This is no joke. It's not about The Partridge Family ("working with David Cassidy meant something totally different for us than it did for anybody else in the cast or crew"), toad-blocks ("I've had to live that down ever since I said it."), or Kiss ("the first show I ever saw was Kiss in 1975 or '76 when I was 8-years-old.") Well, alright, for Steven McDonald, it is about all those things - and other stuff, probably, like Hong Kong Phooey, pop rocks, and E.L.O. Nevertheless, this isn't funny. This is Redd Kross.

This is about a pair of brothers from Hawthorne, California, Jeffrey, 11, and Steven, 8, whose parents would drop them off at the friendly neighborhood arena - L.A.'s Forum - let the two boys rawk! coliseum-style, and then pick them up after the show at the House of Pies just down the street. This is about two adolescent brats who released their first single ("Burn out") in 1979, and their first full-length album three years later. This is about two young musicians, Jeff, 31, and Steve, 29, who, in the 15 years since that album, Born Innocent, have cared about little else but making music.

"It was only a hobby for the first 8 years,: laughs the younger McDonald. "It's funny now, because we travel with tour managers, and they always tend to be authorative with you, and I'm the one going, 'Look, person, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. Don't even try to reprmand me. You don't have to worry that I won't be there on time. My priorities are in the right place."

Priorities, yes. Important. Take, for instance, that sticker falling out of your vinyl-only, hell-and-gone-outta-print copy of Redd Kross' second album, '84's Teen Babes From Monsanto, the sticker that says "Quit School," Yessss! Priorities - priorities in the guise of a bunch of punk kids releasding a seven-song EP of bashing rock and roll covers, songs that blueprint what is today fast-approaching a 20-year career.

"[Teen Babes...] is when we really started to define how our musical influences were gonna shape our identity in years to come," says McDonald. "I think with that record, we really sorta became Redd Kross. it had a Kiss cover, and an early Stones cover, a Stooges cover, Bowie, a Boyce & Hart cover. And we covered our own song, 'Linda Blair.' At that time, no one was really referencing that music, no one was listening to that music. Especially, no one was saying they liked Kiss - that's for sure."

Oh, you goofy kids.

"We were oblivious," he laughs. "This is what we liked. You either liked it too and joined us, or fuck you. We really didn't think twice about it. We were kinda weird... I mostly give the credit to Jeff, who has a very distinguished palette, but if I made a comp tape from when I was 12 years old, I'd probably still like everything on it. And that's kind of what that record was like for us, a compilation tape of music that we liked. And I still like all that music, and that music still has a big effect on us."

By: Raoul Hernandez