| Reel Big Fish helps WBGU-FM celebrate 60 years on the air Saturday |
Reel Big Fish has navigated a lot of changes in the music industry since it emerged in the 1990s from
California with its brash, party-ready ska-punk sound in the
The band scored their first big hit, "Sell Out," thanks to play on MTV. That’s when trumpet
player John Christianson first heard them.
Then MTV launched reality TV with "The Real World," and music took not just a back seat, but
musical acts were told to take a walk.
Still record labels were still around and thriving and pushing CDs. "Now you have to do that with
the internet, Twitter or Facebook," Christianson said in a recent telephone interview. And the band
produces those CDs itself.
Christianson, who signed on to ska-punk unit seven years ago, said the constant has been live
performance. "One thing we know how to do is put on a good show," he said. "We’re doing
our best… part of it is including the fans."
An intimate theater like the Cla-Zel in downtown Bowling Green where Reel Big Fish will play Saturday
suits them just fine. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance through
clazel.net and $30 at the door. The show is a celebration of WBGU-FM’s 60 years of operation.
The band members of Reel Big Fish are serious about putting on a good show, but "Reel Big Fish has a
way of not taking ourselves to seriously," Christianson said. "You can definitely come up to
us and we’re going to sit there and talk to you."
That fan base has kept refreshing itself from the band’s founding back in 1997. Still fronted by founder
Aaron Barrett. the band keeps touring, working as many as 250 shows a year.
The band retains its popularity with the college crowd, as successive classes discover the band’s
signature anthem "Beer."
"It comes down to people sharing it with each other," Christianson said. "There’s
something really special that happens with people passing it among themselves."
"We’re really an anomaly," he said. "Our fan base regenerates. For whatever reason Aaron
has written the soundtrack for everyone’s lives high school through college."
The band’s most recent recording project is a career spanning CD called "The Best of Us for the Rest
of Us." The three-disc set features one of greatest hits, another acoustic ska session and a third
devoted to covers.
The band has scored fans with its off-beat covers of rock tunes as well as it originals. Barrett heard,
for example, "Another Day in Paradise" while shopping. He thought it’d make a great ska tune,
so he brought it in and "we hash it out together. It’s a collaborative effort led by Aaron,"
Christianson said.
Recording the album at times "overwhelmed" the band with the amount of material. The band had
60 songs that formed "the core of what we wanted to do."
That mass of music is testament to the band’s longevity. So few bands endure that long, he said.
"I’m amazed … It’s really remarkable. I’m so thankful I get to do this."
