band, and I aspired to be like them. There were brothers, you know like Jeff was Keith and I was Danny. (laughing) But my mom never really played keyboards. Later on we got into punk rock, but we still thought the Partridges were really cool."

Some things don't change. Listening to Phaseshifter, the whole distorted sense of fun aspect comes through. While the Iyrics in "Jimmy's Fantasy" may be about LA street gangs, guitar wizards, blues singers and sexual fantasies, it plays loud riffs straight from '70's guitar rock heroes like Mick Ronson and Keith Richards. From there we jump over to "Lady in The Front Row," which hums with pure pop sensibilities. It plays easily along with early Kiss or 70s era Stones. However, the band in some sense had to mature to be able to make this record. Their Atlantic record, Third Eye, wasn't nearly as satisfying for them.

"It isn't that we don't like the songs onThird Eye but it was the only album we ever made where we spent time in the studio making a studio album. Letting the music form in the studio. When we played it live it was really difficult. There was all this stuff on the record that was just a drag to scale down and do live. With Phaseshifter we wanted to make a very live record. With Third Eye, we wanted to be like the Beatles and the Beach Boys. You know, we read all these books, where they barely had a song when they went into the studio, and they built it up from nothing. We wanted to be wild Phil Spector types and freak out in the studio.

"But if you spend three months in the studio, you kind of go crazy.You hear everything too many times and you play too much pinball. You end up spending more time playing pinball than you do recording. So with this record we just went in and did it. We wanted to produce it totally ourselves, and our main technique was to rehearse and go in and do everything as fast as we could.

"I mean it sounds kind of humble and all, but ever since I was a kid and the first rock concert I ever saw was Kiss, all I wanted to be was a rock star. But after a while I just realized that all I want to do is play music."

It isn't only maturing in their music, it's also on a personal level. Most brothers have a somewhat tumultuous relationship, and the McDonalds are no exception. "The band members that were with us before, I don't know how they dealt with us. We fought like cats and dogs. We used to have fist fights, like Ray and Dave Davies (of the Kinks).

"But things are better now. We had to get up at 6am today to get to the HMV store to do that show (A special performance before their gig at the Palladium in Toronto.) So we're on like two hours sleep, which is probably the worst time for Jeff and Steve McDonald's relationship.Times like that it gets tedious but I think that we've learned to deal with each other better over the years." With a heavy dose of sarcasm he adds: "It's just been a good lesson in human relationships."

In the end, the brothers McDonald may be the most experienced band of twenty-somethings playing to the international market, and Steve is more than willing to give advice to kids wanting to follow in his footsteps. "Put together a garage band, and get a tuner so you never have to worry about getting a good ear. (Laughing with an evil recollection) It'll bum your parents out cause itll get really loud..."

By: D.S. Barrett