I got the chance to sit down and talk with 2 of the 3 brothers that make up the Gadjits after the show on July 20^th with them, the Secondhands, and Hepcat at the Bottleneck. We talked about a bunch of different and interesting things.

Jason Meier: What has it been like to get the chance to tour with all of these great bands like Hepcat and the Slackers and to get to play shows with bands like the Skatalites?

Brandon Phillips: It's a helluva lot of fun to be out with them than it would be to be out with bands that are more like us. I'm really glad that people are cool enough to let us have a tour like that - and that people come out and dig the whole show. We're really happy that the ska scene is diverse enough and accepting enough to let it take place.

Adam Phillips: That what makes going to a show fun. The chance to see a good diverse batch of bands. The chance to go see a show like The Skatalites, Mustard Plug, NOFX and Hepcat is fun cause the bands don't all sound the same. That would be a good show cause it's a good mix of bands. On a different note, it's cool to see how we have evolved. When we first formed the band we would make jokes about how we would love to meet Rancid. Wouldn't it be cool if one day we saw Tim Armstrong and just went up and said hi. Wouldn't that be a riot? Wouldn't it be funny to play with the Skatalites. That would be incredible and a dream come true. These are bands I listen to at home.

BP: Than a few months later we had played with the Skatalites like 7 times. Its so nice to be able to go out and tour with your favorite bands, which is what that was like.

JM: O.K.. Lets back track a little here. How exactly did you guys hook up with Rancid and get signed to Hellcat. Like most people in the local scene know, and this is something I know you have heard before, but knowing them was a big part of how you guys got signed.

BP: Oh yeah, very true.

AP: Jeff Fortier of Avalanche was promoting a show at Liberty Hall and Brandon knew that Rancid was gonna be on it. So we call Jeff and said can you get us on the show? Jeff said no, I can't do that. So Brandon started to call around to everyone. He tried to call Rancid. He tried to call Skankin' Pickle to get Rancid's phone number. Anyone we could think of to call just get us on the bill. Finally after all the calls, we just got it.

BP: It was an opportunity that I was not about to pass up. Things worked out great and they even asked us to play with them in Omaha. It just went from there.

JM: On a more local front, what local bands do you like to play with?

AP: I like to play the Distorted out of KC. They rock. We played with them in Iowa City a while back and they're great. I also like the Elements.

BP: Lately we have been a lot of weird ass bills with punks bands. It will be like us, a grindcore band, a punk pop band and a traditional ska band. Totally fucked up bills, but that also makes it a lot of fun. It also makes for a better mix in the crowd to.

JM: I know you have also played with most of the local ska bands and with Danger Bob also.

BP: Yeah, Andy from Danger Bob is great and  very supportive of us. We want to play with them more cause they are so much fun.

JM: Do you guys want to play ska shows or play more with different types of bands?

BP: Being a ska band is rough in that we have to listen to a lot of ska that we would otherwise not want to listen to cause we play with so many ska bands. People like to book six ska bands and call it "Ska Fest 99" and make checkered fliers and what not. I would think it would get old to listen to six ska bands in a row, you know. It would drive me nuts.

AP: People think ska is so much different than what it is. Like a rock band might look at us and think, "Oh man it's the Gadjits. They play Ska. There's no way they could get on this show cause we're a rock band."

BP: At the same time a lot of the diehard traditional ska fans will say "Dude, The Gadjits don't belong on this bill 'cause they are a rock band." Labels can really mess things up.

AP: Yeah all the labels really get in the way.

JM: How do you guys feel about that? 'Cause a lot of people don't really consider you guys to be ska...

BP: We play what we play and that's about it.

AP: We play good music whether we write a ska song or a punk song or a jazz song or calypso. It doesn't really matter. It's good music.

BP: Part of the fun of being a musician is exploring different avenues.

AP: Yeah I mean who wants to be confined to just one type of music or one thing they can do?

BP: Ska will always be a big part of what we do, but it's not all we do. That's part of where record labels really fail. The whole ska explosion thing that's happening right now kind of proves just that. In 1979, lumping Elvis Costello, The Damned and the Sex Pistols together as punk just did not work.

AP: Yeah they used to call U2 and Elvis Costello punk and they are really quite far from it.

BP: In most cases, labels are really just journalistic fabrications. Its like when people compare us to Hansen. It's easier for people to compare us to them than to listen to us on our own accord for who we are in terms of us and not in terms of the lowest common denominator. People generally like to take the easy way out in terms of labels. I don't like to label us. Yeah we're a ska band sure, but we also play a lot of rock songs and what not. You can't just be a ska band. Most people consider Hepcat to be the end all to be all of ska bands.

AP: But see, they play ska, reggae, rock steady, swing, calypso. They have the whole Sam and Dave soul thing down. Ska is not truly it's own form of music anyway. It's calypso, American R&B and soul. It's a mix of a bunch of other kinds of music.

BP: It's the same as rock n' roll. It's not just rock n' roll. It's the blues, and jazz and a million other things. It's pretty much why I think labels always fail. To lump Bill Haley and the Comets in with Nirvana and call them both "rock bands" is not right. You can't call them both rock bands. They are entirely separate artists.

AP: Lumping us with the Skatalites is the same. If you listen to both our records back to back, you will notice a big difference.

JM: Who have you not played with yet, that you want to play with?

BP: This is my dream tour right now. We never thought that we got signed and would get the chance to tour with Rancid and the Skatalites and the bands that we idolized and do all the stuff that we never thought we would get to do. Since we have gotten that lucky, then I figure that if we start daydreaming very hard and maybe this will happen. My Dream tour would be us, The Siren 6, Blur, and the Cardigans.

AP: (Laughing quiet loudly) Yeah that's pretty out there, but that would be a bad ass tour.

BP: That would be very fuckin' cool.

AP: Now on a more realistic level and something that would probably happen before that one could. Probably a tour with Rancid or a full fledge tour with the Bosstones.

JM: What is it like to have three brothers in the band?

AP: The Hansen comparisons suck, but other than that it ain't too bad. We do fight quiet a bit, but it ain't that bad.

BP: We fight some, but not as much as a lot of other bands do. It's not a problem at all.

JM: Is there a lot of animosity or problems from other bands due to the fact that you guys got signed so fast and didn't have to pay as many dues as a lot of the other bands in the area have?

AP: We have been around for seven years now, but a lot of people didn't know of us the first three years or so. We have been playing bars since I was nine years old and I'm 16 now. We just got some really good luck that just changed the direction of The Gadjits. We have not let it go to our heads and we don't treat anybody any different than before. Other bands treat us like crap because of this and they don't even try to see if we're nice guys or get to know us. "Oh god they got signed, so screw them. There a bunch of sell outs." It's like, man, you don't even know me so how can you pass judgment on me or the band?

BP: I always try to go out of my way to be extra courteous to other bands and especially to other local bands. Once you go out on the road with a big national tour, you start to realize how touch and go touring can be. It's like well our shit is broken tonight or I can't do things how I would like to, but when you're not on tour you get real sensitive to that type of stuff.

AP: When we play with other local bands we always try to hook them up as much as we can. We hook them up like we would any band. I don't care if they're local or from New York.

BP: We always try to do what we can. Our mom is very hip to letting bands stay at our house and we have quite a bit of history of letting bands stay at our house now. The Skalers and The Siren 6 stay there everytime they come through. They get fed well and have a room to sleep in. If some one in a local group thinks I'm a dickhead cause we got signed without paying as many dues, well I'm sorry we didn't play at Daveys Uptown every Saturday night for several years before we got an A&R guy to come see us. That's very dismisive.

AP: Yeah I'm sorry their band didn't make it. But we got an opportunity and we took it.

BP: Plus I really don't care if they don't like our music or not, but it really upsets us when they decide that they aren't gonna like us over something stupid like that. We have played with a lot of bands whose music I think sucks, but they are the coolest guys and I would invite them to dinner and stay at our house any night. I think that in real tight local scenes like KC and Lawrence, people get really competitive and to an extent that's good because it weeds out the crap really quick.

AP: It gives you something to push for.

BP: But if you get too competitive, and I have seen this also, where a band will say, "Oh we're gonna play with the Gadjits so we need a secret weapon." That's just crap. Just be yourselves. We are.

AP: Competition is always good to a point, but if we're playing with the Distorted and the Elements and they play great sets, that just makes us want to rock that much more. We can't play any lees than 100% and we have to shoot for the stars.

BP: That's friendly competition and that's good. We love that. Every band should be like that.

AP: But we aren't gonna try to screw there set up just to make us look better. It's all fun.

JM: Name one CD or cassette that is in your collection that your embarrassed to admit that you own?

AP: Oh man, that's tough. This man named Eddy Grant. "Electric Avenue" and what not. I got that one and I kind of like it, but it's not one people would associate with me.

BP: I have a seven inch of the Star War's theme and it makes me feel kind of dorky knowing that I own that. I have both Joan Osbourne albums, "The Early Recordings" album and "Relish" and I have the Fiona Apple Album.

AP: Yeah but's good.

BP: Not if your image is kind of punk rock it ain't. It's not what people would associate with a ska band. I also really like the old-school country. Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, George Jones, and stuff like that. People would just freak out if they knew that. God damn, now that's country! Not that crap that comes out today. Rex Hobart is like that on the local front and he rules.

JM: Worst gig you have ever played is.....

AP: There have been a few. My personal worst one was in New York City at the Roxy in front of a way oversold incredibly packed crowd at the Epitaph summer nationals. Opening the show that NOFX is headlining along with the US Bombs, The New Bomb Turks, The Red Ants, Hepcat among others. We start playing the show and I'm very very nervous. It's our first time in New York and this is our biggest show period. I'm playing a little off, we all are, but we're very nervous. They supplied the backline, the amps and the drumset for the show. So I go up to the kit and start to make a few adjustments, but I don't touch a whole lot of the stuff. So we get up there and start playing and all of a sudden the snare drum falls into my lap. So I'm shaking around like a fish and screwing up the rhythm to the song cause the part I'm suppose to hit is pressing against my chest. I'm trying to get the drum to fall back the other way so I can continue with the song. It finally falls, but the wrong way. It falls to my knees. So I no longer have a snare drum stand cause I'm balancing the drum on my knees. I'm having to play both the bass drum and hi-hat pedals at the same time in order to keep the drum in a position so I could play it. Due to our short set, I had no time to fix any of this, so I played the whole set like this. Meanwhile, the rest of the band was starting to have problems as well. Than the floor tom leg gives and it's resting on my other leg! Oh man did it suck!

BP: That was easily the worst show we had ever played. They set Hillary (keyboard player) up in the worst spot so we could hardly see her cause there were no lights on her. We were setup backwards from what we normally are and they wouldn't let us move things around. Oh man it was bad. To have that happen to us in front of all our idols was very humbling to say the least. The only band that did worse than us was the Red Ants and that was because they
incited the crowd to hate them.

JM: What's coming up for the Gadjits in the near future?

AP: After we do the Warped Tour dates we are gonna be coming back to Rockus Recording Studio and start to work on the next album. Vic, the organ player from the Slackers is gonna produce it. The album is written, so all we have to do is record it. We are also gonna be playing at the Spirit Fest in KC, which will be fun cause it's all the bands that beat us at the Klammies last year, (laugh). Then we will get out on tour as fast as possible.

JM: Any last comments before we wrap this up?

AP: Please pay a visit to the Gadjits website at www.thegadjits.com and check out our album "At Ease" and all the other Hellcat Record releases. Also make sure to watch for us out on tour the rest of this summer and try to see us at Spirit Fest in September. And watch for our new album sometime next year.

BP: And make sure to support the local scene.

JM: Enough said. Thanks a lot guys.

BP: Thank you.

AP: Thanks a lot.