AquaBats; More punk than you

In 1994, an angst ridden punk scene inspired a bunch of presumably drunken musicians to form a band dedicated to the satirisation of the punk rock movement. This moment in time would later be known as the dawning of The Aquabats. The blue spandex-clad ska-punk superheroes have been kicking on in one form or another for the past 20 years, and are highly regarded in a scene they set out to ridicule.

“We were making fun of everyone, ourselves included, and just having a laugh at the scene” explains MC Bat Commander; Frontman for The Aquabats, and all round good guy. “We started out with eight or nine members, but over the years, people move on, and now we’re down to our final lineup, this is the one that will see us out.”

Often referred to as third-wave ska, MC Bat Commander, or Mr Dude, as he likes to be called, insists they are just a rock n roll band, in an attempt to avoid being locked into one particular genre.
“People often come up to me and ask me why we lost members, or why we changed our sound, and I’m just like “dude, it’s been 20 years!””

The Aquabats are no strangers to Australian shores, and are looking forward to taking in all our country has to offer when they make their way here once again for Soundwave 2015. “We’re so pumped, we’ve been talking about it all day! We’re heading over a few days early, to enjoy some Australian hospitality, and a surf.”

“We haven’t been doing a whole lot of touring lately, because we’ve been shooting The Aquabats Supershow. It’s a reality show about low budget superheroes who play rock and roll. But when we get to Australia, it’ll be fun, we’ll have a big party. Soundwave is great! And Australia is great; there’s not a whole lot of posing, people at the shows are there to enjoy the show, we love the crowds down there, we’re looking forward to coming back to the land of unlimited selfies!” 

Those of you who are unfamiliar with The Aquabats’ music, may have heard of a children’s show created by the multi-faceted Mr Dude. “My buddy Scott and I came up with a crazy idea for a kids show that could have a lot of music, and bands, and could be crazy and fun… and that’s what we made with Yo Gabba Gabba.”

Australian fans are in for a treat when the catch The Aquabats at Soundwave or one of their soon to be announced sidewave shows. “We want to bring some new stuff to Australia” he chuckles “We’ve got some surprises in mind… Really, it’s to entertain ourselves more than the crowds”. But let’s just hope that those surprises are less intense than some that have unexpectedly followed them on tour. “Once we were at a snowboard festival, we accidentally lit the stage on fire and almost burned the whole place down!” And let’s not forget that they are a bunch of guys dressed as superheroes, not that that would welcome hecklers of any kind. “We often have villains attack us on stage, most of them are planned, but at one show we had a bunch of drunken skin-heads attack us on stage, and the crowd thought it was a joke… It wasn’t.

Originally published 2015