01/09/2026
Fishbone is STILL RED HOT!!!
Love to my man Dowd,
TheDowdJones and the whole Bone Crew!
This goes for EVERY American “Black” Rock band-keep that in mind.
✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾🤘🏾🤘🏾🤘🏾
Much love to all that commented on the post we shared from KCRW and W. Kamau Bell yesterday. After reading the comments, one popped out that I replied to and felt I should repost here to address and answer a common question/comment… the being that if the core line up stayed together, we would have been bigger and that being a black band kept us from breaking through…
Ok.. I’m gonna address this because this comes up a lot. Here’s the facts… being black was 100% what held the band from breaking like all the others.
Will not blame the label at all.
The band was signed when nobody else was looking at us. It wasn’t like a bidding war. It was David Kahne seeing us, seeing something and taking a chance. It’s not like we signed an amazing record deal, but we got a deal. We made a great EP to start, then first full length In Your Face and so on… at that time, labels spent money and supported the bands. We toured a lot. That takes tour support that the label provided. Mainstream radio wasn't playing us or bands from our world, so it was all college radio and some (up and coming) alternative stations. They were who made it happen. The alternative and college radio departments helped us take the next steps up in radio exposure.
With each album we released, we got more popular and gained an audience album by album, tour by tour… word of mouth, press and college and specialty radio… Europe, UK, Japan all love… but for every record, the $ spent = $ owed… that’s called an unrecouped balance. The label didn’t stop giving us money to make the next album or to tour the next album.
They tried at radio, we got a little MTV (a very little), Saturday Night Live… we toured, took out bands we loved Primus Sublime Tool No Doubt and came up with Red Hot Chili Peppers Jane's Addiction and all of them blew up… we love them all, so nothing but love, but we didn’t blow up like they did and for all our achievement and accolades, we came home with nothing to show for it.
No nest egg, no homes, no fancy cars, no retirement and no health insurance… and here we are, still doing it, and trying our best to end on a high note… and we are still out here with very little help from those who we helped or came up with (minus some here and there…
Big Shout out to Tool for inking us to Tool in the Sand last year)… that’s facts…
Anyway, when we got to our last album with Columbia, that was our 4th LP and we had 3 EP’s and our deal was up.
We were on Lollapalooza and when your deal runs up, the label either picks you up for more or have to cut ties. They chose to cut ties to stop the bleeding.
We were so unrecouped, there was no way we’d pay it back.
After SNL, making a video with Spike Lee, a radio push on “Everyday Sunshine" and all the other things we did not moving the needle to where the other bands were going, they saw no upside and it would have driven them deeper into debt (and us into bigger debt)… it sucks.
This was a business move. We had a lot of fans at the label that worked their asses off for us… that plus the internal exhaustion that had members leave… so even at our best, it didn’t happen.
So when someone says if we stuck together we would have blown up… But the truth is, we were together, growing and making your favorite albums and songs…had a lot of opportunity, but didn’t break. This not only was a bummer for us professionally, but personally, it takes its toll. You see your friends blowing up, the bands you took on the road as openers blow up, buy houses, not have to worry about paying rent. Bands we just shared the stage with living a life we show be as well…not instead of. Huge difference. Someone who says “we should be” are jealous. We were never jealous, just envious we didn’t have the same success…and there was always one thing separating us from those who did break… the unspoken truth.
Anyway, the other thing you need to remember is we were kids when we started and we grew up on the road. A real family, brothers, business partners, wives… every cliche you can think of… and a lot happens between 16 and 60… Sharing the same air, space and finances. Splitting a dollar 6 ways at the end of a tour. Not having anything to show for all we did. What y’all saw was on stage for 30-90 minutes of pure magic, fire and fury… its what happens off the stage that you don’t see (for the better) and thats what you call life.
The other bands mentioned above could tour separately, have single hotel rooms, s**t like that…what you call a “time out”, but we couldn't (and still can't) afford that… so that just gives more time together and vacuous, shared air and space… makes it hard to stay sane. So, that is what made it hard to stay together in the end. If any of you reading this have been married for 40+ years, I applaud you. Now imagine being married to 4 more people for 40+ years. Thats a band.
So here we are, as good as ever, new album this past year, celebrating our history and new album in the works. We are working to end in a high note, give it all we got, ask you to continue to support by coming out when we play and walk away saying we still kick everyone’s ass… we will continue to do it without depending on the help of those we helped and those we came up with…
That being said, there are LOTS of bands we don’t come up with who are showing love and that means more than anything because it means we meant something to them and to you.
Rant over… we love you W. Kamau Bell it’s people like you that keep us alive and speak the truth.
If you want to help the legacy, please continue to come to our shows. Support our releases, support the releases of members of Fishbone that aren’t on duty…
If you work in film, tv or advertising…use our music… you have no idea what being showcased like that does for discovery… blow up a song on TikTok..make that s**t viral!
When The Roots and Questlove play one of our tunes on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, we get a spike… it’s these little things that help.
We hope to see you soon and thank you! Stand by!
