Steve McDonald talks to Marlena about the band's amazing recording career... and his continued search for Handbag House.

Redd Kross gave us SHOW WORLD this past February, the follow-up to 1993's PHASESHIFTER- both on the Mercury label. Filled with giant hook melodies and multi-layer harmonies, yes, SHOW WORLD has got the hits- Pretty Please Me, Stoned (the first single), Secret Life, and Mess Around. Since their first release in 1979, when Steve McDonald (bassist, vocalist) was
12 years old, Redd Kross have amassed a huge cult following as they zig-zaged their way through the music industry. NY
Trash's Marlena caught up with Steve via telephone at the tail end of the band's European tour.

Hi Steven. Where are you guys right now?
We're in Brussels.

How's the tour going? Does Redd Kross do well over in Europe and the UK?
Yeah, we're doing a headlining tour, and it's going really well. It's a club lour, but It's really exciting, a lot of kids are showing up.

It's been about five years since Phaseshifter. Why such a long time between releases - what have you guys been up to during that period?

Well, we put a lot of time into the new record, it was really important to us. We actually only took about six months off- after Phaseshifter we toured for nearly two years nonstop. We came home, took a break, and for the better part of a year we wrote and recorded SHOW WORLD. The record would have come out in 1996 but my brother (Jeff) came down with
mono at the end of the year. We were supposed to play the Castle Donnington Festival in England, which we had to cancel
because of that.

And, just as Jeff was healing from that, our drummer Brian broke his ankle. So we just gave up on putting the record out in
'96 and released it in'97. In the meantime, I produced a record in '95 for a band called Imperial Teen, and Jeff did some recording in his basement that will probably end up being a solo record late in the year. So it hasn't been like we've been loafing watching TV. I wish!
 
Can you explain the title of the new album, SHOW WORLD? I know that when I first saw it I immediately thought of a huge strip club here in Manhattan!
That's funny. It probably has a different meaning for New Yorkers than most people.

What were you guys thinking about in naming the record?

Well, Jeff actually came up with the title. (laughs) I don't think there's an actual literal message behind the title, It's conjuring an image. But since you're in New York, I'll give you an inside scoop. A friend of ours from NY was sending us videotapes of her favorite public access TV show.

Robin Byrd?
Well, there's another one-Sandy Kane.

Oh, she's awful! She's so bad that she's great, right?

Yeah, she's incredible! (laughs) She has the same jokes every night, like "Anybody here do crack?" And I think she worked at Show World. And my brother also had an experience at Show World once. He did go in there once with a female friend, they were just tripping around New York, and he had some crazy story about a woman who looked like Dee Snider doing some bizarre peep show trick. But we weren't necessarily trying to refer to that- It wasn't like a Motley Crue Girls Girls Girls strip joint mentality kind of concept.

I hear a distinct Beatles influence on the new record, that I really dig, and I was wondering if you would agree with that comment. Did you guys grow up listening to the Beatles?

I know that the singer Jewel made the comment that she had never heard the Beatles until last year, which I basically don't believe (laughs). Not that her music sounds Beatles influenced, but everyone should have heard of them! Yeah, the Beatles are definitely an influence, for us It's a compliment to hear that. We put our own stamp on everything, but we're not claiming to make something that's never been heard by the human ear ever before, you know? We feel confident of our own identities within our music to know that what we're doing is going to naturally be Redd Kross, but yeah, Beatles music has been a huge influence on us. My brother actually saw the Beatles when he was three years old.

Wow, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, I mean I'm sure he doesn't remember, and I think he probably was awake for only the first ten minutes, but it was their second to last show.

Speaking of influences, I was checking out a Web site this morning where you can buy CD's online. For every band they list their releases, and the "artist's roots". I checked out what they listed for Redd Kross-roots", and I thought it would be interesting to see if you agreed with them. They listed: Cheap Trick, Kiss, The Ramones, The B-52's, The Rezillos, The Stones, and The Sex Pistols. Do you think that's an accurate list, and what would you add if something is missing?

I'm surprised at some of those that are in there, that's really cool. One I would say doesn't really belong in there is The Sex
Pistols. Punk rock has been a huge Influence on us, but The Sex Pistols are probably one of my least favorite punk bands of the era. The Ramones; had a bigger influence, you know, the "New York Sound", as well as other British bands like the X-Ray Spex. Also, the LA Scene, early bands like the Germs, and I guess Black Flag too. But I guess all those bands belong there. It's cool they put the Rezillos in. That's amazing. I also liked the Revillos. It was the same two lead singers, except a couple years later, I saw them play once when I was 12 years old.

Redd Kross has been around a long time. You've been on several different labels. What usually prompted the move from one label to another? Did moving allow you more artistic freedom?

We sort of tried out every possible different kind of label you could be on. From your cheesy little label In the San Fernando Valley, run out of someone's apartment - to 77 Rockefeller Plaza with Atlantic Records, and everything in between. And, most of those relationships ended because they were dodgy little labels, with the exception of Atlantic, in which case we were officially dropped. But that was at a really weird time when nobody really marketed these sort of post-punk pre-grunge groups. The fact that they didn't stay with us for more than one record is sort of a classic showbiz, major label scenario. Now we have the best of both worlds because we are signed to a British label, This Way Up, but they are  distributed through Island in Europe and Mercury in the U.S. We get that feeling of a small label, but get the opporlunitles that go with major label distribution.

If you weren't doing music, what do you think you would be doing?

It's been enough years nowthat I guess I can reference Spinal Tap-you know how there 'was a period where you couldn't reference Spinal Tap, it would just hurt too much? (laughs) But yeah, the shoe salesman thing! I don't know, music has had such a huge impact on my life-' I don't know.

Can you imagine not doing music?

I know I'll always be doing something with music. I don't project all that much into the future. If I never got involved with music, I'm sure I'd be doing something creative, like being an artist. I don't know.

At what point in your life did you start to realize that you were going to be a musician as your career?

Well, we recorded a record when I was 12. So by the time I graduated high school, we were on our third proper release. At the same time. it had always been a hobby up to that point. We released an EP When I was 12, but bythe time I was 13 we had retired from show business and grown disenchanted (laughs). Until someone who ended up playing guitar for the band for a brief period encouraged me and Jeff to get gigs and do it again. So, we didn't take it seriously at that point. But when you turn 18, you have pressures to decide what you are going to do, so it has probably been in the last 10 years that really I decided, "I should do this".

Redd Kross is well-known for doing terrific cover songs at live shows. Is this something you plan and rehearse in advance, or do you just pull them out when you're on stage and decide to?

Well. if it's really good, we probably had rehearsed it. But if it's really kind of sketchy like a lot of the ones we did last night... (laughs). Last night was the last show of our British tour, so we just kind of stayed on stage for a long time.

What did you play last night?

Actually, we didn't do that many cover- what we did that was really bad is we tried to play Redd Kross songs that were like 16 years old. That was really sketchy-songs that Brian, our drummer, had never played before. We did do a couple covers, we did One After 909 by the Beatles, and we did Deuce by Kiss, but we have kind of sworn that one off, Kiss has come back, and they can have Deuce back. There were a couple Welsh people there who were persistent, so we played it.

So can we expect to hear some gems on this tour?

Well, I don't know because we don't really have covers planned. Well, there is one that's on our album, but a lot of people will think it's our song, Pretty Please Me . It's by an LA band called The Quick from the mid 70s. We also actually covered another song  by them a few years ago, it was the Beatles song It Won't Be Long, but we did the version that the Quick did,
with their arrangement. That was really cool, a bit more dramatic.

What do you think of all the techno and electronic music that's become so popular lately?

Well, we're label mates with Tricky. He's not House music, though. It's hard for me to keep up with all this stuff, and I try to ask the people at the label about the different genres of House music. They tell me about them, and they tell me "Oh, and then
there's the really bad stuff called Handbag House". And I'm like, what does that mean? and they say, "Oh that's all the secretaries, they go to the local disco, and they take their handbags and throw them on the dance floor and dance around them". And I'm like, "that's the kind of house music I like then! Give me some Handbag Housel" So there was a period where I was constantly referencing Handbag House music. Any thing I ever heard, it was like "was that Handbag House?" And then there's Drum and Bass, it's the big thing overhere(UK). I guess Bowle's new album has a Drum and Bass track. The song Earthling was kind of an outrage here, they were accusing him of being a bandwagon-hopper. But that has always kind of been his forte, so those people must not know much about Bowie, because that's what he always did, he lakes something and
makes it palatable to the masses. So, I actually I don't think I'd put it on my CD player and trip out to a lot of It. But then again I've always been in the dark ages even with Rap music. It takes an artist like Beck to kind of explain it to me, and then I kind of understand how that Rap influence can mutate Into something I can relate to.

You don't see yourself participating in it?

No, I mean, I graduated high school In '85 when the first wave of Rap really started happening. My school. was really racially integrated, which was cool, but I was really alienated by Rap music (laughs). And I remember my senior year I finally felt like, OK my band is together enough, I want to play the high school. I want to play a lunchtime assembly and that would
really fuck with people's heads. That was right at the time when the rock band was completely out of vogue. They were only doing the thing where kids were passing the mic. And they would do these rap assemblies, with kids going like  "My-name-is-Mark, dah, dah, dah" (laughs), you know?

On a related note, if I were to look at your tape deck or CD player this week, what would I find? What are
you listening to these days?

Well. the last person who asked me, "what did I listen to in the car today?" It was a Jackie Collins book on tape. American Star, or something. We got it really cheap at the service station (laughs). But, today I listened to Anthology 2 by the Beatles, and my girlfriend's band That Dog, I listen to them a lot.

Cool. What's the best advice you could give to someone who is 12 years old today and wants to start a band?

Well, the kids that have been coming to our shows are like 17 and 18, but the look like they're about 14. There's this whole "teen scene" here in Europe. I guess everywhere has a teen scene with Silverchair and everything. A lot of them are into Redd Kross too, which is cool. I'm totally into it, I would only encourage them-especially if they're only 12 or 13 and they already have a focus. Unless their parents have serious other plans for their education, or something. It's a focus that a lot of people aren't lucky enough to have, that passion. It's encouraging to a young person's well-being. It's a good thing.

You're touring in Europe right now, and you toured a long time for Phaseshifter - how long do you plan on being on the road to support this album?

It wasn't the tour so much as coming off the tour that was difficult with Phaseshifter. You know, decompress
ing, trying to live a simple life. And nowadays we're all kind of a little more firmly embedded In home life. Jeff is a
father now, which is totally excellent.

Is that tough for him, being on tour?

Yeah, I'm sure it is. I don't want to speak for him and his personal life, but his wife and his daughter will come out and visit
him and stuff. But we're at the place now where we'll just sort of do our tours and then do records and probably not
focus as much on touring as we have in the past.

Have you ever been to Japan?

Yeah, on Phaseshifter. I guess we just won't do as many European-American tours as we have in the past. Unless something really big happens and we can go on the road and make a lot more money, and travel In a lot more luxury. Then we could bring people on the road that are important to us. But yeah, we'll probably go back to Japan, and also to Australia.

I imagine you guys would do well over there.

We had fun. The thing with Japan that's nice is you can do three nights in Tokyo, and you get to stay in one place for a while. For us it took about 8 days, we did 5 or 6 shows. It was really fun.

I understand your keyboard player has left. Do you have someone new now?

No, we're just not using keyboards, although we do have some on the record, and we had lots on Phaseshifter. We just turn up the guitars a little more (laughs). Gere was an integral part of the band, but I think that she wanted to do her own thing. She's a really talented musician, and she's doing some other stuff-she's experimenting with film scoring and stuff. It was a very amicable thing, and I think that if we ever have more keyboards on our records, that we will probably always ask Gere If she can take some time out of her busy schedule.

Thanks so much, I think that's it!

Have I ever done an Interview with you before?

No, I don't think so! But good luck with the tour.

By: Marlena