Interview with Mad Caddies

Mad Caddies :: Interview with the whole band

A warm sunny day, Sasha,Keithand Chuck of the Mad Caddies plus Timmy D. are sitting backstage chilling, eating candy, drinking beer and .. watching the soccer world championship. What a perfect day!

Chloë (P76): I see you are watching the soccer world championship, do you follow these games?
Chuck: Oh yeah! its fun, we try to see all games, though that’s not really possible. We were watching Mexico play, unfortunately we missed the USA. Thatd be my order: USA, Mexico and then Germany! We do have the “German chair” though (it’s a comfy camping chair with a German flag plus a soccer style “Deutschland” writing on it, proudly they present even a second one)

Chloë (P76): Thank you for all the support guys! Do you feel a close relationship to Germany?
Chuck: Actually, its Berlin. We have a lot of friends there in the industry, we use to hang out there and we are going to record […] some new stuff in Berlin. Also, of course Fat Wreck Chords are in Berlin!
Timmy D: The Frankenbar …
Chuck: Oh yeah, also the Frankenbar is in Berlin!

Chloë (P76): You did dome bigger international tours through Japan and South America. I bet that was exciting…
Keith: Seriously, I think Germany is a way bigger tour, technically, than South America, which is on the same continent. This was new though. In South America, it was flattering to have a hundred kids waiting at the airport for us, with icy beer they brought us… it was amazing (laughs)! I mean we are one of the few independent punk-ish bands down there, that have ever been in Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, …we like to do Argentina and Brazil sometimes in the future!

Chloë (P76): I heard you would like to play in eastern Europe, because you hardly or never played there.
Chuck: Actually, for this tour we were supposed to play Zagreb, Krakau and eastern Cities like that. Unfortunately they got cancelled, so we had to sit on the beach in Slowenia for two days (smiles).
But the reason we want to go to eastern Europe in particular, is that not many bands go there. They don’t have a lot of concerts and shows like this in this culture. Plus, we want to drink very much and cheap Vodka…. And other things (laughs). To see the country side for example I mean. And Sashas family is Slovakian, so of course we are very interested in playing there. He has been to Slovenia and Poland a lot.

Chloë (P76): So when you play there, Sasha, your family is going to come to the show?
Sasha: Yeah, of course. Keiths parents for example are coming to almost every single show we play in Santa Barbara. Except for one they haven’t missed one! And they like it!
Keith: (embarrassed) well… they are so supportive! I don’t know why. ‘I’m such a fuck up (smiles). Well technically speaking I might be all right…

Chloë (P76): I heard you did a contest “Meet the Mad Caddies” for todays show (people send an emails and two people got picked to meet and hang out with the caddies, plus they get a free shirt!), who came up with this idea and why?
Chuck: It was Ed’s friend Joe, he’s also doing all the updates for the website. Him and Brian wanted to get something nice for the fans to keep them excited. For true fans, you know. Hook them up, give them some free shirts… maybe make contacts for when we come back into town they could help us passing out flyers … and get them some special treatment to get us to know a little bit better. We like the contact to our fans and from now on, we try to interact more with them. For example in updating the website more often…

Chloë (P76): Today youre playing with the Movement. How is the tour going?
Keith: Yes, they are pretty good. Some faster songs, some Ska, some melody, a three-piece band. Very political. We hardly know them yet though. I think its because we didn’t party with them yet. (smiles)
Sasha: last night they did party, but we didn’t.
(I cant believe it and give them a weird look)
Sasha: Oh oh. Yeah, we were pussies last night. I preferred sitting in my Deutschland Chair.
Keith: Actually we should really support that. We should be sitting in this Deutschland chair the whole day and night!

Chloë (P76): Even on stage!
Chuck: Great idea! I should bring them on stage and when I’m not singing I can sit down once in a while!

Chloë (P76): Or you can bring the contest winner from tonight on stage and give them a special treatment!
Keith: Awesome idea! That’s what we are doing! Drinking some beers with them, a little Deutschland gallery…, a little "Maß" beer (engl: pinch of beer) .. the Mad Caddies style!

Chloë (P76): You are currently writing and recording your next album, being released on Fat, tell me about that.
Keith: We did 15 drum tracks so far in Hollywood and we already finished 8 or 9 songs unmixed. We collected everything in Santa Barbara, in a bunch of different studios and we’ve got a little bit of free time on the end of the tour in Berlin, to mostly just write and we have actually if the moment strikes us technical equipment and a recording studio, capture that if we need to and even work with some other people from other bands. Anything to add, Chuck?
Chuck: A lot of the songs are finished, from a few songs the drums are there and we just need to finish recording them. And then the purpose about the trip to Berlin is to come up with new stuff, it’s a different atmosphere.

Chloë (P76): I heard one of your new songs called “Without you” is posted on your myspace profile. It is kinda slow and relaxed. Is it that how the record will become in general, or do you still provide your drinking-having fun-style of music?
Chuck: (who found my kind of questioning too complicated) … I don’t understand the question.

Chloë (P76): Ok, easy: do you still love to drink, chuck?
Chuck: Haha (understands now)! Yes, Chloë (P76), I still love to drink, I fucking love it! (laughs) And there will be at least one great song about drinking!
Keith: He didn’t understand the question because he is drunk!
Chuck: (points at his mineral water) No I didn’t understand the question because I am NOT drunk! Seriously, our style, of course, stays as it is. Its gonna be a lot of Reggae, Rocksteady, a little Ska, a little Latin, Rock’n’Roll… we want to make it our most “complete” album! The songs should not jump too much, you know. Even if we have a song that’s really, really good, but wouldn’t fit into the rest so it wouldn’t match the concept, we wouldn’t take it and save it for something else.

Chloë (P76): Is there a chance from the time you started until now personality wise, through experience or growing reasons?
Sasha: Good question! I think the biggest difference is that we are more exposed to the world than we have ever been before! From being able to travel to so many countries, having met so many different people.. and not just go to Germany and visit a beer house in Munich. That made us very open and we experienced a lot. Plus, we all got fatter (laughs), more lever damage… and more wrinkles for sure.
And musically, just by absorbing music, different kind of styles, and practicing, we also learn more! From absorbing everything we see and experience, it changed our style of writing songs for sure! I couldn’t imagine how the band sounded like if we didn’t get all this stimulations and influences!

Chloë (P76): What was the biggest and most important stimulation or influence for your music?
Sasha: For me personally … Timmy D! (glances over to Timmy D) the godfather of all musicians! But I would say, I just like good music, no matter what style it is! In fact, we play with so a lot of punk and rock bands, the last thing I hear personally is punk rock! There is no specific scene, there’s thousands of them! Latin, jazz, … everything as long as its good! I like to travel somewhere, lets say Krakau and ask the people “what’s the good music here? Give me a CD”. And people love to share that!
Chuck: The one “theme” in this band, and I’ m sure I can speak for everybody here, no one likes just one style of music! We all like ANY kind of music from country/western to pop, jazz, heavy metal… as long as its good, and that’s why we are so open for everything and what influenced us most!

Chloë (P76): I got told a while ago by one of you, you would collect material for composing a DVD, what about that?
Chuck: there is hundreds of hours of footage! And I thing once the record is done and that’s out of the way, then we have a few months off and start working on that! The album is not going to come out before next spring, because we don’t want to release it during Christmas time. So after that, we might start with the DVD! Plus, we need to decide what we will go for with this DVD. If it is going to become a live show, or outtakes … I personally would like to release a behind-the-scenes-DVD, mixed in with live footage, too. But the most interesting stuff is stuff like “life on the tour bus”, “going downtown in a foreign country” and things like that.

Chloë (P76): I see Timmy D. sitting here with you, and I know that Sasha has a music project running with him, including musicians like joey cape, chris rest and more. Tell me about that!
Sasha: Its not a project! Its an experience! It’s a lifestyle! I think, Timmy, you might wanna take this one! You should explain, why you are here!
Timmy D: It’s a total lifestyle. It just hit me one day! (smiles) I was playing around on the keyboards while I was recording, and Sasha was walking by saying, he would have some beats for me. So, he gave me some beats and I was laying down some keyboard tracks and it worked out together! He is kinda… well, he is my DJ! And I am here, just in case I might play a concert, we are thinking about tonight. I don’t know if its gonna happen though. (laughs). Seriously, we like to have a few guest musicians, a lot of artist wants to play with me, us. We are having a great time!
Sasha: I would never waterdown my contribution with Timmy by performing with anybody else. Maybe some reggae stuff, but … Its not in my hands, its gods decision (laughs). Whatever happens, happens!

Chloë (P76): So back to the Mad Caddies, when can we expect to see any of the new stuff in the media?
Sasha: Well, its true, we haven’t put out any new material in a long time. So we really want to get more stuff out there soon. The website has already two songs, our myspace profile has one (“Without you”), and then we are doing 3 new songs for the BBC in about a week. Slowly letting people hear about our new stuff, whenever it is possible for us to get something out.
For the future, we plan some more tours, we got one offered in Mexico, and we like to bring our music wherever we possibly can! Especially in countries like Mexico, its gonna be crazy, its so different!

Chloë (P76): Speaking of crazy, being on tour for that many years now, what was probably the most crazy experience so far?
Chuck: There was this one time recently on our Canadian tour, we were crossing into Canada and all our band members got accepted, but our tour bus driver had a criminal record, so he was denied access. And the first show was on an island, Vancouver Island, so you have to take a boat there. We missed the boat, because we had to wait for a new bus driver to come. While we were waiting in the United states, Chris got deported, because he is British. And they found him with no American work visa. So he got kicked out of the country and they sent him to Canada - luckily. So when the new bus driver came and we all met in Canada, the boat was gone but the show was already sold out!
So, Wiz (tour manager) called up an airplane! We chartered a little 8-peron airplane, not bigger as this small fucking table here (laughs). It normally delivers newspaper. But we got to the venue half an hour before we were supposed to play.. and played the show. That was crazy! That was a very Rock’n’Roll moment!

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