Dead Boy Productions

 

12/18/06
Dan-Zig

Dead Boy Productions with Elvis of Three Bad Jacks

 

Made of Stone, more than just the name of an album, but more of a motto for the band Three Bad Jacks. If you know the band then you know how hard working and genuine these guys are. They mix rockabilly, punk, and just pure rock n’ roll to be one of the best independent bands out there that anyone can dig. (Ask the people at my wedding who heard my dedication of “It’s Forever” to my wife and kept asking who the band was). Lead singer Elvis was cool enough to take time out of his busy band schedule (they were on the road at the time) to answer some questions about the band. Stay Greasy!

How long has Three Bad Jacks been around?

Since late 1995.

Three Bad Jacks definitely seems like one of the hardest working independent bands around. How often are you on tour?

We're constantly playing and touring. We're writing this from the road right now. Beyond that, we're always writing songs, recording, and keeping up with the business side of things.

I know Elvis is a family man with wife and kid. How about the rest of the band? Does this sometimes conflict with what you try to achieve with the band and how do the families handle it?

Shane, our drummer, has two step-kids and I have another son coming in 4 months. It doesn't really conflict and we keep a good balance of both. If a tour is not worth doing, we'd rather be with our families.

The news came out a while ago that after a couple of years of dealing with the people at Hootenanny that Three Bad Jacks will not play it again. Is this still true?

It's a really hard call because it's something that we like to do, but we sell out theatres and we've paid our dues. After a while it becomes frustrating when you're billed under bands that can't draw 10 people to their stage. Plus when you have to haggle for your pay, it's counterproductive. You realize that this person doesn't care or know the difference and why should they be making all the money and disrespect us? We can't say we'll never play it again, but we don't know at this point and it doesn't look too promising.

I did get the chance to see Three Bad Jacks at Hootenanny ’05 and you had a set time that coincided with Social Distortion and still had a packed stage. How did this make the band feel, having to “compete” with Social D, but still being able to draw fans and put on a hell of a show?

Social D is one of our favorite bands and if we weren't playing, we would have been watching them. It was really cool to see our stage packed. It was the same this year when our set time coincided with Flogging Molly and we drew as many (if not more) people to our stage. But if we weren't playing, we'd have been watching them too. We still don't understand why the Hootenanny does this.

There was also an incident a few weeks ago in San Diego, where someone tried to rush the stage after they were angered. Your fans took care of the situation and it was worked out, so what exactly happened?

We were playing a club that could not handle the crowd capacity. A disgruntled bar regular didn't want to pay the $8 cover charge. We were really nice to explain why we required a cover charge and he came back with 15 friends to meet us outside after the show. While we were playing, he rushed the stage and a fan grabbed him. They both fell to the floor and our friend Jake fell on a bottle and slashed his face for which he received 25 stitches. We would have let him for free if he was cool and didn't have the dough, but he was just looking for a fight.

How loyal would you say your fan base is and do you think this works out to your benefit?

We treat our fans and friends and as equals. They're fiercely loyal and we've never been the type of band that hides out backstage. We make sure we're available and hang out with our fans. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have walked out of that San Diego show safely, but we had 200 loyal friends there to help us out.

How tough is it to put out your own records or at least produce your own records?

It's probably the hardest thing you can ever do. "Crazy In The Head" almost put us out of business. We've never been the type of band to put out a record that sounds like we just went through the motions. A record may take 6 days or 6 years to put out and being an indie band, you have to foot the bill for everything. Just like we get ripped off by promoters, we've gotten ripped off by engineers and it's a pretty vicious industry that will put you under in a heartbeat. You just have to learn to never settle and be true to the art no matter what the consequences.

Did you entertain any offers from labels willing to put out your records?

As an indie band, we sell more records than some people on indie labels, so some labels I can't even take seriously. We're getting looked at by a lot of major labels, but most of them are full of shit. They move at a slug’s pace and they're all afraid of losing their jobs, so they don't sign anyone. A few months back I walked into the head of Sony Records and his office was in shambles. I thought it was a case of a messy, creative guy, but it ended up he got fired later that day. People at major labels fly under the radar as long as they can until they get fired. I have more stories than we have time.

Who designs the merch for Three Bad Jacks?

The latest crop of designs are designed by Dave Leamon. He's a really great independent artist from Los Angeles. We also had Brian Ewing, another great indie artist. Our first design was done by Kaylinn Campbell; he's one of our favorites too. He did the "Made Of Stone" logo that probably every one of our fans owns.

What are your thoughts on iTunes and downloading music?

I think iTunes is great. We recently got our songs on there. It's great to see that music can get out there and that honest people will pay to download it. As an independent artist, we still have to pay bills and our kids' healthcare so it's nice to work with iTunes who is very fair with their pay structure. As far as illegal downloading, how are we going stop it? You can't, but it's part of the reason some of your favorite indie bands are no longer together. People don't realize how hard it is to make a living as an indie artist. I never download stuff illegally, but not everyone is the same.

What about MySpace? The band seems to use it a lot so do you feel it helps in the long run?

MySpace is a very valuable tool. It helps rally the troops. Last night we played a last minute show in Albuquerque that was only booked 5 days before and there was some confusion about the venue. People said they saw our MySpace bulletin and got out of bed to come see us. I'd say it's VERY valuable.

What kind of equipment does the band use?

We exclusively use Mesa Boogie guitar and bass amplifiers and speakers. Shane exclusively plays Thrust Custom Drums. We think our gear is the best stuff made today and I've owned almost every vintage tube amplifier available.

Earlier this year Elvis had one of his guitars stolen. It was posted all over MySpace that it was missing and he did end up getting the guitar back. What was the whole story about this incident?

This kid said he was drunk and grabbed two guitars. Shane chased him and the kid dropped one of them. Our fans were posting death threats and once we posted the kid’s license plate, he got scared and returned the other guitar. We credit our fans again with helping us out. Tons of bands get their gear stolen and never get it back, so this is a real rarity.

The band has obviously played all over Southern California. What are some of the bands favorite places to play and why?

In Southern California we love playing The Galaxy Theatre, Chain Reaction, House of Blues, Troubadour, Knitting Factory, and The Key Club to name a few. We play nationally and there are a million great places to play for a million reasons.

What bands do you think people should pay more attention to?

All the bands that paved the way for the others. I'm talking about bands that aren't riding coattails and have the balls to put their creativity out there. A lot of people get in bands due the fashion rather than studying music and learning their instrument. That really annoys me. It's like wearing a punk t-shirt, but not knowing who the band is.

Any last words?

Thanks for taking the time to tell a couple more people about us. We'll be setting something on fire near you very soon!