Monkey may very well be San Jose’s longest running, consistently-active band. The band emerged in 1995, but unlike a lot of Monkey’s contemporaries, it never mixed punk rock and ska. Monkey always stuck strictly to the traditional more R&B-based sounds of ska’s first wave.

We caught up with Curtis Meacham (vocals/guitar) to ask him about the side of San Jose he knows best.

What part of Silicon Valley are you from?

Originally, I grew up in Sunnyvale, but I’ve lived in Downtown San Jose a couple of times and it’s always been a blast. There is actually a lot of community feel that can be experienced in San Jose on different levels. In a way, it’s always entertaining.

What’s your favorite place outside of San Jose?

Well, I like Telluride, Colo., for the beauty, Victoria, BC, for the people, and Belgium for the amazing food! Right now, I live in Campbell and it’s pretty cool… only, not as cool as Belgium.

What’s the best show you’ve seen in San Jose?

Easily, Prince at the Shark Tank a couple of years back. He came twice in the summer and I caught both shows—absolutely amazing. Aside from that, there’s the crazy Cactus Club shows, like the Twinkie fight during Big Sissy Brigade’s show, or the on-stage beer enema during the Diesel Queens.

Who’s your favorite local musician or band?

There’s a lot of really cool talent in San Jose. For fun factor, there’s always FTB. For good songwriting, there’s David Brookings. For ass-kickin’ guitars, there’s the Gillbillies.

Where’s your favorite place to get a drink in San Jose?

The Cinebar is always the cheapest, but aside from that, I always visit Rachel and her band of merry men, down at the Caravan.

Where’s a cool spot to get clothes?

Working Man’s Emporium. You can get some cool Dickies, Carhartt and Ben Davis there.

What’s your favorite spot for a cheap meal?

Any Vietnamese restaurant—and I do mean amy! Seriously, how can you make such a rockin’ sandwich for $3? it boggles the mind.

What’s the best thing about living in Silicon Valley?

It’s close to everything: 30 minutes from the beach, 40 minutes from SF and three hours from serious mountains.

Where’s the best place in SJ to go relax?

The back room at Trials pub. It’s low key and there’s a fireplace. How much more relaxing can you get?

Where’s the best place to see a show in San Jose?

Believe it or not, it’s the X Bar at the Homestead Lanes in Cupertino! Hands down. But then you say: “Hey, that’s not in San Jose, proper” …and to that, I say “Suck it Trebek!”

What’s San Jose’s best kept secret?

That damn orange sauce.

Other surf bands tell the Gillbillies they’re really a rockabilly band. But rockabilly bands tell them they’re really a surf band. “I guess neither camp wants to claim us,” says guitarist Jimbo Borkowitz.

They call themselves outlaw-surf and look like they’d feel at home in a rowdy biker bar. With cowboy hats, leather jackets and two-thirds of the band sporting ZZ-Top-beards, Borkowitz notes, “We look more like hillbillies than surfers.”

But the beards and cowboy hats aren’t an act—it’s how they dress offstage, as well. Even stranger is where the members all grew up—in gunfighter towns like Cheyenne, Wyo. (Borkowitz), Nevada City, Nev. (bass player Nick Kavros) and Yuma, Ariz. (Brad Hunton).
“It sort of fell in place. We didn’t add up the whole ‘Where we all come from’ thing when the Gillbillies came together. It’s funny how it’s all unfolding,” says Kavros.

Their songs are mostly surf and instrumental covers, but what gives them a harder edge than the originals is the Gillbillies’ love for ’70s power-trios, particularly their love of ’70s hard rock guitars, like the Les Pauls and Flying Vs. Traditionally surf is played on Fender Stratocaster, which gives the guitar that legendary Dick Dale tone.

“No one’s ever played a Les Paul in surf, let alone a Flying V,” Borkowitz says. The bass and drums match the edgier guitar tone by giving the songs the power and volume of early heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Black Sabbath.

While the whole outlaw-surf theme initially developed organically, the members have fun with it and continue to add new details to it to make it more complete. For instance, they decorate the stage with cow skulls and other old West imagery.

These elements come help fulfill what the Gillbillies feel like is their primary role at clubs—being entertainers. To them that means a whole lot more than just playing good music.

“We want to put on a show as much as we can, something that people will talk about and remember no matter how many beers they’ve had,” Borkowitz says. “As far as I’m concerned, the performance part begins as soon as we get out of the car in front of the venue.”

Borkowitz, who studied graphic design in college, understood that in order to really solidify their theme, they’d need a logo, so he designed one that plainly summarized what they were all about: a skull with a long beard and a cowboy hat. It also fit his image for the perfect Gillbillies T-shirt, especially after thinking back to rock shirts he always liked.

“What’s the most successful rock & roll shirt of all time? The Misfits. Everybody’s probably owned one of those shirts because it’s a cool image,” Borkowitz says.

In fact, the Gillbillies shirt is only their image. They left their name off because they think it’s actually better publicity for them that way.

“When people see a shirt without a name, anybody that comes up to them, they have to explain the shirt to them. Now they’re talking about the Gillbillies,” Kavros says.

Their take on surf may be different than most other surf bands, even compared to all the subgenres of surf that already exist like space-rock and spy-rock. This difference comes from who their biggest influence is, an instrumentalist that came along before the terms surf was ever coined—Link Ray.

“He was pre-surf. He had that aggressive raw energy, that kind of outlaw thing. We are more influenced by Link Ray than Dick Dale or the Ventures or any of those surf bands,” Borkowitz says.

Their biker attitude and classic rock execution is just a natural extension of what Ray was doing as early as 1958 with his instrumental classic “Rumble.”

“He started metal, punk and all of it. It all sprung from there,” Hunton says.

Gillbillies
Friday; 9pm; free
The Caravan, San Jose