Fishbone
PARTY WITH THE 'BONE
Punk-funk Originals Fishbone Throw Themselves an All-star Welcome Back Bash
They were ska before ska was cool. They played punk-funk when Rage Against the Machine were still hitting the textbooks. So it's no wonder Fishbone earned the respect of bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who surfaced in their formidable wake. L.A.'s premier party band lay low for much of the past half decade, thanks to contractual troubles and lineup shifts. But one dizzying spin of THE PSYCHOTIC FRIENDS NUTTWERX, whose grooves are deepened by guest spots from George Clinton, Gwen Stefani, Perry Farrell, and Donny Osmond, is all it'll take to prove their collective engine is still firing on all cylinders -- and still running on some bizarro-world concoction that might just save the world if it could be bottled. Want to bone up on the doings of the 'bone? Founding member Norwood Fisher paused to regale Barnes & Noble.com's Rock Editor, David Sprague, with nuttin' but the truth.
Barnes & Noble.com: It's been a long time -- going on four years -- since Fishbone released an album. What's been going on in the interim?
Norwood Fisher: See, there was this perception within the industry that Fishbone was difficult -- you know, that we were troublemakers. But to me, we were just a rock-'n'-roll band: Part of the job description is being rebellious. That hurt us, though. When ska was riding high, we were left out.
BN: You guys were playing ska several years before the recent revival took off. How did you get into the stuff in the first place?
NF: I thought we invented it [laughs]. In Los Angeles, around '78 or '79, black radio began playing reggae -- stuff we really loved, like Bob Marley's "Jammin' " and Steel Pulse. So one day in practice, we were playing this reggae groove and we speeded it up until we were playing as fast as we could. I went nuts, thinking we'd invented, like, punk-rock reggae, but then Dirty Walt said, "You didn't invent nothin'. That's called ska." He played me the first Selecter and the English Beat.
BN: You said "punk-rock reggae." Did you consider yourselves a punk-rock band at the time?
NF: In attitude, yeah. See, our favorite bands were always stretching boundaries. You had the Clash doing SANDINISTA!; you had the Minutemen, who were totally indescribable. Punk rock was much more open then, before it sort of slipped into hardcore and got very narrow in definition.
BN: Do you think that race has played a part in keeping Fishbone from moving up to that much-discussed "next level" of success?
NF: Well, there's definitely not a great rush to sign great black rock bands, is there? I just think that culturally, overall, we need more of a balance in society. I'd like to see things spread out, see more cultural diversity in all art forms.
BN: Over the course of the hiatus that began with CHIM CHIM'S BADASS REVENGE, Fishbone went through a lot of lineup changes. How tough was that to deal with?
NF: In retrospect, it was very tough. When you're in it, you get sort of a Marine's mentality: What's that they say...adjust and adapt. Don't lay down your gun, just keep fighting. But when we came out the other side, we were like, "What just happened?" We were like the walking wounded.
BN: You credit the new album to Fishbone & the Familyhood Experience, which definitely gives strong billing to your guests. Why did you decide to do that?
NF: We wanted to express that it was more than another Fishbone record. We had all sorts of people coming in and they were definitely leaving their marks on the record, not just coming in and playing a few bars and leaving. People like George Clinton don't work that way. So we wanted to think of a way to express the whole vibe of the record.
BN: How did you decide to do an all-star cover of Sly & the Family Stone's "Everybody Is a Star"?
NF: The first thought was that it was a perfect vehicle to get all sorts of different people in to sing -- from Gwen Stefani to Perry Farrell. But the message of the song is one we can really get behind, too.
BN: Do you think people sometimes ignore that a lot of Fishbone's songs -- like, say, "AIDS and Armageddon" on this album -- have an underlying message?
NF: We've come to expect that they will, but if they don't get it now, it'll hit them later. Somebody might pick up this album and party their balls off, and then one day what we're trying to get across will click.
BN: And what, simply put, are you trying to get across?
NF: The concept of trans-dimensional exploration. To go beyond the veil -- to a nutter dimension.
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