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POIGNANT PUNKS
INTERVIEW
(Interview with Johnny Bonnel of
the Swingin' Utters, at Al's Bar, downtown L.A., March 6th,
1999 @ 2:00 A.M.)
Interview by Brett
Gilwee
Brett: You guys have been
playing since '87, yea?
Johnny: More like '88, but
we were a cover band and it was just me and Greg, and our
old bass player Kevin.
Brett: And you love the
Clash?
Johnny: Yea, totally. We did
Clash covers, we did uh, Sham 69, um, anything you know,
early British punk rock we were totally in to, Buzzcocks,
all that stuff.
Brett: Because, I first
heard of the Utters through the "Punk Rock Jukebox"
compilation...
Johnny: The Cocksparrer
thing, yea.
Brett: Is that kind of how
you see the band's future, always mates, because they've
played now together, what, fifteen years almost?
Johnny: Yea, but longer than
that...
Brett: They've been playin'
pub rock for days...
Johnny: Early '70's, mid
'70's, so yea, I mean, that's a good twenty years, plus. I
mean yeah, that would be great, but I don't want to be an
old foagie tryin' to play punk rock...
Brett: Yea?
Johnny: You know, it gets
kind of pathetic after a while.
Brett: It seems your stuff
has gotten a little faster, each time a round, the new album
you know...
Johnny: We slowed down a
little bit on the new one.
Brett: You think so?
Johnny: Yea, I think so. I
think that there's some fast ones, but I mean, there's a lot
of slow songs, mid-tempo, I think we tried to make it a
little more mid-tempo.
Brett: It sounds to me that
the songwriting has always remained strong, you know,
Koski's solos have always been real tight. But did you have
a little bit more money on this one, to kind of pull out
that crisper hard hitting sound?
Johnny: Um, I think it
wasn't that. I think it was that we were fortunate enough
that Fat Wreck said alright, you're gettin' bumped a bunch
of times out of the studio, take as much time as you need to
make this album, and then we started takin' it for granted,
but we were happy with what we had. This next one, the next
one we recorded, we wanted to be quicker about it, 'cause it
did cost a lot of money, and we're never gonna recoup for
it. So, it was just a matter - we wanted to make a really
diverse, mid-tempo, you know, fast, a little reggae song in
there, um, folksie Poguesey sound to it.
Brett: Yea, I noticed you
like the Pogues quite a bit.
Johnny: That's probably one
of our main...
Brett: Darius'
accordion.
Johnny: Yea exactly, he
plays violin and accordion.
Brett: So, were kind of
Irish drinking tunes influential a little bit?
Johnny: Exactly, exactly,
that's probably one of our main influences is that type of
music, plus, you know, the early British stuff, and the
American, uh...
Brett: Because it seems as
though some brands of punk rock today have gotten a little
poppy, a little bit, a little bubble gum, you know? That's
why I dig your stuff as well, you know, the lyrics too. You
wrote a couple of songs for this new one, and so did
Max?
Johnny: Yea, Max wrote a
lot, he wrote like half of 'em.
Brett: Do you sit down and
write lyrics in intense meditations, or you know, do they
come in wads, or...
Johnny: Um, for me it takes
so long to just start one song because I don't know how to
play guitar really.
Brett: Lyrics as
well?
Johnny: I do lyrics and
music, but I play it on a bass, and uh, then give it to
Darius and Darius puts chords to it. So it's more of uh, I
need Darius to write my songs.
Brett: He's written quite a few
actually.
Johnny: Yea he, he writes -
he's been writin' shitloads he's got like a big cabinet of
all of his songs.
Brett: Yea? Is he a big
reader?
Johnny: Yea, he reads
shitloads of stuff.
Brett: I've noticed that
Darius has come up with some really deep, deeply personal
songs, that are just amazing...
Johnny: He's one of my main
influences you know.
Brett: I think that's what
turned me on to your music a few years back when I started
listening to you guys, because I definitely like to just
sit, read lyrics and listen to the tunes, you know, that's a
big thing for me...
Johnny: Yea...
Brett: You know, because
that communicates to me a little bit more...
Johnny: Oh yea, definitely,
definitely. Uh, and we realize we're not the greatest
musicians, you know, we're pretty much amateurs but,
uh...
Brett: Well, I don't know
about now, you've seemed to really grow as musicians.
Johnny: Don't get me wrong,
I think they blow doors on a lot of bands, you know what I
mean? I think they're great, uh, you know, I hear them
sayin' 'I'm not that great', but, you know, we can do our
own style our way and we know how to do it our way so, it
works out you know, if you plug away at it enough it's gonna
start soundin' a little more, progressive, you know.
Brett: Yea. So the early
stuff, what were you doing during the early years to make
ends meet and uh, keep the band alive?
Johnny: Just been workin', I
usually just been bartending, I bartended for like, uh, ten
years in Santa Cruz. Just lived on my own, and you know,
drank at the bar I worked at. Max, Max worked at a bar too -
bartended, managed a bar.
Brett: Because I've noticed
that on a lot of the earlier songs on "More Scared" and your
artwork on the back side...
Johnny: Oh yea,
right.
Brett: You know, it's a
great piece too.
Johnny: Thanks man.
Brett: Do you think you
definitely have kind of a working man's mentality a little
bit, did you feel cheated a little in the early days?
Johnny: Well, I was always
taught to work as hard as you can, and, the rewards for what
you do, makes you feel like, a king, you know what I
mean?
Brett: Yea.
Johnny: If you work hard for
what you do, and you get, you get money for what you do, you
feel great. That's the bottom line. I mean, it doesn't
matter if it's shit job, shit pay, I mean, I always feel
fuckiní'awesome when I get the paycheck. You know,
it's like I worked hard for this, you know, I deserve it.
You don't feel like you're stealing from anyone, you don't
feel like a fuckin' creep or a thief. You feel like uh, you
know, you've worked hard for what you've done, so, I took
that into everything. -- I also did a cover for, there's a
band called the "Beltones".
Brett: Uh-huh.
Johnny: I drew a cover for
their uh, new C.D. out, its called "On Deaf Ears", it's on
TKO records, if you want to check out more of the artwork. I
also did, there's an E.P. coming out of ours, I did the
artwork for that, it's gonna be out in a coupla
months.
Brett: That's great, do you
do a lot of charcoal and stuff like that?
Johnny: It's uh, graphite on
butcher paper, I mean, yea...
Brett: Does the artwork come
naturally to you?
Johnny: I took two classes
in college.
Brett: Did you
really?
Johnny: Yea.
Brett: Where did you
go?
Johnny: Uh, I went to a
bunch of colleges then finally dropped out of San Diego
State, uh, San Jose State, um, Cabrillo college which is
local Santa Cruz, or a community college. And then yeah, I
just kept pluggin' away at it, I've been pretty lazy about
it, but right now, I'm really gettin' into it. On the new
one I did uh, linoleum cuts, which are, you cut out, it's
almost like wood cut, then you put black ink over it, and a
bunch of paper on it.
Brett: And you have to cut
into the wood, like carve it in?
Johnny: You carve, yeah, you
carve out the pieces. Yeah, it's a new E.P. comin' out on
Fat, it's called uh, "Brazen Head". I did the cover so,
yeah, I'm totally into that, any band that wants me to do
their covers...
Brett: You seem like a
natural, the one on the "More Scared", uh, it definitely
seems like kind of a somber mood, guys just getting out of a
factory...
Johnny: Yea.
Brett: The guy on the left
with the cigar seems kind of hardened, a hardened factory
worker, and the guy on the right seems to express a little
more nostalgia a little bit.
Johnny: Yea, it's uh, that's
mostly what I draw is progressive stuff like old working
class looking, almost depressing, but a little bit like
"what are you looking at" type picture of 'em. I wanted it
to be portrayed like, they got a picture taken of 'em, and
they're like 'why are you takin' a picture of me?' You know,
'what am I doing, I'm standing in line.'"
Brett: It seems to come
through in songs like "9 to 5" and "Petty Wage" and "Almost
Brave", "Time Tells Time" even.
Johnny: "Time Tells Time",
yea.
Brett: My Dad's a uh,
actually a Union attorney, so I think I got a little bit of
that from him.
Johnny: You definitely get
very involved in them, it's very important, you know,
workers rights are, definitely should be fought for, and
withheld, and they're working hard for it, making a living,
whatever that should be, right you know, 100 percent. Maybe
not be like, you know what I mean, there's so many people
out there, getting paid for doing shit, sitting on their
asses.
Brett: Right, you need to
look out for each other. If not, things get kind of
screwy...
Johnny: Yea, exactly.
Brett: Management kind of
takes over, makes the decisions. A lot of your songs are
very inspiring too, on the "Sounds Wrong E.P.", "The Dirty
Sea", songs like that. They are inspiring in the sense to
break out and kind of do your own thing.
Johnny: Yea I think Darius,
yea Darius wrote "The Dirty Sea". Darius, he's a really good
songwriter, he's definitely one of my main influences. When
I sit down and to try and write songs I think, what would
Darius write? He's always got weird - it's almost like
fuckin' Elvis Costello.
Brett: Do you guys write
together at all?
Johnny: Uh, no, we're pretty
separate about it, he writes his own songs and he never asks
me 'cause he's got it down, do you know what I mean? I
always ask him for input like, 'what do you think should go
here', and everything.
Brett: Does the music come
first?
Johnny: Uh, not for me, I
don't think for him either, I think he sort of hums a tune
in his head and sings lyrics to it and then, lays down the
chords. For me it's always lyrics first and then, I try and
figure out a song to it.
(A girl comes by at this
point)
Girl: Excuse me I'm just
looking to see if there's anything left here. Nooo, some
broken drumsticks, nooo, water bottles empty, no, happy
no.
(Darius approaches, still packing
shit up)
Johnny: (To Darius) Alright
man I did an interview with Brett, sorry.
Darius: What?
Johnny: Sorry I didn't load,
I did an interview with Brett here.
Darius: Oh, that's ok,
somebody had to, ha-ha.
Brett: Sorry it's so
late.
Johnny: (To Darius) I said
some really bad things about you guys.
Darius: Well, it's all
true.
Brett: It sounds like you
guys have quite a few political influences to, um, whose
idea was it to sample Martin Luther King on "Bigotís
Barrel", I know you wrote that with Kevin.
Johnny: Yea Kevin, uh, I was
like, "there's some medium in this, there's kind of like a
weird jam session goin' on right here", Kevin was like,
"let's put some sort of speech or something on it". And I
was like, "yea, yea, that's good, something that sort of
relates to it." Well, he got it from a library or something
like that.
Brett: I was listening to
the tune at home, and I was like, "hey that's 'I Have A
Dream', so I downloaded it and read it over.
Johnny: Yea it's pretty
gnarly isn't it?...
(my buddy Joey says hey at this
point)
Brett : What happened to um,
I read an interview with Max, and he said that uh, a guy was
going to do an 8mm film with you guys, a documentary?
Johnny: Oh yea, uh, his
name's Ethan Minsker, uh, he lives in New York, he's been
friends with the band for ages, Max more, childhood friend.
But uh, yea he wants to follow us on tour and uh, and do
merchandise for us and do a documentary while we
tour.
Brett: And you're going to
wait 'till you headline on that?
Johnny: Um, not necessarily,
we're doin' a "Plea for Peace" tour which is like uh, you
know, an anti-racist action, that type deal, with a band
called the Skatalites. And you know, punk bands.
Brett: Whose organizing
that?
Johnny: Um, I'm not really
sure, but, uh, it goes all over the States, that's going to
be in April and May, or, yea, all of May and June, a little
bit of June. And uh, we're gonna go out with NOFX for ten
days too, so that will be pretty cool.
Brett: How would you feel
about a film on the Swingin' Utters?
Johnny: It would be awesome,
I'm um, I'm just, uh, pretty nervous about it, you know? To
be filmed the whole time you tour. It's pretty fuckin'
boring to tell you the truth, I don't think it would be that
exciting but, I don't know, maybe he can make something out
of it.
Brett: I'm suddenly thinking
of the film "Rude Boy". Is that a favorite with you?
Johnny: Yea, it's
interesting, it's pretty cool. I mean, I'm a huge Clash fan
so anything I see with them I go ballistic, I'm like, "fuck
that's gnarly". But a lot of that stuff though they re-did,
you know, re-shot - re-did some of the sound. I don't know
if you read the book Last Gang In Town but they re-did the
live sound for one of their songs live and they watched the
film as they recorded it, live, and when he goes away from
the mic, he goes away from the mic. They re-created the
sound, it was really gnarly. But itís funny that they
re-created it, even guitar fuck-ups like you'll see Mick
Jones look down, and then they'll play it that way, like
they'll really fuck up.
Brett: Are you comfortable
being on film? Because I saw the Fat Wreck Chords video
compilation and you guys seem like you're really angry and
you weren't talking to the camera. Were you goofing around a
little bit?
Johnny: Oh yea, he told us,
he's all, "don't say a word". That was just a joke. He was
all, "look off in this angle".
Brett: But you look so
serious.
Johnny: Well that's what he
told us to do. When you see Max, Max is like smiling.
Brett: It looked like they
just tried to insert the recorded song over the live
footage.
Johnny: Yea, it's totally
thrown together. We were like, "fuck, we don't want to make
a fuckin' video, just film us live and try to keep the words
to it". It's a little off.
(At this point Darius starts
honking outside in the van)
Johnny: I gotta go.
Brett: Hey, thanks Johnny,
that was great.
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