Scabba-Dabba-Do
Guitars, horns and irony fuel Austin band The Scabs
Houston Press
May 1999
It was the kind of career
that hundreds of bands would gladly give up at least some groupie privileges
to reach: two releases on a mid-level record label (also home to nationally
known acts such as 311 and Cake), a spot opening up for the Dave Matthews
Band on tour and the chance to join the traveling rock caravan known as the
H.O.R.D.E. tour. But for the Austin-based groove band The Ugly Americans,
all these circumstances merely led to break up -- though not "break up"
in the usual sense. Out of the Ugly Americans wreckage, The Scabs, a musical
outgrowth that at one point had the exact same band members, simply took over
the Uglies' deteriorating form.
"The Ugly Americans are dying a quiet death," says bassist Bruce
Hughes. "The two bands had completely different attitudes and sets of
material. And with The Scabs, we can do any crazy fucking rock and roll thing
we want to do."
Says singer Bob Schneider: "This band is where my heart is, not the Ugly
Americans. That's because there's no musical boundaries or limits with The
Scabs." But while the band still struggles with an identity crisis and
the low-level confusion that comes with morphing one unit into another, it's
clear that the better musical menagerie has emerged in the nine-piece Scabs.
ANd though The Scabs' members play in black suits and have a horn section,
one spin of its records or ten minutes at a live show will prove that this
is not yet another (Oh, God! Make them stop!) neoswing revival band. In fact,
the biggest strength of The Scabs is the diversity of its music.
Its CDs are like minitours of every musical genre. Swinging from hard funk
("Staysha Brown") to stone country ("Pudding and Cheese")
to salsa ("Woman") to soul ("So Fresh & So Fine")
to rap ("Bones") to jazz ("Man of the Year") to Tex-Mex
("Tarantula') to even doo-wop ("Hanging Out with the Horny Girls")
with an anarchic sense of no rhyme or reason, the band seems determined not
to get pegged with any one musical style.
"When people ask what kind of band we are, I just say we're a dance band,"
says singer Schneider. "Our shows are a big party, and that's what keeps
people coming back."
Or it could be people's taste for raunch that keeps them around. Schneider
calls the band's music in-your-face, party-oriented music to which you can
dance but which also has tongue-in-cheek vulgarity in it. What else could
you expect from guys who write little ditties such as "Big Butts and
Blow Jobs," "Pussy Fever," "Fuck Me," and an epic,
which indirectly led to the band's very formation, "I Fucked Your Daughter
in the Ass, Boy"?
"Those songs are done in a way that's playful and honest," says
Schneider, who writes most of the lyrics. "It's not misogynistic, like
'Smack My Bitch Up,' and you can see that clearly in the live show. We're
not going out of our way to offend anybody. And, let's be real, they're also
pretty damn funny."
In concert, you might find any one of these songs immediately followed by
a torrid rendition of REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling."
But to understand how the band has come to this juncture, you have to go all
the way back to 1993.
That's when the Ugly Americans formed as a side project for a group of Austin
musicians that included Joe Rockhead, Schneider, Hughes (who had played with
both Cracker and Poi Dog Pondering), drummer David "Snizz" Robinson
and a supporting cast of rotating musicians. The band landed a spot on the
1994 H.O.R.D.E. tour, which led to similar gigs with the Dave Matthews Band
and Big Head Todd and the Monsters. The groove-rock-oriented band released
a self-titled, self-produced debut in 1995 before signing with Capricorn Records,
which put out Stereophonic Spanish Fly the next year. It yielded a
minor radio hit, "Vulcan Death Grip of Love."
But by 1996 Schneider had amassed a dozen or so songs, including "I Fucked
Your Daughter in the Ass, Boy," that he felt wouldn't fit into the sound
the Uglies had established (not to mention within the somewhat simmering musical
conflicts between band members). So he forme The Scabs as an offshoot band
with Robinson and guitarist Adam "Slowpoke" Temple.
"I knew the Uglies would never play this material and wouldn't even think
about it," Schneider says. "It jsut wasn't valid for some people
in the band. And with The Scabs, I just wanted a grab bag of stuff, everything
from a polka or a snippet of a song to a full-blown rock-opera." And
indeed, during regular Tuesday-night gigs at Austin's fabled blues club Antone's,
The Scabs might segue from an original art-rock piece to a Neil Sedaka cover
to a Tipper Gore-cringing track called "Butt Pussy." Eventually,
the band's set lists began to reflect more dance-oriented tunes, which people
clamored to hear.
In the meantime, the Ugly Americans continued to play on weekends around the
region. The summer of 1996 saw the band members in the studioto record Boom
Boom Baby, which they hoped would be a breakout hit. The band says Capricorn
sat on the disc for more than a year and a half, effectively freezing any
momentum the Uglies had at that point.
But a funny thing happened to the lineups as the months dragged on: They began
to look more and more alike. Uglies would leave the fold to join The Scabs,
then play with both bands and vice versa. On the Scabs side, Robinson quit,
then returned after his replacement began to suffer asthma attacks on stage.
Charles Reiser replaced a guitarist who had a bout with schizophrenia (once
telling Schneider ominously, "There's a battle between good and evil
in this room"). And Ugly David Boyle joined on keyboards.
"Bob definitely siphoned people into The Scabs," Hughes says with
a laugh.
But by far the most important addition to the group was a horn section, which
at first consisted of Carlos Sosa (saxophone) and Fernie "Maddog"
Castillo (trumpet). The pair also convinced the band to add their horn-blowing
friend Rolo on trombone, despite objections about the group's spinning-out-of-control
size. Now it's impossible to listen to The Scabs and imagine the absence of
horns. "They're brilliant," Hughes says of the trio. And Schneider,
who was vehemently against becoming "a fucking horn band," was eventually
won over by the trio's impeccable musicianship.
By late 1997 only one member separated the two bands. But when an Ugly guitarist
left, instigating another interband transfer and the institution of Hughes
into The Scabs, the nine-piece lineups were identical, though neither had
a record out at the time.
The Scabs, desperate to fill the void for some product, last year released
Freebird, a live disc culled from its Antone's shows, which, according
to Hughes, could have been considered a serious breach of contract by Capricorn.
The label finally released Boom Boom Baby shortly thereafter. Confusion
between the bands, their music and their shows was perhaps inevitable, and
Schneider says that people who hadn't seen the Ugly Americans in several years
couldn't recognize the band that played under the name now. Stuck and unhappy
with what the band viewed as a "less than satisfactory" relationship
with its label, the Ugly Americans asked to be released from its contract.
Capricorn complied earlier this year.
"We wanted to continue with what we were doing as the Ugly Americans,
but with a fresh start," Hughes says. "That name had a lot of historical
baggage, and we were tied to [the label] with it. In the end, it seemed better
just to [dissolve]."
Now firmly ensconsed in one group with one direction, The Scabs entered the
studio to record the follow-up to Freebird, a disc called More Than
a Feeling, on the band's own Shockorama label. It was released last month
and is selling well at gigs.
But even though Schneider casually mentions that he's also involved with yet
another side band, he is completely comfortable with the current Scab lineup,
which he hopes stays permanent.
"It's like a puzzle where the pieces just kept falling into place,"
says Schneider. "I mean, you couldn't pick nine guys out of anywhere
and get the same mix of talent and [feeling] that we have now and didn't before.
It's just a weird, mysterious chemistry that works."
-Bob Ruggiero
Picking the Scabs
Access Magazine
March 1999
"We came to party. Rock your body...
So the ladies in the house you all can get naughty."
Thus spoke the Scabs, and that's just what these nine hard-hitting funkateers
seem to do every time they hit the stage. Born in the dark dreary recesses
of the minds of Bob Schneider and Adam Temple, The Scabs are a phenomenon
whose time has come. "We figured that the music scene in Austin was pretty
dead at the time," say Schneider, lead singer. "I mean we'd go out
and be bored to fucking tears by the bands we saw playing out. We figured
we might try to do something to wake these ***** up! We thought we could play
some things live that would definitely do the trick."
The two contacted Danny Crooks of The Steamboat and told him of their idea
and he agreed to let them do a weekly residency at that club on Monday nights.
They recruited some of their friends including Alex Vallejo and Steve Ramos
from Vallejo to play in the band and began playing the next week. At first
things were a little rocky for the group. "When we started playing at
Steamboat we weren't sure how a lot of the stuff we were doing was gonna fly.
It was real experimental at that time. We were doing just about anything we
could think of. It definitely wasn't the slick dance-oriented scene we've
got going now. We'd try anything. We were doing fifteen minute performance
rock pieces back to back with Neil Sedaka covers and then bullshitting our
way through the rest of the set. The one thing I remember about those early
shows was the fact that we had no fucking clue as to what we were doing, and
there was definitely a magic in that."
Things did get better for the band. They started adding members including
guitarist Charles Reiser who they had seen playing with Hush and Glueboy.
They also added keyboardist David Boyle who had just joined the Ugly Americans.
Not long after the guys in Vallejo started going on the road more and more
often and David Robinson (another Ugly American) joined to take over behind
the drums. The Grooveline Horns, who had also done a gig or two with the Americans,
joined and added to the mix to create an eight piece ensemble that really
started to find its niche. With the new members and the group really starting
to gain some popularity in Austin the group eventually moved its residency
over to Antone's Nightclub. They also add Rolo on trombone to complete the
lineup they have to this day.
After moving to Antone's things really started to pick up for the group. They
began to really concentrate on the groove aspect of their performances and
soon the word was out that if you were looking for somewhere to go and party
on a Tuesday night, Antone's was the only party in town. At the same time
things were picking up at Antone's the Ugly Americans went through some personnel
changes of their own and the departing members of the group were immediately
replaced with the members of the Scabs, virtually making the two bands identical
except for the name. With the two groups having the same players the band
really began to get incredibly tight. They were also writing songs faster
than they could record them. With two albums outunder the Ugly Americans they
recorded a live album at Antone's to sell at their shows as a souvenir. The
response was overwhelming. People flocked to the shows to purchase the new
CD that wasn't available anywhere else.
After having some success at radio the Scabs alter ego band the Ugly Americans
finally decided to go their separate ways with their record company Capricorn.
"Well, we really enjoyed working with the people at Capricorn,"
says Bob Schneider, "we just thought that we'd really given it our best
shot and it hadn't worked out so we wanted to try a different approach."
The different approach is a grass roots approach to touring as well as marketing
of their new CD's. "We've always looked to other people to come in and
make things happen for the band, and it's just never happened. So we've decided
that we need to do it ourselves. We've really started to get a lot of attention
on the road and we are really looking forward to playing new cities that have
never heard of The Scabs. It really is exciting to go to somplace like Rustin,
Louisiana and play a song like "Pussy Fever" or "Big Butts
and Blow Jobs" and watch the reaction on people's faces. We've kind of
gotten used to Austin's tolerant views of what's acceptable and what's not,
and it's really an eye-opener when we go to other places. They do usually
come around though, and if they don't we could care less.
Look
for The Scabs' upcoming new releases "FingerRock" & "More
Than A Feeling" available in March at Waterloo Records as well as their
SXSW showcase at Antone's on March 20th.
-Brian Sanchez
© 2000 Ariel Publicity and the Scabs