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Rhode Island is definitely a tough state to live in. We're the smallest state (with the longest name), almost to the point where people get us confused with Long Island, and we are more corrupt than the entire series of The Sopranos, but we do have some great bands, and Sharks Come Cruisin' are one of them. Playing sing along sea shanties, they are bringing back a sound that has been left in Congress vaults, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (grab as many of these as possible) or the minds of the people lucky enough to have songs passed down to their generation. They put their own spin on this style of music, adding punk rock flavor and updating it for the modern music listener. This is the type of music that I have been buying up by the pound lately, so its great hearing a local band playing songs that fit to my current listening style, and its even better knowing that they cater to sing songs that focus on the rich tradition that New England and Rhode Island has had involving the sea.
This interview went down with singer/guitarist Mark Lambert at the CD Release Party Show on March 1 at Jake's in Providence, RI. Their EP, Four Years Before the Mast, is available and damn well worth picking up, and catching their live show would be a great use of your time. This interview touches on a bunch of subjects, and should be a must read for people in their local scene trying to do things D.I.Y.
PL: State something interesting about yourself.
ML: I play sea shanties. Is that interesting enough?
PL: What should people expect when listening to Four Years Before the Mast?
ML: Lots of instrumentation. There's six of us on the record: accordian, banjo, fiddle, myself, drums, bass and lots of gang vocals. Very sing along.
PL: Did you guys get new members recently?
ML: Yeah. The fiddle player has been playing with us since the end of the summer, same with the banjo player. The accordian guy is usually around, but he can't do shows too much because he is a little bit older than us, but he's gonna be here tonight.
PL: Being a local band, how hard was it getting shows and getting your name out there?
ML: With this band, its been easy, but I've been playing music for sixteen years, so it was difficult for any punk band I was in to get shows prior to Sharks Come Cruisin'. Occasionally, we'd get some pretty good streaks at Babyhead (now Club Hell-they just started having shows there again, but its not the same as Babyhead was) or The Living Room, but for the most part, its always been very very difficult. With this, its something that strikes a chord with everybody in New England. They love it.
PL: What are you future plans?
ML: Well, we're gonna be touring this summer. We've been invited to play the Shipwreck Music Festival in Columbia, Missouri, with a bunch of other sea music bands. We're gonna tour probably for ten days. Five going up there and five coming back, and we're gonna go with Barn Burning. We're using Barn Burning's drummer right now, as we're in between drummers. Thats one future plan. We'd like to do a full length record, if anybody wants to pick it up, but I don't think we'll be financing studio time anytime soon. This record was pretty expensive.
PL: Was it difficult pressing your own CD?
ML: No. 75 or Less, the guy who does 75 or Less Records, has made it tremendously easy for bands, especially local bands to do small runs. He does 100 CDs or 200 CDs, where if you want to it through Disc Maker or something like that, you have to do 1,000, and you have 700 of them sitting in your basement forever, so this guy makes it very easy and he's pretty open to whoever wants to put stuff out on his label.
PL: Are you guys finding distro on your own?
ML: That we haven't even really given any thought to. He's probably the closest thing to a distributor that we have. He puts stuff out on his website, 75orless.com. People can get it through him. We put songs available for download on sharkscomecruisin.com. But, as far as getting it into stores, we really don't have any interest in that right now. It all goes back to if somebody wants to do it for us, than I'm all for it, but I'm kind of done with trying to do that stuff myself.
PL: You guys have a very intersting live show with the lyrics out and sing alongs. Describe your live show and explain how it came about.
ML: It all started just me. I had finished up playing in Returnaround in '98 and our bass player had moved to Brooklyn. I didn't really play music at all except for a few side bands, and I've always loved the idea of having some sort of roots music. I would love going out to see rockabilly bands and blues bands, but I never really felt it was all that authentic to New England or Rhode Island. I was watching "Jaws," and there's a scene where he sings "Spanish Ladies," and I thought that there's probably more songs out there. I went to the library and started doing research, and I learned that there was a whole bunch of songs. I grew up in the hardcore scene with lots of big gang vocals, sing along and pile ons. When I heard these songs, they were just like everything I love about hardcore. I started doing open mics by myself, and I could tell that people wanted to sing along but didn't know the words, so I started writing the lyrics on cue cards and putting them up on easels, and the rest is just kind of how its gone.
PL: If you were a pirate back in the day, what would your name be?
ML: I don't know. I'll take a pass on that one. The weird part about what we do is, is that a lot of folks describe us as a pirate band, and I try my best to have us not come off as a pirate band. The songs have a pretty deep tradition in New England, and I think it kind of sells them short lumping them in with Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever. Now, when people come to shows dressed as pirates, I'm all for it, but I don't have a pirate name.
PL: I actually hear you. The way the music is, its more folk and singalong-ish.
ML: I've got a funny story about that. There's a guy we met from Long Island, and he does PR for a video game, and wanted us to record a song for a video game called Pirates vs. Ninja Dodgeball. He told us that we have to do a track for the video game, and that was fine with us. We were going into the studio, and we told him he could take his pick of whatever songs come out of it. The process was going on and he mentioned something to us about including lyrics about ninjas and dodgeball in the song, and we told him that it wasn't like that. I told him he'd know what I'm talking about when he hears the CD, and he kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and I told him: "Look. No pirates, no ninjas, no dodgeball." He ended up getting the CD and liking it, and if you go to piratesvsninjas.com, you can download one of our songs for free if you send it to one of your buddies.
PL: What one musician or group do you feel has had the most impact on music?
ML: On music or me?
PL: Music.
ML: Music? That is a really tough question. I'd have to condition it by saying rock music and The Clash.
PL: Whats one movie everyone should see?
ML: "Jaws."
PL: Whats a little known fact about Providence or Rhode Island?
ML: A little known fact about Rhode Island. Verbal Assault is from Rhode Island and Verbal Assault is one of the greatest hardcore bands ever. I think thats probably a little known fact about Rhode Island punk.
PL: Name one album, besides your own, that you think all people should have in their collection.
ML: Hot Water Music's No Division.
(This brings up a discussion about Till the Wheels Fall Off by Hot Water Music, with Lambert expressing his love of vinyl and vinyl collecting.)
PL: Last question: How excited are you right now?
ML: Pretty excited. This is gonna be a good show for us. Yeah, I'm pretty pumped.
PL: Is there anything else you want to say?
ML: We're playing St. Pat's at The Penalty Box if anyone's interested. Go to sharkscomecruisin.com to get the record and sign up for the mailing list. I think when people sign up for the show, they'll be pleasantly surprised by what they hear, so give us a shot and come check it out.
Members of Sharks Come Cruisin':
Jonathon Cannon-Fiddle
Paul Dube-Accordion
Seth Forden-Bass, Vocals
Mark Lambert-Vocals, Guitar
Ed Wenzl/James Toomey-Drums
Erik Wohlgemuth-Banjo