Captain Asshole
Scene Point Blank: First, we're conducting this interview in English over email. So tell me a bit about when you learned English and your comfort level with the language?
Max: At the time when we were kids, you started to learn English in 5th grade, so roughly at 11 years old -- but I think they start even earlier now? I spent way too much time on internet forums when I was younger and now have a lot of English-speaking friends, plus my sister moved to the US. So, I’d say my comfort level in written English is pretty excellent. Spoken English I still fall back to the most rudimentary English a lot.
Scene Point Blank: How do you say "Captain Asshole" in German?
Max: A word for word translation would be Kapitän Arschloch.
Scene Point Blank: I'm going to ask a few Fest questions, then more band stuff.
Max: This is Captain Asshole's second Fest, but you've attended several more, correct? When did you first attend and was this band your first to perform at the event?
Max: started attending with Fest 15 and went to 16, 17 and 18. So 20 will be my 5th. I dragged the band along for Fest 17 when we still didn’t play, and things worked out for us the following year. Yes, Captain Asshole was the first band to play Fest for either of us.
Manu: When we were at Fest 17 (where we did not play) we brought a lot of koozies and gave almost every person we met our very first Captain Asshole koozie. Still believe that’s the reason we got to play there.
Max: Exactly! It’s like punk rock business cards.
Scene Point Blank: Tell us about getting accepted to play at Fest 18. Were you expecting it? What was the first thing you did when you got the news?
Max: I was in conversation with Craig who does Foreign Dissent in Orlando the Monday before Fest, where he invites a handful of the international bands playing Fest. He couldn’t really fit us into his event as he already had plenty of white men playing and wanted to diversify his line up a little, understandably. He still forwarded us to Tony and from there on we got into conversation. I wouldn’t say I expected it, but we had the tools and contacts to make it happen and tried our best.
First thing I did was probably tell the others and then stress out about how to actually book a tour in the US. But it all worked out thanks to a lot of very kind people we are now able to call friends!
Scene Point Blank: I imagine there's a lot of planning to make an international show work, especially if it's a one-off. Do you bring your own equipment?
Max: Oh no, we’re definitely not bringing our own equipment. We heard lots of stories before about that turning into a nightmare. For Fest 18 we bought the cheapest stuff we could find at Guitar Center and also had some help for drum parts from our buddies in Cold Wrecks.
This time we asked the guys in Jukebox Romantics if they’d be down to share their gear with us. Usually when they come to Germany around Booze Cruise Festival they also rely on help of other bands and I guess they’re happy to repay the favor to another band. Karma or something like that.
It just got a little stressful (as our set times initially clashed) but that is sorted out by now.
Scene Point Blank: If you had to pick one or two favorite Fest moments as a music fan, what are they?
Max: Too many to count, honestly. Also many of my favorite Fest memories are not that much music related but about seeing international friends once a year. And I can’t really just view it objectively as a music fan, the best thing was standing on the Loosey’s stage playing our own songs.
Manu: Yeah, would agree with that. If I had to pick another moment it would be the set of Mom Jeans at Fest 17. They were not really big in Germany back then but the show at Wooly’s (I guess?) was an absolute killer.
Scene Point Blank: How did you feel about your Fest 18 set? I caught the last half, just after Jawbreaker played.
Max: Thanks for catching part of the set!
Yes, we got this ridiculously cool stage time right after Jawbreaker finished outside. I was lucky enough to get to see them in Munich, otherwise I would have been bummed that I had to miss them to prepare our own set. [After] Jawbreaker is finished, all the people were heading towards the indoor venues so that was cool. It was probably the most we’ve seen people sing along to our songs except for maybe hometown shows in Munich which was really wild to witness.
We got people on stage to sing with us, I made a rather poor crowd surf attempt at the end and accidentally wrestled one of my friends to the ground…it was a mess and it was great.
Manu: Yeah, I think as a musician who is writing their own songs, the most beautiful moment is when you see people sing along to your songs. That’s super wild.
Scene Point Blank: Was it hard to keep your energy going when you had one of the last sets of the whole weekend?
Max: Not that hard. I wasn’t that nervous about a show in quite a long time, so the adrenaline helped to keep going.
Scene Point Blank: Will you approach Fest 20's set differently, since it's not so late into the 3-day event?
Max: I don’t really think so. We’re 3 years older now so we should probably take it a bit slower but, knowing us, we most likely won’t. We’re also not touring down from New York so that helps to conserve energy. And we all kind of like playing earlier because it means you can start the real party afterwards sooner.
Manu: I bet that we will already be wasted when we’re entering the stage.
Scene Point Blank: Name a few bands on your “must see” list for Fest 20.
Max: There’s a lot and I’m sure I’ll miss a few here and I’ll probably also miss some of the actual sets even though they’re must see.
The Copyrights as they’re the only band I’ve seen each Fest I went to so far.
Cobra Skulls, The Holy Mess and Paint It Black as I most likely won’t get another chance to see them.
Otherwise it’s just about seeing friends do their thing, so I’ll try to make it to Royal Dog, The Jukebox Romantics, Trophy Jump, Small State, Shehehe, Lost Love and a bunch of others.
Manu: Oh yeah, there are a lot of must sees and I hope that I will make it to all of them. For example: La Dispute, Iron Chic, The Holy Mess, Lightweight, Into it. Over it…
Scene Point Blank: Have any tips for first time Festers? (Or lessons that you've learned the hard way).
Max: Pace yourself in terms of booze. You’ll make many great memories and it would be great to actually remember them the next day.
Also go and watch the small bands. You’ll have plenty of time to catch the headliners when they tour, but some of those smaller bands might not come to your city or possibly country.
Scene Point Blank: Sbäm released your record in Europe, and Say-10 in the US. How did you get involved with Say-10?
Max: I think there were several aspects working together that in the end helped us getting involved. Step 1 was that I very vaguely knew about Say-10 and Adam through my Fest friend Lauren. Step 2 was that my old band Little Teeth released our album on Say-10 so I already had a foot in the door and step 3 was that Sbäm already worked on several releases with Say-10 and so they went with it.
Scene Point Blank: Your name is silly and you have a lot of playful lyrics, yet the band itself feels serious -- there is meaning and not just a joke. Is this something you sought out to do, or is it more a reflection of your personalities?
Max: I think it’s probably a bit of both. We didn’t want to write super silly pop-punk songs, we wanted our lyrics to have meaning. But, at the same time, we mostly enjoy life and I think people shouldn’t write songs that make them sound like they're miserable all the time when they’re not. The silliness of song titles etc. is balancing it out a bit.
Manu: I think when we started this band the lyrics were not as serious as they are now. We wrote a lot about drinking -- I mean, we still do -- but today it feels different. Now we take the whole band more seriously and we write about things that really bother us. Sometimes it’s stupid, sometimes funny and often emotional or sad.
Scene Point Blank: Similarly, you work in a lot of American pop culture references -- were you raised on American media?
Max: I never thought about it that way, but probably yes. I’m not sure if Americans realize the foothold their pop culture has around the world.
Scene Point Blank: Tell us a bit about the scene in Munich. Where do you fit in, and how it is in the so-called post-COVID environment?
Max: Munich is tough. We don’t really have many DIY spaces so setting up a show yourself is difficult. It’s costly but, also, it’s just difficult to get a free date at one of the few venues where you could make it work. So you have to rely on established promoters to make things happen.
I think it took us a while to find our spot in the scene and early on it seemed like there’s a bit of gatekeeping if you don’t fit into a subgenre niche perfectly, but we arrived now and when you know people it’s a great little scene.
Scene Point Blank: In other interviews I've read, you've said your first record was a collection of songs built over time. Then this year's Successfully Not Giving Up was a more solid concept. Are you working on #3 or is it still too early for that conversation?
Max: I think for most bands the first album is most likely a collection of the first material and then you find your sound and write more focused for the follow-up.
There are always song ideas floating around, but currently we’re still very focused on promoting our last release. In between recording Successfully Not Giving Up and actually putting it out we had a change of drummers so him learning our currently released 25 songs also took some of our time.
Scene Point Blank: Do you prefer writing new songs, playing live or a steady mix of the two?
Max: Playing live is more fun in my opinion, but a good mix of both is absolutely necessary.
Manu: I love the moment when a rough idea or a riff is coming to life in the rehearsal space in a full band arrangement. That’s pure magic.
"The bigger issue is that nobody is buying pre-sale tickets so planning a tour without having any idea of the turnout is challenging and you see lots of shows getting canceled"
Scene Point Blank: How are live shows around the EU right now? Is touring possible or are COVID regulations too uncertain or unpredictable?
Max: Touring is generally possible during the summer. We’ll have to see what happens in fall or winter. Case numbers will increase, and some regulations will probably be put into place again. Currently the regulations are quite small to nonexistent. The bigger issue is that nobody is buying pre-sale tickets so planning a tour without having any idea of the turnout is challenging and you see lots of shows getting canceled because the pre-sale is just at an unsustainable low. Hell, even huge bands like Millencolin just canceled their tour because of that very reason.
Scene Point Blank: I suspect you get compared to a lot of “Fest bands” based on your rough-around-the-edges style of poppier punk. What band, that you get compared to, do you think is the most fitting or you take as a personal compliment?
Max: Back home people don’t know that much about the “Fest scene” so you get compared to bands like Blink-182 as that’s the only pop punk band some people can think of. It’s a compliment, for sure, but not really that fitting.
At some point we started to get compared to the Latterman style of bands and that’s a huge compliment as well and much more fitting.
Scene Point Blank: You namedrop Spanish Love Songs on "Post Malort." Has anyone in the band said anything about it to you? (Do you know them personally?)
Max: We already had the song “No More Spanish Love Songs” on our first album. So it’s kind of a running gag at this point, I guess?
Dylan, the singer of Spanish Love Songs, commented on the Fest Friends Facebook group that he maybe would have to sing the song with us but, unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
So there’s actually two songs where they are mentioned and some people claim that there’s even more references and occasionally ask if we have any beef with them. Nope, they’re a great band and as far as I can tell they’re lovely people. We were just having fun with it and now we kind of have to keep it going. Be prepared for the Spanish Love Songs namedrop on Captain Asshole LP#3.
Scene Point Blank: Anything you'd like to add?
Max: Thank you for interviewing us and thanks everyone for reading along. See ya at Fest: Sunday at Loosey’s. Let’s celebrate summer in October!
