Redd Kross with Thurston Moore at Rough Trade

Redd Kross in Conversation with Thurston Moore

Rough Trade East, 14 October 2024

I took another trip down to Rough Trade East to see some of my teenage favourites, Jeff and Steven McDonald of Redd Kross have a chat with Thurston Moore about their new book, Now You're One Of Us, which is an oral history of the band, and it couldn't have been a more delightful evening, with Moore and the brothers having a truly funny and interesting chat about the early days of the LA punk scene and their shared history.

My previous times going to these instore events at Rough Trade East have always started in a big queue to get in, and I was worried I would be right at the back, but this time, even though I arrived later, there was no one there! I'm assuming due to the fact it probably was an older demographic, most fans turned up for the advertised opening time, but that did mean I got a nice seat (yes, this time there were seats too, hooray!) right at the front.

Years ago as a teenager, I started my own fanzine and one of the first bands I managed to get an interview with was the McDonald brothers of Redd Kross. I had seen them on the Phaseshifter tour several times and even went to see Stone Temple Pilots once (I know, the horror!) simply because Redd Kross were supporting. After we met Steven McDonald and he was super cool and friendly. 

The interview was backstage at the ULU in London on the Show World tour and, from what I remember, Jeff was a little grumpy to begin with but soon warmed up and it went really well. For a complete novice to the world of interviewing bands, it was definitely a great first experience and that night they completely rocked the venue. It's a great memory for me.

The band went on hiatus not long after, with the brothers both getting married (Jeff to Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go's and Steven to Anna Waronker of That Dog) and having children. It's only in the past decade that Redd Kross have started recording and touring again, but in the past year in particular there's been a lot going on in the Redd Kross world, with a documentary, Born Innocent, doing the rounds at film festivals, a brand new self-titled double album just released and now a book by the brothers giving in an indepth look at the influential band's history, which is what this talk tonight is promoting.

Thurston Moore, the Sonic Youth legend, lives in London now, so probably doesn't live too far from Rough Trade but really he couldn't have been a better person to host this conversation with the brothers: not only have Redd Kross and Sonic Youth played together many, many times over the years, the young Moore was obsessed with the LA punk scene of the late 70s and early 80s from which Redd Kross came and visited and was witness to the scene, meaning its an evening of lots of lovely shared reminiscences and funny stories.

When the trio first took their seats on stage, the first thing Moore brings up is seeing the band Kiss, easily one of the biggest influences on Redd Kross when they first began, leading to a long conversation about seeing Kiss at their peak on the same tour, with Moore admitting it was one of the greatest live shows he's ever seen, which was a surprise (I wish I could remember the name of the support band he mentioned because it brought a lot of amusement). There was also a lot of chat about other prime influences, The Runaways (neither of them saw the Cherie Currie early line-up, only the later Joan Jett one) and The Ramones.

Moore asked them about their first ever releases and it turned out someone in the audience had their debut release, the sampler album The Siren, which Steven admitted as a kid (he was only 12 when it was recorded), he had found the cover art hugely disappointing, but seemed thrilled to see it again all these years on! 

Moore talked about how around this time he started reading about Redd Kross in fanzines and was intrigued to hear them. His first taste was the song Burn Out which was featured on a compilation album and he had nothing but praise for it. It was fun hearing his memories and his enthusiasm for that time and hearing the band for the first time and I think the McDonald brothers were enjoying it too.

He then spoke about meeting Steven for the first time when he took a trip to LA and ended up at a house party where Black Flag were performing. There was a hugely entertaining story of how Henry Rollins targeted him in the audience and started aggressively poking him during the performance, calling him "weak" and then pointing to himself and saying "strong," freaking out the young skinny Moore. After he realised he had met Moore before as a friend of Lydia Lunch and apologised, and started pulling out letters Charles Manson had sent to him, calling him his "mentor!" He also recalled how someone put Redd Kross' new EP, Teen Babes From Monsanto (named after a Disney ride apparently), on the stereo at the party and Rollins hearing their cover of The Stooges' Ann caught his attention and unnerved him, as apparently he was a huge Stooges fan. Jeff recalled how he never had a real conversation with Rollins despite being part of the same scene and how weird he was back then. 

Steven spoke about how the "trashy" sound of their debut album was down to the drummer, who he went to school with, not turning up to rehearsals and seeming unsatisfied with the results. There were also some great stories of the brothers bringing Moore to lots of charity shops while searching out psychedelic clothes to wear on stage while touring with Sonic Youth (Steven says the Station Wagon they were traveling in was filled with second hand clothes from the 60s and 70s they had picked up, purely as options for their stage wear!).

Moore recalled the first time Redd Kross played New York and how it completely blew people away and influenced the whole scene, which must have been an incredible revelation for the McDonald brothers and they seemed thrilled and touched.

Steven spoke honestly about, even though Phaseshifter garnered a lot of press attention and brought them to these shores for the first time (which is when I discovered them), they were always on the edge of something bigger and never quite crossed over to mainstream success even though younger bands, who hadn't been around as long and hadn't put in the years of work they had, managed it and the feeling of being left behind. He brought up the fact they were on the Friday night of Reading the year that Nirvana played on the Sunday, playing first on the bill of a bunch of British bands, where all their contemporaries played

on Sunday. Moore likened it to a scene in a Woody Allen film, where he's on a train and sees through the window another train opposite where there's a party going on and he's missing out. It was obviously something that frustrated and bothered Steven at the time, and you can understand why, as Redd Kross were clearly as great a band, if not better, than a lot of the alternative bands that became popular in the 90s (a case in point must be, as I mentioned earlier, that they were supporting the much inferior Stone Temple Pilots).

Later someone in the audience asks about the album Third Eye, their first and only major label release, and Steven admits that he has negative feelings about the album, not only because it did so badly at the time but also because destroyed their reputation a little. He says that he thinks the reason they never played with Nirvana, for instance, was because of Third Eye. "I'm glad you enjoy that album and we still play Annie's Gone every night, but it's not a good memory for me."

It's hard to remember everything that was said throughout the night, but there was also stories of working with David Cassidy in the film Spirit Of '76 ("He didn't like it that we were all taller than him"), meeting Michael Jackson in a beat-up car, seeing Dallas actress Charlene Tilton, opinions of Oasis reuniting and the problems of being brothers in bands (which led to them discussing the much publicised altercation between Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro at a recent Jane's Addiction gig) and being fans of Lydia Lunch and covering her song Orphans (Thurston wanted them to start playing it again and they offered to play it with him when they play London next month but unfortunately he said their schedules don't align - excuses!). There was obviously a lot of affection between the brothers and Moore and is was clear they were having a great time sharing memories, not just of their experiences together and the scenes they came from, but the music that shaped them. It was wonderful to see these old friends come together and discuss their fascinating pasts, and the fact that the whole thing overran by an hour was proof of how much fun they were having.

After I waited to get my book signed and I mentioned that I had interviewed them back in the 90s for my fanzine Last Exit. Jeff even, rather sweetly wrote "Last Exit rules!" on my book, which I was touched by. I'm seeing Redd Kross play live next month for the first time in years at Camden Dingwalls, so I'm sure that will bring back a lot of great memories too!