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Right at Home in the California Sky
A Conversation with Scott Russo
February 2, 2025 by Kevin Gomez
Scott Russo is a guy who always likes to stay busy. For the past three decades he’s fronted Southern California’s Unwritten Law, but always filled his downtime with projects working with the likes of Mickey Avalon, Big B, and Cisco Adler. Just before COVID hit, Russo moved to a beach house in Tijuana, Mexico. To keep occupied and also as a break from Unwritten Law, Russo began the side project el Funeral, a supergroup of sorts featuring members of Tijuana No!, The Untouchables, and Los Kung Fu Monkeys.
I spoke with Russo recently about el Funeral, as well as the upcoming sold-out shows at the Observatory North Park in San Diego, playing “The Black Album” (February 7th) and “Elva” (February 8th).
Kevin: When we spoke a few years ago, you were just telling me about the el Funeral demos. You sent me a couple from the band’s SoundCloud and I was really blown away. Now, “demo de seis” has been released. What can you tell me about the band?
Scott: We’ve been sitting on these songs for like five years. We were waiting for a proper recording session, but we decided to just release them after two weeks of finishing up these house demos. It’s super organic, fun, and it’s music that honestly, we all love.
Scott continued: Some of these songs I had written like 20 years ago. We knew we wanted kind of Haunted Mansion reggae, kind of Dick Dale surf guitar. We found this girl named Oxy from Tijuana, from another local band and I just thought, wow, she really fits our sound. Because we all play in other bands, it’s tough to get us together – we do practice every week, but we can’t seem to get a weekend free. (laughs)
Kevin: That was literally my next question. I’ve been waiting two years to come see you guys. Does that mean we’re finally going to get some el Funeral shows in the States?
Scott: We’re not going to play any shows in the US right now, especially with everything going on between United States and Mexico. Work permits have got to really be nailed down right now; otherwise some of these guys might get their visas revoked. We’re going to be doing Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, Guadalajara, Monterey, and Mexico City. And Unwritten Law will be back at the Observatory in Santa Ana around April. We haven’t finalized those details just yet, but we’ll probably be playing either “Elva” or “Self-Titled.”
Kevin: You’ve got two shows next weekend at the Observatory North Park that are already sold out. What are you most excited about? Personally, I can’t believe you got (the recently reunited) Home Grown on the bill.
Scott: I am really excited for Home Grown, that was one of my favorite bands back in the day. I love Buck-O-Nine; we’ve known those guys forever. But, truly, I’m 52 now, and my favorite thing to do is watch my children play music. So, my personal favorite thing about these shows is my daughter Cailin is playing the first night, and my son Tre is playing the second night (with SoundDivision). Being able to play music this late in my life and getting to share a stage with my children is the highlight of my life and career.
Kevin: You’re playing “Elva” in its entirety Saturday – the album features a few random soliloquies from Raleigh who was made famous from Sublime’s early albums. Did you guys ever meet Raleigh?
Scott: Miguel, who produced the first two Sublime records, came on to produce “Elva.” Growing up, Sublime was basically my bible. So, when I told him what a huge Sublime fan I was, he told me he had all the Raleigh tapes that Bradley, or someone had found as a janitor at an insane asylum. That’s why the tracks are listed as “Pt. V, Pt. VI,” picking up what Sublime had built.
Kevin: I only recently discovered Josh Freese (of Foo Fighters and Vandals fame) recorded the drums on “Up All Night.” Do you recall why Josh was used instead of Wade?
Scott: Of course I do! (laughs) At the time we were on Interscope and Tom Whalley was the president, and he had heard the demos we did. He said, “’Up All Night’ is the single. I need it recorded in the next three days.” We couldn’t find Wade for three days straight, and I think we had even tracked everything, but the drums and we needed to track that night. Miguel is like, “Let’s call Josh Freese.”
Scott added: I shit you not, Josh listens to the song one time in headphones and takes notes. He plays the song three times so we can have options; he’s in the studio for no more than like 45 minutes. If you notice that intro is a very technically difficult drum intro, and it ended up taking Wade a month or two to learn it.
Thank you Scott Russo for the intel and we look forward to Unwritten Law’s sold out shows at the Observatory North Park.
If you’d like to catch Scott Russo play a solo acoustic shows, he will be joined by Adrian Estrella of Zebrahead at The District in Redlands March 27th, and tickets are going fast.
Do yourself a favor, check out el Funeral’s debut EP, “demo de seis.” It is available for streaming on all major platforms. Any way you slice or dice it, Scott Russo has been very busy. The is very good news for anyone who loves cool music.
See you at the Observatory North Park for two epic shows!
TO FOLLOW
SID 250201 | TRACI TURNER | EDITOR
