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BOB BALCH of FU MANCHU
Irving Plaza, 07.19.02

Fu Manchu Walks The Walk

Back in the early ‘90s a friend of mine speculated that the "grunge" fashion and ethic signaled a desire to return to second grade. The shaggy haircuts, the flannel shirts, the sullen, runny-nosed, pale-faced heroin chic – it all reminded him of being seven years old and staying home, sick, from school to eat soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Kurt Cobain and Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong may best epitomize this aesthetic, and indeed, Nirvana’s "Sliver" tells the story of a youngster eager for his grandma to take him home after being dropped off for the night by his parents, and Green Day’s breakthrough hit, "Longview" is a classic tale of suburban teenage couch-sitting angst.

In keeping with this vibe, the official Fu Manchu web site features a list of films that have "influenced" the band; most of which run to cheesy ‘70s and ‘80s teen flicks featuring Brooke Shields, Matt Dillon or Leif Garrett. They cite KISS, AC/DC and Devo tunes from the same era as major inspiration. Their album covers feature old El Caminos and classic photos of skateboard pioneer Tony Alva. And the band’s proclivity towards baggy OP surf shirts and Vans sneakers is legendary.

Perhaps my friend was onto something….

On July 19th, 2002, I sought refuge from New York City’s torrential rain in the Fu’s tour bus, a few hours before the Bowery Ballroom show supporting their latest record, "California Crossing." I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the band and their tour crew lounging in the bus, eating rice and steak from tin take-out containers and watching an Erik Estrada movie on the VCR. But I was.

Fu Manchu walks the walk. These guys really are overgrown SoCal latchkey kids.

Guitarist Bob Balch escorted me to the back of the bus, past the six or eight cramped bunk beds, and into a quiet room where we chatted for about half an hour about the band’s busy touring schedule, their parting with long-time record label Mammoth Records, their new drummer, and their dissatisfaction with their music being pegged as "stoner rock." Bob was a thoughtful and gracious interviewee, shedding light on life on the road with one of the heaviest and most unique-sounding bands out there today. If you can tear yourself away from the couch, the Farrah Fawcett poster and the grilled cheese sandwich, be sure to catch Fu Manchu when they next roll through your town.


SHOW & TELL: So it’s true – you guys really do watch old crappy movies on the tour bus?

Bob Balch: Yep. This is "Gang Justice" with Erik Estrada.

S&T: Is he a good guy or a bad guy in it?

BB: Oh, he’s just a concerned dad, I think.

S&T: And I saw you guys were eating up front [in the tour bus], so that raises a very important question for me. I just moved here from California, and was wondering whether you guys have a favorite place for Mexican food when you come to New York?

BB: In New York, no. When I come to New York, it’s usually just pizza. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t usually mess around with too much Mexican [food] outside of California.

S&T: I was afraid that was going to be your answer.

BB: Yeah, there might be something good here, but when I’m here I gotta get a slice of New York pizza, you know what I mean?

S&T: This is the second leg of this tour, right? You were out in February?

BB: Yeah, we did a tour of the States back in January and February, then did Europe and Australia and some radio shows, and we’re back doing another States tour at the moment.

S&T: I heard a little bit about the Australia tour –you visited [the late AC/DC singer] Bon Scott’s grave?

BB: Yeah! For the second time. I took the exact same picture with me in front of it.

S&T: Wow, that’s a huge pilgrimage. Where is that?

BB: It’s in Perth, on the west coast.

S&T: Are AC/DC favorites of yours?

BB: Oh yeah! Oh yeah, we all love AC/DC.

S&T: Who else would you say?

BB: I don’t know, just a bunch of, like, early ‘80s punk, like Black Flag and Circle Jerks, stuff like that.

S&T: Did you grow up in Orange County or L.A. when the whole early punk scene was there?

BB: I grew up in Orange County in the early ‘80s, but unfortunately I was too young to go to any shows. Whatever my brother was into kind of filtered down to me – I borrowed his [Black] Sabbath and Deep Purple, then I discovered the Misfits and D.R.I. and stuff like that.

S&T: Do you see a southern California/Orange County [musical] movement now?

BB: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really pay attention to it too much. Even when Fu Manchu started, there was really no band that sounded like that in Orange County, you know. It was mostly just ska and stuff like that. There are definitely bands that come out of there now but it’s not like a "scene" or anything, you know, every band’s totally different.

S&T: Right. Who would you consider to be your kindred spirits musically? I know you tour with….

BB: Speedealer, yeah. I mean, Speedealer we tour with a lot and we’re friends with. But I don’t know, we kind of just do our own thing, really. I don’t really know any bands in southern California that I hang out with. Musically we just kind of do our own thing. We like touring with Speedealer a lot, though.

S&T: They said the same about you, so that’s cool. I noticed that you’ve traded in your [Gibson] SG [guitar] and [Fu Manchu singer and guitarist] Scott [Hill] traded in his [Fender] Jaguar.

BB: Yeah, yeah. Well, we got the Dan Armstrongs, they started making ‘em again, and we said we’d try ‘em out, get a couple of ‘em, and we threw a Hot Rail pick-up in ‘em and thought it sounded really good. I used to take SGs on tour, older ones, like ‘71s, and they would just crack ‘cause they’re made really thin. But these guitars [the Ampeg Dan Armstrong models] are really sturdy. [ed. – And they look cool - they’re made of clear plexiglass]

S&T: I haven’t heard them yet, but I look forward to it. Do you think that’s changed your sound any? I know the big story about Scott’s [distortion] pedal getting stolen and how that may have changed the band’s sound a bit too…..

BB: Well, yeah, we started messing around with other stuff too, but I think it would’ve been a natural progression [in the band’s sound] anyway. We just plug straight into the Marshalls [amplifiers] now with those, and actually with the new Marshalls it sounds really heavy and fuzzy, so it works out a lot easier ‘cause we don’t have to carry around a bunch of pedals and shit.

S&T: Do you get tired of kind of being pegged as psychedelic, SoCal, Sabbath, stoner rock?

BB: [Emphatically] Yeah, totally. I don’t really see the "stoner rock" at all. I mean, none of our songs are about weed. [Comparisons to] Sabbath, I don’t really see. I could understand, like, maybe how some people could hear the punk rock influence. That I could understand, or even, like, KISS or AC/DC or any of those influences. I never really understood the Sabbath thing, though. [ed. – Really? Maybe he’s never heard "Sweet Leaf"] Or the stoner rock thing, but you know, whatever.

S&T: Another very important question – what kind of cars do you guys drive?

BB: Pretty much all of our cars are not really impressive, except for our singer Scott – that’s his car on the cover [of the band’s latest record, "California Crossing"], the El Camino. I just have a practical car, really. I could go out and get something really cool, but then where the hell am I going to park it, you know?

S&T: Yeah, it’d be tough with touring a lot. How often are you on the road?

BB: Usually, we put out an album and we’re pretty much out for a year. We’ll have like two weeks off after every month, and we’ll just do that for a whole year. But this one, we’re probably going to start writing for the new album after this tour, so…

S&T: No rest for the wicked.

BB: Yeah, that’s about seven months of touring, and then we’ll just start work on our new album and hope it gets out before next year or probably the beginning of next year.

S&T: On Mammoth [Records]?

BB: No, no. I don’t know who with, really. We’re not on Mammoth anymore.
S&T: Wow, I didn’t realize that.

BB: Yeah, we got off of that [label].

S&T: You were with them for a long time weren’t you? Relatively speaking I mean; these days for bands and record companies?

BB: Yeah. Apparently we owed them one more album but we got out of it. That’s a good thing, I think. We’ll see what happens.

S&T: Do you like playing New York?

BB: [Enthusiastically] Yeah! Totally.

S&T: Do you see a difference between west coast audiences and east coast audiences?

BB: Um, no, not really. I mean, everywhere’s pretty much the same. Some cities are a little more, like, violent in the way they receive the music, they kind of freak out more. New York’s kind of laid back, people come out and check it out. If you go to a town that, like, not many bands go to, they rock and are going to respond a lot more, jumping around and freaking out and stuff. Cleveland – I don’t know why, but Cleveland’s always like that! People [there] are hanging from the rafters, screaming and yelling. You know, why Cleveland? Then you go to Cincinnati, which is like two hours away, and it’s like nothing. It’s really weird.

S&T: Yeah, well, that’s Cincinnati. Where in Cleveland do you play? I went to college in Ohio and there was a place that looked like a ship inside….

BB: Oh, was it by the water, kind of?

S&T: Yeah, on the one strip there, the Flats.

BB: Yeah, we’ve played there before but I can’t remember the name of it. Peabody’s Down Under, maybe?

S&T: Right!

BB: I think that’s the same place we’re playing tomorrow, actually. Long haul.

S&T: Tomorrow? You’re rolling from here to Ohio tomorrow, wow. I saw the Bad Brains there [at Peabody’s Down Under] – it was the best concert I ever saw, it was ’86 or ’87.

BB: Oh yeah? They were intense.

S&T: What’s the best gig you’ve ever seen?

BB: Um, I don’t even know, man. Tough question.

S&T: You talked about the old punk days….

BB: Yeah, unfortunately I was too young to see any of those shows, you know what I mean? By the time I was old enough to go to shows, it was all huge arena rock shows and shit like that. I saw [Pink] Floyd, and that was pretty cool.

S&T: What era? "The Wall?"

BB: No, no, way later than that. It was actually at the Rose Bowl in [Pasadena] California, probably late ‘80s or something. But the stage production they had was amazing – the pig, the lasers, stuff like that.

S&T: Do you aspire to that? Is that the aspiration of every rock band?

BB: Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably not really right for us, just because we get a lot of the psychedelic crap anyway. But we’ve talked about showing, like, still [photo]s behind us of the old skateboarding scene, surfing and stuff. I don’t know about lasers and pigs though.

S&T: What about playing in front of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden?

BB: Oh, I mean that would be nice! I don’t even pay attention, really, we just kind of go out and play a show. Pretty much the only thing we aspire to do is get to the next town before the bus breaks down! [Laugher] So that’s, like, the first order of business – just making sure everything’s running properly.

S&T: Is it just you guys on [this tour bus]?

BB: Oh yeah, it’s just Fu Manchu and a couple of techs who work with us.

S&T: How long have you been on this bus? Is this your trusty old workhorse?

BB: Oh no, no. We rent a different one each time. And unfortunately, since there’s a lot of summer tours going on, we kind of got the runt. It’s got almost a million miles on it – I’m not even kidding, you can look at [the odometer] up front.

S&T: Actually, Ozzfest is probably getting poured on right now in New Jersey….

BB: Oh, it’s in Jersey right now?

S&T: Yeah, so all the nice tour buses might be parked, backstage like, fifteen miles away.

BB: Yep, that’s what it is, yeah.

S&T: Hopefully that won’t impact the crowd [for the Fu Manchu gig] tonight.
BB: No, no, I don’t think so.

S&T: I don’t know if you have the same or similar audiences, really.

BB: I don’t know. Ozzfest is probably a lot pricier, and it’s in Jersey, so I’m sure a lot of people around here will just stick around and show up.

S&T: Who do you think your average fan is?

BB: Whew, I don’t know.

S&T: Male?

BB: Yeah.

S&T: White?

BB: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of white males. There are a bunch of the long-haired dudes and, like, punkers, skateboarders and stuff. I’ve seen a lot of girls come out lately on this tour, which is really cool. Saw one black guy, and I was pretty amped on that. [Laughs] He was dancing and singing along. It’s just a variety of people, but it’s mostly "dudes," pretty much. We don’t write songs about depression or love or anything, so that pretty much takes care of, like, half of the group of people that go to see other bands. [Laugter]

S&T: Is there a question in interviews that you wish people would ask you? Anything you’re dying to get off your chest?

BB: Um, "Why do people call you stoner rock?" That would be a good question. That’s probably the main one.

S&T: So are there questions you hate being asked? There must be.

BB: "What is stoner rock?" [Laughter] "Why do you feel you fit into it?"

S&T: Hmm, I sense a theme there.

BB: Yeah, I mean, that question’s been around since ’96. At first we were all, like, "Eh, stoner rock, whatever," but now every review I read, it’s like, "The Sultans of Stoners" or "the legendary pot-heads," and that’s bullshit. I don’t know what the hell that’s all about.

S&T: You don’t think that’s perpetuated at all by your own publicity or marketing?

BB: It doesn’t really say anything at all in there, that I know of. We’ve kind of steered clear of that stuff, so I don’t know.

S&T: I really like the new record – how’s it doing?

BB: Um, as far as I know, it’s doing good. I mean, since we split from Mammoth, I don’t really know, we’re kind of on our own right now. We’re funding this tour on our own, so I don’t know. In the States – it’s kind of a shame – they were pumping it for a while but it just came and went, pretty much, then we split. But in Europe and Australia and other places, there’s still a label pushing it.

S&T: And your new drummer, Scott [Reeder]?

BB: Yeah, he’s doing really good.

S&T: How did you hook up with him?

BB: He’s from Orange County and his band used to play with Fu Manchu a long time ago. He was in a band called SMILE, and we all knew that he was a really good drummer, so once Brant [Björk] split, I called Brad [Davis], our bass player, and I’m like, "we should call Reeder and see if he wants to do it." Two days later, we were playing with him and a couple of weeks later we went on tour, so it’s worked out really smoothly.

S&T: Wow, because Brant played on "California Crossing," didn’t he?

BB: Yeah, he did the recording, but then after that, he was like, "I can’t tour on it," so first we were like, "Fuck, what are we going to do?" but then three days later we were playing with Reeder and things were working out, so….

S&T: Great. Are there any bands you’ve seen on tour or out there that are unsigned or criminally unheard of…?

BB: We plug Speedealer all the time, and I don’t know why they’re not a lot bigger than they are. They’re a super band, they work a hell of a lot harder than most bands do, they’re always on tour. So, I don’t know. We used to play with this band called LAB – there was actually an old ‘80s hardcore band called Blast, I don’t know if you remember them – but it was "Life After Blast," like, Blast broke up and then got back together and formed LAB, and they were really good, but they’ve since broken up again. I don’t know, other than that.

S&T: What are you listening to in the tour bus these days?

BB: I don’t listen to any music on tour, really.

S&T: Interesting – just to keep your head clear?

BB: Yeah. I mean, rock’s the last thing I’ll listen to on tour. If I listen to anything, it’s just to put me to sleep, like dub reggae or something. At home I have a huge record collection of all different kinds of stuff – old funk stuff, ‘80s hardcore punk, rock, reggae, all kinds of stuff.

S&T: Speaking of that old punk stuff, [former Black Flag and Circle Jerks singer] Keith Morris sings on one song [on "Califonia Crossing"]….

BB: Yeah, he sang on "Bultaco." He’d been coming to [Fu Manchu] shows since, like, ’96, and we’re huge fans of the Circle Jerks. We saw him right before we went in the studio, we played with – I think it was Motörhead, in L.A., and he came out and we’re like, "Hey, we’re going to be recording, if you want to come in and do anything we’d be totally cool with it." He said, "Yeah, my number’s in the phone book, so just give me a call," and then we never really contacted him. We recorded the album and were mixing it, and he just showed up, and we were like, "Whoa," you know. "That’s kind of weird." So we were like, let’s pull "Bultaco" and let him do whatever he wants, and he did. And we just hung out and he told us Circle Jerks stories and Black Flag stories, and we watched "Office Space" with him [Laughter] and the whole time I’m just like, "Holy shit, that’s Keith Morris."

S&T: Have you seen, probably last year, there was a new documentary about the early L.A. punk scene? He kind of featured prominently in it.

BB: Wow, really? No, I never heard about that, I don’t think.

S&T: Well, I didn’t love it, but it’s definitely worth seeing. He was one of the few people from X, the Germs, Suicidal Tendencies – those older, original bands – who actually agreed to be interviewed for it, so that’s why he’s pretty prominently featured, and he seems like a very cool guy.

BB: Yeah. Wow, I wasn’t aware of that. I know that book, "American Hardcore," the guy is doing a tour, showing lots of photos, but I never heard of that film.

S&T: There’s another book out now too, if you follow this stuff at all, "Our Band Could Be Your Life" [by Michael Azerrad]. Have you seen that or heard of it?

BB: No.

S&T: It’s a tome – it’s a couple hundred pages and very well done. It goes back and talks about seminal, early ‘80s bands – Black Flag, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, those early D.I.Y. ["do-it-yourself"] bands. Anyway, you might want to check it out if that’s the kind of thing you’d be into.

BB: Oh yeah, I’ll definitely have to check it out.

S&T: Just another question or two and I’ll let you go…. I noticed that your last album was available online before it was actually released – was that a decision the record company made?

BB: Yeah, a lot of things got weird with the release date. It ["California Crossing"] was supposed to have come out months before [the February 2002 release date], and then the World Trade Center got hit and the label was only a few blocks away from that, so they kind of postponed it. And even before that, it got postponed for a long time, and then they started pushing it along, and then September 11th happened and we obviously can’t blame anyone for that, so we were just like, "What the hell, we’ll wait a few more months." But, yeah, they [Mammoth Records] set up a lot and then just put it on hold for a couple of months. Radio [stations] already had it and they were starting to play it, and then they’re like, "Oh no – don’t play it yet. Save it!" The whole release got kind of screwy….

S&T: What’s your take on Napster and its brethren?

BB: I don’t really care, really. I mean, if it’s going to get more people to come out to our shows, then that’s fine. I don’t even have a computer at home right now, so I don’t even care.… [Laughs] You know, I don’t really see anything wrong. I mean, if there’s a website where people can check out one or two songs, or maybe a portion of every song….

S&T: Even Amazon.com and those let you listen to like, thirty seconds of a few tunes.

BB: Yeah, that’s cool, I don’t have a problem with that at all. I guess downloading off Napster’s the same thing as just taping your friend’s records, but on a bigger scale….

S&T: And better quality.

BB: Yeah. But I don’t really care, you know what I mean? If we were selling millions and millions of albums, and I had a big chunk of money cut out, I’d probably be like, "Well…." But that’s not the case. We just want to go out and record and play live shows and just have our live shows be better each time.

S&T: Yep, that’s great. How long has it been since you’ve had a day job?

BB: Uh, about three or four years, I think. It’s been a while. It was right when we released "King of the Road." Right before that, probably ’98, I think.

S&T: What was that, what were you doing?

BB: Me and [Brad Davis] the bass player worked at a guitar shop. So it wasn’t really that hard, and it was really easy – our boss was totally cool – and we could kick people out of the store, take naps, it wasn’t really a serious job but it did pay the bills. Oh, and we’d get to go on tour and come back and work, so that helped out a lot. He’d be like, "Yeah, go tour, just come back in a month." But a few years ago we said, "We’ve got to go do this band thing full-time," you know, so it was "See ya later, thank you very much."

S&T: And here you are today. One more question – you mentioned September 11th a little earlier. Have you been down to Ground Zero?

BB: No, I haven’t. I was actually thinking about going to check it out, but I don’t know if that’s something I want to do before I go play a rock show, you know what I mean? It’s kind of depressing, I’d be so exhausted.

S&T: Probably not much time between now and Cleveland, anyway.

BB: No! [Laughs] Just enough time to walk around, grab a couple of bites of pizza, that’s about it.

S&T: And who knows what [the site of the World Trade Center] will be like the next time you circle back here. They’re talking right now about what kind of monument to put up, or whether to rebuild or what.

BB: Oh yeah, I’d be interested to check that out.

S&T: That and Bon Scott’s grave. Sacred ground.

BB: Yeah, those and [writer] Charles Bukowski’s are pretty much the only places I’d want to see.

S&T: Where’s he buried, L.A. somewhere?

BB: Yeah, San Pedro, I think.

S&T: OK, enough morbid talk. I want to thank you so much for your time and for talking to us.

BB: Alright.

interview by killjoy