Ska Florida Magazine - Interview with Mustard Plug's Dave Kirchgessner

If ska is indeed dead, its re-animated corpse is doing a pretty spirited moonstomp these days.

The 'Ska is Dead' tour will be rolling into The Crowbar in Ybor City on Friday as part of its 18-day leg of the American tour and I had a chance to talk with tour founder and lead vocalist for co-headliner Mustard Plug before the show.

Scotty Badfish: How did you decide to put the show together?
Dave Kirchgessner: I put the tour together about 5 years ago. At the time Ska was kind having a hangover from it's huge wave of mainstream popularity in the 1990's. There were still a lot of true believers out there but I felt it would take a big festival style tour to really make the promoters and media wake up to the fact that ska's demise had been greatly exagerated.

SB: How has the response been around the country?
DK: Over the course of four north American tours the response has been phenominal. Every night the clubs are packed and everyone goes home with a smile on their face.

SB: How do the audiences in Florida compare to other venues?
DK: Florida ska has always been good. It might be a slightly younger audience, but it's always been consistent since the early 90's

SB: Why the name Ska is Dead?
DK: I just thought it was a funny and cocky name for the tour.

SB: Do you foresee ska returning to mainstream popularity once again? Would you even want it to?
DK: I don't foresee it going minstream any time soon and I'm fine with that. This tour is all about the fan and the grassroots scene

SB: What has contributed to making this show a multiyear tour?
DK: As long as bands want to do it the tour will keep going.

SB: How did you hook up with The Toasters?
DK: I've known Bucket and. The Toasters for about 20 years now and they've always been really supportive of the tour and it's goals.

SB: What have been some of the favorite moments/highlights of this year’s tour?
DK: We've had so many good shows. Detroit probably had the crowd response so far. They don't call it Detroit Rock City for nothing! But everynight has been great. The toasters had their old vocalist, Coolie Ranx join them onstage in NJ so that was pretty special too.

SB: Have their been any local bands that you have played with from around the country that ska fans should give an ear to?
DK: The Green Room Rockers and the Pinstripes were both pretty awesome. It's also been cool to watch Deals Gone Bad win over new fans every night.

SB: What do you attribute your own band’s longevity to?
DK: We enjoy what we do. It's as simple as that.

SB: What are the future plans of Mustard Plug?
DK: We're focusing on songwriting and we'll be heading back to Europe in April.