30 Amp Fuse – Saturday Night at the Atomic Speedway – Interview

30 Amp Fuse

Saturday Night at the Atomic Speedway (Dedicated)
An interview with Mike Smithers
by Austin Nash

I am the biggest Bob Mould fan I know. I am the third or fourth largest Descendents fan I know. What if I could pick up a guitar, write an excellent melody with assaultive three-chord prowess like my idol Mould, and have the album produced by Descendents members Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton? What if I could find a way to do this review so that it didn’t suck? Well then I’d have a non-sucking review of a great album, Saturday Night At the Atomic Speedway (Dedicated), the latest release from 30 Amp Fuse.

Let’s be real, I have a metal plate in my head and I drink too much gin. I’m not going to win all the time, or even very often. So in this case, I decided to screw off the cap, take a good hit, and call up Mike Smithers, the man behind the wheel of 30 Amp Fuse, and let him do the talking. Most of it, at least. Here is what he said:

Dedicated said: “30 Amp Fuse is a powerful, explosive collection of sharp, noisy, guitar-fueled pop songs, brimming with melody, precision and groove.” This is a little silly. What would you call it?
Aggressive pop. Two words.

I won a $5 bet on my first listen to Saturday Night… by picking out Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton as the producers. Tell us dedicated Descendents/All fans what it’s like working with these two gentlemen?
They’re my heroes. Those guys are great. It was kinda weird working with your heroes. You put them up on that pedestal, they were exactly what I thought they would be. As far as working with them, I’d already heard stories about Bill, he’s a funny guy. They work it a little different with each record. We worked mostly with Bill, he was the hands-on guy, Stephen Egerton would come in at night, he was more the knobs guy. Sometimes they switch up duties.

Bill did the physical recording?
Yeah, it was weird, I’m standing there with a guitar and Bill Stevenson’s on drums. He would be showing Rodney, our drummer, something that might help him out on a song, and I’m thinking… My God, a couple of years ago I never would have imagined that I’d be playing with Bill Stevenson. It was wild working with guys like that. Everybody at the Blasting Room was really nice.

I know the lineup of the band has been inconsistent. Is it stabilizing any these days?
I hope so. It’s always been, for me, writing songs at home and bringing them to practice and we tweak them, but they don’t sit with me and write them. I’ve never been able to do that. It’s hard.

I’ve noticed that collaboration often breeds mediocrity.
It depends on the song. Most of my songs are about things that happened to me. How can someone else have any feelings about that? It comes from my gut, not theirs, so it’s hard for them to understand what I’m getting at. You do end up compromising sometimes, but I like others’ ideas.

What is your favorite thing about Saturday Night At The Atomic Speedway?
I’m really happy with the overall production of it. It was fun to do and when we put it together it was a lot more work than I thought, but when it came out, there were a lot of little things I never would have noticed before. I learned a lot from Bill, he’s really a great guitar player too, he really understands leering and stuff. I didn’t even know he played guitar. He came up with the riffs for a lot of their (the Descendents’) famous songs. He writes too, and he’s good at it. He’s a lot more than just a great drummer.

I’m a huge Bob Mould fan. You mention him as an influence and I can hear him in your work. I was wondering what is your absolute favorite Bob Mould production?
There’re a couple Hüsker Dü albums that just really did something for me. I think the first to blow me away was Metal Circus. At first I didn’t get it. Actually, Flip Your Wig was the first one I got. I love that record. Then I got into Metal Circus, and then Zen Arcade. Those are my favorites.

If you ever come across a live album called Supernova, jump on it. It’s got a version of “Bed Of Nails” that’s completely tense.
I have a friend that works at Rykodisc who is a good friend of Bob’s, so I get to talk to him about what’s going on sometimes. I almost got a chance to meet him once but it fell through. It sucks because Bob is playing here in Knoxville in April and we’re going to be out on tour. I love everything he does, I like how he writes songs. I like Bob’s solo stuff, but Hüsker Dü was what always hit me the hardest.