Riverboat Gamblers Explore Bananas & Ginger

The Riverboat Gamblers, a hard working rock/punk outfit from Texas have enjoyed amazing press and moderate success over the past few years. Touring with Against Me! they stopped in Toronto to enjoy weather that is incredibly warmer than Montreal and talk with me about how they aren’t playing Coachella this year and how they got to meet Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey. Really though who hasn’t met The Boss in Jersey? At least they have the courage to go on with their lives as a band after that life altering experience. Lead singer Mike Wiebe had these things to say about the Riverboat Gamblers…

TS: Is this your first time playing in Canada?

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

TS: How you digging it?

Mike: I love it, I can’t wait to come through in the summer I bet (Canada) is really amazing in the summer. In Montreal it was so cold. I actually had a great time hanging out in Montreal, but someone broke into our van. They broke the window and stole a guitar and a back pack that had Bobby’s passport in it. Now this whole border thing is so ridiculous.

TS: Did you guys have trouble at the border?

Mike: Naw we didn’t have trouble, but it’s such a hassle. Expensive, taxing all the goods and I’m always kind of nervous that there was some ticket that I didn’t pay off 10 years ago or something.

TS: Yeah, everyone sweats at the border. How do you feel about your success? You guys have gotten a lot of positive press do you feel you’re getting all you deserve as a band?

Mike: Uh I don’t know, I mean I would like more…I don’t know it’s weird you know? It’s tough to sell records and stuff like that; the industry is kind of dying. For everything that’s going good there’s also things that aren’t going good and I’ve been trying lately to not get so bogged down. There’s a weird thing about being in a band wherever you are at that stage as a band there’s always a whole bunch of other bands you can look up to and go “god I wish I was at that level!” On this Against Me! tour every night there’s just like hundreds of kids just going completely insane and know the lyrics to every song. But things have been going really great you know we’ve got 800 kids that know the lyrics to songs in certain towns and I haven’t talked to them about it but I’m sure there’s a band that Against Me! would say “Goddammit I wish I was there!” But all in all I’m happy.

TS: Why has this band worked for so long?

Mike: That’s a really unanswerable question. I know on my end I feel I’m not really cut out to do anything else and I guess we’re all just kind of stubborn and we’ve had a lot of misfortunes here and there but we keep pressing on and don’t really feel like there’s anything else. Anything else I would probably be completely miserable doing, even when I’m sometimes miserable doing (music) I would be completely miserable doing just about anything else.

TS: What makes the Bananas so great and have you seen them play?

Mike: (his face lights up) Oh yeah! They’re amazing I’m such a huge Bananas fan. I’ve seen the Bananas play like three times and one time we played a show at the parkside in San Francisco and I was swinging the mike and I hit our bass player in the teeth. And later The Bananas played a benefit show to help replace his teeth so they’re so great. Musically I just love the way it’s really rough but really poppy at the same time and he writes lyrics that I wish wrote, they’re right up my alley in that their funny but kind of sad a little bit and they also make a statement. It’s just really good stuff, they should be way bigger and I’m really glad you asked about The Bananas, any people that I can steer towards the Bananas I’m happy with.

TS: What’s your favourite track to play live and why?

Mike: I don’t know I think it’s all a matter of…

TS: Is it circumstance?

Mike: Yeah circumstance…I really like playing “The Art Of Getting Fucked” because I get a break and Ian sings part of it. I like the songs where I get a break and I don’t have to sing, those are my favourite songs.

TS: How did you get Luke Abbey (drummer) from Gorilla Biscuits?

Mike: Uh we asked him. He lives in Austin and I guess he’d seen us a couple of times and we kind of knew him and he had just done the Gorilla Biscuits reunion tour and was looking to get back into playing and we were looking for a drummer so it was all perfect timing I guess.

TS: Has it been good with him?

Mike: Yeah he hits really hard.

TS: And you guys are playing Coachella this year.

Mike: No we’re not.

TS: Really what happened?

Mike: I didn’t know we ever were.

TS: I read that you were.

Mike: I’d love to read that (laugh) now I’m bummed that we’re not playing it. I never heard that we were. Against Me! are playing it, I’m jealous.

TS: Well then on that not you guys were supposed to come to Canada on Warped Tour last year and didn’t.
Mike: Well actually what happened with that was actually… well last year Warped Tour was just kind of crazy we were going to do the whole thing, then we were going to do some of it. We did almost the whole tour two summers ago and we did it in a van and it’s brutal in a van because you have to be there at 6:00 in the morning and you unload and there’s nowhere to sleep because it’s so hot. We can hack it for a week or two, and we did almost the whole tour years ago but last summer we ended up getting on the X and Henry Rollins tour so we kind of took that instead of Warped Tour.

TS: Any tour highlights with Against Me!?

Mike: The New Jersey show. Bruce Springsteen’s son is a really big Against Me! fan, so he brought his dad to the show and Bruce Springsteen watched us. It was kind of funny because Bruce Springsteen’s son is this huge Against Me! fan and I’m not sure but he seemed to like our show too but there was kind of this triangle where it was like me and some of the Against Me! guys and Evan, Bruce’s son and Evan is looking at Against Me! with these wide star struck eyes and me and the Against Me! guys are all looking at Bruce Springsteen. And it was really tough to shake off afterwards and Bruce said some really good things about the band, and he said some really nice things to me that I will probably for the rest of my life never forget.

TS: Can you say something nice about Toronto?

Mike: Uh the ginger place down the street is delicious.

Jackson: Does that explain this at all? (Mike has a giant piece of ginger root with him)

Mike: (Ginger) really… they look like a tumor. This is actually something that Tom from Against Me! has kind of clued me into just chewing on raw ginger because everyone’s been sick and my voice is pretty scratchy and it’s a natural anti inflammatory. And it doesn’t taste bad, it tastes bad when you first start it just takes getting used to its very strong. It’s supposed to help my throat; I think the only thing that really helps your throat is not singing for a couple of days.

TS: Is there a vinyl pressing of your first record?

Mike: No not yet but it’s going to be coming out on vinyl. I’m not sure when but this label called Needville we need to give them a live record and so we’re going to put out a live record this year. And then after that hopefully we’ll find someone to put out the self titled and backsides record.

- Jackson Main

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