Missing Reels And 'Not Touring': Checking In With Rocket From The Crypt

A bad practice I regularly engaged in as a college disc jockey inadvertently changed the way I listened to music.

About a decade ago I hosted a three-hour show at San Diego State University's student-run radio station KCR. Despite being told to explore the vast music library the station had to offer, I stubbornly stayed within my comfort zone during my shows, playing only what was in my limited personal collection. I avoided any scrutiny from management by forging my playlists; I regularly inserted random songs (from various records around the studio) into my lists — even if I didn't play them on air.

The playlists were published online shortly after the show aired. And, after one shift, a friend noticed I had included a song by a band called Rocket from the Crypt. At the time, I was a little confused as to why he lit up and was so enthusiastic about my selection; he asked which of their albums was my favorite, which song I thought was the best, and if I had seen them live. Instead of confessing Rocket was one of the false selections during my show, I kept the lie alive by giving him vague answers to his questions. But, I couldn't help but feel guilty for knowing nothing more about the group other than their records were stored in the "Local" section of the KCR studio.

The guilt inspired me to buy Scream Dracula Scream, the band's first major-label album released in 1995.

Fury exploded when the first song, "Middle," blared out of my car's speakers. The chant-heavy roar was centered around one note, featured rapid guitars, vivid horns and lasted only about a minute. Before I could soak in what happened, a machine gun drum roll launched into "Born In '69," another horn-heavy raid with a primal harmony coming from the singer. Three minutes hadn't even passed and I was captivated. After listening to the album straight through, my entire music collection seemed meaningless; Led Zeppelin became dull and Pearl Jam went stale. Like a fiend, I returned to my knowledgeable buddy to borrow the band's catalog. The RFTC-binge that ensued ultimately made me reconsider what I value musically.

Rocket's formula has been so simple, but what has been produced is incomparable. The band seems to squeeze maximal resources from every note played; in their 16 years of making music (1989 – 2005), the group imbued the raw energy of soul into various incarnations of punk, spread out over dozens of LPs and singles. Flashes of James Brown, The Real Kids, MC5, The Undertones, King Coleman, The Cramps or The Saints light up Rocket's repertoire.

After more than seven years of a hiatus, Rocket regrouped in the spring of 2013, embarking on a brief tour in Europe and playing a handful of festivals in the U.S. Shows in the last year have been few and far between — in fact, the Portland and Seattle shows the band are playing mark the first time Rocket has played in the Pacific Northwest since reuniting.

Frontman John Reis, known as Speedo in the band, made his already-busy life even busier by revamping Rocket. Since 2013, three of his several other bands have been active: Hot Snakes, The Night Marchers and most recently Drive Like Jehu, who played together for the first time in 19 years last month. Reis also remains a co-owner of Bar Pink (San Diego) and plays a recurring role on the children's television show Yo Gabba Gabba as "The Music Swami." (Incidentally, Rocket's first appearance together since breaking up in 2005 was on Yo Gabba Gabba.)

Because I credit Rocket with my proverbial musical Renaissance, the handful of interactions I've had with Reis are quite similar to those seen on the Chris Farley Show. Nevertheless, here's what Reis had to say about the state of RFTC:

Not that touring 15 years ago wasn't fun, but is this time around more relaxing?
Yeah, touring is more relaxed now because we don't tour anymore [laughs]. We go to the place we're playing, we play and then we come home. I can't really refer to it as touring because touring, I think, needs to be something that's extended. It has to be more than a show, or two, or three, or even four.

With a more relaxed approach, are you getting to experience things in these cities that you hadn't previously?
Sometimes, not often though to tell you the truth. I know this probably isn't what you were asking, but things have changed a lot, not only for me, but the landscape in general .... That idea of getting in a van and driving across the country [is different]. Gas is getting so expensive. .... It's actually easier and cheaper [now] to just kinda fly in, show up and play.

You're a lifelong San Diegan...what keeps you there? Has there ever been a desire to pickup and move abroad?
There was a feeling of "maybe it would be a good idea to move out of San Diego." That was right around when I was 23 or 24, Rocket had already started. There was this feeling that "maybe it would be a good idea to have a change of scenery." Not to move away from this place because we didn't like it, it was just a kind of romanticized idea of relocating and being a foreigner, and using that feeling to solidify the group and bring us together even more...kind of refocus and enable us to let go of the past a bit and truly start a new future. But that feeling lasted only, maybe, 15 minutes .... After the band formed, we hit the road pretty soon after that. Once we did, we were pretty relentless. We got to travel quite a bit and see other places, so we knew firsthand that where we lived was a really cool place. It was always a cool place to come back to; we felt that we had a really good thing going on here. We loved our friends and the community we were apart of.

When the band reformed as part of a European tour in the spring of 2013, you released a single in each city you played, and each record contained a cover song belonging to a band from that given city. So, totally hypothetical, if that was the rule for your venture up to the Pacific Northwest, what would be the two singles for Seattle and Portland?
You know, I would have to put a lot of thought into that. Seattle? Hmm. I don't know. Have there been any bands that came from Seattle? I'm not really familiar with any bands ever being from Seattle.

There was a song you used to play on the Swami Sound System called "I Need An Enemy," by a band called The Enemy.
Yeah, they were a Seattle band. They put out a couple singles, they're great. Do you know any of those guys?

No, I only knew of that song.
I'm sure there are people up there that know them or knew them. I never hear them discussed when I hear people talking about the Seattle punk past ... I wonder if they were jerks or something. I really like their records, they're really great. There's something a bit professional about the way they sounded ... I actually enjoy them quite a bit.

Anything for Portland?
Portland. Yeah, I don't know. To be honest with you, the last time I was there, when we played there, it seemed most of those people had never heard of music .... Honestly there are tons of great bands from both places, so I would have to find something that is totally in our wheelhouse [laughs], our limited ability ... So, I don't know. I can get back to you.

[Laughs] No, that's-
I wish we had time to do something like that for these shows, but the fact is after the last time that we played everybody splintered off.

A couple years ago there was talk that there was still enough material for an All Systems Go 4 album. Is that in the works at all?
There is enough material. Here's the big problem...a lot of the stuff that is unreleased is on reels of tape from Scream Dracula Scream, there are like three songs off that, and there's stuff off of RFTC. I have a friend that used to work at Universal, and they keep all these tapes in different vaults all over the world. In our case, I think ours are somewhere in the [San Fernando] Valley. And so my friend who was working there — he couldn't find them anywhere. And not that if he could find them he could get them to me, but just at least knowing that's where they should be .... I have no idea how to access some of this stuff. I didn't leave [the studio] with rough mixes a lot of the times, and if I did, they were on cassettes I no longer have .... But ultimately, if we're gonna do anything, I'd be much more interested in doing something new.

Has that been talked about at all?
It's only been talked about. Ya know, that's it. There's been no movement. We all go, "Yeah, wouldn't that be nice," [laughs] and "That would be cool if we did that." Provided everybody had the time to do it, we could do something that would be really fun.

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Rocket from the Crypt plays Neumos Sunday, September 28 with Pony Time opening. Purchase tickets here.

-Chris Coyle, CBS Seattle

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