If you’re in with the hip sounds of ska music, you’re no stranger to Save Ferris.
In the mid-’90s, Save Ferris emerged with a sound that encapsulates a good time. Punk sensibilities and instrumentation combine with a popping brass section to create up-tempo jams that make dancing (or skanking, a popular ska dance move) irresistible. Save Ferris ruled dance floors and clubs thanks to their cover of “Come on Eileen”—until disbanding in 2003. After a decade, the band returned, with lead singer Monique Powell as the sole founding member.
Now 11 years into the band’s second incarnation, Powell is continuing to bring the exciting Save Ferris train around the world. The band has been a favorite of Pappy & Harriet’s audiences over the past few years, and the group is set to return to the Pioneertown Palace on Friday, Dec. 20.
During a recent phone interview with Monique Powell, she talked about her appreciation for Pappy & Harriet’s.
“I don’t know how it happened, but we play there; it sells out; and the audience is crazy and so happy to have us there,” Powell said. “We love playing for the audiences at that venue, and the venue always treats us well; they have a lot of respect for musicians, which is nice. At my age, and for as long as I’ve been doing this, I decided I’m not going to be playing venues anymore that don’t respect the art and that don’t respect the artist. Pappy and Harriet’s treats my musicians well—but aside from that, we just have a wacky good time.”
Powell added that she has a deep appreciation for the desert’s music scene.
“I’m very well aware of the kind of music I play, and I’m also very well aware of our type of audience, but I’m also a really big fan of desert rock and stuff like that,” she said. “I know people who have studios out there, and people who have made albums out there, and they’ve made amazing music out there. It has nothing to do with what I do, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not really good friends, and we have amazing conversations about music regardless.
“I think the reason why people love Pappy’s is that it’s just so different from everything that they’re maybe accustomed to. We all really enjoy re-living a certain time and a certain era in music, and what that represents for us, particularly right now, is the term that we kind of coined in 2017: ‘Ska now more than ever.’”
Nostalgia is a big factor in the music world right now, with music festivals like When We Were Young celebrating the emo rock jams of the ’00s. The Vans Warped Tour, a home for the pop-punk mania of the late ’90s and early 2000s, is making a comeback.
“We played one of the first Warped Tours ever, and then came back in 2017 after not playing for a long time—and Warped Tour had turned into something completely different,” Powell said. “I would definitely love to see a Warped Tour reimagined to the original days in the ’90s, where it was a punk tour. That message is something that we really could use right now. … It’s time to start nurturing the anti-establishment subculture right now. I’m down for a chaos subculture.”
The members of Save Ferris pride themselves on embracing the chaos, absorbing the frightening world we live in, and crafting an exuberant, fun-filled escape through their live shows.
“People love our shows because every show is different and chaotic,” Powell said. “There’s this beauty in not knowing what’s going to happen. We just all sort of embrace it together, us onstage with the audience. We’re all, like, Red Rover-ing it; we just all hold hands and close our eyes and go, ‘OK, here we go.’ From the first note to the last note, we’re just on this river-rafting ride, praying for the best.”
Powell said she needs live shows now, during this tumultuous time, more than ever.
“It’s like a drug for me now,” she said. “I need our audiences more, and they help guide me through the feelings of fear that I have for our future, as not just a country, but also a human race. I look at them, and I have this feeling for anywhere from 45 to 95 minutes that everything is going to be OK with humanity.”
Powell said she views Save Ferris shows as a safe space—for those who are respectful.
“I say things off the cuff that are controversial at times, and no, our shows are not for everybody, but I do try to create a safe space in which everybody can feel like it’s OK to make mistakes, and we can just laugh them off and be ourselves, and no one’s going to get judged—not too harshly, at least,” Powell said. “If you’re not too nice to each other, there will probably be a consequence, and my sense of humor definitely embraces those who like to heckle or make fun of others or us onstage. I really do like to point people out for doing that, and I have a great time doing it.”
Since coming back in 2013, the band has only released one EP and a few singles, the latest being “Lights Out in the Reptile House” in July. Powell expressed excitement over being able to release a slate of singles over the next year, rather than dropping an entire album at once.
“It allows me to express what each song is about,” she said. “With each single is not only a video, but it’s also an individualized piece of artwork for each side of the 7-inch … that represents the song. When you release an EP, there’s the overarching theme of the five songs that you’ve chosen to go on an EP, and then you get all that neat artwork and the story of those songs that goes into the booklet for the CD, like back in the day. … When you release the full-length, you get to release the front and back artwork that represents the overarching theme of where you were at when you wrote those 10 songs. I love that there are various stories to be told throughout the process.”
Save Ferris will perform at 9:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 20, at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, in Pioneertown. Tickets are $39.50. For tickets and more information, visit pappyandharriets.com.
