Interview with Dave Tejas of The Krum Bums

Interview by: Louie B.

Bigwheel met up with Dave, lead vocalist of Texas Punk’s The Krum Bums at the Black Castle in South Central LA where they had just played the final show of their North American tour with Toxic Holocaust and Holy Grail.

So were doing this interview inside The Krum Bums home on the road, your guys van! How often are The Krum Bums on tour?
Umm we took a little bit of a break to write this last album “Cut The Noose” out on People Like You Records, but we pretty much stay about 9 months outta the year on tour, as much as we can!
 

This tour that you’re on has just wrapped up, it’s you’re guys last night with these bands. How has the tour been and how are kids picking up on “Cut The Noose”?
It’s going fucking really great! Though the thing is; the problem is there aren’t record stores anymore or that many of them, so with punk music I think it’s a little bit more difficult at first for the kids to get the record. It kind of just has to seep in, it’s not like boom a Punk band does a record and you just sell a million copies! It’s a word of mouth, and we’ve got nothing but really good feedback. This tour is a little bit different than we’ve had before. It’s Toxic Holocaust who’s a thrash metal band, Holy Grail who’s a fucking great Heavy Metal band and us the Krum Bums! The great thing about this tour is we’re three different styles of bands ya know.
 

Yeah, three different extreme bands!
Yeah exactly! And so we’ve had kids coming up to us saying “Dude I’ve never listened to Punk rock before, but you guys fucking killed it!!” And I think the main thing is over the last few years, people have been separating more than they did before.
 

Yeah, like invisible walls put up between the scenes.
Exactly, like punks wont listen to metal, metal kids won’t listen to punk. They’ve got something against each other, but this tour really brought a lot of us together, and it was awesome to play for a really different crowd.

Unity in Diversity!
Yeah man, there wasn’t even one night where something negative happened because of the diversity of the bands. This tour was about a bunch of people who agree that we all love rock and roll music. They call us the punkers, we call them the Reebok rockers, but we all got along! I had these kids coming up to me every night who would have never spoken to me or been exposed to our music. We all played for different crowds. Even the punker guys at first were like “I don’t know about these bands with long hair!” But then they’d see Holy Grail and Toxic Holocaust and they would be like “Man those guys rip it up!!”
 

Everyone’s doing something very different, but all very similar in a way.
Exactly ! You look back - Iron Maiden, The Exploited, GBH, Metallica, Motorhead, it’s all very similar, we all just go to different extremes.
 

I noticed you guys through in a cover of “Motorbreath” by Metallica, was that a song you guys had done before or was it something special for this tour?
Yeah! We used to play it like 7 years ago in the middle of another song, were huge Metallica fans. We’ve always kinda been toying around with playing it again, and then we got on this tour, and were like “Ya know what would be perfect.. right at the end of “Coliseum”.. (Dave starts humming the intro to Motorbreath)

So is it harder in 2011 to be a Punk rock band playing the style of Punk that the Krum Bums do? - In the last few years some of the more street punk labels like Punk Core ceased to put out new music full time, bands like The Unseen who were a huge street punk band don’t tour full time anymore and The Warped Tour isn’t exactly a punk rock tour like it once was.. Is it harder to find fans of your particular style..
I think to a degree its more difficult, I think the problem is, really what kinds aren’t doing and I mean it with no disrespect - The kids, they feel that bands owe them something. Where as when we were young, we used to pass around mix tapes, my friends would make something for me, I would make something for them. We’d share with each other, we’d pick up on bands that way - “Hey man check this out, it‘s Civil Disobedience!”. I never went to a show expecting that I would get in for free and as a kid I never went to a show expecting the band to give me a free t-shirt! It was an honor if a band gave us anything for free, a sticker, a patch! I remember all of us, my friends, we’d put our ticket stubs on or (bedroom) walls, we were so excited to go together and buy tickets to see shows. A lot of the younger kids they say they have no money, but they live at home with their parents. We’re on the road, we have no money! People our age, it’s like a funny little saying from Dolly Parton - “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap”
When not in the road I’m home working 3 different jobs, I cook at two different places, I silk screen, anything I can do that involves working at punk businesses, they know what it’s like, they know that I tour, it’s just the way it is, there just isn’t a lot of money in this.

I interviewed Agnostic Front the other night, one of the things they said that struck a chord in me was - when they go out on tour, they’re on tour in support of their t-shirts and not their records. Kids aren’t buying cd’s, they sell more t shirts on the road than albums! Would you say that’s something The Krum Bums could relate to?
Yeah man that’s the truth, were selling t-shirts, that’s where we make our money. And it’s so difficult, also now they download albums.
 

Albums are downloaded before the record even hits stores!
For me still, I fucking like having the vinyl, taking the time to lay the record on the turntable, having the record sleeve with the artwork, I wanna see that little something, and that’s what’s killing me with kids today. I love still to this day is getting to work, making cash and buying a couple of new records!
 

When the Krum Bums are in LA, do you guys hit any local record stores, perhaps Amoeba on Sunset blvd?
DUDE ! I love Amoeba, it’s like right when I get there I totally lose focus on what I came there for. Like I have to write down a list of what I came to get. It’s like all of a sudden you’re six years old let loose in a candy store attached to a Toys R’ Us attached to a Rollercoaster, dude it’s like aaaaahhhhhh!!

 

Earlier in the year at the Punk Rock Bowling Festival in Vegas we had the pleasure of seeing you guys on the main stage, was that you’re guys first time playing there, and how was that experience for the Krum Bums?
It was our first time playing, we’d been there for a few years to just hang out and have a good time. For me it was one of the coolest shows we’d ever done. It was like go big or go home! Shit or get off the pot! For a band like us, were not Dropkick Murphy’s, were not at that level. Though at the same time I felt like it went a little bit slower with bands like us, bands who are straight forward punk rock. We had a really great opportunity from the Stern bro’s who are great guys, and we jumped on it. We told ourselves, when we get up there there’s no standing around!
 

Play it like it’s your last show ever!
Yeah and coming back to LA has been rad, there have been a lot of people who came up to us and told us they last time they saw us was in Vegas at Punk Rock Bowling!

It was definitely great exposure for you guys.
Oh yeah man when I got off the stage I was bleeding! There was like a barrier between the crowd and stage that was at least six feet. I looked at it and thought “Man I don’t know if I’m gonna make it!”

A leap of faith!
A little faith in Punk rock, the punk rock Gods might shine down on me! I didn’t think I was gonna make it, but I swung my body around and the crowd was cool, I didn’t fall, it was really cool. I look forward to it every year because I see literally like 100 people who are in my connected family who I’m really close to, east coast, west coast, we don’t get to see each other but were all there in Vegas at the same time.

What is the rest of 2011 looking like for the band?
We’re gonna be home for 3 weeks and then we fly straight over to Germany. We’ll be there for 5-6 weeks hitting Spain, France, Sweden, Portugal, all over Europe. People like You records is based in LA and In Germany, so we’ll have a lot of support, were real excited.

When you guys get back and start touring North America, is it likely you’ll be touring again and are you guys open to touring with metal bands again?
When we get back we are gonna do 3 weeks, like a DIY punk tour with friends bands, up and down the west coast. The east coast is crazy to tour in the winter, we’re from Texas, we see snow and we start shaking, ahhh! So were gonna tour with different friends bands who are based around the west coast. One of the main things is we had so much fun on this tour, why keep doing the same tour where we just play with Punk bands. We’ve never been about that, we want to tour with different kind of bands, we’d like to play with Municipal Waste.


The Krum Bums with DRI would be an awesome tour.
Yeah! Like what we’ve done on every album, we do what we believe in, do what we feel is right and I don’t want to put The Krum Bums in a box where all we do is tour with Mohawk bands, It’s not what we’re about. I look this way because I look this way, but it’s not my outlook on life. That’s one of the best things about being from Austin, we don’t have barriers between, there are bands like World Burns To Death who are just blasting your face apart, The Lower Class Brats, The Roller who are a total hesher band. We all hang out at the same bars, party together. We go out and there’s a reggae DJ, an 80’s DJ a hip hop DJ, and you’ll have punks, skins getting together having a great time. And that’s one of the things that’s made the Krum Bums the band we are, We’ve never been pushed into “It’s us against them.” - It’s us as people who believe in music - against the rest of the world, we want to live and die for this.
　
Are there any last words for the fans reading out there?
I just want to tell the kids, go to the record store, and instead of buying some video game, well go ahead and buy your video games, but go like once a week and buy a record, support touring bands, go to the shows, buy a t shirt and have a good time! 30 dollars isn’t gonna kill ya, it’s going to a good cause, you’re supporting rock and roll!
 

A huge thank you to Dave for taking the time to invite us into The Krum Bums world.

 

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