by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
What: Smoke or Fire
When: Monday February 18th at 7 pm
Where: Fuel Coffeehouse (1037 Park St, 5 Points, Riverside)
Catchy, whiney, slightly unintelligible (as though the singer has had maybe one drink too many), Smoke or Fire is the kind of band that makes me look back fondly on 90s punk. It’s a retro look at something that, for me, feels like it happened about five minutes ago. Their 90s sound shouldn’t surprise me too much, after all the band officially formed in ’98, so they are now a decade old.
Lead vocalist Joe McMahon started Smoke or Fire as Jericho when he went to Boston University in the late 90s. When one of the guitar players dropped out of the band to pursue an art exchange program in Italy, Joe asked his old high school friend Jeremy Cochran to fill in on guitar. He’s been smoking or firing since 1999. Currently the band is searching for a permanent bass player, though they do have a guy known only as Gwomper filling in for the interim. Dave Atchison attacks the drums for the band.
Cochran was happy to talk to EU before their Monday performance at Fuel.
“We didn’t really have any problems with the name [Jericho] until we moved to Virginia to put out our first EP…It was on a Boston label, but we got a cease and desist letter from another band in Virginia. They were a Christian band from Northern Virginia. They wanted us to either pay them for the use of the name or stop using it. But we were right in the middle of trying to release our first EP…so we just threw RVA on it, so we could release it and it wouldn’t technically be the same name.”
Jericho became Jericho RVA for a short period of time, before they were signed by Fat Wreck Chords. The label told them that appending the three letters to their name may have worked once, on an EP, but that they would have to go in for a total name change to avoid the possibility of legal battles in the future.
“We didn’t really want to get into a new contract with a new record label, so we changed it…[The name] Smoke or Fire is a card game. It just means black or red.”
Despite the seeming simplicity of the name, it took a while to choose it, says Cochran.
“We had had gone back and forth on the name change for weeks…it’s really difficult to pick a good name that somebody hasn’t picked already…One night we were playing cards at a friend’s house and we called…[Fat Wreck] up and they liked it, no one had used it.”
The epiphany on what they should name themselves came just in time for the band.
“We were kind of getting down to the wire because it was holding up the release of the record.”
Last year’s, This Sinking Ship, Smoke or Fire’s sophomore album on Fat Wreck, has a more polished feel.
“We definitely put a ton of ourselves into everything we write…we put a lot of time and thought into working on it. We spent a lot more time working on arrangements…on continuity…It’s a little more mature, more thought out.”
They’re already looking forward to their next album, which they hope to at least record, if not release, this year.
So if you’re stuck for something to do this Monday, head on out to Fuel so you can catch their catchy 90s nearly-grunge punk stylings.
Article Published in the 2-14-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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