When bassist Joel Hanks and his buddies set up their first Sublime tribute show six years ago, it was difficult for them to take the gig too seriously.
"Everyone was listening to Sublime at the time," said Hanks in a phone interview last week from Massachusetts. "We were big fans and all of our friends were big fans so we thought we would put a show together. We didn't promote it at all and we weren't expecting a lot of people."
Hanks' nonchalant attitude gave way to pleasant surprise when the performance turned out to be "more successful than any of our original bands' shows ever were."
The popular response gave birth to Badfish, New England's answer to Sublime's music and a full-time job for Hanks, at the time a 21-year-old computer science major at the University of Rhode Island.
Badfish comes through the Rialto tonight. We spoke with Hanks late last week.
People are also reading…
You are playing the Rialto, which is one of our larger Downtown venues. How big are your audiences? "They keep getting bigger. On average, I'd say the numbers are somewhere between 800 and 1000. It is unbelievable, amazing. People come out to have a good time and hear the songs they remember. That is what the shows are all about really."
Do you ever hear complaints from the hard-core Sublime fans? "A lot of people are skeptical at first. People don't like the idea. But a lot of them come out and give it a chance. We've gotten a lot less flak than I thought we would get when we started touring full time. Some people view it as stepping on a sacred thing. But we don't get too much of that. Maybe a few e-mails a year and a beer thrown at us or something."
Which Sublime songs gets the best reaction? "'What I Got' is the most popular by far. It is not even close. That and 'Santeria' are heads and shoulders above the rest. They had some other radio hits like 'Wrong Way.' Everybody in the crowd knows those songs. But we play a lot of their material. We do an hour-and-45-minute set every night so we are not just playing their hits. We are doing a lot of songs people didn't even know they played. We touch on it all."
Most underrated Sublime song? "I guess I would go with 'Same in the End.' It has so much energy and moves so fast. The crowd just goes crazy for it, and it is a riot to play."
A man shouldn't live on covers alone. Do you play any original material? "Not as Badfish. As of January, we started an original project and released a six-song EP under the name Scotty Don't. We have been doing some Badfish tours opening up for ourselves as Scotty Don't. We did two tours like that. It is tough. We are doing it on this tour, but in Tempe, not Tucson."
April 26, 1992, there was a riot on the streets tell me where were you . . . "I was too young to even know what was going on. I was like 13, junior high probably. Who knows? I wasn't into Sublime, I can tell you that."
• What: Sublime tribute band.
• Where: Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress
• When: Tonight at 7:30.
• Cost: $16. 740-1000.
• To learn more, visit myspace.com/badfishsub limetribute.
