Dance hall Crahers Bio

Six years ago, Elyse Rogers, a bright young high school senior from Orange County, was busy trying to decide where to attend college. She ultimately chose Berkeley, but not for the good Poli-Sci program there. No, Elyse moved up to the Bay Area so she could catch Operation Ivy shows.

"I just basically wanted to see them," she says of the pre-Rancid, Tim Armstrong/Matt Freeman ska band; an unapologetic honesty in her voice. "I was going away to school, and I had the choice to go to Berkeley or stay in L.A. Berkeley had such a fuckin' rad music scene, and Operation Ivy was my favorite band, and I'd never gotten a chance to see them." Elyse laughs. "They broke up two weeks before I got there!"

Every cloud has a silver lining, however. Elyse found herself sitting on the corner--"I was, literally, sitting on the corner"--checking out the people and the area shortly after arriving at her new school. She noticed a couple of guys who looked like they might be into the ska scene, and struck up a conversation with them. Wouldn't you know, surprise, surprise, they turned out to be involved with Dance Hall Crashers--a brand-new side project that Tim and Matt had started following Op Ivy's demise. "It was kind of a weird coincidence," she says of the circumstances that threw her into the mix. "I recognized the name as the ska band that Lint (Tim) had started. So, they said they needed a singer, and asked if I could sing. Completely fucking out of nowhere! I said 'Well, sorta-yeah! Sure I sing!' I joined the band that night--by that time Tim and Matt were already gone, a different girl was singing with me at the time, and there was a completely different lineup, with the exception of (guitarist) Jason Hammon and myself."

The new ska band, Dance Hall Crashers, began by playing a few area shows while Elyse continued her political science studies at Berkeley. The lineup, however, kept briskly changing until the introduction of Karina Denike six months later, in 1990. "She was the sister of a friend of ours," says Elyse of Denike. "This friend of ours kept saying 'Hey, my sister sings.' And you know, you wanna go 'Oh, fuck, greaaat...have 'er come on down.' But she was amazing. She was really great."

It was perhaps this catalyst of two perfectly blended harmonic female voices that finally centered the band's sound and style. But despite the buzz sizzling about the No. Cal scene, DHC without warning broke up at the end of 1990--a maneuver that provoked a deluge of correspondence from irked fans for nearly two years. Finally, in 1992, the band reformed on a whim to play a San Francisco show. The venue, Slim's, sold out completely, much to DHC's surprise.

From then on, there was no turning back. The dual roles of Rogers/Denike on vocals, Jason Hammon and Scott Goodell on guitars, Mikey Weiss on bass, and Gavin Hammon on drums cemented their definitive lineup, and for a change the future was looking quite promising indeed. A stint on indie label Moon proved unhappy but produced a debut and a compilation, 1989-1992, in 1993. Finally, in '94, the band caught the attention of Elliot Cahn and Jeff Salzman, a management/legal team who've worked with the likes of Green Day, the Muffs, Jawbreaker, and Offspring--and who had just created (510) Records, an indie that in short time joined with major label MCA. Dance Hall Crashers became the first (510) signing, which in turn placed them in the hands of a--gulp!--major label, and launched the first major release, Lockjaw.

Elyse, who has managed her own band from its inception, is calm regarding the major move. "Jeff and Elliot totally know what's up, and they are really supportive of us managing ourselves. We just think that's important, especially being on a major, because MCA is so huge, we were concerned with losing control creatively--and every other way. But they have been excellent about that, actually, and [with] helping us maintain credibility. With the kind of act that we are, we say no to a lot of stuff, and they are cool with that...I mean, they bring us a lot of weird endorsements. Promotional stuff. We don't want to endorse, like, Converse and backpacks and...things..."

Backpacks might be right up their alley, though, what the audiences full of teenagers the band has been attracting. At a recent L.A. show, young girls were seen out on the floor shoving males out of their way left and right so they could make their own space to dance. Elyse chuckles at this: "Cool!" Perhaps it's the strong front-role position of two females in a band that provides a positive example for teens? Or maybe it's just the poppy sounds of the group itself that proves attractive. How do DHC define their sound themselves?

"Well...we've got upbeats and a lot of ska influences. But if you ask the ska scene, the real traditionalists will say, 'Naw, they're a fuckin' punk band now.' While the punk scene will say, 'of course they're a ska band!' We're sorta running right through the middle. There's way more than having fast drums to make you a punk band, and I think to call us just a ska band would be selling us short. Pop? I don't hear the Go-Go's! But I'd have to say, yeah. The combination I'd put together is ska-pop-punk--I think we've kinda found a new sound, which I wish there was one name for, so we could give everyone an answer. We're just in one of those in-between stages." Elyse, who listened to the Clash, the Jam, and the Specials in her earliest days, compares DHC to the seminal late 70s scene. "The Clash and the Specials kinda mixed it up a bit, too."

Adding to the effervescence of the upbeat sound on Lockjaw are the lighthearted song lyrics, most involving minor annoyances like debt, day jobs, and asshole boyfriends. Elyse, who writes most of the lyrics (Karina or Jason occasionally throw in a line) explains, "The way I try to do it is to write about serious things, but cover it with sarcasm. What with the kind of music we play, pretty up and fast, it sounds stupid to have really serious songs. But at the same time, I don't want to write about bullshit. It's actually a dark record if you just read it without the music. I didn't realize as I was writing it how many of the songs sounded like [bad] relationship songs!" (Elyse is currently happily involved.)

As co-frontwoman and the band's chief poet, one would assume that Rogers has all her fingers firmly in the Dance Hall Crashers pie as it stands. But, a true renaissance woman, she also gives up a great deal of her time ("well...try every second") as manager. Does the girl ever sleep ?!

"I started that at the very beginning six years ago. I can't even remember why I was the one chosen...I think it was because at the time I sounded the oldest!" Elyse laughs. "Remember, we were all 17 and 18 years old then. So, I started booking our shows. Then from there I was an agent, and a publicist, and I just really got into the whole industry side of it. Taking care of my own band, cause I didn't like the job that other people were doing for bands. It does totally drive me crazy sometimes, but I don't see an option. I think it's really important for us to be presented exactly the way we want to be."

But what if DHC becomes too big for one person--who is already taking another large role in the band--to handle alone? "A lot of people ask that,' says Elyse, her tone confident. "We'll see. Right now we have such a great team with Jeff and Elliot. If they weren't part of this whole deal, it would be impossible for me to do. They help out a tremendous deal--when they see me starting to drown, they fish me out. Maybe in time, we'll get a co-manager or something, but I can't ever see us letting go of it. We're just too paranoid!"

Dance Hall Crashers is preparing for the inevitable wave of publicity already starting to surface, due to their inclusion on the alternative music film soundtrack Angus ("An awful movie," laughs Elyse, "But a rad soundtrack!"), the single "Enough" currently being played on KROQ, and plans for a tour starting this month. When asked to name her dream lineup of bands she'd like to play with, Elyse mentions all her friends point-blank: "Oh...Rancid! Pennywise! I love Pennywise. But it's hard to schedule things, though, even if you're friends. We'll probably bring a Berkeley band with us...we're doing some California shows with No Use For A Name, which is super cool."