Fresno Famous

Fresno Famous: How did you get started playing music?

Wade Krause: Me? Personally I was into the idea of drums since he age of 5. I got a toy drum when I was six and I got into the school band when I was old enough. I ended up borrowing drum pieces from a neighbor to put to together a little drum kit when I was probably about ten I always loved it.

FF: What sort of records did you grow up listening to?

WK: In my house there weren't many records. When I was old enough to actually buy a record, the first one I got was Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin. My uncle had a copy on cassette and he'd play it on his stereo, I was maybe 8 or 10 years old and I decided I had to learn the beats. Bonham is the very first stuff I learned to copy. That was 7th grade. Later I got more interested in punk and the Ramones and the early Police stuff and Stewart Copeland.

FF: So you were always sort of a rock guy

WK: I mostly played Jazz for a long, long time and I never got to be asked to be in any rock bands. I tried out for tons of groups and I never got into any bands, and I would go see who they got ... so I just started my on bands.

FF: How did you end up playing with SparkleJet?

WK: that is sort of a weird story. Victor (Sotelo) contacted me through Joe, who used to own the old Fulton bar and he asked me to play on a recording session he was doing. I had done a lot of that and at the time I was swamped with stuff. I asked to make a tape and I said, "If I dig it ill do it." I didn't want to commit. Then I just never heard from him and I blew it off. A year later he called me and said, "I have that tape together."

FF: Has the sound of the band changed much since that first tape?

WK: The sound started changing kind of quick. The sound of the very first record is very twangy-wilco-sun-volt and it had lots of slide playing, that was mostly Rich [McCulley]'s influence. It started off as two guys(Sotelo and McCulley) and they basically put together a bunch of songs and made a record. It wasn't a band thing. Right from the get go Victor started writing a lot of songs -- he's written like 300 songs -- and we started going his direction a bit more. His sound is more aggressive and that became a second record and then Rich left and started his own thing.

FF: You guys are recording a new album now. How is that going?

WK: We're finishing the stuff that we started last summer. We had to get though some mix issues fixed and it still has to be mastered. The mixing is done but not the mastering. We actually tracked a lot of songs for this album that didn't make it.

FF: Is it a departure for your last album, Bar Guest?

WK: There's a lot of great writing on Bar Guest I'd say it stays in the same range of stuff.

FF: When people ask you to describe your music, who do you compare yourselves to?

WK: Most people don't listen to a lot of the weird music we do, but we've compared to the Foo Fighters, the Replacements, the Kinks the Who. Those are the things that we hear. We've heard we sound like the pixies

FF: You guys covered a Who album as a tribute last year. Why a Who album?

WK: We did the "Live at Leads" album, the full second side, which is basically Tommy

FF: Yeah, but why cover that

WK: Have you heard it? It is such a crazy record and it rocks so hard. Partly because I'm a big pinball guy. It is pretty much the story of a recluse living in this self made shell and pinball is the thing that breaks him out of it and it so rocking. We had done a bunch of Who covers and we had the opportunity to do it as a tribute show It was more fun than anything

FF: Are you guys going to do another tribute show in the future?

WK: I don't know. There's no plans. We're trying to get our own stuff together. We tried to use the money we made from that show on this recording. In fact some guys who hired us drove all the way to Fresno from LA to hear it and they were so stoked on itthey invited us to perform at a private party in Irvine. People have money in Irvine.

FF: What does SparkleJet do when they aren't rockin' out???

WK: Victor and Geoff play on a baseball team and that's what they do for fun. They haven't won a game in two years and they've probably lost every game they've ever played. I should go see them some time. They probably just need to be heckled. I used to skate board a lot. I used to go to Lyons Park and I used to rock climb. Now I am mainly restoring pinball machines I have a son and that takes a lot of time.

FF: What's on the horizon for SparkleJet these days?

WK: We did a licensing deal with a label in LA and they are pitting out two of our old records in June. They are putting out This Years Model and Bar Guest and our new album that we recorded in Chicago as well. That's coming out in the fall. They are supposed to do a college radio campaign and everything

FF: What is the company called?

WK: Long Live Crime records.

FF: How'd you meet those guys?

WK: We met them through a friend. It is sort of a long story. There used to be a band called the Ultraviolets and we got this email from the bass player saying, "We got a deal." And I emailed and asked him if he thought his label would be interested in SparkleJet and so I got the go ahead to submit it. The lady there said they wanted to put it out and two other ones. We never sure if these records would ever see the light of day. We drove down there and met people and they are a very small, cool company. It is just a licensing thing. It is a very good deal because they re not putting out a lot of money and we get a good split with them. I have a quite a few friends who are in the business and they even say it sounds good.

SparkleJet will be perfomring live at Tokyo Gardens on Thursday, May 26th.