311’s S.A. Martinez talks 30 years of Omaha adventures, rock cruises, and the glory of Turnstile ahead of Oct. 1 Grinders KC gig

Photo by Brian Bowen Smith

Omaha’s number one export—rap-rock group 311—has been at this now for three decades. What brings them back to the table in a post pandemic world, why has the fandom continued to grow even during lockdown, and what does the future look like when you’ve been in a rock band that asks so much of you?

311 plays Grinders with AWOLNATION and Blame My Youth on Sunday, October 1, 2023 and tickets are available here. The Pitch sat down with 311’s co-vocalist S.A. Martinez to discuss hitting the road, the music that inspires him to push the envelope, and the three decade anniversary of their debut studio album Music.

The Pitch: What’s it like to be touring now more than 30 years since your album Music released?

S.A. Martinez: It’s crazy to think it’s been that long. When we started out, who would’ve thought we’d still be doing it? You never know what’s around the corner, life is a mystery. But we’ve had some time off and we’re glad to be back on this short run of show. We’re hitting a bunch of venues sorta in Tornado Alley.

What does 311 look like to you now outside of these tour runs? What’s the process of new music creation? 

Our music process looks like a lot of peoples’ process in recent history, with how hard it has been to get folks in the same place physically. We’re all spread out and it takes effort to organize and get together, mesh ideas, and build on those idea. In this era it’s different as a process, but interdisciplinary creativity is still there and we certainly have the spark. So we’re putting things together.

Will we see any new songs this tour?

We tested a few back in the spring, and we’ve got at least one that might go into rotation. So that’s a possibility.

It must be tricky to have a discography that big and get together on short runs like this. For the set list are you looking at a greatest hits kind of thing or are dabbling in a bunch of eras? Would new music make sense with all the bases you have to cover?

We love how varied our sets are, but this deep in your career you do have to think about the entire audience. 311 is in the fortunate position to have, you know, radio hits. It’s great that we can rely on so many songs that people everywhere will know. And it’s nice to go see a band and hear songs you know, even if you’ve never dedicated time to studying that group. This past July, I got to go see Neil Young perform. He wound up playing all deep cuts—I knew maybe two of his standards that night and almost nothing else. It was a great night but still. We’re also five people with five very different ideas on what we want to play and how to deliver a great show and a great night out. So we always work to find a unique common ground.

I feel like that there’s something that it’s unspoken that if you’re signing up to see Neil Young, you’re signing up for a degree of contrarian from the guy that did Tin Machine.

He hasn’t toured in like half a dozen years. I think last time I saw him was maybe 1988. And a guy in his upper 70s can absolutely do whatever he wants to do. A fun night! But as musicians I’m saying that we do our best to connect to the crowd that we have at any given show—fans or not.

During pandemic, you guys did a series of live streamed shows of all your albums, from start to finish on a month by month basis, along with a social hour in studio. It was wildly communal and I’ll always remember it as being some of the best of lockdown programming. Was it a challenge to go back and relearn songs that you hadn’t performed live in year, or maybe never at all, to do those track-by-track albums?

We play a lot off the first few album, and then for the rest muscle memory comes into play. Once we rehearse things, it’s all like riding a bike. Minus one or two tracks that were just like finding something we didn’t remember ever making. Some took a few more run throughs but it was pretty chill. And what a way to fill downtime.

Post-pandemic, there’s a lot of bands who seem to be running with what you were doing there, by touring on individual albums and their anniversaries, and it’s like “Oh, 311 already did that for us, with their entire back catalogue.”

We did some full album shows last year, and that was fun to take out to various cities, but we still haven’t toured on just a single album. I’m not sure that’s right for us, because like I said, we just have too many songs from too many points in our career that people really deserve to see if they’re buying a ticket for 311.

Will the 311 Cruise be coming back?

Next year we’ve got a three day event in Vegas. We did the cruise for a 3/11 Day thing and it was a lot of fun. I’m not sure what we’ll do but we’re always looking for fun things to try.

Feels like a real roll of the dice to commit to being stuck at sea with a ship full of fans. Really relies heavily on people… being cool and respecting boundaries, I guess?

Absolutely. That’s one way to put it.

What is what is the one thing that you need to take with you on the road these days? That’s sort of your like, calming, centering sanity keeper?

I have a grounding routine. There’s exercise that I do every day, so that helps. You fall into patterns on tour and if those are good habits you can deal with whatever a tour day can throw at you.

Photo by Brian Bowen Smith

This isn’t the first time you’ve toured with AWOLNATION, right?

I believe it is, actually.

How did this one come together then?

There’s a lot of new rock surfacing lately, and I’m excited to check so much of it out. I’m really excited to see AWOLNATION live. I think we share an agent, but they’re one of the groups who I first heard on a radio or a friend playing it for me and I needed to hear more. I’m finding it really rewarding to seek out these new upcoming bands and invest time in them.

Who are you listening to in music that’s making you really excited about rock again?

A couple of years back my nephew shared Turnstile with me. I was on a road trip and I put it on and, at first, I wasn’t in the headspace to hear it. Then down the line they dropped another album and when it hit I just fell in love with it. We were out on tour and I couldn’t stop listening to it. I listened to it so much—maybe too much? Yeah, I might’ve burned out on it by just playing it too much and nothing else in between. But wow, they’re amazing. I saw High Vis in Los Angeles, and they’ve got an album called Blending. They’re from the UK and they’re easily one of the best British acts in forever. They’ve got that dark texture but with a fiery energy?

LA also has a band called Teenage Wrist that my nephew got me into, and I actually just collaborated with them. Young music is insanely good right now.

That’s such a list of dream shows; to see those acts open for you. 

You know those bands?

All but one, so those are some pairings that feel built for me.

There’s a new resurgence of rock that’s really inspiring. Inspiring as a fan and as a musician too, with the sheer creativity on display. That Turnstile record is a modern day masterpiece. That’s already been a full stamp on the entirety of the 2020s and it’s helping move the needle. I just think great music begets great music.

311 plays Grinders with AWOLNATION and Blame My Youth on Oct. 1 and tickets are available here.