Vintage Interview: The Ataris in Longview, Texas circa 1999. Interview about Hotel fireworks shenanigans.

What can I say looking back at this all those years ago? Some cool stories, but I was still figuring out what and how to do interviews and make them interesting. You can see some of the out of the box ideas like, “What kind of video game would the Atari’s be?” And things like that.

I do remember Kris being very kind to us, and I really remember leaving this chat enthused. I also stole Kris’ Porn Star T-shirt. I later tried to give it back to him some 10-15 years later and he politely declined it and we had a good laugh about my dumb ass fanboy stealing clothes right off a touring musician’s back (or in this case the sweat soaked shirt was left on the table where we had our chat.)

Photos also by Damian, who never really did master how to be a concert photographer.

I had the chance to see The Ataris, back in August of ’99, when they opened for Good Riddance at the Galaxy Club in Dallas. I was impressed by their show. I was surprised to learn of their chance coming to Longview, Texas and I jumped at the chance to interview Kris after the show. Currently the band is signed to Kung Fu records with two releases, “…Anywhere but here,” and “Blue Skies, Broken Hearts … Next 12 Exits.” They also have an EP out on Fat Wreck Chords, “Look Forward to Failure.”
-Damian–

Damian: So Kris. How many times have you had your heart broken?
Kris: Hmm… About four times that really mattered.

Damian: It seems every song on the new album is about a girl. Any particular reason why?
Kris: I wrote most of those songs over like a couple year period and I was going through a lot of changes in my life. I think that it was basically that the record was a transition from like moving from one place to another and getting over past things and trying to move along with my life. There were a lot of things I left behind when I moved.

Damian: SO, How is your relationship with Kung Fu Records?
Kris: We can’t complain too much. They definitely got us to where we are today as far as they helped me start and move out to California and get our first record out. You know we basically did all the other work ourselves. Went out and toured ourselves. We fuckin played shows for five people across the country a couple of times and once we put out the EP on Fat, that boosted our sales a ton and Fat Mike was kind of responsible for the ripple effect of us actually starting to blow up a little. So I give Kung Fu some credit and I give Fat some credit. Now the only problem we have with Kung Fu is that kids are telling us theat they can not find our records on Kung Fu, but they can find the one on Fat. So we’re working with Kung Fu. We’re trying to make the best of this situation. We’re doing fairly well as it is. We want to keep eye to eye with our label.

Damian: Now I heard you guys were suppose to do a full length on Fat, but something happened with the EP and Fat canned ya’ll.
Kris: Nope. That’s completely false. We never had any kind of intentions of doing a full length on Fat. We have one more record on Kung Fu and weather or not what we do after that is unknown. We’d like to do a full length on Fat after that and I’m sure that it would probably work out but that is sooo far away. I’ve got the whole new record written and we probably won’t record. We’ll just be touring for the next year, I’m sure. We’re probably going to go to Europe and tour and probably Australia and come back for another U.S. tour. Then we’ll probably record. So our next record probably won’t come out till 2001 at this fucking pace.

Damian: Now I saw you guys play with Good Riddance in Dallas, there seemed to be more of a hardcore type audience, did you feel alienates in any ways playing with them?
Kris: well you know some crowds are hit and misses. All the other shows we played with the Good Riddance have been excellent. We’ve done a lot of shows with them. Same way with a lot of other bands. We’ve toured a lot with The Vandals, We’ve toured a lot with Lagwagon, A lot with the faster Fat style punk bands or whatever they tend to draw a more punk, you know, whatever type of audience. And We’ve grown on people like that. Its like we can’t win every audience over. We just take the good with the bad and try to make the best of every situation. If one guy is being a fucking chump, that’s fine. Let him be. In the end, we’re still gonna have a good time.

Damian: So how have you evolved as a sing writer since the first album?
Kris: I think that when I recorded most of the first record I recorded it probably from like sixteen till, actually fifteen till nineteen or something and during that period most of my musical tastes were pretty standard. I didn’t branch out and listen to a lot of variety. I was pretty Ramones, The Queers, Decedents, The Misfits. That stuffs all pretty good. Now I listen to such a wide variety of things that I’m influenced by so many different types of music and so many different types of bands. That’s definitely helped my song writing as a hole and also learning stuff from being in the studio with different people. Working with Joey Cape in the studio was a hole big learning experience. That guy is one of my best friends and I totally respect him as a song writer. He’s given me a lot of tips and suggestions. The same with the guys from the Decedents and All. They helped me out a lot, too. The more we’ve played shows and developed as a band, the better my song writing and singing got. That’s the thing with the first record, we didn’t have time to develop as a band. We just kind of recorded the record and went out and started playing shows. So it was kind of a record before a band. And now its like we’ve been playing for about two years now.

Damian: So there is a new line up for the new album right?
Kris: Yea, we’ve had this line up for about two – two and a half years. Except one guitar change, Marco our guitar player now, he was in our band when this line up formed as a four piece. He didn’t want to record with us because he had other things he was doing at the time. So we got our friend Pat, who is on the record. Then it came time to do a big tour and Pat didn’t want to tour. So we asked Marco if he wanted to come back and play. So Marco got back in the band. So that’s basically how our line up has been for the last two and two a half years. Now our old line up was me, our drummer Derrik, our old drummer Derrik, he’s from Lagwagon and this other guy named Jason and that line up lasted about six months. The line up basically never was the Ataris, to me. The Ataris began when this band [line up] started.

Damian: So were are ya’ll heading next from here?
Kris: Oklahoma.

Squeek: Where at?
Kris: Oklahoma City.

Damian: were did ya’ll come from? You said you drove a long way to get here.
Kris: St. Louis.

Damian: Was it worth it?
Kris: Yea. It was a great show.

Squeek: So you enjoying the tour so far?
Kris: Every show has been excellent. There were a couple of days in Ohio that were the promoters fault. They didn’t promote the shows really well. They were definitely some of the smaller shows on the tour, but I really can’t complain. No this was a good crowd.

Squeek: No, this place usually doesn’t have, but 10 people in here and the never sing along.
Kris: That’s the biggest payback is that kids sing your songs. Everyone be apart of the show. Its awesome. You should have seen us the first week of the tour. We were just like, “Man, we’re gonna eat shit sooo bad! We’re gonna go out and there is going to be like five kids there at every show. Its going to be so lame. No one is going to know our songs, we’re gonna loose our ass. We’re gonna go home fucking broke, not be able to pay our rent. Nuh uh. Exactly the opposite. “What the Fuck!” It totally, I mean 110% surprised us. We didn’t have any clue that we would do this fucking well. We were completely honored that we could do this. Its made my fucking life.

Damian: Is your family supportive of your stuff?
Kris: 100%!

Damian: So if the Ataris, your band, was a video game, what would you do?
Kris: What would we do? Probably drive around in a little van, get lost all the time and try to scam on chicks and like, I don’t know. See how many things you can do to impress a girl and be a bunch of drunk bastards, running around, getting into trouble and blowing up hotel rooms with fire works. Something like that. Playing music and making friends, gaining fans and whatever.

Damian: It sounds like you have a story there. You set a hotel room on fire with fireworks before?
Kris: A few times.

Damian: A few times? Can you tell us about that?
Kris: This is the longest story in the fucking world. So I’m gonna totally downsize it. It was two years ago, our first tour with MxPx and we played this small town in California and after the show it was out first time to really hang out with them. They had always been a band I really admired I really wanted to. “Hey, you know lets go hang out and get a hotel and hang out and party.” So we did that and as usual, I’m not racist at all, but there is always the typical middle-eastern/Indian desk clerk guy. The guy was very kind to us when we checked in and he made it a point to say, [Using his best Apu, from the Simpson’s, voice] “No parties! You can not throw party tonight!” And I was like “Okay, sure. Hey, you guys got a pool?” [Apu:] “The pool is closed! The pool is closed! The pool is off limits! Do not get in the pool!” “Okay” So the first thing we do, is we’ve got a bunch of booze, put all the furniture in the room, out into the courtyard, climbed the fence, get in the pool. We’re drinking Jack in the pool or Cisco in the pool or whirlpool or whatever the fuck. Then this guy walks out in this turban. Like ten minutes later and [Apu:] “Get out of the pool! Get out of the pool or I call the cops. Go back in your room.” So we’re all like, “Aww, man!” So we go back and we still got all the furniture out in the courtyard. He didn’t see that, and we’re totally getting wasted and Marco, our old bass player, and he was in our band for a little while. Just a tour. He decides to throw this bottle up against the wall and it shatters. He’s like, “Check it out.” I’m like, “Oh its pretty rad.” I’m pouring Cisco all over Derrik our drummer and he’s running around naked with a towel on his head. And then MxPx, their lead singer is running around with a lamp shade on his head. Their like, “NO! Check this out!” Trying to top it. So I pulled some fireworks out of my bag. I lit one and I tossed it in the room! Its spinning, buzzing, on the ground. Big multicolored fucking fireworks and its like burning holes in the rug. Then the rug catches on fire. I’m stomping it out. Everyone is cracking up laughing. All of a sudden smoke alarms go off and I’m like, “Oh, Shit!” I try to grab the nearest pole or coat hangers or something, to knock the fire alarm out of the ceiling. Then this fucking sprinkler system is going off through out the entire hallway. I’m like, “What the fuck! This sucks!” So I yank it out and the power goes out in the entire wing. What the fuck do you do? So we pull all the furniture in, Shit the patio doors. They go to their room and we go to our room and we totally don’t surface till the next morning. I even left shit out. We were scattering tortilla chips throughout the hallway, the roadie for MxPx was like running around naked peeing in the hallway. Showing his multi-piercings off. So the next morning MxPx was like, “Okay dude, we’re gonna leave.” I was like, “Oh yea? Did you guys go checkout?” “We paid on a credit card.” “Oh fuck.” No wait they paid in cash. Well WE paid on a credit card. So we’re fucked. We’ve got to go and checkout. So we’re like, “All right we’ll catch up with you guys.” So we all basically have to flip coins to see who is going to go down to the guy or whoever is there and checkout. So its me and out drummer, Derrik. He decided to go. Derrik, he’s a really different kind of guy. He’s like totally the most funny character. As soon as we walk in we see this guy. The guy is STILL there. Same guy. I was like there is no way in hell. It can’t be the same guy. The guy must live there or something. He’s got his back turned to us, shuffling some papers. I’m going, ” Oh fuck.” and Derrik, Just like totally funny, he doesn’t give a fuck. He goes up to ring the bell and goes BING! and fucking rings the bell as hard as he can. He’s like, “Hey guy!”The guy is like, [Apu voice:] Why? Why you do this? Twenty-four complaints, broken glass…. WHY?!?” He’s totally frustrated. [Apu:] “After all my years as hotel desk clerk, I have never seen such activity! You just go! Get out of here right now!” He’s crying, I’m like, “Fuck, we just ruined this guy. So that was it. Fun.

Damian: Did you have to pay?
Kris: It was on Derrik’s credit card. I’m sure he got the bill. There’s been a few other times, but that was the first one. We’ve got plenty of fireworks for tonight….