PART ONE TRIBE INTERVIEW
(from l to r: George, Fredd-B, Matt & Rob-D)
The members of Part One Tribe are true modern day rock ‘n’ roll outlaws. The band has wandered the country through 32 different States for years, always running things by its rules, taking no prisoners with its music and even holding people up at gas stations – selling its CDs.
Living this lifestyle has given Part One Tribe a large appreciation for life and a carefree attitude. Best recently demonstrated by the fact the band was up in the North West region to specifically play a show in Vancouver, Canada. Yet there was trouble at the border and the band’s response was ‘oh well, better luck next time.’
The Pier sat down with Part One Tribe just prior to a show in Seattle to learn about life in the band and what the future has in store.
The Pier: So Rob what originally made you form Part One Tribe (back then just known as Part One) over 12 years ago?
Rob-D (vocalist/guitarist): It was a definite interest in music always. In tenth grade, bassist and guitarist, Fredd-B and I were playing in a punk band up until then called DUMB. We just made a conscious decision to a play an easier kind of sound and we really just started from there.
The Pier: You grew up in Cape Cod in Massachusetts. What was that like? I have been there once before and it felt like every second building was either a lobster shack or an antique shop.
Rob-D: Yeah we were there in our basements just looking forward to summer you know? Just getting stoned and playing music that made us think of paradise I guess.
We were playing punk and the ska thing at the time. I thought I wanted to do fifties rock music mixed with punk and Fredd actually was the one who got me into Sublime and other stuff like heavy reggae and hip hop even. He made us have a wider scope in our music. It certainly was a major part, when we first started out we wanted to be a mix of Sublime and G Love. We have also tried to keep a raw kind of sound to it.
Yeah we have been doing this for 12 years and when we first started people were telling us we were ridiculous, as so many people didn’t know about Sublime then. It was probably as hard for us being white dudes playing reggae as it was for Sublime.
We were little kids when we started and we were playing with 40 year old dudes in blues bands in the North East and in the South East we were playing with southern rock type of bands who were playing ‘beach music’ like ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’.
The Pier: The band is now located a further south and calls Florida home for most of the year doesn’t it?
Rob-D: Yeah we are based out of Florida now for the past year or so. It is just some kind of common ground where we ended up. Cocoa Beach down there is a big spot for us. We would play there every Wednesday for 6 months and then we would go on tour and come back and build up a better hometown vibe there then back in Massachusetts. We get a lot of positive feedback down there and friends that help us out. We a met a guy down there recently that got us to play in the Bahamas, so that was awesome.
The Pier: Oh yeah, that would have been great. Is that one of your favorite memories of being in Part One Tribe?
Rob-D: Yeah going to the Bahamas was one of the best things we have ever done in our lives.
Fredd-B: Yeah it was the first time we have got to ever fly to a gig. (Everyone laughs)
Matt (keys/bass): The best part though is all the travelling we have got to do and see all the things we have seen. It has been awesome to get to surf all those breaks I have always dreamed about surfing.
Rob-D: Yeah we just stop and just check out anything we want to see. Like the Valley of Fire State Park, which is just North of Las Vegas I think. We went and climbed a mountain there one day and it just looked amazing.
The Pier: So back to your early days. You were only 16 when you recorded Part One Tribe’s first album - For What It's Worth. That must have been particularly exciting?
Rob-D: Oh yeah there was some magic back then. I think because we weren’t thinking about it. It was a surprise to us when we finished as it didn’t sound half bad and that’s when we first thought we could do this for a living. So by the time we were 19 we had done three albums, but we hadn’t done much touring at that point.
It wasn’t until 2002 that we found out about web-sites like the Sublime Archive and bands like Slightly Stoopid, Bargain Music and Pepper. We were like, ‘wow there is a whole scene of this stuff going on.’ Yet we felt we were in it early enough to stake a claim as veterans in it. It was then we realized we can’t sit back and let this get away and we have to fight for some sort of name in this thing.
It just pushed us even harder and of course we have ended up playing with most of those bands over the past 3 or 4 years now. That’s been one of the best things about being in this band is getting to do what we want, playing music that we want and meeting people that like our music. We met some kids in up-state New York and they were like, ‘we have been listening to you guys for 7 years.' We were like ‘what are you kidding me?’ That’s what makes being in this band worth it.
The Pier: Being around for so long now you have written over at least a hundred songs. Is there one or two that you are most proud of?
Rob-D: At this point the ones that I am most proud of are the ones that people like you know. That’s what makes them stick out to me.
Matt: I first heard the band, cause my brother introduced me to the Sublime Archive. So I went and downloaded songs by a bunch of different bands and there was this one song called 420 by Part One Tribe. So I downloaded that and Part One Tribe became my favorite band and that’s how I joined the band.
Rob-D: Yeah 420 that’s a big one for me. The one day where I sat down and tried to write a non-punk song, that was the second one I wrote. I called Fredd and played it over the phone. Since we were only 15-16 when we wrote and started playing that song, it got us all popular in school cause it was all rebellious. It actually almost got me expelled from high school cause we played it a pep rally and so I was yelling ‘what time is it?’ and the crowd was yelling back ‘420’ and then they starting dancing and grinding as we busted into Anything.
We got called into the principal’s office and almost got expelled for being capable of inciting a riot. The song Anything is also a favorite cause that was the song all the girls in my high school wanted us to always play. Anything the girls want is always going to stick out and be a favorite.
The Pier: So you have a bit of a Spinal Tap thing going on as you guys have gone through a lot of drummers. So Rob and Fredd are not real assholes are they?
George (Drums): (laughs) No they’re cool.
Rob-D: Everyone always has the opportunity to be permanent god damn it. You know we leave it open. We leave the back door and the window always open for them to jump out of. Sometime it sticks and sometimes it doesn’t. The funny thing is that’s why we added the Tribe to our Part One name. Now though the four of us want this more than anything. We all get along and we have lived on the road together for almost four years now. The tribe is there now and people are free to come and go.
The Pier: Now Part One tribe has got a new album in the works tentatively titled ‘Obvious As Ever’. What can you tell us about so far? Have you started work on it?
Rob-D: We did two tracks in one studio and three in another, but we have released those now and we want to do it all at once. Just to get a good vibe going for a whole album. We are going to separate from the whole touring thing just to work on it.
We got money for it now and we are just working out where we are going to do it. We are going to meet our label Long Beach Records in the next couple of days and check out a studio in San Diego.
We are also trying to work out if we are going to do it ourselves. We did The General Consensus ourselves and it turned out real muddy and lo-fi sounding, but we didn’t have any funding for any kind of equipment. So we are just trying to work how we are going to do it. Even if we have it done by January we are probably going to wait to summer to release it with a big summer tour.
The Pier: So how did this new relationship with Long Beach Records come about?
Rob-D: It came through the whole Skunk family thing. When we went on tour we noticed a lot of Sublime fans were coming out. So we ended up meeting a lot of people that helped Slightly Stoopid or Sublime and now they are helping us. So it was through that network. We did a show where 3rd Alley opened and Mudd the drummer (LBR head honcho) and us built a little friendship and got talking and when they found out we were excited about being on LBR they were surprised.
We got on the Fall Sampler CD they did not long ago, so since then we have started spreading the word. Actually before we knew we were on the label for sure we started telling people we were signed to LBR. So I called Mudd and told him we were telling people and if that was cool and yeah he was fine with it and thought it was all legit. They have been waiting to hear our album for 10 months so we have kind of been dragging our feet a little bit.
The Pier: Do you know what songs are going on the new album yet and how do they actually sound?
Rob-D: There are some songs we know that we are definitely going to put on it. We got a lot of songs that haven’t been recorded and haven’t been released. If we record it ourselves we could record 40 songs and pick the best 15 to 20 for the album. If we do it with someone else we might only do the songs we know we can play really good as the clock is ticking you know.
The songs are going into a lot of new directions. A bunch of the new songs have come from Matty jamming things out on the keyboards, so it has inspired me in a new way.
Fredd-B: I definitely feel we are moving into a lot of different directions that we haven’t fully explored in the past. There is a lot more faster stuff and lot more changes in tempo.
The Pier: So you had General Smiley appear as a guest on your previous album, any guests planned for this new one?
Rob-D: Most definitely. The biggest one for us is Paulie Selekta from Burn Unit, we are going to collaborate with him on a track or two. We jammed with him in the middle of summer in a Brooklyn basement. We laid down some ideas, so we are going to go back there and do a couple of tracks for the album. There is some talk of bringing General Smiley back to a do a track with him and Paulie Selekta too.
So being extensive road warriors what is your favorite summer time place to hang?
Matt: I love Florida, cause of the waves.
Rob-D: Florida is a good place to hang out, but only in the summer though. Winter time Florida is the best, summer time we love hanging out at Tamarack Beach in Ocean Side, CA. We will have stints in California for 3 months and play 20 something shows and just live in a State Park near there. We all surf but Matt is the surfer.
With that comment we go on to talk a bit about surfing and other Part One Tribe past times, so this brings this interview to a close.
Thanks to Part One Tribe for spending some time at The Pier and Bryan Swallow (Dubstylee) from H.C. Indie Productions.
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