Covering Their Bases The Socialists’ Fernando Rabiela

Cover bands. Say what you will about them, but unlike their more successful and famous counterparts, they’ll always play the hits and won’t be snobby assholes about it. In Covering Their Bases, The A.V. Club asks a cover band to weigh in on a contentious issue regarding the reason for their existence. In this edition, The Socialists’ Fernando Rabiela talks about his South Side family band, which covers everything from The Smiths to LCD Soundsystem. As the dad in the five-piece ensemble, Rabiela talks about family politics, mope rock, and the band’s show this Saturday afternoon at West Fest.

The A.V. Club: Do you ever worry, covering so much Morrissey and Smiths music, about your kids singing so much mope rock?

Fernando Rabiela: Oh, you’re already starting off with a backhanded slap. It’s not so much mope rock. At least, that’s now how I think about it. I think of it as music that’s really touched me and has helped me grow over the years. Morrissey’s a really funny guy if you give him a chance. Most of his interviews—when he’s in a good mood, at least—are really side-splitting if you pay attention to what he’s saying. There’s an upbeat-ness there. I mean, there’s a little mopey-ness, but it’s good stuff. Plus, Johnny Marr as a guitarist is phenomenal. This was influential music in the day!

AVC: You guys cover a lot of high-brow rock, like LCD Soundsystem, but you’ve got little kids in this band. If one of the kids came up to you and said, “Screw Morrissey. We want to do Miley Cyrus songs,” what would happen?

FR: Well, that’s not to say that we don’t do those songs. We’ve done a song by the Naked Brothers Band. I guess this is just what we all grew up listening to collectively. The kids just took to it for some reason. My youngest daughter, when she was three or four, could belt out entire Morrissey songs. Granted, it’s what was being played in the home, but we’ve continued to go on and expand to other avenues of music.

AVC: Where did the name The Socialists come from?

FR: It’s our philosophy as a band. There is no leader of The Socialists. We’re all equal members, and it’s a philosophy of life we’re passing on to our kids. They take turns singing, drumming, and playing guitar. We’re trying to all be rounded-out musicians, and so that’s another reason the name kind of stuck out for us.

AVC: Do you ever worry you’re tackling material too dark for the kids in the group?

FR I try and stick to the better numbers, but my kids know all the good swear words. We just encourage them to go another way. There are a bunch of different ways you can express yourself with the English language, and language in general, really.

AVC: Have you had any big band blow-ups or members quit?

FR: We’ve all tried to quit, and some of us have been kicked out of the band. These are normal struggles of every band, you know, but this is just a way for us to spend time together. We try and keep it fun. It’s not a thing where we’re always arguing all the time. There’s no point in doing that.

We’re encouraging the kids to stick with music, and it’s not always Morrissey and The Smiths. Our oldest, for example, is not a fan. She tends to go the way of Paramore and a few other more mainstream bands. There’s nothing wrong with that, though. I just want to encourage them to play music, listen to music, and have it in their lives.

AVC: Paramore likes Morrissey a lot, right?

FR: That’s not enough for her. I mean, she’s just not a fan. She still likes the music because it’s the music of her youth. She’s only 14, but she’s got a soft spot in her heart for those songs. She has lots of memories of her as a child with the music in the background.

My other kids, though—my son and two youngest daughters—all of our iPods are basically interchangeable. We could listen to each others music all the time and it doesn’t matter whose it is. It’s all the same music.

AVC: How often do you practice?

FR: It’s usually more hectic when we have a show coming up. The week before a show, we’re practicing every day. We usually play the set list all the way through, so that takes an hour or an hour and a half around the show.

After the show, though, we get very lax. We don’t practice for at least a month after. I’m not really a slave driver and stuff. We take a break, and then we poke around with new songs we might want to add. So, we practice from no times a month to once a week to every day. We try to get one in every week or two, though.

AVC: So any band member can suggest any song? Paramore?

FR: That’s fine. I don’t have an issue with anything. We play some Joy Division songs. I don’t mind playing any music from any artist, as long as we can figure it out, which is always the hard part. We can all read music, but we try and figure it out by ear, and that’s sometimes too difficult. We’ve been trying to get a song from The Rapture in the playlist, but for some reason, it just never materializes.

I mean, I’d have no issue with playing Paramore, as long as the rest of the group likes it and we can figure it out. We try to have arrangements where we can get up to five people playing with no issues. I just want to keep everyone in the band interested. That’s the way it usually works.

We try not to make the band too Smiths- or Morrissey-heavy. We do maybe three or four songs in a 16-song set list. Then we do Joy Division, New Order, and some modern stuff. We just put some LCD Soundsystem in the set, which is a family favorite. We do “All My Friends,” and it’s awesome.

We try different things, like sometimes someone sings one song and we say, “Oh, this person might be a better fit.” Or someone can bring a song to a table, and we’ll all consider it, and then we’ll just say, “Oh, I’ve got drums,” or “I’ve got guitar.” We try to see who responds well to basic instruments.

AVC: How many songs can you guys play now?

FR: We’re up to 18 songs.

AVC: What’s your favorite?

FR: My favorite one is definitely “All My Friends.” I love LCD Soundsystem. I like that they went out on top. We learned “All My Friends” for our last concert, which was the day of their last show at Madison Square Garden.

AVC: What’s coming up for you guys?

FR: We’re working on an original song. We’re writing our own music, and that’s the goal for our music right now—to teach ourselves how to play by playing our favorite songs, but then go write our own stuff.

For me, I’d love to be better on guitar. I’d like to play some of Johnny Marr’s harder stuff, like “This Charming Man.” I don’t want to just be a Smiths cover band, though. That’s not anything against Smiths or Morrissey cover bands; there are some great cover bands out there in general, and they’re encouraging to our kids, but I think really, I just want them to learn that just because they’re kids, it doesn’t mean they don’t have something good to say.