Raise your hand if you’ve never been in a ska band.

I don’t see many hands up. That’s because most of us have been in a ska band at one point in our lives. And no matter how big (or small) that band was, it was really important. To you, at least.

My band, Flat Planet, went on three DIY tours, released 2 demo tapes, and recorded a full-length album that was never released. If you’re not from Gilroy, California, and you happened to have heard of us, then you likely heard our song “Mr. Goodbuddy” on the Misfits of Ska II compilation, or maybe you heard the couple of songs we contributed to the Bay Area Ska compilation.

Even though we never had a large fan base, the couple of years I played drums in Flat Planet, were some of the most important years of my life. I even met my wife on our second tour. I devoted a couple of chapters in my book “In Defense of Ska” strictly to telling Flat Planet stories. (It’s my book, I can do what I want!)

In this, the first episode of my In Defense of Ska podcast, I chat with fellow Gilroy musician and longtime friend Adam Davis about Flat Planet. He was in the band for only a short period, but he was a fan and a friend during our early years. After the band, he went on to play to larger audiences as the guitarist for Link 80.

In the coming weeks, Adam and I will interview people from the ska scene. But for this episode, we thought we’d start by just chatting, only the two of us, about Gilroy’s great one-and-only ska band, Flat Planet.

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

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