Date: Fri 26-Feb-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Reel-Big-Fish-ska

Full Text:

Ska Kings Reel Big Fish Take Their Act On The Road

(with cut)

BY SHANNON HICKS

For a band that started with three guys getting together in high school to

play big hair band music, Reel Big Fish is making its own noise these days.

Eight years ago Aaron Barrett, Andrew Gonzales and Matt Wong started Reel Big

Fish with "little more than a desire to play classic metal cover and pick up

chicks," the band members admit. The band has grown and even changed -- Fish's

stage show now boasts a full horn section, with seven members in the group

total (including drummer Carlos Delagarza, who replaced founding member and

original drummer Gonzales at the beginning of the year) -- and it's covering

groups like The Cure and a-ha (remember the ska version of "Take On Me" last

year?). But the group has also discovered ska, and its fans have in turn made

Reel Big Fish one of the country's biggest ska/alt-rock bands today.

Reel Big Fish is on the road this season, continuing to support Why Do They

Rock So Hard? , the band's second full album. Its debut album, Turn The Radio

Off , is well past gold status and continues to sell very well. To satisfy the

fans looking for more material between the two albums, Reel Big Fish even

released a five-song enhanced EP, called Keep Your Receipt .

Zebrahead is performing the opening sets, including the one for the band's

upcoming show in Connecticut. Reel Big Fish will be at Toad's Place in New

Haven for an all-ages show on Monday, March 1. Local Heroes also joins the

band on the road at the beginning of March. For tickets or other details,

contact Toad's Place at 624-TOAD (8623).

"The tour is going great, we're having a good time. We're rocking!" Dan Regan

said this week, calling from Columbus, Ohio, the halfway marker for the

current tour. Regan, at 21, is one of the band's youngest members, although

not by much.

The band's horn section -- Grant Barry (trombone), Scott Klopfenstein

(trumpet, vocals and keyboards), Tavis Werts (trumpet) and Regan (trombone and

screams, according to the album's liner notes) -- is all 21; guitarist and

vocalist Barrett is 23, bassist Wong is 25, and new drummer Delagarza is 24.

Part in answer to the fact ska/alt-rock generally appeals to a younger crowd,

and also in part because the band's members are barely legal themselves, Reel

Big Fish has adopted a policy of exclusively playing all-ages shows.

"We're in a good spot right now, because of ska's [jump in popularity]," said

Regan. "We're a very young band, we got lucky in how quickly our music became

popular with so many fans.

"We got kind of thrown up into a level of popularity we're at," he said. "We

got here fast, but we're not going anywhere too soon. I think we have a while

to hang out here, in the middle range."

At the average age of 23, Reel Big Fish's members have already made music on

their own stage, in front of a huge crowd (the band performed the national

anthem last year for the Monday Night Football game featuring the Miami

Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills) and even on the big screen, making their

motion picture debut in the comedy BASEketball .

They've made plenty of their own music and even rescued a few alt-rock songs

of the Eighties from obscurity. What's next? What, if given his druthers,

would Dan Regan have the band do now to add to its collective resume?

"We want to hang out with Donald Sutherland," the trombone player said. "If he

would just invite us to his house and we could all hang out and talk about

conspiracy theories, or discuss The Puppet Master .

"Or maybe be in one of the new Star Wars movies, even if it's just to hang out

and be scenery. They could paint us brown and we could lie on the ground and

be dirt, we wouldn't care..."