@’s by THE AQUABATS Christian Jacobs!!!
KletusCassady here. If you aren’t familiar with YO GABBA GABBA! and you have kids, someone should call child protective services immediately! Ok, maybe not, but the show is pretty damn cool, even for adults. I guess I don’t watch a lot of programming for young kids but between the special guests, the musical numbers, and a reoccurring segment with Biz Markie, YO GABBA GABBA is just a great show that could be enjoyed by anyone. I, Kletus J. Cassidy, had the pleasure of chatting with Christian Jacobs aka The MC Bat Commander, co-creator of YO GABBA GABBA! and lead singer of the AQUABATS, about his new show called THE AQUABATS SUPER SHOW, which premiered this past Saturday on the HUB network.KLETUS CASSIDY (KC): Alright, you wanna get this dang thing started?
CHRISTAIN JACOBS (CJ): Sure.
KC: Well, I guess I will go into the first question unless you got anything you want to say beforehand.
CJ: No, just we’re big fans of Ain’t it Cool News and I’m excited because we’re fans--we read all the reviews and stuff, so it’s good stuff.
KC: Cool.
CJ: Thanks for doing this.
KC: No problem, man. Who and what are The Aquabats, just for anyone who’s not familiar?CJ: The uninitiated.
KC: Yeah, the uninitiated.
CJ: It’s really hard to explain, but the Aquabats are basically like, they are kinda like a superhero…not really superheroes…see, I’m already like digging a hole with the Aquabats. The Aquabats are a band of five action heroes that play music and also right wrongs and seek justice wherever there might be a problem.
KC: Cool.
CJ: And just, you know, just trying to make it…trying to keep it real.
KC: I understand, you have to...
KC: Alright, so now that people are familiar with the Aquabats, what about the SUPER SHOW?
CJ: THE AQUABATS SUPER SHOW is the misadventures of a low rent rock band of super heroes that are traveling the highways and byways of the land trying to get to their shows and play music and stumbling upon action and drama wherever they find it. So there’s animation and cartoons and fake commercials and…it’s tough to explain; you just have to cross your fingers and watch it and hope that it doesn’t make your head explode.
KC: Right on. I read somewhere that it was kind of like the Batman TV show from the ‘60s…CJ: I think stylistically at first it’s like Batman from the ‘60s because it has, you know, maybe for younger viewers…when I was a kid watching Batman I was like wow, Batman is so awesome and curse the Penguin, great! And then as you got older you realized that show worked on so many levels and as I got older I realized those guys are just joking around and they’re having fun. And that’s really the same power of THE AQUABATS SUPER SHOW; I think for younger viewers it will be an awesome action-packed fright fest but I think for the older viewers, even the older spectrum of kids will watch it and be like hey, this is kinda of funny because you know I think it’s more intentionally funny than maybe the old Batman was but it’s definitely got that campiness that the old Batman was after. There is an attention to detail and style in that old Batman show that we really respect, and I guess pay homage to the show because we really try to keep the color pallettes similar, and even the art design, and there’s a lot that goes into creating the show to give it that same kind of a feel either way. But we are not copying it, you know, just more of like in the same vein.
KC: Yeah…
CJ: You watch those shows like the Green Hornet or Batman, the shows that William Dozier produced, and those shows kind of have a similar feel, really colorful and very cinematic but then there’s tons of detail in all of the art direction and kinds of things like that and I think the AQUABATS SUPER SHOW feels a lot like that in a lot of ways.
KC: Cool.
CJ: It’s a lot faster pace so…
KC: Gotcha. Is this show going to be for the same age range as YO GABBA GABBA!?CJ: No, it’s for like ages 6 and up. I think any younger than that the show could be a little freaky and maybe…
KC: Their heads might explode?
CJ: Yea there’re some weird plots in it and some scary situations where there’s fighting and explosions so it’s for older kids than YO GABBA GABBA! So basically kids that graduate from YO GABBA GABBA! hopefully move into THE AQUABATS SUPER SHOW.
KC: Cool.
CJ: That would be great.
KC: One of my favorite parts of YO GABBA GABBA! is ‘Beats with Biz’. Are you guys going to have similar things on this show, like musical guests or famous guests appearances?
CJ: Yeah, there is--we have a bunch of guests lined up for the first season that we definitely want to expand on it as much as we can and even having other bands play their music on the show. That’s something we definitely always wanted to do and in the first season we have a pretty good mix of everyone from Rip Taylor in the first episode to Weird Al does a few cameos in the show, Jon Heder from NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, Sam Levine from FREAKS & GEEKS, Lou Diamond Phillips--there’s kind of like a lot of fun campy guest stars on the show; we’ve had some cameos from the music scene as well, so we hope to expand on that if we can, but you know, that’s the idea. But Biz, too--I’ve been talking to Biz and he’s been like “when are you gonna put me on that AQUABATS show?” And I said “I didn’t think you’d wanna be on the Aquabats show”. So I just have to have him find his way onto the show too.
KC: Awesome. You can’t go wrong with the Biz--nobody beats the Biz.CJ: Haha...nobody beats the Biz.
KC: Let’s see…how does that animation work for the show?
CJ: So every episode the Aquabats are in the middle of an adventure and we find a cartoon somewhere, there will be a hidden cartoon, and then we go into that cartoon somewhere within the episode. And then also there’s the little Aquabat character that has, that has been our logo or icon for 15 years or whatever. e also has his own little adventures, kind of like the little Pink Panther episodes where the inspector goes on kind of like escapades, or like Snoopy’s escapades where he would leave Charlie Brown’s house and go fly against the Red Baron or something like that, the little Aquabat has his own little cartoons as well but then there’s other ways we put some more animation into it like in the commercials and some of the videogames we are playing in the show and stuff like that, so we try to find creative ways of leaving the animation in and that’s something we wanted to do as well is, you know, have a cartoon mode where we go into a cartoon while we’re in live action but we haven’t figured out the right way to do that yet. But we are excited because, you know, here we go.
KC: Yeah, it sounds pretty cool. How does this affect you guys as a band? As far as recording and touring and stuff like that, do you guys still get to do that as much or do you have to cut back?
CJ: Yeah, well, we’ve always been one of those bands that hasn’t toured very much, we’ll go out a few months out of the year and that’s it. Where most bands will go out and play, you know, the majority of the year on the road. Fortunately for us, I think the reason why we are still a band is because we didn’t do that and it just takes a lot out of you and it’s drama and it’s emotional just being gone all the time. So we never really had to do that too hard and whenever things did get a little rough for us we always did take long breaks and said if it’s not fun let’s not do it. So I think if anything this has been the longest, this last year has been the longest, we’ve been the Aquabats every day for the last year making the show and also doing all the music for the show and working doing editing and sound--everyone’s involved in different aspects in making the show so it’s been really fun but we also haven’t been dealing with waking up at a different Travel Lodge every day and traveling, so it’s been good, it’s been healthy for the band, it’s been real creative because we’ve been able to focus on making the show and we haven’t been killing ourselves too bad, but we’re excited to go back out on the road and take out some of these new songs and we definitely want to tour and keep touring but we always, ever since the beginning, we always felt if it’s not any fun and if we’re not enjoying it like what’s the point--let’s not do it. At this point we are having a ton of fun so we’d like to see where it takes us.KC: Gotcha. Does the show help you guys write songs?
CJ: Does it help us write songs? Yeah, I think so because in the beginning before we finished all the scripts we were just like ok, let’s write a ton of songs and it seems like a bunch of songs started coming and everyone could tie the songs more into the show in a way that it got a lot easier to write songs than in the past when we’ve made albums, it’s like there’s no agenda, the sky’s the limit, do whatever you want and sometimes that’s like… creatively, where do you start? It’s like building a house and you don’t have any plans. I like writing songs for the show because you have plans, like a diagram--hey we need to put a song here, we need to put a song here and it needs to be about this, go! Write a song about hamburgers! Now! It’s fun.
KC: How did you guys come up with YO GABBA GABBA!?
CJ: We actually, my buddy Scott and I, were working together since we were teenagers and doing skateboard videos and music videos and long story short, 15 years ago we’d been trying and trying to pitch Aquabats as a show. We just felt like hey, it’s not going to happen, so maybe we should try something else. So we tried a few different ideas and one of them was YO GABBA GABBA! and we knew if we took our show to the studios and tried to pitch it, that it would probably never get picked up. We saw the reaction with the Aquabats show we were pitching to studios, and no one was picking it up and we were kind of becoming those guys that like “oh here come those guys again pitching about that stupid band”. We said well, if we’re going to make this show, whether it’s YO GABBA GABBA! or the Aquabats we’re going to have to do it ourselves. So we scraped up some money and we shot a pilot for YO GABBA GABBA! which is kind of like a spinoff of the Aquabats in some ways because some of the characters were characters we created for the Aquabats at first. And the show got picked up so right away, so we did the first season of YO GABBA GABBA! and it was crazy and it was fun and we got a good response and we looked at eachother like alright, let’s do a pilot for the Aquabats, so we did the same kind and scraped up some money and did it ourselves and then showed people and then we got the opportunity to make the show.KC: Cool. Any plans to have Aquabats vs. Gwar at any point in time?
CJ: You know, I think you could probably find it online but we fought Gwar on like a radio program that was like Aquabats v. the Gwar and I think it was back in 1996, maybe? When they were still touring like crazy and we were still touring like crazy and Aquabats vs. Gwar was some radio drama and I think you could probably find it somewhere…KC: That sounds awesome…
CJ: On like one of those Bit Torrent sites or something… you could download, it wasn’t ever for sale--it was just kind of like a thing, you know? But I think if we ever fought them in person, I would be a little more nervous…fighting them on the radio was easy.
KC: Yeah, they might be kinda scary in person.
CJ: Yeah, lots of blood and gross stuff flying everywhere. We’re pretty used to it from making the AQUABATS SUPER SHOW but you know, how do you stop those guys? Maybe a flamethrower or something like that…
KC: Haha…yeah something like that…
KC: Well, I guess I only have one more question and it’s kind of a serious one, so take it as you will, but…how can I get on YO GABBA GABBA!? Do I have to find an Aquabat and bite its head off? What do I have to do?!?
CJ: Well, we could probably put you on a cool trick or you could come do a dancy dance, you know? We have guest stars on the show, you know, we could have Ain’t it Cool day on YO GABBA GABBA like an Ain’t it Cool episode where we say “Ain’t it Cool” and we highlight all the stuff that’s coming out on Ain’t it Cool. We could have you do a cool trick or a dancey dance...I don’t know, do you have a cool trick that you do? Something that no one else can do?
KC: Uh…are phone interviews a cool trick?
CJ: Yeah, sure--“Hi, I’m Bobby! My cool trick is doing phone interviews” and then you could dial someone up and say “Hey I’d like to ask you a few questions”. You could interview the Dalai Lama that’d be perfect.KC: I’m sure the kids would love to watch me on TV doing a phone interview.
CJ: Hey, I don’t doubt it--kids are interested in learning all kinds of things.
KC: That’s true, that’s true…alright, well do you have anything else you want to say about the show?
CJ: No, I’m excited--I just hope people like it. I know the show’s been getting some pretty good reviews from the fan community and I think people will be surprised because…well, I don’t know, I have a biased opinion so I can’t really judge it. Just check it out. At least watch 3 episodes, and if you don’t like it by the 3rd episode then you don’t have to watch it ever again but don’t just judge it on one episode, that’s what I’m trying to say.
KC: When does the first episode air?
CJ: The first episode airs this Saturday morning (March 3rd) at 8am on The Hub, 8am Pacific 11am Eastern on The Hub.
KC: Alright, well thanks for doing the interview with me.
CJ: Thank you.
KC: And now, since we can’t get enough of the Aquabats, here’s an exclusive look at THE AQUABATS SUPER SHOW!!!
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
