Talking with Hub City Stompers' Travis Nelson about ska, 'New Brunsfus' and hate

Hub City Stompers are a faSKAnating New Brunswick band who stay true to original ska music and its influence on the skinheads of late-1960s England while incorporating later elements of the island-originated genre, such as late ’70s 2 Tone, ska punk and ska-core.

Initial skinheads were British youth, including blacks, who continued the working-class themes of Jamaican ska and rude boy acts, such as Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Duke Reid and Desmond Dekker.

Years later, the skinhead movement’s social alienation and working-class unity attracted white supremacists, many of whom increasingly have grabbed recent headlines with their support of Donald Trump and alt-right, racially motivated politics.

Hub City Stompers founding front man Travis Nelson said he finds that situation absurd, given that blacks were among the initial skinheads whose culture greatly was influenced by Jamaican immigrants.

"It’s a complete contradiction," Nelson said. "You’re calling yourself a skinhead, which the very roots of your supposed subculture are actually from black culture. They were stupid enough to be Nazis in the first place. You think they’re going to care about that?

"It's a shame. I just wish skinheads would be skinheads behind what actually is involved in the skinhead culture: the working-class ideals, the music, the fashion, the sense of pride. When you bring white supremacy into it, you’re automatically making a contradiction to the scene you supposedly belong to. … The word skinhead associates so much with racism and Nazis now, it’s so hard to even separate.

"In my songs, I’m not preaching against racism, I’m making fun of it. I don’t cry about it because that’s what the Nazis want. That gives them power. Don’t give them power. Laugh at them and crush them when they need to be crushed."

READ: Labor Day Weekend best bets for Central Jersey families

READ: New Brunswick, Perth Amboy offer free world music concerts

READ: More Central Jersey entertainment news

Like the membership of ska second wave 2 Tone bands, such as The Specials, English Beat, and The Selecter, and 1980s third-wave pioneers The Toasters, Nelson is interracial.

Raised in Trenton by a black dad and white mom, the veteran vocalist and songwriter cut his musical teeth from the late ’80s to the mid-‘90s at the fabled City Gardens, a haven for the ska, punk, hardcore and oi music that appealed to skinheads.

On several occasions, Nelson was among the City Garden skinheads who drove Nazi and white supremacist counterparts out of the club. But as a skinhead, he also often met resistance walking home through the club's black neighborhood. 

"I didn’t look like the people on Calhoun Street," he said. "I looked like that Nazi they’d seen on the news the other day. Sometimes people would listen to reason and see the obvious and sometimes they wouldn’t. I was fightin’ Nazis in the club and fightin’ the homeboys outside the club."

Skankin' in New 'Brunsfus'

In the early ’90s, Nelson gravitated to New Brunswick's established club and burgeoning basement scenes to hear punk bands, such as Bouncing Souls and Lifetime, and the skinhead ska of Inspecter 7.

Initially an ardent fan of Inspecter 7’s blend of ska’s three stylistic waves with punk, Nelson was asked to join in 1993, and so began a 24-year music career, including two albums on Radical Records and national tours with contemporaries The Pietasters and Mephiskapheles. All the while, Nelson, aka Rev. Sinister, has stayed true to his skinhead, hardcore and ska roots while incorporating tinges of hip-hop and jazz.

In 2002, while Inspecter 7 was on hiatus, Nelson and several of his bandmates formed Hub City Stompers, named for one of his i7songs. Picking up where the predecessor left off, Hub City Stompers continued to tour nationally and released an EP, an anthology, several singles and compilation tracks and four full-length studio albums:

• 2004’s “Blood, Sweat and Beers” and 2006’s “Dirty Jersey” on Megalith Records, an offshoot of the influential Moon Ska label
• 2009’s “Ska Ska Black Sheep” and 2014’s “Life after Death” on Stubbon Records, the label of New Brunswick ska legend King Django (Skinnerbox, Version City).

"If you’re playing underground music, you’re not making a ton of money," Nelson said. "But it’s music that I enjoy very much. If I wasn’t in the band, I would like this music.

"People say, ‘You could do the poppy ska thing, then you’d make more money,’ but then it would be a chore for me. Then it would be a job. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. That’s the whole point: I do appreciate the music, the scene and the people who like it. That’s what keeps it interesting to me. While we’re not making a lot of money, we are making enough to self-sustain the band so that people aren’t going into the poorhouse. … The band pays for everything."

A who’s who of regional ska, Hub City Stompers now include saxophonist-vocalist Jenny “Whiskey” DeSantis (Professor Plum), bassist “Reggae” Bob Vorhees (Predator Dub Assassins), guitarist Rod “Gorgeous” George (Bigger Thomas), drummer Joey “Pip” Piperato (The Heavy Beat), trombonist “G&T” James Kelly (Screwface, The Executives) and keyboardist-guitarist Greg “Pukey B” Behan.

They recently recorded band's fifth full-length studio album, “Haters Dozen,” which will be mixed and mastered for a spring release on a label to be determined, said Nelson, Hub City Stompers' only original member.

"It’s a reference to baker’s dozen because it’s going to be 13 tracks," he said. "We’ve also been seen as the black sheep of the ska scene. Some people have this image of us as this darker horse in the scene. That and our connection to the skinhead scene, which, to this day, is somehow still misunderstood.

"People have a narrow-minded view of the ska scene and think it’s supposed to be a bunch of people running around in a circle, singing about nothing. Then, I guess, you’re going to think, ‘What the hell are they?’ So ‘Haters Dozen’ is a reference to … people who don’t get it."

Rockin' in New Brunswick

On Sept. 10 in Boyd Park, Hub City Stompers will headline the main event of the fourth annual Hub City Sounds: ROCK New Brunswick, one of the expanded festival’s five events taking place throughout the weekend.

ROCK New Brunswick will feature 20 New Brunswick and Central Jersey artists and acts, including Dennis Diken, drummer of The Smithereens, and Sharief in Burgundy, led by city native Sharief Hobley, who has worked with Kanye West, John Legend and Alicia Keys. 

Nelson said he hopes that New Brunswick authorities continue to recognize a rock music history that includes more national acts than Asbury Park and Hoboken combined. They also include Bouncing Souls, Lifetime, Streetlight Manifesto, Thursday, Screaming Females, God Forbid, Midtown, Gaslight Anthem and a dozen more.

"It’s very cool given my memories of the New Brunswick music scene," Nelson said. "It’s not the same as it was. Everything’s relegated to the basements now, so to have a larger event like this, where there’s all kinds of different music, is awesome because that’s the New Brunswick I remember, that’s the New Brunswick that I knew growing up seeing shows with the (Bouncing) Souls, Bigger Thomas, Lifetime, and Lucy Brown. That was Brunfus, man. That was what I loved about it.

"It got eaten up by corporate stuff. I’ve explained that in interviews: ‘You don’t understand what New Brunswick used to be. I wish you could have seen it before the money ate it up.' … Ideally, it’s probably more in their interest if they would realize and consider what’s come out of this city. But they’re never going to see it that way because there are other things they see that are more economically viable in their eyes. … It’s a shame because can you imagine how big a fest you could have with all the bands from New Brunswick? It would be ridiculous."

ROCK New Brunswick marks the last gig for Pip, who will be replaced on skins by Behan. Hub City Stompers are seeking a keyboardist to play with them starting with a two-night stand with Mephiskapheles on Oct. 27 at the Wonder Bar, Asbury Park, also with the Jersey Oi! band Broken Heroes, and Oct. 28 at Bowery Electric, New York City, also with the Brooklyn punk band 45 Adapters.

For more about the band, visit www.hubcitystompers.net/. And for more about Hub City Sounds: ROCK New Brunswick 2017, check out the event page at www.facebook.com/events/862635813884607. 

Staff Writer Bob Makin: 732-565-7319; bmakin@gannett.com