Two Fish Wearing One Pair of Pants: A Conversation with Fake Problems’ Casey Lee

You might be familiar with Casey Lee. After all, he does play guitar in Fake Problems, a band which Tiffiny and I widely proclaim as our favorite. Back in April, Casey released a solo EP called Comroms, with along with a note:

The songs are in no particular order since this was never recorded or meant to be any kind of record. The recordings of these songs are how they sounded exactly then. It was never meant to be a single piece of art and most certainly was never meant to be finalized or set in stone in any sense. These songs will change along with everything else. I put them all together because it seemed easier to be able to download them all at once (duh).

You should download it, if you haven’t yet.

Over the past couple of years worth of shows and hangs, we’ve come to consider the guys in Fake Problems our friends, so this is much less an interview than it is a conversation that I had with Casey Lee over a beer back in June, when he stopped in Tampa during a short solo tour supporting the EP (that isn’t a record). It’s pretty revealing, but Casey Lee tends to wear his heart on his sleeve anyway, and we love him for it.

Tiffiny has been texting some really obnoxious questions for me to ask you for about an hour now.
I’ll answer them all.

I’m going to ask you some of them because she probably doesn’t really expect me to. The first thing she told me to ask you to do is rank the members of Fake Problems from best to worst with four being the worst and one being the best.
Period? Just best to worst?

Period.
People? Oh my god.

Yes, best to worst. Do it.
Chris is number one, Sean is number two, Derek is number three, I’m number four.

Why are you number four?
I’m just probably the worst.

And Derek is number three.
Me and him are in a constant struggle for number four I believe.

Tiffiny wants me to ask about your tattoos. Frank Turner has a matching Texas tattoo, did you get them together?
Yes.

Tell me about the rest of your tattoos.
This (“Nothing’s forever, dude” [photo]) is lyrics from the Bomb the Music Industry record Vacation. Jeff gave us the demos and I just freaked out over it. It’s so amazing.

And the one over here, is that your birthday?
The night I was conceived.

Nice. And what do you have over there on your other arm, anything?
It’s two fish wearing one pair of pants. Really, there’s no significance. I found the picture in a book and my brother’s girlfriend was tattooing at the time in our house and one night I was drunk and I was like, “Give me that tattoo tomorrow!” and then she gave it to me.

I find with tattoos like that no context is best.
Yeah, I have nothing to say about it ever.

What do you have on your hands?
“Be Careful,” and those are Blackfoot Indian symbols.

What’s this one on your bicep?
Oh, this says “the world’s greatest little brother” and there’s a turkey right above it.

Does the turkey have any significance at all?
It’s our county bird in Collier County.

I don’t even know what our county bird is.

Okay, let’s do a quick-fire round. Favorite classic rock song?
Is “Born in the USA” a classic rock song?

Yeah, now it is. I think it’s been long enough. Favorite eighties metal hair band song.
Oh, gee whiz. Skid Row – “Youth Gone Wild”.

Favorite grunge song – from the ’90s grunge era. Any of those bands.
None.

Pick one. Pick the least offensive.
I don’t even know any. All I know is that Nirvana existed. I’m not a grunge fan at all.

So then what’s your favorite classic punk song?
Classic punk song? What’s a classic punk song?

The Ramones, The Clash, and then with the 90s revival you’ve got Rancid…
Actually I was saying how much I think I like Rancid the other day because for so long I was like, “I don’t like Rancid” but then I went, “You know what, I think I like Rancid now.” So yeah, I’ll say “Ruby Soho”.

What’s your favorite rap song?
Hmmm that’s a tough one. I don’t know why and maybe it’s because I feel like it was the first rap song I ever heard, but “Ice Ice Baby”. I remember singing that in preschool by myself. I remember walking around the playground during preschool just being like, [Casey Lee does a surprisingly apt impression of a rapper here] “ice ice baby”.

That makes me feel old.
Yeah, I was in preschool.

Alright, what’s your favorite Justin Bieber song?
The one with the guy that just got in the jet ski accident. You know what I’m talking about? What the fuck is that called?

I don’t know any of his fucking music, man.
I love Justin Bieber. I saw the Justin Bieber movie in the theater.

What did you think of the movie?
It was awesome! Oh, “Eenie Meenie Miney Mo Lover”

Oh god. Okay, what’s your favorite vegetable?
Favorite vegetable?

Yes.
I love squash. Butternut squash. That’s my favorite vegetable.

A line in a song that you wish you’d written.
From the Iron Chic LP, have you heard that?

Yeah.
The song “Bustin’,” the first few lines, “there’s a kind of focus / a subtle art to losing sleep / it takes a certain special kind of person / to make decisions as fucked as these”

That’s a really good line.
Yeah, lately I’ve been like, “That’s fucking awesome”.

Okay, one last Tiffiny question. How did Chris end up throwing the phone at you in your last Fake Problems Highlights & Lowlights video?

It was Chris’s birthday. He threw a couple of things at me and I was like, “You can throw anything you want at me, it’s your birthday. I’ll stand here and you can throw whatever you want,” and I like mentioned the phone. I was like, “You can even throw the phone if you want”. So I was standing there and then everyone started throwing things at me and Sean hit me in the crotch with a CD and that’s when I went down. Then Chris just tossed the phone in the air. I don’t regret it. It’s really funny looking. I think it’s funnier sounding.

A few months ago we were really worried, or I was, I was like, “I don’t think we’re as funny as we used to be. I think we’ve gone downhill. I don’t think we’re funny anymore” and then the last two Highlights and Lowlights I was like, “ok we’re still funny it’s fine”.

The Chapstick thing just looked disgusting, though.
See, there are a bunch of videos. For Chris’s birthday, I ate a bunch of weird things. I ate three birthday candles for his birthday and it’s on video.

I don’t remember seeing all of that.
When that Highlights & Lowlights video came out, I called him and was like, “What the fuck?” I was driving, we were in Tennessee and I was like “Uhh so I noticed that wasn’t in there”. I ate a penny for his birthday. I ate part of a ketchup packet. It’s all on video, but he was just like, “Oh, it wasn’t funny”. And so then I was like – and this was so dumb – “I’ll eat anything”. Once I ate those three things I was like, “I’m fine! I can eat anything!”

That’s disgusting.
I thought I could eat the Chapstick, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get it down. It was way more gross than I thought it was going to be.

Okay, back to the serious questions. When did you get into photography?
Last summer, actually.

What do you use?
A Fuji Instax and a Holga, mostly. I haven’t taken a single picture on this tour, which is disappointing. It’s been super busy.

Who are your musical influences?
I guess Townes Van Zandt’s a huge influence, David Dondero is a gigantic influence, Frank Turner, obviously. Hank Williams to an extent.

Your solo work has a little bit of a country vibe to it, is that something that was conscious or did it just creep in?
No, it was definitely conscious.

Which instruments are you using? I heard a little banjo and… a little pedal steel?
Yeah, pedal steel. That was all just to fill it out.

Do you remember the first time that you were ever on stage?
Well, I was in a hardcore band in high school, but I don’t remember the first show that we did. When I was sixteen, I was living in California and I came back and visited Florida and that was when I was writing acoustic songs. I was in Florida for a week and I opened a Fake Problems show (before I was in the band), and that was the first time that I ever played my songs.

Last time I saw you, we were chatting and you mentioned that you wanted something a little bit different from what you do with Fake Problems, but when did you decide to start the side project?
I hadn’t really written songs seriously in about four years and then for some reason I just started writing songs again. I was like, “Oh, I’ll record a few of these, just demos, then maybe record them as songs” then I was like, “I’m never going to fucking do that”. I’m a pretty lazy person about things like that. If I would’ve done that it would’ve just been another thing that got pushed to the side so I decided to release them and then just go on tour. That’s the only thing I know how to do with music.

Just go on tour with it?
Yeah, I don’t know any crazy, weird promotion things.

The tracks on Comroms are all about heartbreak. Did something specific happen to you?
[laughs] Yeah, I wish I could say no, but there was a girl that I was interested in and she was like… I’d had a huge crush on her for the longest time and I thought she was the most wonderful girl in the world, and then I started hanging out with her and she was just not fun and I was just like, “I don’t like anything about you.”

It’s so disappointing when people turn out to be completely different from who we thought they were.
Yeah, so I feel like half of them were written when I was like, “Oh I like her” and then the other half when I was like, “I don’t like her anymore”.

It’s a little evolutionary type thing. So the song titles, they’re all pop culture references, right? You’re taking the names and twisting them.
They’re all romantic comedies.

They’re all romantic comedies, so you’ve turned them into…
Comedic romances.

One of my favorite tracks on the EP is “Hope Gloats,” in part because it’s just so fucking sad. You open with a line about how you know that you’re never going to be happy. Is that really how you feel?
Yeah, yeah. I was… I mean, obviously, everyone was a pissed off, angry teenager, but even then… Also, I was put on antidepressants when I was that age, and I think it really fucked me up to be that young and have someone who’s older and an adult telling me “You’re really sad and you need to take pills because you’re so sad”.

Casey Lee – Hope Gloats

And I think that was probably not as heavy a realization then as it is now, thinking, “It’s fucked up to do that to a kid” like, “You need to go to therapy and take pills because you’re so sad” at fifteen years old. Doesn’t everyone get sad?

So, obviously, you feel like that’s impacted you. Are you 25, 24?
24

Is it something that you still deal with now?
Yeah, that’s also another thing. When I was really young, I quit taking those and I decided, “I don’t need to do this. I can deal with this on my own,” you know. And obviously, if I’m just a miserable person, I’m a miserable person. There’s nothing you can do about that.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, you’re just wired to be a bit more low key. You’re down and not always up and not everyone’s like that.
Obviously, I know how to have a good time. I have a lot of fun. But if I’m just sitting around by myself, that’s when I start thinking “Everything sucks”. When I have something to occupy my time, I don’t think about how terrible the whole world is and…

Which, let’s be honest, it is. It’s fucked up.
Yeah.

Which song that you’ve written are you most proud of?
That’s hard to say. Maybe that one, “Hope Gloats”. Part of that song is about my cousin who died this past winter, too. And that that affected me a lot too this year because she was really young and we were really close and it was just another fucking shitty thing. I guess I sort of wrote that song for her, too.

What are your future plans for your side project? Are you recording an album?
I’m definitely going to record an album. I have some other new songs finished, and I have a couple more that I’m still working on.

When did you start playing the guitar?
When I was 14, sort of, but not seriously until I was 16 or 17.

Did you ever have any lessons or are you self taught?
There was this guy who lived across the street from my parents. He played guitar and just taught me all the chords. He wanted to keep giving me lessons but I was like, “Don’t worry about it, I can handle it”.

You have a record label called Good Friends Records, right?
Yeah, it’s me, my brother, and Derek.

When did you start that?
Three or four years ago I think.

You started a lot of this when you were still a teenager and now you have a record label and you’re in a successful punk band and you have this solo acoustic project. How are you coping with everything?
It could be like “Yeah, my band’s been on tour for six years and I’m only fucking 24, that’s so long,” but I don’t know, it’s nice to be this young and know how things in the music world work and not be surprised by anything. If I’d have gone to college first, I probably would have just graduated… That’s obviously not an easy thing to do. I know people who went to college and then started touring. It’s gotta be a lot shittier than just leaving high school and then going on tour.

What would you be doing right now if you weren’t making music?
I have no idea.

You never thought of doing anything else?
I don’t know, probably working in a restaurant or something or working on a boat in Naples.

Do you think you’ll stay in Naples?
No.

Where do you think you’ll go?
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and it’s weird because the last time I was there, I was like, “I don’t want to be here at all.” Going home and seeing nobody doing anything is just like… I’d rather be somewhere where people are doing things and trying to accomplish things instead of working paycheck to paycheck and going out and getting drunk. There are not a lot of creative people there.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?
I thought about that the other day, actually, where I want to be in five years. I was like “oh I’ll be completely content if I’m still like driving around playing shows to fifteen people when I’m almost thirty. That’s fine.” And then I was like, “Well what about thirty five?” and I thought, “I don’t know”.

But I don’t see myself doing anything different. I might care a little more if no one’s watching or listening when I’m thirty five. I’ve accepted that I can go until I’m thirty and still play house shows to five drunk idiots and feel like, “that’s fine, I don’t care” but I still haven’t decided if I’ll be okay with it when I’m thirty five.

Well that gives you a little room to grow.
Yeah. Probably when I turned twenty I thought, “Oh I’ll just go until I’m twenty five” and then after that I’ll hope for something more.