Changing Colors
The BellRays' Maximum Rock & Soul
It's unusual to hear a band combine punk rock and soul music. "It wasn't rare in the '60s," Fate says. "Iggy Pop would play gigs with Ike & Tina Turner. It wasn't a big deal then. It is a big deal now because punk has segregated itself so far from what it came from."
"We've never been a part of any scene," Kekaula says. "People have taken it upon themselves to say that we aren't like anything else just on the basis of having a black female singer . . . We couldn't get a gig at Gilman Street [a notoriously P.C. club in Berkeley supposedly run by the kids for the kids] because the booker said, 'We're not really into singers. The only girl vocals we're into are screaming chick vocalists.' And this club is supposed to be the punk alternative! He said, 'You guys are more R&B.' Or there's another one: 'You're bluesy.' Now what does that mean? That means black, that's what that means."
Fate adds, "We get those kinds of comments a lot, and it shows the true colors of the people saying it more than it does us."
"It hasn't kept us down yet," Kekaula says. "If there's a stage, we fit in."
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