By Austin Kaus
Bay Area street punkers Swingin’ Utters released their ninth studio album Fistful of Hollow late last year. Its combination of working class attitude, punk rock wisdom and continually-vining instrumentation made it one of the best records of 2014. Singer and founding member Johnny “Peebucks” Bonnel and guitarist/vocalist/occasional accordionist Darius Koski sat down in the other SD (San Diego) and talked with Austin Kaus about the state of the world, Darius’ packrat habits and how the closed-captioning on Mad Men helped influence the latest record.
Tell me about the new album.
J: It’s got some new stuff on it with Miles (Peck, bassist). We finally got Miles in the rotation for writing songs. Jack (Dalrymple, guitarist/vocalist) pitched in and Darius, of course. It sounds a little bit different because of the fact because we got another songwriter in there.
How did that change things?
J: I don’t know. I guess Miles’s personality came out in a few songs. It has this weird folk quality to it, like demonic folk. That’s what it reminds me of. It was a really fun record to make and we’re pretty excited out about it.
I was trying to figure out a clever way to phrase this without sounding like a douchebag, but what is the state of punk today?
J: You got me, man.
D: I think we just try not to worry about it.
Is it even a word that should be applied to anything anymore?
D: Not really. It’s too broad now.
J: We just don’t really care that much if we’re punk or not.
D: After it got super huge, it got watered down. We’re a punk band. I don’t know what that means anymore. It could mean so many different fucking things. That’s fine. It’s like a broad genre right now where it used to be more of a defined small thing, a little bit more special, maybe. Now, it’s like “They’re not punk. What are you talking about?”
J: It’s bizarre what they call punk now.
D: You get tattoos and you’re punk, I guess.
J: I don’t lose sleep over it.
If someone tries to pigeonhole you and says, “What do the Swingin’ Utters sound like?” what do you say?
J: For everyone to know, I guess we’d say “punk,” because that’s where we started. There’s always going to be punk in all of the records we make. It’s a common influence, but we try to mix it up as much as we can with other influences and hopefully it shows on the record. We don’t care if it’s not punk enough for the punkers or too punk for the wimpy people. (laughs)
Any specific goals for this album? A focused idea?
J: I think it was open. We just like to write songs together. It sort of starts leaning in one direction because of what’s going on in my life at the time for my songs. I don’t know about Darius.
D: I don’t think any of us ever sit down and say, “We’re going to write a song about this” or “I think this record should be like this.” I know that me and him don’t ever do that because if I try to write like that, it’s shit. I can’t do it. It has to just come out – like lyrics, mostly – or it’s just garbage. I’ve tried. “I’m going to write some sort of political song” and it’s horrible. I can’t do it. (Johnny laughs) It just has to be not necessarily stream of consciousness, but that idea has to come out. Then, it has weird meanings in it that you mean in the back of your fucking mind somewhere, but it’s not as obvious. I don’t think we ever really think about that.
So what’s happening with your lives with this record?
J: Just raising two daughters with a great wife and just getting by, working hard every day. I’ve seen a lot of depressing shit on the news and the future’s not looking so bright for my kids. I think that you can’t show that to them. You have to just keep plugging away because the only way you can make it better is by putting on a good attitude, I think.
That kind of fear/concern for the future – do you think it comes through on the record?
J: For sure.
Any specific songs?
J: I have a lot of apocalyptic imagery in my songs, but it’s just cause I watch fucking [The] Walking Dead. (Darius laughs)
So part of this is your own fault.
J: For sure. It’s just going to come through in whatever I’m doing. I watch Mad Men and I had the close caption on because my hearing’s not so good. I noticed the lines were really cool. I just sat down one day and stared writing down lines that stuck out to me and sort of made a song out of that. The majority of the songs I did with Miles are from Mad Men.
How about you, Darius?
D: I don’t have any real…I mean, I agree with pretty much everything he said. I think the world’s going to fucking shit and I’m raising two boys, so we’re in kind of similar situations. I’ve always been so negative in my life about everything…that I’m sure it’s affected the songs, but I can’t really say. I don’t really give it that much thought. I just kind of do it. Some songs are good. Some are kind of shitty and some you just work on and make them better. When I don’t like the lyrics of a song I wrote – even some of the ones we’ve recorded – I’m kind of disgusted with myself, like “Why the fuck did you write something so stupid?” (Johnny laughs) You know what I mean?
That’s got to be a trick of being successful at art is you’re able to go “That’s horseshit” and then move on. Do you think some people never move on?
D: We also both write lyrics in the way – him even more so than me, I think – we like the whole abstract or more poetic kind of shit like Elvis Costello where it’s like, “What the fuck is he talking about?” I like that kind of shit, not really obvious kind of stuff, which can also be totally great. I just can’t do that. I’ve tried to do that and it doesn’t work with me.
I think I’ve read three different theories on what (Elvis Costello’s) “Veronica” is about. Some are very peppy. Some are depressing. I choose to believe the most peppy one.
D: He has amazing lyrics. He’s one of my favorite lyricists. He’s one of the most prolific artists ever in history that’s written that many good records. I actually don’t know if there’s anybody that’s made as many good records as he has. I can’t fucking think of anybody. Ever. Maybe The Kinks are close because they made a shit ton of records that were really good, but not even that, man. The Beatles made seven or eight records? Elvis Costello has probably made 15 really solid, good records. That’s fucking crazy.
Did you ever hear that album he did with the Brodsky Quartet?
D: Yeah.
That record is strange.
D: He’s done some crazy shit. He gets to do shit like that. Good for him. Fuck. Tom Waits is up there too. He’s done a lot of good shit.
So, you both have kids. The new Lagwagon album has a line about the world his daughter’s going to grow up in. It’s interesting to listen to punk bands that I’ve been listening to for 20 years and hear them mature. Do you guys hear that maturity more than when you listen to your old stuff? Is that a weird thing?
J: It’s a great thing, because I know not to write stupid lines anymore or act like a dork on stage.
D: I still have cassettes of my first practices with the band from 1990. I never listen to them but, when I have listened to them over the last few years, it’s like watching a weird movie. His voice is way higher. We can barely play. We were doing all covers. It’s good. I love that shit. I think we’ve done better stuff and worse stuff and I definitely know what I like. I think we’ve gotten better.
So was it a weird process putting the B-sides album (2008’s Hatest Grits: B-Sides and Bullshit) together?
D: I love doing shit like that.
J: That was more him because he collects all that stuff. He’s a packrat.
D: I collect shit. I’m fucking sentimental. That’s my bread and butter. I love that shit. A lot of those songs were transferred from cassettes that I had. I was the only person that had those songs because the masters got lost. I think they were finally found. It was cool to go through the lineage of the band, this line-up and that line-up. It was crazy.
Did you have any strong emotional reactions?
D: Well, sure. I didn’t start crying, but it’s your life. It’s like looking at a photo album. It’s essentially 25 years. That’s a long time.
You sound like a guy that has a pretty strong sense of nostalgia.
D: Yeah.
How about you?
J: For sure, but a lot of that stuff I cringe that. I probably wouldn’t have been able to put that B-sides thing together. I’m glad that he put that stuff together. I mean, it’s called B-Sides and Bullshit. That’s exactly what it is.
D: He didn’t want “We All Know” on there. I was like, “Dude, c’mon, man.” It’s not a good song, but it kind of reminds me of the Sex Pistols and I like parts of it. (Johnny laughs).
J: Like I said, I’m glad. I’m glad I wasn’t the guy that had to put it together. I would’ve probably have narrowed it down to four songs or something. (laughs)
Do you find yourself being nostalgic and it’s sort of crippling? Do you have to keep a fine eye on nostalgia?
J: I think it is crippling. I don’t focus on it long enough.
D: Me and my wife are both packrats. We’re way better about it now, but we used to keep fucking everything. I have a friend who is also like that and, almost 30 years ago, she lived with my family. She was renting a room out of our house when I was in high school. We were hanging out. She introduced me to almost all of the major bands that are my favorite bands now like The Replacements. She was going through some of her shit and was like “I’m such a packrat. I have these blank pieces of papers from blah blah blah for, like, ten years. Do you want them?” I was like “Totally. I’ll take them.” (Both laugh) I had those blank pieces of paper with my shit for years. I was like, “This is so stupid” and I got rid of them, obviously, because it was retarded. They meant nothing to me.
It was that kind of thing and I was like, “That’s not good.” But some of the shit that I’ve kept that I’ve had since I was eight is kind of rad. I have my dad’s boxing mouthpiece and shit from when he was a teenager. (Johnny laughs) That’s kind of a cool thing to have. It’s kind of weird, but I like shit like that.
J: I like that stuff, but I don’t want to keep it.
D: You’d trip out if you went to his house and then to my house.
While I have a chance to ask you about it, I’m a huge fan of that Re-Volts EP. Is there anything happening with that group?
D: I haven’t been in that band personally for several years. They don’t play regularly, but they play. Jack is in the band now. Miles is in the band. It sounds like a different band than that EP. It’s way more garage-y, glam-y. Way more 60s. It’s not punk rock really anymore. It’s great. They’ve recorded a bunch of stuff. I don’t know what’s ever going to happen with it. Spike (Slawson, former Utters bassist and current singer for Me First and the Gimme Gimmes) is like, to a fault, a perfectionist. It used to make us crazy in the studio. He’d have amazing bass lines, but he’d take so long to record them because he’s never satisfied. He’ll constantly come up with these amazing ideas, but you’ve got to fucking stop somewhere and make a choice.
Is that a problem for you guys?
D: My songs are done when they come to the band. Usually, vocals and everything are done. They’re all kind of like that, right?
J: I think so. Once we do the demos. We sort of follow the demos because we like they sound.
D: We rarely change shit from the demos. The stuff that he’s done with Jack and Miles recently, they bring the music to him and then he sings the melody and comes up with the lyrics. I don’t know how other bands operate, but we don’t have problems with that. There are some songs I definitely like better than others, but a lot of them I don’t end up liking much are my own. Rarely does it come to the point where we don’t want to put it on the record. I don’t think it ever comes to that point.
J: Or we’ll save it for an EP.
D: It’s usually obvious to us which ones are the strong ones almost immediately.
So, what’s nature vs. nurture in your band? You guys seem to have a pretty good chemistry on what’s working. Did you guys have to try for that or is it something that’s always been present?
J: I think it comes naturally.
D: We just know each other musically really well. It’s been a long time.
How long have you guys been doing this?
D: They started in ’88. I joined in ’90. We’ve been touring for 20-plus years.
You’ve gotten this far. You know how to talk to each other.
J: Yeah.
D: We all listen to every kind of music. I think we’re pretty knowledgeable music-wise. Our tastes are all over the place.
I sometimes like to end with a joke. Do you have a good one?
D: This guy dies and goes to Heaven. He goes to the pearly gates and all of his buddies are there. They’re like, “Dude, you’ve got to come in. It’s awesome here, but you have to spell a word that I give you. Spell ‘God.’”
“G-O-D.”
The guy died before his wife. His wife dies a few months later. She goes up to the pearly gates. He’s there to meet her. He says “It’s so good to see you, but you have to spell a word to get into Heaven. I had to.” She says, “What’s the word?” She says, “Czechoslovakia.” (laughs)
J: Dude, I know how to spell that.
D: I do too!
Swingin’ Utters are currently on tour in Europe. Learn more at swinginutters.com and pick up some merch at swinginuttersstore.com. You can also learn more about Koski’s brand-new solo album at fatwreck.com/news/detail/801.
