Just a Fire roll high : An Interview with Fred Erskine

If you mention Fred Erskine to any notable nerd of the 90’s forward rock and roll scene, you’ll likely see their eyes go wide. Hoover, June of 44, Crownhate Ruin, Freddie T & the People, Just A Fire. Everyone has their favorite arc, but just like Kerosene 454, Brainiac, Hot Snakes, they’re bands that all your favorite artists love.

I was so surprised to see their name on the bill for “Several States” festival, held at Ramova Theatre alongside Hey Mercedes, Exit Angles, Ethel Meserve, I panic messaged guitar player Chris Daly (ex Sweep the Leg Johnny / Haymarket Riot). “Some dudes from southern Illinois took our name. Just found out” he said jokingly. How rude! I sat down with Fred Erskine and Chris Daly for a chat after their blistering 4:20PM set.

TWU : “Fred! I love you, man. My brother used to write about your bands in notebooks with the likes of Shiner and Don Caballero. We grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, by Green Bay. My first show (at Concert Cafe) was forced upon him from my mom. She was basically like “get this asshole out of the house, bring him to your show.” and it was the Blue Meanies. After that he brought me to a Sweep the Leg Johnny gig in Madison. It was the first time I smoked good weed. Out of a bong no less. Chris threw his guitar around my neck and made me play “Bloodlines” and that was that

CD : If I can’t play it someone else has to play it. I want to earn the big bucks because someone else plays my guitar. Tony (Blue Meanies) could have done it, but he’s not gonna find the part

TWU : The first question is actually from my brother : where the hell have you been?

FE : We just played a Just A Fire gig. You saw it! I’ve been in Indiana, but I’ve been coming back here. Sorry if I didn’t call you. I’m slipping in the shadows of Indiana and Chicago. You need to know where to look. I had a band in Indiana called Freddie T and the People, we came up here and played a couple of times. We played at the Hideout. What was the other one that (Brian) Peterson had? He went in there and just said “let me do shows here”. The owner didn’t care as long as people were there. (random chatter about Burlington, old venues, and Chicago street layouts)

TWU : Was there a catalyst to this?

FE : I got contacted by my buddy TiTi from Spain last summer, and he said the 35th anniversary of B Core Records was coming up, and the owner, Jordi has been really busy. He has some health problems, but we wanted to do something special for him and put together this festival, and we’ll tell him about it as it comes together. Basically, every 5 years they do one. We’re going to get you involved. Just as it happens, Scotty had just moved back to Chicago, and these guys keep texting me asking what’s going on. Coincidentally, we’ve been hanging out. I asked Chris if he wanted to shoot some riffs out, and we did it, then like a week later, it’s like “dudes, whip this shit out” This guy Jordi came to the U.S. like 30 years ago, essentially as a diplomat, like, he was a big fan of bands like outs doing stuff in the 90’s. He said he wanted to meet us, and that he has a record label and was booking shows. He wanted to bring all these cool bands that he liked to Barcelona. A great scene captain, and ambassador for things he loved from the states. So he did. He made it all happen.

He came over to DC when I met him and he stayed with the Kerosene (454) guys, who were good buds of mine back then, still are. So we just showed them around town. They bought a bunch of record, bought some guitars, brought them back. So this is a relationship that started way back then, and it his scene there became something that felt like Chicago, or D.C. … really familiar. We built a family over there. We made friends with some of the guys from Aina, and started building a broader community there. Out of all the places we’ve gone to Europe, that’s been a place that feels like a home base. So they reached out to us about this 35th anniversary, and we hadn’t played in like 20 years, but we were just like “fuck yeah, let’s do it” and the first night we’re like “dude, this is cool” and like even the show last night, we have fun playing together. If we have a shitty show, it doesn’t matter. Back in the day we’d get all stressed out.

TWU : You’re also not playing 25 shows in a row

FE : I couldn’t do it now. I don’t want to. Our personalities are more adaptable too. We’re able to make mistakes on stage and not take it serious. Just regroup and kick off the next piece, and it’s fine. It’s just the three of us being back to it. Less variable, you know? (random chatter about them fucking up their parts anyways)

TWU : Do you still play the trumpet? Was that you on the Just A Fire record?

FE : Yeah, I started playing in High School. I guess I never got rid of it. We were doing the Hoover “Lurid” record and the guys thought it’d be cool on this part. It’d been six or seven. years, can’t remember. At the time I was probably like nineteen or twenty. It comes out of nowhere, and suddenly…I did that first June of 44 record, and those guys were like “oh you have a trumpet, let’s do a thing on this part”. I barely play it now. I’d love to take lessons and get good at it. It’s fun. I love that instrument.

Fred Erskine / Chris Daly

TWU : What made you want to do all of this in the first place?

FE : It makes no sense when I tell you this, but this guy Jeff Heater…. I don’t know if he was playing in a band or I was like 14 years old or whatever, but this dude Carnaby, a guitar player. I was living in Omaha at the time. He’s like, “We’ve been playing. We thought it’d be cool if you sang for us”, and I mean…it wasn’t like I just knew him from school band or whatever, we’ve already been listening to some weird shit. They decided I was the personality to sing. I’d never done it before. I went over there and they were like “here’s two songs” and the first was “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2. We’re talking 1985 in Omaha. Jesus Christ. Then it was “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme” by Black Flag, oh wait, and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” those are the first three songs we loved. This is 1985. Holy fuck. You don’t even know where to play, but you just want to do something. Then we started writing aggressive skate punk kinds of songs, you know?

TWU : How did that form into Hoover? Did you ever record it?

FE : We were called Distorted Views, and we were a shitty middle school band, and then high school band. That’s the best shit. I had a couple shittier high school bands after that. Nothing ever recorded. Lost…but the first band I had recorded when I was a senior and about to leave for D.C. at seventeen, I had this band called Hangman. We recorded a single of emo hardcore songs in like 1989. When I got to D.C. they were like “oh yeah, we’re putting out this record” and we changed the name of the band to Forbearance. It was the excitement of being in a school band, just making up our own weird shit. Creative things, and I hated my band director. I thought he was a douche. It was punk rock, you know? You’re a kid in middle school, sports, coaches, band director, and you want to tell everyone to fuck off. So we’re gonna skateboard, and there’s no coaches in skateboarding. Then it’s like, you’re in a garage band, in a punk band, and there’s no coaches in that. It was an early rejection of authority, and it was fucking awesome. Freedom. You know? That’s why I wanted to do it. I had a couple weird buddies the led me down that thing and I just said fuck yeah.

TWU : Thing seem to be getting more and more difficult for artists, and life in general. Any advice for the kids?

FE : It is, yeah. I mean, it’s hard for me to know what to say to the kids because I think the music industry, the circuit, everything’s changed. When we did it, there was this underground network of phone numbers and that shit you just do. I don’t know in social media life, like, I keep hearing Scott is talking about when he lived in New York, and you know, a few years ago, just playing with people, and they’d say “oh let’s book a gig” and the promoters would say “how many Instagram followers do you have?” See, like, how do I give advice to a kid that can’t just be like “you just build it” and hopefully it’s still the same. My advice is, just go out and play, support your buds who are doing weird shit. Hopefully you’re not all playing the same stupid shit. Hopefully, each one of you have your own thing, but you should support it all. Then, if you’re in Chicago, find out the weird people in Kalamazoo, and Detroit, Milwaukee, that are doing it and start connecting with those people. Dayton, Ohio. Then build it from there. It’s a network, you know what I mean? I don’t know what the networks are like these days. I don’t have any fucking Instagram followers. If someone said Just A Fire wouldn’t have played tonight because we don’t have an Instagram page….Fuck you! I just hope you go do your own shit, support your friendships, and build it up like we did. I hope that still works. It’s a lot more difficult.

TWU : Are you struggling with anything recently?

FE : Well, you know, aside from the healthcare industry, and the cost of living stuff, I’ve been a working class dude my whole life. We make ends meet. My family is happy, but, we’re not living on a cake of money, know what I mean? We don’t know if somebody gets sick what the fuck is gonna happen to us. So yeah, I mean, that’s a problem. It’s so fiber thin, like, fuck…I don’t know man. We worry about the whole state of everything here now, you know? Shit sucks.

TWU : Have you found anything inspiring lately?

FE : There’s a lot of beautiful music coming out from young people of all ages, from all over the world, and that surprises me all the time. Great music coming out of Mexico. Every continent of this world, and that’s inspiring. I have a 20 year old, and I’m inspired about how these kids seem… resilient to all this bullshit that’s going on around us. I’m inspired by that generation.

TWU : Can we ever expect a Hoover reunion?

FE : No.

TWU : Have you seen anything punk rock lately?

FE : Okay, so there’s this band from Louisville called Fotocrime. This guy, Ryan Patterson, who’s kind of a big scene dude down there. He’s been in a bunch of bands, you know, one of those guys that has a studio, and they just help bands do all this kind of stuff. He’s a little bit younger than me, but not a young cat. He texted me last summer and said, hey, we’re gonna come play Indy. You should come see us. He texted me the address and I was like “what the fuck is this?” … it was a weird warehouse in a place of town that I’d never been to. Almost like a teen artist space. All these goth kids had their faces painted, and there were all these little cavernous rooms with artwork in every one of them. Then this band Fotocrime, at least 40 year old something dudes, played with a younger band. All these kids in their teens and twenties. It’s great. They went fucking ape shit. I just loved it. There was a smoke machine and they were all dancing. That felt punk to me. Felt like being a kid again.

TWU : How do you deal with technology overload?

FE : I like to talk. I don’t look at my phone while walking. It’s hard. It sucks. Every Sunday you get your average screen time on your phone an it’s like “I spent how many hours on this?”

TWU : Are you optimistic about the future?

FE : “We might write some more songs. Chris has a riff. Everything germinated from one seed.

CD : “One riff can write a record”

TWU : Can we a expect a new Just A Fire record?

FE : Maybe a 7”, or an EP. We’ll see…