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We're Not Listening
Skapocolypse! – The Max, pt. 1
How many ska kids does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Three – one to hold the ladder, one to drop the old bulb, and one to pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!
Lame jokes aside, let’s face it: ska bands are weird. Remember that brief stint in the 1990s where there were a few ska bands that actually made it to the mainstream? There’s a whole history behind the genre that transcends genres and racial boundaries, and it spans decades of development. After that spike, though, it seemed to fizzle out.
Sometimes, though, every so often a ska band will come along, sing a few songs about poop, and then they’ll fade away into oblivion.
The Max could have been one of them. They could’ve put out one album and then ditched their horn section to make room for the emo trend that swept over the country, but despite immature beginnings, they truly have shaped up to be a living embodiment of the phrase “ska’s not dead.”
And really, it’s refreshing. Remember when emo-punk-pop bands broke into the mainstream back in the mid to late 2000s? Now, name off a list of indie rock bands that have been played on the radio. Rock comes and goes in waves, in different incarnations that appeal to whoever is willing to listen, and in many ways it’s a beautiful thing. It shows that times are changing, and whether or not the music is “good” is completely subjective. What means a lot to somebody may not be worth jack shit to somebody else.
So it’s compelling to see a change of pace, to see a band try to swim against the current and bring back a genre that most people haven’t admitted to liking since the ‘90s.
The Max’s story starts off in a place where Hooligans!’s didn’t and Fire Motion’s only kinda did – high school. A high school marching band in Tallahassee, to be exact. It seemed like a ripe time for music geeks to get together and form a bond over a common favorite genre, the year being 2002 and all, and it began with a trio. CJ Malone, Lauren Brash, and Nick Click – the dream team, as they liked to call themselves at the time.
CJ and Lauren were best friends from childhood who grew up in each other’s houses, despite CJ being probably the loudest motherfucker in all of Tallahassee and Lauren preferring to crack her sly jokes when they were least expected. They took up band in junior high, CJ on trumpet and Lauren on trombone, and that was that – they’d found their calling. But where could they put it to use?
Well, enter Nick Click, the slow-witted saxophonist who was cursed with a rhyming name while blessed with the responsibility of being band captain. He was the one who planned the marches across the field with every football and soccer game, he decided which songs they would play, and along with the band teachers, he oversaw every band practice and made sure everybody had their shit together. Although his easygoing nature let people walk all over him, he was serious about music.
Nick was seventeen years old when Lauren and CJ entered high school and they met for the first time. It was a three-year difference, but such a thing is laughably negligible when a certain kind of chemistry is discovered.
It’s rare to find someone who is lukewarm towards ska. You either throw yourself at it wholeheartedly, donning checkers on everything you wear, or you hate it, criticizing the annoying nature of the music and its fans. Maybe that’s why it seems to be a dead genre. Dead to the public, anyway – not dead to those three kids.
No matter how intimidating it seemed to have a conversation with the band captain about something other than marching band itself, CJ and Lauren kept contact with Nick after he had casually said, “I like your shirt” to Lauren one day at practice, in regards to her Catch 22 tee. They ate lunch together, Nick drove them home, and while other, more sociable kids were out partying on weekends, they partied it up in their own houses to the tune of Mustard Plug.
For the duo’s entire freshman year and the elder’s junior year, they were inseparable. It stayed that way – and the next school year, actual things began to happen that not only strengthened the original bond, but added new faces to the mix.
Cue Ian Fowler, boy genius, humble poet, and victim of years of abuse from both parents before ending up in a foster home at the age of 12. 2003 held his freshman year of high school, and it also held excitement for him – he’d be taking classes with the sophomores. It’s an intimidating thought, really, to be a little fish swimming among piranhas while the piranhas are avoiding the sharks.
It seems like sheer luck that he ended up in the same English class as both CJ and Lauren, but sometimes you just can’t question the little trinkets of hope sent from whoever makes the clock tick.
Ian played the guitar and wrote sometimes-sad songs, but when it all boiled down to bare bones, he was a pretty happy fella. There was shit that went down that he tried to push away and forget, and at the end of the day, he did his best to remain optimistic.
That may have been what allured the unbreakable duo to the freshman. Then again, it could also have been the Specials patch Ian once wore on his jacket, which prompted CJ to shout, “Who are you and why have we never spoken?!” across the room as class was about to begin.
Ian turned bright red. There was no backing out of a conversation with the boisterous CJ, and it was like he just knew it from the getgo.
One thing led to another, and the trio became a foursome. With a horns section that could harmonize just as well as any acapella group out there, and a pretty good guitarist who wrote songs that managed to be poetic and straightforward at the same time, there was really no wonder where this was headed. After all, it’s a universal rule that you can’t be a ska band unless you have at least six members, right?
Three – one to hold the ladder, one to drop the old bulb, and one to pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!
Lame jokes aside, let’s face it: ska bands are weird. Remember that brief stint in the 1990s where there were a few ska bands that actually made it to the mainstream? There’s a whole history behind the genre that transcends genres and racial boundaries, and it spans decades of development. After that spike, though, it seemed to fizzle out.
Sometimes, though, every so often a ska band will come along, sing a few songs about poop, and then they’ll fade away into oblivion.
The Max could have been one of them. They could’ve put out one album and then ditched their horn section to make room for the emo trend that swept over the country, but despite immature beginnings, they truly have shaped up to be a living embodiment of the phrase “ska’s not dead.”
And really, it’s refreshing. Remember when emo-punk-pop bands broke into the mainstream back in the mid to late 2000s? Now, name off a list of indie rock bands that have been played on the radio. Rock comes and goes in waves, in different incarnations that appeal to whoever is willing to listen, and in many ways it’s a beautiful thing. It shows that times are changing, and whether or not the music is “good” is completely subjective. What means a lot to somebody may not be worth jack shit to somebody else.
So it’s compelling to see a change of pace, to see a band try to swim against the current and bring back a genre that most people haven’t admitted to liking since the ‘90s.
The Max’s story starts off in a place where Hooligans!’s didn’t and Fire Motion’s only kinda did – high school. A high school marching band in Tallahassee, to be exact. It seemed like a ripe time for music geeks to get together and form a bond over a common favorite genre, the year being 2002 and all, and it began with a trio. CJ Malone, Lauren Brash, and Nick Click – the dream team, as they liked to call themselves at the time.
CJ and Lauren were best friends from childhood who grew up in each other’s houses, despite CJ being probably the loudest motherfucker in all of Tallahassee and Lauren preferring to crack her sly jokes when they were least expected. They took up band in junior high, CJ on trumpet and Lauren on trombone, and that was that – they’d found their calling. But where could they put it to use?
Well, enter Nick Click, the slow-witted saxophonist who was cursed with a rhyming name while blessed with the responsibility of being band captain. He was the one who planned the marches across the field with every football and soccer game, he decided which songs they would play, and along with the band teachers, he oversaw every band practice and made sure everybody had their shit together. Although his easygoing nature let people walk all over him, he was serious about music.
Nick was seventeen years old when Lauren and CJ entered high school and they met for the first time. It was a three-year difference, but such a thing is laughably negligible when a certain kind of chemistry is discovered.
It’s rare to find someone who is lukewarm towards ska. You either throw yourself at it wholeheartedly, donning checkers on everything you wear, or you hate it, criticizing the annoying nature of the music and its fans. Maybe that’s why it seems to be a dead genre. Dead to the public, anyway – not dead to those three kids.
No matter how intimidating it seemed to have a conversation with the band captain about something other than marching band itself, CJ and Lauren kept contact with Nick after he had casually said, “I like your shirt” to Lauren one day at practice, in regards to her Catch 22 tee. They ate lunch together, Nick drove them home, and while other, more sociable kids were out partying on weekends, they partied it up in their own houses to the tune of Mustard Plug.
For the duo’s entire freshman year and the elder’s junior year, they were inseparable. It stayed that way – and the next school year, actual things began to happen that not only strengthened the original bond, but added new faces to the mix.
Cue Ian Fowler, boy genius, humble poet, and victim of years of abuse from both parents before ending up in a foster home at the age of 12. 2003 held his freshman year of high school, and it also held excitement for him – he’d be taking classes with the sophomores. It’s an intimidating thought, really, to be a little fish swimming among piranhas while the piranhas are avoiding the sharks.
It seems like sheer luck that he ended up in the same English class as both CJ and Lauren, but sometimes you just can’t question the little trinkets of hope sent from whoever makes the clock tick.
Ian played the guitar and wrote sometimes-sad songs, but when it all boiled down to bare bones, he was a pretty happy fella. There was shit that went down that he tried to push away and forget, and at the end of the day, he did his best to remain optimistic.
That may have been what allured the unbreakable duo to the freshman. Then again, it could also have been the Specials patch Ian once wore on his jacket, which prompted CJ to shout, “Who are you and why have we never spoken?!” across the room as class was about to begin.
Ian turned bright red. There was no backing out of a conversation with the boisterous CJ, and it was like he just knew it from the getgo.
One thing led to another, and the trio became a foursome. With a horns section that could harmonize just as well as any acapella group out there, and a pretty good guitarist who wrote songs that managed to be poetic and straightforward at the same time, there was really no wonder where this was headed. After all, it’s a universal rule that you can’t be a ska band unless you have at least six members, right?
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Happy Easter/420! :)