dig up some good dirt, because I’m riding the fencepost of milquetoast and
milquetoast right now. I’m like lukewarm water in the middle of lukewarm
water.
How old were you when you started playing in bands?
I was like 25 or 26 or something.
You didn’t have any high school bands?
Nah, I wish I did. I had a drum set but I couldn’t figure out how to operate it
properly. But I tried to tap along to records anyway.
When did you figure it out?
When you play with other people, you’re kinda forced to do it. Because if you
listen to records, you go, okay, the snare drum goes here, and then once in a
while you touch other stuff and -- I wish I could -- sometimes I see other people
teaching how to play and music and go, “Gee, maybe I could do that!” But I
really kinda can’t. ‘Cause I just really learned from listening to records and
trying to tap along.
What were the records that you tried to tap along with?
Are you from Ohio?
--Miranda Fisher
So, your first band, the Horseless Headmen, when was that?
That was eighty...five, eighty four maybe, maybe eighty three, maybe eighty
four -- I don’t know! See, that’s why it’s terrible to interview me. But maybe if
I give a good interview I can get a job outta this, too. These are my credentials.
I was an ASE certified smog mechanic since ‘83. I’ve since then let my ASE
certification expire.
What do you do now?
I am unemployed now. I’m in between jobs now. I’m an auto mechanic in exile.
Oh yeah? That seems like a good skill to have, though.
Sometimes through the magazines, but then the guys in the Horseless
Headmen, I guess they were into this phony artificial paper cheese mod scene,
you know, scooter-riding, ska-loving, northern soul-loving BS. And then a
couple of ‘em drifted off into Music Machine, Blues Magoos kinda stuff. I liked
the Sonics, and I was always trying to get them to do that material, but they
would say, “Oh, that’s short-haired music, we’re not gonna do that.”
So how did you get them to start playing short-haired music?
Yeah, that was in the Mummies, that was our joke against fashionable, fashion
music. That was the beginning of our doing, at that time, pretty unfashionable
music. Like a Mighty Caesars, Milkshakes, Sonics and Alarm Clocks tribute,
that was our tribute to that. And stupidity, stupid fun.
A lot of stuff seems like it sprang up around that area at that time.
Yeah, the Phantom Surfers were going before the Mummies were playing, so
that was like our big brother band. Mike Lucas, he’s a good catalyst for so
many good things in the Bay area.
What percentage of those people do you think are still playing music like
you are?
Let’s see...the Outsiders, “Time Won’t Let Me.” That’s good for Ohio people.
From the Mummies to the Bobbyteens to his current project, the
Chuckleberries, Russell Quan’s been playing drums for seemingly innumerable
bands for nearly 30 years. After a recent Chuckleberries show at Austin’s Hotel
Vegas, he took some time to speak w