by Jessica Del Curto
Daily Lobo
When Reel Big Fish first formed, members didn't know what ska was.
"At the time, a lot of the bands in the area were ska bands, like No Doubt and Sublime," said Dan Regan, trombonist for Reel Big Fish. "We didn't even know what it was called. We knew we liked it, but we didn't know what it was."
Reel Big Fish started in 1991 as a cover band.
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"We were a classic guitar band," he said. "That's all we really knew how to play."
In 1994, after they did some homework, they added the horn section and became a ska band. In 1996, they released Turn the Radio Off, and the song "Sell Out" brought them radio and MTV play.
Regan said everyone in the six-member group can agree that Sublime was an inspiration to them. Reel Big Fish had the opportunity to play several shows with the band before Bradley Nowell died. Regan was 16 at the time, and saw Sublime as a regular group of guys who liked to drink beer and party. A lot of times, they would be scheduled to play together, and Sublime wouldn't show up.
"You never knew if they were going to be there or not," he said.
But to members of Reel Big Fish, it didn't matter. Because if Sublime was the headliner, it promised a packed show.
Regan said ska is reggae's predecessor, and its roots are in Jamaica.
Jamaicans would take away the bass line, and that's how they came up with the ska sound, he said.
"Bob Marley was in a ska band when he was 17," Regan said. "Eventually everyone started smoking weed, and ska slowed down into reggae."
He said there was a second wave of ska in London in the '80s, because of the large West Indian population.
Reel Big Fish is part of the third wave, he said.
"We were from Southern California, and we just wanted to have a party or something," he said.
The band's commercial height was in 1998, but when Regan replays their music from the time, he thinks they were terrible.
"I think that now we are definitely at our musical peak," he said. "Maybe we are just getting older so we care more about how we sound than drinking beer all night. We finally figured out how to play the songs that we wrote."
Reel Big Fish was released from their record label in January. Regan said that for some bands, that would be a curse, but not for them.
"We have a hardcore group of fans that come out to see us in any country," he said. "We don't really need a record label."
He said record labels target a certain type of people - the type that don't know much about music and only buy two albums a year. He said fans of Reel Big Fish don't need to be told by record labels what music they should like.
"Our fans buy dozens of records a year," he said. "They are actual music fans."
Reel Big Fish will be playing at Fiestas, a campus concert, which is combined with Spring Storm, a day-long community service project for UNM students. Regan was impressed when he heard the majority of his audience will be students who have been participating in community service all day long.
"That's really awesome," he said. "Usually at school programs, everyone gets really drunk and comes over to watch us," he said. "That's really cool."
Fiestas, sponsored by Student Special Events, will begin at noon on Saturday. Spring Storm, sponsored by the Community Experience, will begin its barbecue at 2 p.m. Reel Big Fish will go on at 5:30 p.m.
Reel Big Fish
Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
Johnson Field
Free
