In 1994, the year Popsicko’s album was released, my radio station of choice was Eatontown, New Jersey's WHTG 106.3, which, pre-internet, I was fortunate to be within listening range. They were influential, such as being the first commercial radio station on the East Coast to play Nirvana before they got huge;“Sliver” was the song they played. They won the readers poll in Rolling Stone for best radio station in a small market for a couple of years, and deservedly so. I feel sure in saying that Popsicko would’ve fit right in, right there between Nirvana, Green Day and Weezer, and it begs the question could this station have broken this band they way they did Nirvana? I’d like to think so.
Friend of Popsicko S.W. Lauden.was kind enough to answer a few questions about them.
Andrea Weiss: For people who don’t know Popsicko, could you sum up the history of the band?
S.W. Lauden: Popsicko was an alternative rock/power pop band from Santa Barbara, California that formed in 1992. The line up included Keith Brown (guitar/vocals), Tim Cullen (guitar/vocals), Marko DeSantis (bass), and Mick Flowers (drums). They performed a lot around California and built up a strong following, including playing early shows with bands like Green Day and Weezer. Popsicko self-released a fantastic debut album, Off to a Bad Start, in 1994 that got them even more attention from the music press and major record labels. Unfortunately, some personal issues within the band led to an indefinite hiatus only a few months before Keith died tragically young in a car accident in November 1995. Keith was a close friend of mine. We played in high school and college bands together before he went on to form Popsicko, so I paid a lot of attention to their music and spent a fair amount of time with the band back then. His death was a real blow to those of us who knew and loved him. We not only lost a dear friend, but one of the most talented and driven musicians from the Southern California music scene. Many of us went on to have music careers of various shapes and sizes, including the surviving members of Popsicko—Cullen (Summercamp), Flowers (The Rentals), and DeSantis (Sugarcult)—but we never forgot about Keith and Popsicko. The vinyl reissue/oral history book project that I partnered on with Popsicko and Big Stir Records was a collective effort to keep his memory and the band's music alive.
AW: Who were their influences?
SW: The quote that often got used to describe Popsicko's music was "The Replacements meets Cheap Trick," which I personally think is pretty accurate. Keith and Tim were the two main songwriters and shared a love of high-energy pop rock, but Keith was more from The Replacements punk/post-punk school and Tim was more of a Cheap Trick/Beatles guy, which is a pretty great combination. But that's painting with broad strokes because all four of them were devoted and knowledgeable music fans who loved a lot of different artists and genres—from Neil Diamond to New York Dolls to Nirvana, and everything in between.
AW: I hear elements of Nirvana and Green Day in Popsicko's music, which I like, and Weezer in the lyrics. Are they influences?
SW: I’d so so, yes, but those bands were also contemporaries of Popsicko's to some degree, so I think it's less about them being directly influenced by those bands and more about the influences all those musicians—including members of Popsicko—shared growing up in the '80s. As Gen Xers, we were raised on '60s/'70s rock as kids before having our minds blown by punk rock as teens; we were the perfect age to experience the rise of college rock as it turned into grunge, alternative rock, pop punk, Brit pop and the other related subgenres that dominated in the early '90s. It was a really amazing time to be a rock musician because anything seemed possible.
AW: You were playing on the same Santa Barbara scene and knew the Popsicko members well. What was the local scene the band came up in like?
SW: I first moved to Santa Barbara from Los Angeles in the late '80s to play in the band The Wonderfuls with Keith Brown and two other friends from high school. When we started playing shows, we realized that Santa Barbara had two distinct music scenes at the time—the one connected to UC Santa Barbara and centered around the college town of Isla Vista, and the downtown music scene dominated by local musicians. There was definitely some overlap, but the separation between those two worlds was noticeable to us. The Wonderfuls was mostly part of the college scene, but we played a couple of downtown shows as well. That's actually how Keith and I first met Marko, when we played an all ages club with his high school band Lost Kittenz (a band that also included future members of Foo Fighters and Nerf Herder). Around the time Popsicko got started, a diverse scene of local bands like Toad The Wet Sprocket, Lagwagon, and Ugly Kid Joe, among others, were making records, so Santa Barbara was on the music industry's radar. Plus, it was a big college town with an amazing student-run radio station which meant that a lot of indie bands toured through there and Santa Barbara bands often got to open for them. And, of course, Hollywood was only a couple of hours away so there was a lot of cross-pollination between those two scenes. It was a pretty exciting time and place to be experiencing and making music.
AW: Now that the reissue is out, what are your hopes for it?
SW: I’m honestly just thrilled that Popsicko's music and story are getting back out there. It's beautiful to see how Off to a Bad Start has been embraced by music fans of all ages around the world. As I said before, our main goal was to keep Keith's memory and Popsicko's music alive, so it's humbling to see that actually happening.
AW: Was there any thought at the time that the band might make new music with a different lead singer?
SW: I haven't heard any discussion about new Popsicko music, but I'm pretty doubtful that would ever happen. Keith was a driving force in that band, so I'm not sure it would make sense without him. Tim, Marko, and Mick were actually part of a band in the mid-2000s called The Playing Favorites that made a great record and did some touring—they even included a Popsicko song in their live shows—but I'd say that's probably as close as they'll ever get to a "Popsicko reunion." That said, there is a ton of great Santa Barbara music that comes from the same family tree as Popsicko, including Summercamp, Bad Astronaut, Nerf Herder, and many others. So, the band's spirit lives on in many other ways, which I think is kind of beautiful.
AW: This album deserves to be heard. It’s that good. How happy are you that it's being re-released?
SW: Thank you for saying that. I'm honestly incredibly touched by the response to the reissue and the oral history book. I think the vinyl sounds great and the songs really hold up. I'm not sure I could have asked for a better response.