Norfolk - The Wolfe's been watching these guys for a bit of time.  Hailing from Aberdeen, Maryland, Ballyhoo has been quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the national scene.  The first time I saw these cats was at a little local show at Smackwater Jack's in Virginia Beach.  I really was only there to have a drink, but by the end of the night their expert manipulation of my aural passages with their blend of reggae and rock had won me over.  Instead of buying a drink for last call I actually gave my last ten dollars to their drummer on the promise that it would go to buy him a new cymbal. 

And Introducing...Ballyhoo!

33: How did you guys get together, originally?
Howard Spengler (guitar, vocals): It started in middle school and high school, back in '95.  Don [Big D] and I are brothers; we always wanted to start a band since we were kids, so we decided to up and do it one day.  We learned how to play guitar and drums and stuff.  Found a friend who played bass, and he ended up quitting a couple years after that.  Met these guys at school and kind of went from there.
Mista J (bass): Yeah, we've all known each other through like middle school, high school.  It's been a long time that we've been friends.  Aberdeen Eagles!
HS: Aberdeen Eagles!
Big D (drums): Aberdeen Eagles!

33: When did you guys start playing out?
HS: '95  or '96...March 1, 1996.  That was our first show.  Yeah, we played about thirty songs...about twenty of them were Green Day songs...and Silverchair and Bush, and then we played a few originals.  Those were the bands of that day...
Blaze (turntables, keys): I was in another band at the time in high school, but we all did have our first shows that day.
HS: A couple years later, JR was our first DJ/scratch guy.  Nobody knew - we called it our secret weapon.  It was like the hot thing to do back then, to have a DJ in your band.  So we did it.  We were like, “Just come in with some scratches and everybody will go crazy.”  And they did, they went nuts.  Then he totally fucked up one of the songs.
MJ:  I was using the school desk as my table.  And it wasn't very stable.  I was trying to make a beat out of  “Rock the Bells”, and I had it for a second and then I lost it.  But everyone still dug it, they got the idea.  And then I jumped off stage through a ring of fire!
BD: Yeah I remember that part.
HS: Scott [Blaze] came along in 2000 when we did our first record.
MJ: He came from the ring of fire.
HS: He jumped in it, and Scott came out.  We never found the real JR after that.
MJ: Nah.  But I look similar to him.
HS: His parents still don't know.

33: Were you always Ballyhoo?
HS: Yeah.

33: And whence came the name?
HS: Michelle Heller, “Red”.  She was all of like 12 years old.  We were looking for a name and she was like, “You should call your band Ballyhoo!”  We were like, “What is that? Alright, cool!”  And it was awesome.  So we kept it.

33: Seems like you guys have spent a lot of time on tour.
Everyone: Yes.

33: I can't think of a time when I haven't heard about you guys coming around here, again and again and again.
HS: That's how you get the music out.  That's how you make money as a business.  That's how you avoid day jobs if at all possible.
MJ: And that's how you have a lot of fun.  It's how you get into shenanigans.
HS: Lucrative?  Not very often.  Fun?  Always.  Except when you play at Bennigan's.
MJ: Yeah, don't play Bennigan's.  In fact, don't even eat there.

33: They filed Chapter 7.  I don't think anyone is eating there anymore.
HS: That's because we played there and we been telling everybody this for years.

33: The word got out...
HS:  Finally!  We did it guys!

33: Most of the time I spend talking to bands, it's never the stuff that happens on stage that's very crazy, it's always when you're on tour, getting to a show or getting out of a show.  What's the craziest, most fucked up experience that you can think of?
B: The transmission...we were driving through Alabama at 3 o'clock in the morning, and somebody was driving way too fast and blew the transmission up.  Basically the transmission fluid sprayed all over the undercarriage of the van, then the exhaust broke, and because of the hot exhaust and the flammable transmission fluid, the van caught on fire.  So we pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of absolutely nowhere at 3 in the morning.  Everybody was asleep except for JR.  And so he yells, “Get the fuck out of the van!”
BD: And swerves and stops on a dime and pulled up next to a guardrail so you can't even open the side doors.
B: So we can barely get out of the van.  When we get out, Howi jumps out...
HS: Flames are shooting out of the bottom.
B: Howi jumps out with no shoes or flip-flops on, steps on a bunch of burrs and weeds...
MJ: He cut the top of his foot with the guardrail. 
MJ: Blood explodes all over Scott.
B: Blood shot all over my khaki pants.
BD: Meanwhile, there's still fire, and he's looking for a fire extinguisher.
B: So John finds the fire extinguisher and can't figure out how to use it...pushing the button and pushing the button and, straight out of a movie, he kind of tilts it to the side and presses it again and it shoots Howi directly in the face from about three feet away.  So he's stepping in burrs, got his foot sliced open by the guardrail and gets shot in the face with a chemical fire extinguisher, all within about a minute.
MJ: And the van's still on fire.
B: Yeah, the can was still on fire, but we took care of that and got towed a long way...it cost a shit-ton of money to get fixed.
HS: I'd like to edit that; the fire extinguisher came first.  That's why I cut myself because I couldn't see...I looked over and I said, “Is there anything I can do?” and “Whoosh!” - white powder flying at my face at like 300 mph.  And I was like, “Uh! Never mind!” and I went over the guardrail and split it and shot blood all over Scott. 

33: How do you feel about being part of that Sublime tribute album?
HS: It's cool.  It gave us good exposure...we did "40oz. to Freedom" and that song, when Pandora first came out, Pandora radio, that's where people really started hearing about our band.  They'd say, “I heard you on Pandora!” and I knew it was the Sublime song, which was cool.  But then it got so that every time we played a show people would say, “Play '40oz. to Freedom'!” and we were like “Nah, nah.”
MJ: “You guys are a Sublime tribute band right?”
HS: We were like, “We gotta get our own music on Pandora.”  And we finally did, and it's been awesome.  Pandora radio is great for that.  When we got on the Sublime thing it was really cool; I was really stoked.

33: How'd you end up getting on it?
HS: This guy hit me up, we were actually supposed to be on a different one a year or two before that, and the guy didn't come through.  Sometime after that I got an email from Bassline Music and they said, “Hey, we're doing a Sublime tribute album called Forever Free and we want you guys on it.”  We ended up recording two songs and they picked "40oz. to Freedom".  The other one was "Let's Go Get Stoned"...they're both floating around the internet somewhere.  You can totally get them on Limewire and stuff like that. 

33:  Are you guys aware that you have a song on Rock Band?
HS: We have two.

33: I knew about "Paper Dolls" but...
HS: We'd like to say that we did play that.  We played ourselves in Rock Band about two months ago at our buddy's house in Ohio, and we did really bad...We played "Cali Girl" and got three fails.  The song just stopped.  They couldn't play anymore.  Then we played "Paper Dolls", and I got 70%, and I'm gonna write them a heated letter because that's wrong.  Because that's me, ya know?
B: You just suck.

33: How's it feel being out playing with bands like 311 and Slightly Stoopid...Matisyahu...?
MJ: I like playing in front of thousands of people.
HS: It's a good thing.  It says something about yourself...to feel the respect from these artists that we looked up to.  It's the ultimate respect for them to say, “Hey!  Come play the show!”  That's a really good feeling.  We've always been in that same vein of music, so we're gonna have the fans and the crowd.

33: I hear that a couple of the guys from 311 were involved in the production of the album Cheers!
HS: Yeah, Scott Ralston produced it...
BD: There's a track where Chad Sexton actually mixed...
HS: Yeah, Chad mixed the first track.  I think that's what led to the two shows we did with 311.  They partied on our bus that night.  It was awesome.  Got wasted.
B: They drink PBR.
MJ: Yeah, really high-end liquor but coolers full of PBR.
HS: They're the coolest dudes too.
B: They also have the best weed in the country.
HS: Really good guys.

33: How far off is the new album?
MJ: Soon...that's a loose soon...a relative soon.  Hopefully by winter.
HS: We've got a lot of half-songs right now.  We really haven't had time to work on stuff.  There's a lot of ideas floating.  We did some demos that sounded really cool.  It would be good to have like twenty songs and then knock it down to like twelve to fifteen solid ones.

33: Any idea for a title?
HS: “It's About Fucking Time.”
Everyone: [laughs]

33: I've noticed a lot of love for your fans in the lyrics to your songs.  What's your take on your fan base?
HS: That's why we're able to tour.  Can't go out and make money to stay on tour if people don't show up.  The owners of clubs don't want to pay you to play to an empty house.  We keep hustling to get people there, and when they show up it's awesome.
B: Besides just showing up before we were making decent money on the road, pretty much everywhere we would go fans would be like, “Stay with us!  Stay with us!”  So instead of paying for hotel rooms every night we'd end up crashing with fans. Hanging out with them, drinking their beer, using their hot water as the lyrics.
HS: The fans are where it's at man - very hospitable.

BallyhooRocks.com

MySpace.com/Ballyhoo

By Director, Genre Lead, and Editor: Andrew Wolfe

The Wolfe was born to a small litter in the mountains of West Virginia and transplanted to suburban Virginia Beach in the iconic year of 1984.  Left to the public school system, he soon became immersed in the varied subcultures of suburbia. Quickly he became a connoisseur of the rich substrata of disaffected youth in post-Reagan America.  Having to leave corporate tool-hood behind, the Wolfe prowls the silent alleyways in search of the next great spark of local music - the incendiary device that will reignite creativity in a music world gone wrong (apparently in the throes of Bieber Fever).

And other fun facts ...

Age: 33
Place of Birth: Parkersburg, West Virginia
Gender: Raoul Duke
Religion: Gonzo
Likes: Good music.  Drinking.  Smoking.
Dislikes: Ignorance.  People who take themselves too seriously.  People who say "I just wanted to touch bases with you."  It's "base" asshole, not a baseball reference.