What's in a Name (Spin, 1996)

What's in a name?
Omaha natives 311 are scoffing at accusations from local police and school officials that the band's name may be a coded reference to the Ku Klux Klan. The group's T-shirts were banned from severl school districts after two Africian-American students at Westside High School complained about the band's logo. "We've been told that white-supremacist groups have used '311' because K is the 11th letter of the alphabet," says Lt. Robert Dacus of the Omaha Gang Task Force. The members of 311, three of whom graduated from Westside High, say the name actually refers to the police code for indecent exposure. "If they want to ban us, they should use something true," says singer Nick Hexum, "like how we advocate the decriminalization of marijuana."

Banned in Omaha (USA Today Lifeline, 1996)‏

BANNED IN OMAHA: T-Shirts bearing the name of rock band 311 (pronounced three-eleven) have been banned at several schools in Omaha because officials consider the number a coded reference to the Ku Klux Klan, reasoning that "11" stands for the 11th letter of the alphabet, K, and "3" suggests three times K. Ludicrous, says 311 members, who are former Omaha residents. The moniker came from a police code for indecent exposure, and 311 in fact has an anti-racism song, Silver, that sprouts, "It's a waste to be a hater." A statement by 311 says, "We believe the only people worth hating are organized haters like the KKK. Our lyrics make a strong stand... for positivity and unity."

Concert Review: 311 (Daily Variety, 1996)‏

311
(Palladium; 3835 capacity $18)

The accomplished and eclectic sounds of 311 are finally finding an audience worthy of the band's talent and potential. And considering the powerful show the group preformed here, the music world's timing couldn't be better.

The L.A.-based quintet formed in Omaha, Neb., in 1990 and has been on a slow, steady climb toward mainstream favor ever since. Combining rap, rock, reggae, jazz and R&B stylings into one potent and unique brew, 311 distinguishes itself from the usual flavors of the day with an informed hip-hop flow, an ever-changing potpourri of sounds and styles, and an unyielding positivity that permeates the group's high-energy concerts.

At the very sold-out (street scalpers were seen desparately looking for unwanted tickets) Palladium, the band played its biggest headlining show in L.A. Opening with the celebratory "Homebrew" from 1994's "Grassroots," 311 set a rapid pace for itself and the frenzied audience that both easily maintained throughout the 80-minute show.

Vocalist Nick Hexum and S.A. Martinez traded sharp rap lines, reggae bursts, and smart harmonies; the instrumentalists - guitarist Tim Mahoney, bassist P-Nut, and drummer Chad Sexton - continually impressed with a dexterous and infectous style that complimented the two singers' flow.

311's latest, self-titled album is fast approaching gold-level sales, and the group has a big summer ahead, headlining shows during the HORDE and Warped Tour. Considering that the president of Mercury Records, which recently bought out Capicorn, has named 311 as one of the label's priorities, it's easy to see the band's long-expected breakthrough is just around the corner.

311 MAKES IT OUT OF THE GRASS AND INTO THE GREEN (Rolling Stone)

Mainstream Success Is Easy Going

Posted Oct 24, 1996 12:00 AM

After five years of lukewarm record sales and little attention from the media, 311 seemed destined to remain in the shadows despite a solid grassroots following. They basically made a living as a touring band with relatively little airplay and even less critical respect. When they introduced their rap/rock/reggae/jazz fusion on 1991's "Music," grunge reigned supreme, and the music world revolved around Seattle, not Omaha, Nebraska--a city where easy-going agrarians are a hell of a lot more likely to praise the beloved Cornhuskers on Saturday than give a rat's ass about a band like 311. That's all changed, however, with the release of the band's third full-length record, simply titled "311," and a video for the first single, "Down" that landed in MTV's Buzz Bin. The last year has been good to the band: a platinum record, a No. 1 video and even a slot at Madison Square Garden in New York supporting Kiss. At his new home in Los Angeles, lead singer Nick Hexum recently spoke with ROLLING STONE.COM'S Kevin Raub about his recent purchases, the next record, and the bands spiritual connection with four old guys that wear makeup.
ROLLING STONE.COM: You just finished a relentless touring schedule. What've you been doing with your free time?
NICK HEXUM: I moved into a house and got a couple of puppies--two Dobermans but one's a Min Pin [Miniature Pincher]. They're the exact same color but one of them is tiny.
RS.COM: You guys seem to finally be getting some critical attention. Why do you think it took so long?
NH: Well, I think the world wasn't really ready for us. When "Music" came out, everyone was still really into grunge, and now I think people are moving away from straight rock and getting into bands like No Doubt, Goldfinger and Korn. They are hybrid bands such as ourselves with either ska or hip-hop elements. I just think it's time that people are appreciating cross-genre stuff.
RS.COM: "Down" is a shout out to your grassroots fans, thanking them for always being there. It's ironic that it's the song that broke you.
NH: Yeah, I had a real good feeling about the song because it had that hook that I kept singing and then everyone else started singing it. But it is ironic that it would be a grassroots message that would bring us to the mainstream. It's kind of funny, we finally had gotten to a place where we really didn't need MTV and everything because we could make a living though touring. And I always kind of thought that when we didn't need them, they would come to the plate. And it happened.
RS.COM: What was it like opening for Kiss at the Garden?
NH: It was a gig.
RS.COM: You aren't a big Kiss fan?
NH: Not really, but there are some parallels between our band and theirs. They never had much critical acclaim or acceptance but they still made a really good career out of it. We've been snubbed in our careers as far as critically and we figured we would be like that forever.
RS.COM: How'd the crowd treat you?
NH: I heard that we did really well because we got booed the least of any band that opened for Kiss. The show was already sold-out by the time we got put on the bill so there weren't a lot of 311 fans, but they gave it up. But there was some booing. It was different, not having a pit and stuff.
RS.COM: What can we expect from your next record?
NH: I think we're going to go more in the direction of our first album. We did a lot more production, we used samples, and a lot of percussion and trippy dub-style effects. We're going back to more psychedelic. We're just going to really try to get out there as far as some ambient stuff. I've also been trying to learn the old jazz standards. I'm not listening to that much rap right now. The De La Soul record is amazing but other than that I don't have much rap going through my CD player.

Number Crunchers (Details Magazine)

Bridging the Gap (Dallas Observer)

In the United States, a country where b-boy cool has become de rigueur in white suburbia and psychedelic punks the Butthole Surfers have seen their first taste of Top 10 success come from--of all things--a rap song, lines have blurred. Call it the lollapollution of America.
Since 1991, when Perry Farrell created Lollapalooza--the traveling festival that features diverse musical styles including punk and funk--rap and rock music have started to move closer to one another. Rap bands have left the standard two-turntables-and-a-mike approach and are beginning to utilize live musicians. Rock bands have incorporated rap techniques like sampling and drum machines into their repertoires.
Los Angeles-based 311 bridges the ever-shrinking gap between the two genres, shifting from rap to reggae to funk to hard rock on the same record, sometimes on the same song. Surprising from a band whose members grew up in Nebraska, a state more known for growing corn and tipping cows than musical diversity.
It's that versatility that has allowed the band to appeal to both the tattooed and pierced crowd of the skateboard-competition-with-a-soundtrack WARPED tour, on which the band just finished a week of headlining dates, and the roots rockers of the H.O.R.D.E. tour, on which the group will spend the last week of August on the main stage. Drummer Chad Sexton says that puts the band in a unique situation.
"I do think we are one of the only bands that could play both tours," he says. "I mean, most of our songs have a harder edge to them, but we could put together a 30-, 45-minute set of just our reggae stuff, and we would be just fine. Our crowds have always been made up of a lot of different kinds of people. I think our music kind of promotes that.
"Most of our fans are people like us who are into a lot of different types of music. I know I get bored playing the same style over and over."
The band is used to playing before diverse audiences. Several years ago, 311 played a festival in Birmingham, Alabama, on a bill with the Neville Brothers and several country bands. The scared organizers didn't know how to handle the band's young, moshing crowd, and--as often happens in situations of this type--they overreacted. Police moved into riot formation and started spraying the crowd with Mace. It wasn't the first time that the group had clashed with security personnel about fan behavior, but Sexton says things have changed for the better in the past few years.
"That [the Birmingham incident] happened a long time ago. That kind of stuff doesn't happen very much at all anymore," he says. "I mean, they weren't really expecting our kind of crowd. But we haven't had problems with security in a while. They have gotten more familiar with the kind of crowd we have."
311 has spent much of the past six years making sure that bouncers throughout the country are familiar with its music. The band--which also includes singer-guitarist Nick Hexum, bassist P-Nut, guitarist Timothy Mahoney, and singer Doug (SA) Martinez--formed in 1990 in Omaha. A positive buzz quickly spread after the group's first show opening for Fugazi, and soon, 311 had built a massive fan base throughout the Midwest. After releasing three highly successful independent albums (Dammit!, Unity, and Hydroponic) the band, tired of being the big fish in a small pond, decided to move to Los Angeles, where Midwestern big fish are regularly flushed down the toilet.
But the move paid off for 311. Six months after arriving in L.A., the band signed a deal with Capricorn Records.
"We have a really good relationship with them [Capricorn]," Sexton says. "They were kind of involved on our first record, but now they pretty much let us do what we want to do, musicwise, without much interference. They trust us now."
Nonstop touring followed the group's signing. Even before its latest single, "Down," became firmly entrenched in MTV's Buzz Bin, 311 was able to sell out clubs and theaters throughout the country on the strength of word-of-mouth alone. The members of the band were on the road so much that they moved out of their communal house in L.A. and began living permanently on the tour bus.
"Life on the road is pretty good. We all have our own bunks so we can sleep as much as we want," Sexton says. "I mean, I've seen places around the country that I never thought I'd get to see."
The road hasn't always been good to 311, however. In 1993, while en route to a gig in Kansas City, the recreational vehicle the group was traveling in caught fire. The musicians narrowly escaped before the RV exploded, but lost all of their musical equipment and personal belongings in the fire. The Kansas City show was canceled, but one night later, 311 was back on stage, playing with rented equipment and with what bassist P-Nut describes as "blind aggression."
An experience like that can cause a young band to either implode or get stronger. As its quick return to the stage shows, 311 is in the latter category, practicing the positive message it preaches on its records. The group has not only carried on, it has gotten better, becoming more adept musically, and maturing lyrically, as it leaves the confines of rap and adopts a harder guitar edge and more melody. Its latest release, 1995's 311, is the band's strongest work to date, carrying on the band's goal of making rap songs melodic. The album seamlessly blends influences as dissimilar as the reggae-tinged hard-core of Bad Brains ("DLMD") and the pop smoothness of Nat King Cole ("Purpose").

Cypress Hill; 311; Pharcyde (Variety)

The 3 1/2-hour show -- which could have been confused for a hemp fest, with all the pot references -- was headlined by Cypress Hill, the South-Central outfit whose distinctive gangsta hybrid has spawned uncounted imitators.
This hip-hop triple bill at the sold-out Universal Amphitheatre featured three talented L.A.-based groups with a few things in common -- most notably their shared love for marijuana -- and some glaring differences, the most obvious being 311's full-band setup, an advantage that the funk-rock-rap crew used to conclusively steal the thunder from the evening's other two acts. The band's third Ruff House/Columbia album, last year's "Temples of Boom," does little, unfortunately, beyond their well-documented, one-dimensional approach, a shortcoming that this 75-minute set couldn't overcome.

Frontman B-Real's vocal style -- comparable to a busted and muffled air-raid siren -- is nearly bereft of dynamic flow, but does score on the in-your-face meter.

Cypress Hill provided a non-stop barrage of monotonous songs about pot and the people who smoke it (everyone they know, it seems), and "rollin' wit' my homies," leaving the lone interesting musical aspect to wild outbursts from percussionist Bobo.

Of course, following 311 didn't help. That quintet -- two rapper/singers and a guitar-bass-drums backup -- have their dexterous approach down to a science. Capable singing and legit rapping skills lift frontmen Nicholas Hexum and S.A. above most hip-hoppers. An endless, seamless stream of styles -- jazz, metal, old school hip-hop -- held interest level high throughout the band's 45-minute set.

With three albums under their belt, 311 looks primed to make a move to the headlining level. A Lollapalooza main-stage ticket should be cut for this bunch.

Openers the Pharcyde caught their fans off guard with their sophomore album, "Labcabincalifornia" (Delicious Vinyl/Capitol), which focused on smooth vocals and a more romantic delivery, much to the chagrin of many. At Universal the predictable: older tracks were greeted with enthusiasm and dancing; the newer ones with skepticism and apathy. Back to the drawing board.