When 311 drummer Chad Sexton was 8 years old, he had a bloodcurdling experience that left and indelible mark on his life. Fortunately, the blood wasn't real, but it was an incredible simulaation spewed by none other than Gene Simmons during a 1978 Kiss concert in Sexton's hometown of Omaha, Neb.
"My mom had taken me to the concert, and Simmons spit up blood on this towel," the soft-spoken 25-year-old recalls. "He threw it, and my uncle caught it for me. it was a dream come true, because I used to listen to Kiss all the time." You can imagine Sexton's excitement when 311 were asked to open for Kiss during the firebreathing band's stop at Madison Square Garden, in July. "It was kind of a full-circle thing for me, definitely," Sexton says.
Opening for Kiss was only one of the many things that have come full circle for 311 in the past year. Their third album, called simply 311, released last June, has gone gold; their video clip for the single "Down" has landed a spot in MTV's Buzz Bin; and the band is playing stints on two of the summer's higher-profile rock fests: the Warped Tour and H.O.R.D.E.
Sitting in the living room of the Hollywood Hills, CAlif. house that three of the five members of 311 share, SExton and the band's 26-year-old frontman, Nicholas Hexum, recount the ups and downs of their past six years together, with a Midwestern reserve that belies 311's boisterous music. The band-which also includes bassist P-Nut, guitarist Timothy J. Mahoney, and singer and turntableman SA Martinez-plays a bristling hybrid of rap-inflected, reggae-tinged, metal-edged, hippie-spirited rock that was tough to sell. But its tirelss punk work ethic has kept 311 on track ever since their first gig, opening for Fugazi in 1990. Even after 311 moved their home base from Nebraska to the glitzier clime of Los Angeles two years later, they stuck to their no-frills regimen of relentless touring and no-holds-barred shows.
"We didn't come out with a big bang-you know, billboards and videos and all kinds of shit," Hexum says. "It was really grass-roots, which in the long run seeems like a good thing, because some bands blow up resal quuick and then they don't know how to sustain it. We were like, 'OK, these magazines won't write about us and MTV won't play us-well, fuck 'em. We're gonna take it to the streets. We're gonna take it to the people.'"
Sure enough, the people have taken 311's music to heart. Playing their music among sunburned skate punks at the Warped shows and between the sprawling neo-Dead jams at H.O.R.D.E. may seem incongruous, but to 311 it makes perfect sense. "What we strive for is the same thing that was happening at a festival or carnival or holiday thousands of years ago in Europe or Africa or wherever," Hexum explains. "It's something cathartic that everyone needs to go through. I don't mean to sound grandiose, but I feel that moshing and rock are the tribal dance that this culture has been missing. It sounds so cliche`, but it's true-rock & roll will never die."
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