Scene Point Blank: Who came up with the term “hyperska?”
Russ Wood: JER. I told them that I was calling it trap rock steady as a play on crack rock steady. [Laughs.] And then they did this one TikTok with “txt me tmrw” and they were like “Trap Rock Steady? Hyperska? I don't know, but I like it.”
"Yo, hyperska! That’s so sick,” and then [I] ran with that because a) I didn't want to associate with STZA and, B) I'm not a rapper! [Laughs.]
Scene Point Blank: What’s your history with the genre?
Russ Wood: I got into ska through my parents. My mom had a friend in college who used to call her “Stand Down” because of the “Stand Down Margaret” song [by The English Beat]. Her name is Margaret. [Laughs.]
The first ska thing that I remember enjoying was “Our House” by Madness, which I heard on the radio. Sometime soon thereafter my Dad took me to Rasputin -- or Tower Records at the time -- and bought me the Ultimate Madness compilation. For a child that's a very fun band because they've got all kinds of silly songs. It's hard to divorce this from my own experience, but I feel like they're very childish songs. “House of Fun,” or “Baggy Trousers.” It just seemed like children doing things and then writing songs about it.
I got into punk [in a] very similar way: listening to the radio with my dad in the car. I think “Lost in the Supermarket” by The Clash came on. I was like “What’s this? They’re in a store! That's funny. People write songs about this?” And then he bought me London Calling on CD. I cannot remember the order in which these events happened, but [the same thing happened again], but this time the song was “Beat on the Brat” by The Ramones. I was like, “What's this? This is silly.” My Dad’s like “It’s the Ramones. You like this?” And then went and bought Ramones Mania on CD. I became obsessed: reading liner notes, exploring my parents’ CD collection, and finding out about these newer bands by going to Tower Records and Rasputin.
Then I had this really, really good family friend [whose] kids are the same age as me and my sister. We would go visit them all the time. Mike, the dad, had this little room in his garage, and it was just these file cabinets full of alphabetized CDs. He was like, “Have at it! Burn what you think sounds interesting.” I would just spend the entire time not playing with my sister and our family friends, but listening to these CDs and burning copies of them onto blank discs. That's how I heard Punk In Drublic and the first four Black Flag records and Minor Threat. I remember being in my parents’ minivan on the trip back to the Bay Area and playing Punk In Drublic on my Walkman. El Hefe’s vocal intro of “Linoleum” comes in, and then that iconic guitar riff. All the sudden, The Clash were hella boring.
As I got more into punk, I was introduced to a lot of ska. I remember seeing Fun with Dick and Jane, that Jim Carrey Movie, and “Time Bomb” by Rancid is in that movie.
Scene Point Blank: When they're cutting the lawn out.
Russ Wood: Yeah. [Laughs.] You’ve got good memory. I remember asking my mom, “Oh my god! Who is this?” And she was like, “I don’t know, The Specials?” which is really funny to think about now. I think I gave her shit for it recently. She was like, “I know it wasn’t The Specials, leave me alone.” [Laughs.]
When I got into ska, my mom gave me her old English Beat cds and The Specials cd they had. I also got into a lot of reggae. My mom loves Steel Pulse, so I got into True Democracy and stuff. She had a bunch of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and The Wailers on vinyl.
Scene Point Blank: So ska’s just in your blood?
Russ Wood: It sure seems like it. The more I’ve gotten into the modern ska scene, I'm realizing it's been there all along. That kind of brings us up to today. 'Cause obviously there were a couple [ska] songs on [i may b cute, but im dumb af], but I really buckled down after that, because those were my favorite songs on that record. Every time I’d show [them] to people, they’d go “There’s ska in this? Why?”
Why not?
Scene Point Blank: I know you’ve been involved in punk and DIY for a long time, and even have a connection to Asian Man Records. What’s your fan-to-DIY pipeline story?
Russ Wood: My cred?
Scene Point Blank: Your cred.
Russ Wood: I started a band with some of my friends in [junior high] school. Jason Ferry, my best friend for years and years, had the quintessential punk rock older brother, Jon, [who] played drums in a very 2002 Warped Tour-influenced pop punk band called Interpret This. [Laughs.] So Jason took up playing drums. I think the first band name we ever came up with was Teenage Sellouts. We both thought that was hella cool. I remember writing it all over my notebooks in middle school. We played one real show at a Labor Day block party that this dad rock guy in my neighborhood would throw. We played the Social Distortion cover of “Ring of Fire,” an original song that we wrote -- it sucked -- and “Anthem” by Blink 182. I was 13 or 14. My mom said other parents came up to her like, “I can't believe you're letting him play [that] song!” [Laughs.]
That band didn't really do anything, and then high school started. Jason and I started our first real band called The Blanks -- essentially a Fifteen worship band. Really, I just wanted to be the band Fifteen. There were two really cool girls a year older than me who were very into punk. One would frequent Gilman and lie about [being from] Walnut Creek. She’d say she was from Berkeley or Oakland so [nobody would know] that she lived in this big ass house in this gated community. I remember going to see MDC and The Subhumans together. She was like, “We're gonna go meet my friends. Do not tell them you're from Walnut Creek.” And you know, I've never dressed super punk -- she's just full nine yards! Leather straps, big ass mohawk. I'm not knocking it at all, she looked sick as fuck. But the jokes write themselves. [Laughs.]
So I was aware of DIY, but not sure how to get into it. And there was this venue in downtown Walnut Creek called The Red House, which is essentially a rehearsal studio. They did lessons but also threw shows. It was a very small room, maybe 200-cap. I called their booker one time and was like, “Hey, I'm in a local band. How do I play at Red House?” They were like “We've got this show with Stigma 13,” a local psychobilly, rock 'n' roll pompadour doupe-core band.
Scene Point Blank: Nekromantics style stuff?
Russ Wood: Not quite. They didn't have a stand-up bass. They had a punk band aesthetic in terms of instruments and organization, but were rockabilly punks. There was this other band on the bill called The Nite Shades. We would go on to play a bunch of shows together.
Me, Mr. Friendly-energetic-and-eager, was just excited to be playing these shows! So full of energy and excited to meet other people doing what we were doing. And I was very sober at the time -- just fucking stoked on life. At that time, I had gotten into Bomb the Music Industry! through this really annoying kid in my high school who had a cool older brother. I was over at his house playing Halo after school, and his older brother was like “Have you ever heard of this band Bomb the Music Industry!?” I was like, “That’s a crazy name!” I slept on them for six months, as was my regiment at the time. People would recommend me a band, I’d be like “meh,” and then go back six months later, [and] it’d be my favorite fucking band.
I started following them, downloaded all the records from Quote Unquote, [and] saw that they were playing at this nickel arcade in San Jose. I'm pretty sure every meaningful connection that I've made through San Jose music was at that show. I met Jaake [Margo of Get Married], Drew [Satterlund of Spy] and Bailey [Lupo of Scowl]. At the time, [Drew and Bailey were in] a Choking Victim/surf worship band called The Caps: nasty, grungy, ska mixed with surf tendencies. They were like my favorite band. Through that, I found out about these backyard shows this kid Dylan and his dad would throw in downtown San Jose. I saw Laura Stevenson there a few times, AJJ played there a bunch, and that was the first time I saw Jaake’s old band, Disabled Intent. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly. This was my first experience noticing friends hug each other. Like, “I'm happy to see you, my friend, and I care about you” type thing. All these kids hugging each other, dancing, and having fun. Fucking magical.
Through that, I knew that Asian Man was involved. I remember sitting in my junior year journalism class and getting the Asian Man newsletter: “looking for interns to come help pack records.” I sent Mike [Park] an email and started going there as often as I could. That's how I really got to know Jaake better, because Jaake was essentially Mike's mail boy. He would take Mike's packages to the post office on his way home and run a bunch of errands all over the South Bay. Him and Mike were like best friends. They’d go to movies all the time together and stuff. I thought that was so fuckin’ cool.
I would help out Mike for a few hours and he'd be like, “Take a couple cds or a record.” I think he probably had too much deadstock that he wanted to get rid of. [Laughs.] I ate up everything I could.
I got more into DIY and the community aspect of it. That's where I really saw progress, excitement, and fun happening. One of the last shows [The Blanks played] was opening for Bomb The Music Industry! and The Sidekicks at Bottom of the Hill. Us and The Caps played.
Scene Point Blank: What a lineup!
Russ Wood: That was Mike's gift to me for helping him out at Asian Man.
"Does your band (that I'm positive he did not like) want to open for Bomb the Music Industry!?”
"Yes, please.”
Our dumb asses played a show the night before and I completely blew out my voice. That would not be the first time I embarrassed myself playing a show that Jeff Rosenstock was at. [Laughs.] Then I went away to college for a year.
Scene Point Blank: Was that around the time you're getting into emo?
Russ Wood: Yeah. Senior year of high school, I heard The World Is a Beautiful Place And I am No Longer Afraid to Die, and got into that very 2011/2012 Top Shelf Records Tumblr emo.
We did KiLL THE BATS from 2013 to 2015. We did two West Coast tours and that was my first real experience with national DIY and making connections through playing shows and returning favors for people who put you up and stuff. The idea of the band was, “We're gonna dress up in Batman and Robin uniforms every time we play. Jaake's gonna be Batman, the rest of us are gonna be Robin.” It was part Jaake's idea, and part Mike Park’s idea. Mike's whole thing was, “Don't talk about the costumes. If people ask about the costumes, just be like ‘what costumes?’” That lasted like three shows. [Laughs.]
