The Suicide Machines
A conversation with Jason Navarro
(August 2005)
Interview by Adam McKibbin
Since forming in 1991, The Suicide Machines have been a steady presence on the punk rock scene, even while going through a number of lineup and label changes. Their latest, War Profiteering Is Killing Us All, is an up-tempo, unpredictable hybrid of partytime ska and political fury. The two distinct personalities of the band make even more sense when you hear frontman Jason Navarro—a founding member along with guitarist Dan Lukacinsky—talk with equal relish about jumping off hotel balconies and devouring books on economics. Checking in while piloting the band’s tour van toward Sin City, Navarro gives the impression that there will be no letup to either side.
You’ve been around for a lot of years, you’ve played a lot of tours – do you feel like a veteran now? Do you feel like you have stuff to pass on to the younger bands, or are you still figuring it all out?
It’s definitely a process – you keep figuring shit out and making mistakes. But, yeah, we definitely have been through the fucking wringer and, yeah, we have a little bit of wisdom. A teeny bit.
Does it get harder to muster up the enthusiasm for the road?
No, it doesn’t. It’s what I love to do. Right now I’m dealing with an injured knee and I don’t care. I go out and give my all.
How much drama has there been in the band’s story? Could they do a Behind the Music on you guys?
Could they do a Behind the Music on the Suicide Machines? Yeah, probably. (laughs) Oh, yeah. Right now, as we speak, my bass player and my drummer and my merch guy are completely shit-faced and they’re still drinking. Last night we were jumping off hotel balconies into pools. If that just tells you basically what one night is like with us…yeah, more than likely you could do Behind the Music, no doubt about it.
You’re in the midst of an off day, right?
Yeah, we’re going to Las Vegas, of all places. My drummer said if his heart stops, punch him in the chest.
That’s good Vegas advice.
Yeah. So we’ve got about ten hours before someone is gonna die and we truly become a Behind the Fucking Music show.
How did you find out about bands when you were a kid?
I found bands, dude, when my older brother’s friends corrupted us. We were listening to Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath and then all of my brother’s friends found punk and the next thing you know we were listening to Suicidal Tendencies and Circle Jerks in, like, seventh grade. Our older brothers and sisters would take us to shows when we were 13. They were like, “Come on! We’re taking the little kids to the fucking punk show!” It was fun. There were a lot of bars that just didn’t care if you were 13 – you could go in and buy a pitcher of beer and it didn’t matter.
When did you start playing in bands, then?
I started playing in bands when I was 14. I was one of the youngest kids playing bass for all these punk bands around Detroit. I played in a lot of bands and everyone knew that – “Get little Jay, he’ll come play bass.”
How has that scene changed over the years?
Well, Detroit has become a much safer place to see shows. All of the venues are in nice neighborhoods now, for the most part. Shows aren’t really violent anymore. They used to be violent – people would get out of hand and fight each other back in the day. It’s pretty chill now. It’s a more loving scene than it was when I was younger. When I was younger, I feared for my life. I think things like the Warped Tour have paved the way for it being safe to go into the water.
How long do you work on track sequencing? Are you conscious of not putting too many fast and furious songs in a row?
When we’re arranging the record, it’s a lot of back-and-forth between all four of us. I’d sit with my laptop and take a sequence from Rich, Ryan and Dan, and then I’d burn all their sequences and burn mine, and then I’d listen to all of them together and they’d do the same thing. We’re very conscious of how we arrange our records—this one for sure. I’d say it took us a couple of weeks to figure out the track listing.
People don’t talk about artwork a lot, but yours is pretty striking and I know you’ve used the same artist repeatedly. Is that a thing where you give him the album and he goes off and works, or do you actually sit down and give him a concept to run with?
This time around, we just gave him the lyrics. We didn’t even give him the music. We told him the title and told him what it was about. The guy who does our artwork is very much in love with the United States, but he has a really, really, really hard time accepting our government. He’s probably more against it than us.
Last time, we gave him all the demos first. This time, we did it a little differently. We didn’t let anybody hear this record at all. Even after it was done, we barely let anybody hear it. We straight up didn’t even let the label hear any demos for the songs or anything. We kept it very secretive.
Was that to guard against leaks?
No. I don’t know what it was. I think we knew we had something special, and we wanted people to be surprised. We wanted to hand it in to the label and have them be like, “Oh, damn, you guys stepped it up.”
Speaking of labels, you had your experience with a major. What did you take away from that?
You know, I’m not totally against majors at all. I think that a lot of times a major hires the same people – they’re music fans. A lot of times, though, they get into these situations where the first record doesn’t sell and then they panic and send it the hit-writers and you’ve gotta fucking write songs with songwriters. Maybe it’s cool with other people, but I don’t want anyone fucking sitting down and writing a song for me.
How does that work now? With your label now, if, say, they hated the artwork or something, would there be a power struggle? Do they have a say in that?
I think the guys at Side One just strive for something better. They might push like, “Oh, man, that’s not it yet.”
The new album is pretty politically charged, of course. When you’re out on the road, how do you stay up on what’s going on amidst all of the playing and partying?
You’ve just gotta tune in and pay attention to the right things in the news and in the papers. I think a lot of people are naïve to that. If you read the Wall Street Journal, they’ll run little articles like, “Halliburton Gets $10 Billion Contract From World Bank.” It may be only a paragraph long, but it’s not hard to figure out why and what that’s all about.
Do you think the effort to inspire the youth vote – by PunkVoter and so forth – was a failure?
Honestly, I believe it did fail. I saw them make their little congratulations after the election, saying the turnout was up a few percent. But it didn’t really work. I think it failed miserably, man, I really do. I think it was a good effort and a positive thing to do, and I don’t think it failed because of them, at all. But voter turnout was what it was. A lot of kids, honestly, have become lazy and complacent.
There was also obviously a lot of preaching to the converted. The Rock Against Bush show here in L.A. was a great night, but I’d bet the vast, vast majority of that audience was already planning to vote. It wasn’t like converting crowds who were on the fence or dropped out.
You’re absolutely right. They were preaching to the converted—and so are we, a lot of times.
How do you reach the apathetic people? I have no idea.
I know how to get to the apathetic people.
Yeah?
Yeah. I think a lot of people don’t understand why we’re in the situation we’re in with Iraq, and why things like 9/11 have happened. A lot of people don’t understand how it all works, what’s going on with the global empire. There’s this great book that reads almost like a fiction book—it’s a fun book that almost seems James Bond-ish—but it’s very serious, too. It’s by this guy John Perkins. Basically, he worked for this big old electric company called Main. It was up there with Halliburton. He basically got trained by the government, off the record, to go in and corrupt countries or intertwine their economies with ours. It’s called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I think that should be required reading. I think for some random person, some young kid in the middle of nowhere who has no idea about what’s going on, that would be enough for them to start understanding.
How does the band gel, politically speaking?
I think Dan and I are on the same page. Our bass player is really not very political. Our drummer – I think they’re all conscious of everything, definitely, but I think sometimes they want us to write some not so serious songs. It’s hard to say – I can’t really speak for them.
Do you ever have fans who ask that same thing? I’ve heard kids at shows who respond to talk about politics with stuff like, “Politics? Dude, the election’s over. Let it go.”
Yeah, see, that’s ridiculous. That’s what is fucked up about it. I think a lot of punk bands have that same mentality. Let it go? Are you fucking kidding me? Politics are an in thing or an out thing?
It did become a bit of a—for lack of a better word—“scene” in the lead-up to the presidential election. But, yeah, a lot of the bands have quieted down or run away.
I’m not running away. I ain’t backing down, man. |
