Joe:

"If someone who spoke Spanish came to one of our shows and who'd never seen us before, that's probably what they'd say when they saw the crowd reacting like crazy people."

Joe, trumpet man for LA septet Voodoo Glow Skulls, is on the phone from Sacremento, musing over the translation of Baile De Los Locos, the groups' latest album and perhaps the decade's most volatile distillation of the ska and punk.

Voodoo Glow Skulls is a touring animal .. how does that sit with you?

Joe:

"Well, I better enjoy touring because we tour so much, I'd say about seven months of the year for the last five years."

Do you find new places to visit each time?

Joe:

"We usually try to stick to the same markets in the US but each time we try to play at least one or two cities we've never played before."

Does the band have a large Spanish-speaking fan base .. I notice you re-recorded Firme in Spanish.

Joe:

"Yes, we have a lot of Mexican-America kids who come to see us play and a lot of kids from Mexico who write us letters. When we play border cities like in Texas or Arizona or California a lot of kids from Mexico drive up and see us. And we've played Mexico a couple of times and it's really good for us. Actually, next March we're doing a six day tour of Mexico, our first actual tour there."

Do the kids across the border go nuts? I guess the lower drinking would help.

Joe:

"Yeah, Tijuana, the drinking age is 18 but they never collar anybody anyways so a lot of the college kids or high school kids from California pour down to the border cities. It's just really wild. But I've never been down into the heart of Mexico, a couple of the other guys have but this tour will be my first in Mexico."

So what came first for VGS, punk or ska?

Joe:

"Well, the band was formed in 1988 by the three Casillas brothers and they started out playing the same type of music we're doing now, just without horns. It was Descendents-style punk with a lot of Fishbone and old punk influences. And the horns came around in 91 but a lot of the songs on the three albums were written before then - we just added horns to 'em. Even on Baile.. the latest album, there are a couple of songs that were written before we were around."

Which ones?

Joe:

"Songs like This Aint No Disco, that's an old song. And Motel Six, that was one of the first songs the band ever wrote. So the band has pretty much had the same style since day one."

On Firme, you worked with GG Garth .. how did you find him?

Joe:

"Garth was a real professional and he really knew a lot about recording. When we went into record Firme we really didn't know anything about recording so it was a good learning experience for us. We went in very green and came out with a lot of knowledge about it. He was a great producer, just look at the works he's done. He did a good job for us."

I thought you did a fine job of covering Charlie Brown on the album .. what prompted that choice?

Joe:

"That's an old American 1950s classic rock n' roll hit by The Coasters. All over America there's classic rock stations and you can hear that song being played almost every day. We've all heard it and so one day we decided to cover it."

Speaking of radio, you guys appeared on KROQ's Loveline program recently right? How did it go?

Joe:

"That was cool man. A majority of the calls that came were in fact band questions. According to the radio station we had more calls about the band than any other Loveline they've ever done. One out of every five calls would be about love problems and the rest would be kids from around the country asking us questions about the band. It was pretty funny to listen to the love problems and give whatever advice we could. It was a cool experience."

So no-one vomited in the KROQ studio a la Fletcher from Pennywise?

Joe:

"Ha! That guy's always doing something crazy!"