Have You Guys Got the Internet Over Here?

A brief interview with Drive Like Jehu (1994 / 2016)

 Drive Like Jehu at the Charlotte, Leicester - 1994 © neatephotos.com

The opportunity to see Drive Like Jehu play live at any time would have been close to being essential. In late 1994, it could hardly have been more timely, as the enigmatic melodic hardcore four piece from San Diego toured the UK with Yank Crime, the second of their two legendary albums. Within a year they effectively disbanded and their charismatic guitarist, John Reis, became better known as 'Speedo', the frontman of the flamboyant, good-time, rock & roll review band, Rocket From the Crypt. The sense that an era might well have been ending would later be emphasised within the title of the 2014 documentary film, It’s Gonna Blow!!! San Diego’s Music Underground 1986-1996.

Reis and singer/guitarist Rick Froberg would later resume their musical alliance between 1999 and 2005 in the just as vital but more direct, Hot Snakes, whose live set referenced a shared history (one that predated Drive Like Jehu in their earlier band, Pitchfork) with the inclusion of Luau from Yank Crime. However, it wasn’t until 2014 that Drive Like Jehu reformed and in a gesture of civic support towards their Californian home town, played their first show in nearly 20 years accompanied by the world's largest outdoor pipe organ.

Back in 1991, it was through the portal of John Peel’s radio show that I’d first heard and recorded individual songs from Drive Like Jehu, the band’s self-titled first album. While the immediacy of the dynamic, jagged guitars on songs like Good Luck in Jail and O Pencil Sharp was thrillingly apparent, the chopping and syncopation of Mike Kennedy's bass and Mark Trombino's drums completed song arrangements that were filled with palpable tension and sheer release. And when all parts converged and galloped with barely contained abandon - as on Bullet Train to Vegas, a 7” single released between their two albums - it made for a breathtaking, breakneck ride. 

Intertwined with this startling musicianship were the simply worded but evocative lyrics of Froberg, a man who was just as able at delivering a scream with remarkable precision. Comprehension of the lyrics wasn’t always necessary to appreciate their intensity but within Froberg's words there was often an existential black humour as typified on Atom Jack;     

Yeah, you should be happy to see me 

be glad that I'm not dead. 

I took your bullet, anyone notice? 

No one was thrilled to see me again.

***

As a student in Leicester in the early 90s, I distracted myself by photographing gigs and had previously made a collage based fanzine, Quality Time. While the photography came naturally, my experience as a writer was painfully laboured and even more so as an interviewer. Still on the night that Drive Like Jehu played our local pub venue, the Charlotte, as well as packing a camera, I brought along a tape recorder as... well, you never know.

In keeping with the irresistible intensity of the songs from both albums, the gig was always going to be an energy-charged experience. Filled with enthusiasm afterwards, I approached Reis as he packed away their gear about the possibility of an interview. Unexpectedly selfless, he advised that I ask Froberg, who was alone in the Charlotte’s upstairs dressing room and graciously agreed with minimal negotiation only minutes after the show's ending.

If only I had prepared something intelligible! In my desire to seek more than a mundane account of the band’s history, I suggested trying something creative using what I could remember of Froberg’s lyrics to create a chain of words for use in a future collage-based feature. After patiently hearing my proposal, the singer politely, and not unreasonably, declined stating that he preferred conversations.  

Fifteen minutes later when the interview ended, I knew I had made an excruciating embarrassment of myself; so much so that I dared not to transcribe the cassette, let alone play it back. Yet, despite my fear, I knew that there was one potentially significant exchange that was worth retrieving. 

Rick Froberg, Drive Like Jehu at the Charlotte, Leicester -1994 © neatephotos.com 

Thus, if Drive Like Jehu could reform over 20 years later, the least I could do would be to listen to my 23 year old self and find out what that was. Somehow within my floundering performance, I unwittingly asked a question that in hindsight prompted a revealing answer from Froberg about how our world was on the verge of being transformed. That question had been grasped from the title of Yank Crime's second song, Do You Compute, from which I then asked the singer about his view on computers and technology. 

Rick Froberg: I guess I'm a technophobe or something like that. I worked at several art-based jobs where all the stuff that was done manually is now done with computers. I don't like computers that much but I figure that I probably have to learn to use one. There are some really cool things. Have you heard of the internet? Have you guys got the internet over here?

I confirmed some awareness though in 1994, it was as alien to me as learning a second language - GN.

RF: The internet is amazing! Information from anywhere in the world. You can have a conversation with anyone and to see all these other conversations [going on] is amazing.

GN: Does that stuff overwhelm you?

I asked this in part from my own frustrations with computing at the time, while unaware that Froberg was an accomplished visual artist and illustrator whose work included the band's cover art  - GN.

RF: That doesn’t overwhelm me. I thinks that’s a really cool aspect of computers. [However] the idea of a perfectly good but more arcane technology being phased out in favour of the newest, hottest, digital, whatever... CDs are a good example of that. Having vinyl completely passed out in favour of CDs because that’s what the industry says is going to happen and they make happen, just pisses me off. I think records sounds better. I like big art work and all the stuff that comes along with putting a record on a turntable.

If you look at any magazine [now], they’re all done digital on a computer screen. When I worked for a skateboarding magazine four years ago, we did it all by hand. There’s little things wrong with it but it’s just better to do things with your hands. You can do things faster with a computer and more efficient but what’s the hurry? I don’t understand what the hurry is? Everyone wants things to look perfect and clean and sterilised or something.

***

Such a sentiment could well have described the mindset that I wanted to bring to my cut and paste fanzine and though I had dared not to go back to my recorded interview, Froberg's answers would have suited my zine's second issue when it went to print two years later.

In 2016, Drive Like Jehu had their own car crash moment in April when their curated three day festival for All Tomorrow's Parties - which was to feature their first post-reunion appearance in the UK, alongside Hot Snakes and Rocket From the Crypt - was cancelled with less than a week's notice. As disappointing a blow as that was for all involved, in a sign of the times that was unimaginable a generation ago, the band stole a march on the tight lipped organisers by confirming the news in a memorable social media post that described their situation as a "uniquely cruel hoax".

Two months and one almighty false start later, Drive Like Jehu played their first shows in continental Europe in over 20 years and within 24 hours posted a decidedly more triumphant announcement from Primavera that could then be seen "anywhere in the world". All of which now begs the questions, just when will Drive Like Jehu appear in the UK again and will that travel bill with Hot Snakes and Rocket From the Crypt ever take place?