Courtesy Reverend Guitars
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Mike Watt has discovered the fountain of youth. It’s not some secret garden nectar, but a lifelong love affair with music.
The 68-year-old bassist, best known as one of the co-founders of the California punk trio Minutemen, has been at it for nearly fifty years now and shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, he’s as prolific as ever. When Westword catches up with him, Watt is just starting his day, which includes an interview for his long-running web-radio series The Watt from Pedro Show, mid-morning band practice with project the Missingmen, and two gigs — one in Long Beach and one in Hollywood.
“Punk rock keeps you young,” he says from his San Pedro perch. “One of the things is the idea that it’s not really a genre, or if it’s a genre, it’s a genre against all genres.”
Watt points to a quote from his best friend and bandmate, the late D. Boon: “Punk is whatever we made it to be.”
And for Watt, he’s made it his life. After breaking into the burgeoning scene during the late 1970s with Minutemen, he went on to start influential independent record label New Alliance Records with D. Boon, play with the Stooges and fIREHOSE, and spearhead his own “solo” groups the Secondmen and Minutemen. Not to mention the hundreds, at this point, collaborations he’s been a part of over the last five decades.
“Some people just got to play,” Watt says. “I got into this to be with my friend, I lost him, but there’s something else. Part of it is community, that thing I had with him. It’s different, but it’s beyond just me and my artistic expression. It is connecting with people.”
Watt formed the Missingmen twenty years ago, as part of what he calls his “third opera,” by recruiting a pair of Pedro scene vets — guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales.
Courtesy UCLA Library Special Collections
“Raul Morales was part of this scene in the ’90s in Pedro. I was torn so much. I didn’t know what was going on in my own town, because ’70s punk rock in Pedro was just us. But by the ’90s there was a whole fucking thing,” he explains. “There were dudes moving in from other towns. I wanted one guy from the newer Pedro and one from the older days. Those connections still mean a lot to me at 68 years old. They’re just foundational things.”
Just like making music is. Though nothing’s been officially announced, he hints at a new Missingmen record and plans for a subsequent tour, whenever it’s ready to roll out. But until then, Watt, Morales and Watson are playing out in preparation. The trio will be in Denver for a two-night HQ residency on Thursday, May 7, and Friday, May 8. Slim and Maria de Cessna are providing support the first night, while Būddies (Jon Snodgrass, Bill Stevenson and Jeremy Bergo) plays on the second. Speaking of connections, Watt put out the first Descendents record, Milo Goes to College (1982), for Stevenson & Co. on New Alliance.
Watt, whether it’s through his show or various musical endeavors, believes it’s still his duty, his calling, to pay forward what alternative DIY music gave to him, so he’s not going to stop spreading the word anytime soon, he affirms.
“I have to pay back on the debt I feel I owe the movement. I should let other cats be heard. In a way, I’m kind of a debtor to the movement and trying to pay back on it,” Watt concludes.
“And I got no plans to quit touring or doing gigs.”
Mike Watt and the Missingmen, with Slim and Maria de Cessna and Būddies, 9 p.m. Thursday, May 7, and Friday, May 8, HQ, 60 South Broadway. Tickets are $27.
