JOSH FISCHEL (BARGAIN MUSIC) INTERVIEW
PART ONE
No one could ever accuse Josh Fischel of resisting change. In fact after speaking with him for close to an hour, it is obvious that the man embraces new challenges and mountains to climb. Over the years, he has developed a rabid and loyal following with his band Bargain Music, has a successful film making career and is about to step into new creative realms such as producing and projects creating uniquely different music. The best news for Pier visitors is that he is more than happy to talk about any of these chapters of his life or all of them.
So here we are, Part One of a two part interview, where I learn even though Josh has called it quits, there actually may be a lot of life left in the Long Beach band - Bargain Music.
The Pier: What prompted the decision to call an end to Bargain Music?
Josh Fischel: It just was time. I am getting older and my musical interests are now in a lot of different places. A lot of the songs were written 15 years ago and so I am just not really feeling the same way about life and so I was ready to try something new.
The Pier: The band played some farewell shows in California a few months ago. How were those final Bargain Music shows?
Josh: They were awesome. They were really emotional and a lot of people came out from all over the country and even people from different countries, like Sweden and Canada. Each night some of our musician friends we have made throughout the years joined us on stage. Like Miles from Slightly Stoopid came down and sang at our third to last show. The second last show, the Pepper guys were there and the last show we had nine or so former members of Bargain Music on stage. It was awesome and it was crazy.
The Pier: Having those former band mates and friends come out for those nights must have brought a lot of memories back?
Josh: Oh yeah. I didn’t tell anyone about it, but I put together a little video photo collage of Bargain Music throughout the years and I put it up on a big screen right before our last set. The whole band was setting up and they didn’t even know about it. So when we ready to go, I told them to wait a minute and go into the crowd. I pulled down the screen and showed it them. Even just making that thing brought back lot of memories.
We had friends turn up I hadn’t seen for year so the whole thing was like a high school reunion, but with this one you actually wanted to see everyone.
The Pier: Haha, nice. So what was some of your favorite Bargain Music memories over the years? Any or many special ones that you like to look back on?
Josh: Oh yeah, I have a lot. My three favorite memories that were not maybe Bargain related, but were because of Bargain Music are these. The first or second major tour we did, we got on a tour with Buju Banton for three weeks. We were all big Buju fans, so it was pretty exciting and we found out he had been given CDs for five bands that might support him and he picked us. So we were pretty stoked about that.
The first two nights we played with them we didn’t even meet them, we just saw them on stage. The third night was in Albuquerque and we pulled up as he was standing in front of the club and he was like, ‘hey Bargain Music,’ and we talked with him. So right then we were like, ‘wow that is Buju Banton.’ Later that night we left the hotel the club had got us to get some gas and some late night food. We open the door to this little convenience store and all of a sudden we heard some guy singing, ‘why do you wanna give me a black eye’ and it’s Buju singing Black Eye in a convenience store, in Alburquee at 4 in the morning. We were in awe and like, ‘you got to be kidding me.'
The next night was in Austin and he had Wayne Wonder singing back up for him, before Wayne became a pop star. The way the show went is the band would get on stage and play a song then Wayne Wonder would come and do three songs and then Buju would come out. Every night when Wayne was up there, Buju would be backstage dancing and hugging people. This night he came up to me and put his arm around me and says, ‘this song has the same chords as Black Eye huh?’ And I was, ‘yeah it does’. So next thing I know we are face-to-face with him singing the chorus and I’m singing the verse. So it was three minutes of backstage freestyle stuff, just me and Buju Banton. That was awesome.
My other favorite memory is we did a song for the Sublime tribute album and at the record release party, which was us Los Lobos, Fishbone, Shapeshifters, Burt Susanka and Mishka. They wanted to do an all-star jam session at the end and Bud from Sublime was there that night. He and the Los Lobos guys got together earlier in the week and practiced Pawn Shop and Santeria. The guys from Los Lobos didn’t want to sing the song and Bud suggested me.
I only found out earlier the day of the show that they want me to sing and I am a huge Los Lobos fan from when I was 12 or 13. I used to go see them all the time and when I was in high school there was a club right across the street from my house and I would sit out the front of the club and listen to bands like Fishbone, Los Lobos, Minutemen and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This was before any of those bands were big.
When they called me and asked to sing Santeria with Los Lobos? I was like, ‘I don’t know. Yeah but fuck, what if I fuck it up?’ There are a lot of lyrics in that song and each chorus isn’t really repetitive, so that was lot of lyrics to learn in one day.
I get to the club and go backstage and practice the song acoustically with the band and so there I am singing this song with fucking Los Lobos just chilling on the couches. It was pretty intense. They told me they were going to do their set, and then the encore of Pawn Shop and Santeria and it is going to be a really long version of Pawn Shop.
So they did their set and started the encore and I needed to take a piss. So I went downstairs to take a piss and we were playing at The Vault and it has a pretty big backstage area. So I go downstairs thinking they are going to jam it out for a while. Well they didn’t. So while I was pissing they started Santeria and you can’t hear the bands from downstairs. Next thing I know people are screaming my name, ‘Josh they are playing Santeria right now!’
So I run upstairs and come out on stage and they are in the middle of the song, so they had to start from the beginning again. I didn’t realize how long they had playing it until I saw the video from that night. It was a good three minutes and it’s the longest three minutes I have ever seen. There are my heroes going, ‘where the fuck is he?’ Right there that is my life in a nutshell.
The Pier: That’s crazy. At least it makes for a good story. Do you know if they are going to release that show on DVD someday?
Josh: Actually my girlfriend was in charge of shooting that stuff, she is a film-maker and produced and directed that. It might but it may just come out in pieces. I have edited the whole Bargain Music set from that show and that’s going to be coming out on a Bargain Music DVD that we are going to put out. We are just going to give all the other footage to all the other bands.
To do stuff like that is really time consuming and the tribute show DVD didn’t really sell that much so I can’t really see it being financially feasible to edit it and everything. It’s unfortunate because the footage we got from that show is really good. People will see it on the Bargain Music DVD, it’s really pro and sounds like a studio recording it is that good.
The Pier: So I am sure your fans would want me to ask you more about this up-coming Bargain Music DVD then. So when are you hoping to put that out?
Josh: Pretty much when I get it done. I am going to be doing it all myself. About two years ago we recorded two live shows professionally for a live DVD and we kept on pushing it back because we were working on our last record and we wanted to put our live stuff out after. Six months ago we thought it would be a good idea to put out a double live CD/DVD thing. It will be a Bargain Music retrospective, not really a documentary, but more of a live show retrospective. I got probably, shit man, 200 to 300 hours of live Bargain Music shows I got to go through.
It’s a pretty big project and I haven’t even gotten through the footage. Hopefully it will come out the beginning of next year, but I can’t promise that.
The Pier: So even though Bargain Music is over, it looks like it is still going to take up a lot of your time.
Josh: Yeah how lame is that?
The Pier: So how does it feel that you have now closed that chapter on your life? Even though I guess it's not really closed.
Josh: It was a huge part of my life. Next to my family and my girlfriend it was the biggest part of my life you know? There is still some Bargain stuff that hasn’t been released and even though we don’t sell a lot of records and we don’t make a lot of money off selling stuff, we got to put it out because our fans are seriously the greatest fans of any band.
We don’t have a shitload of fans, but the fans we have are really, really, really serious about us. Not in a creepy or weird way, in a really cool way. The emails I get from people are intense. Just recently this guy I know from shows, his mom passed away and they played one my songs at her funeral. I get letters like that all the time and how people are on verge of suicide and our songs help them through those times.
Serious Bargain fans know the lyrics are super personal, they might be funny and odd sometimes, but they are also personal and come from something that happened to me or to someone I know. I think our fans really relate to that. So we are not done yet, as long as we got stuff to put out we will put it out.
We have demos from the first album and the Magic is Over, versions of songs completely different and after the live CD/DVD comes out we are going to put up live shows on barglers.com for everyone. Myself personally I probably have 70 to 80 shows.
The Pier: Throughout the years Bargain Music went through a lot of various members. Was it hard to keep the momentum of the band going and did it ever get frustrating for you?
Josh: Oh yeah, it was super hard. It killed our momentum no doubt. It seemed like we would always get to a place where things were going good and we started making a little bit of money and then someone would quit. The biggest one was in the beginning, when Trey (Pangborn), Skelly (Skeleton Man) and Dave (Williams) all left at kind of the same time. At that point things were really good. We were drawing like 500 people at Long Beach, we were drawing kids all over the country and we were selling a lot of CDs. The band went through a bit of a musical change when Zippy (Zach Goodin) joined. I am personally more proud of the Magic is Over album than our first album, but that change killed us.
In some ways we became a different band and a lot of fans didn’t like that, but that’s what we felt and what we wanted to do. It’s funny you read the chat boards and kids accuse their fan favorite bands a lot of selling out and stuff like that, but if a band does something they really want to do and its different from what they were doing before they also get pissed off at that. For me if you are feeling something and you don’t do it then that’s selling out.
So that was a big decision for me as to why break up Bargain Music. I don’t feel like playing that kind of music anymore. I am not turning my back on reggae music, but I want to keep doing things that are completely different you know. I am a real music fan, there is not one style of music I just really like and you can probably tell that from Bargain Music.
The Pier: Yeah I was going to say, Bargain Music covered more styles than any other band I can think of. You obviously weren’t shy of attacking a range of different genres then and I think that is a good thing.
Josh: Yeah I think that is a good thing too, but we have been criticized for that too. We have been criticized for trying to please everyone and that is actually the opposite of what we have been trying to do. We haven’t been trying to please anyone but ourselves. Believe me, if we just played the straight reggae white boy rock thing we would have been so much more popular, though we wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much.
We loved playing country ballads in front of Slightly Stoopid’s crowd and seeing the look on people’s faces. We loved the silence. We loved that shit and got off on it.
Part Two of this interview will be posted this Friday. In Part Two Josh discusses his up-coming music projects, his film-making work (including making the Sublime Documentary) and some more of his interesting Bargain Music memories.
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