Growing on Rock, then Punk and Hardcore, and to discover Fu Manchu in the early 00’s was an absolute full circle to me. Very much a Punk band in its approach to playing Rock, they quickly became the #1 moving target on my bucket list of bands to see live. Boy, did they not disappoint. After close to double-digit times seeing them, King Of The Road still holds the prestigious title of my favorite song to see played live, by any band. While I love earlier incarnations of FM, it wasn’t until Bob Balch joined on guitar in the mid-90’s that they truly started to strike gold, in my opinion.
Fast forward to 2019, Bob introduced us to Big Scenic Nowhere, a desert jam Rock band co-founded with Yawning Man’s Gary Arce. An even wider full circle to my Rock roots, the band features contributions by a cast of amazing artists, including members of Voivod, Kyuss, The Well, Opeth, etc. Unlike most “all-star” collaborative bands that fall short of their promise, BSN is as cohesive as it gets. Perfectly blending Bulch and Arce’s guitar playing styles into a rock-solid base, the rotating cast of players each bring their own influences to the table, carefully crafted into a package that elevates higher than a simple sum of its parts.
You can pick up Big Scenic Nowhere‘s new EP Lavender Blues, on October 23th, through Heavy Psych Records. While you’re at it, might as well treat yourself to their 2020 debut LP, Vision Beyond Horizon.
Whenever shows resumes, catch Fu Manchu live on makeup dates to their 2020 ill-timed 30-year anniversary tour.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
I’ve been on a big LENNY BREAU kick. He does all kinds of things but he was a really good Jazz guitar player. He dominated all kinds of styles, even CHET ATKINS was kind of trippin on him like, “you do stuff better than me.” That actually inspired me to begin taking Jazz lessons. I teach guitar for a living on Skype but I reached out to a guy who kind of plays like Lenny and asked for Skype lessons. It’s starting next week, which is pretty funny. But yeah, I’ve just been on a huge Jazz guitar kick lately.
Is skills something that you look for in music that you listen to, or is it just one part of your listening experience.
No, that’s just one part, I’m kind of all over the place. But I’m a guitar nerd, first and foremost, so the stuff that he does on a guitar, it’s just…whenever I see something that I really don’t understand, I get obsessed with it. To a point where I’m like, I have to know what that guy is doing and why that works. When it comes to Jazz guitar, you kind of have to know what you’re doing. There has to be some level of skill. But it depends, next week, I might listen to ANGRY SAMOENS or BLACK FLAG or AC/DC, or The RAMONES, it’s all over the place for me. But if you’re asking, as of today, I’ve been really obsessed with this guy, the past couple of days.
Can you name five records that really had a strong impact on you throughout your life, and tell me about what makes them so special to you?
PINK FLOYD Animals would be the first one. That’s one of my favorite records of all time. When I was a young kid, I grew up in the 80’s, so there was Hair Metal everywhere, and, when I discovered Animals, it just became the best record for me to listen to and dissect. I still listen to it on headphones, a couple of times a month, just to trip out on it, and hear all these pieces that I can lift. David Gilmore is a big influence on me as well. That one’s definitely changed the way I looked at music forever.
There’s a DRI seven inch that had a bunch of songs that I got when I was a kid and that changed me a lot. I saw that the record wasn’t expensive, but there was a shit ton of songs on it so was like, “I’ll get some bang for my bucks, I’ll get this.” I didn’t even know what it sounded like and the music was so fast, to the point that I never heard anything like that before. That really made me open my eyes and realize that it doesn’t have to be all this stuff that I’m seeing on TV. Violent Pacification was also one that really tripped me out as a kid.
I mean, the first time I heard Fu Manchu was pretty big. I was thinking, “this band’s rad and they’re from my hometown. I can’t believe there’s a band doing this kind of thing.” That changed my life because I ended up joining the band obviously. But No One Rides For Free was definitely cool. There’s dudes from my town that are playing straight ahead Rock stuff, which is pretty rad. That probably had the biggest impact on me because it changed the course of my life, really!
JOE PASS, anything by him but I think it was Virtuoso, when I heard that, and I was like, “Oh, that sounds like really good guitar players”, then I realized it’s not a band, there’s one guy. That amazed me. I was like, “I gotta figure out how he’s doing those things.” and I’m still trying to chip away at that.
The first BAD BRAINS, when I heard that…Oh, DEVO…I guess we can tie those two together. When I first heard the Hardcore Devo demos, the earlier shit, volume one and volume two, that changed me a lot. I loved it instantly. I’d never heard anything like it. There was this sense of like, it was weird, but it wasn’t funny-weird. It just kind of frightened me in a way and I’m like, “okay, I like that. I want to know what that’s all about.” Then, I guess the tie for that would be, the first Bad Brains, hearing Punk Rock played with that kind of precision and anger was pretty rad to know that was possible. The other Punk bands were looking at them going like, “Holy shit. We’re never going to do that.” What they were doing was crazy. .
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life?
The first show I saw was probably the most memorable because it was my first big kind of arena show that I saw. I don’t know if it’s called an arena, it’s called Irvine Meadows in Orange County, I saw OZZY. It was the No Rest For The Wicked tour and that was the first time I had experienced a big Rock show. I think I was in sixth grade and that just blew my mind! I was tripping out on that. I thought that going to a live show, the band was going to play every song they had ever written. I didn’t know that they played only a couple of tunes and I was there prepared to watch Ozzy for like, 48 hours or something! *Haha* They played for an hour and a half and then I went home like, “what the hell? There was so many songs that I didn’t get to hear!” But that was a big one.
METALLICA, for …And Justice For All, I went to that one shortly after, that was a huge one. Seeing PINK FLOYD at the Rose Bowl in ’93. I believe that was a huge one because that level of production, I’d never seen before. It’s hard to match that. When you’re a little kid, anything that’s shiny is like, “Oh my God, that’s amazing.” So it was almost like it was just too much. “I can’t believe that this is actually a thing that people do for a living” So those were pretty big ones for me, just because it was really early on and I hadn’t seen things like that.
There was a band that I saw, Fu Manchu played a festival in the late 90’s somewhere in England, I was just walking around and I started watching the band PORTISHEAD. I had never really heard them and I ended up watching the whole set and going out buying their shit. It took me on this whole path down music that was like was like them. Other bands like this French band AIR and THIEVERY CORPORATION, all that kind of music that I wasn’t even familiar with. Watching Portishead, I was blown away. I thought that was amazing. Since we played the festival, I was able to get access to the photo pit area. It was a huge stage so I was looking straight up for like an hour and a half and my neck killed me but I wasn’t gonna go anywhere.
Is there anything that comes to mind in terms of bands that you’ve discovered live and blew you away? Perhaps a band that you’ve toured with?
HIGH ON FIRE. I hadn’t seen them and when I saw them play, I was like, “holy shit.” It was one of those kind of bands that, I would watch them every day and be transfixed. They were really pummeling and gnarly. We did a tour with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE when they first started out back in the late 90’s. I remember watching them every night, just tripping out like, “wow, these guys are gonna be enormous.” Those are two big ones that I wasn’t really familiar with the music. Queens had just started, I don’t think their first album was out yet.
Is there any up and coming artists that you really love?
I guess I’m a late comer to this band because my family members that are younger than me are like, “Oh, my God. These guys are so 10 years ago” but I just love TAME IMPALA. I listen to a lot of mellower stuff at home, just because I’m here to relax, pretty much but there’s a band called BEACH HOUSE, I’ve been digging on a lot lately. Anything that I can put on and just get on couchlock, I’m pretty down with us. The heavier side of things, POWER TRIP, I got way into them in recent years. I teach guitar and some want to learn some Power Trip shit. Growing up in the 80’s and Thrash Metal, that speaks to me pretty heavily. Those are pretty well known bands, I’m not going into any uncharted territories but I dig it a lot.
Is there any classic / universally acclaimed artist that you missed out on when they first came out and discovered way later? Any artist that you didn’t like at first and learned to appreciate over time?
I didn’t really know who NICK DRAKE was until about a month ago. One of my students wanted to learn a Nick Drake song and I was like, “Yeah, whatever.” I heard his name. Then I tried to learn it, and I learned it, but it was extremely difficult to figure out and I was like, “Okay, this rules!” Just looking into that guy, late comer to him, I think he was an amazing talent. LENNY BREAU, I’m a late comer to him. He was active in the 60’s- 70’s-80’s but I wasn’t even aware of him until about a year and a half ago. I don’t know, I guess it’s about it. I’ve got an older brother so I would go through his record collection growing up and trying to be pretty hip on what was happening.
Something that I didn’t like, anything 70’s Soft Rock. I just turned 43 and I bought a jacuzzi when I was in my late 30’s and ever since I bought a jacuzzi, I’ve been diving into this Soft Rock genre. Any of those bands, obviously they were bigger in the 70’s and early 80’s but like AMBROSIA, FIREFALL, ATLANTA RHYTHM SECTION, ALAN PARSONS PROJECT…it goes on and on. All that shit, I wouldn’t even go near when I was kid because I was listening to SABBATH and METALLICA, DEEP PURPLE, IRON MAIDEN…Now that I’m older, and I have a jacuzzi, I think Soft Rock pretty listenable and I enjoy it a lot.
Can you name three songs that you consider to be perfect and explain why you feel that way about those songs?
Um, I don’t want to promote my own shit too much because I think it’s kinda weird but there’s a song on the last record Fu Manchu record called Il Mostro Atomico that, it’s 19 minutes long and we worked really hard on it for a long time. Then we got Alex Lifeson from RUSH to play on it. That one, I think it’s pretty close to perfect. I mean, if you’re making the song and you’re able to mix it and create it and be hands on part of it, the chances of it becoming more perfect in your eyes is a little bit easier I guess? But that one I really like. I go back to it quite a bit. That song in particular, from all the writing sessions recorded, you can see how the song kind of evolved over the course of a year. It’s pretty rad.
Then PINK FLOYD’s Dogs because that’s on my favorite Pink Floyd album, Animals. There’s one chord in there that really grasp me. Probably a E minor 9. I have it on YouTube here *plays the chord* And I’m just used to a regular E minor but you throw a nine there, which means it’s the ninth note of the scale. For some reason, I heard that chord as a kid, and that sound kind of spoke to me. It was the most emotive chord, and then the whole progression is kind of unusual, you don’t really play those chords together. I think this is fucking rad. Then just the way that the whole 17 minutes unfolds, it’s killer. I like every part of it, the production, every lyric, I like all that shit.
Then, just a fun song, Let The Good Times Roll by The CARS. It literally lets the good times roll. That first Cars record could probably go in my list favorites as well.
I have to pick STEELY DAN, just because of the production value. Maybe Reelin’ In the Years, or Black Cow. I think that, if you’re going for that kind of recording, it’s the perfect sounding record. I like all different kinds of records but if I was going to try to make that kind of music, I would aim towards that production. The songwriting and how everyone played on it.
On the other side of this, probably Master Of Puppets, just because as a kid, that was such a big impact on me. It kind of featured a lot of different things that that band is about, as far as guitar playing styles go. That’s a pretty large range. And that riff…The first time I heard that riff, that was the most pummeling thing I’ve heard, ever. We could put other songs in that same categorie, like Reign In Blood. I kind of went all over the map with those because to me, there’s no such thing as a perfect song. It’s just stuff that I liked a lot, for different reasons.
To expand on what you said there about Dogs and that chord that struck you and that stayed with you, do you have any other examples of that, either with solos, or a lick or just a chord progression that you really love?
The solo in Hotel California to me is pretty badass because of the way it goes and the way they’re kind of talking back and forth. That was a big one for me. When I was a kid, I was able to play that from start to finish. I was pretty amazed. I like the EAGLES. I’m not the biggest fan but I like them, I like a lot of their stuff. But that solo is pretty insane to me.
As far as riffs go, I mean, there’s so many. When I was a kid, I heard Wasted from DEF LEPPARD. That was one of the ones I was like, holy shit! Dancing Madly Backwards from CAPTAIN BEYOND is a pretty fucking rad riff. When people come to me for lessons, I’m like, “oh, here, you should probably learn this or that because it’s pretty badass.” Love Her All I Can from KISS. Wasted Years from IRON MAIDEN, that opening thing, when I was a kid trying to learn that, that was a big thing when I was able to actually do that. I thought that was the coolest.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Something that you truly love but, for some reason, you can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
When I discovered the RESIDENTS, a lot of my friends were like, “really dude? I can’t listen to that shit.” I think they’re rad, I like that really weird stuff. Like early DEVO, it’s weird, but it felt wacky. It’s not like, “oh, we’re being weird!” I’m like, “holy shit, these guys might have some issues. And I like that.” So The Residents is probably one. There’s a song that I always make people learn. With COVID, it’s different but normally, I give a lot of in person lessons too and I would get kids in there that are kind of disinterested, or their parents are just like, “you’re gonna play guitar, you have to do something.” And if I get a kid that goes, “I don’t know what I want to learn”, I make them learn the song called My Pal Foot Foot by The SHAGGS. I don’t know if know anything about The Shaggs but that stuff’s pretty hard to listen to. I’ll listen to it and just laugh over and over and over. It’s these girls in the late 60’s or early 70’s, their dad owned a recording studio and he was like, “you guys are going to form a band.” They can’t really play but they really give it their all and there’s songs buried in there where I’m like, “okay, I can kind of get into that” and I’ll listen to it, just to make myself laugh.
Also, the entire soundtrack to Top Gun, I think it’s very funny. I’ll listen to Top Gun when I’m driving. Not really just the songs but the whole thing, Playing With The Boys, the whole thing is really funny to me. I don’t know why. I’ll listen to Top Gun and other people will be like, “Why the hell are you listening to that?” The soundtrack Eddy and The Cruisers too is really funny to me, I’ll listen to that.
What band or artist do you believe has achieved the most perfect discography?
Well, I like flaws. I like that you can hear how artists grow and change. Once again, PINK FLOYD, there’s the Syd Barrett section, and then Gilmore comes in, and then Roger Waters is out. There’s these periods of time where you can hear a band evolve but I like all that they’ve done. I celebrate their entire catalog. They have a very long career and I’ve dig into every little piece of it at different times.
This goes back to one of your previous questions, but I’m a late comer to post-Peter Green FLEETWOOD MAC. There’s this little period of time before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks get involved. That whole timeline of Fleetwood Mac records, listening to how that band has evolved over the years, I like that stuff, to hear how bands change. CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, all that early stuff is super Hardcore Punk, and then they got more rockin’. Because I like all different kinds of music, if I can hear how a band’s changing and evolving over the course of time, then I’ll grab onto little sections and just dig into it from time to time.
When it comes to Pink Floyd, what would you say is the best sequence of three records that they’ve put out?
Well…Animals is one of them…It’s hard to say. I like Obscured By Clouds a lot but I guess it has to be Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals. Those threes are like, bang, bang, bang. I have to put Animals in there. I mean, I like The Wall too but those three in a row are pretty gnarly.
You could go first three SABBATH records, that shit’s crazy. The amount of time it took for them to do should probably be something that I would equate to the right answer, ’cause Dark Side Of The Moon is ’73, Wish You Were Here is ’75 and Animals is ’77. But the first three Sabbath records, that was over a shorter period of time, right?
Yeah, it’s not even 20 months I think.
Yeah, the first are like bang, bang. We should check it out…*checking*…It’s not even a year and a half, that’s crazy. Yeah, I would have to say Sabbath. I mean, I love Pink Floyd but Sabbath and Paranoid are 1970, and Master Of Reality is ’71. Master Of Reality, what’s heavier than that in 1971? And then in ’72, you got Vol. 4. In two years, they’ve laid out the blueprint that we’re all still following from. That’s insane. I have to say those three. That’s a big one for me.
For sure. Four times in a row, they probably put out the heaviest record ever recorded, basically.
Yeah, that’s crazy. Then, I don’t even see it on the discography and not a lot of people talk about this record, but this bootleg called Live At Last, that’s the whole reason I got into Jazz because they play Wicked World and in the middle of it, they start playing a 1-4-5, like Jazz, Blues kind of thing. As a kid, I was like, “Okay, I need to figure out how to do that.” It’s not enough to learn how to play Sweet Leaf, I need to know how to play things that Tony Iommi can play and that he’s not showing most of the time. I’m not sure when that one came out, I think after Ozzy was gone, but it was recorded in the early 70’s. It was part of my tape collection when I was a kid and I later got it on vinyl, as an adult. I like that one a lot.
Are you into live records, in general? Is there any other ones that you love and maybe even consider superior to the studio versions?
As a kid, I’d listen to KISS Alive and Alive II almost every night. Live After Death, IRON MAIDEN, when it came out, I would rent that on VHS. Me and my friends would watch it and just trip out like, “wow, that’s crazy.” Those two records were pretty big for me, as far as live records go.
Is there any band or artists that put out only one fantastic release, either an album, EP or demo, before disbanding and you really wish they would have kept going?
There was one Punk band from the 80’s and they’ve since had more stuff come out but back then, I think they just had a split in ’82, they’re called VOID. The split is with this band FAITH and they were rad but the Void side, the stuff that they were doing was so aggressive, and so loose, to the point where you’re thinking like, “are they gonna mess this up?”, but then they never do. In the midst of that chaos, it’s crazy. Fu Manchu covers one of their songs. They’re gnarly. I wish that they put up more stuff like that. They only did a handful of shows and then they broke up. Afterwards, people started releasing other demos, and they’re on compilations and stuff, but that one split came out and I think that was it for a long time.
Our old drummer Brant (note: Brant Bjork), he has a solo career and he found their guitar player, his name’s Bubba, and he’s now in his band. I saw that and I was like, “how the fuck did you find the guy from Void? Because I want more music from them!” That thing’s crazy. I like that a lot. There’s another Hardcore Punk band, I don’t know how many albums these guys have, but they’re called KORO. I have one of their things but I don’t know if they did anything else…Oh, no they did the Speed Kills LP in ’83. There’s an EP that came out before though, that was really gnarly. They were from Tennessee.
In Punk and Hardcore, there’s tons of these bands that popped up and lasted for a few months. Some of them are spectacular.
Yeah! Koro, they were amazing. You’re probably familiar with BL’AST? Mike Neider from Bl’ast had a band after that with the drummer, and the singer’s brother on bass called LAB. I think they had one seven inch that was released, I had a lot of demos and stuff but I don’t know if people released them, but that was that. That stuff was really cool. Like if Bl’ast started listening to KYUSS a lot. It’s pretty rad. We used to play shows with them in the late 90’s.
Bl’ast was a big deal for you guys and people in your area, right? It’s pretty up front with Fu Manchu at least, covering them and all.
Yeah. The way that those guys write songs is so unusual. All these weird starts and stops and tempo changes. It’s fuckin’ rad.
Final thoughts? Any projects you would like to discuss? Of course, there’s the new Big Scenic Nowhere EP. I believe Fu Manchu has recorded some new material also?
Yeah, we’ve got a couple things that we started working on back in January that we need to finish. Then, Big Scenic Nowhere, I’m sitting on hours of jams that I got to sift through and kind of organize. We’re going to start writing new Fu Manchu stuff in October. We’ve got a couple of covers with rhythm parts done and things like that, but we’re going to release a 10 inches with the covers and two originals. We’ve been corresponding via email to get things happening during all this. So I’m hoping that that stuff sees the light of day pretty soon.
So Big Scenic Nowhere is not just a one time session thing then, it’ll be ongoing?
It’ll be ongoing. Yeah, that’s our second EP that’s coming out and then we got a full length that came out before that. We got together in November 2019 for three days in Joshua Tree and just jammed out for three days and the EP coming out in October is a very small portion of those days. I’m sitting on probably another eight songs and a 25 minutes jam that I got to whittled down so that it fits on a side. There’s about eight pretty heavy songs, kind of Soundgarden-y, but more tripped out, it’s hard to describe, it’s just fucking bizarre but it’s really cool. Hopefully we can get that out sometimes in 2021. All we got to do is just get together once a year for three days and it gives us years of material, which is pretty fun.
No Comments