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Interviews: Save Ferris

Smother's Interview with Brian Mashburn and Bill Uechi of Save Ferris

Brian (Guitar, Vocals) and Bill (Bass) of Save Ferris talked to Jimmy and Jesse at the Washington D.C. date of the 1998 Vans Warped Tour.



Smother: First question, where's the bear?

Bill: Yeah, I thought this tour would be way too hot and too like, I didn't wanna mess it up, so I'm saving it for the club shows.

Smother: How much fun was the rise to major label status? Cause, didn't you guys put out one album by yourself and then you went onto Epic? Was it sort of like a whirlwind ride, or what?

Brian: Kind of, I don't think it was the label that did it, I think it was everything that happened was sort of a whirlwind. The label was something where we had gotten to a point where we didn't know enough about running a record business to run what we were doing with the label and tour and we got to be more about business than we did about writing songs and stuff, with constantly working distribution and trying to work up better distribution elsewhere and we were just sitting there going, "Y'know, this is not what we need to do, we need to find someone to work with." We met with about 12, we had about 12 different labels I think overall that we either met with or came down to see a show or whatever and Epic was the first one we actually met with and the first one we actually kinda got along with and it was a couple of months after our first meeting that they showed up and saw us.
Bill: It's a big learning process.
Brian: This was a situation where you can't learn this business in school as much as you want to think you might be able to, it's all about experience.

Smother: So what kind of stuff are you guys listening to now?

Bill: Aw man, too much stuff…all sorts of different things.
Brian: We listen to everything.

Smother: We had a question for Mo, I'm sure you guys know about this…all the guys who try to proffer themselves or whatever, does she ever make use on those offers?

Brian: What's the question exactly?

Smother: Well, a lot of guys might be like, "I'm all yours" and she'll be like, "Oh, ok…"

Bill: No…

Smother: Ok, who is your guys' favorite band on the tour?

Brian: Ozomatli for me.
Bill: Ozomatli, Unwritten Law.

Smother: What's Ozomatli like?

Brian: Less Than Jake was pretty rad too.
Bill: Yeah, they were funnier.

Smother: What are your guys' weird habits?

Bill: I don't know if we have any.

Smother: I'm sure you do.

Bill: I don't know…our weird habits (laughter).
Brian: I don't know, I guess our most habitual thing, we seem to have uh… gas, going to the bathroom, that kind of stuff, that seems to be, we have a bad habit of talking about that quite a bit.

Bill: Sometimes we bug people out.
Brian: Yeah, some people can't handle that.

Smother: Like record company people?

Bill: (Laughter)
Brian: Yeah…

Bill: We're like, "That's gonna give you diarrhea dude."
Brian: We bust on diarrhea quite frequently and people just aren't, they're afraid of that terminology, you know?

Smother: Do you think you've ever gotten kicked off record labels for talking about that?

Brian: Nothing like that.
Bill: That would've happened man…

Brian: You know, it's just life, you can't be afraid of talking about this sort of stuff.

Smother: So what's all the attention like, now that you're on the radio and everything, how are you taking it?

Brian: You know, it's cool, we just, we're like, I don't know, I think for us, we've got a certain amount of press, but we didn't blow up too crazy, you know? It's actually pretty cool, cause we were really worried that we never got to tour the rest of the country before we were signed and that was actually a big concern of ours, but we honestly feel that we got a pretty good amount of attention, but not enough so to overplay us, and we have the advantage to tour a couple of times and we think we still set up a pretty grass roots following from just touring, so I think we just kind of balanced it pretty well and we're just kind of happy for everything that we've had the chance to do.

Smother: So what's the story behind you and your bear anyway, I'm just curious, like, when did this all begin?

Bill: At our first big show, we kind of used to all get dressed up because we never knew when our next show was gonna be, cause this is like when we were playing one a month. I just thought it would be funny so me and my friend James we just made the hat and we were like, goofing around and stuff. Well, like, sooner or later we started playing more and more shows and everyone started dressing more normal and I was the only one that kept dressing up (laughter).
Brian: We used to dress all crazy, like we'd have a crazy magical mystery tour Beatles outfit that I used to wear crazy fur things, it's kinda out there.

Smother: This is the question we've been dying to ask; do you know if Christian, The Commander, from the Aquabats and Aaron from Reel Big Fish are related to each other?

Bill: No (laughter)…

Smother: They look the same, they sound the same--it's just so amazing.

Bill: No, the Bat Commander is his own identity, cannot be confused with any other person.

Smother: We were just wondering if they have the same mom or something?

Both: (laughter) Oh no…
Bill: Hey, let's not talk about the Bat Commander's mom.
Brian: We don't know dude, they're from some other planet or something…
Bill: We think the Professor made them in his labs or something…

Smother: So how was it growing up in the Orange County scene and everything, from the 80s?

Bill: It's fun…there's definitely different, like, the first time we started touring across the United States, we realized that where we lived is different than anywhere else…we had such a huge music scene, we just took it for granted.

Brian: The funniest thing was that there were no real clubs in Orange County…everything was impromptu, throwing parties coffee shops...
Bill: Hotel ballrooms (much laughter)
Brian: Sometimes we'd find a warehouse to throw shows in for a month until the cops broke it up, it's crazy stuff.

Smother: So, do you guys get a lot of slack from people saying you guys sound like No Doubt with a female lead singer in a band like that?

Brian: Yeah, we get asked this question quite a bit, actually…our answer is no. If you just wait to classify a band is to generalize them that they sound like something. That's the way people describe things that they don't understand so coming from the same general area and having a female singer, that's an easy comparison. But if you listen to the music we play, we're doing the ska thing with horns…so musically, we're going a whole different direction. Basically what we've done this whole year of touring is we've went around the country 5 times, we set up enough of a following so people don't say, "Oh they sound like this" but "They sound like Save Ferris." But we weren't bummed out; they're a great band, so…

Smother: There's not many female singers around and stuff…so what do you guys do about showers?

Brian: We get one hotel room every night…
Bill: We get two water bottles in the morning (laughter)…

Smother: What's the worst place you've played at?

Bill: What's that place it rained on us? Detroit? "Oh no! Not Detroit!" (laughter)
Brian: The worst place to play as like where we were playing? Or how people were treating us?

Smother: I guess both…

Brian: Well, we played everything from K-Mart parking lots to Tennis Courts…we've had some pretty bad stuff but, they're always kind of funny with the music that we play…I don't know, I mean, we've had some bad shows where people just totally booed us off stage…but the worst part is when everyone just stood there…not that they throw food, just that it seems like they really don't care…I know we've had a few of those, but I try and forget about that stuff.

Smother: We have a friend named Carbomb and we ask everybody this, like, what would you do if you ever met some guy named Carbomb? With a name like that and everything…

Brian: Carbomb? I'd send him to my least favorite person's house and tell him to get busy.
Bill: I don't know what I'd do (laughter), probably hang out with him, and play some cards with him.

Smother: Is there any new stuff on the horizon? Like a new album coming out any time soon?

Brian: Yeah, after we do this, we're going to Europe for two weeks and then we're going to go home, we might do one little tour on the west coast and then we're going into the studio right away.

Smother: Do you have a lot of stuff ready for it already?

Brian: Just a lot of ideas just sketched out, we haven't had a lot of time just to practice with everybody, we're going to sit down and go, "Hey guys, we've got these ideas" and just take a crack at it and see how it goes. Hopefully it will work out, if not…

Bill: We have a soundtrack coming out with 3 new songs that we never recorded before.

Smother: What's it for?

Bill: It's called "The 10 Things I Hate About You".
Brian: It's not coming out until next year.

Smother: Yeah, well, that's about all we have, so thanks for giving us your time.

Both: Yeah, sure thing.

- Jimmy and Jesse