by ian desousa
What: The Toasters Live
Where: Jack Rabbits
When: April 29th
Still championing the roots-filled genre that many thought just a passing pop-fancy, and most never got at all, the Toasters are in their 26th year of delivering the prototypical American ska sound to die-hard rude boys and girls around the world. After the close of his 17-years strong, Moon Ska Records label founder, band frontman and guitarist Bucket Hingley kept the Toasters touring after all the dub-bass rhythms had been forgotten by the charts and most bands just faded away. Still touring, and hitting Jacksonville on April 29th, The Toasters are set to release their 16th CD and one of 25+ bands on Bucket's second ska label, Megalith Records. EU had a chance to speak with Bucket while he was putting the finishing touches on their album in Valencia, Spain, and find out what's going on a quarter of a century after they began.
EU: This is your 26th year doing this now, so after a quarter of a century and with more than 4000 shows under your belt, what do you still love about touring? What keeps you on the road?
BH: Well, the thing I like the most, like just on this last European tour for example, is being able to go places for the first time. We were able, on this last tour, to go to Bosnia and Kosovo, Montenegro, all those places down there. So it's great for me to go as a musician and be able to visit these countries without being a tourist. That's one of the things for me. Just to experience the fans down there who are so grateful that people actually go into their countries and play for them, that's really something quite special.
EU: And what do you listen to most when you're on the road touring? Any top 5 CDs that you always have with you?
BH: Not really, what I tend to do a lot, when I'm on the road, I take a whole bunch of the demo CDs I get sent by bands all the time. So I use that time to review their stuff mostly. MySpace, as a matter of fact, is great for that because you can check out their links, but when we're on the tour bus traveling normally I tend to use that time to work, just listen to all the demo CDs, it's more a question of listening to the new bands than old stuff.
EU: As far as the new album, One More Bullet, that comes out on April 24th goes, this is the second album that you've recorded in Valencia [Spain], correct?
BH: Well it's the first full length, we've recorded a few tracks here before, but this is the first full album. We've got a great setup here and a really strong producer, it's a lot less expensive than spending time in a studio in Philadelphia or New York, and it's really nice here.
EU: How's your Spanish?
BH: My Spanish isn't very good but my Valencian isn't bad, which is the local dialect, but I can speak French, German, and Italian, as well.
EU: So you can find your way out of a tight spot.
BH: (Chuckles), Yeah pretty much.
EU: On the last EP you put out, You're Gonna Pay, some tracks had much more of a straight up reggae feel than the quintessential Toasters sound, can we expect more of that on One More Bullet?
BH: Well you know that single, 'You're Gonna Pay' was basically a really up tempo track, then there's like the ragga track, and there's also a rocksteady track, old school, so it's a bit of mix up really with us touching on some different styles, and having Jason there with the band helping me write some tunes and a bit of that. So it's mostly an up-tempo record, but there are some old-school touches in there as well.
EU: Speaking of traditional ska tracks, in regards to Megalith Records I've read that the plan for the label as a whole was to focus more on the traditional ska and 2-tone sound as opposed to ska-punk genre, is that still the plan?
BH: Yeah. At least for me. I mean, with ska-punk I was never really a big fan of that. The Bosstones I think was about as far as I ever went in that particular direction. But I think the Toasters are about as "ska-punk" as I like to go, which is more of a, you know, a 2-tone band actually. But the real thing is that I think there's plenty of people out there playing some great music that really don't have a home at the moment. Bands like the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble, Eastern Standard Time, and The Bluebeats didn't have anywhere to go when Moon closed, no one stepped up to fill the void.
EU: Would you say there's a much healthier scene in Europe with a lot of people that are much more excited about this style of music there currently than here in the states?
BH: Well, I think in the states the genre has really suffered from being a flavor of the week and it's a re-building process that has to happen there. We really need to re-attract a lot of the older fans who got put off and bring them back into the fold, but at the same time let the kids know that there are some really great bands out there. You know things like MySpace are great for that because it gives people a chance to listen for free and check it out, but there's a lot of work to do there. But we live in hope and we wouldn't be doing it unless we had a long term approach.
There's some great bands coming through, though, in the states, you know, like The Hi-lites, for example, and Westbound Train that have been picked up by some major labels. That, for me, bodes really well for the future, that it's not just us seeing that there's a future for this kind of music in the states.
EU: When you started the Toasters back in 1981, did you expect you'd still be doing touring and recording a quarter of a century later, not to mention running your second record label?
BH: Well, if you'd told me any of that I'd have expected you were mad. But that would have made you right and me crazy, so, I had no clue. It all just really happened kind of almost by accident. You know, I never really started wanting to be a musician at all, so all these kinds of serendipitous things that I guess really happen for a reason, and here we are 26 years later. I'm just grateful to be doing something I'm passionate about and be able to make a living out it.
EU: Is there anything else you'd like to say or make people aware of?
BH: Yeah, you know if people are interested come over to toasters.org, we have links to the rest of our bands and you can get to Megalith Records from there. Plus there's community chat board so if people want to find out more about ska music they can head on over there.
The Toasters will be performing their unique brand of ska at Jack Rabbits on April 29th. And Bucket hopes to have the new record there for you.
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