Fishbone's Frontman, Angelo Moore, Dishes Out

It was something of an unplanned adventure, meeting up with Fishbone's lead singer and frontman, Angelo Moore. The interview begins around four in the afternoon, as a wired up and full of smiles Angelo, immediately swoops me into his armpits for a hug upon my arrival. Currently on a U.S. tour with The English Beats and The Outlaws, Angelo invites me up to the tour bus parked outside of The Irving Plaza in New York.

Fishbone's Frontman, Angelo Moore, Dishes Out
Words and Photos Whitney Summer Boyd

(Angelo Moore getting his bags outside of Fishbone's tour bus, NYC 2010)

At 45, Angelo is something of a musical enigma. As one of Fishbone's founding members, Angelo makes no secret that being in a black eclectic band in America has stumped his commercial success even though he has an undeniably large international underground cult following. He admits to playing a role in the growth of the ska sound on American airwaves since the band started in 1979-- Fishbone is credited by names such as No Doubt and The Red Hot Chili Peppers as major musical influences and a documentary on their influences in ska music is scheduled to be released this spring.

Angelo quickly rushes me inside and briefly apologizes, "I'm in the middle of watching this documentary about South Central L.A. It's good and I know the guys aint gonna pause it for me." In the back of the tour bus, two Fishbone band members, Dirty Walt and John Steward give a nods up as Angelo plops back down with his eyes glued to the t.v. "Yea, this is why my parents fucking moved me from that bad area," Angelo says, "Ya'll too violent in South Central."

(Dirty Walt, Angelo, and John getting friendly, really?)

Fishbone is commonly known for their roots in South Central, when the guys got together using a collage of instruments and fused it with sped up reggae. Since they formed back in 79', the band's membership has been something of a revolving door, with more than 10 members that have joined, played, and left for their own particular reasons. Other than Angelo, bassist, John Norwood, is the only other original member of the current Fishbone roster. "You know, people have come and gone with us," Angelo said, "but I'm always doing my own thing."

Aside from touring with his band, Angelo is a spoken word artists and works under the name Dr. Madd Vibes for "un-Fishbone" related activities. And when he's not signing autographs for Fishbone fans, he is promoting his own line of comic books and t-shirts, which he said, are selling out in Japan.

(Angelo showing off his Dr. Madd Vibes comic book-- the freaks in Japan love it)

After two hours of hanging out with Angelo (he insisted on finding a cat shaped beanie he once bought in New York, but lost it and wanted to buy another one--this episode was recorded and posted at the end of this interview), I finally got to ask him a couple of questions I thought the Afro-punk Fishbone fans wanted to know. And as candidly as he could, he answered.

Words and photos by Whitney Summer Boyd

We heard you have an alter ego named Dr. Madd Vibez. So, why Angelo?

Dr. Madd Vibez is my alter ego. That's my poetry and my spoken word guy. I have comic books that are selling out in Japan, I have t-shirts. It's my personality outside of Fishbone. I have projects that I am working on, two comic books, Jah Jah on the Telephone and Nat Procrasto: The Procrastonator. I've got the Ying Yang Twins, it's a comic strip that goes with my t-shirts. I'm working on a play, too.

(Angelo, "Dr. Madd Vibes," shows Afro-punk his spoken word skills while prepping for Fishbone's New York show)

Tell us about this new documentary on Fishbone, Everyday Sunshine, that is scheduled to come out this spring.

Everyday Sunshine is a documentary on Fishbone and pretty much our whole history. As much as they can gather from it. It's real shit. We got interviews from different people, George Clinton, some of The Chili Peppers. It's pretty good, they're trying to put it into the Sundance Film Festival. They've been shooting it for the past two and a half years. The directors have been following us on our European tours and American tours and talking to different people about what they think about Fishbone and putting it into this documentary.

Have you seen it yet?

Yea, it's really good. Especially when I separate myself from it and look at it from an unbiased opinion. There's been some pretty crazy motha fuckers in the band.

Fishbone's line up of band members has been like a revolving door? How has the band been able to survive for so long without completely falling apart?

Well, when things got really fucked up, it was just the music to hang on to and enjoy. Once you get past the fact that people aren't getting along, at least the music is there to hold onto and enjoy. I guess there's always enough compromise within a group after so many years to keep it together.

And I'm sure you and Norwood's relationship has developed over the last thirty years?

It's grown in many ways and directions. Like two married people they've been together. They have fucking kids, they have to take care of the kids. Sometimes they want to get a divorce by they can't do it because of the kids- the music is the kids. Some band members have left the kids and they came back after we babysitted them for years. Dirty Walt just came back recently after being gone for almost six years. He said he didn't like where the band was going and he walked. But I still did my other shit, too.

(Original members, John Norwood and Angelo)

How did Fishbone get started?

We started the band in junior high school almost 30 years ago, I played the saxophone. I also played drums and percussion. Well, I wasn't from South Central, but the rest of the guys lived around there. As for me, I grew up in the Valley, I grew up in the suburbs. My parents moved away from South Central because to many niggas were robbing and killing each other over there. So, my parents moved to the Valley which was predominantly white.

(Party at Ground Zero, 1985 EP "Fishbone")

So you must relate on some level with the kids in the suburbs who have a strong presence in the Afro-punk community.

Of course, I was one of them. I am an African-American and I like punk rock, funk, reggae, and everything else. I always have and always will.

Did you start up the band because you wanted to get more girls?

No, pussy wasn't on my mind. I wanted to have fun and play music. Pussy and all that other shit came later.

Late bloomer?

Well, when we started playing in clubs man. Probably like, a year or so later. Girls always wanted to come around and see us play. Like, "he's a rock star."

Even though you never received large commercial success, do you think your longevity is credited to your dedicated fan base?

I'm thankful for the fans. Our biggest fan base in America is more in the east coast. Internationally, it's Paris, France. France is one of our biggest markets I think because they receive eclectic music a lot better than America does. America is linear in it's thinking and language. There is only one language. One color of money. It's run by one government. In Europe you have multiple governments, you have the French government, you have the German government, you have the Swiss government. So when you go over there with different music, Europeans seem to understand and support eclectic bands more because of the nature of how it is in Europe. Here is America, it's not as eclectic at all.

(crowd surfing at Fishbone concert, Irving Plaza, NYC 2010)

Do you think being black and being an eclectic band has held your success back from reaching mainstream status?

Yea, being black in America and playing rock isn't really a hot commodity. Being black and doing hip hop is marketable.

Do you think that this will ever change?

Hopefully it will change, it's hard to say. Obama's in office, they're giving him a hard time. And as I far as I can see, he's trying to do nothing but right. It seems like they're trying to make him fail for the simple fact that he's black. When I look at that and when I see black people doing what they want to do, as far as music and art, and being pushed into a separate cubicle it's something that is hard to break out of. American music industry is racist and it's separatist. That's the way i've always known it, and hopefully it won't continue to be that way but we live in a country that's like that. Got to keep doing what you are doing until people just let you.

It's funny after Fishbone split with Sony, the band's sound became edgier and a lot more aggressive with the Chim Chim's Badass Revenge album. What was going on in the studio during that recording?

Sony wanted us to make our music accessible for radio. We wanted to keep it like it was. Just use what we give you, that's why you signed us. Not for us to change, but to use what we had. So we went in and made some bad ass music, and that's when they dropped us. So that's when we went to Dallas Austin and made Chim Chim's Badass Revenge. Dallas likes Fishbone and black rock, but he's a hip hop producer and didn't know how to market rock and roll. He knew how to adore it, but not how to market it. So when it came out, it wasn't marketed correctly and that's why it stayed underground for so long. If we released a hip hop album, we probably would have did just fine.

What's your favorite Fishbone album recorded?

Fishbone Still Stuck in Your Throat. It's our most recent album.

(2007, music video from Fishbone Still Stuck in Your Throat album)

Do you even like eating fish?

I love fish. Salmon and tuna, close to raw. I like sushi.

A lot of artist contribute Fishbone to the ska genre and to why they got started, bands like No Doubt and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. What bands influence you?

James Brown, Funkadelic, Sly Stone, a lot of jazz, Duke Ellington, Bad Brains, Bad Manners, The Selectors. Eddie Jefferson, a lot of shit man. Shirley Caesar. I like a lot of gospel. Cecilia Bartoli is this Italian opera singer I've been digging lately.

Why did you guys decide to go on tour with The English Beats and how has the tour been going for you?

Well, we talked about it with Dave Wakeling a year or so ago, we wanted to go on tour together. The English Beats is someone we've been listening to for a while and is one of my musical influences, amongst all the other ones I called off. It's really cool to be able to play music with people you were inspired to play music by.

(Walt, Angelo, and Norwood on stage at Irving Plaza)

What goes on through your head while you're up on stage and what has pushed you to do this for the last 30 years?

Because music and poetry are the things that set me free. I can say anything I want to say. And then it can help set other people free, too. Music and art man. What's going in my head, singing and performing to the best of my ability. I want people to believe what I am saying. I want them to free themselves. I want them to dance, not to be thinking about their job or some shit that's giving you the blues or some fucked up divorce you are going through. Let it go, give it to the great Fishbone God up on stage. That's what music is for man, it's a spirit. Musicians and artists, we conjure the spirits. I've seen it happen.

Does it bother you that the majority of your audience is white and not black?

I mean, no. But I would like to see more black faces in the crowd.

It's true, we're in a recession. Has that affected the amount of gigs Fishbone has been booking?

It's been hard. A lot of these promoters and bookers don't want to pay the band the proper money that the band is worth. They want to short change us, don't want to pay us. You talk about a starving artist, just because we're in a tour bus does not mean we ain't starving. We ain't starving, but it's like, when you look at other people on tours and playing music, they're rolling in mansions and bling bling and just rolling in money. But the music that they are doing is so mediocre, they aint really talking about shit. The majority of people that I hear on the radio are talking about some low frequency bull shit. It doesn't take a lot of talent to make a lot of the music they are playing or performing on top of. So does that mean being dumb and simple makes the money and if you're too smart, you can't make any money. I've been wondering that for years. How come we're playing all of this great music and intricate arrangements, singing about everything under the sun, and people want to throw you chicken change? If you singing about your pussy or dick to keep you in the nigga zone, they'll just throw you money to keep you there and make it glorified.

What do you want for the future?

I see myself doing a tour with Saul Williams. A poetry tour. That's one of the things I really want to do. Once we cross paths, that's going to be some really bad ass.

And now, Angelo's search for the beanie....

Tags: summer, afro, afropunk, angelo, boyd, dr., fishbone, irving, john, madd

Comment

You need to be a member of AFRO-PUNK to add comments!

Join AFRO-PUNK

Comment by Mark Clemons on March 30, 2010 at 10:27pm: I Love this interview it was needed.Thanx Whitney!

Comment by Mochali on March 30, 2010 at 3:12am: Whitney! That was a great interview :)

Comment by dj ceiba on March 30, 2010 at 12:23am: angelo moore is a beautiful brotha & is definitely one of the hardest working cats on stage EVER. RUNNING around/leading the band/leading the horn section/blasting out CRAZY solos - with the energy of a 20-something & he's in his 40's, like whitney said. i met AM in Honolulu & my old reggae group played a show with them a couple of weeks later in NY in 2001. BEAUTIFUL vibes. i'm officially thankful for that experience & their continued contribution to the sonic betterment of our universe inna true afro-punk stylee.

Comment by nkenge zola on March 25, 2010 at 2:58pm: Yeah. 'sante sana peepus.

Comment by Whitney Summer on March 10, 2010 at 1:05pm: thanks Rosenda, yes, he was quite a character and so personable to everyone at the show. i've never met anyone who made cursing look so cool.

Comment by Rosenda on March 10, 2010 at 11:57am: I just had to read this interview again, I really, really enjoyed this.

Comment by Rosenda on March 10, 2010 at 11:43am: AWESOME. That was GREAT!! That must have been a lot of fun to do, Whitney. Excellent!

Comment by Whitney Summer on March 9, 2010 at 1:14pm: thanks! He was probably one of my favorite interviews so far. You would swear he was in his 20s. And thanks Jahluv, made the switch.