As one of the most popular punk bands in the mid-’90s Santa Cruz underground scene, Fury 66 is a local legend, and their songs are still remembered today. Just not by their lead singer.
Which made their reunion show at the Catalyst this week a bit of a tricky proposition for frontman Joe Clements.
“I forgot all these fucking lyrics,” says Clements with a laugh. “I’m looking online, going ‘What the fuck was I singing about?’”
Keep in mind, it’s been over a decade since Fury broke up. After a wild ride that started in 1993 with a demo tape and included endless lineup changes that kept knocking back the band’s bigger ambitions even as they conquered the Santa Cruz scene, the band was DOA by Y2K. Clements has moved on to several projects since—including Crucial Unicorn and his current band Black Love—in addition to running a record label and a recording studio. So when the long-discussed reunion finally materialized, he found himself staring down his past life.
Sometimes he was kind of impressed, even a bit intimidated.
“I sing a little different now, for better or worse,” he says. “When I’m singing these [Fury songs], I’m like ‘I crammed so many words in there, and I’m going so fast and singing in such a high range, I’m never going to be able to do this!’”
Other times he just cracks himself up.
“I’m just having fun with it, kind of being goofy, like ‘Wow, man, it’s funny how much you kind of grow, and look back.’ I don’t regret anything, but it’s kind of silly some of the shit I thought was important back then,” he says.
And yet Fury clearly left its mark on him, as it did on the audiences that flocked to the band’s shows in Santa Cruz. With an original lineup that featured Clements along with Russ Rankin and Rye Crowen on guitar, Tom Kennedy on bass and Aaron Sonnenshein on drums, Fury 66 quickly found itself in a strange game of push and pull with another Santa Cruz band, Good Riddance, which signed with Fat Wreck Chords—the rough equivalent of punk superstardom at the time. At one point, three members of Fury 66 were also in Good Riddance, and Rankin eventually left Fury, certainly the most devastating of what would be a long string of lineup changes. Clements is philosophical about it now; he and Rankin remain friends and co-own Lorelei Records.
“For obvious reasons, he had to focus on Good Riddance,” says Clements of Rankin’s involvement in Fury. “When that all went down, we got another guitar player. Then when we were kind of searching, going back and forth with different guitar players, Russ would come in and fill in for a couple shows. Then later on he helped do some co-producing on some stuff.”
Watching their sister band blow up had a definite effect on Fury and the members’ view of success.
“I think we were trying too hard sometimes to get it. We had Good Riddance to look up to. They got signed to a good label. We never got the label support we really were seeking until the end, and then we were too tired to accept anything. It was funny—a few months after we broke up, we had a few contracts come in the mail from some pretty reputable labels. It was like too little, too late,” Clements says.
By the end, Clements and Crowen were the only original members left, and finally called it quits out of sheer exhaustion. But in the meantime, Fury recorded three albums, including their excellent debut No Perfect Machine. They did multiple U.S. tours, but never found the same level of popularity that they enjoyed in their hometown.
“We were way fortunate in Santa Cruz, and I think that was because there was no audience/band separation. We were fans of the scene as well,” he says. “It was a time people were just excited to go to shows. It was definitely a reality check when we went on the road by ourselves. Some spots we hit all the time were good, but nothing like Santa Cruz.”
Clements had been talking with various members of the band over the last couple of years about getting together for a reunion, but schedules were impossible to co-ordinate. Finally, he decided ‘if we don’t do it now, we’re not going to do it,’ and rounded up members from various eras: Jeff Frady, Micky Dunegan, Jon Cattivera (who Clements also played with in Crucial Unicorn) and Joe Fish.
The show is a benefit for Grind Out Hunger, a non-profit created by skateboarders to combat child hunger, and will also donate money to the fight against multiple sclerosis. Cements has worked out the kinks and has the old songs down, and he’s currently in the process of remastering No Perfect Machine. Now that he’s reconnected with his Fury years, he’s thinking about that remarkable ’90s Santa Cruz scene again, and is perfectly willing to admit he misses it.
“I don’t want to be that old guy,” he says, “but those were the days.”
FURY 66 with At Risk and Good Neighbor Policy (16+)
Saturday 9pm
Catalyst
$12 (all proceeds benefit Grind Out Hunger and multiple sclerosis research)
