A few days into their inaugural tour and the Fun Police had already busked the streets of Portland, done a little bridge diving into the Sacramento River and lost track of the freaky break-dancer guy they picked up at their gig in Redding, Calif.
“He was a really good break-dancer. He was a nice enough guy,” said Kevin Schulz – aka singer-guitarist Ranger Ruffhousen, reporting by cell phone from a 7-Eleven near Venice Beach, Calif., last week.
“But he was maybe schizophrenic or something,” he said. “We were just at a beach an hour ago and we were eatin’, and he just took off walkin’ down the beach and never came back. He was a weird dude.”
Weird being the norm with the Fun Police. The Bullies in Blue, as they’re also called, are among South Sound’s most offbeat and wildly inventive bands, with a creative vision that encompasses genre-blurring anthems, quirky PSA videos and even food. Fun Police associate “Fryin’” Ryan Hatcher served up gourmet grits during the band’s performance at Tacoma’s Grit City Fest in June, with more culinary collaborations in the works.
“You can’t beat grits on a stage. Nobody does that,” said local rapper and promoter Quincy “Q-Dot” Henry, who booked the band for Grit City Fest. “Expect the unexpected with them. That’s it. And they’ve got good tunes. They’ve got good stage presence, that’s for sure.”
But the first thing anyone notices is the look. As the name implies, all seven band members will wear crisp cop outfits tonight at O’Malley’s Irish Pub in Tacoma. Fittingly, their homecoming gig is headlining the Outlaw Music Festival, a bill put together by hard-drinkin’, country-rock tour mates Ten Miles of Bad Road.
The Fun Police first donned their uniforms and went on patrol in 2008 (patrols consisting of mostly showing up and rockin’ random local sidewalks.)
“We all had different side projects and different things going on,” recalls accordion player “Special Agent” Sam Potts, sitting at headquarters, the band’s Court C practice space, with his band mates.
Potts and Schulz played in folk-punk bands Cheeky White Devils and Helter Skipper & the Manson Gilligans. Guitarist Danny “Deputy D” Tallariti, drummer Brian “Brigadier B-Ski” Skitch and bassist Jake “Sgt. Snake” Hayes spent time in South Hill/Federal Way alt-rock outfit Philo Gant.
United with a new project, they drew from wildly disparate influences. As captured on nine-track debut album “You Better Run” (available on iTunes), their sound is a party hearty patchwork of punk, funk, Celtic music, reggae, meringue and country. Nothing is off limits as long as they can “Fun Policify it,” as Schulz puts it.
“They’re basically a genreless band, except that they deconstruct everything down to punk at some point,” said Cat Jeter, a former manager turned “honorary band grandma” and biggest fan. (You’ll often see her up front dancing at shows.)
“I adore anyone who dares to reconcieve music,” she said, “and I just love how they’re constantly scrambling genres. It really appeals to my sense of what is fun in music nowadays.”
“It comes a lot from just the incarnations of the different bands we’ve all been in over the years,” Tallariti said. “Everybody we try and incorporate in the band we try and learn from them to broaden our horizons and keep going.”
“It’s a whole mishmash,” Schulz said. “Everyone’s coming from different angles and throwing it all together. We just all keep wanting to add newer, weird stuff without any limitations; not trying to sound like anything in particular, but just doing what the (heck) we want.”
Quirky subject matter – barflies, being broke, Dumpster diving – add to the fun, with many lyrics culled straight from life. The song “Dumpster Diving” provides a clue as to how the band found a lot of the kitschy adorning their practice space – velvet Elvis, stuffed animals and clown art.
And bilingual fan favorite “Spanish Mullet” actually has nothing to do with unfortunate Latin hairstyles; it’s actually about Schulz and vocalist Holley “Veteran V-Dub” Van Wagoner are “hobby hobos.”
“I want to lie with you beneath the southern stars/ on the top of a moving train and listen to the cars/ as it moves down the tracks and it kicks through the bends/ silently hoping the journey never ends.”
“We just got back from freight hopping,” Schulz said. “He’s not into it,” he added, thumbing towards Hayes next to him. (The bassist could only respond in hoarse whispers, having recently had his tonsils taken out.)
“He doesn’t like to smell like urine,” Schulz continued. “We didn’t smell like urine, though. We were clean hobos – hobby hobos.”
“We bathed in the Columbia River,” Van Wagoner chimed in, flashing a big grin.
“We slept on haystacks,” Schulz said. “We just do fun stuff like that: Dumpster diving, urban spelunking, trespassing and all that stuff. And float the river. We’re all big river floaters. During the summer we’re on the river all the time.”
Then there are the online public service advisories, short satirical videos that the band posts online to skewer the real fun police – pious lawmakers and enforcers of political correctness.
In one video, Brigadier B-Ski and Major Mullet (departed band member Adam Dunlap) confront a pair of grade-school-age trick-or-treaters with why Halloween is “illegal” in Puyallup. (It’s actually just not celebrated by the school district.) The message is about not offending wiccans. But when one shows up - wearing a black dress and pointy witch hat, of course – Mullet vaporizes her. “Silence, witch!” At some point, he and B-Ski turn into zombies and start gnawing on the squealing kids.
In another PSA spot, the Fun Police mace and pummel a bar patron who makes the mistake of smoking 24 feet away from the New Frontier Lounge’s front door (a foot less than what’s mandated by law). You can see most of the PSAs at www.youtube.com/thefunpoliceband.
“The moral of the story is there is no need for morals when you have all the laws to dictate everything, right?” Tallariti said.
“There’s so many … stupid laws and stupid people and stupid rules,” Schulz said, “and we like to make fun of ’em and have a good time with it. I’ve got plenty more where those came from.”
Also on the way: More food, multi-media collaborations for live shows, and a possible Fun Police comic book.
“We’ll just come up with some goofy idea and we’ll continue on,” Schulz said. “I like getting all these cool people that have all this talent and just getting them together. That’s the most fun for me. I’m not the greatest musician or anything like that. I just like getting all the talent together in a pool and seeing what people can do ... and having a good time with it.”
Ernest Jasmin: 253-274-7389
ernest.jasmin@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/tacomarockcity
OUTLAWFEST
What: Outlawfest, featuring the Fun Police, Ten Miles of Bad Road and more
When: 5-10 p.m. today
Where: O’Malley’s Irish Pub, 2403 Sixth Ave., Tacoma
Information: 253-383-3144
On the web: www.youtube.com/thefunpoliceband
