Fat (EP) - Background

Background

The Descendents formed in late 1978 with an initial recording lineup of guitarist Frank Navetta, bassist Tony Lombardo, and drummer Bill Stevenson. This trio released the band's 1979 debut single "Ride the Wild" / "It's a Hectic World", with a sound that blended Devo-like New Wave and Dick Dale-style surf. Lacking a lead singer, Navetta and Lombardo provided vocals on the single. After a six-month trial with a female singer, they recruited Milo Aukerman as their new vocalist. The addition of Aukerman and the consumption of large amounts of coffee led the band to write shorter, faster, and more aggressive songs in a hardcore punk style. Stevenson attributed the change partly to the band's invention of the "Bonus Cup": "We took ⅓ of a cup of instant coffee grounds, added some hot water, threw in about 5 spoonfuls of sugar, and proceeded to play 10 second songs. The Bonus Cup became a part of everyday Descendents life." Aukerman later recalled: "We started drinking too much coffee; 'cause of that and the addition of me, the music became very quick and all about bursts of energy. It's interesting: we started very melodic, then moved to hardcore, but melded the two at a certain point and became melodic hardcore."

Another factor influencing the band's style was the concept of "All", invented by Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion during a late-night fishing trip on Stevenson's boat, the Orca. According to Aukerman: "While drinking all this coffee in the midst of catching mackerel they came up with the concept of All — doing the utmost, achieving the utmost. The more they got into it the more it turned into their own religion; it's partly humor, but it's also an outlook on how to conduct your life: to not settle for some, to always go for All." Stevenson described the concept of "All" as "the total extent" and recalled that "The quest for All became the main catalyst of the band, and we adopted this omni-ambitious way of life, for better and for better." He and McCuistion quickly wrote several very short songs that would later be recorded by the Descendents:

Pat insisted that we quit writing "stupid girl songs", and start writing about things that really matter -- like food and fishing. So he and I wrote "Weinerschnitzel", "All", and "No! All!" in a fit of Allular frustration. The songs were only seconds long, but that was all the time we needed to make the point. We temporarily put aside all of our so-called "girl songs" and recorded the Fat EP. This is the only record we ever made without a single love song on it.

Of these songs, "Weinerschnitzel" was used on the Fat EP while "All" and "No, All!" were later recorded for the 1987 album All.