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If theres a solid piece of advice that Orange County, California based ska-rock act Reel Big Fish can offer listeners of their latest creation, Were Not Happy Til Youre Not Happy, it can simply be gathered through the title of one of the discs tracks, Dont Start A Band.
Yes, 14 years of hard-learned experience maintaining themselves as one of the most successful and stable third-wave ska-rock outfits has definitely taught the crew something. Frontman Aaron Barrett just wishes he didnt have to be the first one to dish the caveat emptor.
I wish somebody wouldve written Dont Start A Band a long time ago, he says. Wouldve saved me a lot of trouble.

Fortunately, no one had really penned such a track and Barrett ended up forming Reel Big Fish. Countless tours, five full-length albums, two stints on the Vans Warped Tour and over a million combined album sales later, Reel Big Fish are offering such advice amongst a number of other self-explanatory (and self-deprecating) related bites such as One Hit Wonderful and Last Show as a public service to the countless budding musicians theyve inspired, and because it finally helped cap a series of themed recordings theyve assembled as a part of their career discography. Its like a triology Turn The Radio Off, Why Do They Rock So Hard and this album, says Barrett. Turn The Radio Off is the band just starting and theyre trying to make it, but its so hard to make it with all the other bands. Why Do They Rock So Hard is: Weve made it and everyone hates us for making it. And this album is: We're bitter and jaded and mean and ah, we quit. The next album will be like, Wow, we can make a lot of money with a reunion tour! But, fear not, as Reel Big Fish are not calling it quits. Its just a part of the albums overall character.
I think the theme is, Fuck this shit. Fuck you, fuck the music business, I quit, he reiterates. But we still love to play and we depend on it to make a living, so its better to write about it than to actually do it. plus we are much happier these days, all the members that didn't get along with us and made our lives miserable are gone and we are one big happy family now.

Were Not Happy Til Youre Not Happy marks the first album with new trumpeter John Christianson from Barretts recent side project, The Forces Of Evil. Its also the bands newest album since June 2002s Cheer Up. Exhaustive touring schedules have kept the sextet constantly on the road, especially in the UK, where the band has received an unusually sizable chunk of attention and has toured several times since Cheer Ups release.

Reel Big Fish has attributed a portion of their UK notoriety to a tour featuring a fellow band that was reciprocating a favor. In fact, Were Not Happy Til Youre Not Happy sports a brilliant cover of Morrisseys We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful, which pokes at those whove used Reel Big Fishs generosity as a springboard for their careers. However, such success worked to Reel Big Fishs advantage during this particular UK outing. There are so many bands that weve taken on the road over the years that ended up becoming super famous or at least very successful and have never returned the favor, Barrett says.
Theres actually one band that returned the favor, and thats Sum 41, trumpeter/guitarist Scott Klopfenstein recalls.
We took them on tour when nobody knew who they were really in America, Barrett adds. And then they got really big and famous and they took us on tour in the UK. That really helped us over there.

Another cover song on Were Not Happy Til Youre Not Happy has been earmarked as the discs first single, Tracy Chapmans Talkin Bout A Revolution. The bands reggae-fied rendition of the Chapman track was inspired by a poor mans iPod that the act hastily assembled for a recent trek.
Last summer we did a tour and we made this really weird contraption out of speakers and duct tape called The Reggae Machine and only played an MP3 CD with old reggae songs on it, says Barrett. And we listened to that every day in the dressing room. Its that old, lo-fi, badly recorded reggae that just sounds so good." So I heard the Tracy Chapman song and thought it would make a great reggae song. So we made a really low-fi sounding reggae song. And its awesome, probably one of my favorite songs on the album. We also added a reggae version of Social Distortions Story Of My Life at the last minute that was going to be an international B-Side, but everyone loved it so much we had to add to the album adds Barrett.

Though Reel Big Fish has taken song cues from Chapman, Morrissey and Social D, the band has been equally inspirational in its own right. In fact, Reel Big Fish has even been noted in a college text for a History Of Rock N Roll course. Im sure its the What Went Wrong Here? chapter, quips Regan.

The Barrett-produced album (co-produced with Shawn Sullivan) even features a college marching band performing one of the bands tracks at the end of One Hit Wonderful. And its not inspiration at a recorded level that keeps people wanting more.
Our fans are amazing to us, Klopfenstein says. I think a lot of what it has to do with it is that when you come see Reel Big Fish, you get a whole show. Youre entertained. We talk, we goof around, we do a lot of stuff and people want to be entertained. Its important.

The band has also recognized the importance of Barretts sanity (or perhaps lack thereof). We have known Aaron for a long time and we love him dearly, says Regan. Its Scott and my job to make sure that the men with the white coat with the straps and the rubber room dont take him away. Although the message of Were Not Happy Til Youre Not Happy appears pretty grim and pessimistic, its apparent that the only reason why Reel Big Fish is still around is because they didnt give up.
As much as we wanted to quit a million times, weve been around over ten years and were still rockin it, Regan says. Kids ask us how we became successful. Well, we were lucky for like a year, but the rest of the time, we just made it work. Were just going to stay a band. Were not going to go back to working fast food or any of that shit. I wouldnt even know how to do that crap again!

Just imagine what we couldve done had we been positive, adds Barrett. This is not the end of our band. Even though the albums about the end, this is just the beginning.

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