Joe Escalante is best known as the bassist for the punk band, The Vandals, and co-owner of Kung Fu Records. Now hell have to add another hyphen to his name, FILM DIRECTOR. Kung Fu Records has released Escalantes latest feature Cake Boy written by and starring Warren Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald plays a frustrated erotic cake baker who finally finds love with a wheelchair bound beauty.
Check out the official site for Cake Boy
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did this movie get started?
Joe Escalante: I came from television. I was a television business affairs executive for four years for CBS. I supervised production of stuff like Walter Texas Ranger and Rescue 911. I made the deals for Everyone Loves Raymond and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Then we had this TV show on this failed internet network called Digital Entertainment Network.
A friend of mine was making a movie, then we were going to put the soundtrack out and then we just ended up funding the movie ourselves. I ended up acting in the movie and learnd how to make one myself. Then my guitar player, Warren, wanted to write a movie. That was basically it.
DRE: I read it took a long time.
JE: Probably about two and a half years.
DRE: How is the band going?
JE: The band is just always moving along. Whatever else is going on outside of the band usually the band just survives and keeps going and plays a world tour every couple of years. Well keep putting out records.
DRE: I was told to ask you about Fear of a Punk Planet.
JE: We had an album called Fear of a Punk Planet and that was the name of our TV series with Digital Entertainment Network. We made seven episodes of Fear of a Punk Planet and then we started the first movie.
DRE: I read the budget of Cake Boy was $29,000.
JE: Yeah $29,000, the first one we did was $20,000 but we spent a lot more on this one with color correction. We learned a lot from the last film. This one was a punk rock idea. We learned from people that they wanted to see more bands play more songs. If youre going to have a punk movie on a punk label you got to have more punk in it. Thats basically what people want. We just made sure we had more performances and involved the band more. So now we have the band No Use for a Name and all the members of the band are actors in the film and are a real important part of the film. Theyre not just making an appearance in the concert scene.
DRE: Since Warren wrote and starred, how much influence did you have on the story?
JE: Warren has written a lot of scripts actually and this is the one that I liked. I did some minor rewriting here and there but nothing that really affected the story, just some dialogue stuff. Its pretty collaborative but Warren and I see eye to eye on just about everything.
DRE: Since you and Warren are partners in Kung Fu Records, how was it distributing the movie?
JE: Its become easier because we learned a lot from distributing our last movie. This time we get to say that its like our last movie, That Darn Punk. The soundtrack to the other one was kind of confusing because people interested in punk dont thumb through the soundtrack section in a store so this time we just gave the soundtrack away with the DVD. If something is hard to sell you kind of have to give it away.
DRE: Did it play in any film festivals?
JE: No we just wanted to put it out. What is a festival going to do except get us a pat on the back. Festivals are designed to get distribution deals for independent filmmakers. If you already own your own distribution system you know theres no upside to submit to festivals. You can get an award and say Oh I won an award from this festival. Punk fans are not going to go to an arthouse theater and watch a movie in significant numbers. What they really want is to get their hands on it. To do the festival route would delay putting it in the hands of the people we made it for.
DRE: Where did you meet all these great comedians?
JE: Through Warren. It started with Scott Aukerman who was a writer for Mr. Show and a really great comedian. That part was written for him. Then Brian Posehns part was written for him. Those guys go to Vandals shows and theyre music fans. We became friends with them and then when Warren was working on a project they would ask him what he was up to. Then Patton Oswalt would go like Hey that sounds like fun. Then Bob Odenkirk would go Hey what about me? Do you think Im too big to be in this movie? I want to have fun too. Then he got in on it and Ive never seen anyone have a better time acting and working than that guy did shooting this one scene. He just kept saying how much fun he was having. He was getting a kick out of me just sitting there with my camera and putting up the microphone myself and hanging out and saying how ghetto it was.
DRE: You had Kyle Gass in Cake Boy but where was Jack Black?
JE: [laughs] Warren wrote that part for Kyle. The movie was populated basically by whoever volunteered. If Jack was busy Jack wasnt going to be in it. If Jack happened to be around than Jack Im sure he would have been in it but Kyle is in everything we do. Kyle worked with us before. He played the fireman in Fear of a Punk Planet. So we all knew each other and he knew it was fun so it was a no-brainer. But yeah that was a good question, where is Jack Black. Thats a good question, where is he?
DRE: What was the toughest scene to shoot?
JE: It was the bathroom scene. We took all day long to shoot that three or four minutes. To me it would be the scene people would remember the most so I wanted to spend the most time on it. Usually we might spend half a day on three minutes but this was all day long. There was a lot of pre-production stuff like diarrhea making and stuff like that.
DRE: I read that the Vandals played in Baghdad this year.
JE: Yeah we did seven shows in Baghdad. We did one show in Kuwait which was probably the most exciting, satisfying tour of The Vandals career.
DRE: How did you set those shows up?
JE: It was kind of weird because we wormed our way in. We were asked and when we said yes there was a long process. There was a lot of different ways you can go there. You can go do one show at an airport where everyone comes to you or you can go to play a bunch of shows at operating bases and thats what we wanted to do.
DRE: Whats the next movie youre working on.
I dont think Im going to make another movie like I made Cake Boy. It takes too much out of me. Warren has a few more scripts. Im just starting to get scripts sent to me. The next one I make has got to be on a normal production schedule. Cake Boy was nights and weekends for two years. I cant do that any more.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site for Cake Boy
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did this movie get started?
Joe Escalante: I came from television. I was a television business affairs executive for four years for CBS. I supervised production of stuff like Walter Texas Ranger and Rescue 911. I made the deals for Everyone Loves Raymond and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Then we had this TV show on this failed internet network called Digital Entertainment Network.
A friend of mine was making a movie, then we were going to put the soundtrack out and then we just ended up funding the movie ourselves. I ended up acting in the movie and learnd how to make one myself. Then my guitar player, Warren, wanted to write a movie. That was basically it.
DRE: I read it took a long time.
JE: Probably about two and a half years.
DRE: How is the band going?
JE: The band is just always moving along. Whatever else is going on outside of the band usually the band just survives and keeps going and plays a world tour every couple of years. Well keep putting out records.
DRE: I was told to ask you about Fear of a Punk Planet.
JE: We had an album called Fear of a Punk Planet and that was the name of our TV series with Digital Entertainment Network. We made seven episodes of Fear of a Punk Planet and then we started the first movie.
DRE: I read the budget of Cake Boy was $29,000.
JE: Yeah $29,000, the first one we did was $20,000 but we spent a lot more on this one with color correction. We learned a lot from the last film. This one was a punk rock idea. We learned from people that they wanted to see more bands play more songs. If youre going to have a punk movie on a punk label you got to have more punk in it. Thats basically what people want. We just made sure we had more performances and involved the band more. So now we have the band No Use for a Name and all the members of the band are actors in the film and are a real important part of the film. Theyre not just making an appearance in the concert scene.
DRE: Since Warren wrote and starred, how much influence did you have on the story?
JE: Warren has written a lot of scripts actually and this is the one that I liked. I did some minor rewriting here and there but nothing that really affected the story, just some dialogue stuff. Its pretty collaborative but Warren and I see eye to eye on just about everything.
DRE: Since you and Warren are partners in Kung Fu Records, how was it distributing the movie?
JE: Its become easier because we learned a lot from distributing our last movie. This time we get to say that its like our last movie, That Darn Punk. The soundtrack to the other one was kind of confusing because people interested in punk dont thumb through the soundtrack section in a store so this time we just gave the soundtrack away with the DVD. If something is hard to sell you kind of have to give it away.
DRE: Did it play in any film festivals?
JE: No we just wanted to put it out. What is a festival going to do except get us a pat on the back. Festivals are designed to get distribution deals for independent filmmakers. If you already own your own distribution system you know theres no upside to submit to festivals. You can get an award and say Oh I won an award from this festival. Punk fans are not going to go to an arthouse theater and watch a movie in significant numbers. What they really want is to get their hands on it. To do the festival route would delay putting it in the hands of the people we made it for.
DRE: Where did you meet all these great comedians?
JE: Through Warren. It started with Scott Aukerman who was a writer for Mr. Show and a really great comedian. That part was written for him. Then Brian Posehns part was written for him. Those guys go to Vandals shows and theyre music fans. We became friends with them and then when Warren was working on a project they would ask him what he was up to. Then Patton Oswalt would go like Hey that sounds like fun. Then Bob Odenkirk would go Hey what about me? Do you think Im too big to be in this movie? I want to have fun too. Then he got in on it and Ive never seen anyone have a better time acting and working than that guy did shooting this one scene. He just kept saying how much fun he was having. He was getting a kick out of me just sitting there with my camera and putting up the microphone myself and hanging out and saying how ghetto it was.
DRE: You had Kyle Gass in Cake Boy but where was Jack Black?
JE: [laughs] Warren wrote that part for Kyle. The movie was populated basically by whoever volunteered. If Jack was busy Jack wasnt going to be in it. If Jack happened to be around than Jack Im sure he would have been in it but Kyle is in everything we do. Kyle worked with us before. He played the fireman in Fear of a Punk Planet. So we all knew each other and he knew it was fun so it was a no-brainer. But yeah that was a good question, where is Jack Black. Thats a good question, where is he?
DRE: What was the toughest scene to shoot?
JE: It was the bathroom scene. We took all day long to shoot that three or four minutes. To me it would be the scene people would remember the most so I wanted to spend the most time on it. Usually we might spend half a day on three minutes but this was all day long. There was a lot of pre-production stuff like diarrhea making and stuff like that.
DRE: I read that the Vandals played in Baghdad this year.
JE: Yeah we did seven shows in Baghdad. We did one show in Kuwait which was probably the most exciting, satisfying tour of The Vandals career.
DRE: How did you set those shows up?
JE: It was kind of weird because we wormed our way in. We were asked and when we said yes there was a long process. There was a lot of different ways you can go there. You can go do one show at an airport where everyone comes to you or you can go to play a bunch of shows at operating bases and thats what we wanted to do.
DRE: Whats the next movie youre working on.
I dont think Im going to make another movie like I made Cake Boy. It takes too much out of me. Warren has a few more scripts. Im just starting to get scripts sent to me. The next one I make has got to be on a normal production schedule. Cake Boy was nights and weekends for two years. I cant do that any more.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
cineman:
I've never heard of this guy but how fucking cool is he?!? Maybe it's because I can relate to a lot of his stuff, and we have, like, 1 degree of separation with a lot of the people we know it seems, but Jesus. Another nice job, DRE. Cheers.
gutter_fly:
Good interview. But to make an unfair, one-sided, statement - based on stories I've heard from friends that know him - he's a shady fuck. Again, I have no proof to back this up... And again, good interview; he seems okay to me based on that alone.