Regulators In The House

10/12/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
David John Farinella

When the five lads of 311 hit the stage during a mini-club tour this month, they've got one thing on their minds. "We are going to get back out on the road and regulate," says bassist P-Nut. "That's what it's all about."

Call it what you will, with their new Soundsystem album, the members of 311--Nick Hexum on vocals and guitar, drummer Chad Sexton, guitarist Tim Mahoney, turntablist and vocalist S.A. Martinez, and P-Nut--are returning to a musical world that's familiar with their sound, though maybe not too familiar with their name. Looking back now, it's amazing to believe that this quintet started blending metal, hip-hop, and reggae 10 years ago in Omaha, Neb.

To be sure, they were one of the first on that beat, and today there's no way they can be considered the new kids on the block. "No way," P-Nut says from his Los Angeles home, "but all the new kids are very familiar with us. I guarantee all the people that are coming out now know who the hell we are and know how we do things."

So are those bands giving 311 props for starting this musical trend? "Here and there. Enough that would be expected," he answers. "It would be nice to see all of those bands get together in a big circle and praise us, but that isn't going to happen. Just like we took influences from other bands, the bands that are out now have been influenced by us to a certain degree. I'm not totally overboard on the subject, I just know that we've affected it a little bit, we've added to the scene."

Of course, that's a long way from where they started this aural odyssey. It was back in the late '80s when 311 fell into place, a time when rock was at a bit of a crossroads. The influences they pulled from as a band were not necessarily the norm, yet they latched onto something that attracted a wide range of fans. Playing around the Midwest, they built a grassroots following (hence the title of their debut, Grassroots). A move to Los Angeles and a record contract with Capricorn Records was like putting the band in a rocket ship, because they pointed their nose straight up and took off. Five albums in six years and a bevy of globetrotting tours introduced them to legions of fans. "We were doing it the '70s way of just touring, put out an album, touring, put out an album," P-Nut says.

That torrential pace culminated with the band's "blue album," the self-titled breakout that put them on the map. To date, that album has sold over 3 million copies, mostly behind the No. 1 hit "Down" and the No. 2 "All Mixed Up." With that success in their pocket, 311 went to work on Transistor, the most ambitious album they had ever considered.

As S.A. Martinez says now, "We had just come off a really popular-selling record and were thinking that we could do just about anything. We just got a little too ahead of ourselves, basically." While the band stands behind Transistor firmly, S.A. admits it was a bit of a stretch. "The record is a good record, it's just that no one really wants to listen to that long a record these days. If we had omitted some tracks it could have been as solid a record as Soundsystem is, but we wanted to put out a long album because we felt we owed our fans at the time extra for helping make the 311 record so huge and successful."

P-Nut concurs, and adds, "If you listen to that album in 10 years it'll sound pretty modern, as opposed to the stuff that's out there now. At least we had enough balls to do something different."

Where Transistor was an experimental jump, Soundsystem brings 311 back to their rocky roots. It took them two years to put it together, not because of any creative dilemmas but because they simply wanted to take some additional time to give the album further strength. Both P-Nut and S.A. point to the song "Life's Not A Race" as one of their favorites on this release. "I think that's an important thing to accept," says P-Nut. "When we first started we wanted to get our name out there and show people what's up. Now we know that people know who we are, at least the people that matter. So we're just going to take our time and do things right. Quality over quantity, and that's why we took so long to make this album, to make sure it's as dope as possible."

Not only will 311 be bringing their sounds and kinetic live show back to fans, they'll also be revisiting a message that's missed in the current music scene. "I think people like our positivity," S.A. explains. "They get enough of the negative in music, and I think they want to hear that not everybody feels that way, or wants to express music in that way. That's probably the most significant aspect of 311. I hope people get some kind of unifying theme."