Pissing off Scenesters Since 1995
Over the course of 15 years, Geoff Kresge has switched from playing electric bass in AFI, to upright bass in Tiger Army, and now guitar in The Horrorpops, he stops short of calling himself a punk virtuoso, but his dexterity is second to none. “When I started playing as a kid, I started out as a guitar player, but I found it much easier to get into a band if I played bass, because everybody needed a bass player,” Kresge explains. “So I bought the first bass I could find, and I figured it can’t be that much different than guitar, and it has two less strings. I just got stuck playing bass for years. Now I’m back where I belong—playing guitar. Maybe it’s the cold he claims to have, or the fact that his stint in Tiger Army was so recent, but Kresge forgot to mention one of the most integral parts of his career. For over five years, Kresge slapped his brains out on an upright back for Tiger Army, a massive force behind the third generation of psychobilly presently seeping its way into the underground punk scene via LA and Jersey. “The upright bass was an instrument that I always wanted to try to play because of the sound of it, and I thought that it looked super cool,” Kresge says. “Finally, I found one for a pretty good price and I figured I’d just go for it.”
Soon after, Tiger Army mastermind Nick 13 came calling, and asked Kresge to go on tour with the band to help promote their first record in 1999. “I kind of just dove into it, learning all the songs from the first album and along the way I picked up bits of information about the instrument,” Kresge says. “It took me quite a long time to feel confident behind the instrument. It took well after the recording sessions for the second album, ‘Power of Moonlight,’ before I could really call myself an upright bass player.”
Kresge claims to have been a bit green when it came to mastering the upright bass, but he was cited in magazines such as “Bass Player” as having resurrected a style of slap bass recording that was unheard of in the United States. “I use a pick-up system that has a small contact microphone that goes up on the neck to get a more percussive sound,” Kresge says. “From what I’ve heard from people in the European scene that technique is something American players just don’t use. Up until a few years ago, it was the secret weapon to getting a good recorded or even live upright bass sound. It was a trade secret.”
That bass sound caught the ear of Jason at King Double Bass, one of the top punk rock upright bass builders in the country. “I had some guy from our label send over a copy of the CD as well as some shirts and swag,” Kresge says. “I ran into him at a show and he told me that he wanted to talk to me about building a bass. He builds everything by hand, and everything is to touring and recording specifications. I ended up getting three custom basses. So even though I don’t currently play upright bass in a band, I still keep in contact with them and everybody there has turned out to be a good friend.”
That same secret was past on to a younger generation in the 12 Step Rebels, who Kresge produced last year and whose album he released on his new Dead Body label. More punk than anything Tiger Army ever released, the 12 Steps led the charge of new psycho bands earlier this year, only to disappear just as quickly. “I know about as much about them as you do,” Kresge admits. “The only thing that I can confirm is that drummer Mad Dog has left the band. That’s the best information that I can give right now.”
That record label is one of the reasons why Kresge left Tiger Army, shooting down rumors that some sort of internal strife led to the departure of Krege and drummer Fred Hell (who had just recovered from a being shot multiple times after being a victim in a botched robbery attempt). According to Kresge, Hell, though credited on “Tiger Army III,” did not end up performing on the album. “Since he was still in the band, we ended up keeping his name on the record,” Kresge says. After the recording was finished, he ended up leaving the band to accept a position at the Musician’s Institute’s drumming program in Hollywood. Drum tech Mike Fasano filled in on drums for the record and the Warped Tour.
“I decided to leave the band shortly after the Warped Tour ended last summer,” Kresge says. “Primarily, I wanted to shift the focus of my attention to my record label, because things were starting to pick up, and I was really excited about some projects we were working on. Then things started not panning out.” Pretty shortly after leaving Tiger Army, Nekromantix frontman and Horrorpops guitarist Kim Nekroman contacted Kresge to tell him that the ‘Pop’s guitarist was leaving the band and asked him to join the band on the spot. “The funny thing is, they never asked me how well I knew how to play guitar,” Kresge says. “They just said ‘you’re in.’ Before they even got off tour, I was in the band.”
Kresge proceeded to jump into the fire, as The Horrorpops began working on their latest Epitaph release “Bring It On.” “Patricia ended up coming back from their European tour a little bit early, and as soon as she got home, we started writing songs for “Bring It On,” Kresge say. “The other members of the band had worked on a few songs while on tour, and we kind of fleshed out those ideas and put out some new ideas. When the whole band returned, we just jumped head first into writing and generating new songs.”
While Kresge and company slaved away at songs, however, the rabid Horrorpops fan base had no idea who the new guitarist was. As a teaser to the fans, the band installed a sub-site on their homepage that dropped hints as to who the new guitarist was. At the time, very few people new that he had even left Tiger Army, so when the news broke, fans were shocked. Then a few weeks later the word of a new record leaked out, stirring fans into a frenzy.
“Bring It On,” while retaining many of the psycho pop nuances of the band’s first record, is much more polished and features a far tighter band. “I think it’s definitely better produced, and sonically, a much tighter record,” Kresge explains. “The first album, “Hell Yeah,” wasn’t even intended to be an album. It was just a collection of demo recordings. This is the first album intended to be an album. It’s in the same vein as the first record, but the band stepped it up a notch.”
While the band is quick to mention in interviews that they are not a psychobilly band, Kresge’s style is embedded in cow punk and the influences of old school psychobilly can’t be ignored. “I’ve always listened to a lot of different music, and I think it’s just a matter of being older and accepting that I can play music that’s a little poppier,” Kresge says. “I didn’t have to be so closed minded about the songs I was writing or playing. There is a lot of pop influence in the Horrorpops and that’s something that we all like.”
The Horrorpops just finished up a stint on the Warped Tour and are playing a month and a half long US tour. Then they are heading over to Europe for December. “That’s all we have planned so far, but we are going to run as long as we can, until they want us to make a new record,” Kresge says.
Finally—the question on most fans’ minds—is it mindboggling how big your first real band, AFI, has gotten in the last few years?
“It’s pretty crazy,” Kresge says. “I never would have imagined when I was playing in AFI that they would continue on to the level that they have reached. I’m extremely proud of them and more power to them. I am very happy for them.”
That said, with tons of spunk and a lot of pop, the Horrorpops could possibly break into the mainstream. “It’s not something that we are really chasing, but it’s not something that we would not answer the door for,” Kresge says honestly. “I’ve been touring and playing live music for long enough that I’m kind of tired of having to scrape the bottom of the barrel every few months to pay the rent. It’s not something that we are pre-meditating the song writing for, but it’s not something that we would be opposed to. If someone asked us if we wanted to sell a million records, I don’t think any of us would say hell no.”
what a fucking sellout, horrorpops are pablum for the ears.
[...] just announced that stand-up bass player Geoff Kresge has rejoined the Tiger Army fold. Kresge performed all live shows with the band from 1999 to [...]