This interview was originally done for a UCHS Commander spread on local bands; it was conducted by Melissa Ferrer and Kayleigh Shaw in 2002. Thanks to Ryan from No Knife for agreeing to set up an interview with us.

Kayleigh: Can you give us the names of everyone in the band and what they do?
Ryan: My name’s Ryan Ferguson and I play guitar and sing for No Knife. Our other singer’s name is Mitch Wilson and he plays guitar and sings too… And Brian Desjean, he’s our bass player, and Chris Prescott is our drummer.
Melissa: So have there been any changes in your lineup in the past? Did it affect your sound or the dynamics of the group?
Ryan: Yeah, I think so. Let’s see, the current lineup we’ve had since ’98 and prior to that, we had a different drummer for the last couple records, and I actually came to the band in ’95, there was another guitar player before me. The current lineup we have, though, is definitely the most efficient lineup as far as what we’ve accomplished in the last four years since obtaining Chris. I think we’re tighter. I think his drum style is not as mechanical as our old drummer, it’s more fluid; he’s into jazz music and he’s basically able to do anything he wants. It’s kind of a free-for-all. I think that’s helped the band, personally.
Kayleigh: So you came in a couple of years after they had already formed?
Ryan: Yeah, about a year.
Kayleigh: Where were you, like high school or college?
Ryan: I was just out of high school. I was nineteen and I was a student at San Diego State in their radio program, and I worked at the fish market downtown. I was a busboy down there and Mitch was an oyster bar cook; I knew of the band and I knew he was in the band, so I basically just wrote a bunch of songs myself and was just recording four-track style in my room for that amount of time and gave him a demo tape of the songs I had written. I guess they were having some trouble with their guitar player, so it just just kind of worked out, he asked me to be in the band. About two months later, we signed a record deal, and I just dropped out of school and started touring.
Kayleigh: So you never finished college?
Ryan: I haven’t finished college, no. I went for two years to SDSU and actually, this is my third semester right now; I’m at San Diego City College and they have a really good radio and TV program down there. So between tours, actually during tours, and between recording and working and everything else, I might just actually go to school part time still. I know I’m not really after a degree… They just have a good program, it’s fun to keep your mind occupied with new things.

Kayleigh: What’s the story behind your name, No Knife?
Ryan: What’s the story behind the name No Knife? There’s a couple different stories. It actually…probably ten years ago, it started out as a fictitious band name. We have a friend up in Seattle who wrote a music column for a magazine up there, and he would just actually start writing about this fictitious band called No Knife in San Diego and how they kicked ass and they ruled, and the name just stuck. Mitch and this guy were buddies. And this name just stuck, so we kind of stole it.

Melissa: Kayleigh and I were at a show recently, and we took note of how often bands make weird jokes and cuss a lot on stage. Are you guys that type of band?
Ryan: I think we all swear. I don’t know how conscious we are of it. I think on stage, we don’t generally talk much on stage. Every once in a while if someone’s string breaks or something and we need to improvise a little bit, someone might make a joke. I don’t think we really cuss on stage that much. But on tour and in the van, when you’re stuck in a van with the same guys for two months, of course tempers start flaring, and curse words start flowing. I don’t cuss all the time.

Kayleigh: Are you originally from here?
Ryan: Yup, born and raised in San Diego.
Kayleigh: What high school did you go to?
Ryan: I went to Serra High School in Tierrasanta, we both were. (Ryan had brought one of his friends with him.) We were both on the newspaper staff. Yeah, born and raised in San Diego.

Kayleigh: Okay, so when you were a teenager, did you participate in the local scene a lot?
Ryan: Yeah, actually I had a band in high school and we used to play SOMA all the time back before they shut down; now they’re about to reopen again. Obviously we were too young to actually attend shows at The Casbah. And of course when we were in high school, the biggest bands out there were like Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Tanner, and Fishwife, all these little San Diego bands. We were too young to actually see them play at The Casbah, so my friends and I would drive and park across the street, park on the top of the parking garage and sit there and smoke cigarettes and look down and try to listen to the music. It was pretty funny. But yeah, I was somewhat active in the scene but not to the extreme, just played in garage bands and played the local all-age places.

Melissa: Have you seen the scene change from then to now?
Ryan: I think local music and music all over is so much more accessible nowadays, whereas ten years ago, there were only a couple all-age venues to play, now I think those are opening up a lot more. Nowadays, you can just get your friends together and record a CD in your room or on your computer and all of a sudden your music’s out there, you’re getting offers to play. I think that’s changed a little bit. As far as the scene…the San Diego scene really exploded post-Seattle, they kept dubbing it “The Next Seattle,” and labels started flocking here. They had a bunch of independent music seminars here and a bunch of showcases for local bands to play. All these A&R reps would come in and try to sign the next big act. That’s when Rocket got signed, and Jehu, Inch, Miniature, Lucy’s Fur Coat, and all these bands at the time. And then it kind of dwindled down and died down, and we’ve actually still been around which is pretty crazy. It’s still active and there’s still a lot of good bands coming from San Diego.

Kayleigh: What’s your favorite city to play in besides San Diego?
Ryan: I always like playing San Francisco. They always have good crowds up there and it’s just a fun city to play in. Of course, New York is always a lot of fun just because you’re in the downtown, you’re in the city. There’s always just people out there, it’s funny the people you bump into…random stars might show up to your shows. And Chicago. There’s probably a million more I can think of. Definitely the three that stand out are the big cities; I think San Francisco, New York and Seattle are a lot of fun.

Melissa: Is it weird when you’re playing a set and no one’s really paying attention and just standing around?
Ryan: Oh yeah, it’s awful. That happens all the time, honestly. Bands that are just starting out don’t really have any patience; they just wanna get big real fast, and you have to pay your dues. We’ve been doing this since we were nineteen years old. We’ve been around the country a lot of times and played a lot of shows like you’re talking about. I always tell people about the first time we did a US tour and we played Atlanta. We opened up for a band called Dick Delicious and the Tasty Testicles. There were about six people there at the show, and no one could give a shit about the music we were playing. You just have to pay your dues, you have to deal with it. And you can’t change everyone’s opinion. People just aren’t going to like your band and that’s fine with me. I’m not gonna try to get people into the show if they’re not into it. You get used to it and you learn to ignore that. Life goes on.

Melissa: I read an interview recently and they were talking about bands like Simple Plan, who haven’t been around for a while and suddenly they’re huge. Does stuff like that suck for bands that have been touring for a while and have more talent, that some bands get really big all of a sudden just because their lead singer is hot?
Ryan: Half of those kinds of bands just go over your head and you don’t really care about them. It doesn’t really bother me that much. It can be a choice. There’s talent involved, there’s a lot of luck involved, and then there’s also a choice involved. Being the youngest member of No Knife, I’ve learned a lot more cause these guys have been around longer and they have their own prerogative and they know what they want to do. There’s a lot of chances that I probably would have jumped at. Years ago, we got asked to play the big KROQ show, but we’d be playing alongside bands like Sugar Ray and just all these other bands, and at the time I was like, “Yeah let’s do it.” It’s exposure, it’s visibility, it gets your name out there and these guys were like, “No, let’s not do it.” So there’s choice involved. We’ve turned down things because we want to or we just don’t feel it’s right for the band, that gets all mixed in with the decision too.

Kayleigh: Do you think it’s strange that you guys are listed on MTV.com?
Ryan: No, I don’t think it’s that weird. It’s definitely…wait, I take that back, I guess it is kind of weird, but it’s cool. The first time we were ever mentioned on MTV, we were just at a friend’s house. It was that alternative show 120 Minutes and Rocket From the Crypt was hosting it one time one time, and there was a big interview. The guy was asking about other bands from San Diego that they were into, and they mentioned No Knife and I was just sitting there going, “Oh my God, this is MTV.” But it’s good exposure.

Kayleigh: Have you ever gotten recognized in public?
Ryan: Yeah, only in San Diego of course. I walked into Starbucks one time, and I am not a coffee drinker, I went to buy my stepmom a mug for Christmas and she’s just like, “Are you in No Knife?” and I said “Yeah,” so she just gave it to me for free. It’s happened a few times, but it’s not like…I don’t have any lip rings or tattoos that give me away, so I just think I look like every other guy in San Diego so I don’ t really know how I get noticed.

Kayleigh: Have you guys ever gotten kicked out of a venue?
Ryan: No, not really. I’ve been kicked out because I toured with the band for two or three years before I even turned 21, so I got fake ID’s made all over the country. When we would go in it was always sketchy, because even if you’re in the band they still card you…or they used to, at least. It was always like a hold your breath kind of thing when I showed my fake card from South Carolina. And I did get kicked out of a bar once, but it was after we had already played and then they found out I had a fake one, and got thrown out. We’ve never been thrown out of a club as a band or anything, for cussing on stage.

Kayleigh: What is the craziest thing a fan has ever done at one of your shows?
Ryan: I remember we played a show in North Carolina once, years ago, and just like you would see in a movie, right next to the stage was this giant human cage. And we were playing and this girl literally just jumped in this cage and started doing her whole dance and rocking the cage, and we were just playing along and kind of getting into it and it kind of just lightened the whole atmosphere up. It was kind of weird. We’ve gotten a few bras thrown up on stage, and that’s always a little weird cause we’re not really gonna do anything with them.

Melissa: Is it weird when bands start listing you as an influence?
Ryan: No, no, it’s cool. It’s funny. I’ve seen our band listed a few times, you know, when we were actually looking at the classifieds in the [San Diego] Reader, it’s always like: “Guitarists wanted, Bassists wanted." Then it’ll say "influences: No Knife, Nirvana, Pixies.” It’s kind of cool. It’s a compliment if people are into the band and the music.

Kayleigh: So what are your main influences?
Ryan: My main influences? So many…Failure, there’s a band Failure that I’m really into. I was a big Nirvana kid back in high school; I still like them. I like The Pixies. I like Superchunk a lot. I was a big Beatles fan. Pink Floyd. I can never think of any…Drive Like Jehu, locally. Fugazi. Jaxbox. A bunch of bands.

Kayleigh: Who’s been your favorite band to tour with?
Ryan: Jimmy Eat World, definitely. We’ve toured with them the most out of any other band and we’ve toured with them since ’98, ’97, on and off of course. So we’ve toured the same small clubs together on the same bill, and then gradually each year when they get bigger, we get a little more well-known, the club sizes are that much bigger. And we have a lot of fun on the road. It’s not just playing music, it’s like we’re always doing some extracurricular stuff. Going water-skiing, and rafting. But those guys, we’re all the same age pretty much, more or less, and we just feel really close to those guys. It was fun just going on this last tour with them because obviously, the last time we had toured with them they hadn’t sold a million records yet, but they’re still the same guys, same exact guys. So that was fun to see, still have fun with them. Those guys are my favorite band to tour with.

Kayleigh: Are you guys signed to one label exclusively?
Ryan: Yeah, we never signed a deal, it’s more of an agreement deal, but we’re with an independent label out of L.A. called Better Looking Records. They’re basically just friends of ours. What happened was after we fulfilled our agreements with Time Bomb, who we were with us for the last six years or so, we had done three records with them and then they offered to put out another record for us, but we didn’t wanna go with them because they didn’t know how to market us…they didn’t know how to deal with us. We had done all this touring, all we wanted to do was get out of the country for once and tour Europe or Japan and they weren’t supportive of that. They wanted to take us in this other new direction and we didn’t sell as many albums as we wanted to, didn’t get the amount of exposure we wanted to with them, so we just decided to take it into our own hands. That’s when we did this last record that just came out, and just did it ourselves. A friend of ours approached us and said, “Hey, I’d like to put it out.” It was just a fun little deal, we didn’t sign any contracts. There weren’t any lawyers involved or anything like that this time. It was just kind of how it should be. We were gonna help each other out; so far, so good. After that Jimmy tour, we got tons of labels flying out, e-mailing us and trying to get in touch, doing something. We’re definitely not opposed to that, we’ll have to listen to anything they have to say, and get some free dinner and drinks, that’s how it works. We’re happy with where we are and what we’re doing. We’re good to go for now, we’ll see what happens. That’s the deal.

Kayleigh/Melissa: Okay, thanks so much for the interview.

No Knife pictures courtesy of NoKnife.net, taken by Sean McKenna.
http://www.noknife.net
http://www.betterlookingrecords.com

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