It’s been 16 years since 311 last had a hit, but they’ve kept busy. In the time since their lovers alt-rock take on The Cure’s “Lovesong” crossed over, the quintet has established a biennial Caribbean cruise, licensed their name to a number of craft beers, and created strains of marijuana. Just last year, they launched their own line of CBD gels, drops, and pet-relief products. They’ve also released six albums; all but one of them—2019’s Voyager—debuted in Billboard’s top ten. Somewhere after the last fade-out of “Amber” from modern-rock radio, the band became a five-sided figurehead around which a large, robust, and active base of fans congregate. These are people who hear “I cannot handle all you negative vibe merchants, is that all you have in you, perchance?” as instructions for living the good life.
Their charming-ish holiday—March 11, a.k.a. 3/11—is now a major destination event held on even-numbered years in tourist-friendly cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans. 311 fans (many of whom call themselves “the Excitables”) descend en masse clad in their favorite pro teams’ jerseys with “311” stitched into the number plate, and the band plays marathon sets; 2004’s topped out at 68 songs in a little over four hours. This year, for the band’s 30th anniversary, they took over the Park MGM in Las Vegas, playing 102 songs over three nights with no repeats. If you want more beats for your buck, you’re in luck.
For years, co-singer Nick Hexum would end 311 concerts by saying, “Stay positive and love your life.” In 1997, he dropped the phrase into the song “Jupiter,” canonizing it as something like the entirety of the law and the prophets for Excitable disciples.
This year, for the band’s 30th anniversary, 311 took over the Park MGM in Las Vegas, playing 102 songs over three nights with no repeats.
“It came from a warm wish of what I would want on my tombstone,” Hexum told The A.V. Club a few weeks before 311 Day 2020. “It’s what I would want people to take away if I could sum it up in one sentence.” If you’re the kind of person who still has opinions about bands whose popularity peaked 20 years ago, the degree to which you agree with that statement probably reflects how you feel about 311’s music today. There’s a cheery simplicity to the phrase that feels grating in light of the ever-widening gyre.
But it’s this worldview that has made 311 one of the oldest active bands still composed of its original members. The handful who have been around longer (ZZ Top, U2, Radiohead, De La Soul) have enjoyed critical praise and industry support that 311 never has or will. They have never been nominated for a Grammy. They’ve never come anywhere near the Pazz & Jop; The A.V. Club once went out of its way to call 311 “soulless quasi-funk” in a review of another band. They will never be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. There will be no well-regarded Netflix documentary. They do not change their set lists up night after night, and they do not jam. They’re never going to die, as I know all too well. So I went to Vegas to learn how to live.
The Park Theater is a 6,000-capacity rectangle arranged so the long side abuts the stage; the farthest-back seats seem like they’re right on top of the band, making it feel remarkably intimate for a venue of its size. In normal circumstances, this would be to our advantage as a crowd. But today is March 11, 2020. Earlier this evening, the NBA canceled the remainder of its season following Rudy Gobert’s positive test for COVID-19. A few moments later, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announce that they’ve been infected. A few moments after that, the doors open, and 311 fans begin to stream into the venue. My tickets are on the floor. General admission. The pit.
If anyone in the crowd is worried about their physical proximity to a mass of people, they don’t show it. Gen Xers and older millennials file into place in front of the stage, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation. One guy whose bald spot and hairline are in a race to the middle of his head is telling a fresh-faced kid who looks to be in his mid-20s how hype 311 shows were in the ’90s. His excitement is real, but it feels like he’s managing expectations. Two nights from now, I’ll see a bearded guy with wavy, shoulder-length hair in flowing robes decked with marijuana leaves: Weed Jesus, someone explains. He gives me a polite, baked smile.
Today is March 11, 2020. Earlier this evening, the NBA canceled the remainder of its season. A few moments later, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announce they’ve been infected. A few moments after that, the doors open, and fans stream into the venue. My tickets are on the floor. General admission. The pit.
The crowd chatters about how the band might structure these three concerts. The most popular guess is that they’ll devote each night to 10 years of 311 history: three decades, three nights. Every single person who floats this idea immediately says they hope this isn’t what happens. There is a consensus, at least among the people I’m near, that half of the second night and all of the third night would be a drag. I’m inclined to agree, but it’s strange to hear the band’s biggest fans, all of whom shelled out at least $300 to be here, write off fully half of their discography. One guy says he hopes they play “Down” first, just to get it out of the way.
Instead, the set opens with “Freak Out,” a reliably charging standard from 1992’s Music. Instantly, joints appear. Small pipes are liberated from their hiding places and packed, passed, and gladly accepted—virus, I guess, be damned. All around me, the crowd is bouncing as Hexum and Doug “S.A.” Martinez’s vocals cross one another before they come together and command us to “Jump to the beat, then J-U-M-P.” I suspect it’s extremely unwise to be jumping around in a packed crowd, but it’s impossible to stand still in a group of people who are in perpetual motion without getting bowled over or looking like an asshole, so I jump, too.
When the band launches into “Beautiful Disaster,” I take it as a sign that I should dig out the joint of the same name that I picked up at a dispensary off The Strip and see what it has to teach me. I take three or four puffs, smirk to myself, then take a couple more. And I am very stoned. As the band sails into the long, contemplative intro of “Let The Cards Fall,” everyone passes around decks of playing cards, and when the build finally breaks into a charge for the opening verse, everyone throws their cards in the air. Jacks, fours, aces flutter around me, and I watch as they drift through the theater, smiling. It feels good to be here, in this peacefully worked-up crowd, and to glide on as Hexum raps about following my bliss every day. I wander back in the crowd, trying to catch my breath and create a little space for myself, and I hear, clear as a bell, the voices of everyone around me singing along to the chorus of “Do You Right,” not loudly, but clearly, the way you do in church—and then it hits me.
I am a month or so shy of my 17th birthday, and the mushroom tea is treating me kindly. I turn around to watch the balcony of the State Palace Theatre, a mushy wedding cake of a venue on Canal Street in New Orleans, as it seems to bounce along with the crowd. We almost didn’t get this concert: The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were only a few weeks earlier, imperiling our right to do this, to be out having fun, doing teenager shit. All around me, I hear the voices of people singing in a way that seems to replace the actual sound being made by 311 guitarist Tim Mahoney, so the simple three-note shuffle that is the intro and break in “Do You Right” is all human voices. I turn back to make sure and, yes, Tim is right there, playing us. This is my fourth 311 concert. The first was in the same room, on March 11, 2000. By the time I finish high school, I’ll lose count of how many times I’ve seen them.
For middle-school boys in Lafayette, Louisiana, in the mid-1990s, heaviness was the most valuable of musical currencies. Based on the way I’d heard people talking about 311, I assumed they made Pantera look like R.E.M. I was in sixth grade, ready to trim my emotional baby fat, so I made it a point of tracking them down as soon as possible. Sometime in 1996, when I finally cracked open a copy of 311, a.k.a. the Blue Album, and dropped it in my CD player, I was stunned by Martinez’s opening salvo in “Down”: “Chill!” Chill?
I got over my disappointment at being peer-pressured into liking something so upbeat. Then I got extremely over it. The connection I had with 311 felt cellular. Hearing them activated something in me that had to that point been dormant, a strange and private sense of self that I could only access through their music. I recognized that this was for me in a way that nothing else I’d ever before experienced had been for me. 311 was the first band I ever felt was mine.
Nick Hexum knows the feeling. He says The Clash rolled through Omaha when he was 14. It was 1984, the waning years; Topper Headon and Mick Jones were already out of the band, which was then two years into touring Combat Rock. Nevertheless, Hexum told me, “When Joe Strummer came out with his blond mohawk, I literally got weak in the knees. I was overwhelmed. I’d been obsessing on this moment for so long. He came out and just ripped into ‘London Calling,’ and there were tears streaming down my face.” There were other formative shows, but they were all mainstream, middle-of-the-road acts like Hall & Oates and Men At Work. The underground wasn’t coming to Omaha yet; seeing The Clash at the nadir of its cool was all it took to change Hexum’s life.
Strummer’s omnivorous taste—and, by 1984, his radio-friendly translations of edgier genres—would inform Hexum’s approach to songwriting. When 311 emerged with Music, they were already figuring out how to marry the heavy energy of chunky Midwestern rock with the rubbery rhythms of funk. What instantly separated them from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, and other punk-funk bands of that era was the particular genius of Mahoney, who was an equal devotee of diamond-sharp jazz players like Pat Metheny, the flamethrowing of Dimebag Darrell, and the hairpin turns of James Brown’s legendary guitarist Jimmy Nolen. Rather than grunt his way through the drop-D punishment riffs favored by the rap-metal bands 311 was sometimes lumped in with, Mahoney played rhythm guitar in essentially the same way George Porter of The Meters played bass: groove above all else. Even at its most aggressive, 311’s music is inviting and open; the emphasis on groove compels you to move your body in tandem with the rhythm, to step with it. “Nod your head to this,” Hexum commands in “Applied Science,” and it’s impossible not to, no matter how you feel about the song. It’s the communal experience he and Martinez were rapping about come to life through guitars.
As a music critic, I’m not blind to the many, many faults in 311’s music… But it’s equally dishonest to ignore the things that 311 did and occasionally still do that work for me.
So it’s something of a surprise that their best record is also their most insular. When it was released in 1997, Transistor jammed 21 songs onto a single CD, filling it to the absolute margins. It’s full of extended jams and starlit melodies shrouded in rich weed smoke, and it was considered a flop after the chart-storming success of the Blue Album. 311’s recorded understanding of reggae often comes across as watered down and influenced more by The Police than “Police And Thieves,” but Transistor uses their twinned devotion to Jamaican music and classic rock to profound effect. They understood that the imperial gases of dub could fill the massive sound stages of Dark Side Of The Moon and float them far beyond the band’s Midwestern roots. Despite what the band and their fans claim for it, it’s not a dub record, but it does use the principles of space, repetition, and deletion to glide into the galaxy in a way few, if any, radio-oriented rock albums have ever done. They were in awe of where it brought them, and the sights they share on “Inner Light Spectrum,” which builds into a muffled groove of distant cowbells and e-bowed guitar, or “Running,” which nicks an intro from Mahavishnu Orchestra and a solo from Jerry Garcia, are as arresting as the view of Earth from space.
As a music critic, I’m not blind to the many, many faults in 311’s music: the faux swagger, the annoying slap-bass, the perpetually reverberating pock of the snare drum Chad Sexton insists on tuning extremely high. [Which is not, as originally identified, a piccolo snare—Ed.] Even as a megafan, I couldn’t hear a line like “If dealing with punks was school, I’d have a Harvard degree” without wincing. But it’s equally dishonest to ignore the things that 311 did and occasionally still do that work for me.
Since moving to Los Angeles in 2016, I’ll put on Music or Grassroots every once in a while, just to see how it makes me feel. My hope is always to discover that, with time and perspective, 311 has secretly become great. I am always let down. But I’m struck by the fact that they set the musical priorities that have guided my listening to this day: the primacy of groove, the importance of empty space, the conviction that music is for the body as much as the mind, and the easy transit of sound and sensation between those two poles. Other bands could have given me all that, and plenty have. But 311 got there first.
By the time I wander over to the Park MGM on Thursday afternoon, people are streaming up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, some with yardstick-length daiquiris in hand. As far as I know, night two of 311 Day 2020 is on. The clerk at CVS who rings up my tallboy of Pacifico tells me it’ll kill the coronavirus: “Alcohol for the throat, not for the hands.”
I plant myself at the very back of the floor when it becomes increasingly clear that the band will not be addressing the pandemic or encouraging us to make a little room in the pit. The closest they come to referencing it is Hexum thanking the crowd for being there in spite of everything without specifically saying anything about the virus, which feels painfully irresponsible. (When asked about its decision to move forward with 311 Day 2020, the band’s management team said in a statement: “We relied on the official recommendations of state and local authorities in deciding to proceed with the shows, including the statements of the governor of Nevada, the mayor of Las Vegas, and the Nevada health commissioner on March 12.”) It’s impossible not to wonder whether the as-yet unstated need to stay positive and love our lives precludes looking at the situation with clear eyes.
Nothing the band does sounds right. “Sick Tight,” a song that sounds exactly like and is as good as the title implies, reminds me just how corny they allow themselves to get: “311, you want to get next to them / My name is Nick H-E-X-U-M,” goes one especially rough couplet, while Martinez soberly proclaims, “Houston, we have a problem, all this TV has made us dumb” in “Other Side Of Things,” a song written 10 years after Apollo 13 and 20 after Amusing Ourselves To Death. A cover of Bob Marley’s “Lively Up Yourself” does not inspire me to do so.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t highlights. They extend the intro to the simmering jazz-funk of “8:16 a.m.” and loosen the song up a bit, then take their time spinning into a gorgeous “Inner Light Spectrum.” “Use Of Time,” a Transistor standout that coats Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” in dubby dust, gives way to a five-minute drone, of all things, which starts out soft and dark and is shot through with hot lines from Mahoney. An interlude with Hexum’s 10-year-old daughter, Echo, playing piano to her dad’s guitar accompaniment—and the full-throated chant she gets from the crowd in response—is a genuinely touching reminder of how deeply the fans and the band identify with one another. I’ve never felt more disassociated from the small but noisy part of me that still feels some sense of loyalty to this band. I get the sense that everyone else feels like they’ve gradually grown old with one another and is committed to hanging on for as long as they can.
Nathan Allen says 311 changed his life, and he’s so convinced of it, I find it impossible not to believe him. Like many of the older fans I meet, he was a devotee of Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine in the early ’90s, but the more time he spent with 311, the more things began to shift. “I got tired of negativity,” he says. He shows me the 311 tattoo on his forearm and makes a point of saying he’s not the kind of guy who would normally get a band’s logo stamped on his body; 311 just had that kind of effect on him. “I started realizing how much poison that outside energy can bring to your life, and the more you surround yourself with good energy, the more that gives back to you, and it’s just a snowball effect.”
The feeling of being out of step with the prevailing cynicism has been part of 311’s story from the very beginning. In the late ’80s, Hexum, who had graduated high school early, moved to L.A., but was disillusioned by the bourbon-fueled excess of the Sunset Strip. When 311 got together in 1990, he tells me, “We wanted to be outside, we liked reggae music, we wanted to have more joy in our lives.” Across their 30-year discography, he’s rarely felt the need to talk shit; a not-quite-comprehensive list of people who make negative appearances in 311 songs includes “mean people,” a house sitter who racked up a massive phone bill while the band was on tour, and, most famously, the naysayers. The song “Hostile Apostle,” from From Chaos, takes to task rockers whose “skulls and piercings and will to destroy” lead kids down the wrong path, one marked by “one emotion, one tempo, and no real feeling.” The issue isn’t anger, in other words, or darkness, but in building one’s entire life around the “poison” Nathan Allen works to avoid—the monotony of cynicism is as dull and damaging as a beat that never changes.
Something Hexum said in our interview has stuck with me. I asked him why he thinks people give 311 fans so much shit for their relentless positivity. He sighed, then said that it had always been important to him that 311 be sincere above all else, and that this sometimes makes people uncomfortable. “I remember Rolling Stone or somebody, when they reviewed the Blue Album, they called ‘Misdirected Hostility’ ‘an anti-depth rant,’ as if to say, if you’re negative, you have depth, but if you’re positive, then you’re shallow. And I’m like, ‘I’m talking about my inner struggle to try to find things I like about this life, and not just give in to the call of the void.’”
Near the very end of night three, the band plays a graceful version of “1, 2, 3,” a slow-mo reggae tune draped with a George Harrison guitar lead. When Hexum wrote it in 1994, he was responding in part to what he saw as the nihilism of the time, and in part to the anxiety of feeling like you need to belong to your era. “It’s all right to feel good,” goes the chorus. “It’s all right for nothing to be wrong.” Hexum sings it like a lullaby, like he’s aware of how brittle a foundation such good feelings can be, even as he was just beginning to build his life atop them.
This is the implied message behind so much of 311’s music, and it’s the reason why it remains vital for so many people. It is immensely difficult to stay positive in the best of times, and the struggle between the desire for life to be good and the acknowledgment of the many ways in which it’s not is fundamental to what it means to be alive. Trying to stay positive can feel intellectually dishonest: It suggests you haven’t considered all the facts. But in a world of limitless facts, it feels equally dishonest to discount the many good things that still exist. “They’re very specifically not about blind positivity,” a fan named Saralyn Bliss tells me. “It’s not about trying to pretend like it’s all rainbows and kitty cats. It’s about real life.”
Being given the permission to wholeheartedly accept the good things in your life, whatever you understand them to be, is a powerful thing. But when Nathan Allen tells me that his refusal to live his life in fear kept him from skipping 311 Day out of concern for the pandemic, I get hung up on the idea that looking into the sun, even for just a few minutes, blots out your ability to see the rest of the world clearly. Still, the broader ethical implications of being a vector for the virus notwithstanding, I’m envious of Allen’s general demeanor—and Bliss’, and Hexum’s—which at its core is, You don’t have to let valid criticism destroy the things you love. Throughout my time in Las Vegas, and in the weeks before and after, I feel like I, too, have wandered sun-drunk into the desert.
Being a 311 fan is not terribly different from going to church. The fact that it seems, from an outside perspective, to be totally out of touch is precisely what makes it so necessary for the people who are there.
There is something a little ridiculous about 311, a silly anomaly in five guys from Omaha who still have traces of Midwestern accents after spending 30 years in California, pursuing and evangelizing an island-tinged form of optimism. Unlike any other band I can think of, 311 seems to mean more in their twilight years than they did during the boom. The music is diminishing, as most will concede, but their continued existence, their willingness to plow through hammy rap-rock in the name of bringing their people together, and Hexum’s ability to shrug off his cloak of consummate professionalism to sing a song as utterly idiotic as “Juan Bond,” gives their fans a space to slip into their own weirdest, most-at-ease selves. The self that can’t show up at a nonprofit or a law firm, yes, but also the self that knows it lives in a world of cynicism, anger, and fear, and thus has to keep its head down. The self that is subject to those very same things, and which, as a result, needs to be perpetually renewed. In this way, being a 311 fan—and being in 311—is not terribly different from going to church. The fact that it seems, from an outside perspective, to be totally out of touch is precisely what makes it so necessary for the people who are there.
As I stumble through the casino floor late on Friday night, nobody else looks tired. In the coming week, California and New York will enter quarantine, and the world will begin to contract. These are the waning moments of free American life. I pass middle-aged women in matching Atlanta Falcons jerseys, both numbered 311. Dudes in backwards caps and knee-length plaid shorts. Guys in tank tops revealing greening tattoos. Girls in bell-bottoms with casino-carpet patterns. The “my ma gave me a dollar and dropped me off at the Park & Ride” suburban rocker crowd. Ed Kowalczyk types. The very last person I notice, before I leave the Park MGM in search of a slice of pizza and clean air and wide-open spaces, walks past me with a stoned and sanctified grin. Weed Jesus is heading back into the crowd.
111 Comments
You know exactly what you’re getting with 311. Their shows are consistent and their voices are as you’d expect them to be. Nothing worse than seeing a band and the singer can’t hit the notes and sounds like crap.I’d like to make it to 311 day some year. They always do a great show and I’m hoping that their tour this summer will still be intact. I’ve got tickets to see them in late august. Who doesn’t need a little positivity in their lives right now?
I used to love them when I was younger, I’m 43 now, but they are a horrible band. I’m just not a fan of that white boy or South California “reggae” anymore. The same goes for Sublime. A lot of it might have to do with the fact that growing up in North Florida that’s all you would hear at parties. Unless there was hallucinogens then all you would hear was Pink Floyd and maybe The Doors. All of that got old quick.
Then I opened up a music venue in my town and now there’s a lot of that type of music coming from my area. It’s kind of tiring. But people sure do love it. The big local band we have here plays half and half covers of all that stuff and sometimes they could make $3000 a night. So there’s that. My venue couldn’t afford that but we also only wanted original music. Which sadly doesn’t sell well. I really had no problem when the band wanted to play our venue for cheap but my old partner was stringent about it and I kind of wish he wasn’t such an asshole about it and other types of music.
Sublime is (was?) ten times as good as 311.
I got into them in college, before I’d formed any real musical taste (same with Sublime, who i friend from Long Beach introduced us to). I still do enjoy a handful of their songs unironically, and if “Down” comes on up shuffle i won’t change it (and I guess I still like it enough to have it on my phone). I think the turning point for me was the first time I saw them in concert in like 1995 and was having a pretty good time, and then the crowd shifted and I kept getting repeatedly whipped in the face by this white dude’s dreads. That’s basically the memory I keep from that show.I had to see them again for work a couple years ago and… they sounded pretty much the same. No better, no worse. And I will say that for a band on their 30th year, they’re all still pretty spry on stage. Lotta jumping and running around.
as a San Diego native, I despise white boy reggae, it seems it’s all we’re known for musically. That and being a place where more successful artists live for a year or two before experiencing success elsewhere. Oh well, at least we still have the Swami.
I just put on some Slightly Stoopid, you can thank me later.
One of the last (possibly the last?) shows I went to before lockdown was catching the back half of a Grateful Dead cover band at one of the local bars, the friends I was with who are much more knowledgeable about that scene told me the band (who was good) is one of the biggest draws on the smaller rock club circuit in the area. Which I could believe, the place was mostly packed on a Wednesday, and the vibe was good-feeling jams — not 311-sounding, but most certainly giving the crowd “a space to slip into their own weirdest, most-at-ease selves.” Of course, who knows how things will shake out, but that vibe was making some good money for that particular club, which likely helped them book original bands on other occasions.
Yeah, Grateful Dead/Phish type jam bands are the second most popular thing there. The aforementioned band played a lot of that type stuff as well.
I think the terms you’re looking for are Ska or Ska-Punk. No Doubt and Sublime are probably the better examples that people know.I still enjoy some of it. Rebelution is always a nice relaxing band to listen to.I’m also a SoCal native so it’s impossible for me to avoid it. Members of Dirty Heads went to my high school…
I wouldn’t call either of those bands ska/ska-punk, even “trapped in a box” era No Doubt was barely ska.
Pretty much all of Pennywise went to high school with me. I thought they were pretty much all assholes, but of course all the cool kids loved them.
I don’t personally know the Dirty Heads members, but they are still fairly active in the community and everyone seems to like them. They partnered with a local HB brewery I go to. They partnered with them to create a beer and being locals, they all went on the launch day to hang out at the taproom.
The Pennywise drummer stole the attentions of a girl I was hanging out with. One day we were getting to know each other a little more in depth, and the next day we weren’t, and she was hanging out with him instead. I won’t say that he stole my girlfriend because she wasn’t that at all, but it was kinda shitty to have to deal with.So yeah, fuck those guys. SoCal bros are all the same.
SoCal bros are all the same.Ain’t that the truth
Sublime always stood out as a different sort of thing to me. Especially compared to not just 311 but the following waves of bands like Pepper, Rebelution, Expendables, etc. I think as with a lot of bands the worst aspects of Sublime were the ones that got them popular – their overly poppy or sterile singles aren’t really reflective of their overall material. 40 oz. to Freedom and Robbin the Hood are way more punk/hardcore punk/surf rock influenced, and have a lo-fi sound that borders on no-fi that I find really appealing. Sublime, or really just Brad Nowell, also came off as more creative, more talented and certainly more charismatic than anybody from that scene. I might be biased because his influences which he made very apparent were artists I’m really into – Bad Brains, Ziggens, Minutemen, Toots and the Maytals, many more. They certainly were co-opted by the “white boy reggae” scene, and I think with the way their sound was headed towards the end they would’ve only got more poppier, but they felt a bit more genuine and rugged compared to most.
Well as an admitted fan of white boy reggae and dubrock you forgot Slightly Stoopid. I also like Long Beach Dub AllStars and am unashamed about it.
There’s a number of bands I could have thrown in but it would start to sound like I’m trashing on all of them, which wasn’t my intention even though I’m not a fan.
I also like Long Beach Dub AllStars and am unashamed about it.Yo, me too.
They were definitely heads and shoulders better than the rest as was Slightly Stoopid but I blame them for everybody else. They were practically the Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden, etc of white boy reggae. To me they were still pretty much a glamorized cover band. A lot of their stuff were just different takes of other people’s songs. Though Scarlet Begonias is fantastic. And Robbin’ the Hood was the best thing they put out. The song Steppin’ Razor I think is my favorite by them.
They definitely bit a lot, sometimes just an underwhelming cover, sometimes as bad as Zeppelin and sometimes in a way that made the song their own like Hendrix with Watchtower (Smoke Two Joints comes to mind, overplayed and high-schoolerish as it seems now). The originality in between all that is what I appreciate, but as I mentioned I’m a bit biased in this area.
Totally agree that Sublime and Nowell in particular were a breed apart. There is a straight line from The Minutemen’s d. boon to Brad Nowell, both musically and lyrically (not necessarily with regard to subject matter, but both men were oddly articulate, e.g. boon’s “a richer understanding” and “here we are in French Indochina” and Nowell’s “participating in some anarchy” and “turned that liquor store into a structure fire”). I mean, had he lived boon might have been horrified to see that his most famous acolyte was a rich-suburban-kid-turned-hoodrat-meth smoker, but the spirit of the Minutemen – that band-as-gang, IDGAF, question everything mentality – not to mention fierce chops and a very, very deep understanding and awareness of musical antecedents & history, was strong in Sublime. To put it in relative musical terms, if Sublime is the Beatles, 311 is Badfinger (with the emphasis on bad).
still, minus -900000 for his fake ass Jamaica voice. fuck that shit.
what are you referring to
when…he sings? “don’t start a ri-0t” for example. I hate them and even I know this.
jesus man, think you need to take a walk lmao
irieee man, good vibrations
Correct – 311 was just the generic store brand version of Sublime. All you need to know is that the “white reggae” sound died when Sublime did. Remember 20-30 years ago studios were rushing look-a-like products out at the same time (Bug’s Life/Antz) but in music this has happened for even longer. Heck, even the Beatles label Apple had Badfinger (with songs written by the Beatles).
I’m from north FL and used to help book bands for a little place called ‘The Funky Blues Shack’ – would love to know who you’re talking about lol
Hmm. Funky Blues Shack. We probably know each other. Maybe. You can guess what band I’m talking about. FWB is my town. I know the owner’s husband NT. I used to co-own Green Door.
Also, I meant a $1000. I meant to hit the 1 and not the 3.
Wow, FWB – my hometown (graduated Choctaw.) Big bands in my day were Dread Clampett and some other reggae-like band that played Paper Moon all the time. We for sure know each other – hope you’re well.
Same to you. I am doing the best I can. Live near Houston now. I remember Dread Clampett. And knew the owners of the Paper Moon. The band I’m talking about is – oh, shit – now I can’t think of the name. But they use to pack The Swamp like a mofo.
Heritage is the band I’m talking about.
Oh yeah, I remember them. My old “buddy” Billy was their drummer, he used to play Funky’s in some other white-reggae-dude-band. So funny to look back on now. Glad to hear you’re doing well and escaped the Panhandle, i’m all the way in California now. Cheers amigo.
I’m from Omaha, where they claim to be from (even though they fucked off to California the first chance they got). The amount of people here who suck their dicks despite having access to much better local music is insane.
Being featured in the soundtrack of BMX XXX was perhaps the pinnacle of their career.
Nothing about BMX XXX is the pinnacle of anything…It was a garbage ass game that people with garbage ass taste and 12 year olds thought was awesome…
It’s actually doubtful anyone found that game awesome. My point being how little I regard 311.
Eric Andre already investigated 311:
I came here for this…
This will forever be the music of Broatia! 311
That’s nice dear,now run along and go get washed up for supper.
I was in college in the early 90s when these guys were still playing fraternity houses and bars. They were incredibly fun, but I agree that the samey-sounding SoCal reggae hasn’t aged terribly well. And I never liked Amber. But they’re damn well onto something about the overwhelming negativity within music in the 90s and I’m not surprised so many people gravitated to them and stayed on. It’s why I lost interest in Nirvana relatively quickly; one of the great bands of the time, but now I just think “okay dude, we get it.”
Much like most of us too cool folks I don’t like them: BUT the guitarist in me has to admit that the guitar parts of ‘Down’ are pretty fucking great, especially the outro/breakdown part.
PRS>Boss OC2 Octaver>Recto. That will always be the 311 sound to me.
Guitar NERD!*Tries to his his Klon Klone, TC Electronics Chorus/Flanger and old analog delay…
This is one of those things that makes me think I’ve suddenly shifted into a different parallel universe where 311 has had a dedicated following for decades after I least heard of them. I wonder what the rest of this reality is like?
I’m trying to figure out if I’ve ever heard a 311 song that wasn’t “Down” or the cover of the Cure’s most ubiquitous song. My guess is no.
I bet you’ve probably heard (and hated) “Amber.” But there’s also “All Mixed Up” or “Don’t Stay Home” from the self-titled disc that were on all the time.
You mother fucker. I saw the original post and thought to myself “There were definitely two other singles off the self-titled along with Down — but I seem to have finally forgotten them! Hooray!” and then you had to just drop them back into my head.
Amber was a big hit, but also uniformly unremarkable.
My hostility won’t let me like 311 but this was a very good article.
Then you have Misdirected Hostility.
I wouldn’t call it misdirected.
It’s a 311 song title pun, sorry bud.^_^
This article convinced me that there absolutely could be a 4 part Netflix documentary.
Been a fan for many a year, was on their first 311 cruise, saw them in Portland on 3/5…just laying out my credentials. I don’t disagree with most of this post or the comments. Their latest albums haven’t been great, the music can seem old, and I get that “white guy reggae” isn’t beloved. Having said all that, I don’t care and the band doesn’t care and that’s one of the things that makes them so cool/good. I do love seeing them live, the only way their music should be heard, and I will always love their message. Now, I’m from Seattle in the 90’s and that’s my go to music. But, just like the writer states, there’s something about 311 that’s simply infectious and joyous and their music can’t be beat on a sunny Saturday afternoon playing a game in the back yard. And then there’s the fan camaraderie, 311 is a culture. Long live 311
Nana mouskoriSkitty DavisHere man#SAHAL’E magharibiSahale will change your life
I like their hit singles as much as the next guy, having heard them all a million times on the radio in my formative years (not that I listen to the radio any more), but I’ve never really listened to any of the rest of their music. I do have “You Wouldn’t Believe” as my phone ringtone though. (Except for my wife, when she calls it’s “88 Lines About 44 Women”)
That’s a long time to get to voicemail.
My name thoough… :)And after all these years, I still do consider them my favorite band of all time. To just call them “rap rock” or “white boy reggae” doesn’t do the band justice, it’s something I’ve always debated/discussed whenever the subject comes up.But I will keep it real, they honestly haven’t a really good album since Evolver IMO. ‘Music, Grassroots, 311 (Blue Album), Transistor, Soundsystem, From Chaos, and Evolver’ are albums that are the best representation of their work.There are some songs I do like that are peppered here and there in their later albums (Five of Everything for example), but when I actually sit down and hear the album from said song….. yeesh.I think after Evolver they lost any sort of edge their music had to it. IMO it was after that album where their music started to become the stereotype people thought their music was. i.e. your ‘white boy reggae’ and such.
my favorite band of all time. People could do worse than a band that promotes positivity, honesty, and overall just not being a dick. They love their fans and their fans love them. I wish more bands would go to the effort to thank the people who have been with them along the way that 311 does. How many bands would put on a show like 311 day (let alone 10 of them), cruises, allow bootleg recordings, or start a website that you can buy soundboard recordings of live shows? How many even have enough content to do something like this?Do I think any of their new albums are as good as say, Transistor? No chance, but i love that they try new things and still put out new music. They still sound great live (even with the occasional im-50-now-and-cant-rap-most-my-parts SA Martinez that shows up occasionally)Anyway. To each their own I suppose.
I used to love 311. I saw them in a small venue in Toledo, Oh. No Doubt opened for them…the highlight of the night was Gwen Stefani coming out into the crowd and dancing with my buddy and I before 311 started. Granted we were pretty high and the only couple of people dancing…but I still enjoyed it. Oh…we also met 311 after the show…that was cool. Meeting and dancing with Gwen was far cooler. Ahhh the ’90s…
TLDR
Longtime fan here (now 41), an I totally agree that some of Music and Grassroots have not aged all that well. I liked both of them far better than any album that came after, but mainly because they had a little more “garage band purity” to them, for lack of a better term.I always knew the lyrics were more about filling space inside the music, or at least that’s how it felt to me. Not high-brow poetry (FARTIN’ ALL OVER MY FACE!)But I still find little snippets of their songs that are incredibly catchy by any standard, and they had a way of stringing it all together using a blend of genres. It was fun without seeming to be condescending to its influences, either. Maybe one thing that kept it interesting was how little mainstream airplay or attention they got. I could count my 311 fan friends on one hand (out of dozens of people) and the rest of them had barely heard of the band. It was like following an underground group hiding in plain sight.
Holy shit people still pay to see 311? I guess people are dumber than I tho… *checks news* oh yeah.
311 are just so damn earnest and harmless that, although I make fun of them and never actively listen to them, I can’t dislike them. Besides, Down is a banger no matter what anyone says.
I used to dislike them for giving birth to Linkin Park. But abominations are often inevitable. Oh, I also disliked them for relying on a cover to stay relevant, even as it was okay. But that’s far more respectable than relying on a cover to break, a-la fucking terrible-ass band Orgy.
I used to love the hell out of 311 but I was always aware that I didn’t like a lot of their songs. Each album was maybe half good, half complete shit. And with each album, it seemed like the ratio tilted ever further in favor of complete shit, to the point where I could only find 2-3 songs I liked. And even those I acknowledged were super formulaic. Catchy as hell, but not even a little original. I don’t think I’ve listened to a 311 song in maybe 5 years. I’m not sure what I would feel if I started again. EDIT: The other thing I found is that there’s maybe no band on earth whose fanbase I generally loathed than 311. It was a lonely experience being a 311 fan, because I fucking hated all the other 311 fans I met.
I’d like to invite you to meet some Juggalos. 311 fans have nothing on them.
I’ll say this for Juggalos though, they at least seem to have the decency to not be so numerous. I’ve literally never met one.
I haven’t really liked anything since Transistor. I used to love when they added a bunch of extra soundscapes and stuff, but they dropped all of that. Soundsystem failed to get me going, and I’ve not liked much since.
Same. Soundsystem had maybe 2 good songs, but that’s where the band and I parted ways.
Interesting that you are negative about two of most distinct parts of 311 (“, the annoying slap-bass, the perpetually reverberating pock of the piccolo snare Chad Sexton insists on using”) when that’s 2 of the best things about them. P-nut is one of the best bass players out there and Chad is a great drummer and songwriter. I’m a bass player and the bass player community (yes, there is such a thing) has a lot of respect for P-nut. I’ve been a fan since ‘93, did one 311 day in 2010 (seen them about 12 times total). We had a great time. My wife was just recovering from cancer, and the kindness of all the fans was amazing. Since we were older, we actually got a ton of respect from the younger set. We still go to see them on occasion, always a fun show, and there is no denying the musicianship and how strong Nick’s voice is. Has their output declined in quality? Sure, but that happens to most, and their misguided attempts to always put out a song In search of a hit that sound like Imagine Dragons is annoying as fuck. But to me it’s hard to hate on them when you see what they mean to their fans. I would certainly take their music over the popular trash out there today, and that includes most of what the AV club highlights each week in the 5 songs column.
Underrated drummer for sure. They’ve got their own little niche in rock and I think they earned it.
311 is a good band.
My God manI step out to viewWeirdly unscientific applied major of mechanically separated tunesWater down baby bliss of kale pablum,the ones who adore beyond normal 311The SPECIAL WAS NOT INTRO TO FOREIGN BEAT,Stefani was. There is no way these fans step out at nightThe comments so goddamned CULT like-lite No DIFFERENT than my FRIENDS who date oriental girls.worship fever is beyond yellow..My culture is lame become the chant
I never understoodgetting this wayMiss Smith is your momNot quezhen.96 degree side projectThe
This is among the most bewildering, but so many unlikely bands have die-hard fanatics. Aerosmith, Incubus, Foo Fighters, etc.
This is a great piece and one I certainly didn’t expect to read today. I just turned 50. Went through a period in the late 90s when I really liked 311, especially because during that time I lived in Colorado and was doing a lot of snowboarding and smoking grass. It was a vibe. Honestly, I haven’t intentionally listed to any 311 in nearly 20 years but your take on them is spot on and mirrors mine almost exactly. Well written.
Hey how come one of their albums’ liner notes includes “no thanks” to Fishbone?
I just absolutely hate this band. When I was about 18, I got tapped by my mother to take my 14 year old sister to see this band (her birthday present). About three songs in, a young teenage girl started crowd surfing near us. The boys present held her in place above their heads and digitally penetrated her while she screamed for help. It is the only time in my life I have ever thrown punches—I am a small, generally nonviolent female. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to the ground so that she could get away. Their songs are shit. Their fans are worse. My adrenaline still surges when I happen to hear them in the grocery store.
I was glad to see an article about 311. I live in Baton Rouge and am about your age, and I think our generation just allowed bands like this to speak for us. In an era of lyrics about negativity, 311’s lyrics were so much stronger to me. I never really identify with that emotion.Yes, I have to admit that as an adult, I would immediately dismiss any music made by a band that sounded like old or new 311. But their musicianship, and the history I have with the band, which began around the same time yours did, just won’t let me let them go. I hope to see you in Louisiana when they play here again!
As a 25-year die-hard fan and veteran of 70+ shows and five 311 days (including these past three nights in Vegas), thank you so much for writing this article.It’s
hard to disagree with some of the negative points written in the
article and comments. I get it. Most 311 fans do. But the beauty of
being part of the 311 community is that the“positivity feedback loop”
from fans to band and from band to fans is largely impervious to outside
influence. They’re our guys! We love them and they love us.That’s
why it’s so nice to read an article like this. As Nick has said,
“underground success” is what they’ve desired, built, and maintained for
30 years. The fans are used to the jokes and the questioning and the
largely absent music industry press interest. We don’t need anything
other than each other, and maybe a few upcoming shows on the calendar.But
damn, it feels good to see their name in print! Even for just a moment.
I guess a little validation is nice. Not of their musical skill or industry
impact or awards or sales. But validation of the fact that they’re still doing
it. And we’re still here. That means something to us. And regardless of how anyone feels about their music, I hope that means something to others too.I’ve
never felt a need to be a 311 apologist or sycophant. If you like them,
we have something in common. If you don’t, that’s cool too! I’ve never
understood the vitriol toward the band and their fans. There are lots of
bands, and food, and comedy, and other subjective life experiences that
people disagree on. I guess, as often as I can, I’ll just try to stay
positive and love my life.Thanks
for writing the article, warts and all. And thanks everyone for reading
it. Thanks for shining a light on our boys, they deserve it. They’re
still livin’ and rockin’ after all of these years. And as long as they
continue, we’ll be lined up for the next show.Dave in Washington DC
All those years people (rightly) hated Oasis, Nickelback, Linkin Park; Meanwhile the real enemy was hiding in plain sight.
i bought From Chaos in Aug ‘01 because i liked some of their earlier stuff and had heard You Wouldn’t Believe on the radio. i was 14. i didn’t dig the rest of the album all that much, sold it back used to Media Play probably less than a year later to buy something different to satisfy my rapidly-changing tastes. besides occasionally hearing Amber at the grocery store or something, i doubt i’ve heard a song from the album since ‘02. it made almost zero impact on my life.EXCEPT….this is just a long preamble to say that the exact “rough couplet” from the article STILL POPS INTO MY HEAD LIKE ONCE A MONTH “311, you want to get next to them / My name is Nick H-E-X-U-M”i think it’s just purely because of how bad it is, and apparently even when i was 14 i knew it was awful because otherwise it wouldn’t have stuck with me to begin withanyway, great article. i love seeing all the writing about all the different shades of truly dire music that made up the early oughts that’s coming around these days
The line I always think about from them, that I am haunted by, is that one song where before the dude starts rapping he yells“STORY TIME”
I’ve always felt it was the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.
hahahaaaaathat’s incredible. i’d never heard it before, so i had to look it up. the title of the song is also a reference to Nick Hexum’s name so maybe we’ve cracked the code on what makes for the lamest partsfor anybody curious
I’m not so hot on 311, myself. But I love Less Than Jake, so, you know, being stoned at a glass pop-punk house show and all that. . . . Keep on, 311 fans.
This is a great article!I’ve also not liked any of their new stuff after about 2005 – I sample a new CD but they are mostly .. not great. But it’s a great time going to a show and it definitely is spiritual in a way.
I’ve been to 15 or so shows but slowed down over the last decade. 3-11 day (Memphis ‘06) was an *experience*. I’ve not had a lot of bad experiences except for in Detroit in 2004 a guy stood on my younger sister and I’s seats in the 5th row (while we were standing in front of them) and he elbowed my sister in the head while he was gyrating around. Nick actually stopped the show while security dragged the guy out, “Not cool, man.”
311 was my #1 band when I was 13-16, they were the only band I listened to and did so until Evolver. After then, my tastes changed and I drifted away to other things but always had them in my periphery as a “great” band due to how I felt about them when I was younger. I’m 32 now and decided to catch their tour last year, so a friend and I went to a House of Blues show.Obviously it wasn’t as good as when I was younger, and for some reason had a mild cringy element to it, mostly due to this style of music being sung by guys in their 40’s-50’s. Friend actually said “You seriously used to listen to this?” which of course solidified my embarrassment. However, the most startling thing I noticed was how lackluster the general show was. I figured after being a successful touring act for 20 years they would have an amazing show, it was not. Just some guys on a stage with generic lighting singing songs, even things like the mix and guitar tone weren’t good. Considering how much money they have made over the years I was very surprised they haven’t been upping the ante year after year with their live setup, it just felt unbelievably average. For example Circa Survive, a younger and less successful band, has had a live show that destroys 311’s and has changed/improved it every year I’ve seen them. I understand that 311 fans probably don’t care about that stuff generally, but if you are making the money they do, it would be nice to see it put back into their show.
About 13 years ago, I took my daughter and a couple of her friends to a 311 concert when they were in the 8th grade. 311 was supported by Sublime featuring Rome, which I thought might mean Sublime with a special appearance by sports jock Jim Rome. So I was stoked!The show was at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands, Texas – just north of Houston. It has three seating areas – the section up front; the hill in the back; and a section in between those two.The front section was sold out, full of music fans. The hill was sold out too – that’s where the pot smokers were (NOTE: Even though I’ve never smoked it, I know what it smells like. I’m 61 – it was at EVERY concert and party I went to for about 20 years of my youth. I don’t know what you guys smoke today but it smells like burnt coffee.)The middle section was almost empty and before too long, my daughter and her friends asked me to kindly go sit somewhere else so as not to scare away the various 13-year-old boys who were hovering around. Seeing as how the middle section was almost empty, I easily complied.Sublime was OK. It turned out Rome is the singer, and not the host of The Jungle. Oh well.311 was very good! I was impressed by the lead singer. Good showman.During their set, two hot young blondes walked up the aisle, obviously coming to see me. “I’ve still got it!” I said to myself.Sure enough, they stopped at my seat, knelt down, and asked me a question.“Yes, I *am* happily married but let’s talk anyway” I said – IN MY MIND. For that was not the question I was asked. Instead, they asked me, “Why are you here?”I answered, “See those kids a few rows away? I’m the father of the young blonde girl and I’m chaperoning them”.“Oh, that’s so nice!” they said. “We thought maybe you were a record executive or something”.YES I AM. I AM A RECORD EXECUTIVE is something that even today, 13 years later, I sometimes scream in my sleep.I also sometimes scream about how it would have been if my mom hadn’t rebuffed Elvis Presley when she was young, which would have made me Lisa Marie Presley, which means I would have slept with Michael Jackson. But that’s another story.
…and now here’s SA with a rap!
“Fsck the naysayers”Grassroots and Music are two well produced and tight albums ever!
I never got in to 311. I only knew a couple of their radio songs when I was in high school (I graduated 2006) but my wife likes them so I gave them several tries and eventually decided I like Transistor, and that’s it. Use of Time is a fantastic song that I can listen to on repeat, but really I only listen to that album once or twice a year
311’s music is such a product of the 90s that it’s easy to dismiss them now, but if they’re still making/selling music and concert tickets 30 years later then more power to them.
I always feel like bands like this (sublime etc) are for kids who are too racist to like actual reggae. Gotta have it regurgitated second hand by a white moron.
Wow, I had no idea. About any of this. That this band hadn’t disappeared from the earth some 20-25 years ago. This article could be a work of fiction for all I know.
I’m amazed by the positive response to this article. I thought 311 were universally despised.
I was big into 311 as a teenager, and phased out after Soundsystem or so. They’re more about the vibe these days and have lost the plot with the music, but that’s fine.Looking at most of the complaints in here, which I’ve been hearing for over half my life, they really do get shortchanged musically. Yes, they produce some nauseating chart-oriented singles, but the fundamental instrumentation is oozing with talent in a niche/genre and time period that seemed obsessed with market itself on its lack of talent.Mahoney played rhythm guitar in essentially the same way George Porter of The Meters played bass: groove above all else.This is such a good take. the annoying slap-bass, the perpetually reverberating pock of the piccolo snare Chad Sexton insists on usingOne of these takes is just bad and the other is whatever. Sexton doesn’t use a piccolo, nor his is incredibly traditional snare highly tuned; he just makes use of the full snare head. His snare work is, whatever your taste is put aside, the most technical and complete snare work to ever grace pop radio waves. And while some may find the sound of slap-bass “annoying” (cue Chuck Rainey having to hide his slap work on Steely Dan’s ‘Peg’ from Becker & Fagen because the very concept was so maligned at the time), Pnut’s work is intensely clean and good bass work.
Have you ever made out in a dark hallway?
I wanna show you guys something…
That’s the rig of 311 guitarist Tim Mahoney.
All of that gear for a tone that sounds like walking through peanut butter.
311 is also code for the KKKlooking at the photo of 311 jersey’s, i’d say its not false.
tbh a really long read but I just wanted to say even though I haven’t listened to 311 in awhile, I was a teenager when they came out with Down and I’ve loved them since. I remember going to a concert in Houston in the early 2000s and it was on the second floor of a building (really weird location) and the floor was shaking from everyone jumping up and down and jammin’. man those were some good times.
My favorite song of theirs…haven’t listened to any of their newer stuff.
311 since 1993, have 311 tattoos with my high school sweetheart husband. Married 311 day in Vegas, celebrating our anniversary with our favorite band. Our energy together as a family with the band is unique. Love how no matter how much you wanted to resist you had to J-U-M-P with us! 311 4ever 💙👽💚
That oddly came across as more of an attack then anything else. I was there and am obviously a fan, but I don’t follow them around on tour or see them 100s of times. I catch them in my town and make an occasional big event. Beyond that I am a big fan of lots of music. In my 20 years of going to concerts, I have been to over 400. Ive seen every big rock act out there countless times and enjoy those experiences too. I would feel just as inclined to respond somewhat defensively to an article about massive acts like Metallica or the Foo Fighters as I would a smaller act like taproot or P.O.D. As I get to the point where I have seen dozens of bands over a dozen times each, it is of course going to be difficult to get the same exact joy out of the experience you did when it was new and you were young. Some of the bands I was only able to see once or twice get the unfair boost of almost mysticism in my memory bank. Regarding the bands that endure, I’d love a list of the ones whose output never diminished….. My experience at this event was hearing a lot more positive opinions of the newer 311 albums than I can muster myself, but that said……there is tons of great music on their later albums that deserves some mentioning in an article that long. Most bands never get out of the shadow of their first 3 albums. The drop off is usually much steeper. Not mentioning that seemed to be intentionally avoiding giving credit. The positive things in the article seemed needlessly like they were painful admissions to write. On their second to last album Mosaic all the things that made them good back in the day are freshly on display again. There is a difference between a band getting worse, and people getting older and not realizing they were a bigger fan of their youth and the partying then they were the music. I hear people make the same claims that Pearl Jam only had three good albums……….I can accept someone never liking them (or 311) cause people have their own taste, but to love their early stuff and convince me that you don’t like anything off albums like Binaural or self titled Pearl Jam or Uplifter or Mosaic seems genuinely impossible. 311 has some flaws as all things do. Their point is we don’t need to focus so much on those things in life. To point out where they have not lived up to your expectations and offer nothing that has done so, leaves me unsure of your point. If you enjoyed them a lot at one time, we have them in common. If you are so beyond them now, I am absolutely curious who delivers a much more complete package to you……maybe I will enjoy them too. Overall, the event was an experience drug over many hours/days, with oddly poor weather, and during some CRAZY circumstances…….as such it had highs and lows……and taking that much time to state as much just seems apparent.
This could be a creative work of speculative fiction for all I know.
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Really appreciated the honesty of this piece. 311 will forever be a part of my musical DNA and I actually vibe with their later stuff as well. My take: https://medium.com/@robertkpeach/stealing-happy-hours-a-fan-retrospective-on-30-years-of-311-bfb51b63040c.