Article Archive

[ In-Line, vol4, iss#2 | In-Line, June '96 | Rolling Stone, oct2, '97 | Capricorn Records Press Release ]

In-Line, vol4, iss#2

311 Kicks Ass 24-7

At the first MTV Sports and Music Festival, I talked with Nicholas Hexum, lead singer of the band 311. Along with Nick, the band consists of bassist P-Nut, guitarist Tim Mahoney, drummer Chad Sexton, and DJ and vocalist S. A. Martinez. The conglomeration of these reggae/punk/rock all-stars makes a landmark sound in today's culture. 311 began about 11 years ago when Tim and Nick started jamming. A few years later they joined up with Chad (who was recently of the cover of Modern Drummer). Then it was completed with S. A. and P-nut. The band ruled the underground for many years, attracting lots of attention with albums such as Music and Grassroots. They finally hit the big time, going triple platinum with the self-titled album 311 (nicknamed the "Blue" album). Super success was more evident than ever. With great anticipation they released their latest album Transistor. Critics dissed it. Inspired by reggae, the new sound wasn't as hardcore or rocking as the old albums. Apparently the critics didn't recognize the change as positive.

ILS: How do skating and music mix?

Nick: It comes down to the natural love of getting addicted to the feeling of rolling around and the rush you get. It is the same way with my music. When I get in my car, I start singing along with the radio. It's almost an addiction, but it's a healthy thing, just like the way a skater feels getting out on his skates all the time. That's what drives skating, not whether it's on ESPN or not. It's just a roots, underground kind of thing.

ILS: How are you connected with in-line skating?

Nick: It happened by hanging out with B Hardin. He was always playing our music at competitions and it happened sort of through osmosis. Then I became part owner of a skate/fashion clothing company called SBC/Ginsing. So I guess we are connected to in-liners more than other things.

ILS: What did you think of the MTV S & M Festival?

Nick: You've got to consider (that) they plopped down $5 million to build that snowboard ramp and all the other ramps -- production, fly bands and all the athletes. It's such a headache for them and you've got to give them props for supporting aggressive sports. I thought it was rad to watch all the sports and such different bands like the Crystal Method, a hip-hop techno band, and then us.

ILS: What was it like to be the headliner at the last show?

Nick: We were afraid that everyone would leave. Three days of music and skating and moshing -- we thought people would be ready to go home. But they stayed and the crowd was pretty big. Everything was rocking pretty good until the stupid sound police turned our music down for the last two songs because of some curfew. I think they should have let it go for one night (because) the event brought so much money into their community.

ILS: What do you think about critics dissing your last album?

Nick: A lot of people like mellow and experimental music, but I guess what they were expecting from us were songs like "Down," which are straight forward, easy to rock to-- rock with hooks. But on our new album, every beat that Chad tries out isvery experimental. We tried a lot of different styles, and it's like we really got experimental and these people, I guess, just couldn't appreciate it. But our fans never tell me, "Your album isn't that great." But people (did) say that when Grassroots came out. I think, hopefully in the long run, people can appreciate it as just being different. You can't really deny that it's unique. I'm not saying it's our best album ever. We realize that a lot of the tempos are slower and it's not real good to mosh to. But it doesn't suck.

ILS: I guess there is another similarity between skating and music. Critics bash your music and people don't respect aggressive sports. I mean, you tried to be different and they clobbered you, not because the music wasn't good, but because it was not what they expected.

Nick: I know, and none of the press at least gives us credit for changing it up. But you just got to roll with it. It's the same thing that happens with in-line skaters when you get a group of people and they're all trying to diss on in-lining. You've got to say, "Fuck 'em." I do exactly what I want, regardless. you have to be true to what you believe. It's like ska is hitting big on the radio right now. So if we started doing ska we would be a sellout. Not to take anything away from ska. I love it. Think of a young kid who gets a pair of in-line skates he loves. He goes to school and his friends are like, "Skateboarding is where it's at." If that kid's a chump, he is going to change over and start skateboarding because he thinks that is what's cool. But if he's got any integrity, he's going to stick with what he truly loved first, and that's a metaphor for what we've been doing as a band for the last 11 years. I would say the guys in the band are always just about making rockin' music and hoping for the best.

ILS: When are you looking at putting out a new album?

NICK: Not next year. An album a year is just too much. We need to work at a pace where we're not so burned out that the tension can overtake you. We want to do everything at a nice, even pace, as opposed to back when we didn't even consider taking time off. What the hell was that? We were either recording or touring, always. I'm certainly stoked on how everything has been going, but it's been a hell of a long work week.

ILS: Do you have anything you want to add?

NICK: My advice is that when you are really not sure what you should be doing, go back to doing what you love. Like right now, I feel like singing and working on the drums. Just keep that in mind and keep that rolling and don't let all the extra crap get it.

[ In-Line, vol4, iss#2 | In-Line, June '96 | Rolling Stone, oct2, '97 | Capricorn Records Press Release ]

In-Line, June '96

Noise

by Shura McComb

     This month, like last month, and, I think even the month before, I've wanted to interview B "Love" Hardin. B is a good friend of mine, a truly great skater and one of the premier lady-killers of the aggressive scene, and I really wanted to get some of his views on music into the magazine. But, as deadline is here and I have been unable to get in contact with B, I'm going to have to improvise.
     B's favorite band is 311. Of this fact, I'm sure. (That's pronounced three-eleven, not three-one-one.) I think he's been listening to them for a few years. I know that B has met all the guys in the band and has traveled around with them a bit. He thinks they are all cool and genuinely nice people. They must feel the same way about him because they always hook him up with tickets and backstage passes when he's around one of their shows. This also seems to work out nicely for B's friends who want to go see 311 -- although I can't say for sure because I have never been in the right place at the right time to check out a show.
     As for as 311's music is concerned, it seems okay to me, although I definitely wouldn't consider myself a fan or anything, Their mixture of punk, reggae, funk, ska, and, I guess, rock gets B very stoked whenever he hears it, and people around B tend to get stoked when B gets stoked. There also seem to be a whole lot of people in this country -- besides B -- who love 311 and follow them around to go to their shows..kind of like people did with the Grateful Dead, only more grass roots (if you can get any more grass roots than the Dead).
     In any case, B is a cool skater, and his individuality show be an example to other skaters and to people in general. I know that B would like everyone to experience 311, so if you're into skating and want to know more about what B likes, go buy some 311 CD's and check them out.

[ In-Line, vol4, iss#2 | In-Line, June '96 | Rolling Stone, oct2, '97 | Capricorn Records Press Release ]

Rolling Stone, oct2, '97

On the road with the weed-lovin', good-timin', record-sellin' 311
by John Wiederhorn

     The door of their luxury bus closes, and 311 shuttle off on the 12-hour overnight drive from Los Angelas to Park City, Utah, where they will perform their second U.S. show in support of their new album Transistor. Not two minutes after the journey begins, bassist P-Nut (a k a Aaron Wills) pulls out a rainbow-colored bong and a large zip-lock bag that is swelling with more than an ounce of strong marijuana buds, and proceeds to pack himself a bowl.
     Moments later, guitarist Tim Mahoney, 27, uncovers a second stash, this one in a jar embossed THC. For the next half-hour, the bong is lovingly passed among band members, and when they're not toking, P-Nut and Mahoney grip their containers of weed like infants clutching teddy bears.
     The only ones who don't smoke are the group's two vocalists. Frontman Nick Hexum likes to wake and bake at home but doesn't partake much on the road, and rapper Doug "SA" Martinez, 26, doesn't smoke at all anymore, although you'd never know it from his obsession with UFOs.
     Between hits, P-Nut, so named because the shape of his head, recounts events from his busy day: First he met his foxy girlfriend at a head shop and bought the aforementioned bong. Then he purchased a bew laptop computer so he can fuck around on America Online while 311 are on the road. Oh, yeah, he also put a $15,000 lien on his home mortgage in order to bail his friend's assistant out of jail—it seems that they were busted with more than 4,000 potted marijuana plants.
     "I'm just happy I got to help out, even though I don't know the [assistant]," reasons P-Nut. "Knowing that he was in jail for no reason besides the law made it worth the hassle."
     As P-Nut, 23, relates the story, Hexum, 27, and SA nod appreciatively and sip cans of Guinness, while Mahoney gradually slides down a couch cushion, his face cemented into a goofy grin. "We like to smoke, but we're not endorsing marijuana," says the soft-spoken Hexum after the three of his band mates have fallen into deep slumber. "We're saying, 'If you're gonna party, don't do coke, don't get drunk and smash your car, don't do heroin.' With pot, you could never get real stoned and then go beat your wife, because it doesn't deaden things. It makes you more sensitive."
     Considering how much pot the members of 311 smoke, it's surprising that these boys from Omaha, Neb., can all make it to sound check on time, let alone shoot hoops and work out before tonight's gig. But in truth, the bales of herb the band has smoked during its 7-year career may be what has kept it balanced. Sure, 311 may have sold more than 2 million copies of their last album, and Transistor may have entered the Billboard album chart at No. 4, but the band also endured fires, deceptive producers, and critical slings and arrows that would have torn apart a more uptight crew.
     "We really try to keep a good attitude," says Hexum. "A lot of people say, 'Man, it's such a shitty time to be alive,' but I can't relate to that at all."
     Hexum's optimism sparkles throughout Transistor. Many of the songs surge with propulsive ras and swaggering metal riffs, but the band never equates heaviness with hostility, and it thinks nothing of abruptly shifting from storming rock to billowing dub in midsong. Unlike 311's last three albums, which were built around a foundation od bruising volumes and boudless energy. Transistor is an equal balance of noise and nuance. There's less hip-hop and more reggae, and the production is far more spacious, leaving plenty of room for airy vocals and galactic sound effects.
     "We wanted to create songs that caress your ears rather than just slap them," says Hexum. "I've always been into the Smiths as much as Bad Brains."
     Through occasionally sophomoric, Hexum's lyrics are refreshingly positive, relaying a message of hippie-trippy unity. "When I find myself singing about my problems, I think, 'Well, who am I to complain?' " he says. "Kurt Cobain should have felt that way. I have a big problem with the fact that someone could be given so much yet still see the negetive side in everything."
     If Hexum's lyrics are contemplative, rapper SA's are more often influenced by science fiction. Throughout Transistor, SA waxes prophetic about mysterious civilizations, space aliens and the coming of the millennium. He first became obsessed with the unknown after an out-of-body experience in college. "I wasn't on drugs," he insists. "I was lying in bed, and the next thing I knew, I couldn't move. All of a sudden, I'm hearing this loud buzz inside my head, and then there was a solid blue cord of light that was going berserk. Then I'm just drifting out of my body."

     Like the rest of the guys in 311, Nick Hexum spent most of his youth in Omaha. His father is a pharmacologist who does experimentation on slaughterhouse tissue, and hise mom is a practicing psychologist, but his folks weren't always so academic. In his swinging youth, Hexum's father played trumpet, and his missis was a singing pianist who cut a couple of jazz records. Hexum's first musical revelation came early, when his family was living in the Washington, D.C., area. "I was bused to a school that was only 30 percent white, and the kids used to sing Sugar Hill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight' on the wasy to school," he recalls. "That had a profound impact on me. I loved being around all the slang and the culture."
     In high school, Hexum dug R.E.M., the Clash and the Beastie Boys, but his horizons were broadened after he picked up Bob Marley's Legend. "That record changed my life," he says. "I remember sneaking home from school to smoke weed and listen to [Marley's] Natty Dred. The sun was coming through the window, and I blew out the pot, and the sun shone on the smoke. I had this epiphany of the total enjoyment of music."
     While in high school, Hexum met Mahoney, and the two formed a cover band called the Eds. At the same time, Hexum was playing guitar in the school jazz band with Chad Sexton, now 27, whose funk drumming propels 311's pulsing groove.
     Unlike his band mates, Sexton's childhood was scarred with unpleasantness, the worst of which happened at the age of 7, when he was grazed in the face by a shotgun pellet after a local looney went postal inside a dinner theater. "That was really trippy," remembers Sexton. "My mom told me to sleep with the lights on for a week after that."
     Sexton, who has always vented his troubles on his kit, joined Hexum after the two graduated from high school. The Eds changed their name to Unity and took on a heavier, white-boy, funk-metal vibe. "I found like I finally found my niche," says Hexum. "We never considered bullshit like, 'We're from Omaha, so we shouldn't play funk.' "
     With their pockets full with weed and their heads filled with rock & roll dreams, Hexum and Sexton headed for L.A., where they were met with disinterest from the thriving Hollywood hair-metal scene. Discouraged, Hexum started drinking and taking drugs. He figured out that if he couldn't relate to L.A. rockers musically, maybe he could vibe with them chemically. In 1989, he started hanging out with homeless metalheads who were high on speed, and he partied with the Dead Boys' Stiv Bators.
     "I can't believe I came out of it healthy and disease-free," marvels Hexum. "We'd be out at the clubs, having the world's greatest time, but the next day I'd wake up and realize my band wasn't going anywhere and I had just blown all my money. So I decided to straighten out. I haven't touched cocaine or heroin for six years now." That same year, Sexton went back to Omaha, and Hexum moved to Germany.
     SA, like Hexum, discovered rap at an early age, when he was bused to a racially mixed school. His first rhymes poked fun at his siblings, and, with a bit of podding, he lets fly with some dope oldschool riddims about his sister: "Chris is a bitch, breaking hearts, she don't care/She changes boys more often than I change my underwear."
     While attending the University of Nebraska, Sexton and SA hooked up with P-Nut (whose mom now runs the 311 fan club). P-Nut, the youngest and most visually striking member of the band, is obsessed with four things: music, pot, The Simpsons and occult figure Aleister Crowley. P-Nut's right shin is decorated with a multicolored rendering of Crowley's motto: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. P-Nut got the tattoo only after he turned 18 and received his mom's permission.
     Sexton, SA, and P-Nut started a band called Fish Hippos and, later, secured a spot opening for Fugazi in Omaha. Upon hearing the news, Hexum rushed back home from Germany and joined the group for the gig, which, coincidentally, was attended by an acid-dazed Mahoney, who eventually replaced one of the band's original guitarists.
     In the early 90's, while 311 were struggling to build a following in Omaha, they recorded a demo with Yes Producer Eddy Offord. The group secured an album deal, moved to L.A., and started touring with an RV borrowed from Sexton's dad. But after the second show, the RV caught fire, and the band members barley escaped. "I looked in the rearview mirror, and I just saw orange," says Hexum. "The flames were coming up over the door. We had to jump over them to get out."
     The band members lost all their gear, clothes and tour money in the inferno. Regardless, they finished the tour with borrowed instruments and a new RV. But shortly after, the band ran into another career snag. As the group puts it into a prepared statement, "[Offord] had some serious personal problems and health problems during the recording [of Grassroots, 311's second album]. He was drinking heavily and had really erratic behavior.
     Offord denies this and says that, "[311] turned into very selfish people. They're great guys, but I think they started to believe their own press. They were like spoiled kids. And, yeah, I pulled a few stunts on them; I won't deny it, but they deserved it."
     Understandably, 311 and Offord parted ways. "First, fate screwed us by burning our RV; then this guy screwed us, but I never lost faith." says Hexum. "I remember thinking, 'God, this is so great. We have all these fans in Atlanta that can't wait for us to get back. We're gonna make it, man. One day we're gonna go back into the studio and make the most dopest album.' "
     It would take two more years, but in 1996, 311 released their singsongy hit "Down," and the youth of America duly plunked down their allowances.

     Salt Lake City is not exactly a rock & roll Mecca. Yet this evening when 311 play at Wolf Mountain, in Park City, several thousand screaming teens dressed in revealing outfits that would give their parents aneurysms make the pilgrimage to the venue. Few of the fans, if any, leave disappointed. During the show, Hexum sings and riffs away intently while SA staggers across the stage, pinwheeling his arms. At the same time, Mahoney practices vertical leaps, and P-Nut sticks out his pierced tongue and lifts his legs one at a time like an evil leprechaun marionette.
     After the encore, two trembling pubescent girls wrangle their way backstage and procure autographs. Everywhere the group goes, adoring girls surround 311. There are others, however, who are less charitable.
     To many critics, 311 continue to create a soulless and watered-down hybrid of rock, rap, and reggae. "We get dissed for being lightweight because we're happy," gripes Hexum, relaxing after a post-gig message (just one of the perks of platinum album sales). "But I'm talking about things in my lyrics that are important. Maybe if the great thinkers of past times—like Buddha or Christ—were alive today, people would say they were shallow because they were talking about everything being cool to one another."
     Hexum's diatribe is interrupted by an invitation to head back to the bus for some after-show revelry. On board, they watch Mariah Carey's new video "Honey." As the singer swims, Jet Skis, and gyrates, Mahoney blurts out, "Seeing that just makes you want to fuck her. Then you feel really guilty 'cause she's so cheesy." Sexton agrees, but before the band has the chance to get too excited, the "Transistor" video splashes across the tube. The song's syncopated beats, distorted guitars and reggae harmonies permeate the cushy interior of the bus, and Sexton starts to play air drums while Mahoney bobs his head and toasts the screen with his bong.
     "Some people say they thought they wanted stardom, but it sucks and it's not all cracked up to be," says Hexum after the video is over. "That's just a bad attitude. If you're doing what you want, you should be happy. And I am." He sighs contently, looks over at a picture of his girlfriend that he has scanned into his laptop computer and smiles. "Stardom is all that I had hoped for—no question."

[ In-Line, vol4, iss#2 | In-Line, June '96 | Rolling Stone, oct2, '97 | Capricorn Records Press Release ]

Capricorn Records Press Release

311 PERSEVERES: DRUMMER BREAKS WRIST, YET GROUP CONTINUES WARPED TOUR DATES

LOS ANGELES, CA -- January 23, 1998 -- Adding their own twist to a well known slogan, Capricorn Records' 311 is proving that when the going gets tough, the tough keep going. The group is continuing a series of international WARPED Tour concert dates despite the temporary loss of drummer Chad Sexton, who fractured his left wrist January 17 during a tour stop in Sydney, Australia.

The 27-year-old percussionist was injured while playing a casual game of American-style football as Sexton and his bandmates relaxed prior to an evening performance in Sydney's Keirly Park. Sexton was immediately flown to Los Angeles to see a specialist for treatment. Upon examination, the doctor reported no complications, and Sexton's prognosis is excellent: following 3 1/2 weeks in a cast, he is expected to make a full recovery.

The incident occurred at the beginning of a series of WARPED Tour dates in the Pacific. During Sexton's absence, 311 is relying on two old friends to provide percussive firepower: the band's drum tech Yeti (a much-beloved member of the 311 team, well known to the group's rabid fans) is filling in on three songs, and Josh Freese of The Vandals (who are also playing on the WARPED Tour) is playing drums during the rest of 311's set.

Sexton is the second 311 member to require medical treatment during the group's ongoing worldwide tour in support of their platinum-certified Transistor album. In autumn 1997, the group was forced to cancel several European dates as guitarist Tim Mahoney recuperated from hernia surgery. Mahoney's operation went smoothly, and he recovered in plenty of time for a series of raucous American tour dates.

Although Sexton will be sorely missed during his temporary absence, there is good reason for optimism in the 311 camp: Sexton's excellent overall health bodes well for a rapid recovery, and 311's latest single "Beautiful Disaster" is currently climbing up the U.S. alternative charts.

In the wake of Sexton's mishap, 311 once again demonstrates the resilience and determination that has marked the group since its earliest days in Omaha to its current status as a major recording and touring attraction.

[ In-Line, vol4, iss#2 | In-Line, June '96 | Rolling Stone, oct2, '97 | Capricorn Records Press Release ]

-BACK-