R.K.L. (Kippekrant #6)

The six issues (1983-88) of this zine are available on Michaek K.’s website.

It started out as a project by some guys of the band ‘C.K.N.‘ (Creatieve KippenNaaiers, “creative chickenfuckers”; Alkmaar, The Netherlands) zine done by their singer Pim Bakker, bassist Ronald Maas and guitarist Dirk-Jan Aafjes. In the end it was more DJ’s project (with help of Jurjen van Dijk); the last issue was without Pim. Kippekrant is Dutch for “chicken-newspaper”…

Some content (all in Dutch)… In the first issue the lads present their band, print some thoughts on poser-punks, funny bits & stories, an interview with their friends’ band ‘Zweetkutten’ (“sweaty cunts”) plus gossip on ‘Zmiv’, a review of a gig with the loacal ‘Vikings’ & ‘Knåx’, etc. #2 features ‘Abrasive Wheels’, ‘Blitzkrieg’ (UK), ‘Red Alert’, ‘M.D.C.’, ‘Marionetti’ (Fin), ‘Terveet Kädet’, ‘Olho Seco’, ‘D.R.I.’; plus there’s secenereports from Switzerland & Finland, and some funny stories. N°3 presents ‘Rattus’, ‘The Expelled’ (UK), ‘F.U.s’, ‘Chaos UK’, ‘Nabat’, ‘Disorder’ & ‘Wretched’; there’s also some reviews and the adventures of (gnome) Kabouter Olk. In issue four one can find info ‘Peace Corpse’ (USA), ‘Depression’ (Oz), ‘Knockabouts’ (Alabama), ‘Abscess’ (Iowa?), ‘The Bristles’, ‘Wulpse Varkens’, ‘Scream’ and the scenes in Scotland, Denmark & Australia. #5 has interviews with ‘No Fraud’, ‘Marginal Man’, Les Vandales’ (Fra), ‘Maimed For Life’ (Salt Lake City), ‘Inferno’, ‘D.O.A.’, ‘7 Minutes Of Nausea’, ‘Anti-Cimex’, ‘Maniacs’ (Ger), ‘Chaos S.A.’; presentations of ‘The Iconoclast’ (L.A.) & ‘Indigesti’, scenereports from Athens & South-Africa, reviews, plus odd bits. The editorial of the last issue (#6, 88) emphasizes they don’t wanna write in English to reach a wider audience or gain fame/glory. It contains a presentation of ‘Crowd Of Isolated’, interviews with ‘Prong’, ‘Chronical Diarrhoea’ (Ger), ‘Voivod’, ‘Final Conflict’, Henry Rollins, ‘Exxor’ (Swi), ‘Sloppy Seconds’, ‘Ludichrist’, ‘Messiah’, ‘R.K.L.’, & ‘Generic’; letters, reviews and a few columns.

Brob

After the 1988 issue, that I helped with, for various reasons things didn’t seem to happen anymore. It was Dirk Aafjes’ zine from the beginning…

Jurjen van Dijk

At the time ‘R.K.L.’ (‘Rich Kids On L.S.D.’) – a skate-/fun-core band from Santa Barbara (California) – were: vocalist Jason Sears (R.I.P.), bassist Joe Raposo, guitarists Barry Ward & Chris Rest, and Richard Anthony ‘Bom(b)er’ Manzullo (R.I.P.). Jason & Bomber were interviewed in Alkmaar (The Netherlands) during their 1988 Euro tour.

[Translation below]

Thursday June 9th [1988] was the day. ‘R.K.L.’ (‘Rich Kids on LSD’) played in Parkhof [punk venue in Alkmaar] together with ‘No Allegiance’ from West-Germany. During the performance of ‘No Allegiance’ (support-act [with vocalist David Pollack of the Berlin label Destiny recs and organiser of the tour]) which, according to many who were there, was very disappointing because of the alcohol-abuse of the drummer (the guy collapsed before the concert); we did this interview with Jason (singer) and ‘Bomber’ (drummer).

Why did you name your band ‘Rich Kids on LSD’?

Jason: We didn’t really give ourselves that name, we kept it because we thought it was so funny. When we started seven years ago, we were in our first year of highschool and we said to each other “Hey, let’s start a band.”. There was a party and we said “We have a band and we wanna do a show!”. And that band was called ‘Secret Service’. But we weren’t happy with that name so we made up a few other ones, but we didn’t really like any of them either. We were looking hard for a real name; then this boy (Don) came and said: “Your just a bunch of guys on LSD man.” and I said: “We can’t use that, we’ll make it ‘Rich Kids on LSD’.”. We played at a party and that name was on the flyer; and when we played at another party, we were on the flyer again and that’s how we got the name. We thought about changing it later but now a lot of people know us as ‘R.K.L.’, so that doesn’t make sense.

Are you really rich?

Jason: Oh no, not at all. (Ed.: points to the band-members.). He has an allowance, he still lives at home…

You guys seem to be into positive drinking?

Jason: Yes, we changed ‘Think Positive’ into ‘Drink Positive’.

‘Bomber’: We’ve never been a straight-edge band!

Jason: We’re against addiction. We don’t like junkies and that kind of stupidity.

But ‘Positive Thinking’ is often associated with straight-edge…

Jason: Everybody should think positive, no matter how drunk they are. That’s why we now say ‘Drink Positive’.

‘Bomber’: (Ed.: points to his beer.) Look, it’s half full or half empty; or you say “Wow, I have half a beer left.”. Or you go “Shit, my beer’s already half gone.”.

What do you mean by that?

‘Bomber’: You should try to see the bright side of every situation. Don’t let the world get you down.

Jason: That has nothing to do with straight-edge. For example, we wrote the song Pothead because we blow all day long, it’s kind of an autobiographical song…

‘Bomber’: The punk-scene we came from was so negative…

Are you guys from San Francisco?

Jason: No, we’re from Santa Barbara, but that’s close by. [ca. 500 km]

Why did you move from Mystic recs to Alchemy recs?

Jason: Alchemy recs is a truly independent label and is run by a guy called Victor [Hayden]. Mystic recs is owned by Doug Moody who releases every band he can get his hands on. But not to promote the band. He doesn’t even pay attention to which ones might be really good or whose records will sell well. He doesn’t care about the music at all, he only cares about the money. There are only a few bands on Mystic recs that have ever been paid for their records. We, for example, have never been paid a cent. And then when we called: “Can we have some records?”, he would say “No you have to pay for that.”. Or we were stranded somewhere and he’s on holiday in the West-Indies. And how does he get money to go on holiday to the West-Indies? Probably because our LP had already sold at least 10.000 copies, and sales are still going strong. I’m sure he’s made a lot of money from us and he’s never given anything in return. We have recordings of telephone-conversations: “Oh, you need a bass? I’ll send one right away. It’ll be in San Francisco in a few days time. A box of 200 records.” (Ed.: With acclaim from the rest of the band.) “They’ve just been posted, they should be there in a few days.” The packages never came and he never sent them. Alchemy, Victor is a nice guy, he releases records from a lot of bands and he gets more every day. He also has a real distribution and he doesn’t do that many advertisements. He just works very hard, and he cares a lot about the bands and the people. Mystic recs is all about the money. For the rest, everyone can drop dead.

Alchemy recs only seems to release good bands so far…

Jason: Some of the bands they released are good bands, and that’s fine. But the guy he runs the label with, Marc [Deutrom] played [guitar] in ‘Clown Alley’ and he also played on the ‘Sacrilege’ [B.C.] LP [Party With God]; so those are already two bands he dealt with a lot. And the ‘Melvins’. We toured with the ‘Melvins’on our two tours. They opened for us and we love them. They are fantastic. A lot of people don’t like the ‘Melvins’ and their heavy, dragging sound, but Victor didn’t see them as “Hey, these guys are going to sell well, but these guys have unique pounding and thundering sound, and I’m going to put out an LP of them because I like them.”. Doug Moody just releases everything. Victor looks at the band before he puts them out. If he doesn’t like them, he might put out an LP of them, but he’s not that interested. He rather says “Hey, you really want to release an LP: I’ll help you. But maybe we can do it on another label.”. He mainly releases bands that he likes; that he likes to talk to or that he likes to see live.

There are a lot of people who like your first LP better than the second because of alleged metal influences…

Jason: They shouldn’t listen to it then. I think it’s rock’n’roll the way we wanted to do it. We try to get away from the crossover scene. We don’t want to be called a crossover band at all? You know, it would be a lot easier for us if we played more crossover, then we could make a lot more money. We prefer to write what we like in the first place and when we write that, we believe it’s rock’n’roll. Many people say they like the first LP better. I think the first LP is fine. We could have done it much better back then if some songs hadn’t been written in the studio, but we were in a hurry. The first one is good and the second one is better. That’s just progression. They’re both good, they’re just different. You have to keep moving forward. People want us to keep playing the same thing but that’s not how your brain works. You always learn new things, you get older, you learn to play better: There has to be progress.

‘Bomber’: One difference, for example, is that with metal – speedmetal in particular – you don’t get new things (Ed.: Imitates a cliché metal riff.). It’s always the same thing. The metal we like is real, old metal such as ‘Led Zeppelin’, ‘AC/DC’, ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Metallica’, ‘Iron Maiden’, …

‘Slayer’?

Both simultaneously: Yeuch, aaaaarrrgh, vomit, bleurgh, etc.

‘Bomber’: Why I don’t like ‘Slayer’? Because they only write about negative crap, and they themselves say “We know it’s crap but it sells.”.

Well, people ask for it…

Jason: And why do people ask for it? Because one day a band started doing satanic stuff and all that negative crap (Ed.: Someone shouting from the back.) “Like Ozzy, ha ha.”

‘Bomber’: Imagine: a retarded redneck, who’s absolutely stupid, gets into metal because he happens to hear it a lot, and the only thing he hears is “Dadadadada, satan, dadadada, sacrifice.”, etc. He’s really terribly stupid, gets caught up in it, walks down the street and sees a punk and: bam!, hits him on the head and the punk dies. Like ‘Lyon’ [Wong] the guitarist of ‘Tales Of Terror’ [Sacramento punk band]. That’s what you get with that shit.

Jason: He was just walking down the street and some metalheads came after him and beat him to death.

‘Bomber’: We played in South Carolina once with ‘Fatal’, a local metal band… (Ed.: Joined by the rest of the band.) A stupid redneck band that only played covers.

‘Bomber’: …And there was a bunch of these fat rockers in the room with ‘Metallica’ T-shirts, and all of a sudden the band went “Kill the punx, kill the punx.” and these assholes started throwing chairs and hitting people. They beat everybody to pieces. They even broke a girl’s arm and leg (Ed.: Making a meaninful plank-on-the-knee gesture.).

Jason: There were about 150 of them and 150 of young punks who have a hard enough time being punk in a town like this; and then there’s a concert and this happens.

‘Bomber’: That’s what happens when you don’t sing about something you believe in.

Jason: And it was a really young girl. They just picked her up and threw her on the ground really hard. And that’s how it started… They were dead drunk.

‘Bomber’: Those people are so incredibly stupid; they really believe in those lyrics. If you don’t write what you feel, your lyrics and music won’t come from here (Ed.: Points to his heart.) and then what have you got to offer the world? And when the music changes, then again you just play what people again and that’s naive. It has to come from the heart, that’s the best you can do.

Jason: It may sound silly but there’s no feeling behind it.

‘Bomber’: …And whether there are 10 or 10.000 people: it doesn’t matter. Then the music’s good.

Jason: Like ‘Exodus’ [San Francisco thrashmetal band]. I’m sure the old singer [Paul Baloff] and the rest of the band got along very well. They were good friends. But the record-company offered more money if they would take a “real” singer and they kicked him out, and from that moment something changed in their way of thinking. “Forget the real band we started out to be. We’re going to make money this way now and even though we hang out with each other every day and are friends, there’s big money to be made and you can fuck off.” They used to be good. We played with them once in Berkeley when they still had their old singer. They were great. Now they’re just in it for the money… Although, I think they’ve left their record-company now. Maybe they got wise after all.

Who draws these funny cartoons for you?

Jason: A guy called Danny Sykes. He only drew for the two LPs. It started a long time ago. One day we were on LSD and I was drawing something and Danny, who’s really good at drawing, started making some too and together we came up with this little guy (Ed.: Shows the tattoo on his forearm where the famous ‘R.K.L.’ guy is sitting in a beach-chair with a bong and a long drink.) and there’s the ‘Rich Kids on LSD’. We called him Beanie Boy. He’s blowing away, having a longdrink, sitting under a palmtree and listening to music, etc. And that book that comes with the second LP is about his life. It’s all things that can happen to anyone. And we were thinking: “Hey, it’s a nice way of showing things, with that little guy…”.

Is that the only thing Sykes draws?

Jason: Oh no. If you look in Thrasher magazine, you’ll see a Concrete Jungle [skateboards] ad: he did that too. He does a lot of things. He worked for Concrete Jungle. He’s done a lot of graphic work like Ain’t Dead Yet and…he’s just a friend from Santa Barbara! He’s a drunk. (laughter)

Does he also do comics like the book with the 2nd LP?

Jason: He really tries but he prefers to go out. Smoking dope and partying. It took him eight months to finish the book of the second LP, while it could have been done in a week. It goes something like this: he draws a page, thinks “Wow!”, goes and smokes a joint, has a few beers and finally, drunk, he gets back to his page and says “It sucks!” and starts again. They do get better and better but he keeps saying “Ah, fuck it!”. We’ve been over there and he’d drawn all kinds of things but was drunk and went like “I’ll get back to it tomorrow.”.

How long have you been in Europe?

Jason: We’ve been here since May 7th and we were in…oh god…Belgium, France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland. We did a lot of concerts here and in Italy… Uh, Norway was great.

How do you like it here?

Jason: It’s nice here.

Are there many differences between the concerts here and in the U.S.?

Jason: Oh, definitely. You know, sometimes when we arrive at a concert, the organiser turns out to be a very young guy trying to make ends meet. And that often doesn’t work out so you know you won’t get paid much. A lot of other times, the organiser turns out to be a sneaky guy who only does it for the money and doesn’t care about the music.

Like in Break The Camels Back?

Jason: Yes, exactly. They don’t care about the music. They look like young punks but all they want is money: that’s what organising concerts has tunred out to be. We played in Atlanta once with a big band, ‘D.O.A.’, and they got $ 1.100, we got $ 70 and the ‘Melvins’ got $ 50.

‘Bomber’: The problem was that we didn’t have enough money to get to the next place where we had to play.

Jason: We had given the ‘Melvins’ some of our money and we asked ‘D.O.A.’: “Can you borrow us $ 50 for gas? The next time we see you, you’ll get it back.”. But the answer was just no! Just $ 50 for petrol…

‘Bomber’: And before the concert, their drummer came up to me: “I don’t have any cymbals at all. Can I borrow yours?”. And I go “Sure, why not.”. And he says “I have money, I’ll rent them.’. Brand new Paiste’s. And I go “No, not necessary. “. ”Yes, you do.” “No, I don’t.” “OK, then what do you want for it?” I tell him “Give me some T-shirts of your band.”. Well, that was OK. So he played the concert with my stuff; they got the $ 1.100 and after a nagging a long time, I got one T-shirt and I don’t think he was in a bad mood that night. That’s just the way the circuit works: they got their money and we could fuck off.

Jason: An opening band that isn’t famous gets almost nothing. Whereas; if a European band comes over, they get hotelrooms. Gary Tovar of Goldenvoice (a Los Angeles-based organiser [promoter]) gives them his creditcard and says: “Go do whatever you feel like.”. They stay in the best hotel in town; limousines if they want. Whatever. It may sound strange but it’s true. We played with ‘Social Distortion’ once and we begged Gary Tovar for every concert in Santa Barbara and we said “Do you really want a crowd-pleaser?” because he was getting sick of nobody ever coming to his concerts. “Let us play; everybody says they’re sick to death of us not being able to play here; the last time was two years ago and people like us now and you don’t know that, Gary”. Then it was “OK, you guys play with ‘Social Distortion’. He put us on the programme and it became the biggest concert for months. There were about 600 people and it’s a small venue in a small town. For ‘Social Distortion’, 600 people is quite decent. But when we finished, there were only 250 left. Gary was at a loss and we told him “Didn’t we tell you? People don’t want to see ‘Social Distortion’ at all.”. He gave ‘Social Distortion’ $ 2.000 and us $ 100. A lot of people laughed when we said that. We’ve played with big bands before and it’s always the same: the support act gets almost nothing. That’s how it goes in L.A.

Are you a ‘small’ band in the U.S.?

Jason: We don’t usually do headlines. It depends on where you are. In San Francisco we draw enough people to do a headline. ‘M.D.C.’ in any case. Everybody gets a little sick of that. A lot of people used to come for them but they play too much. Now we can headline a tour to New York and at least break even. On the first two tours we had to pay extra because we were constantly cheated by organisers. In L.A. it’s not that much of a problem because we don’t play for the money. Just $ 100 for petrol.

It doesn’t sound like you can make a living on that…

Jason: No, we’re all working, at least…one of us is on welfare. Joe (Ed.: The bassplayer.) is still in highschool. He’s only 17.

What kind of work do you do?

Jason: Plasterer.

Isn’t it difficult to get time off for concerts and tours?

Jason: Oh no, you just have to find the right boss. I had a boss in San Diego, that’s close to Mexico; I like to go there for a while every now and then… I was there one day. I made 7 calls and had 3 jobs. In San Diego, it’s easier to get a job than to get support. You get a job in half an hour and support only after three days, and then you have a job for $ 10 an hour at the beginning (Ed.: Seems exaggerated to me.). So I went to work the next day and the man said “I have work for you for the next 6 years if you want.”. I said “Yeah, but I’m only working here and there for a while to earn some extra money. I’m in a band and I’m away a lot.” and he said “Oh, no problem. Just tell me when you’re leaving and when you’re back.”. “Well, fine!” Then I had a boss in Santa Barbara and I’ve been working there for about four years now and it’s the same…

Do you have any plans for the future?

Jason: Yes, of course. When we get back from this tour, in a month, we’re gonna do whatever we feel like for 2-3 weeks. I’m going snowboarding and I’m going to Mexico. Then we’re going to rent a house in San Francisco and spend about two months just practising and rehearsing new songs, and then record a new LP. Then we’re gonna do another tour of the U.S. and when we’re done with that we hope the LP will be out and we’ll come back here; at least, we hope so…

Are you guys having a good time here?

Jason: Yeah! The people like our music, you get food, they’re happy when you get there, they don’t think you’re annoying. In America our drummer was in jail once (in Florida) and the organiser wouldn’t even help to get him out. He said: “I have all kinds of problems now. There’s all kinds of stuff going on here.”. It was just raining and he was afraid his house was going to get a leak. All he had to do was go there; he knew where it was. Eventually, we had to go there, while we were under the influence of LSD. Luckily we got him out but it costed us all our money. We even had to sell our skateboards and after the concert we weren’t even allowed to stay at the organiser’s place. We had to spend the night on the beach; he didn’t even want to see us. That’s just how it works. They only want to see you during the concert, give you the money and watch you walk away.

Not very polite…

Jason: No, not really. Here people are much nicer, much more welcoming (Ed.: Points to the well-stocked fridge in the dressingroom/kitchen.) – like free drinks. You can forget about that in America. Maybe you get a 12-pack from the organiser, very occasionally 24.

After 7 years of ‘R.K.L.’: do you still have the same ideas as in the beginning?

Jason: In the beginning, we didn’t have the idea of touring or anything like that. We just wanted to play at parties in Santa Barbara. We never had the thought of recording an LP but after two years everyone said: “Well, you guys are pretty good.”. “Oh, d’you think?” “Yeah for sure, you want to record an LP on Mystic?” “Oh, well, yeah.”

That house on the cover of the second LP, do you guys live there?

Jason: Oh no, Emily, the girl from the picture lives there.

Over one of the faces you pasted Beanie Boy…

Jason: That’s her sister, she looked very angry.

You guys don’t carry your skateboard just for the record-cover?

Jason: No, definitely not. Joe rides for Go Skate and I ride for Barefoot Snowboards & Skateboards. I also snowboard for their team. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Bones Brigade video? A lot of it was shot at my mom’s house in Santa Barbara. Chuck ‘Barefoot’ [Borden], me and a couple more went over to them and said “We have a fine house.”. We had an old horse-corral there (Ed.: Fenced-in piece of land where horses are kept.) that hadn’t had horses in a long time, and we built a halfpipe there that was over six feet wide. That was a long time ago; we were one of the first in town. The ‘Powell Brigade’ [Powell-Peralta skateboard company] came there, Tony Ox [Hawk?] rode there a lot too. So we really have a lot to do with skating. I do know that there are bands that take pictures with a skateboard in the hope that their LP will sell better, we certainly don’t.

Skateboarding is a very expensive hobby here…

Jason: Yes, where we live too, but we get them just like that: after a contest, for example, they throw away almost everything away. After one contest you have enough for a whole skateboard: stickers, trucks, their ‘old’ board… There are so many pro’s with sponsors. With a few of those friends you can get everything for free in terms of ‘old’ stuff.

Anything else to say?

Keep rockin’!