The Band Survives Rocky Waters To Regroup For A New Record
By David Hyland
"I consider these questions pop questions!" snarls Fishbone lead singer/saxophonist and poet extraordinaire Angelo Moore. His solid brown eyes are enflamed and his worn face grimaces. His brow wrinkles with frustration. His demeanor is chaotic and unpredictable. The only thing between him and this reporter is a tape recorder.
Moore eventually acquiesces, relaying the problems the band has had with understanding the simplicities of pop music. Guitarist John Bigham interjects, "The most complicated thing is simplicity."
Angelo Moore of Fishbone |
The trouble began in May of 1993. Fishbone had just finished recording Give a Monkey A Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe, the album expected to finally give the 16-year-old band its commercial breakthrough. In addition, they were scheduled to play the main stage of Lollapalooza '93. Then everything fell apart.
Guitarist Kendall Jones suffered a nervous breakdown, and along with his father, became entranced by what has been described as a religious cult. He promptly quit the band.
"He really lost it," Bigham recalls of Jones. "He started talking about God this and God that and the end of the world is coming. ... He wanted to be with his father and we felt his father was manipulating him." Bassist Norwood Fisher became involved with a mission to save Jones, an effort that ultimately failed. Jones' father pressed attempted kidnapping charges against Fisher, who was later acquitted.
After that, keyboardist/singer Chris Dowd left the band citing musical differences. "We felt like we could do anything with Chris, whatever he wanted to do, but he didn't feel that way," Bigham says. "He had ideas that he felt weren't coming across."
Amidst all of this chaos, differences with Columbia Records, the band's label for eight years, came to a head and concluded with a bitter split. Rumors spread throughout the industry that Fishbone had been dropped.
"(It's) kind of backwards," Bigham says of the breakup with Columbia. "Fishbone had been asking to leave the record company for so long, (and the label) finally let us go ... and then they wanted us back. It wasn't ~`Fishbone has been dropped,' `Fishbone is so upset and sad about it.' (For us), it's the greatest thing ever."
(Interestingly, Columbia Records has just released a new double CD of Fishbone's greatest hits and rarities entitled, Nuttasaurusmeg.)
"It was pretty fucked up." Moore says of the band's tumultuous period. "Nothing you can't get over. You can shave all the hair off your nuts and the hair will grow back eventually but, first you have to get through the burning part where they're breaking through the skin, and eventually you're okay."
The band sought solace on the road, mounting a two-year tour, and began writing new material without a new record deal. Enter Dallas Austin. Austin, the hip hop mastermind behind TLC and producer for Madonna, met Moore through an acquaintance while Moore was giving a poetry reading in Atlanta. Austin promptly signed the band to his label, Rowdy Records, and issued the band's new album Chim Chim's Badass Revenge.
The departure of Dowd and Jones would seem an especially harsh loss; both were key songwriters. But Bigham discounts any idea of a songwriting void.
"Kendall's a great songwriter and so is Chris," Bigham says, "but everybody in this band can write whatever kind of song you want to hear. It's just the songs they chose to write were more of your standard pop formula, and we're the renegades.
"There was actually more unity after they left," Bigham continues. "'Chim Chim's Badass Revenge' was like therapy for us, it's our 'fuck you' record. We all worked on it together as opposed to someone going into a corner and writing. ... Everybody felt good, everybody felt part of it, the creative process. It helps create the feeling of a band instead of one person. It was the album we wanted to make."
Throughout Fishbone's career, the band has been plagued by problems and obstacles. Not only do they have to swim against the tide of a white-controlled rock world, but the band, which doesn't play hip hop, receives a less-than-enthusiastic response from the black community and media.
"Everything takes a level of understanding before you enjoy it," Bigham says. "(The band's music) has never really been put out there for the black community." He adds that most black fans of Fishbone have come to the band through word of mouth. "Hype means a lot. If you got the hype, they'll buy it. If you don't have it, they assume you're not worth checking out. Everything being so one sided or short sided -- 'Black music is this'. If Danzig was a black guy, he would be black music."
The band, who formed in 1979, has also witnessed such genre-busting compatriots as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and now neo-ska bands like No Doubt and Rancid, make it big.
"Everything comes around in time," Bigham says. "Just like the Chili Peppers got their time, it took them years to get that. It took Metallica years to get theirs. As long as Fishbone is still in the mix, Fishbone has a chance. Look at George Clinton. George Clinton is 65 years old. People weren't listening to P-Funk, Funkadelic and now it's `I love the P-Funk.' Those dudes wanna go sit down somewhere, take a rest because they've been doing it so long. It took (people) decades to understand them."
"(Now that they wanna sit down) it's time they finally get recognized and stand up," Moore adds.
Moore is tentative on whether the band has been passed over. "I've felt like we've been misunderstood, maybe miscalculated, maybe a little bit ... but we're always there," Moore says.
The band has also been dogged by the tag of being the "other" black rock band, placed in the shadow of the now-defunct Living Colour.
"We're the only one now," Bigham replies. "Living Colour has their space and Fishbone has their space but [we're] totally different." Moore adds, "People like to see other people compete, instead of just being."
Moore appreciates the support from the loyal fan base that has stuck by the band throughout the years. "You got people who believe in you," Moore says. "It's not going to be an overnight crash and burn."
Once Fishbone hits the stage, they're able to sweat away the poisons of prior disappointments. The band, which also includes "Dirty Walt" Kibby on trumpet and Phillip "Fish" Fisher on drums, is notoriously tight live. The Fisher brothers prove a formidable rhythm section, while Bigham's guitar lines mutate in accord with the song. Between vocals, Moore and Kibby explode with interweaving horn blasts.
"I want people to get it, I do anything I can to get people to get it, anything that goes through my mind," Moore says of his mindset live.
After the band wraps up a tour with De La Soul at the end of October, they're scheduled to head into the studio. Bigham says the band has begun working on new material and expects to finish a new album by the first quarter of next year. "What it's going to be like, I don't know," he says. "We just came up with two complete things yesterday that we will probably be playing by the end of the tour." Moore interjects, "Each record is a sperm. And people are the egg. We try anything to impregnate the egg."
Fishbone has awakened from their nightmare with a renewed vision and remains defiant. "It is what we believe," Moore declares. Bigham adds, "If you listen to all the bullshit, you'll never do anything."
