Funny and angry in equal measure, Reel Big Fish are a slippery act to pin down. Tim Hughes finds out what makes the Californian ska-punks the biggest in the pond

It's kinda rock, or maybe punk. There’s pop, loads of ska, a ton of fury, but also lots of irreverent humour. So how do you start to describe a band like Reel Big Fish?

It’s not easy and it seems we’re not the only ones struggling to pin down this Californian six-piece. The band famously quit their record label because, in the manner of an angsty teenager, they just didn’t ‘get’ them.

“We’re very happy to be off the major label because they didn’t understand us,” says frontman and principal songwriter Aaron Barrett (third from left below).

“They didn’t know what to call us or who to market us to. They are used to pre-packaged pop and rock and I think we were just too weird for them. So eventually they just ended up doing nothing.”

Fans of the Orange County noise merchants know all too readily about that weirdness. For years Aaron and his bandmates clashed with the music industry in their attempt to do things their way. Since cutting loose from the big boys, though, they have succeeded and, in contrast to their younger cynical selves, actually seem quite happy about it.

Their self-produced 1997 album Monkeys For Nothin’ And The Chimps For Free (a cheeky play on the Dire Straits anthem) came hot on the heels of their divorce from Jive Records. After that came 2009’s Fame, Fortune and Fornication, on which they covered songs by Poison, the Eagles, and Tom Petty and 2012’s Candy Coated Fury – their seventh album to date. The album (which the band considered calling Honk if You’re Horny) also marked a return to the ska-fuelled wit of their early records, such as debut Everything Sucks, which earned them an instant word of mouth following and a signing to Mojo.

“This album is a lot like our first two albums,” says Aaron. “It’s got a lot of the same intensity, frantic energy in the music and the same sarcastic sense of humour. I think these are the fastest songs we’ve done since those albums. We’re finally just doing what Reel Big Fish does best, and that’s what we did on those first two albums.

“Candy coated fury describes what Reel Big Fish does,” he goes on. “It has hateful, mean, sarcastic and sometimes sad lyrics over happy, wacky, silly, joyous, fast music that makes you want to dance.

“It is mostly love songs, but bitter, angry, hateful love songs. Just about everybody knows what it’s like to be in a bad relationship. These songs could be sung by a 15-year-old about his first love-gone-wrong, or by a 55 year-old about a bitter divorce after 30 years. They’re bad-relationship songs that everybody can relate to.”

Their latest songs are packed full of juvenile humour, horns, sing-along lyrics and infectious ska. Stand-out track, I Dare You To Break My Heart, meanwhile, is replete with soul, new wave and trademark ska but also references to the work of histrionic Ipswich rockers The Darkness.

“I listen to the Darkness,” says Aaron. “It was only a matter of time ‘til I wrote a song like this. I can’t sing as high as that guy so this song sounds more like Kiss – if Kiss was a Motown band that played ska,” Another anthem, I Know You Too Well To Like You Any More, contains some of Aaron’s cruellest lyrics. “That is an amazing bad-relationship song,” he says. “I captured the hateful love of two people who were once madly in love, but have been together so long, they can’t stand the sight of each other any more.” Beneath all that though is the sound of a band having a good time and doing things on their own terms. Aaron adds: “Everybody is in a good place now. We’re a better band. We’re happy.”

Reel Big Fish play the O2 Academy Oxford on February 11 with Less Than Jake and Zebrahead
Tickets have sold out.