Scott Reynolds

By Fringe Staff

Living The Punk Rock Dream

By Ryan Kinder

Scott Reynolds is probably the world’s most under appreciated punk icon. Sure, you may not have heard of Reynolds’ lesser known bands Goodbye Harry, Pavers, or Bonesaw Romance, but it’s just plain ignorance for any self-respecting punk aficionado to be unaware of Reynolds’ tenure for Descendents offshoot, ALL. Reynolds recently released Livin’ The Dream - a collection of music he’s written with some of the aforementioned bands. It’s a great introduction to the music that has been such a huge part of many lives. So sell your Hinder records and use the money to buy Livin’ The Dream. Recently, I was fortunate enough to have been allowed access into the mind of one of my favorite songwriters, and here’s what he had to say…

FRINGE: What was the inspiration for releasing your compilation Livin’ The Dream?

SCOTT REYNOLDS: It’s an attempt to somewhat mitigate my complete inability to promote the stuff I’ve released over the years since I left ALL. I figured that putting out a record with a few choice tracks from each band I’ve been in; then offering it for sale at a reasonable price might entice a few people to check it out, and maybe I could let a few people in on the secret that is my music career. Plus, I’m frickin’ broke.

FRINGE: How did you decide which songs to include?

SR: First of all, each song had to be completely written by me. No co-writers. This was strictly for bookkeeping reasons. Keep it simple and make no enemies. Then I just went through and picked out songs I thought would make a complete record. It was fun.

FRINGE: How come you didn’t include any ALL songs on the album?

SR: See answer 1. Plus, those recordings have been released enough, and even if I wanted to, I could never get permission to include them on one of my little releases. You kiddin’ me?

FRINGE: Tell me a little about Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast. How’d you hook up with legendary producer/musician Dave Fridmann?

SR: Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast is an idea that came out of my inability to keep a band together. It’s hard to go out on tours or make multiple records under a single moniker if your band members keep changing. So, I decided I’d create a musical situation that could justifiably exist no matter who was in the band (besides me.) So, I’m Scott Reynolds (and always will be, unless I get a sex change operation or something) and the Steaming Beast is anybody who plays tunes with me. Pretty slick right? So far I’ve recorded with St e v e n Dr o z d f r om the Flaming Lips, Drag the River, some Pavers people, some of my old Buffalo friends, and Dave Fridmann. Plus, he recorded the whole first record at his place, Tarbox Road Studios, back in New York where I grew up. Dave and I are from the same area. He was the local live sound guy back when I was a local punker musician type. He and his wife Mary are old friends from back in the day. That’s how I hooked up with Steven, through Dave who produces all the Lips’ stuff. As for the first Beast record, it’s going to be called Adventure Boy. It’s completely recorded, and I think I’m just going to release it myself online at the end of the summer.

FRINGE: You’re also recording music with your former ALL bandmate Stephen Eggerton in a band called 40Engine. From the song “Sunny Disposition” on your MySpace profile, it sounds like this collaboration is going to be pretty fierce. Can we expect an album anytime soon?

SR: “Fierce?” Tyra Banks uses that word a lot. Did you see the “Tyra Banks Show” episode where she dressed up in a fat suit and started crying because people were mean to her? That was riveting television. So much empathy. She really cares a lot. Anyway, Stephen and I have been sending files back and forth for a while now. But family issues have gotten in the way of completing anything that even remotely resembles a full length CD. It’s been a rough patch for both of us, but we’re finally making some headway and hope to record, at his studio, in like August.

FRINGE: What bands inspire you?

SR: Too many to mention. I’m listening to Frank Zappa Shut Up and Play your Guitar right now. I love Stevie Wonder, the Minutemen, Bad Brains, Dave Brubeck, Glen Campbell, the Cure, Black Sabbath, Roger Miller, Hank Williams Sr, etc. Impossible question to answer.

FRINGE: I’m going to go back to your past now. You were the singer for ALL from ‘89 - ‘92. If you can talk about it, what led to you parting ways with the band during what most fans consider their heyday?

SR: The truth is that the music was headed in a direction I no longer felt any connection to. I mean, there were differences in our musical approaches from the day I joined the band. But I think that’s what made us interesting. It was kind of a “Stone Soup” philosophy. Lots of different ideas make for interesting art, if you can keep it together. But, after Percolator, those differences became too great. I remember when we went to L.A. to make the “Dot” video. Bill had originally told us that his plan was to make a video for a song called “Hot Plate.” And that it would be the single for the Percolator CD. He had Karl working on the cover art and everything. But someone, somewhere, must have intervened because as we were leaving I found out that we were going to make a video for “Dot” (one of my tunes) instead. Anyway, we were shooting the video, and every time the song (”Dot”) came out of the speakers Bill would complain that it was pop music, and that he hated being in a pop band, and that all he had ever wanted to do was play rock music. He seemed pretty disgusted by the whole thing. That’s when I really started feeling like maybe he and I had some insurmountably different ideas about where the band should be headed. Then, after we got back from the first leg of the Percolator tour, we started working on stuff for the new record, and it quickly became very apparent to me that I was on a completely different page than the rest of the band. I got pretty freaked out and stopped going to practice. Not the best way to handle things. It really pissed Karl off in particular, and we started fighting pretty regularly. So that’s when Bill and I decided, mutually, that maybe I should try something else.

Here’s the deal. When you’re in a band that you feel has a lot of potential to make a real mark on music there is a lot of satisfaction in just existing as a band. And you are much more willing to compromise in an effort to push everything forward. A little musical compromise here and there is a small price to pay for the gratification of being a part something so worthwhile. But, as soon as those compromises become more significant to you than any potential for artistic accomplishment, it becomes pretty soul sapping to show up for practice everyday or learn a bunch of new songs. So things got ugly, and I quit. And I think Bill was very relieved. I loved being in ALL. Some of my greatest most favorite memories came out of those years. And I loved singing “Carnage,” and “Fool,” and “Breathe,” and “Scary Sad,” and “Copping Z.” We were a really interesting band for a while and I wish we had made a bigger dent. But, at the end, I felt no connection whatsoever to songs like “She’s Right” or “Shreen” or “Horizontal,” and I didn’t feel I could legitimately sing them. I felt like a fraud even trying, and it was a pretty sticky place to be. Luckily however, I think Bill wasn’t even remotely interested in playing any more of my silly circus music either. So we just quit each other, simple as that. Made sense to me then. Makes sense to me now. There was talk at the time (and still today for that matter) that I quit because I didn’t want to tour so much anymore. But that was NEVER true. ALL was the only band I’ve ever been in that had a large enough fan base to make that much touring monetarily practical. And I missed it like crazy the moment I quit. It has always really bothered me that people were being told that. So I’m glad I got the chance to say otherwise. Thanks!

FRINGE: ALL seems to be on an indefinite hiatus while their label sits on their latest records and while singer Chad Price focuses mainly on his country project Drag the River, and Stevenson tours with Only Crime. If the situation ever arose, would you consider an ALL reunion?

SR: We’ve talked about it a few times. Then decided against it. I can’t really think of a single compelling reason for us to do that. Bill’s a busy big time record producer nowadays. He records Rise Against, and like a billion other bands. He’s even found some success in the mainstream, from what I’ve heard. He produced the new Puddle of Mudd record. Stephen, besides being a doting daddy, is trying to start up a studio himself in Tulsa (armstrongrecording.com.) So he doesn’t have any time to spare. I don’t really know what Karl is up to. Maybe he can make it. We could do a tour with just bass and vocals. Then beat the crap out of each other after every show. I don’t know, I guess if the situation ever arose I’d consider it. It might be fun. Might suck too. Wow, hard question.

FRINGE: As sad as it is, your music has largely gone unnoticed by the general public, yet your fans are insanely loyal, and most consider you one of the most prolific songwriters of our time. Why do you think fame and success has eluded you? A lot of your songs are catchier and more meaningful that 99.9% of the garbage on radio and MTV, yet horrible bands get all the fame.

SR: Well, first of all, thank you…. a lot! But there are a lot of really interesting musicians in the world that virtually no one has ever heard of. The chances of failing miserably at music are incalculably greater than succeeding even modestly, and yet I’ve gotten to do some pretty frickin’ amazing things, and play music all over the world. So I’d be kind of an ass to whine about it. Right? I’m not gonna say that there isn’t a part (a pretty big part) of me that’s more than a little disappointed by the way things are going. But I didn’t start playing music to get famous or rich. I started because I loved the Kinks, and wanted to be Ray Davies (except with a different haircut.) I still really love coming up with new music. Actually I love it much more now than when I was young and trying to get laid and/or wasted every night. It’s like an old friend to me nowadays. So I try to keep the music in mind, let it be its own reward, and hope something good happens so I can quit making pizza for a living.

Musicians are a ferociously arrogant self-absorbed bunch. We claim to hate popular culture, then piss and moan when it doesn’t embrace us. I think there are two basic reasons that good musicians wallow in obscurity while the most absolutely mediocre soar like frickin’ eagles. First, great artists are mostly right brained. They have no ability to organize. They can’t sell themselves or their product. Further, they hate even trying. It gives them headaches and diarrhea. So they make beautiful paintings, cut their ears off and mail them to girls that don’t care about them, and die penniless in mental institutions; while motivated mediocre artists with excellent managerial skills become wealthy beyond reason. Look at Madonna, for example. She can’t sing. She’s the worst dancer on stage at any given moment. She can’t act at all. She’s never really been all that good looking. And all her songs suck ass (except “Material Girl”) Yet she is a pop culture icon. The entire world knows her by her first name solely because she’s organized and knows how to sell stuff. Because she is left brained. That’s my theory anyway.

The second reason good musicians fail is because really creative people don’t write accessible stuff. They write stuff only musicians and music aficionados can/or even want to appreciate. The vast majority of music buyers don’t want to be challenged by music. They want it to flow over them like a warm shower. They are students, and teachers, and truckers, and plumbers, and frickin’ tube sock packagers. And they don’t want to have to work at it. They just want music that makes them tap their toes. Functional music, not art. Which is as it should be.

I hate when musicians talk about how offended they are by the dumbness of popular music. It’s so pretentious. I mean, why would my mom, the retired middle school teacher who likes to dance around her kitchen listening to Lionel Richie, go to the effort of trying to figure out your diminished seventh scaled, syncopated, bebop jazz influenced, blugrass oompah crossover punk when she can simply put on “Dancin’ On the Ceiling” and cavort and frolic to her heart’s delight? A musician who resents the success of the unexceptional is like an architect who is offended by fact that the whole world is doing their business in architecturally uninteresting buildings. People just want to shop and bank and buy tube socks in warm, dry, not outside, places. You know? So screw you, whiny pretentious architect! Wow, I’m rambling huh? I do that.

I’ll tell you what does get my goat about popular music, though. It’s the multitude of undeserved accolades constantly bestowed upon only the most successful artists by the music industry itself. As I said before, I don’t begrudge any of the mediocre insipid musicians their zillion dollars and throngs of adoring fans. But do you have to paint them as the best of the best all the time too? Isn’t it enough that they have a zillion dollars? I saw a commercial for the John Lennon compilation for Darfur. An excellent cause, and I think it’s wonderful that somebody organized it. But the commercial says, basically, that the most amazingly awesomely kickass musicians of a generation are all on this record. And I think everyone involved actually believes that’s true. U2? The frickin’ Black Eyed Peas?!! (Though Fergie does have some lovely lady lumps.)

Green Day?! The best of the best?! Gimme a frickin’ break! God I’m sick of Green Day. Look, I think they deserve all their success. They have never strayed from their formula, never taken any chances (though I’m not sure that’s by choice since I don’t think they’re musically accomplished enough to write anything truly ugly,) never written one second of original music, and thus have never let their fans down. And that’s a flawless formula for success. Great! But now they have somehow morphed into the elder statesmen for the entire punk and post punk movement. They’ve gained this vast credibility simply by never going away, and it drives me out of my frickin’ tree! How can they be taken soooo seriously as punk rock royalty and musical innovators when a band like NOMEANSNO exists on the same planet?!! Huh? Answer me that one, Ryan! Boy, I’ve worked myself into quite a lather. I believe I may have shat a little.

FRINGE: I’m a huge Treepeople fan (Doug Martsch being one of my other favorite songwriters). How’d you hookup with one-time Treepeople drummer T. Dallas Reed for the 1st incarnation of Goodbye Harry?

SR: He was just a musician guy in Bremerton Wa. That’s where I lived at the time. I saw him playing drums in a band that opened for Big Drill Car and thought he was good. So I asked him if he wanted to be in the band. To be totally honest, I know nothing about the Treepeople. I’ve never heard them. What’s a good record to check out?

FRINGE: Do your kids have any interest in being musicians?

SR: My older daughter (16 years old) writes songs on guitar. They are pretty cool. My younger daughter (9) sings all the time. I think she’s very interested in doing music.

FRINGE: When I was living in Las Vegas, I emailed you about possibly playing a gig there, although I was hesitant because the last line in your song “Halfway to Vegas” says “go away you evil desert town, won’t play Las Vegas.” You told me “nah, that’s just a song.” Have you ever been to Vegas? And do you really hate it? Because I do.

SR: I played in Las Vegas only once. Like a hundred years ago. It was with ALL and Primus opened for us. Frickin’ weird right? You’d be surprised at all the future rockstars that opened for us. Anyway, no one came to the show, but in the club they were playing Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels on the TV. So I got to watch Primus and 200 Motels. Plus I probably had a bourbon or two. So Vegas is ok by me.

FRINGE: Thanks a lot, Scott. It’s been great chatting with you.

SR: Thank you, Ryan. You had some great questions, and you gave me a chance to get some things off my chest.

To learn more about Scott Reynolds, please visit www.myspace.com/scottreynoldsmusic.