The Mad Caddies

The Mad Caddies are a west coast band from Santa Barbara, California who toured with Mustard Plug and joined the Warped Tour on its last day 1997. All the following onformation comes from an interview with 3 Mad Caddy members. these are Sascha Lazar, Carter Benson, and Mark Iverson.

The group has been together for two years and their ages range from 18 to 23, but most of the members have known each other for five or six years, since high school. Their first and only C.D.so far is named Quality Soft Core (the pink one), which contains thirteen songs even though they had originally recorded fourteen. However those who live back in their home town might be able to find some copies of their demo called The Ivy League. When asked how exactly they would label their music, they said they like to call it Sudo-Ska because it is heavily influenced by Ska and other types of music as well, like punk and jazz. All together each member of the band is influenced by various types of music, from jazz, to 80’s and new school punk to even the Grateful Dead and Phish (these last two influence only the singer - they made it very clear).

Even though this is their first time touring it has The Mad Caddies pretty stoked. Why? They love touring because they get to be with their friends but mainly because they get to share a lot of experiences with each other as well as with the other bands. The only difference that they see between the West coast scene and the East coast scene is that here in the east the crowd is more open minded to the music, but so far they have enjoyed every show they’ve had more then back home in Santa Barbara. From their experiences back home they said that people dress up more, meaning the rude boys or girls and creepers, but as they put it "Whatever you’re into, it’s cool".

The Mad Caddies believe that bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones deserve every bit of recognition they have achieved because they have worked very hard for it for quite a while. On the other hand they also agree that many other bands deserve credit for their hard work and are not getting it. Furthermore, they believe that bands should not be labeled Ska because they sound Ska-like, and as they said "Classification is a lost of individualism," but they do have to put such band’s music in some rack at the store so Ska would probably be as good as any other.

For their final thoughts they decided to leave us with the following: "If we’re ever in your town come check us out and try not to throw lots of stuff at us" and "Live long, prosper, play loud music, and your neighbors will love you." Plus, they also wanted to thank Mustard Plug and most importantly their road manager Sean Gabriel because as they said "He’s been invaluable… If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be here". So to those who haven’t heard The Mad Caddies live check them next time they are in your town.