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By BRIAN GIFFIN
INSPIRED by Black Flag, Steve McDonald started his band The Tourists when he was 11 and brother Jeff was 14.
In 1979 the name was changed to Red Cross, then Redd Kross three years later when the actual Red Cross threatened legal action. Since then, the band have risen to the status of indie rock icons, last year becoming the subject of both the memoir Now You’re One of Us: The Incredible Story of Red Kross and a documentary, Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story.
Along with their double self-titled album, their first in five years, 2024 was a busy year for the band. Next year they will return to Australia on a national tour with friends and kindred spirits The Hard-Ons. Bassist and all-round good guy Steve McDonald has been to this country many times, with Redd Kross as well as Melvins and with OFF! He’s in the middle of playing something on an acoustic guitar when we connect. He apologises and puts it away with something of a sheepish grin.
Steve McDondald: “I like to keep it nearby!”
Hot Metal: I’m sure you do! I’m sure it’s been a lifelong friend. Maybe not that particular guitar, but playing a guitar.
SM: “I try.”
HM: It’s great to be having a chat with you about your upcoming Australian tour. One show’s already been sold out, so you must be happy about that?
SM: “That’s awesome! It’s incredible. I don’t know how to feel about that. My normal go to is that it’s probably just a bunch of Hard-ons fans! But it’s great, and I’m excited that we get to do this together. They’re the ones who dreamed up the idea and organised it, so if it’s as successful as it can be, I give them the credit. I’m very excited.”
HM: They’re just finishing off a tour now. They basically don’t stop, and they’re probably more popular and successful now than they’ve ever been, which is incredible for a band that’s been around almost as long as Redd Kross in a musical environment that doesn’t necessarily favour indie bands. I think it’s actually pretty great that the tour’s doing so well, so far in advance.
SM: “Yeah, it’s amazing. It does make me excited, makes me feel good about going to rehearsals and getting ready for the tour.”
HM: It’s almost like you’re kindred spirits in many ways: you both started your bands when you were very young, you’re both still active now, and you both shared the same musical influences and brought them into what you did.
SM: “We both came from punk rock, but also a love of seventies arena rock. And [the Hard-ons] were always willing to fly that flag regardless of what the rule book said in the punk rock manifest. We’ve known them since the eighties when they first came to America, and I guess we were label-mates for a brief period. I think they might have been on Big Time for a brief time, and we were on an Australian label for a while. So yeah, there’s lots of connections and as people we’ve always seen them from time to time. I feel like we’ve never not been in some kind of contact.”
HM: Do you see this as something of a landmark tour for Redd Kross?
SM: “It’s our first… We toured Australia in 2017, opening for the Melvins, and before then we had come out a few times after doing the Researching The Blues album in 2012. We came out a few times and did a few gigs. But this will be the most condensed amount of shows in a row since the nineties. We did a similar tour with the Hard-ons around 1982, so in some ways this will be sort of recapturing that. I remember we drove some distances people generally fly. We drove to the Sunshine Coast, and I remember that was being talked about for quite a while. We did that with the Hard-ons back then. I just toured with those guys last year. I play in the Melvins too, and have for about a decade. They came out to America with the Melvins. They’re inspiring people. They just seem to have this attitude that is the right attitude if you’re going to keep doing this. I want some of that! I hope some of it rubs off on me and my band-mates, or, maybe that’s the reason we make sense together, because I intuitively have some of that. I don’t know.”
HM: There’s obviously other people who’ve been in bands for a very long time, but for you to keep it together for as long as you have, there must be something in there.
SM: “Must be!”
HM: And you’re still recording and still touring, you’re not just resting on your laurels or anything like that. What is it then that keeps you going, Steve? There must be something there.
SM: “A desperate need for approval? A need for approval and a desire to make money from something I love and have spent years obsessing on! I mean, that’s the most exaggeratedly honest answer I could give. But I don’t know, I’m very aware as I get older how much it matters to be valued at something – at anything! And if you’re going to keep doing a good job at it… when you get old enough to cast expectations aside, or cast other people’s expectations aside, of you, and just figure out what matters – at least that’s my story so far I have done my fair share of trying my hand at other things within the world of music. I’ve always stayed within music. I’ve produced bands and I’ve played in other people’s bands and I’ve had certain models – like, I’m friends with Pat Smear and I saw how his story unfolded, and I thought maybe that could happen for me. Or, my brother-in-law now plays drums for Oasis! So I’ve watched his story, and we have very different stories but I have followed different paths from time to time. It probably helps that my partner in Redd Kross is my sibling, so maybe band-mates may come and go, but siblings don’t. Luckily we’ve always been, when it comes to Redd Kross, enough on the same page to function. We took a nine year hiatus once from Redd Kross, and then we slowly put effort back into it. But I’ve always been apprehensive about putting too much pressure on that part of my life. Then last year there was all these opportunities, and we swung as hard as we could and I suppose, ultimately, the point of doing that is to make it easier for as to consistently do Redd Kross. Whether or not that pans out remains to be seen. We were really lucky last year. Everything we worked on – this album, this book project, and then this documentary that’s coming out – we had really great collaborators and people who were really encouraging. Everything came out beyond my expectations.”
HM: Something like that could change how you look at things, because maybe they don’t come out the way you hoped.
SM: “With these particular projects, and there was, like, three in a row… anyone who’s going to consistently create things, you have to make peace with the idea that sometimes they come out the way they come out. Everything’s not your favourite. The only problem is, you might put out something that’s not your favourite, but you’re still behind it. You’ve got to go out and promote and live it, and all of that. It’s not like just making something and then just throwing it out! At least, in our particular corner to the landscape. Making it is the beginning.”
HM: Then there’s a lot of talking about, even if you don’t want to. You’ve got to go back and revisit it whether you like it, or not.
SM: “You mean when you have to go out and play songs that you’re not particularly connected to? Yeah, but as far as the setlist is, we still have enough of a say over that. But I remember that was that craze in the 00s when people were requested to play an entire album, and a lot of artists I know were sometimes asking, ‘Why am I doing this?’. Through the process of doing the book and this movie where we were interviewed in depth about our feelings about certain records and stuff, I think it was like therapy. Something that once felt awkward to me, or there was some kind of unresolved feeling, I felt it’s processed, finally! If it’s important to someone else, I’ll take their word for it but I don’t need to talk shit about it anymore!”
MARCH 4: Sol Bar, Maroochydore
MARCH 5: Mo’s Desert Club House, Gold Coast
MARCH 6: Crowbar, Brisbane
MARCH 7: Paddington RSL, Sydney
MARCH 8: Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle
MARCH 10: The Baso, Canberra
MARCH 12: Barwon Club, Geelong
MARCH 13: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
MARCH 14: The Tote, Melbourne (SOLD OUT)
MARCH 15: The Tote, Melbourne
