It's nice when you don't have to count on record labels, tour managers or anyone else to set up an interview with a band. Frank Casillas, lead singer of Voodoo Glow Skulls also happens to be their manager so I got to deal directly with him with no middlemen. After speaking with Frank on the phone earlier in the day I caught up with all three Casillas brothers before their show in St. Petersburg, FL. Read on to find out when getting punched in the gut and the stench of sweaty nuts is something to look forward to.

Interview written, conducted and transcribed by j. ward. Photos captured from video shot by j. ward

[COMA] Tell us a little about Southern California Street Music, what do you feel has influenced it the most compared to your other albums?

[Frank] I think as far as what influenced it, more, I think the fact that we do pretty much everything ourselves, this is the third record we've done ourselves, I think for us it's the most progressive attempt as far as having more knowledge in general.

[Eddie] As far as recording goes, and even song writing and stuff like that. I don't know we just, for some reason that title seemed to make the most sense cause we were doing a bunch of interviews for the last album and it seemed that that kind of came up a lot when people asked us to describe our style of music. For some reason we just came up with Southern California Street Music as like, a style that we would describe ourselves as and that ended up being the title of the record and I think that sums up a lot of it too. We kinda try to come full circle, trying to figure out how to succeed as a band for more than a decade, it'll be 20 years next year. So I think we're just trying to figure out that you can do it without really being trendy or that successful you could make it happen. We've been touring for 20 years, we've been on the road playing small bars and clubs and we've played bigger places and small places and I think were just kinda figuring out how to do this right now and we're just barely starting to hone it and I think a band in that whole punk game for 20 years, this is definition of it cause we've never been on the radio or had success with videos so this is pretty much that (Southern California Street Music), it's the right time to call it that and that's what influenced it I'd say, this time.

[COMA] You mentioned you've been together going on 20 years now, what has kept the band going all these years? Has it been the brotherhood or...

[Frank] Yeah, a lot of it has to do with that. We're three brothers. It definitely saves the longevity of the band, we're a family on wheels. Our drummer grew up with us down the street, our tolerance level for each other is really high.

[Eddie] And you can get away with saying a lot of shit that other people wouldn't say I think.

[Frank] The fact that we were able to create this band pretty much from a foundation that we built upon from home. We started this band at a time when there was no Internet, there was no web stuff going on, bands corresponded through snail mail and stuff like that so for us to be able to just create a foundation and be able to go out there this long, our fans are a big part of it. Once people stop coming and it's evident then it's time to hang it up.

[Eddie] We've played in front of the same number of fans for a long time and that's what keeps us going too. If we get 100 kids it's a great night sometimes. If we play in front of 1000 kids, sometimes it's not a great night, sometimes we don't play good or something. We've done festivals where we're pissed and don't play good but we do good sometimes in front of 100 people in a bar, so I think we figured out, "Well, we're this kind of a band anyway." As long as we can afford to live and keep it on the road, cause things change, people get married and have kids and buying a house becomes a factor. As long as we can do that and keep it going, why stop? We still love it, through all the ups and downs and a lot of bullshit we go through. For some reason we're still going, we still like it.

[COMA] I know that your newest album just came out September 18th but are you already looking forward to the next CD, writing for it or anything?

[Frank] We've got ideas, we're talking about it.

[Eddie] It always seems when one comes out a month or two later we automatically start to talk about the next one as far as, maybe we could be on this label or maybe we could do this kind of song next time. We definitely talk about it.

[Frank] This one's got a lot of life tho. We plan on touring behind this record for a while, a year or two maybe.

[Eddie] We the kind of band that despite, we've had a lot of good reviews and of course some bad and we're still too proud, we fight for it as long as we can. We really like the record so we're gonna keep it going, we're gonna milk it for a while.

[COMA] How is the transition from Epitaph to Victory records been so far?

[Frank] Well, the transition happened four, five years ago maybe?

[Eddie] I think 2002.

[Frank] Yeah, It was very easy for us. At that time we didn't really want to go through the trouble of having to send demos to labels so we figured we could probably get signed off the history of our band and our name alone and that's what happened. We contacted the guys from Victory and we were like, "Hey, we just got off this stint with Epitaph, sold some records obviously, times have changed a little bit over there and we're looking for a new home." At that time Victory was starting to prove successful with a lot of bands but they are known more or less as a hardcore label and I think that's the only thing that has really worked against us is...

[Eddie] It's not the fact that it's a hardcore label but the fact that it kinda, they got successful with all the emo kind of stuff and then you throw us in the mix and it's kinda like, "What do we do with these guys?" but they worked their ass off and they tried for us but at times it's like, "Man, we're on a label that doesn't really suit the genre." and on top of that it's an uphill battle just to be a ska type band in this day and age. It's never the trendy music, especially the kind that we play cause we do hardcore with it. So, it seems like that adds a factor too but the transition was good with them and...

[Frank] We're un-marketable!

[Eddie] Basically we're unfashionable but we've always been unfashionable but somehow we've managed to tour, get by and pay our bills and have a good tile so that's what counts. And we get to make a record, that being first. The whole point is, Tony (Brummel), the main guy ahs always done good by us. There's a lot of horror stories about the label and you hear stuff here and there but he's always been fair seems like.

[Frank] We're a straight up band, we don't have managers and stuff like that. We do it all ourselves, I think people respect you when you handle your own business and after this long you're still doing it yourself. It shows a lot of dedication and heart and people see through all the business crap, when you're talking face to face with somebody it means a lot to a lot of people still, there's a lot to be said for that.

[COMA] With all the influences of modern music, has any of it influenced your sound?

[Frank] I think this is a question for Jorge so he can talk.

[Jorge] I wasn't even listening to the question.

[Frank] Jorge is too high.

[Jorge] No, I just wasn't listening to the question.

[COMA] With all the influences of modern music, has any of it influenced your sound at all?

[Jorge] A little bit. I don't really listen to radio or anything lie that. Depends on what you want to call "modern music". The only way I think modern music would influence us is maybe some of the nu-metal stuff. As far as punk goes I don't really see to many new bands that we're in love with that much.

[Frank] Seems like modern music these days is watered down and Hot-Topiced out.

[Jorge] I don't really pay attention to that scene cause it's not my world so...

[Eddie] It's inevitable if you're just around it of course, you hear it, you listen to it, all that stuff. I've heard songs that I've been like, "Wow, that's catchy." but you kind of end up tuning that stuff out a lot.

[COMA] Has there been anything that you guys havant accomplished yet that you would still like to accomplish?

[Frank] Well, it would be nice to, I think we've come close with a couple of our records and we don't even know it but it would be nice to establish a...

[Eddie] Trust fund for my grand kids.

[Frank] No, no. It would be nice to sell a gold record or something and just be able to say you did it on your level and your standards, in our punk rock ethic and standards of doing things.

[Eddie] That stuff just doesn't happen these days with DIY.

[Frank] It's been known to happen, we've come close I think with our Firme record and Who is, This is? record.

[Eddie] But what's happening with the music business and CD sales down every year now because of downloads, that stuff is just less likely to happen. That was probably a goal for a while or a pipe dream.

[Frank] We've accomplished a lot of goals, touring all over the world, going to places we never thought we would go...

[Eddie] It seem like in a lot of ways we're kinda satisfied of at least I am cause we've done cool shit man and we've gotten to travel. We've been on big shows and know what it's like to play a big stage and I guess the only thing we don't know really is what it's like to be..

[Frank] Wealthy.

[Eddie] Yeah, like a wealthy superstar and that's probably it which of course is a big goal for a lot of people and don't get me wrong, paying your bills is awesome and buying a car is cool and a house and blah blah blah but we've kinda been lucky cause we've gotten to do most of the cool stuff you'd want to do I think.

[COMA] As far as touring goes, what's your favorite country you've been to?

[Frank] Mexico's always awesome, just the vibe there, you go to Mexico and it's a different feeling.

[Eddie] Japan, Japan was amazing.

[Frank] We haven't gone in a while but it's been amazing there. Europe is always good, France is always good for us, London's always good.

[Eddie] There are so many places man, there's so many cool stops.

[Frank] Just being able to go somewhere else outside of the U.S. and know that your music got you there is a great feeling and knowing that people are there to see your band play these songs you wrote when you were going through a hard time, you share it with people.

[Eddie] We're a punk band, it's a good feeling when a pit breaks out to one of your songs and it happens immediately and it's like, "These people act crazy and go nuts." that's probably the best feeling. No matter how the show is, when that happens it's like, "Damn, they're into it that much to beat the fuck out of each other."

[COMA] You guys haven't released a video as far as I can tell since "Steady as She Goes", do you have any plans for any new videos?

[Frank] We actually just did two for the new record and they are posted on the Internet right now. We did one for "The Ballad of Froggy McNasty" which is actually a guy from Portugal, a fan, e-mailed us and was interested in doing a video. He's a claymation guy and he did this claymation video made with trash that he found on the streets and it's really cool.

[Eddie] Plywood and...

[Frank] Plaster of Paris...

[Eddie] He did a great job, it looks really good.

[Frank] It looks cool and then we just did another video for "Fire in the Dancehall" which is another song we have.

[Eddie] It's a performance video, the band playing in front of an audience.

[Frank] So we just did those two videos before we left on this tour and they're just now starting to get passed around the web. You can YouTube it, our website or our MySpace page has it on there so...

[Eddie] Check 'em out.

[Frank] Yeah, we're very proud of them actually, we're stoked to have two new videos right out of the box.

[Eddie] It's cool cause they're probably the two best videos we've done. We've never been a band that has mastered or tried to master the whole video thing but that's a big deal now, we never really thought about it, we've just been playing clubs and working on CDs. So, now it seems to we've finally got some videos that are doing us a little more justice as far as what we want people to see.

[COMA] You guys have a record store, a recording studio and a record label, do you have time for anything else?

[Frank] Well, we had. Record store, no longer, that was a six or seven year run. Record label, same thing, that was a different time period. Studio, it's pretty much Eddie has his own studio out of his home where we've recorded our last three records.

[Eddie] We just decided to buy gear and I started to buy gear at first with help from the band. We just bought some small gear to start off and to experiment. A little mixing board and speakers and a little recorder then I went with it and started to put some serious money into it and try to make it pro. Now it's to the point where we can do our own records at least and make them sound credible.

[Frank] Yeah, we've tried a lot of different punk rock business ventures and actually they worked out pretty good but just like anything else you need to focus all your time and energy into that one thing and when we've got three different things going on, the reason we had that was because of the band so you have to make a decision and go, "well, what are we gonna concentrate on the most?" The band for us is...

[Eddie] It seems this is the only thing that we really haven't flaked on. You can flake on little side projects, it's easy to do that, but this is the only thing that we haven't blatantly flaked on. For some reason we've always dedicated the most to this, this is what we do.

[COMA] Which album has been the hardest for the band as a whole to get through completing?

[Frank] I would say Firme. It was probably for us the most challenging cause everyone was looking at it with high expectations for us, it was our first record on Epitaph during the height of their big splurge of success they were having with a bunch of bands.

[Eddie] That was right after The Offspring and all that stuff.

[Jorge] Working with a big producer too, it makes you feel like you're under a microscope.

[Frank] We took a long time doing the record...

[Eddie] and they had to bring in some special engineers to work on mixing at the end of the record to get it done on time. That kind of stuff went down so it was the most pressure which made it a little difficult but that was some good tomes man, we got to live fat off the Epitaph dime for a while which was cool because it was like being on a major (label) almost. We got to see some benefits of being, having some money thrown at you. so, it helped us.

[COMA] With all the tours you've been on over the years what are some of your most memorable tour moments?

[Frank] There's several. Too many to...

[Eddie] We've done weird, we've done stupid shit. We played naked a couple times...

[Frank] Joey Ramone, before he passed away, hanging out with us backstage I'd say was probably one of the coolest for us.

[Eddie] It was him and his nurse, he was already sick, he was friends with a support band that we were friends with that was on tour. He was their manager of this band called The Independents. He came to the show and was back stage at the Troubador in Hollywood. We've done some big festivals over in Europe playing this huge stage...

[Frank] We shared the stage with Slayer and Pet Shop Boys are playing the other stage, that kind of stuff.

[COMA] What is the significance of recording a cover song on each album?

[Frank] It's just basically having fun. We're music fans too. I think that's all it is, we grew up listening to a lot of traditional '50s music and stuff like that.

[Eddie] We used to have the soundtrack to Happy Days.

[Frank] Funny Bone Favorites which was a bunch of goofy songs.

[Jorge] We got a lot of our covers off that one.

[Frank] The Coasters and all these bands that...

[Eddie] That's where we got the "Charlie Brown" cover.

[Frank] All these cool bands like Sam the Shaman, The Pharos that we think were the Voodoo Glow Skulls of their day. Kinda like a nutty, no limit, just going with the music.

[Eddie] And that's our biggest influence too, we fail to say it sometimes but thinking about it now, we're more influenced by all that '50s and '60s black soul weird groups that were doing a weird mixture of, I couldn't tell what it was.

[Jorge] I think the new record is the only one where we didn't do a cover.

[Frank] This record we took a little bit of a turn with it, we didn't do a song in Spanish or a cover.

[Eddie] We purposely did that stuff. We were going to do a cover but we didn't think we had a good idea for one so we thought, "Well, let's just make our record for once." Hence the name of the album and everything, it makes sense to do our own thing on this one, leave somebody else's song out.

[COMA] That's all the questions we've got, anything else you'd like to say?

[Frank] The usual, check out our new record, Southern California Street Music, it's on Victory records, and come to the shows. That's the final frontier, you can download music, you can check out videos on the web now but you can't duplicate the feeling of being in front of a band and checking them out live.

[Eddie] You can't duplicate getting spit on by the band, by accident.

[Frank] Feeling the rock in your face.

[Eddie] And beer hitting you, getting punched in the gut and the stench of sweaty nuts. You can't duplicate that.

Vooodoo Glow Skulls' newest album Southern California Street Music is out now.
Visit the Vooodoo Glow Skulls' official website at voodooglowskulls.com

Related Content:
Audio Interview
Live Photos
Music Videos