Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors.
A Diva is a force to be reckoned with. A powerhouse singer with an overwhelming, powerful attitude to match. A Diva is likely to get their own way, no matter what the cost. Regardless, a true diva can shape significant portions of the cultural landscape of popular music.
It’s a fitting theme for the Avengers-esque punk rock powerhouse of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. The band is known for its general infighting and party time attitude, while taking popular songs and crafting them into their own songs.
Those powerhouses who form Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have always been Joey Cape (Lagwagon) mixed with the might of Chris Shiflet (Foo Fighters/No Use For A Name) with the added prowess of drummer, Dave Raun (Lagwagon/RKL) and the almighty Fat Mike Burkett (NoFx/Fat Wreck Chords) on the bass centered around the majesty of singer, Spike Slawson.
Each generation has their own Diva to look up to and call their own. In the punk rock world we have Fat Mike.
Hours before he heads to Japan for a week-long Gimmes tour, we speak with Mike from his San Francisco home. Mike sounds tired when he picks up the phone and explains that he had spent the day at the beach riding bikes with his daughters. What we get is a Fat Mike who is very open and honest about his feelings towards the project, the newest album and his past feeling about Divas.
In my head I associate Divas with the 70’s. You grew up in the 70’s, and do you have any memories of the then Divas scene?
Well, My mom and my dad divorced when I was four. They only had two records. They weren’t music listeners. They just had a stereo and when they had people over, they would put on a couple of records. They only had two. One was Barbara Streisand. I grew up with very little music in the house. I knew Second Hand Rose by Streisand for sure. That’s not why we did Divas. We like to come up with a theme and this way we could play popular songs of the past five decades.
What I like about Divas is that you guys cover a little from every decade with this record. Is there something about these songs you choose?
We just listen to a bunch of the songs, and it’s surprisingly hard to do a Gimmes album. With the country album we went through about a hundred songs to get twelve good ones. People don’t really think about that. People are all the fucking time [telling me], “Hey Mike, Why don’t you do this cover? That would be a really good one!” I’m just like, “Shut up. You have no idea how hard it is to do a song that sounds good in punk rock style.”
We went through every Britney Spear song. We couldn’t find one. We couldn’t find one that was good. There is nothing for chord progressions. They are all dance songs. We tried it with Beyonce and Pink. The only Pink song we liked was the Tim Armstrong one and it’s kind of lame to do that. [Editor’s note: Rancid’s Tim Armstrong co-wrote and produced songs for Pink’s 2003 Try This album. The song “Trouble,” a Rancid outtake was reworked for Pink and won a Grammy. The song was later recorded by Tim Timebomb And Friends in 2012] It’s really hard to find good songs.
When you go in to make a record like this, do you think to yourself anything along the lines of, “What would Celine Dion do?”
Yeah, we don’t take it that seriously. We just try to get through it. What’s cool about the Gimmes now, we get to record at the Foo Fighters studio for free. They have a HUGE awesome studio now, the 606. It’s with the board from that movie, Sound City, came from. So we go there, hang out and go over songs. We just try to knock them out. So we’re not really thinking. I was wasted the whole time. Joey [Cape from Lagwagon] wasn’t there. We don’t really like recording with Joey. We argue too much. He comes in and does his parts, but he is on his own.
What are the tours like? All you guys have such big personalities, how do those personalities fit on the same bus?
We have a good time. We are all interchangeable, which is kind of cool. We’ve done tours without everybody, well everybody except for Spike. Spike is the only person that we really need. It’s just easier that way. Chris [Shiflet] is in the Foo Fighters. He only plays three or four shows with us a year. His brother [Scott Shiflet, also of Face To Face] plays with us too. Brian Baker [Minor Threat & Bad Religion] has been in the Gimmes and Warren [Fitzgerald] from The Vandals has been in the Gimmes. Some people from RKL [Rich Kids on LSD] and some people from Screw 32. Nowadays if we are going to replace any of us, we have to replace them with somebody who is kind of popular.
Do you get jealous when these people are out on the road in place of you?
Oh no, not at all. I’m busy doing other stuff. I was kind of bummed that this last European tour was our most successful tour ever. So that was kind of a bummer. It’s nice to know that after twenty or so years, our tours are bigger than they ever have been before.
Are the tours bigger thanks to the internet making you guys more accessible?
I don’t know if it’s the internet. The internet doesn’t help some bands, and it hurts other bands. The Gimme Gimmes are one of those bands that nobody loves, but everybody likes. The longer we’ve been around, more people will like us. Our bar back catalog is probably the best back catalog on Fat Wreck Chords. People are always playing our records and people are always hearing us. So maybe it’s the internet, but I don’t know. We don’t do that much on the internet.
What about Boy George, and the cover of Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon?” How does it fit into your Divas theme?
It’s a great song. He pretty much acted like a Diva his whole career. He became more famous; WAY MORE FAMOUS than the band. He’s got his own, for real, dolls. He’s a diva! Who the fuck knows where the other guys in the band went, right? So I think he qualifies. And he dresses like a girl.
The Carpenters “Top of The World” is an interesting choice for the album, as is Donna Summer’s “On the Radio.”
Yeah, [Karen Carpenter] wasn’t really a Diva either, but we really liked that song. She was a popular singer. The other one, [On The Radio], was alright.
I think the Celine Dion song is the funniest. That song is just not very good. We did it anyway. We wanted to include Celine.
I love the cover of “I Will Always Love You.” It seems to both pay tribute to both the Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton versions of the songs.
Yes! Yes, it does! It was a twofer! Two credits for that one.
Is it daunting to take a song that is so universally well known from two different artists and throw your own spin on it?
No. Oh no no. It’s not very hard for the Gimmes to make all these songs better. Punk rock is better than other styles of music. Thank god we have a great singer. If you take a good song and you do it well, it’s not hard to outdo it. You can’t cover an AC/DC song and do it better. You can’t do it. You can take a Barry Manilow song and make it better. That’s the whole idea behind the Gimmes. We’re not going to take great rock songs and try to make them more rocking. You can take shitty pop songs and certainly make them better.
On that subject, I really enjoy the Gimmes version of “Crazy For You,” by Madonna; better than the original version. I know you guys have pissed off artists such as The Eagles, but have you met anyone who likes a Gimmes version better than their own?
I know R. Kelly liked our version and gave us permission to do the video for it. But I haven’t met anyone, and I should really try harder because I know some people and I could probably meet someone.
I might be reading too much into this, but with songs such as “I Will Survive,” “My Heart Will Go On,” and “I Will Always Love You,” my first instinct was that this album was a way of dealing with the death of No Use For a Name singer, Tony Sly.
No! You are totally reading into it too much. I like that, but that’s the whole thing with the Gimmes, we don’t put a whole lot into anything. That’s the beauty behind it. We have a band that we like, and we don’t have to write songs for. We don’t have to try very hard and obviously we don’t.
You’ve got to try a little bit right? The albums come out great and people around the world love the band.
There is a secret to it. The secret is that we pick good songs and we have a great singer. If you listen to a lot of the records, the production isn’t that good. It’s sloppy. We don’t rehearse. With our past few records we didn’t even rehearse. We just went into the studio, find a song, work on it for an hour or two and record it. So no. We don’t try very hard. We had a t-shirt that said: “Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. We don’t try very hard.” So sure, I think we’re good, but I don’t think it is because of our effort. I think it is because we know how to pick good songs, and that Spike is great! You need a good singer. With punk rock bands there are so few good singers. There really is a very few. Especially with bands that are big. Bad Religion is it. If you look at all the other punk bands, the singers kind of suck, me included. NoFx, Dropkick Murphys, Rancid, AFI, Blink 182; Are you serious? They can’t sing. We can sing our melodies, but try singing an Elton John song. Fuck. No way.
Spike has his own cover side project with UKE HUNT. Do you see Spike breaking out on his own, or are the Gimmes his mainstay?
I think Gimmes will still stay with his band, but he wants to travel and tour all around the world, a lot. The rest of us are all in other successful bands. We can’t tour as much as he wants to. So Uke Hunt gives him a chance to do that.
Where will this new album take the Gimmes in the next year?
They just did Europe. We just did California. Tomorrow we are going to Japan. Then I’m doing stuff with NoFx. I think we might do Riot Fest. We don’t tour very much. I party too much. I can’t tour.
In 2017 The Gimmes will be celebrating 20 years. Do you have anything in the works yet for this momentous occasion?
No, we were just discussing the other day what our next theme was going to be. Once again we just started arguing with Joey. Well, It was Me, Spike and Joey. We’re the arguers. It’s funny. We started this band because we were all friends and we wanted to start a band that we wouldn’t stress out about. I argue more with the Gimme Gimmes twenty times more than with NoFx. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
