Sunday, December 16, 2007

311 band takes delight in visiting Salt Lake

From the mid-1990s, 311 has made it a point to play a show in the Salt Lake City area.

"There's just something about Salt Lake," said vocalist S.A. Martinez during a phone call from Cincinnati. "I mean a couple of years after we began touring, we found Salt Lake. It has always been a welcome environment for us. And the radio stations there play the deeper 311 tracks that aren't necessarily heard in other places.

"And then there's the snowboard culture and audience that we have tapped into. We just like coming back to Salt Lake."

Martinez and the band — guitarist/vocalist Nick Hexum, bassist P-Nut, drummer Chad Sexton and guitarist Tim Mahoney — have been together since 1992. And back then, no one ever thought they would still be touring and making music 15 years down the line

"If anyone would have told us that back then, we would have asked what they have been smoking," said Martinez. "We really didn't have any goals except for making music and having fun. I mean, if it isn't fun, what's the point?

"So the moral of the story is, don't have any goals and you'll do fine in life."

The band, which plays its own high-energy blend of funk, hip-hop, reggae and rock, has released 11 full-length albums, including three that were independently released early on.

That doesn't include the two compilation albums ("Omaha Sessions" and "Greatest Hits"), an extended play ("Downstairs EP") and a live album ("Live").

In addition, the band has appeared on soundtracks for the Adam Sandler movie "50 First Dates" and the animated "Surf's Up."

Both outings were cover tunes, said Martinez.

"Obviously, it was different than doing a whole album because we didn't have to write the songs or sequence them," he said. "All we had to do was decide which songs we were going to do, record them and produce them and send them in."

For "50 First Dates" the band chose the Cure's "Love Song," and for "Surf's Up," it did Toots & the Maytals' "Reggae Got Soul."

"We've always had a wide array of musical influences," said Martinez. "I listened to a lot of Queen, Rush, AC/DC and also got into the Smiths, R.E.M. and the English Beat, who we're touring with right now. But I also took in the East-Coast rap scene with Public Enemy and Rakim. So it was a natural thing for us to play all different styles of music.

"The point of it is to, one, have fun, and two, to make sure it's all high energy. We've got a bunch of songs to choose from and sometimes end up playing a song we haven't played since the year before. And that makes for an interesting evening."

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