In context, the late nineties third-wave ska revival wasn’t exactly a breeding ground for innovative musical exploration. Harkening back to a foregone era of Prince Buster, the crop of bands that found the muted palm-stroke of the off beat and skank so appealing were often no more than flash-in- the-pan reincarnations best suited for late-night, frat-boy keg sessions. While irony is typically easier to spot than specifically define, it’s without a sense of trepidation to say that The Rx Bandits emergence from this movement, and their subsequent evolution to become one of the most dynamic and progressive independent bands in the country, could find itself balancing the definition quite well in Webster’s.
It’s 12:00 in Long Beach, California and Steve Choi is eating lunch. Or perhaps it’s just an awful connection on his cell phone masquerading as the chewing of celery. Knowing his penchant for organically grown foods, it soon becomes apparent that the guitarist for The Rx Bandits is making the most of his noon hour while trying to answer questions at the same time. When asked about his band’s evolution over the past 15 years, Choi opens up about his outfit’s loyal fan base.
“It’s not like we’re not human and we wouldn’t feel butt-hurt if our stuff was completely not liked,” says Choi. “When we first released The Resignation, most people kind of hated it at first. It took us a while to get used to the notion and find the security within ourselves to know that this was the music we wanted to make and whoever wants to join the party can, and the rest can just fuck off really.” Continued Choi, “Over the years our progression has definitely filtered out the people that clung to musical notions and genres. So to anybody who asks us why we don’t play this more, or says we should play that more, our music is not for them. They can take whatever piece of our albums they want, but they have no creative stake in what we’re doing. My favorite records now since I was a child are the ones I at first hated.”
In a hometown-city known mostly for two seminal acts who rarely hesitated to extol the virtues of a green leafy substance and street-level rhetoric, The Rx Bandits have come to define a breed of artist that perhaps was not always as visible in the Long Beach Community.
According to Choi, “The whole Sublime thing is a testament to the irony of creative power, which is that there is so much now that’s existing, in spite of that band, to break the stigma. Say whatever you want about Sublime and their audience – it may be a bunch of Corona-drinkin, pot-smokin bro’s. But the fact of the matter is, that band did something completely unique at the time and pioneered a whole genre, love it or hate it. As far as bands now, I think there definitely is a backlash. I think there’s a lot of people who are trying to be creatively, artistically, and musically-forward who resent the sole association with them because, once again, love them or hate them, they are a seminal band regardless.”
In spite of Sublime or Calvin Broadus’ legacy, it’s clear from Choi’s voice that The Rx Bandits core influences play little into what were once the defining elements of the LBC. Through the band’s relentless touring and consistent grassroots word-of-mouth, 2009 will see The Rx Bandits release their 8th album and their third after splitting ways with the pop-punk indie confines of Drive-Through Records. The band, comprised now of Matt Embree, Joseph Troy, Christopher Tsagakis and Steve Choi, seem at ease with their creative endeavors and the lasting impact of what it means to be from the greater SoCal region.
When asked what it’s like to objectively look at one’s art during the creative process itself, Steve Choi responds, “I think there’s those musicians and artists that put out a product and are happy staying in the confines of their own mind, their own criticisms and their own perception of themselves. But one thing nobody can deny is that it will be completely different than how it is actually going to be perceived by those you’re making it for… Meaning that if you’re recording a record and you’re making it for other people to listen to – you’re making it for the masses. There are those people that do that on a major level and they say that they don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks. Okay that’s cool, but for us that is not being real.” Known as an avid biker, Choi has been cruising the streets of Long Beach while his headphones provide insight into the bands latest batch of demos. “Ultimately, what we like and what we think, always matters the most… But to say that we don’t take into consideration what its context will be outside of our perception is just not true,” says the guitarist. “We try to achieve this outside objective view of our music for the purpose of trying to get a scope of what our audience might be doing, as impossible as that may be. You spend all these hours stressing in the studio and you find yourself nine months later, deeper in the process than you ever thought because you look back and it seems like just a second ago you were staring at the whole mountain.”
In tandem with The Rx Bandits intense recording regimen, there has also been the constant stream of live shows, both defining their sound in new acoustic environments but also providing the four members the ability to try new ideas on the road as they become part of the greater consciousness of the band. Their relentless road schedule, which in many ways has proven to be the catalyst for the band’s success, comes with a set of it’s own hazards, of which Choi is ever-conscious. When asked what keeps him sane on the road, it becomes clear that the little things become of the essence.
“Balance is really important, especially in my life as an individual and I apply that literally to everything. Not in just an ‘I have an electric rock garden fountain and soothing music’ way. On tour it’s really important for us to get outdoors have some days off in some natural settings where we can just chill and counteract the downtown setting we’re in 90% of the time. We seize every opportunity we can to visit any of our favorite national parks and areas. Food is super important so our rider has gotten pretty ridiculous because we’re all super “foodies”. We ask for a lot of Pom teas, Morningstar Farms munchies for the bus, stuff like that.”
It’s the continued diligence paid to not only relevant social and political climates but also to their core inspirations that seem to define the latest chapter in the band’s history. In a year ripe with the cultural fall-out of partisan politics oh high, Steve Choi seems unfazed by what is at times nothing more than sound-byte audio used to divide the masses.
“I would have to say that first of all, it makes me realize that no matter how fucked-up things are in this country we have it really good. And the bottom line is that we, in our band, can claim all we want on politics and social commentary but we have no illusions about the fact that we can only be in a band whose parents bought their musical equipment and made music with our privileged American middle-class upbringings. And anybody who tries to deny that is just full of shit. There’s always going to be things that are wrong and powers to fight. I feel like human nature is just so far expansive above whatever immediate causes we may have. It will constantly affect us I believe. How it affects us will change with how we ourselves change as individuals.”
It’s thoughts like these that seem to prove more than anything else; The Rx Bandits are not simply a caricature of their own likeness. It might be even more proof that while so many other “politically-relevant” bands feed off of fashionable activism; Steve Choi and company hold no illusions about their roles as not only entertainers, but also as true expressionists of the time.
Nicholas M.H. | RootSpeak Staff
Nicholas M.H. is one of the founders of both RootSpeak and the site's parent publisher, Truth&Rights Collective. Between giving his fellow editors a hard time, he fills the remaining hours of each day with his own writing and excursions into the worlds of media cooperatives and creative consulting for various inspired upstarts.
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