When 20 minutes of conversation can go from feeding the world through better corn to shitting in the Bouncing Souls tour bus you know you’re talking to Milo Aukerman, lead singer of the Descendents.
Ever the mould breaker, Aukerman – speaking from his bed at home with his wife and kids – will soon be leaving what he calls ‘gainful employment’ with the DuPont Chemical Company in Delaware U.S.A. to tour down here, quenching Australia’s three-year-long thirst for the band in February.
The Descendents are godfathers of punk rock, and a part of the somewhat rarefied club of bands whose fans have gotten the band logo tattooed on themselves.
In Aukerman’s case, the logo just happens to be his face as well – the band’s bespectacled, froggy-faced mascot came from a caricature of Aukerman drawn by a friend in high school.
“[It] gets a little weird when people have tattoos of your face and it’s in weird places,” he says. “I’ve seen girls with ‘em on their crotches and I kind of go… ‘wow, that’s pretty… wow’!”
Despite a hint of sarcasm in the ‘gainful’ part, Aukerman, who holds a PhD in biochemistry, places a lot of value in his ‘gainful employment’.
His recent research aims to enhance the world’s food supply and to help farmers withstand drought by investigating methods to genetically modify corn.
“I did end up at a company that takes a bit of the philanthropy out of it… selling stuff rather than giving it away, but at any rate I still feel that same kind of ‘feed the world’ mentality in what I do.”“I was always drawn towards two places at one time, the science world and the music world.”
Philanthropist or no, Aukerman’s gifts for the world have certainly come a long way since his pre-college days when he shouted “sniff my ass while I pass gas” in “Enjoy” (1986).
Aukerman describes a feeling of intellectual deprivation on long tours, but the long running joke of overcoming this by tricking out the tour bus with a lab still hasn’t come to fruition.
“I was always drawn towards two places at one time, the science world and the music world,” he says. Sadly, it seems the idea will have to remain a joke for the time being. “We’d have to get hugely, hugely famous to be able to then buy our own tricked out bus where we could have that lab in there, and we’ve never got to that level.”
Worrying out loud, there’s talk of getting to that level and having a lab full of delicate glassware while possibly touring with Jay Whalley of Frenzal Rhomb, who will be along for the ride on next month’s tour.
The 2004 Less Than Jake song “Jay Frenzal”, named after Whalley, describes him breaking their bus “with a two-by-four and a shitty grin,” before charging “hey fuckface you owe us 500 bucks.”
Aukerman isn’t too worried about this though, “we’re gonna be flying, but I hope he doesn’t break our plane.”
He tells of some of his own tour bus sabotage, aimed at long-time road mates The Bouncing Souls, who will also be along next month.
“We had the pre-gig ritual of ‘well, we gotta go take care of business’, but you know, these clubs are pretty nasty that we play in. I mean at least back in the 90s. You’d get to a club and you’d check out the bathroom and you’d go ‘Well, we ain’t goin’ in there’ so you’d have to come up with some other option.”
“At this particular gig,” he continues, “which I think was in Chicago, we realised that the catering was using these huge aluminium lasagne trays.” Aukermen and his bandmates then emptied one out, and then ‘had their way with it’. “I hope that [punk] is always gonna be with the kids. There’s always gonna be some 15 year old kid just learning how to play.”
They did their business “in the back of the Bouncing Souls’ bus, while they weren’t around. They were on stage playing and we just decided that we’d leave them this little present.”
Asked ‘where is punk music going?’ he replies “I hope that it’s always gonna be with the kids. There’s always gonna be some 15 year old kid just learning how to play.”
“[He] hasn’t even picked up a guitar yet and hears a song and kinda goes ‘Oh, I think I can do that, I think I can pick up the guitar’ and then they pick up the guitar and they realise, you know, this music it’s not that hard to play and that’s the point.”
“The point is not to be intricate and professional,” continues Aukerman. “The point is to get out your aggression… your emotions.”
He notes the full circle of DIY culture where kids do it for themselves, just like the Descendents used to, printing their own vinyl. With digital music and independent labels flourishing now, he speculates, “maybe in a few years record labels don’t exist.”
Nostalgia turns to the Descendents frontman recalling the first song he ever wrote for the band: ‘Hope’ from their 1982 release Milo Goes To College.
“I wasn’t that great a guitar player. So just even putting the musical part of it together was just an epiphany for me.” The chords took him over, he says, and he played them over and over. He was “obsessed by it”.
The memory of that feeling, he says, has driven him in all the songs he has written since. “The feeling that you get from that very first song is so powerful that you just want to do it again and again and again.”
Speaking of the band’s heavy influence on many of the big name punk acts of today, Aukerman says “it’s a really deep satisfaction to feel like we’re part of the continuum of punk rock. Because to me, I would be dismayed and depressed if it turned out that punk rock just kinda died.”
“I really feel like it needs to continue,” he urges, “I feel like every generation needs to have some version of this music”. He says the image of passing the ‘baton’ from the Ramones, the Germs and Black Flag to the next generation is powerful.
It was his own kids who spurred him to take up the microphone again in 2010 after a long hiatus, which brought the Descendents to Australia for the first time ever.“The feeling that you get from that very first song is so powerful that you just want to do it again and again and again.”
“They were listening to some of my old music and saying ‘well Dad, we wanna actually see you play’.” Adding that Melbourne was his favourite place on that Australian tour, but it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s just being nice, because he can’t even remember how good the coffee was.
At the suggestion that he check out Ned Kelly’s armour at the State Library – with the forewarning that even though the cartoon Milo is allowed to try on the helmet, the real Milo probably won’t be – he seems interested.
Having read a little bit about Ned Kelly, he concludes “he sounded like a crazy guy… It’s one of the things about Australia that really fascinates me… there’s the outlaw mentality to a lot of Australia and I think that’s really cool.”
Asked if he’s got any more albums in him, Aukerman replies “I don’t think I’m ever gonna go whole hog into the music”. But die-hard Descendents fans can take heart, Milo is taking measures against burnout.
When “you’re playing only 10-15 shows a year you don’t ever burn out,” he defers. “It was different back when we’d play for three months straight, at the end of it you’d be like ‘Okay I need a break from this’.”
Even though this month’s gig may not be the last chance we’ll ever get to see Aukerman with the Descendents, why risk it? DuPont might not let go of him next time.
The Descendents’ tour Australia with Frenzal Rhomb and Bouncing Souls in early Ferbruary, full details here, and dates below.
Descendents 2013 Australian Tour
Wednesday February 06 – Eaton’s Hill – Brisbane, QLD
with THE DISABLES
Tickets: www.oztix.com.au, 1300 762 545
Thursday February 07 – Big Top Luna Park – Sydney, NSW
with IRRELEVANT
Tickets: www.ticketek.com 132 849, www.oztix.com.au 1300 762 545 & www.bigtopsydney.com1300 BIG TOP
Saturday February 09 – Festival Hall – Melbourne, VIC (Lic. All Ages)
with GAME OVER
Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com.au
Sunday February 10 – Metro City – Perth, WA
with guests
Tickets: www.oztix.com.au, 1300 762 545 & www.heatseeker.com.au
