Fishbone Frontman Pleased With Group's Legacy

For Fishbone founder and frontman Angelo Moore, assembling footage for 'Everyday Sunshine,' a new documentary chronicling his band's 30-year history, proved a strange and spooky experience.

"It took me a while to get over looking back at all of that stuff that happened," Moore tells Spinner. "It's kind of hard. It's like looking at a ghost. You leave the door open for a ghost to come in."

As the film, due out this spring, will attest, Fishbone's story is among the more unique in alt-rock history. Formed in South Central Los Angeles in 1979, the group made its debut six years later with a groundbreaking self-titled EP, a collection that fused funky punk and ska with cockeyed social commentary.

If the music was rooted in the 2 Tone ska of the English Beat, with whom Fishbone will tour this month, it sounded like nothing that had come before. Such songs as 'Ugly' and 'Party at Ground Zero' set the template for what would become known as "third wave" ska, although Fishbone had little interest in remaining a genre band. After that original EP, Moore and company pursued a wilier, more ambition sound, incorporating elements of funk, soul, metal, jazz and hip-hop, sometimes in the course of a single song.

In the decade that followed, Fishbone released several high-profile albums, toured with the Beastie Boys, performed on 'Saturday Night Live' and even appeared with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in 1987's 'Back to the Beach,' a send-up of '60s beach movies. The band built a cult following, earning the respect of its peers but never the kind of commercial success that groups like No Doubt and Sublime -- both Fishbone disciples -- would enjoy.

While Moore has his share of regrets, he says he's ultimately satisfied with Fishbone's legacy.

"Well, yeah, man, a whole lot of stuff I wish I would have done differently, but that's all in the past," he says. "The record company, even your band members, can do you wrong. But that's all growing up and learning about the different people that are around you, as close or as far away as they may be."

"It is what it is," he adds. "I'm alive, ain't I? I got a roof over my head. I got food in my stomach. I get to see my daughter. I got a place to live. My mom is still living. Dad's still around, and so is my sister. A lot of s--- I wish wouldn't have happened happened, and a lot of stuff you wish had happened didn't happen. I get to play music and do my art and make a living, and people appreciate my music. People are happy to listen. You can live by it. I'm thankful for that."