In 1979, brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald, who were not yet old enough to drive, started a band, Redd Kross. Now, 45 years later, the Year of Redd Kross kicked off in June with the release of a double album in June.
A memoir, “Now You Are One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross,” followed, with the McDonalds writing their own individual sections and coauthor Dan Epstein adding context between chapters.
This month, a documentary, “Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story,” begins a round of special screenings, some with the band in attendance.
It’s a ton of terrific material about Redd Kross, a band that deserves every bit of acclaim that the album, book and film might bring. Still, Steven McDonald had one more thing in mind.
“The one we didn’t get to do – which, whatever, we’ve done too much as it is – I was hoping there would be an audiobook,” Steven McDonald says on a recent video call with his brother.
This launches the McDonalds into enthusiastic riffing about all the possibilities, like brothers who have long known how to take a wild dream and talk it into being.
“Omni Books saw that Jack Black, who I’ve known for a long time, liked a post about the book,” Steven says. The publisher asked him to send Black a book, so he called to let the actor and cofounder of the comedic rock band Tenacious D know.
“He’s like, ‘I want the audiobook,’” Steven continues. “I said, ‘So do I! But no one would produce it.’
“He said, ‘Well, come and give me the book. Come over and read it to me,’” he continues. “I said, ‘OK, great, I’ll do my part, you can do Jeff’s.’”
“Wow,” Jeff says, nodding his approval of this obvious solution. “There you have it.”
“That would be a good audiobook too, if we just record that,” Steven says, and then shifts into the serious intonation of a “Masterpiece Theatre” narrator: “The role of Jeff McDonald will be played by Jack Black.”
And so it goes, in the interview as in the film and memoir, and even, at times, the album. A brotherly banter that is often entertaining, occasionally endearing, and always true to the dynamic these closest of siblings have shared their entire lives.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Jeff and Steven McDonald talked about everything from making the movie, book and album to forming Redd Kross in the relative isolation of the South Bay in the ’70s, that time when Steven was kidnapped at 13 by an older fan for several months (yes, you read that right), and more.
Q: The documentary is so much fun. How did you get connected with director Andrew Reich [an Emmy winner as executive producer of “Friends.”]
Steven McDonald: Andrew and I had mutual friends, and he pursued us through mutual friends. He started the film project, like eight years ago, the better part of a decade.
Q: Was it a quick yes? Something you wanted to do right away?
Jeff McDonald: I know, with a good documentary, it’s the filmmaker telling their version of your story. Which is great. Because I knew if it was us telling our version, entirely us, it would just go on forever. So it was important that we liked and trusted Andrew. And I instantly liked him, instantly just clicked. So it got the OK early on.
We had no idea how long the movie would take, He just said, ‘Oh, it’s going to take a couple of years.’ But those couple of years turned into eight years. It was really insane.
Q: And the memoir? When did that begin?
SM: I thought the book was going to come out in 2025, actually. The book was also a bait and switch. [laughs] The literary agent Lee Sobel reached out to me through Facebook and asked if I was interested in a Steve McDonald book. Of course, I am! [laughs] Then about 10 minutes later he switched it to a Redd Kross book.
Q: So Steven, why were you thinking it was going to come out next year?
SM: Because that’s the only thing my blood pressure would allow. I had no idea that all three deadlines were all going to hit at the same time. Not only did we do the record, we’ve completed two pretty extensive tours. That has been a lot of heavy lifting.
Which is great. I mean, that’s what it’s about for me and Jeff. More than any of it, it’s to go out and play live. But it’s just, in this age of the independent artist, it’s hard. And even though we’re celebrating our 45th year as a band, there’s still so much to learn.
JM: It’s non-stop.
SM: It never stops being a challenge but, you know, it’s one I’m grateful for.
JM: I think if you’re a band that’s still growing you always feel you have something to prove. You never get to that spot where it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve arrived.’ When that feeling’s gone, that’s when you put it down.
SM: But yeah, so it’s great to have this opportunity to show what we can do. That’s kind of what 2024 has been about.
Q: Did all the different projects create any crossover moments or influence each other?
SM: We did the book before and while were making the record, which I think added another interesting quality. But also just the process of being interviewed by Andrew for eight years. There was a lot of reflection going on. Jeff and I wrote the lion’s share of this in 2023 in the midst of all this. I’m sure it informed some of the more reminiscing moments on the record.
Also, I will often reference the Beatles ‘Get Back’ doc that came out, too. That’s the other thing that really inspired our record. Just seeing a unique collaboration. Not to compare us to Lennon and McCartney but to see how much they valued that creative partnership in real time.
The demystifying things were fascinating, and it was super freeing and inspiring, and got me hungry to get into that room with Jeff and see what we were capable of. Especially after all that reflection.
Q: One thing that struck me in the book and in the movie was the isolation you felt in Hawthorne at the time. You got yourselves to Hollywood and into Black Flag’s circle – but didn’t become a hardcore punk band like them.
JM: The four bands [in the area] when we met Black Flag and became part of that whole tiny scene, it was us, a very early version of the Descendents, who were extremely poppy, almost like the original surf punk band. The Last, who were like our version of the Flamin’ Groovies, and Black Flag. So everyone had their own identity, and even we did at our young age.
SM: And we played all of our first shows with Black Flag. The first one was an eighth-grade graduation party, and we got Black Flag the gig. We just had all these sort of extraordinary experiences in a very condensed amount of time. And it shaped us in many ways, but it didn’t keep us from being who we were. Or when we did feel any constraint coming down we just kind of distanced ourselves and went our own way.
And in reference to what it was like to be in Hawthorne, we detail that on the song ‘Born Innocent,’ which is the closing credit title for the film. [And also the closing track on the new album.] Andrew asked us to write an origin story song.
Q: One surprising part of your story is the kidnapping of Steven when he was very young by a woman in her 20s who had started an inappropriate relationship with him before taking him to Las Vegas for three months.
SM: I’ve talked about it a little bit, and when you’re asking about doing the movie and how we felt talking about our lives, I don’t know. During lockdown, I found myself revisiting that moment because it turned out to be like the 40th anniversary of that time. And I’m a dad too, and it just so happened that I had, my son was 12 or 13, the same age I was 40 years later.
So I found myself just sort of investigating where my head was at that time. For our family, it was traumatizing, and we did our best to process it, but much of it was left unprocessed. As you can see, my parents, it’s still a very raw topic for them, as is detailed in the film with their beautiful interview.
I’ve always been fine with talking about it. But whatever, it was a real moment, and it happened within the context of our rock and roll experience. Had I not been in a band it would have never happened. So it’s somewhat of a cautionary tale as well.
Q: I want to ask about the mixture of influences you talk about in the film and book. You didn’t censor yourselves over what was cool or popular. You loved the Beatles but you also loved the Partridge Family equally.
JM: Through reading about rock and roll music and biographies, I learned, oh, you know, the Beatles did Shirelles covers. They were doing like girl bubblegum covers and were inspired by that type of stuff. It made me realize that anything that moves you is valid and it doesn’t matter what social baggage it may have. It’s like when we were in the punk movement, just saying, ‘I love the Partridge Family’ was kind of like a little bit of a troll to people who took themselves very seriously.
SM: I think we also have not been afraid to infuse a nice dose of humor into what we do. I think that’s also something that sometimes people find hard to take on board, because it might imply that you’re not serious on some level, or there’s missing some substance or something.
And it’s not just music, you know, it’s movies, it’s television. It’s all sorts of cultural things we took on board. We were hanging out with people that were much older than us and had very sophisticated interests.
JM: Yeah, we have been inspired by movies, like Russ Myers and John Waters and all that stuff. And there’s always a bit of humor in what we do. You know, like I may not be taken as seriously as a singer as like, say, Perry Farrell [of Jane’s Addiction], who’s not very funny at all. But comedians are some of the heaviest entertainers there are. So you just can’t judge a book by its cover.
Q: This year has been busy. How do you take advantage of that and go forward next year?
JM: We haven’t been to South America yet.
SM: We have done a lot to get the momentum going. It’s true. I have a day job. I’m also in the Melvins, who have a very busy schedule next year. So it’s a conflict in my life to have had this moment and create so much momentum for us. You don’t want it to dissipate.
But at the same time, it’s been a long career. I mean, hopefully there’s enough for people to snack on for a while, and they’ll be hungry for us the next time we’re available, which hopefully will be sometime next year.
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