Pat: vocals, guitar
Josh: bass
Reggie: drums

The Beatnik Termites are a 60s influenced pop punk band from Cleveland, Ohio. They've released two full lengths, Taste The Sand and Live at the Orifice This interview was done with the band in Denton, Texas at Rubber Gloves in July 1998 before they opened for FYP and Marky Ramone and the Intruders.

SS: WHERE DID THE NAME COME FROM?

PAT: When I first conceived the idea of this band, I wanted the name to be indicative of the style of music that we play. Since we play late 50's/early 60's influenced pop, I thought that an insect name would be appropriate because of all of the great bands like The Crickets, The Beatles, The Ladybugs, etc...They were all power pop bands. I knew that if we had an insect name, most people would think that we were a power pop band, which is what I wanted. "Termites" seemed to be one of the few that weren't already taken.

SS: ARE YOU GUYS INTO THAT WHOLE BEATNIK THING TOO?

PAT: The Beatnik part of the name was just something catchy that I tacked on the front because of the 50's vibe. I also heard that parents in the 60's would sometimes refer to surfers derogatorily as beatniks. Since we are also a surf-influenced band, I tacked on "Beatnik" to the front. There's also a Go-Go's song called "Beatnik Beach", which I thought had a cool ring to it too. It also made the entire name unique.

SS: HOW'S THE TOUR GOING SO FAR, ANY BAD SHOWS OR STRANGE SHIT?

REGGIE: Yeah, a little bit of each. We've been on the road now for two weeks and we've had some great shows and we've had some not-so-great shows and we've had some no shows (laughs). Some of the best times we've had so far have been San Francisco, Hollywood was great. Some of the weird things that have happened to us was Denver. We showed up and the show was being advertised at three different clubs and there were people waiting at all three clubs and there ended up being no show anywhere. We've had a good time so far. This is our first time on the road and we're just happy to be traveling and happy to be out on the road and to have people hearing our music.

SS: DID YOU GUYS END UP PLAYING WITH THE PARASITES IN SAN FRANCISCO?

REGGIE: Um, they didn't play. They originally set up to play and the show got set up while they were on the road so some other bands got added because they weren't at home to verify that they were playing. They were in Cleveland about a month ago and we saw them and they told us that they were playing that show and we showed up in San Francisco and their names weren't listed.

SS: HOW COME YOU GUYS DON'T USUALLY TOUR?

REGGIE: We've just started to take the band more seriously in the past couple of years. The band started out as sort of fun thing, you know, happy to be making music. Then it grew and kind of grew and we've reach the point where now we want to be a little more routine. Before it was like, "hey we can record an album and make 1000 copies and give copies to our friends, gee isn't this fun," and now it's like we want to make a record every year and we want to start touring to promote our records. So it's just a change of attitude for us.
PAT: Yeah this is going to be our full time jobs now.
REGGIE: We quit our jobs last month, so we're doing the band thing now.

SS: WHY WAS BUBBLECORE PUSHED BACK TO 1999?

REGGIE: We've just started to take the band more seriously in the past couple of years. The band started out as sort of fun thing, you know, happy to be making music. Then it grew and kind of grew and we've reach the point where now we want to be a little more routine. Before it was like, "hey we can record an album and make 1000 copies and give copies to our friends, gee isn't this fun," and now it's like we want to make a record every year and we want to start touring to promote our records. So it's just a change of attitude for us.

SS: WHAT LABEL IS BUBBLECORE GOING TO BE ON?

REGGIE: We don't know yet.

SS: WHAT HAPPENED WITH BLACK PUMPKIN RECORDS? WEREN'T YOU ON THAT LABEL BEFORE?

REGGIE: The way that developed was, we had that record completely mixed and recorded and we had been friends with the guys from the Fiends for several years and the record was actually done, the artwork was done and we were actually just sending out the films to get the printing done and they called up and wanted to be involved with what we were doing and we wanted to be involved with them also. So even though it says the Black Pumpkin label on the back, it was actually a self release. What we did with them is: we made copies of the record ourselves and we put the Black Pumpkin logo on the back and the copies I actually order and the factory ships them to me and they are basically helping us with distribution. By having our address on it and their address, there's actually more ways to find the record.

SS: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR OLD BASS PLAYER?

REGGIE: Brian left the band, three years ago?
PAT: Yeah, three years ago. He didn't want to tour.
REGGIE: That was about the point in time where we started to take the band more seriously and decided we wanted to do the band more regularly and Brian basically liked his day job. He got married and he's a fireman and he enjoys being a fireman and he doesn't want to leave that. So that was about three years ago and we went bass playerless for a year, tried to keep ourselves busy recording new songs and releasing so the band wouldn't die while we were looking for a bass player.
PAT: I played bass on some of our recordings when we didn't have a bass player.

SS: DID A LOT OF BASS PLAYERS TRY OUT FOR THE PART?

REGGIE: We found a lot of bass players, a lot of people were interested and we found a lot of good bass players but none of them could sing. It took us over a year to find Josh and he was the good bass player who could sing so we snatched him up and Josh's been with us for almost two years. Singing is such a big part of our music and our art, so it was important that our bass player had to sing.
PAT: He had to be able to sing harmonies very accurately like barber shop quartet situations and not just a HUH or a HOH or an UHH or just a yell or a scream in the background. So he was hard to find.

SS: HAVE YOU GUYS PUT ANYTHING OUT WITH THIS NEW LINEUP?

PAT: We've recorded some stuff but it hasn't been released yet.
REGGIE: The Pleasant Dreams record actually, Ray Ahn from The Hard-Ons plays bass on that. What happened was in the time that we were looking for a bass player, Ray volunteered to do as much as he could but he couldn't really join the band because he lives in Australia and he's got his own band.

SS: JOSH, HOW DID YOU COME INTO CONTACT WITH THESE GUYS?

JOSH: Well I was in another band called The Proms and the guitar player in the band new these two guys from a band he was in previously. Pat came with us to one of the recording sessions and I just talked to him and called him a couple of days later because I knew they needed a bass player and I asked him if they wanted me to do it. So I went and had a tryout type practice and the rest is history.

SS: SO YOU LEFT THE PROMS?

JOSH: Well originally I was going to be in both bands but the guitar player said that it was either one or the other. He made me choose so I chose.

SS: YOUR EARLIER COVERS HAD A BUNCH OF JAPANIMATION ON IT, ARE YOU GUYS BIG JAPANIMATION FANS?

PAT: Actually the artists that we had do it were bigger anime fans but we ourselves, we couldn't care less. That's just the way it ended up and we just decided to continue on with that tradition. We had the other artists do it in that style because that's the style that's sort of associated with us now. But we have other stuff too that's not Japanimation.
REGGIE: We pretty much leave it up to the artists. I think the reason you've seen the theme covers is because we've repeated artists four times. Ray Ahn has done a bunch of covers and his have always been in the same style and our friend Wayne from Cleveland has done several of the covers and Josh will probably do something too because he's the only one in the band that draws.

SS: WHAT FUTURE PLANS DO YOU GUYS HAVE?

REGGIE: We've been out for two weeks which basically brought us through the North all the way to the West Coast and down the West Coast and now we're heading back down to the South. Basically we'll still be on the road until the end of July then August 2nd we'll be home for a couple of weeks and then we'll be on the East Coast with The Groovie Ghoulies and then we'll be home for the season in September. We'll be basically spending October doing one session, spend November doing another session, and then get ready for a huge tour in the Spring to support Bubblecore. But we're going to do a single for Recess, a single for Mutant Pop, two singles for our own label, a single for Black Pumpkin, and then two for Insubordination.

SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SPINAL TAP?

PAT: I love Spinal Tap!
REGGIE: I love the imploding drummers and when the egg doesn't open up and when they do stonehenge. When the drummer chokes on somebody else's vommit. (laughs) But Pat's met those guys before actually.
PAT: Actually I didn't get to meet them. Friends of ours opened up for them in Cleveland so they got us all backstage passes. I was invited to be the guitar tech for the opening band, you know to change guitars in case he broke a string, because it was a big coliseum show. Then I stood there with my arms folded making sure that no one would get up on stage. (laughs)
REGGIE: They were there with their huge guitars.

THE END