Good in the Sack: The Reunion interview

Before SoManyBands became the blog format it is now, I usually just posted unedited Q&A interviews and every now and then, a review of some sort. However, if blogging was the thing during 2003-2006, Good in the Sack would have been one of the bands (along with Air Tight Alibi, Natchet Taylor, and Firekills) that would have regularly been blogged about on my site.

Good in the Sack was a pop punk band from Austin (of course) that wrote silly hilarious songs to some pretty decent melodies. They weren't revolutionary by any means nor were they the best musicians to ever to walk on the face of the Earth, but the tunes were fun, relatable, and catchy. The guys always provided an entertaining show with their drunken antics on and off the stage.

My personal favorite song "I Need to Learn How to Fight" (which you can see a performance of the song at the bottom of this post) is about that first moment you see your latest ex with a new person and the anger and jealously you feel that makes you wish you knew how to fight so you can beat that new person up. Very therapeutic song for those geeky insecure types out there such as myself. Especially when you yell out "And I hate you!." However, it's played to pop punk music so it's makes you feel happy.

So it goes without saying that I was a huge fan of this band back in the day. I went to many of their shows at the Backroom, both Redrum locations, Red Eyed Fly, Flamingo Cantina and wherever else would book them. Hung out with the guys whenever I ran into them. I interviewed them twice for SoManyBands because let's face it, they always deliver hilarity every time. I really don't remember how this band's run ended. I don't even remember a farewell show. It just seemed like they fell off the radar one day.

So imagine my surprise when the drummer Jorge nonchalantly announced on Facebook that his bands, 3 and Good in the Sack, were playing during 2010 SXSW. Say what? I immediately replied to confirm that my eyes weren't playing tricks on me and that it was indeed Good in the Sack who was performing and sure enough, it was.

Oh dear god.

I immediately texted Marlee who tagged along with me to many of these shows during those days and we were both in excitement. Man, it has been too long. Four years to be exact. I immediately added the show to my SXSW schedule not caring if anyone else of importance was playing or an interview needed to happen. I didn't care. It's Good in the Sack.

Of course, I messaged Jorge and told him that an interview needed to happen. It has been too damn long and this caused for a celebration. Of course, they were in.

The show itself was at a small bar on 6th Street called Aquarium. Not usually a venue, the stage was super small and the bar layout was awkward for any crowd larger than 20 people to see a live show. But people showed up and they showed up in droves. I got there early so I could get a good spot. Smart move as not only was I in the very front, the place got super packed super quickly. Guess I wasn't the only one that missed this band.

There were a ton of familiar faces from those days. Members from the Riddlin Kids, Born to Lose and Rubberhed showed up as well as some of the other members from the bands I mentioned earlier in this post. It seemed that everyone looked the same for the most part except we all looked a little bit older and a little bit heavier. The original line up (well the only line up) was on stage to perform all the hits except for the guitarist Dipto, but one of Jorge's bandmates filled in and did a pretty great job. However, Dipto still showed up to watch the show. He told me afterwards that there was no ill will between the guys. He just couldn't commit to the practice that was require in preparation for the show.

After the guys took me down memory lane, we went to the back of the bar to do our interview, mainly to catch up on the past four years. What exactly were they doing when the band was dunzo and why didn't Dipto perform? And most importantly, do we sense a comeback? Of course, in true fashion, this interview was just like it always is in a Good in the Sack interview, I held the camera and the guys just chatted away until I told them to stop.

Sean: I'm Sean. I play bass and I sing. This is Jorge.

Jorge: Hi.

Sean: Jorge plays drums and he doesn't sing. We actually don't allow him to sing because he should never sing. So we are Good in the Sack. We are a crappy punk rock band that made our return for SXSW 2010.

Jorge: We're a semi-crappy punk rock band. Semi.

Sean: Hey, I'm not even sure if we can say we're punk rock anymore. So I really don't know what we are now.

Jorge: I think we're progressive metal.

Sean: See. The way that we've always said is we are across between Color Me Badd and Slayer. So somewhere in between there, that's Good in the Sack.

How long as it been? Four years right?

Sean: It's been four years since we played.

What have you been doing in the past four years?

Sean: Drinking a lot. You can kinda tell.

Jorge: Yeah, drinking a lot and fucking around.

Sean: A little. See, the thing with being in the band is like you end up learning how to drink really, really well and then you make that a profession after awhile and you put down your guitar, stop playing and that's kind of what happens. So the thing that got us back to do this is we've been talking for a long time. We missed it so we wanted to play again and we really didn't know when we were going to do the reunion show. We were always talking about it. "Oh we'll do a reunion show. We'll do it later." All this stuff. So we were drinking here at Aquarium when Amir the owner's like "Hey, you're playing during SXSW." And we're like "All right, that's it." That's what made us play was being drunk at Aquarium having Amir telling us we're going to play.

Jorge: Yeah, nothing like being smashed in the corner of the old hangout spot having your buddy go"Hey, you guys want to play in my bar during SXSW?" "Sure." Shots. Shots.

Sean: The thing that was awesome though that when we decided that we wanted to play, we just got it together and decided to do it. What was awesome was that everybody came out to see us. Everybody actually, all of our friends came out, our drinking buddies were here to booze it up with us and that was awesome.

And how long did it take for you to prepare for this show? To relearn everything?

Sean: Four practices.

Jorge: One acoustic practice. One plug, two plugged in practices. Three.

Sean: Three practices?

Both: Three practices.

Sean: Yep. The thing was like once you plug in again, I was kind of worried. I thought it'd be real rough but we played for so long and we've done these songs for so long and it just comes back to you right away. You remembered it all.

Jorge: Yeah. I know I look like a god damn pilot right now.

*both laugh*

Sean: dun-dun-dun-daaa! And that was us. I mean you gotta remember like how it was back in the day. We were always jackasses and that never stops. Our band never depended on sounding really good per say as just drinking a lot and playing really loud so that never goes out of fashion.

How did it feel the first time you started playing together?

Sean: Um, great. The first practices were awesome. I was surprised actually how well it all came together and then it was just...

Jorge: ...amazing.

Sean: ...all there.

Jorge: Unfortunately, Dipto could not play because he was studying for his GMAT which is understandable. So we got my buddy Isaac, one of my good friends, that I moved up with here in '99 and actually play in a band with. We got him to fill in and he learned everything like that. So that made it even better.

Sean: It was amazing. One of the things that was great was getting back on stage today and seeing everybody there and all of our old school buddies there. It just felt like family reunion so that's one of those things.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Sean: And it felt awesome to have everybody there. Playing the songs. It felt good.

Well you kind of did it like nonchalant on Facebook like "Thanks to some guy for booking this band and Good in the Sack for SXSW" and I'm like "Whoa whoa wait."

Sean: Yeah, well we didn't know. It's been fours years. We don't know if people care anymore or want to hear this. They want to hear our music in general. So really walked into it really tentatively and just after awhile once we announced it, then we saw the ball started rolling. People like "hey, dude uh we're coming. We're coming." So then everybody liked it and the fact that they all showed up was pretty badass.

Jorge: Definitely.

Sean: So I was pretty happy about that. Old school good times. So that was good. I mean the fact that we got to do that, it felt like everybody was with us through it.

Jorge: It was a barrage of old bands. Old people that we've always been playing together in shows. Different bands and stuff.

Sean: Yeah, we got our boys here. We've got Rubberhed. We've got Riddlin Kids here.

Born to Lose.

Sean: Born to Lose. Just looking across that you see all your friends here and that was awesome.

It was like being in the Backroom in 2004 all over again.

Sean: Seriously. It was like time travel.

Jorge: But it's Aquarium. It's the fish bowl.

Sean: Aaron even said that. He's like something like memory, you think of taste or smell or things like that. He's like "No, this is memory," when he was looking around and so that's the thing. I mean everybody says that but getting everybody together again, it was like us with everybody. I think everybody was in it, you know. Like dude, we're back. It's like 2002.

Jorge: And we had been planning a reunion show for awhile. We just didn't know where to do it and it was kind of like here and there cause we all work now a lot. Then we got the offer to do SXSW. It's like ok. What better place to do a reunion but then the fucking music festival as well.

Sean: Nothing better. Nothing better. So what are we going to do from here, we'll see but that was awesome. That was awesome.

You'd think they'll be more reunion shows in the future?

Sean: (looks at Jorge) Any more reunion shows in the future?

Jorge: Yeah.

Sean: I think we like it. I think it was fun. I think we got to do that again.

Jorge: There was a Ghostbusters 1. There was a Ghostbusters 2. They're making a Ghostbusters 3.

Sean: Boom. Hey we're back. We couldn't go away for long. We're such jackasses.

Jorge: You know that's not gonna end because that shit just keeps on happening.

Sean: Hey so you can buy us on iTunes now. We started playing again. I think we got a second wind. I think we're back. I'm calling it now. We're back. I'm calling my shot. Boom.

Jorge: I know Thomas is definitely planning on trying to get us playing around everywhere.

Sean: Yeah, so look for us.

Do you think Dipto will be apart of that too?

Both: We'll see.

Sean: We'll see what he's doing. He's got a lot of work to do. Trying to get into grad schools so you know, if he does, we got the four back together. If not, then we got one got stuff going.

Jorge: It's completely respected. Completely respected. Everything he's doing, awesome.

Sean: I don't know if you know this but Isaac freaking killed it on guitar.

He was really good.

Sean: He was going meanly solos on the top and on the bottom. I was like "Wow."

Jorge: Yeah the shit.

Sean: I was like "That's how it should be." Rocking out.

Jorge: Isaac is the shit. That guy makes his own guitars too.

Sean: Yeah, he's pretty badass.

All right. Any last words?

Sean: Hey Good in the Sack. We're back.

Jorge: Yes.

Oh, last time I interviewed you, we did a true or false question. So true or false: are you still good in the sack?

Sean: Absolutely. Better.

Jorge: Yes. (laughs) Yes.

Sean: That was awesome.

Good in the Sack from Sarah Vasquez on Vimeo.