Success won’t spoil The Ataris, Kris Roe tells Truepunk. Interview by Steve Tauschke with singer-guitarist Kris Roe. Interview takes place in 2001

When it comes to boy-loses-girl vignettes, The Ataris’ latest – and best – album
End Is Forever is very much a modern day extension of the early Descendents loser-pop mentality. According to the band’s singer and chief songwriter Kris Roe, such days of fickle romance appear to be behind him.

“For me, this album is kind of the last of those break up songs because I just got married last April,” says Roe. “I guess I was trying to get that melancholy out of my system. It was therapy to write this record which is full of depressing songs, haha, but I think our next record will be a little more upbeat and happy.”End Is Forever follows a string of releases for The Ataris on hip California labels Kung Fu and Fat and signals the quartet’s transition from power-pop minnow to genuine contender alongside fast-movers Millencolin and MXPX, the latter having taken the Santa Barbara bunch under their tour wing last year.

Forming the band originally in suburban Indiana, Roe admits to slaving over a hot stereo as a teenager, a pursuit that has eventually paid dividends.

“I remember when I first got into punk music, I discovered (Swedish label) Burning Heart before it was licensed to Epitaph,” he says. “I discovered No Fun At All and Millencolin and then Randy and I thought ‘man, this is great!’. I started mail-ordering all these records from Sweden and when I got all these packages my mom was like ‘who the fuck do you know in Sweden?’.”

While 1999’s debut Blue Skies. Broken Hearts. Next 12 Exits has sold 80,000 copies so far, it’s a statistic likely to be dwarfed by End Is Forever, whose highly infectious set of breezy pop has been given simultaneous worldwide release and ‘watch-this-space’ status. Amid the hype, Roe is trying to keep a cool head.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” he admits. “We’re really happy to be riding the crest of the next wave, so to speak, but you know that’s hat happens to bands – one minute you’re in one place and then you start moving so quickly you’ve kind of got to go with it.

“I’ve spoken to the guys in MXPX and Blink 182 and for them it just happened so fast and it was so overwhelming that they’ve just learnt to take it as it comes. They said that when your band gets to a point where it’s just that big you kind of learn to give away some of the control.”

But not too much control, Roe adds.

“What I like about our band is we pretty much control the majority of what we do; we do all our own booking, we do all our own email and wrote everyone back personally. We definitely have nothing but good things to say about Kung Fu and we’d like to stay somewhere on an indie level because that’s kind of what our band is about. Like Fugazi, who keep their door prices down and play only all-age shows. For me, that’s what’s admirable about a band and I want The Ataris to be remembered as that kind of band.”