Aaron Carnes’ genre defining tome In Defense of Ska gets expanded second edition

Skankin’ Pickle, courtesy of Aaron Carnes.

Music journalist Aaron Carnes has spent his entire career offering a valiant defense of ska, the oft-maligned genre that originated in Jamaica and presaged rocksteady and reggae. 

Ska is commonly divided into three “waves”—traditional Jamaican ska, two-tone ska (which emerged from Thatcher-era Britain), and third wave ska, exemplified by groups like Reel Big Fish and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. The latter wave is largely responsible for ska’s bad rap, which Carnes has worked to rectify with his 2021 book, In Defense of Ska, and his podcast of the same name. 

Carnes recently completed a second edition of the book to be published this October. We sat down with him to discuss the work that went into the new edition, and some of the discoveries he made along the way. Think of it as a meta approach to music journalism—“music journalism journalism,” if you will. 

The Pitch: Tell us about how working on this edition compared to working on the first one. 

Aaron Carnes: The initial first edition was a lot of starting from scratch and trying to understand what I was doing. I spent a good seven years on that first edition. The first four or five years was a lot of me interviewing people and not having a clear idea of what I was writing, or what angle I had on the topic of ska. That came within the last few years of the book, when I had a clear concept that I was writing a defense of ska, and that I was doing it in standalone essays. When writing the second edition, that issue was no longer there. I didn’t have to redefine the book. I was expanding on the existing book.

I was looking at what was missing from the first book and what I learned since writing it. I did a lot of re-reading the book and asking myself, ‘Was there anything I could have expanded on here? Is there any context I could give that would be helpful to readers?’ I added a lot of context. For instance, I didn’t really talk at length in the first edition about how ska blowing up in the ‘90s interacted with and was related to punk blowing up in the ‘90s. Punk blew up right before ska, and, in my opinion, it played a large hand in ska becoming a mainstream genre in the mid-to-late ‘90s. It dictated the kind of bands that were signed by major labels, and also gave media and record labels a way to market the music. 

While working on the second edition, you uncovered a revelation about Fall Out Boy singer Patrick Stump’s ska past?

Interestingly enough, he’s been on my podcast. We have a second interview with him that we’re going to release sometime later this year, and he interviewed with me for the second edition (of the book). 

His story is that he grew up as a kid in the ‘90s, and was a super hardcore ska fan. He kind of buried that as he was getting older…my friend, Brian Diaz, who was in the ska band Edna’s Goldfish back in the ‘90s, was a guitar tech for Fall Out Boy for a number of years. He was an early guest (on the podcast). He mentioned that he and Patrick Stump would soundcheck with songs by an obscure ska band from Minneapolis called Animal Chin. I thought that was so bizarre to hear. This was not a band that was on the radio. 

So I asked Brian if he would connect us to Patrick, and if he wanted to do the show. It was a ‘yes’ (from Stump) within 24 hours. He did the show and told us about his whole ska past, which was extremely elaborate. After doing a second episode with him and talking to him for the book, I’ve gotten to understand even more how much ska has been one of the most formative parts of his musical foundation. He’s repping it a bit more these days, not only by doing our show, but also by wearing a ska shirt here and there on stage…a lot of people who grew up in (the ‘90s)—maybe it’s their age or the way culture is shifting—are like, ‘oh, yeah, I was a ska fan.’ That’s coming out more. 

Before the first episode we did with Patrick in 2021, he emailed me and said, ‘I recorded myself playing Sell Out by Reel Big Fish’…He sent it to me. It was a 60-second clip, and I asked him, ‘can I put this on the episode?’ He said ‘yeah,’ and people went crazy for that. This 60-second clip of Patrick playing ‘Sell Out’ by Reel Big Fish got shared all over the internet. For the upcoming episode, he sent me this thing…He was like, ‘oh, here’s a ska song I wrote and played all the instruments on.’ It was an instrumental ska song. We’re definitely going to put that on the episode, and I’m curious how people are gonna respond to that. He plays great. He’s told us before that he learned to play drums from ska. He plays ska drums really well. 

Reel Big Fish, courtesy of Aaron Carnes.

There’s a chapter in the book about the contemporary ska scene in L.A., which is mainly kept alive by Latinos. You write that “It’s about more than just the music, which is why the scene is so alive and well”—can you elaborate on that?

In the 2000s, you saw a growth of ska in the predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The music is informed by some U.S. ska, but also ska bands from Mexico, like Sekta Core…The bands in L.A. were singing in Spanish and English. They were talking about stuff that was relevant to their lives. They were playing shows in backyards. They were struggling to find a place to play in Hollywood and in clubs outside the East L.A. area. It’s a subculture. It’s not just the sound of the music. It’s what it all means to the people playing it. It means something different to them than it might mean to someone else. Part of why it remains so vibrant is what it means to them. 

One of the themes of my book is that people assume ska to be one thing, and some of that is based on the way it sounds and the way it’s been portrayed in culture. They see ska as this music that’s happy and joyful. They assume it’s silly and lighthearted, but for a lot of people, that’s not what ska is or what it means. If you go to these L.A. backyard ska shows, they’re about community, expressing what’s going on in your life, having a good time and dancing, and seeing your friends. It’s not silly, and it’s totally different from the way it gets portrayed. 

One of my favorite parts of that chapter is your exploration of the Allen Theater venue, which lasted from 2002 to 2007. It was an old movie theater converted into a live music venue by two guys who mostly booked ska and Spanish rock. It survived solely on door sales, and no alcohol was sold. I couldn’t believe something like that was even possible.

Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. I think when you have something that’s meaningful to a community and to a group of people, you’d be surprised by the lengths people will go to to protect it and support it. 

Chuck Askerneese and Kevin Long of The Untouchables, courtesy of Aaron Carnes.

Do you think there’s something about ska that makes it especially suitable for cultural cross-pollination?

I do. I think what’s interesting about it is how the music has become very global. It’s been embraced and tailored to the cultures that start to play it…everybody puts their personality and their own culture into playing ska, and I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s been embraced by people all over the world. It sounds like ska, but it also sounds like their culture and the music of their country too. 

That sort of upbeat dance music is pretty universal. Even the emphasis on upbeats is something you hear in a lot of totally unrelated musical genres. (Polka musicians, mariachi musicians, and ska musicians) all discovered that putting this upbeat in their music taps into something universal for humans.

Pre-order the expanded second edition of In Defense of Ska here.