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“I like beer, bikes and my model trains,” declares Beer Can Bob Schuster. He also likes music–hence his role as frontman and bassist for Beer Can Bob and the Stampede–but as he blows the foam off a cold one at his home in Boulder’s San Lazaro Trailer Park (where he runs a motorcycle-repair business), it’s clear that his nickname wasn’t chosen at random. His unquenchable desire for brew makes cartoon patriarch Homer Simpson seem like a teetotaler by comparison.
Schuster got his first experience with booze, Harleys and rock and roll while growing up in Miami. “My early teen years–well, when I wasn’t in trouble with the law, I was on the beach with all the drunks,” he notes. “When I wasn’t greasy, I was out on the beach in my shorts playing guitar.”
Such behavior didn’t amuse Schuster’s folks. In 1986, he recalls, “my parents kicked me out of the house. So I just got on the turnpike and started hitching. When I got to Denver, I heard, ‘You’ve got to go to Boulder. It’s real cool, man–lots of drugs, lots of women, lots of crash pads.'”
That was all Schuster needed to hear. Before long, he was ensconced at the trailer park where he still resides. He made his living fixing up motorcycles and split his off-hours between drinking and hanging out with rhythm guitarist Eric Howard, now a Stampede mainstay. “I graduated from music school around the time I met Bob,” Howard explains. “That’s why I think Bob and I work so well together. I’ve got more formal training, and he grew up as a street musician.”
Schuster’s take on the subject? “He went to Penn State, and I went to the state pen.”
Together the duo put together the songs that even today form the backbone of the Stampede’s repertoire. According to Howard, most of them have to do with life at San Lazaro: “People who live in mobile homes, all they really do is drink; they can’t afford to do anything else. We just sit around, play music and drink.”
Together with lead guitarist Dave “The Rager” Rage and drummer Fred Hobbs, Schuster and Howard conceived a sound–loud, straight-ahead, Coors-commercial rock–that reflected their lifestyle. “Our latest song is about gasoline,” Schuster reveals. “You’ll never see any ‘I love you, baby’ crap in our lyrics. Our songs are about real life: getting fired, getting DUIs and filling up at a gas station.
“I got so tired of people looking at my greasy clothes–and I’m not going to change into clean stuff every time I have to go to McGuckin’s, you know?–that I purposely wrote some songs to be gross as hell,” he continues. “Okay, yeah, I’m a little dirtier than most people. So what?”
After developing their style, Schuster and his buddies still lacked something: a name for their band. This shortcoming was solved by Sean Kelly, lead singer of the Samples–but the manner in which the handle was bestowed takes some telling.
“Boulder Bike Works called me and said some band wanted to talk to me,” Schuster recounts. “Sure enough, Sean gets on the phone and says, ‘Oh, I just want my bike fixed.’ Later, while I was dipping his carburetor outside, I came into the trailer and played my guitar some. He didn’t know I was a musician, because he hadn’t looked in my house. But one thing led to another–I think we had a few drinks–and finally one day he said, ‘Do you want to open for us at Tulagi’s?’ And I said, ‘Sure.'”
The show went well, at least from Schuster’s perspective. As he tells it, he agreed to play for drinks but cleverly declined to set a limit on how many he and his fellows would consume. By the time they were sated, the bar resembled a war zone. “The owner was like, ‘Goddamn it. Next time I’ll just pay you guys cash, and maybe I can make some money,'” Schuster says, smiling proudly. “He learned.”
The Samples had not, however. The players stayed in touch with Schuster and subsequently asked the combo to appear with them at a Boulder Theater date that also featured Firefall. When they arrived at the venue, the Samples’ manager pitched a fit, in part because Schuster’s outfit was between monikers at the time. “He was telling Sean, ‘These guys can’t open up for you. They don’t even have a name,'” Howard notes. “So Sean looked over at Bob and said, ‘Yeah, they do. He’s Beer Can Bob.’ And of course, Bob had a beer in his hand–just like he always does.”
This appellation apparently satisfied the manager: Beer Can Bob and his boys were allowed to play. But an incident that followed ensured that it would be their last gig with the Samples.
“Firefall and the Samples each got a free tub of beer in their dressing room, but we didn’t get any,” Schuster grouses. “After a while of complaining–and you could hear me up and down the halls–finally a guy from Firefall came over with their beer and said, ‘Here, we don’t want to hear you anymore.’
“Now, our band is famous for drinking beer,” he understates. “And we cleaned that tub out pretty quick. I started complaining again, so Al [Laughlin, the Samples’ keyboardist] came by and said to follow him. We went through all these secret rooms, and right behind a bunch of equipment trunks were two cases of beer, nice and cold. So while they were up on stage, me and our keyboard player started hitting their cases of beer.”
Laughlin, though, had badly miscalculated Schuster’s thirst.
“At the end of the show, the Samples were all going, ‘Well, let’s go get that beer we stashed,'” Schuster reports. “But there were just two cases of empty bottles sitting there. Next thing you know, I had all the Samples at my door going, ‘Where’s our friggin’ beer? I hope you got money to cover it!’ I gave them ten bucks and said, ‘I hope this’ll work for two cases of Bud Longnecks.’ But needless to say, that was our last adventure with the Samples. They don’t even bring their bikes here anymore.”
Since this brush with the big time, Beer Can Bob and the Stampede have maintained a lower profile, dishing out tales of white-trash woe in the type of Boulder nightspots where feverish liquor consumption is seen as a charming attribute. But Schuster doesn’t mind. He was never that interested in stardom in the first place. He’s happier simply hanging out at his trailer, fiddling with engines and downing the occasional gallon or five of ale. And if anyone wants to hire the Stampede, he’s up for that as well. In fact, he’s even willing to forgo a standard fee. He promises, “We’ll still play for beer.”
Beer Can Bob and the Stampede. Friday and Saturday, November 22 and 23, the Outback Saloon, 3141 28th Street, free, 444-0081.
