Rocket Interview


This interview was taken from the Rocket magazine. It features MxPx. What were you doing when you were 19? Dozing through a coma-inducing college lecture? Fervently pouring beer after beer down your gullet for fear that if your BAC fell under .10 percent, your body would explode like the bus in the movie Speed? Listening to your parents yell at you for the second time in an hour to get your ass off the couch and get a job or else you'd have to start paying rent--and then rolling over to finish your nap?

Chances are you weren't selling nearly 100,000 CDs, hearing your voice beamed across radio waves emanating from the most popular rock station in your town, or driving cross-country with your best friends performing punk rock music every night for hundreds of fans. Most people don't do that.

But MxPx are not most people. Though they haven't lived a full two decades as of yet, MxPx bassist/vocalist Mike Herrera, guitarist Tom Wisniewski, and drummer Yuri Ruley are such band veterans that their trade is becoming a bit commonplace, to them at least. "We've been on the road ever since graduation [in June, 1995] and what we do is actually fun for the most part," says Herrera. "It's not really that boring."

No, watching a movie about the mating habits of grasshoppers in Psych-101 is boring. And you can bet that all the kids strumming away in basements and garages on Wal-Mart guitars don't have any suspicions about the mundane nature of being in a band. "Not that boring?!" they're screaming. "Sounds like a dream come true!" Herrera does seem to sense the special position he and his mates are in, especially the freedom playing music allows them. "We just figure we could be doing worse stuff," he says. "Mostly everybody wants to get out of their hometown, and we're out."

Home, in this case, is Bremerton, Washington. You get the impression that, though Herrera does not hold this sleepy peninsula town in disdain, he will probably choose another home base when he settles down. MxPx did immortalize their old stomping grounds in the song "Move to Bremerton," a punk rock ditty that has enjoyed exposure on KNDD and KGRG radio stations and explains that "Bremerton's a good place to reside."

Ironically, Gary, an MxPx friend from Dallas who is now the band's roadie, is actually going to move from Texas to the Puget Sound region. "That's the power of the song 'Move to Bremerton,'" jokes Herrera. "Nah, just kidding."

Four years ago, the town most famous for its protected harbor and naval shipyards was home to three 15-year-old boys calling themselves Magnified Plaid who started pounding out music inspired by The Descendants and other '80s Southern California punk rock bands. The only problem was they didn't really love their name, which was a reference to the original guitar player's penchant for wearing a really ugly shirt featuring a pattern made up of large plaids, so they shortened it to M.P. In Yuri's handwriting, however, periods are small Xes, and since his script graced the band's show posters, the four-letter moniker stuck.

Tom joined two years ago (replacing the aesthetically offensive former guitarist) to solidify the lineup. Maybe his background as a drummer made up for his relative inexperience (just a year's worth, at the time) playing the six-string because he and Yuri lock into backbreaking rhythms that rank with Minor Threat for speed and percussive effect. It is Mike's melodies that temper the abrasiveness and hearken to early West Coast punk rock.

"Our music isn't landmark or anything," Herrera admits. "It's pop music. If it can get stuck in your head, that's cool."

It certainly got stuck in the collective ears of Tooth and Nail Records big wigs who, after witnessing a personalized showcase by the band in Herrera's parents' garage, released MxPx's debut full-length, Pokinatcha. The trio were juniors in high school and would play shows all over the region on the weekends.

In 1995, the band released their follow-up, the aptly titled Teenage Politics, also on Tooth and Nail, and left the day after graduation to tour behind it. Teenage Politics has sold around 60,000 copies according to James Morelos, Tooth and Nail's head of promotions and publicity. Not surprisingly, one third of those sales have been in Southern California. Morelos is obviously excited about the band's potential to continue growing. As a matter of fact, Tooth and Nail recently secured a distribution deal with Caroline because of the very real possibility that MxPx's next release, Life in General, due November 16, could sell many, many copies. "I like the idea that Seattle has never had a conventional punk band break big. There was Nirvana, but they were really their own thing. We hope MxPx is the one."

Morelos uses the word "huge" often when speaking of his pet band, both in reference to the future but also as it relates to the present. This may sound premature, but Herrera & Co. are already dealing with the repercussions that fame can have even at the low-scale indie level.

"There's a lot of rumors about me on the Internet," says Herrara: I got arrested for cocaine, or I got married, or I'm gay. It's hilarious but it's also sad because people believe it and they ask me about it and it kinda makes me mad; why would they believe that?"

Though MxPx certainly don't approach the status of some of the other Internet-implicated celebrities in this town (Ms. Love, come on down!), this could conceivably change in the blink of an eye and they could outgrow their independent label roots. But Morelos, for one, thinks that can be worked around. "It (an independent label supporting a multi-platinum release,) was done with The Offspring. We're spending a lot of money on them, but it goes a long way. They're huge but they're low-tech and they don't demand a lot. They are a joy to work with."

Herrera feels his label's support. "They're rad. It's such a good feeling to have them working so hard behind us. I don't know if we'd get that on a bigger label. Kids everywhere who read 'zines or whatever--they'll probably see an ad for MxPx somewhere."

Mention another three-piece pop-punk band that hit it big with a classic California-style sound and you will be met with acrimony, albeit slight, from both camps. "I think they are better than Green Day," Morelos states point blank. "The only similarity is that they play pop songs and have great singers singing melodies. People just associate them with Green Day because [Green Day] are the most visible punk band, but tons of bands sound like that."

Herrera has an even harsher indictment for those who would dare compare the two groups. He believes people who make those claims "weren't really familiar with the whole [punk rock] scene. They think Green Day was the first punk band. I think they are a good band, but I don't [think MxPx sounds like them] at all."

There is inherent comedy in receiving a history lesson in punk rock from a 19-year-old kid. You are invariably left wondering if the teacher is qualified. Well, Herrera does rave about The Descendants and All, a couple of SoCal bands who have certainly put in their time. And he referenced the Beach Boys as an influence for a lot of punk bands. Inquiries about other inspirations sometimes fell on the vague side, however. "Punk rock came from rock 'n' roll and it came from all that old stuff that really...I don't know...You know what I mean, right?"

Phone interviews at two in the morning aren't always the best for mental sharpness, so let's leave the "old stuff" behind and focus on something current: Life in General, the upcoming MxPx release. If the singles from the album, "Move to Bremerton" and "Chick Magnet," are any indication, Herrera's songwriting is maturing and seems to be moving away from the unabashed prominence of Jesus Christ as the lyrical focus of earlier work. The band celebrates Christ in very plain language in many songs on Teenage Politics. During "False Fiction," Herrera sings, "Unless you know Christ, you won't know how I feel." A lyric from "Do & Don't reads, "When the time comes He will show me what to do and where to go." And the most heartfelt praise isn't even written on the lyric sheet: the refrain from "Like Sand Through the Hourglass..." is, "My love to You/Jesus yes I do/And I trust in You." To be sure, it is unique for a band to communicate a message associated with a traditional and moralistic paradigm by using a form associated with rebellion and debauchery. However, Herrera considers his Christian lyrics to be consistent with the spirit of punk rock. "It's about self-expression," he says carefully. "I gotta have integrity. I can't just say, 'This is punk rock so I have to do what [other punk rock musicians] do.' We're Christians, but we're not missionaries. We're not trying to save everybody. It just happens to be what we believe. [Christianity] is seen as not punk rock and that is getting away from what punk rock was originally about: Going against what's normal, the system." Not every song on Teenage Politics touches on Christian themes. More than half deal with universal teenage issues: alienation from the popular group ("Teenage politics, it's too confusing/politics shmolitics" from the title track), disgust at trend followers, and affirmations of all things good and pure ("All I've got is a skateboard and a guitar/Go to a lot of punk shows and drive a car" from "Do & Don't"). Songs like these, concerned almost exclusively with secular themes, make up the bulk of the material on Life in General, which will be celebrated with a homecoming show at RCKNDY at the end of November. Then the members will have a chance to stay at home for the winter months before taking off on yet another tour. And I do mean staying at home, i.e., their parents' homes. The members' respective parents are apparently cool with this. Herrera's mom actually helps out with work at Tooth and Nail (maybe she could be the charter member of the punk rock PTA) and all the elders make appearances at shows. The vacation should give Herrera, Ruley, and Wisniewski a chance to collect their thoughts and energy. "I get really grateful and thankful that I'm not working washing dishes because I did that. I worked since I was 14 until right before graduation and it sucks. Now I can just think back and go, 'Yeah, better write some songs.'" Amen. (c) 1996 Dan Johnson