After many years The Ataris are finally headed back down to Australia to play songs from fan favourite albums Blue Skies, Broken Hearts…Next 12 Exits and So Long Astoria. We were lucky enough to speak to vocalist and founding member Kris Roe as he shares some memories with us.

SCENEzine
Hey Kris how’s 2016 going for you so far?

Kris Roe
It’s been great I’ve never been happier. I’ve got an awesome girlfriend and I’m currently living back in the Midwest. I spent several years in California and after that went to Arizona. It’s too much to summarize but I’ve been writing and recording a lot of music. I’ve got 20 songs recorded and 6 have vocals so far plus I’ve written about 30 other songs so I’ve got 50 songs.

Now is the moment where I’m like which are the best 15 to finish those up when I’m not touring. When we get done with Australian/Asia tour the goal is to get back and finish up a records worth of songs. The songs we’ve released so far on the band camp page we’ve had a great response to.

SCENEzine
Would you say you are a perfectionist?

Kris Roe
Not so much but when I was younger I was a bit more OCD with perfection . For me now as a writer I feel like I’m starting to know what my strong points are. When I was younger I would just write, now I look back and think some of those things weren’t so good but some were. I’m really proud of a lot of songs. All the songs we play in our set I wouldn’t play them if I didn’t feel them.
I like to play songs that still mean a lot to me. I’ve gotten to be a better editor. You get to know when something is shit and something’s strong. At least I feel I have good intuition about that.
Every time I record an album it’s more of a learning process. These days I try not to over think shit and let the songs speak for themselves. Also to never limit myself and just listen to my heart.

SCENEzine
In Australia you’ll be playing songs from Blue Skies our favourite track from that is “San Dimas”. Is there a story behind that song?

Kris Roe
Well you’ll be in luck I play that every show (laughs). Basically with every song I write I try to make sure there is a strong vivid narrative. Anything I write I want it to have some kind of personal relevance to me also taking the listener into a coded but detailed story. I moved to Santa Barbara California when I was 19 and I had left a lot of things behind. I had just had a kid and was in a very one sided relationship and she had a very crazy father. I thought no matter what I wasn’t going back to the place where I was even if I was homeless. At the time I wrote that song I was living in my van sleeping in front of the Roxy on sunset boulevard. In Hollywood next to the Rainbow bar where Lemmy would sit and play the video poker machines up until he died.

The song was all about a good weekend I had with me and my friend hanging out. We camped out overnight to see The Cure play their US TV debut on Jay Leno then I met a really nice girl while in line. We drove to see some friends in Pasadena and I did some recording with my friend Marko. Then I met this girl at Rainbow bar with her boyfriend who was kind of dick making out with other girls while she was there. Part of the song was about her and partly about adapting to a new place. How I was in love with it but at the same time there was fear but it was an awesome new world that led me to so many new avenues.

SCENEzine
You are also playing songs from So Long Astoria I’m guessing a lot of people ask you about Boys of Summer?

Kris Roe
It depends who you talk to. I think that people who got into our band through Blue Skies they never mention that song. Whereas people who entered our band through So Long Astoria they might. With the So Long Astoria album we gained many new fans because suddenly we are on Sony and there was a whole new demographic. When “Boys of Summer” came out it gained us a whole new radio audience. We don’t play that song every night we kind of just play what we feel. I imagine we will play it in Australia but in America if we get an older punk rock crowd sometimes they’d rather hear another old song of ours. With “Boys of summer” if your playing a college town you’ll definitely get the drunk guy yelling yeah Boys of Summer man.

The thing about that song is there’s such a deeper reason we covered it. When my grandmother passed away in 2001 that song reminded me of when I was 8 years old I would go down to Florida every year with my parents they got divorced the year that it was really big on the radio. I used to tape songs of the radio and I loved that song. It was really rainy that year so instead of doing usual Florida things like go to Disney World my grandma let me go out with her and pick out any record I wanted. I always loved music and collected records. So I bought that record and listened to it the whole time I stayed with her.
So when she died in 2001 I was like yeah we are going to cover that song for her and we did. I never expected it to be a single. We put it on the record as kind of afterthought we were going to release “my reply” as the second single but suddenly KROQ radio in LA added the song and were like yeah that’s your new single. I was like excuse me what the fuck do you mean(laughs).

SCENEzine
There’s a line form “in this diary” being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up. Looking at your life now does that line still ring true?

Kris Roe
I really like growing up actually I feel like there’s something to be said about always being a kid at heart which I always will be. I feel like the great thing about being a nomad travelling the world you get to be a full time gypsy. But at the same time the older I’ve got the more I appreciate things in life and want to really be a better person. When I look back on the person that I was when I was younger I think I did a lot of things that I wouldn’t do now. I have no regrets but I’m happy I’ve grown up in a lot of ways but at the same time I’ll always be a kid.

SCENEzine
We really loved your cover of “teenager of the year” is there any chance you might play that in Australia?

Kris Roe
I don’t think the rest of the guys in the band know it but I wrote it down as an idea that might be cool. There was also a really good Australian band called RatCat from the early 90’s they had a song called “away from this world” right about the time the space shuttle challenger exploded in America. I didn’t discover the band until later but they actually sampled the challenger throttling up and it’s a really dark but awesome amazing pop song. Kind of like Teenage Fan Club grungy pop. I’d love to play that song one night too. I love doing fun stuff like that that’s what these shows are all about mixing it up a little bit.

SCENEzine
You’ve done a lot of photography for your albums. Are you still a passionate photographer?

Kris Roe
I never went to school for it or anything like that. There’s so many good photographers out there so I use the word photographer loosely. I love to take pictures and as long as I have an outlet with writing songs I always use the pictures I take to tell an additional part of the story. If you go to our band camp page there’s a lot of my photography every song has a different photograph that goes along with it. For the next album we will put out I’ve got a really cool photo already picked out for the cover. The picture is very reminiscent to a lot of our other album covers. For me if I could sum up the photos I take it’s kind of like the songs I write ruin porn. In America you’ve got a lot of the broken down beauty of things from the past like old abandoned buildings and signage.

SCENEzine
We were lucky enough to catch your set at Riot Fest Chicago last year. Did you have fun playing that?

Kris Roe
That was a great day it was awesome. Honestly Riot Fest as a spectator and also somebody playing it is one of the most fun festivals. There are a couple of more in America that are run by musicians like Fun Fun Fun fest in Austin. It’s also got a really good vibe. These festivals are putting on great shows for real fans not just people who are going to blog about it or film the whole thing like at Coachella. I think Coachella used to be more of a music festival and now its somewhere to go to be seen. But Riot Fest was great I watched so many bands I like playing festivals that are diverse. Warped Tour has become more of a parody of itself. There are probably 3 bands on it every year that are actually something I’d listen to. We always have a good time playing it and I love Kevin Lyman he definitely helped us out a lot. I really wish they would make it more diverse like Riot Fest that’s how Warped was in the beginning. The first couple of years there would be indie, punk, reggae now it’s all just scene pop punk with emo hair….umm no (laughs). Hopefully we get to play Riot Fest again.

SCENEzine
Did you hear the Misfits news that Danzig, Doyle and Jerry Only will be playing together at Riot Fest this year?

Kris Roe
Yeah I think that’s great. I saw Danzig and Doyle play together several times and that was really cool. As for Jerry Only he’s a nice guy but I don’t want to hear him sing because Danzig was the vocal guy and one hell of a front man. Michael Graves did a good job but Jerry Only should stick to bass (laughs). I’m excited to see the 3 of those guys I wonder whose going to play drums Robo would make sense but I don’t think that’s going to happen. If we are not playing I will be there because it’s near where I am based out of literally right down the street.

SCENEzine
On a personal note back in 2000 one of my first ever memorable gigs was seeing The Ataris play in Manly youth centre. That was quite a life changing gig for be and set me on the path to discovering more good music. Did many gigs affect you in that way when you were younger?

Kris Roe
Thank you I’m honoured I remember that gig it was a good time for me also. I’ve got too many to mention like that for myself. But the first time I saw The Ramones and Fugazi. There’s been a lot of really good ones I saw Weezer play Pinkerton that was really awesome. I remember when that album came out it was when my daughter was born and a really tough year.
First time I saw Radiohead and the last time I saw Wilco there’s so many gigs to mention. Like that last time I saw Tom Waits. Good music and a good show will speak to you in a way like nothing else can. It still to this day does that to me. It’s what I live for travelling, writing and seeing live music.

SCENEzine
Can you leave us with a last message for your Australian fans?

Kris Roe
We are really excited to finally come back down to Australia sorry it didn’t work out last time. This time it’s on and we are excited you’ll see us soon and be ready to sing along.
Let’s have a good time, it’ll be awesome.

(interview by Christian Ross)