But rock stars they are. See a live, exclusive version of "Every Morning," lensed by LAUNCH in Las Vegas, as it appears on Issue No. 27 of LAUNCH on CD-ROM. The following conversation between McGrath, Sugar Ray drummer Stan Frazier, and LAUNCH executive editor Dave DiMartino is excerpted as an interactive video feature in that same disc.
LAUNCH:
From what I've read about you guys, you're pretty down-to-earth and don't take this whole rock star thing too seriously. Even the title of the new CD is sort of an inside joke aimed at the people who dismissed your success with "Fly" as a one-hit wonder kind of thing.
MARK:
You know, we started for a good time, and we're still having a good time. So we decided to laugh in the face of adversity. If this is all it is, who cares? So we named the record "14 minutes and 59 seconds." 14:59. Just to let everyone know we're in the know. We don't think we wrote the Beatles catalog just because we had one hit. We were very fortunate and blessed to have a hit, and we laugh at ourselves as well.
LAUNCH:
I always wonder how bands cope with the pressure of returning to the studio after experiencing a big hit. Do you feel a lot of pressure from fans, the label--even yourselves--to prove that you're not just a one-hit wonder?
MARK:
Being a one-hit wonder is all we ever wanted to do!!! Ask any band that's in their garage right now. We heard the naysayers and the people saying, "Enjoy your 15 minutes!" We were like, "F--k yeah!!!" This is an amazing run we're doing.
STAN:
Yeah, but when you have a one-hit scenario and people are brushing you off as a one-hit wonder band, it's hard to come back and have a product that people won't just judge immediately as an attempt to make another hit. We just decided, "Hey look, time is on our side. Let's go into the big recording studio and take our time." Which was good, because otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to come up with quality material. It was like, "Everyone can just step back for a while 'til we get comfortable and write the songs we feel comfortable writing."
LAUNCH:
But you must admit that "Fly" did stand alone on the last CD, and 14:59 has quite a few more songs that sound compatible with it. Would you say that song was sort of a blueprint for you to follow here?
MARK:
In terms of "Fly" being a blueprint for this record, people really responded to it; we've always messed around with different styles of music and "Fly" was the anomaly on our last record. "Fly" showed me and my producer where my voice wanted to be--what the band is good at. I don't want to say we wrote 15 "Fly"s, but we gravitated toward that in terms of pursuing better songwriting and melodies. We still rock and we'll always rock. "Fly" was the implicit blueprint, but we didn't want to drink piña coladas and get a bunch of reggae guys in there. Although we were up for that...
STAN:
I mean, the temptation to formulate a song after you've got one that did well for you is there, but you can't force songwriting. We wrote a couple ideas while we were on our last tour, and they made it to the later stages on this record. There was no formula. It was a collaboration--everybody knows their strength in the songwriting. We didn't go, "Okay, let's make this song more catchy. Let's throw everything against the wall and see what sticks!"
LAUNCH:
With the kind of success you guys had on the last album, you must have experienced some major lifestyle changes.
STAN:
I think success has changed our lifestyle in a lot of ways good and bad. Each guy in the band is a different entity. But you can see the changes in ego and materialistic type of ways. It's not like we sold 50 million records and we can all retire, though. We have a lot of hands in the pocket. I can see how people could have the wrong impressions: "Oooohhhhh! You're rich rock stars now." Everybody got a new car, and this time when we went in to go record, we had a basketball court and a pool table in the studio. Basically, you live better, you tour better, you have a better bus, play better venues. There are perks. But then you also have inflated egos and the whole, "Don't they know who I think I am?" You can lose track of where you're at because everything gets handed to you. We're happy to be here, that's all I can say.
MARK:
I've got a little more money now. This is everything I ever wanted when I was in my room pretending I was Ace Frehley with my tennis racket. I want to stop, smell, and pick the flowers because it could all go away tomorrow. We definitely want to enjoy the ride, perpetuate the motion.
LAUNCH:
Now, in addition to being tagged a one-hit wonder, a lot of people seem to think you're some kind of overnight success. But you've been doing this a long time.
MARK:
It is kind of ironic; I like to say we're a 10-year overnight sensation. We've been through all the trends, metal, etc. We started in my mom's garage: I can still see the rakes hanging there, the broken dirtbikes. It's weird to read these chart-driven magazines and see our names in there. It's surreal. Being on the cover of Rolling Stone--I felt like someone went to Magic Mountain and made a fake cover of the magazine. It's amazing and very humbling. It really is.
LAUNCH:
You do genuinely seem humble to me. That's weird behavior for a rock star!
MARK:
I'm very self-deprecating by nature. A lot of people say, "I can't believe you have a hit record!" Listen, we can't believe it. This is divine intervention, Fantasy Island. We're humbled by it. We're fans. When I think of rock stars, the last thing I think of is us. I think Iggy, Mick Jagger, etc. We're laughing, but appreciative.
LAUNCH:
How do you stay humble when you wind up on the cover of Cosmo magazine?
MARK:
Jakob Dylan and Gavin Rossdale were busy that day. It's a nice accolade and it was a fun thing to do. I'm very reality-based. I'm me, so it's sort of like, "JESUS CHRIST! When are they going to find me out for real???"
LAUNCH:
Do you guys also keep each other in check? You've known each other since you were teenagers, right? That must help when everything starts getting crazy around you.
STAN:
We've had the original members of the band some eight years. And we're not the best singers or the best players, but we do give everything we've got. We have a lot of persistence. We don't give up. 99.9% of success is just showing up. We're all friends; we can jive together. Of course, I want to punch these guys in the face every few days, but you maintain, hug, get over it, and move on. We've known each other ever since high school, so when someone's going to go talk to a girl, you can predict what's going to happen. Mark always got the hot cheerleaders, now he attracts the hot groupies. He used to be on the cover of the yearbook, now he's on the cover of Cosmo. I totally expect that from Mark.
LAUNCH:
Mark, I've been seeing you on a lot of talk shows and stuff too. I even caught your appearance on Politically Incorrect. That was a brave move!
MARK:
I really enjoy doing things like Politically Incorrect and Later. We get pigeonholed as "party frat idiot guys," but we can hold conversations. I am the dumb rock element on the show: "Dude, drink a beer!" I know I'm not there for my intellectual insight. It's intimidating because Bill Maher is so insightful and quick, and the political analysts are so smart. I try to inject some humor, act like I know what I'm talking about.
LAUNCH:
Speaking of acting like you know what you're talking about...how do you feel about critics? The new album has been getting some good press.
MARK:
This guy in Rolling Stone who reviewed the record said, "They're white guys appreciating hip-hop but not throwing in the Marky Markisms; they're just incorporating it as a sound into the rock." I thought that was accurate. I love the hip-hop soundscape: the environment, the sounds, the drum loops, etc. And we tried to incorporate that into rock music. As opposed to the "Yo, yo, yo! Know what I'm sayin'?" I thought that quote was very accurate because we can be thought of as a "pretty fly for a white guy" type band, like we're trying to "represent" or something. I'm from Orange County, man. I didn't get a Mercedes 'til I was 18. That was a joke, by the way. Are we still rolling?
LAUNCH:
Speaking of Orange County, tell me about your roots there. A lot of great bands have come out of that scene. Are you friends with them?
MARK:
No. We were alienated from that whole scene. Newport Beach is on the coast of Orange County, and it's very elitist. We were in our own little world. We met a lot of good bands, friends, but I never met Reel Big Fish or No Doubt until I was on the road in Montreal. The scene is not as centralized as people think it is. You've got ska over here, punk over there. It's not so unified as everyone thinks it is. Orange County has never embraced us and never will. We're like the bastard sons. The Orange County paper hates us. We're very hated, but that's okay.
STAN:
The scene we grew up in had a heavy surf, skate, snowboarding culture. All these kids surf in the morning, drive to the mountains, and snowboard all afternoon. Then they party all night. We weren't really involved in it, but we grew up in it. Korn and Rage Against The Machine came out of there. People would have parties, and there'd be all kinds of pandemonium, chaos, fights. The scene down there has gone away pretty much. It's almost tame now and I'm waiting for a wave of something cool to happen. There's a lot of energy, a lot of kids, and good vibes in Orange County.
LAUNCH:
Who is the Sugar Ray fan? Who do you see from the stage when you look out in the audience?
MARK:
The most vocal part of the Sugar Ray audience is the young girls screaming up front. It's like a fantasy. They're the most vocal, the most seen. "Fly" crossed over so many formats and touched a lot of people. You'll see Merrill Lynch guys, then the young girls, kids. In a live situation, it's a lot of young people. Now, it's a broader audience, and I can only say that based on which formats play our songs. "Every Morning" was on all the charts.
STAN:
I want to say it's 30-year-old sophisticated wine-drinkers, but it's not. "Fly" was good, because there were four- and five-year-old kids who really got into the song, but the 40-year-old parents were also into the song. They didn't like the rest of the record...but they liked the song. But as Mark said, primarily it's young teenage gals.
LAUNCH:
Tell me who you guys are fans of.
MARK:
I really like Iggy Pop a lot and Sarah McLachlan. She's like an angel. She's beautiful; her voice is amazing. I love Oasis, Richard Ashcroft and the Verve. Every day I'm into something else, something new. We're on the road with Everlast now. I'm a fan. I like hip-hop. Eminem. I really admire Willie Nelson, especially since we've been on the bus and driving so much. You can look out the windows, just put on Willie Nelson, and that's a soundtrack for life. It would be really great to collaborate with him sometime.
STAN:
I'm a huge Elvis Costello fan. I grew up listening to a lot of mod music like the Jam. The Who were a big influence in my life. Keith Moon. The Police. Even Chet Baker--smooth, mellow trumpet music. Everybody in the band has such eclectic taste. The guitar player is a '60s guy. Mark likes disco. He is a hit guy. He can't listen to a CD all the way through; he'll just listen to the one hit over and over and over.
LAUNCH:
And I bet you are hearing from all sorts of people that didn't give you the time of day before you had a hit, right?
STAN:
Oh yeah, all those people crawl out of the woodwork. Everyone says that in high school I was a loser and now these people are calling. I just laugh.
LAUNCH:
How about the sex life? Has it been affected by the success?
STAN:
The sex life? I don't know. I've got a gal...everybody has a certain vibe that they take. I think it's helped everybody out.
MARK:
I will say that being famous has not hurt my sex life. But I do have a significant other. I don't get any, because I have a girlfriend.
LAUNCH:
And how do you enjoy the "business" side of making records?
MARK:
We've embraced it. There's a symbiosis there that needs to be executed. You can say "corporate rock sucks," but you have to make compromises, and on the whole the label has done what they said they would do. Art is the product, but it is a business. If you're not in tune with the business side of it, like Pearl Jam: "We don't play gigs, we don't make videos, we're f--king Ticketmaster..." When you piss in your fans' face and the label's face, it's not cool. I mean, you're there for two reasons: to make music and to sell records. Atlantic has been great to us.
STAN:
You just have to roll with the punches and know that you're not going to be here your whole life. It's a tough job.
LAUNCH:
So is it nice to have another hit now and throw it back in the face of the opposition?
MARK:
Yeah, I really think people underestimated us. They were floored that we came back. Spin had the odds as 500-to-1 that we'd ever have another single on the radio. What we lack in talent we make up for in smarts.
STAN:
We had a lot of non-believers at the beginning of this band. Now a lot of people think we sold out. You sell over 500,000 records, you'll get that from everyone.
LAUNCH:
I can only imagine the wild road stories you guys must have collected over the months and months of touring. What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you on the road?
MARK:
It happened in Austin, Texas. We let people jump onstage, high-five, dance, whatever. And this one night, this girl comes up, and she's running at me, but she was cute, so I was like, "Right on!" Pretty soon she's on her knees, simulating fellatio. I'm looking away and all of a sudden, I feel a clamping on my bits and pieces. This girl clamped down like a pitbull, man. And I was just wearing shorts with no underwear (because they were all dirty), and she actually bit through my Dickies and drew blood from my penis. But, true showman that I was, I went back onstage and visited the doctor later.
STAN:
Another time we were in Manchester, and this kid came backstage and wanted us to sign something. So, we asked if he had a piece of paper or something. All of a sudden, he pulled up his pant leg, took off his wooden leg and handed it to us to sign. So...we did. And he took it back, put it back on and left. I mean, there's been tons of shenanigans...too many to mention. But that one's pretty bizarre. I can't think of anything wilder than that.
LAUNCH:
So now that you've been around the business for a while, you must have gained a little wisdom, some insight about this profession you're in. Anything you can share?
MARK:
This business is so fragile. It doesn't matter if you have one hit or 10 hits. The irony isn't lost on us. When you're motivated by the fear factor, you're more inclined to keep going. Who would have thought that Geffen would close, that A&M would close? When those heavy metal guys in the '80s thought they'd be around forever and then one record like Nirvana's Nevermind came along and changed everything, it made it very clear that there's always something around the corner. We're ripe for a new revolution. I know it's coming...
