Jess Margera of CKY – Interview Continued From Sick Drummer Magazine Issue 8
By: Craig Sternberg
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SDM: I know Bam played guitar when you guys were younger, was anyone else besides him and your uncles musically inclined?
Jess: Yeah, nothing serious. My two uncles play professionally. One of my uncles doesn’t anymore, but one of my uncles does. He plays in a bunch of country bands, he’s like a session guy. I was thinking about doing the Hank Williams III tour, so I called him up to get lessons and to learn things like train beats, stuff like that. So I look to him for stuff like that. It’s definitely a plus to have that!
SDM: Tell us a little bit more about The Company band. What does the band sound like? Tell us about the new record.
Jess: It’s basically a bunch of my friends, people to look up to. I asked them to jam and it turned into a project. It’s more rock sounding, kind of like ZZ Top. Definitely a lot of fun! We’re obviously all in other bands that are full-time things, so when we get a free minute to record or do a couple of shows, it’s always a lot of fun.
SDM: I wanted to talk a little about West Town Lake. Just how awesome is it for a drummer to have his own studio? How much do you think about engineering and the inner workings of a studio?
Jess: I record there a lot, but basically whenever I track stuff at my place, I always bring it to someone else to mix that knows more about that than I do. I’m still pretty amateur in it. If I’ve got to get drum tones and stuff like that, I got a really cool room in my house, I’ve gotten a lot of great drum sounds down there. Then I just take it to a studio with tons of gear; I don’t have so much gear at my place. I have some mics and digital recording at my place, though. It’s definitely a plus to have that, be it for demoing stuff or sometimes I’ve done a couple records; I just did an English band’s record. We recorded half the drums at my house, so it’s a lot of fun.
SDM: A lot of our reader base grew up knowing you based on the old CKY videos. Was there anything ever left off one of the videos that you wish had made it?
Jess: Man, there was so much footage from when we went to Iceland, I think we could make a whole ‘nother movie out of it. It was a while ago, so I don’t really know. There’s definitely a lot that got left off. It was fun, it’s cool; this band, it was like the music industry was the last to find out about CKY. We had legions of fans that were surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding… our first label that signed us was basically a clothing company and had a label almost as a hobby. Once the band started getting recognition through skate videos and surfing videos and stuff, we started selling a bunch of records. Then Jackass and a bunch of TV shows came along. Then we sold so many albums through Tower Records and the Internet, the music industry finally found out about it after we sold like forty to fifty thousand CDs. It’s pretty funny that the music industry had nothing to do with us gaining a fan-base.
SDM: What has your relationship been with Mike Vallely been like? He’s in the magazine.
Jess: We’ve played with Revolution Mother a bunch, and Mike’s other band Mike V and the Rats. He’s a great dude, we’ve known each other forever, through skating and Element; he’s on Element with my brother. It’s great that he’s getting into music and putting out records. You can definitely hear his Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains influence.
SDM: How do you feel CKY is going to progress from here? How do you expect the next CKY record to sound? Will it be completely unexpected?
Jess: It’s tough to think about it. Who even knows if albums would even be around? The CD is definitely going away fast. I think things are going to revert back to the ’50s and ’60s, where people release singles, a 45 with a B-side. A digital single or an EP here and there. I think the album format is going to die off within the next couple of years. There are definitely bands that make entire records that kick ass, but a lot of bands do albums where there are one or two songs and the rest is total filler. I think bands that do that basically are killing off the album format, people are sick of paying fifteen bucks for one or two songs.
SDM: How big of an issue is it in CKY to have side projects on the side for you guys? Does that create tension in the band or is it even an issue?
Jess: Yeah, everything is fine as far as that goes. If you do this for as long as we have, everyone has an attention span and you start to do other stuff. It’s just the way it goes and I think it happens with every band.
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