Hawaii's Underground : Local Music | Art | Tattoos | Independent Businesses
A Printed and Online Publication
Issue 17 Articles
The Oahu Songwriter's Group
Dig Lifestyles
Coconut Grove Music
Horror Punk: From Hawaii to Oregon (The Quintessentials)
Interview with National Product (June 2, 2007)
The Oahu Songwriter's Group
The Oahu Songwriter's Group (OSG) showcases original songwriter's at the rRed elephant in the cafe on the last Tuesday of every month from 6:30pm-9pm. Last Tuesday was our largest audience ever! A crowd formed to see artists like Cyndi Powell, Barefoot Bob, Shawn Davenport, Abbey, Universal Beat(Jerome James and Tiare Mata), Nick Cotton, Floyd and Jeff, Raeki, and perhaps even me ,the host/songwriter Elizabeth Rudnick. We've been on the rRed e stage since the fall of 2006. Genre of music is diverse. Please join us in July for another creative experience...rRed elephant is on Bethel St in Chinatown, around the corner from Mark's Garage. http://www.myspace.com/oahusongwriters39guild
Dig Lifestyles
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Interview by Katie Whitman
I came across Dig Lifestyles about a month ago in its new spot in Ward Center, right across from In4mation. The extremely unique designs, unlike any clothing I’d seen in Hawaii, drew me in to take a closer look. I sat down with Andre Moreno, one of the four co-owners of the store. He , along with Mike Jackson, Chris Nakano, and Ray Alconcel, grew from their roots as hip hop promoters into retailers of high hip hop fashion.
Your clothes are so colorful and the embroidery on the shorts and [other pants] is so dramatic. Do you know if any other stores around here sell things like that?
No… We definitely tried to get a lot of variety. Hawaii doesn’t have enough stores. We’re trying to create more of that Melrose vibe, the Soho vibe. We got in4mation across the street and Second Skin next door.
What inspired you from the beginning to start Dig Lifestyles?
We basically used to do concerts when I first moved out here. Erikah Badu, the other artists that you see in the pictures.
Those [pictures on the wall] are from your concerts?
Yeah. We’ve done a lot of them. The guys that I actually used to promote with always talked about opening up a clothes [store]. You know in4mation is more like a skate [style]. We’re more hip hop based. There are no hip hop real boutiques out here. We wanted to provide what a lot of kids are trying to get off the internet.
What about Prototype?
Oh they’re cool. The fashion industry is so small out here, you get to know everybody real quick. The guys at Kicks…
Do you sell stuff by Kicks?
No no. We all try to make sure we have something different. I just came back from San Francisco. All the brands that we carry – I had to go to like 10 different stores to find all the brands. What’s cool about Hawaii is that you can find all those brands [in our store].
Do you go to MAGIC [the famous clothing expo every year in Las Vegas]?
Yeah. We started the company maybe a year or two before we actually get the store going. We went to MAGIC a couple of times and just kind of met people and got a feel for the industry. My friends, Ray and Chris, they started it. Then me and Mike, about six months later, we jumped in.
[We had another store] on Keeaumoku.] Where Walmart is, near Tower Records. We had a store right there. We shut it down and came over here. It was meant to be, I guess. Two months before our lease was up, [the other guys] met one of the people from Ward and [invited us over here].
Is it hard to get into Ward?
I mean, it kinda is, but it seemed like it was meant to be. We weren’t even supposed to be in this spot. They were going to put us down the way [in the same complex as Borders] in some little 1000 square foot spot and try us out. That probably would have killed us. This is an old pottery place that nobody really wanted. We asked for it. I think it’s true that we took the old pottery place and made it into our store… It gives it a little more culture.
You got a little tag on the wall.
[My friend ] did that.
Is he from here?
He’s a well-known graffiti artist out here. He does all the art for Rocksteady crew. He’s actually part of Hawaii Rocksteady. He came down and gave us love. Did a piece on the wall. [We’re] trying to embrace the culture and still have a boutique style clothing store. Trying to make it nice. Try to present the artists [we’ve brought out] in a nice way (gestures to the pictures on the wall). Trying to do the graffiti in a nice way.
Who’s your demographic out here?
Mostly 15-35 [year olds].
Are the hip hop kids finding your store?
Yeah. A little bit of everybody. I mean, we already had kind of a clientele when we moved up over here. I mean, like really strong clientele because you had to want to come to our store! You had to pay for parking. Yeah, it was a hassle to go over there. So they came over… Locals love it.
You all knew each other from putting on shows?
Yeah.
Was anyone ever an artist?
Actually, I came out here and I did an Outkast concert when I first came out here. These are guys that I hooked up with. They were doing small shows out here. We hooked up and decided to do bigger concerts together. Put our money together. And then that got tiring and now we’re doing this full time.
What do you think about the local hip hop scene? Do you get out at all?
Yeah. Not as much as I used to. It’s definitely grown leaps and bounds. When I first came out here, there was only [a couple of hip hop spots]. Downtown in The Loft after 2am or in the back of 1739 [Kalakaua] from 4 to 6 in the morning. That was the only hip hop scene out here that I could see. If there was one besides that, then I don’t know.
If you know those places then…
Exactly. It was an uphill battle… like the guys from the radio pulled me aside and said “Hip Hop will not work out here.” It was like well, maybe it’s because of what you feed them. The only thing on the radio was the Backstreet Boys and stuff like that. It was just a horrible scene out here. Then little by little, over the last five to ten years… it’s grown tremendously. Now, when you go to the hip hop club, you feel like the culture has been here forever. They got it down.
How was it having an Outkast show here [back then]? Did you guys have enough audience?
Yeah. We did it during the Pro Bowl so it was exactly the same demographic. We had 3500 people at the World Café, so that wasn’t a problem. Shoot, yeah actually that was kind of a dry run for a while until my friend brought Common down. That was the first [hip hop] gig that probably got maybe 2500 people over at Pipeline.
[Back to the clothes.]
You’ve got all these bright colored designs here. Do you think that’s what people were missing? They didn’t have the option here?
That’s what’s hot right now. A lot of stuff that we carry you’ll see in music videos. Even though this is Hawaii, we got a lot of hoodies, too. People still want like one hoodie. Give people the option to buy whatever. We like a lot of colors. We like to match the fashions that are out. We’re working on our own line.
Coconut Grove Music
Article by Shawn Davenport
In May, Coconut Grove Music turned 19!!! While that may seem impressive, according to the friendly staff I interviewed, the store is still not old enough to drink. If you are a musician that lives on the windward side you have almost certainly been to the small Kailua store (next to McDonalds). Even if you live all the way in Makaha, the store still has plenty of great reasons to draw you in. I myself keep coming back, and although I frequent many music stores here on the island, this is one store I always have fun in. I sat down and had a talk with Coconut Grovers Mark and Fred one afternoon for some info about the store.
The store may be 19, but there is over 100+ years of experience amongst the employees. I’m not talking general “life experience.” We all have someone in our lives for that. I’m talking about playing, gigging, instrument maintenance, and musicianship in general. Mark has been playing for 25 years. Frank’s been playing for 40. Fred smiles, thinks, and then answers reflectively that he has been making music for almost 45 years! Frank was in a very popular, or so I have been told, local band called SNAZ in the 80’s and was island-known for his shredding skills on the guitar. In fact, all of them still perform with a number of different bands frequently, and they truly have fun with it. I had the pleasure of seeing Father of the Bride, one of Mark’s musical affairs, which he described as “a jug band without the jug.” So, is your electric guitar not making noise? String buzzing? Cables acting up? Amplifier howling? Not enough girls dancing at your show? These guys will have just the thing for you. All you have to do is ask!
Why do I keep coming back? Besides hanging out and talking music, I love to see what they have up on the wall behind the counter - the “you need to ask before you can touch this stuff” section of the store. Vintage Martins, brilliant old tele’s and strats, and always something I’ve heard legends about, but never seen before. Last time I was there, they had a beautiful Hoffner Bass, exactly like the one Paul McCartney used to play! Just holding it and feeling its weight and craftsmanship, I could almost hear the roaring crowd on the Ed Sullivan show...”Ladies and Gentlemen...THE BEATLES!” I found and purchased a beautiful Yahama acoustic guitar from 1973 at the store, and I play it every day! This is stuff you won’t find anywhere else.
Suffice to say, these vintage gems are not the only merchandise Coconut Grove carries. They have an awesome selection for beginners as well. Lesser known brands with striking quality such as Parker, Gadow, and Danelectro are all featured. Another great thing you will not find at most larger music stores, are consignments. They feature a daily special aptly named “Catch o’ the Day”, as well as a “Wreck of the Week” for anyone looking for a project! As you can see, there is always something new and unique to be found here.
Whether you are a casual musician, a beginning songwriter, or just someone that wants to come and talk some story with awesome musicians, Coconut Grove will have what you are looking for. The experience and variety in this store cannot be beat and they treat every customer to friendly, personalized service! They seem to know nearly every customer by name. If you would like to meet, and potentially rock out with, the shopkeepers in a more casual atmosphere, they organize a night-time monthly jam session on the last Sunday of each month at Tiare’s bar and grill in
Kailua! Sweet! These guys actively support the music scene whether they’re on the stage or sponsoring a show. These are just a few of the reasons why the Zine loves Coconut Grove Music so very much.
Horror Punk: From Hawaii to Oregon
Article by Ellice Flores
Hawaii is not typically known as a place were rock bands start out. Reggae or ‘Jawaiian’ is what many think of when associating music with the islands. The Quintessentials, a rock band that originated in Hawaii has recently relocated to Portland, Oregon to spread their musical talents. “A band can only grow so much on an island,” lead guitarist and vocalist Les Hernandez said. Hernandez founded The Quintessentials in 1998 out of the ashes of his previous band The Catalogs. “As much as I love Hawaii, I needed to chase my rainbows in the wider world and experience life elsewhere.” The current line-up is Evil Todd on bass and backing vocals, Hernan Hell on drums and backing vocals, and Hernandez on lead guitar and lead vocals.
The Hawaii scene is much different from Oregon in a number of ways. “In Hawaii the scene is so small and there are only so many venues, so everything’s a bit tighter,” Hernandez said. “In Oregon there are tons of shows all the time at all these different venues and all these bands are in competition with one another trying to get weekend gigs. There definitely is much more opportunity here, but you have to be vigilant.” So far, The Quintessentials have played one show out in Portland and have two more booked for next month.
Hernandez describes the band’s music as horror punk rock . “We have a very old-school ‘77 poppy punk sound ala the Ramones, Screeching Weasles, and The Queers,” Hernandez said, “but a bit of black metal influence sprinkled here and there along with an early 1970’s pop-rock influences.” Hernandez has had fans call The Quintessentials everything from straight-up old-school punk to satano-pop to pop-punk. “We’re like the horror punk label at the present,” Hernandez said.
The Quintessentials currently have three full-length albums with all of its original songs written by Hernandez. Life experiences, for the most part, is what inspires Hernandez to write lyrics. Other times it could be a book, movie, particular historical event or figure, as with there track “The Black Pope,” which is about Anton Szandor Lavey. As far as the music itself goes, Hernandez will usually hear a song in his head and just learn it, and sometimes the lyrics will come to him. “Sometimes I’ll hear a whole song in a dream and figure it out as I wake up,” Hernandez said.
The band is currently concentrating on a number of upcoming projects, which includes a seven-inch vinyl entitled “Sarah Alice is DEAD!” The six-song EP will include a re-recorded title track from the bands first full-length album “The Horror Never Ends,” as well as an eerie cover of ABBA’s “Mama Mia.” After that, a full-length album will be in works, as well as “The Black House: A Tribute to Anton S. LaVey,” a complitation CD which will be out soon.
Hawaii fans have no need to worry. The Quintessentials have plans in the near future to return for a few shows. “Hawaii will always be home for me, being the fourth generation of my family born and raised there and I can’t think of not playing there.”
Visit thequintessentials.com or myspace.com/thequints for more.
National Product Interview
June 2, 2007
Interview by Katie Whitman
Band Members:
Danny Casler- Vocals
Jeff Feuerhaken- Guitar
Stan Moniz- Guitar
Rob Caveney- Drums
Nathan Elliott- The Thunder
Dan Niles- Keys
National Product is a band that started right here on Oahu... in Kailua no less. The local boys made their name here in the 90's then decided to take it to the mainland to see how much farther they could go. They struggled to find an apartment, jobs, and even a first show. Their struggles paid off as they are starting to get attention from mainstream radio, record labels, and are starting to tour. Their hit single Love Me made it to #1 on Star 101.9, Hawaii's alternative radio station. National Product also appeared on the cover of the Midweek, a triumph that most local musicians don't accomplish here. Sitting in Robbie Cavney's backyard in Kailua, I told them that The 808 Scene Zine is read by a lot of musicians. Once they heard that, the boys started giving advice and sharing their experiences excitedly for the next hour and a half. The entire transcript of that interview is right here (the best we could do as far as transcribing goes). Enjoy and learn. These guys are VERY resourceful and driven.
We start the interview in the middle of a comment... The zine's comments are in bold, however you can see that I didn't have to say much:
I think a lot of the bands that move to the mainland get comfortable because it’s kind of hard to get shows. They just get jobs and they forget why they moved there. There’s a lot of bands that did that.
Dan: I don’t think they forget why they move there. I think it becomes overwhelming to stay afloat and survive in a new environment. I think they know why they’re there, it’s just when you move there, you’re growing up in a sense. You’re not living in Hawaii and you’re not with your family or your friends anymore. Now you have to pay rent and rent is very expensive on the mainland. You’ve got gas and insurance and things that your parents don’t pay for anymore.
And it’s way easier to get lost in the shuffle there.
You feel like you’re more of an individual here. Especially if you’re in a band.
Danimal: Nathan and I are from a small town in Colorado and we experienced pretty much the same things that all these guys went through. You’re like a big fish, and then…
Dan: I guess you kind of stabilize and then you figure out where the awesome venues are. Like Chain Reaction, we took a while to even find out that the raddest freaking venue was up the street from us. That’s the place where they break bands, but we didn’t even know that for a long time. It’s not even that far.
Danimal: Nathan and I moved to California not even knowing where to move. We moved to San Diego thinking that was the center of music in California.
NATHAN: We had no clue. We had no idea what to expect. These guys have said that they weren’t ready for what they encountered. Like they said, big fish in a small pond. It’s really discouraging sometimes. You have to jump through a lot of hoops and reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Danimal: And make tons of sacrifices. Tons of sacrifices.
Stan: We moved to Huntington Beach. We were [wondering] “Where are we going to move to?” This place was kind of like Hawaii because of the surf and the food so that’s where we tried to locate to.
Dan?: For me, I was going to church a lot at Hope Chapel and they started Hope Chapel right there in Huntington. That’s kind of the reason why I really wanted [to go there].
Stan: There are a lot of kids from Kaneohe. There’s a little family of Hawaiian people there that support each other.
Rob: That’s so funny. Just listening to you guys say that shows so much about Hawaii. We’re looking for things that are like… things that we have here that they have there. In other places in the US, people hate [where they are from]. People are trying to get away. But people love it so much here, so that makes it so much harder.
Dan: I can say in a positive way, in a humble way, we’re a big reason why a lot of people moved to Huntington Beach. We were like, dude, this place is awesome. It’s got an L&L and the beach and everything. A lot of our friends from Kailua and around the island started moving. We let them sleep on our floors and we let them get their legs up. You slowly saw Huntington Beach just growing. When we first moved there, you just saw an L&L. Now there’s over six Hawaiian BBQs. You can see that now there’s a demand for that kind of thing since Hawaii people are catching on and going “Yeah this is me.” L.A. is really fast paced and most Hawaii people cannot live there. Then San Diego is too slow for most Hawaii people. Huntington Beach is slow and fast at the same time.
…
Rob: We didn’t really plan moving out here. It was pretty blind. We toured once for two weeks and we were moving around so much, we didn’t have much time to explore areas. Whereas some bands might tour a lot and get a really good feel of where the right place is for them. We just did a two week tour, came back, and were like “Well, let’s do it.”
Dan: I remember very well grabbing the map. We grabbed the map and went into our lock out. We were talking about what we’re going to do. We went to Burger King to eat. We set this map out. Everybody agreed and we circled Huntington Beach.
…
Dan: When we first moved to California, we were in a town called Fountain Valley. I say this with all respect, it was like a full on Mexican gangster vato neighborhood. There were cars on bricks. We were in basically a one to two bedroom apartment with all these dudes and we’re eating at the 99 cent store to save money. We were like “We gotta get out of this place.” It took three weeks of driving around every day looking for rent signs. No one would approve us because we’re new renters.
Stan: I think you and me were the only one with credit. We moved there because my job was right there, like two blocks, and no one had a car except Dan. Then Joey, our bass player at the time, worked at the guitar center down the road and he would just walk.
Dan: On that same note of jobs – what I would suggest for any bands that are leaving Hawaii to go to the mainland, when you go and you go as a team looking for jobs, make sure you’re getting jobs that cater to the band. For example, Rob was working at Olive Garden and Kinko’s. He was able to print all of our flyers for free, then he’d bring us home food from the Olive Garden that we wouldn’t have to pay for. [Another member] was at DHL so he would ship our CDs and our press kits. We were all putting ourselves in positions to further the band and our goal.
Stan: I would slide the CDs on the belt so we wouldn’t have to pay. I just figured the system out. I know it isn’t right, but we saved money that way.
Dan: You know what, I’m sure those guys aren’t hurting.
Stan: We were roughing it out. Dan was talking about the 99 cent store. There was this siamin called Smack.
Dan: It ‘s the alternative to Top Ramen. It’s like the Honda compared to the Mercedes if Top Ramen.
Rob: It was like a gold mine, how cheap the ramen was.
Dan: It was like $1 for 12.
Stan: Then we’d try to find every little thing to make it taste better, like Spam…
[A bunch of Bud Lights arrive on the scene!]
Stan: We couldn’t even afford to drink Bud Light. We used to drink Pabst.
Oh no, Steel Reserve.
I’ve never even heard of it.
Stan: You could get drunk off of two of those.
Dan: Steel Reserve is this malt liquor that’s in a thick can. At the very bottom is the malt of the liquor.
Stan: No one would want to drink it.
Dan: It collects to the bottom. It settles. And when you get to the bottom, it’s like taking a Jack Daniels shot and you’re just not prepared for it.
The whole point is that you’re supposed to get drunk enough by the time you get to the bottom, you don’t even care.
Stan: They were like 99 cents each. So you could spend two dollars on alcohol. They tasted like shit.
Dan: 99 ceent store sold those bottles of wine. Remember that?
[Collective groan]
That sounds like a bad idea.
Oh, it was a bad idea. Headache in a box.
711 was just down the street from us, so we’d always get Steel Reserve.
What was the name of that cereal? There was like Happy Jacks.
Stan: I would suggest bands actually come up there and tour and actually plan their tour. Plan out where they’re going. Our first tour, [we went all over the place]. We would go like Santa Barbara, San Diego, L.A., Santa Barbara, Vegas, Santa Cruz. It was ridiculous.
We were just happy to play.
Stan: We would be driving like five hours and we just came back to the same area.
Dan: The cool part about that thing, it couldn’t have happened in a better way. We made a lot of relationships. The internet is the best way to utilize your band. We made a lot of relationships with the owners of Drive Through Records and they let us live on their floor. We were staying on the floor with New Found Glory and Midtown. Then we were playing shows with The Ataris and Midtown and all these bands. Because we were staying on the floor with them, we had all these relationships, these friendships. Every time we came back into town from Hawaii, we were able to hang out.
Stan: We got those shows when those bands weren’t nothing yet. They were playing the smallest venues. It was just when they were breaking. They had their EPs out. That’s why we were like, when we came back home, dude, we gotta go back.
Dan: We watched them blow up.
So what happened? Part of the band defected and came back to Hawaii?
Dan: The whole band. The whole band went back to Hawaii except for me. I stayed because I had a really good job. I was selling real estate.
Stan: Not only that. We had a hard time. We couldn’t find shows to save our asses. We couldn’t find bar shows.
Was it because it was really competitive?
Yeah.
Rob: If you don’t draw at least 50 kids or better, people don’t want to book you.
You get up there and you have to pay to play. It’s extremely hard to sell tickets to people on the street that have no clue who your band is or who have never heard of you.
Did you try?
Oh yeah.
Dan: We were playing shows. The whole thing was that we weren’t playing shows that we needed to play. A lot of bands from Hawaii will e-mail me and say we’re thinking of moving to Seattle or we’re thinking of moving to here and we’ve got these gigs playing bars. I’m pretty much the business guy of the band, so I tell them straight up, if you want to move, tour first because there’s a couple of aspects you need to know about. One is you’re all good and you’re all braddahs here, but once you get on the road with the band, and I’m not talking about a week or two weeks, be with them for a month and see what their idiosynchrosies are like when you’re out with them every day. Little things are going to piss you off and you’re gonna be like maybe this is not the path for me. The other thing is, bar shows, they don’t cut it. If you’re doing it for money, that’s one thing. You gotta understand, if you’re playing music, you’re not playing music to drunk dudes. Those people don’t buy your records. You gotta be playing to kids because kids are buying records, their buying your merch and furthering your career. So you have to look at it as a business, but at the same time you gotta have fun with your friends.
The whole thing is, we weren’t having fun because Robbie’s working 60 hours a week, Stan’s working 60 hours a week. I’m busting my balls to do what I’m doing and we’re not enjoying it. So the whole thing is we’re not even motivated to go play shows and when we’re trying to get these all ages shows, respectfully, they gotta run a business, too. They [ask] how many kids can you bring? 50? 100? We’re like, dude, we don’t even know 50 people.
This is exactly how we got in. I told the owner straight up, give us 100 tickets. You can keep all of the money. It’s usually a 50/50 split. Just give us a spot and we’ll sell 100 tickets. He was so blown away that we were willing to put that kind of incentive in. He was like alright, let’s see if you can do it. If not, you owe me $500 bucks (because it was $10 per ticket and half is $500). So we were going out in malls. [Rob] was selling tickets to people that he was serving to. We were doing anything and everything. We ended up selling it out. After that, it just kind of built.
Stan: That was pretty much when we came back. But back up a bit. How he was saying that you’re not in the [mindset] of thinking that everybody is working and we gotta do this and stuff. On top of that, we’re trying to make a change of our thinking from being in Hawaii to being on the mainland. I had an ex-fiancee over here that I was dealing with. Rob was missing home real bad. Once the lease [on our apartment] went out, everybody moved back. Dan stayed. I was like dude, I need to come back [to Cali].
Dan: We kind of used mind manipulation. We basically told the guys, you guys are our bros, but frick that. If you’re not going to come back, then we’re just going to find guys and we’re going to keep going. That wasn’t to be like you guys aren’t good enough or anything. It was like that’s how serious we are about this and we want you to be serious, too.
Kaila in Hawaii is amazing. Hawaii is the best place in the world. But, if you don’t want to succumb to working a construction job or doing something that you’re not ultimately happy with… You only get one chance in life to really live your dream and your passion, so we were like “Go for it!” And that was infectious and everybody got it.
Stan: It’s the whole “what if” factor, too. I would feel the same way if Rob would come up to me and say, hey dude, I’m going to start a band with Dan and if you don’t come back, then we’re going to find somebody else. It’s like what if they do good?
Danimal: It gets discouraging. You’re in a new place you’ve never been. You’re in this whole new environment. You freak out and go back, but you see that you don’t like what you’re missing. Back then, you were a kid and I wanted to go back and be safe like I was a kid, but then I thought “man, this is the one shot I’ve got to do it. Then when we went back, we were more serious. That’s when we dedicated our life to it.
Nate: It’s funny that we were doing the same thing in a completely different place. It’s the same story. I went back to the same girlfriend that I had before (ROB: Dude, me too.) to the same job that I had before. Tried to go to college and just realized the reason I left in the first place was how motivated I was to get away from that. I felt like I was being sucked in to our little town and I never was going to make it out.
Dan: I still think everyday… even like today, my brother and the record label were like “Man, we’re so proud of you. Can you believe all of the things that you are doing?” I think we always believed it and that’s why we’re here. Our mindset was always forward thinking. We always believed that we were going to get here. It was a matter of when and how. The whole band is a very positive, forward thinking band, so we set our goals and we knew what we wanted to achieve. We didn’t know that all this stuff was going to happen, but we wanted to believe that it was.
Now we’re doing some really amazing things. Even now I’ll [think] what if we stop tomorrow? What would have been possible a week from today? That’s why people have their life’s work and that’s why they get a lifetime achievement award, because that didn’t stop. Because they believed and they kept going. Some of those people, their finest work is in their later years of life.
Danimal: I always remember the feeling I got when I went back to Colorado. I realized that I didn’t have the path left open for me and that it was only being in California and playing music. You can’t go back. [Other band members chime in: Yeah] Everytime I get discouraged, I think if I were to quit right now, it would not be green on the other side.
Dan?: The whole process just involves a leap of faith. You’re putting yourself out there. There’s going to be tons of opsticles. You’re going on a journey.
It’s like Lord of the Rings, dude!
It totally is.
With music, it’s all in or none. That’s just how it is. There’s people right behind you that put way more effort and if you drop the ball –
- they’re picking it up. We were big out here when we left, but when we went there, we were shit. No one even knew who we were.
Dan: We didn’t even know about playing to a metronome. When we got in with producers, man, they kicked our ass. You guys need to be playing at a much different level if this is what you want to do as a career. We went through all those things where we would sit members down individually and say, “You need to step it up.”
Every week it’s that.
We always keep each other in check constantly.
Dan: It’s a friendly competition to be the best you can be.
Jeff: You have to be able to say Jeff, please do this.
You have to let go of your egos a lot of the time because the reality is that we’re all trying to grow together and we’re all on the same team. We’re trying to do the same thing. And you have to put faith in your friends.
It’s your brothers. It’s your family. Especially if you’re on the road for six months.
We definitely have our little quarrels all the time, but that’s communication and you definitely learn to get through all of that. I think that’s probably one of the most discouraging things for a younger band. They can’t get past their egos inside their band. They can’t work out their issues and they end up breaking up.
If you guys don’t have the same goals, you might as well give up.
When you’re dating someone, it’s the same thing. We’re all dating each other in the sense that when you come in to this, you need to lay out your goals. These are my goals, what are your goals? Then you align those goals. If you have one guy going “Dude, I’m just here for fun.” It’s like, “You know what, dude, that’s cool, but you got five other dudes that want this bad. If you’re not here with that motivation, then I think you’re in the wrong band.” It’s nothing personal, but you don’t want one guy to be an anchor holding a ship that wants to go full throttle.
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Stan: Even going further than that, it’s like how we’re all brothers and family. We encompass everything – our label, our publicist. Everyone has to have that vibe. Same vision. We’ve protected ourselves from a lot of freaking lame ass people. People that just wanted to take us for a ride.
Rob: Not even lame people. Recently we’ve had to not work with people because it didn’t fit right.
Stan: We haven’t had a manager ever. We’ve managed the band ourselves.
Dan: We’ve had pseudo-managers which were guys who were basically like father figures. Like Craig Lansberg who got us to California. He put our trip on his credit card. If it wasn’t for Craig – and we haven’t talked to that guy in years –
Dan: We don’t even know where that guy is, but he’s the reason we’re here.
Stan: It’s the whole Hawaii thing. If we feel like you’re part of the family, then you’re in. Everybody’s very intelligent in this band. We know when there’s red flags. Bands need to watch out. Don’t ever – “Hey, you. Sign here!” – Don’t ever do that.
Shop. You gotta shop. You gotta see what’s up.
Dan: It’s just like a relationship. You don’t go with the first person that wants to hook up with you. You want to look at it. You want to go around and find out.
Nate: Networking is like 80% of it. I’ve never seen a band that networks like this band.
One of the cool things about our band is that we have tons of bands that we hang out with and party with and stuff. Every town we go to, we have great friends. That’s one of the best things about being a band, is being out on the road and meeting all these cool people that share this common interest with you.
At any level, certain bands – sometimes ones that are higher up on the scale – way small bands will come through and want to hang out, and it’s almost like the [big bands] will give off that vibe that we only hang out with like-like bands. But we’ll make connections with anyone that’s willing to give us the time of day and show respect because tomorrow, that band could be the next one.
Stan: I think it’s just that our band has that Aloha spirit. It’s kind of like we transferred it to California. We all changed. We totally dress differently. You have to fit the part, but we still have the same spirit.
Dan: We’ve just evolved. I don’t want to say that we’ve changed. When we did the Midweek interview, [the reporter asked] “Do you guys dress like this all the time?” She wasn’t being facetious or anything. She was just curious. I’m like “Yeah, we do.” Because music is a lifestyle. When you get into a certain lifestyle, you do evolve. Our music went from playing ultra-super-fast punk rock. We still play fast stuff, but we’ve made wiser choices on how we arrange our music now. For us it’s more dynamic, more impactful. When the listener listens to it, they can feel different things, not just flailing drum beatsl
I think that we all grew up on it [fast punk/rock]. You grow. You learn. You evolve. When you’re passionate about something like we are about music, that’s all you think about it all the time.. When you’re thinking about it all the time, you’re constantly going try to find ways to better yourself at it.
[They listen to their music all the time and see how much they’ve grown when they compare old recordings to new one.]
Dan: I have a cassette tape from a karaoke machine. One mic. I have our very very very very first practice as a band recorded. We’ve gotta transfer these things that we did. It really shows the evolution of the band. To me, that’s what makes this band so special. Obviously, I’m in the band. I don’t want to sound biased. There’s a story. There’s a history. It encompasses all the things of a good movie to me. There’s falling in love with the passion of making music. Then there’s this romance with the lifestyle of creating music. Then there’s this struggle, there’s the achievement, there’s this success. There’s so many elements and it dates back to this kids bedroom, right in there, where we first started, to a garage, to a lock out. There really is a really strong history and it’s really cool.
None of us would still be doing this if we looked back and we were always stuck in this rut and we were never changing. The reason why we’re so driven is because every single day there’s something new that presents itself. We change and we grow and we get better. We’re always moving.
Danimal: We all could have a real job right now offered to us. Like graphic design. A&R. We all could do it, but we can’t quit music. We’re killing ourselves. Not being able to feed ourselves. Living in bad situations, but it’s for a reason.
It’s for our passion.
Dan: It’s funny, because my buddies that are here that I grew up with are always like “What’s up, Captain Tight Pants?” I’m just like “Dude, try it.”
Stan: My nephews, they’re all a bunch of mokes. They got the booyahs. I was talking to their friend and he said “Hey Stan. I don’t want to be like mean, but what’s girl pants?” I’m like “Yes it is girl pants. Size seven.” Then he was like “Everything you wear, you look good in!”
Do you feel like it’s gotten any easier? You’d broken through one boundary.
Rob: There’s a million barriers. Once you get over one barrier, you realize that the next one is a little bit higher, and the next one is a little bit higher.
I wouldn’t say it’s gotten easier and I wouldn’t say it’s gotten harder. We’ve realized that this is the life. We’ve learned to accept that you get over one hump and you expect another one.
Rob: [Stan? Dan?] is 3000 miles away from his girlfriend that he loves. He can’t see her for another half a year or something.
There’s things you adapt to and you learn to deal with the fact that this is the life that you’ve chosen. It’s not even that you have to deal with it. It’s that you want to.
The funny thing is that a lot of those bands will make it over those first few hump sand then they’ll spread apart. What makes this band awesome is that every we get over, we realize different things about each other and we get stronger. Then we move over to the next one closer together.
Stan: There’s goals that we’ve set, like playing the Big Mellee (at Kualoa Ranch) or this is a goal - being on the radio. We’ve just accomplished something I’ve been dreaming forever. You think back five years ago and you [remember] “If I were to ever get on the radio, dude, that would be the end of the band. I’d be happy.”
Dan: My biggest goal when I was a kid – and I worked with Jason Miller on this, he’s a good guy. I was working at Domino’s Pizza saving my money to fly bands out here because I was so into building a scene. I would throw benefits [at Kalaheo high school] for charity. $5 donation plus canned food good. I’d have ten local bands and we’d donate money to charity and we’d donate clothes and food to charity and we got so enthralled in putting on shows. I was like, man, our scene really needs bands. People would tell me, oh man, I love this band. So I would check them out online, work my ass off, save up a couple grand, then I would fly them out. I flew two bands out. One from DC and one from California. I was thinking, man, my biggest goal right now – I want one day to be flown out to play shows with my band. I want to be able to play The Big Melee, which because the Surf Fest. After we started getting flown out all the time, and then we came out and did Kualoa [Ranch], I remember standing on the stage with these dudes and going “Holy Crap.” There’s 9,000 people, it’s a beautiful sunny day and I’m in my home. I was looking at them and I was like “We did it.” After that, you sit back and you re-evaluate and you go, “Now what? Now what do I want?” Certain things are way above what you expected and they just happen. Like this radio thing is out of the blue. I get a call at three in the morning “You’re number one on the radio!” I was like “Dude, I gotta go to sleep. Call me in the morning.” Because I thought someone was messing with me. I wake up in the morning and I’ve got all these texts from people, family. Then you re-evaluate. We were shooting for here and somehow we’re all the way up here!
Stan: The Midweek. That was awesome because that was our first cover. My dad’s been always hard on me. I think a lot of fathers are. Asking me “Why you gotta go do [music]? You’ve got a good job here.” I called my dad when I got here on Tuesday and just the inflection in his voice, I could tell he was totally proud.
Rob: On that note, I think the biggest thing as far as it getting easier, because it still is really hard moving up, but compared to how it is when we first came here and how it is now, the most satisfying part about it, people take us seriously. They take what you do seriously. But now, the name National Product – “I’m Rob from National Product.” – I can say that to someone in the industry and there’s a good chance they’re going to say “I’ve heard of you guys. I know who you are. I’m going to listen to what you have to say.”
Dan: I was telling these guys that I was walking down and these guys - total bradduhs – were doing landscaping. I’m walking outside and these guys start walking over the bushes going “Eh! Eh!” I’m going like “Oh crap.” They were like “Hey, you was on the cover of the Midweek, yeah?” And I say “Yeah, man.” And he said “I heard your song on the radio and it’s awesome, man.” Then this morning we were at Sam Choy’s getting breakfast and the waiter was like “Hey, man, I just gotta ask you guys, you guys are in a band, yeah?” I said yeah. And he asked “Which band?” and I said “National Product.” He was like “Yeah, man! Man, I’m a fan of your band. I saw you guys on the cover of Midweek. It was just so weird.”
Rob: There’s nothing better than that feeling of acknowledgement. My dad the other day with the Midweek thing – my dad is the same way just like him. He wants me to be Mr. Financial with a degree in college making money. He doesn’t even know how to text, but he sent me a small little text message and said “I head about the Midweek cover. I’m extremely proud of you.”
Stan: That’s the stuff that makes me so happy. I went up to my sister’s house and she was crying and she said “I can’t even believe you guys did this.” My other sister never really kept in touch with my dad too much. They never really talk. My sister listens to the station [Star 101.9] and she called my dad right out of the blue like “Boy is on the radio!” Now my sister is talking to my dad all the time, which is awesome. It sounds stupid but it’s awesome because not only am I achieving my goal, but I’m bringing my family closer again. I brought my sister and my dad closer together. My other sister was always kind of out of the picture, but we’re meeting on Sunday for lunch at 11 o’clock. Which is awesome. I’ve never had my whole family together in god knows how long. My mother passed away in ’97. That’s probably the last time I had my whole family together.
Dan: You bring your family into the goal. They become a part of the goal and they want to see you achieve. There’s nothing more powerful than having a good foundation behind you, pushing you, whether it’s a good girlfriend, a good wife, a good husband pushing you to be successful. If you got people that love you and believe in you, then you believe, man, I can do anything.
Rob: Allowing that inspiration – how hard we’re pushing and how much dedication we’ve offered through this whole thing for how many years now. Seeing people we care about be they family or close friends or girlfriends thrive off of that and going “Wow. That’s freaking amazing.” Seeing what we’re doing and trying something new themselves.
Danimal: When you’re in the spotlight, you have this huge power. When Nathan and I were in our last band, one of our friends had 30 tumors in her lungs. I saw her X-Ray and I was about to cry. She had to get a bone marrow transplant and she didn’t have money for it. So we did a charity show and raised about $7000.
Nathan: You can move people to help other people.
Danimal: You have a power [in] music, like bringing a family together, to raise money.
Nathan: Tell what happened to her.
Danimal: Oh, she completely recovered. She got her bone marrow transplant. We had 500 kids show up to a show where were nothing.
Nathan: Nobody knew who we were at the time.
Danimal: I honestly think that that show and being up on stage and having every one of her family members – I’m getting goose bumps right now. I seriously think that that was my biggest accomplishment in my life so far, having every single one of her family members, every single one of her friends, and 500 people she didn’t know cheering for her, I really think that gave her motivation. That’s the beauty of what music does.
Stan: That’s a big goal for us. Once we get to that bigger level that we can reach so much more people, we’d like to do some of those things. We’re all about charity and helping other people.
Dan: We get e-mails from fans - kids who cut, kids who try to commit suicide – saying “Your music effects me. Your message effects me. Your drive and motivation or why you do what you do effects me and it saved my life.” I can honestly say that over the course of the time that we’ve been a band, I’ve probably seen 30 to 50 of those e-mails. If you just think that, wow, your music has that kind of influence on people…
You’re doing something right.
Stan: Like using myspace – a lot of bands have an automatic comment, but we all take time. It takes time to answer each e-mail. Some kids ask how do you get into music or where do you start. It’s easy to bypass that, but we all take time to think what should I tell this kid? He’s just starting out. And when you get the response back, they’re just so stoked.
Dan: They usually always write back saying “You guys are one of my favorite bands because I write other bands and they don’t give me any time.”
Stan: As big as we get, I don’t think we’re ever going to stop doing that ever.
Rob: I definitely think that’s something we’re going to continue to do and it’s not just because we feel like it’s something we have to do, it’s something we enjoy doing. It gives us the opportunity to connect with people all over the world. It’s a learning experience, too, because sometimes the people you meet end up being people that are extremely important for your life. New friends or somebody that can help you along the way. You never know and there’s no reason to cut yourself off from that.
I was kind of curious what the scene was like when you were still here?
It was kind of…cliquey.
Rob: Probably just like how it is now except there were a lot more venues. There were a lot of venues. A lot more surf punk music back then. [Dan: and ska] We were all underage in high school and we were playing [lot of venues].
Stan: The thing I would say to bands now, let anybody play. Don’t just have your friends play all the time. Because I know there’s cliques. Back when I was growing up, bands would hate each other.
Dan: I don’t know if the scene was necessarily that cliquey. What I was going to say was that the scene was very eclectic. We were playing shows with metal bands, reggae bands, ska bands, punk bands, hardcore bands. There was that [cliquey] aspect, but I don’t want to focus on that because that is in every scene.
Rob: My advice to bands would be, we’re all here doing the same thing. Yeah, we’re going to have our differences, but we’re trying to do the same thing. There is some level of competition, but turn that competition into a positive thing.
Dan: There’s a lot more in common than there are differences.
Rob: We might be different bands, but we’re all here working on the same mission. If we work together towards that, we’re going to be far more successful.
Stan: There’s certain bands that go on tour and pair up and help each other grow.
Rob: That’s how we made so many friends on the road. It’s fun to go out on tour for us now, especially with some of those bands, because for us we get to go out and have a good time.
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Stan: That’s kind of our objective, too, to put Hawaii on the map for a rock band. If we do it, it has hope for other bands. [They’ll realize] if we push, we can do it, too.
Dan: There really are two kinds of shows here in Hawaii – underground shows and radio shows. That waiter, he moved from Detroit and he goes “There’s no scene here.” I said, “No dude. That’s what’s so special about Hawaii. There’s a scene and it’s strong and it thrives and it moves from venue to venue.” It’s so hard to explain. But it’s this underground thing. When you’re a part of it, it’s like the best thing in the world. You play in houses. You play everywhere you can have a show. Then you get to a level where you play radio shows. You get 9000 people there because they heard you on the radio, but they have no idea what’s really going down. The cool thing is that the positives of the underground scene is that it is a family. I remember how coming into it was like coming into the Skulls or something. You had to really prove yourself and you got shit for coming into it. Then once you’re in, you’re in. I think that it would be wise for the underground scene kids to go out into the radio shows and try and get more of those kids to be a part of [the underground scene].
Stan: [Looking] back and thinking, it’s like the stupidest thing in the world. Nobody ever thought about it. Why not go to these shows and flyer the whole line. [People in California] flyer the whole line, no matter how big it is. People in Hawaii would complain about not playing [a big show], but you have this whole line that you can flyer and get [exposed] to these people. For a local band, they should take every opportunity that they can. Go to big shows. Print out 200 free CDs. It’s out of your pocket, but it will make a big difference because no one’s used to that in Hawaii. Getting a free CD. It’s the oldest thing in the book, but no one from Hawaii’s done it yet.
Stan: I bet you for sure, the first band that does that, there’s going to be competition. Oh crap, they’re passing out flyers and CDs to all these people in this line. Shouldn’t I be doing that? It’s going to start a wildfire.
Rob: There are bands that go along on the Vans Warped Tour and they don’t even play a show.
Stan: We would go to every single show and spend money. We would pull money out of our pockets. Flyer the windshields of the cars. I would flood cars at shows. If you keep on flyering every show [and they keep finding flyers on their windshields], one day they’re going to be like “You know what? I’ll check the flyer out.” You gotta be persistent. Going to these big shows that matter a lot, give everybody a free CD. Get a couple of hundred dollars together and trade them up.
Rob: Go to the show and make connections with other kids – like-minded kids.
Stan: Your fanbase will grow so fast. Those bands that do that will be on the next radio show because of that. … I would have thought bands would have been doing that by now.
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Rob: There’s truth to the fact that you can implement one new thing into your life and it can change your entire life. Here, the venues don’t require 50 ticket sales, so the bands don’t feel motivated to go out because no one is going “Hey, I’ll keep your gear.” And that does happen on the mainland.
Stan: The standard is set low, I think, so a certain band or bands needs to raise it a little bit and say guys, we’re doing this now.
Danimal: If you really want to do something, it takes a lot more work than you realize. You have to get out there and do some hard ass work.
Dan: [A] buddy wrote an e-book on how to be successful selling on Ebay. I got motivated because I wanted to help bands, so I wrote an e-book on how to be successful as a musician in the entertainment industry. It’s roughly 35 pages. It tells everything that we’ve learned over the course of 10 years from falling on our face and getting back up. It even tells, even a band from Hawaii, how you can live off your band playing bi-monthly. Going to malls and selling your merchandise. Little things that people don’t really think about – we’ve gone and generated a ridiculous amount of money.
One of the things they’ve always told us, your first couple of tours you’re going to lose money. We’ve never lost money on a tour. We’ve always come home in the positive. It’s about implementing those things we were telling you about. Like we ate for free. How did we eat for free? We had merchandise and CDs that don’t cost us really anything to make and we would go into McDonald’s at the end of the night and be like “We’re a band on tour and we were wondering if it’s possible that you can give us extra food that you don’t want.” We learned really quick. We’re getting tons of food for free and all we have to do is give them a CD. They don’t get paid enough to care. They hate their job anyway.
Robbie is the king of going into movie theatres and saying we’re a band on tour and wondering if we can see a movie. And they say “Yeah. Can you give us an autographed poster?” And what does an autographed poster cost? Maybe 30 cents, but you get eight people into a movie. Our sponsors give us stuff for free, so it doesn’t cost us anything. We can give them a hat for free. Then every time we can come into town, they’re your friend.
Rob: We have over 15 sponsors in our list right now because we refuse, with everything we are doing with our band, to pay for clothes. To pay for the things that we need. It’s like why? We know what we are capable of doing, our marketability, the power we have to give. A business that’s trying to do something and they’re like man, I really want to reach this market, but this band plays in front of that market every night. We think, what can we do together? You do it times 25 and the next thing you know, you have everything you need.
Stan: If bands find friends that are starting, pair up and help support each other. That clothing company is going to put out an ad. Maybe they can put out an ad with the band [in it].
I think there are some people who might call working the system, selling out.
Nathan:
Stan: Is selling out trying to put Hawaii on the map?
Dan: A very big reason why we haven’t been approached with that [accusation] is because you can’t go up to someone and tell them you’re not authentic when you are. You can’t tell somebody that what you’re doing is not organic when it is and that it’s not passionate when it is. Selling out to me is when you change your values, your moral structure, and the motivation for what you’re doing to do something that somebody else wants you to do. We’ve been offered things that are ridiculous and we’ve been told to do things that are ridiculous and we’ve said no. We turned down a grammy award winning art director who did My Chemical Romance’s Record, Smashing Pumpkin’s new record [because we didn’t want to compromise] what we believe or what we set out to do. We did the artwork ourselves because this band has always been big on the organic essence of what we do and why we do it. … I think that anybody that’s out there, if they’re given the opportunity to do what they love doing at a much grander level and they’re not compromising who they are, then you’re not selling out.
Anybody who is going to call you a sell out with what you do is either jealous because they’re not accomplishing what they set out to do or they have this elitist attitude that it’s cool to stay in a garage. It’s not. How can you excel? The whole goal in life is to be the best human being you can be and further yourself.
Danimal: Putting limitations on yourself isn’t cool.
Dan: See, I think that’s selling out. If you limit yourself, you’re selling yourself out of your true potential.
Do you have any advice for bands?
Rob: All get together and sit down over some beers, like we did so many times, and ask yourself as a band “What do we stand for? What is our identity? Who are we as a band?” You have to know what you’re putting out there and who you really are. Once you know that and you’re confident about it. Take the next step and run with it.
Danimal: Many people tell you that they don’t believe in what you believe, just keep doing it.
Dan: Some of the most successful people of all time were told that they were morons. … There are some days when you sit back as a musician in a band and think “What the hell am I doing?” It’s where you re-evaluate yourself and you try and find that inner strength and push forward. Think about the people that are in Iraq. Think about the people that founded this country. There are people out there that are doing things that they don’t necessarily want to do, but they are under extreme pressures to do it because they know they have to. What I would say to kids and musicians, as long as you do everything with the right intent in your heart and nothing is ever malicious and you’re honest and true and sincere with what you’re putting out in the universe, you’re always going to be successful. Enjoy the ride, dude. It’s fun.
Dan: Our buddy that plays in the band Skid Row told me this. This is super important. He told me “Man, I sold 30 million records and my only regret is that, along the way, I didn’t stop at my milestones and really let them sink in and appreciate them.” I think that this applies to anyone in life. When you have a milestone that you accomplish and you’re proud of, don’t forget to stop. That’s one of those things that I definitely take with me every time something happens, like the cover of Midweek or the number one song on the radio.
