March 12, 2010
1) Back in the Lookouts days, Which were one of your favorite bands? / which most influenced you in the Lookouts? and what kind of music are you into nowadays?
In the Lookouts days I liked some different things. For instance, I was much more into semi-political bands like the Dead Kennedys or the MC5, and when the Lookouts first started, I wanted to be more like them, but this changed after a couple years, and we started playing more poppy and fun music. I liked a lot of the early punk bands, but I also used to listen to some country music and some hippie music and folk music. I actually hoped that the Lookouts would be able to reach an audience that wasn't just traditional punk rockers, but I don't think it worked out that way, at least not at the time.
2) What is the meaning of the title from the first Lookouts LP, "One Planet One People"?
That was kind of a hippie thing, but it was also meant to send a message that our common humanity was far more important than national borders or races or belief systems, that ultimately we all had to learn to live together with a common set of values. Also, because we lived in the country, we tended to have a more direct experience with environmental issues, and the "One Planet" part of the title referred to just that: we've only got one planet, and we'd better well take care of it.
3) Which was the main reason for the break up of the Lookouts in 1988, and how did you quickly get back together?
It just started as a silly argument at practice one day. It was like one of those stupid things where one person says, "Oh, yeah, well I dare you to do that" and the other person says, "Oh yeah, well I'll not only do that, I'll dare you to do this," and before you know it, you're both doing something that neither of you really wanted to do. I think we got back together because we missed playing music too much and because we didn't really have any serious problems when you thought about it. Maybe the reason we had the argument in the first place was because we were frustrated that after three years it didn't seem like we had gotten very far as a band, but then oddly enough, people seemed to start liking us better after we broke up. So we thought, let's get back together and see if they still keep liking us. Which they did. Sort of, anyway.
4) All Lookouts albums were pressed on the format Vinyl only - except "Spy Rock Road" that was also released on Cassette. Why vinyl? are you a vinyl fan or maybe you thought the sales would be better than coming on Cassette/CD...?
In the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s, almost all punk rock and indie records came out on vinyl only, or vinyl and cassette. CDs cost way more back then, and they were seen as being only for big major label bands. Most of our fans didn't even have CD players at that time. It's too bad, because if we had put our stuff out on CD, a lot more people would have heard it, and it would be much easier to find today.
5) You were almost 40 years old playing with two kids aged 12 and 14. Have you faced any problems about that? like facing difficulty to get shows or something among each other?
I was 37 when the band started and Tre and Kain were 12 and 14. We were lucky because the kind of community where we lived, where there were only a very few families, and they all knew each other, made it much easier for unusual arrangements like this to be accepted. Yes, people thought it was odd, but our community was full of people who were odd in different ways. We did have trouble getting shows in our own area, but not because of the age difference, more because people just hated our kind of music. But once we started playing punk shows in the San Francisco and East Bay area, it wasn't that big a deal. Most of the punks didn't seem too worried about it; in fact most of them never even mentioned it. Once again, the real problem for us in getting shows was if people didn't like our band, and there were always some of those.
We did have a few problems among ourselves because of the age difference, but nothing serious. As you'd expect, sometimes 12 and 14 year olds want to act like 12 and 14 year olds, and maybe get bored with practicing and just want to goof around, but Tre and Kain were both very mature for their age, probably once again because of the community we lived in, where children and young people routinely interacted with adults instead of living separate lives the way city kids tend to. Sometimes I would tend to get bossy or act like I was their parent (like telling them to get back here and practice right now!), but not too often, because while they were very mature for their age, I was not so mature for my age. So there were times we would all just goof off instead of practicing. As you can probably tell from the way we played!
6) Back in the day you also published your magazine, "Lookout". What was "Lookout" magazine about? and how did it start?
Lookout magazine started the year before the band did. At first it was more like a little newspaper for our community, and didn't have much of anything to do with music, but then many of the local people told me they didn't like me writing about the community, partly because they liked their privacy,and partly because many of them were marijuana growers and didn't want attention from the authorities. So that's when I started writing about other stuff, including a lot of punk rock music, but also environmentalism and politics. Lookout magazine started in the autumn of 1984 and the last issues was published in the summer of 1995. There were 40 issues altogether.
