Big D and the Kids Table are a third-wave ska band hailing from outside of Boston in Allston, Mass., and the band isn't ashamed of being one of the industry's swear words du jour (ska!); one of their T-shirts proclaims "No trends, no fads, no gimmicks. We play ska." They stop in Milwaukee tonight to rock your faces off at the Turner Ballroom.
As far as its roots go, to classify Big D strictly as a ska band would be wrong. The music ranges from the catchy, dancy, horn-infused third wave ska you've come to expect down to the aggressive punk tracks lik "LA X," a bitter tirade against the social ladder. Pushed even further, you could feel the dub leanings on their "Salem Girls" EP and, even further still, the undeniably raw all gangsta-rap album, "Porch Life." The band's newest album, "Strictly Rude," leads back into familiar ska territory, but the band promises subsequent releases of "Strictly Dub" and "Strictly Thrash."
Big D has earned respect through a largly DIY attitude and tireless self promotion, even going as far as to engineer and produce its own music and film its own videos and, in the case of its cover of second-wave ska band The Specials' "Little Bitch," more than twenty video variations! It also helps that the group plays an average of 200 shows a year.
While the band still maintains a hands-on approach to almost everything, it has since risen through the punk labels from Asian Man Records to Springman and now Side One Dummy, home of Flogging Molly, Gogol Bordello and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (by the way, did you hear they reunited? Niiice).
In 1999 Big D and the Kids Table won the distinction of "Outstanding Ska Band" in Boston and recently was nominated for three more Boston Music Awards: Album of the Year (Indie), Best Punk Band, and, astoundingly, Best DJ/Dance Album for a CD that isn't even officially released. The latter honor was made possible with their friend, DJBC, who took the band's raw files and remixed them into 17 new tracks for yet another new album, notching yet another musical genre in its belt.
I spoke with bass player Steve Foote on the way to Lincoln, Neb., about the ups and downs of the band's amazing decade and, of course, its connection to Milwaukee.
OnMilwaukee.com: You've done ska, ska-core, dub, rap, and punk music, as well as any combination in between. What drives you to experiment with and blend the lines of different genres?
Steve Foote: Well, I think that everybody in the band is interested in so many different kids of music. We like to take the elements of all sorts of styles -- like punk rock, ska, reggae, whatever, experimental rock -- anything that we can get our hands on and figure out ways that it makes sense to what we're doing. We're always down for it. We're a band of musicians who like to experiment and continually challenge ourselves which is the reason why we work outside the genre, looking for passion, more inspiration and more interesting things.
OMC: Your 2004 album "How It Goes" was a whopping 80 minutes long. What made you want to do an album packed to the brim with music?
SF: We just started writing songs and writing songs and writing songs and we were just like "We're gonna put as much music on this CD as we can," all while trying to make sure everybody in the band was down with the songs; we worked really hard to get everything together. And we just wanted to put out this kick ass record with as many tracks as we can and, hopefully, make it all the way through from beginning to end. We also looked at bands like Rancid who put out albums with 23 songs on them and we just thought "that's so bad ass that you're giving people so much music." Granted their songs are definitely a lot shorter some of our songs are, but that was definitely one of the many inspirations we had just to write all sorts of songs. We didn't want to cut anything for the record; we just kept adding and adding.
OMC: That album had a real effect on me.
[Author's Note: When I was fired for the first time (fortunately from a truly horrendous job) I hopped into my car and turned up the stereo. The first song that happened to be playing was "If We Want To," off that album. It's opening lyrics belted out "I could not ever see myself packing up and taking off just to fall asleep and work again," a lyric which has stuck with me indelibly.]
SF: Awesome. The only thing is, with that record we though that it was a little too jumpy. So with (our following album,) "Strictly Rude," we tried to hone in on ... more of an album that, from start to finish, sounds like one whole record as opposed to jumping from a punk song to a fast ska song to an experimental rock part. We tried to focus our energies and concentrate on putting the best album ideally for the songs, where sometimes before we'd go a little more haywire with what we were doing.
SF: Uh ... it's extremely difficult. A lot of us work when we're not on tour so we can make money to supplement everything. I gave up on my apartment in June, so I've been homeless since June, so I don't have to pay rent or anything, which has made a huge difference. But I'm still in crazy debt and I still don't make enough money from the band to cover my monthly bills. Personally, I do recording. I went to school for music production and engineering and I try to do that as much as I can, which is few and far between because we're always travelling. I'm also working a sometimes part-time, sometimes full-time job at a place for the last ten years to support myself. (Trumpet player) Dan (Stoppelman) has been working as a waiter at a restaurant for a long time and (guitarist) Sean (Rogan) was doing construction under the table with one of his friends and (saxophonist) Ryan (O'Connor) worked various jobs ... we find ways to give guitar lessons and junk like that. So we don't survive off the band as much as we'd like to. Hopefully one day we'll get to that point if we keep trying our best to do what we enjoy doing and to pick it up to the next level, if possible, but only time will tell.
OMC: So it's for the love of the music?
SF: Yeah, definitely. At this point, being in a band for 10 years there's a little bit of us that is extremely stubborn and don't want to give up because we believe so passionately about what we're doing. There's another part of us that says the harder you work and the more effort you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. It's just like any other project that you work on.
OMC: What is the worst part about being a band?
SF: The uncertainty of what's happening next. Look at the lyrics of "LA X" -- stuck in a hole with the conflict and struggle of not being able to do what you want to do and being completely broke and not being able to support yourself. It's a huge challenge. Also, trying to decide what the next step for the band is. Do you go back on tour? Do you start writing songs? If you don't go back on tour soon enough you're gonna have crazy bills that pile up. One challenge is trying to figure out the balance between what the band needs to do to continue and make sure everybody is totally happy and has time off so we can recouperate for when we're on tour. Balancing that out is a huge juggling process, which is difficult.
And with six people, there are several different opinions, so it's not just accomodating three or four people. So if you have six people offering input and doing the best for everybody and making everybody happy is totally a huge challenge.
OMC: Is there any easy trick to work that out?
SF: Yeah, for a lot of it we just talk about things and say, alright, if someone does not like an idea, they just have to explain why.We just talk about it, we discuss it, we just figure it out. Something are just obvious, but other things require more thought, more effort, and you have to work it out as a group. It's a pretty democratic system. We've had other people be like "If you want to get some things done you have to give up the democracy of it and let one person decide." For certain things that's fine, but if someone does that and everybody else is left out about it, then obviously it was the wrong choice.
It's definitely challenging. It's like having five other girlfriends. It's a lot of coordination. You spend more time with these people in your band than you do anybody else in your life. Sitting in a van all day long, playing the shows ... it's a lot of time to spend around them. Learning how to deal with everybody is a challenge.
OMC: How do you balance the difference between working the Warped Tour and playing a basement show? Do you still play basement shows?
SF: We don't do many of those DIY shows like that anymore. A lot of the DIY stuff we do is at clubs, but they're clubs that are run by a group of kids or one or two people that are totally punk rock that almost has that same vibe as like a VFW hall or something, but as far as basements and stuff like that, we haven't done that for awhile.
It's interesting because Warped Touring and regular touring is like a totally different environment, you know? Warped Tour is this giant huge thing with seventy bands playing a day and a giant punk rock shopping mall, where at a regular show you're inside and it's at night ... it's a totally different atmosphere. I like them both. I think as far as performing in a band, the environment of being in a club where it's dark and you have stage lights and stuff, it's a little bit more appealing to me because it's what we've been doing for years.
But the fact that Warped Tour offers you so many opportunities that your band can get exposure to people who would never go to a show, you can't argue against it. For a band like us it's made a world of difference because so many people check us out. We bust our asses on Warped Tour every time we've been on it and seeing the attendance pre-Warped Tour and post-Warped Tour is amazing. It's ridiculously cool to see that and know that it's helped us out so much.
OMC: What are your thoughts on Milwaukee? Any favorite memories?
SF: I don't know if you know who Mark Borchardt is. We actually got in touch with him and he came out to a couple of our Milwaukee shows and we shot ideas back and forth in the first week in October. We all went to Milwaukee and shot a video of him. So I'd say making the video and the whole process of meeting Mark and getting to know him and talking about ideas is probably one of the best memories I have.
OMC: Oh really? Which video is it?
SF: It's a video for "Deadpan Face," which is not out yet. It's still being edited right now.
Big D and the Kids Table aren't making the trek to Milwaukee alone. Whole Wheat Bread is punk by way of rap. Brain Failure is punk imported all the way from Beijing, China and Liv Kid comes straight from Wauwatosa.
Jason McDowell grew up in central Iowa and moved to Milwaukee in 2000 to attend the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
In 2006 he began working with OnMilwaukee as an advertising designer, but has since taken on a variety of rolls as the Creative Director, tackling all kinds of design problems, from digital to print, advertising to branding, icons to programming.
In 2016 he picked up the 414 Digital Star of the Year award.
Most other times he can be found racing bicycles, playing board games, or petting dogs.
