Mustard Plug has impeccable timing. The band of Michigan ska punks, which plays the High Noon Saloon Dec. 12, took the stage at exactly the right moment, just as Sublime and No Doubt were about to rock mainstream radio. Their 1997 release, Evildoers Beware!, hit stores and college parties at the height of the ska trend, and before they knew it, they'd sold more than 90,000 copies and booked gigs all over the world. Not bad for a band with a tune called "Beer Song."
I recently spoke with Mustard Plug's singer, Dave Kirchgessner, about the group's Vegas dreams, the rerelease of its 1993 classic Big Daddy Multitude and, of course, the National Mustard Museum.
Why did you rerelease Big Daddy last month?
We've always owned the rights to Big Daddy, so it didn't make any sense to give Hopeless Records the lion's share of the money when it's so easy to release things digitally. We were also sitting on four really good songs from that era that I wanted to release.
Have you visited the Mustard Museum just outside Madison, formerly in Mount Horeb?
Yes, I stopped by about 10 years ago when I was in Wisconsin for a wedding. It's a really fun place. They declared us the "official ska band of the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum."
What other Midwestern ska groups should fans check out?
Deal's Gone Bad from Chicago are awesome. I actually started managing them a bit ago, mainly because I was such a big fan. They do a combination of soul and reggae and ska. The Pinstripes from Cincinnati and the Green Room Rockers from Indiana are great. Both of them do a more laid-back soul-ska-reggae thing. [Madison's] Something to Do are a really good band, too.
What's next for you guys: a new album, a video, a vacation, a tell-all memoir, a Vegas stage show?
We're currently working on new songs. We'll probably play two or three of them in Madison. We also plan on shooting a video in early 2011. I like the Vegas stage show idea, though. We could tell the story of Mustard Plug. It'll be like Spinal Tap, only with dancing girls.