The talent runs thick for Orange County ska crooners Save the Swim Team. The group, who formed in 2006, help keep ska music alive while developing a style all on their own.
The seven members including Richie Martin (vocals), Brent Friedman (drums), Doug Nye (guitar) Scott Wellborn (guitar), Dan Currie (trombone), and brothers Zack (saxophone) and Max Klasky (bass), have taken the concept of ska music to an exasperated level; speeding up the tempo and amplifying the vocals while blending hardcore punk with a dash of Indie flavor.
At the age of 13, an idea formulated within the minds of long time friends and Cal State Long Beach seniors Martin and Max Klasky about the possibility of starting a band. With the accompaniment of Zack Klasky who already played the guitar, the boys nabbed a beat-up old drum set, Max’s trombone and made it a point to start messing around with this concept of music each day. Now, nearly 10 years later, the group picked up several other sharp shooters including Freidman and Wellborn from a previous band failure, and then later added Nye and Currie to complete the group as a whole. After a few tweaks in their band positions, the group was perfectly tuned up and playing shows all over the West Coast.
The Daily 49er got a chance to talk with Martin and the Klasky brothers about their lives as musicians, as well as the ups and downs of being a band on the grind, along with the truth behind the hilarity of their group name.
49er: How would you describe your genre as a band? Do you enjoy being classified as “ska,” or is their something deeper in regards to your genre?
Martin: We started as ska and evolved into a fast-paced Indie punk. We’re definitely not screamo, although someone who reviewed us once called us that. We have way too many people in the band and we try to encompass too many styles. We’re basically a recipe for not fitting in with any other band we’ve ever played with.
49er: You guys have played a variety of shows in several different states. What sort of bizarre experiences have you guys encountered while on the road?
Max Klasky: We played a show in Arizona in what we called the ‘Tri State Tour.’ We showed up at this random cabin, super sketchy, after our bus broke down on the way and we finally get to this cabin in the middle of the desert where we were supposed to play. When we started to play, the crowd was super wasted and shouting at us, asking us to play ‘freebird.’ Then, this girl came up from the audience, obviously high on something, walked all the way toward me and started fist pumping in my face. And this was before Jersey Shore even existed. The next day, she ended up being at another one of our shows and barely even noticed us. It was ridiculous.
49er: What’s the inspiration behind the band’s name?
Zack Klasky: In the movie ‘Van Wilder,’ when Ryan Reynolds is doing that charity event for the swim team and Milty comes out with that red speedo that says ‘save the swim team’ across the butt, that’s basically where we got it from. Ska bands usually have funny names anyway, so we thought what better name than to have it come off the ass of some fat guy.
49er: So is the goal eventually to become mainstream?
Martin: No, not at all. We love to play and we want to do it all the time. Just breaking even would be nice really. We get screwed all the time and we’ve invested thousands of dollars into ourselves as a group, but if we draw in a big crowd, then the money doesn’t matter. If you could boil us down to anything, our aspirations are to keep doing what we love more and more and if we get a good show, then we’re happy.
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