When it comes to ska punk, Bay Area musician Adam Davis knows a thing or two.
Along with briefly playing in the ’90s ska punk band Flat Planet, he also played guitar from 1997 to 2002 in the legendary Link 80 and currently co-hosts the In Defense of Ska podcast with fellow ex-Flat Planet drummer Aaron Carnes, the East Bay Express calendar editor. As if those credentials aren’t enough to command some circle-pit skankin,’ he’s also the singer for Omnigone—the self-proclaimed “ska punk [band] that leans heavily into hardcore” that just released their third full-length album, Feral, on Bad Time Records in July.
Despite the album already being out for a month, the band toured the U.K. shortly after its release and wasn’t able to schedule a celebratory hometown show. Yet all that changes on Sept. 2 when they’re joined by fellow Bay Area ska punks the Hellas; Osaka, Japan’s, Hey Smith; and the renowned, four-decade-running “ska punk for pochos”—assimilated Mexican-American kids who don’t speak fluent Spanish—Voodoo Glow Skulls.
“We’re pretty excited because this is the first time doing a record release show while it’s already been out,” he says. “Our first show ever as a band was also a record release for our first album, No Faith. We played it the same day the record came out, so going into it nobody knew what to expect.”
Yet when it comes to Omnigone, the unforeseen element is part of the fun.
Unlike their first two albums, 2019’s No Faith and 2023’s Against the Rest, Feral has no horns. To the uninitiated in the ska-punk realm, this might seem like a major faux pas. However, it’s actually more in line with the roots of the genre, a conscious decision by a band that doesn’t actually have a consistent line-up. Instead, the band has a rotating cast of characters—with Davis and bassist Barry Krippene, who was also in Link 80, as the two consistent members—but frequently features Russ “Ike” Wood (a.k.a. Eichlers) and Nick Tournie (Noise Complaint) on guitars, and Brent Friedman (also in We Are The Union) on drums.
“When I decided to start the band I knew it was going to be this modular band,” he explains. “I wanted it to be this thing where it’s ever shifting, ever changing. We can include whoever’s available but it’s never tied to any group of people.”
Hence the band name.
An omnigone is a theoretical shape with an infinite number of sides, taken from Latitude, a fake secret society created by the art group Nonchalance after the end of their San Francisco-based alternate reality game, the JeJune Institute. It’s a model that allows the band to constantly change musicians and styles.
“I don’t want to be doing one thing for 30 minutes straight, I like being able to mix it up,” Davis says.
He was involved in the JeJune Institute game—which had participants traveling around Fog City searching for clues and videos hidden in buildings, the Mission District, Union Square and Coit Tower—to help a fictitious group of rebels dismantle a power-corrupt cabal. It’s where he met his friend, Kiyomi Tanouye, who was featured in the 2013 documentary about the game, The Institute.
Tragically, Tanouye was one of the 36 people killed in the 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire, the deadliest fire in Oakland’s 172-year history. Her death, along with the 1997 suicide of Link 80 singer Nick Traina, inspired the single “Grief” off Omnigone’s new album. It’s a song about living with the pain of losing loved ones years after they’re gone.
In the video for “Grief,” Davis visits the graves of both Tanouye and Traina. The filming occurred, in a stroke of cosmic coincidence, on the latter’s birthday. The song also features two samples of Traina’s voice taken from the original master tapes of Link 80’s debut album, 17 Reasons, which Davis acquired when the recording studio that held them went under.
“At the end of the song there’s one buried in the mix where he says, ‘Uh, three and three quarters stars’ that I recontextualized to poke fun at us like he’s saying ‘Yeah, you did a good job I guess,’” Davis says, laughing. He adds, “I wanted it to be a hidden element to the song where it happens right as the song is petering out. It feels like a ghost in the song.”
Davis says that in a way Omnigone is a multiversal variant, the New Order to Link 80’s Joy Division. “We had all these plans with Link 80, but we stopped doing it in 2002,” he says. “But in some alternate timeline, what if we had kept going and continued that band?”
The band’s demise led Davis, Krippene, drummer Joey Bustos and trumpeter-turned-lead-guitarist Aaron Nagel to form emo-by-way-of-hardcore band Desa. That band lasted an additional six years, but by their end in 2008 Davis felt disillusioned with music.
“I felt cheated,” he recalls. “I had spent a huge chunk of my 20s playing music, didn’t get anywhere and was angry. So by the end I wanted to do a band that was the exact opposite of Desa.”
That next project, the mighty GNARBOOTS, an anything-goes band he formed with longtime friend and former Flat Planet conspirator, Aaron Carnes, broke all the rules. They used synths and electronic music to create songs about cats in pajamas, the high-pitched constant ringing of tinnitus and the compelling power of GNARBOOTS. With sermon-like delivery, the band created a cult following at their shows, where they baptized the audience with confetti eggs and screamed blessings in faces before throwing a dance party under a rainbow parachute like a bunch of punk-rock kindergarteners.
It proved an unpredictable spectacle for anyone lucky enough to experience it. However, Davis admits GNARBOOTS also taught him some profound things about life and music.
“Originally it was supposed to get people in venues to feel as disgusted with music as I was,” he says. “But it backfired, and everybody had a lot of fun. It went completely full circle and made me appreciate why I started playing music in the first place: It should be something fun you’re doing with your friends.”
Despite this lesson, when Carnes asked him to co-host In Defense of Ska—a podcast about the music genre based on Carnes’ 2020 nonfiction book of the same title—Davis says he wasn’t initially interested.
“I felt like there were already too many podcasts of two white guys talking,” he says. “But he said, ‘Just try it,’ and I’m really glad I did because it’s been more fun than what I thought it would be. Plus I’ve got to speak with so many inspirational people that I’ve been a huge fan of for years.”
And it’s not just a hit with the hosts, but with fans as well. “Aaron and I always joke In Defense of Ska is GNARBOOTS 2.0,” he says.
Now in its fourth season, In Defense of Ska has 9.4 thousand followers on Facebook, 202 Patreon members and was picked up by the Consequence Podcast Network created by the Consequence of Sound online music publication. Its guests are a who’s-who of ska and punk musicians including Stewart Copeland (the Police), Mike Park (Skankin’ Pickle, Asian Man Records), Laura Jane Grace (Against Me!), Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) and, yes, even Omnigone.
“My hope is that we can eventually cross over and play some of the hardcore shows happening in the Bay,” Davis says. “You can play heavy music and incorporate other elements into it that make it more interesting and fun.”
Omnigone plays Mon, Sept. 2, at 7pm, 924 Gilman St., Berkeley. $20. 510.524.8180.
