The Spiffs reunion show 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18. Copper Blues Desert Ridge, 21001 N. Tatum Blvd., Phoenix. Free. 602-910-5161, copperblueslive.com.
of that phase.”
Enter the Spiffs, who took the stage in garbage bags. “The guys in the dressing room go, ‘We can’t wear this (expletive), man. We’re gonna get the (expletive) kicked out of us.’ I go ‘C’mon!’ And they go, ‘Alright, but don’t play our punkiest stuff first.’”
So De Jongh walked out and launched immediately into “Kill You,” their punkiest number.
“People were allowed to bring in Igloos with sandwiches and stuff, and after two songs, people started throwing ice cubes at us,” De Jongh says.
“After a few songs of this, I got sick of it. I stopped the band right in the middle of a song. And I said, ‘You guys are making yourselves look like (expletives). If you’re gonna throw (expletives) at me, at least hit me.”
That’s when people started throwing sandwiches and even more ice, inspiring De Jongh to flip them off.
“A fight breaks out,” he says. “That’s when they turned the power off. True story. It was fun.”
By 1981, the Spiffs had broken up.
Since hooking up with Fervor Records, which specializes in licensing material to TV shows and movies, the Spiffs had their music used on “Criminal Minds” and “L.A.’s Finest.”
Box of Cherries was more of a rap-metal band
where one of the judges worked for Warner Bros. Records.
“We had three meetings at Warner about producers and things but it ended up that I was too old,” De Jongh says.
“I was in my 40s. The guy at Warner goes, ‘Look, we invest several million dollars. We expect three good albums and a long duration from our bands and we just think you’re too old. We love your songs. We listened to all 12 of them. But I just can’t get it done.’ So that didn’t happen.”
The album Box of Cherries ended up releasing (not on Warner Bros.) ended up getting a fair amount of college airplay.
How Green Day inspired the Einsteins to balance pop and punk
The Einsteins were closer in spirit to the Spiffs than Box of Cherries.
“In 1994 or 1994, when I heard Green Day for the first time, I told the guys ‘Look, I’m cutting my hair. I’m bleaching it blond. I’m writing a power-pop-punk record right now. You’re either with me or not,’” he recalls. “The next day, the bass player, who had long black hair down to his (expletive), comes in with a green mohawk.”
De Jongh spent a year and a half in Nashville working on an Einsteins record that got shelved before changing direction again with the Bob Band.
“I said ‘OK, (expletive) this. I’m too old.’ So I started playing casinos. I put together a bubblegum band that played every bubblegum song that no band would dare play. ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy.’ ‘Chewy Chewy.’ ‘Hanky Panky.’ Every Monkees hit. Dave Clark Five. Herman’s Hermits. We were a hit. We played every casino in town like magic.”
That led to eight years on the cruise ships from 2003-2011.
“I didn’t even have a place to stay on land,” he says. “I’d be off a ship for two weeks. ‘Hey can I sleep on your couch?’”
In recent years, he’s been doing a musical bingo game on Wednesday nights at Casey Jones Grill in Phoenix called Songo.
But he’s looking forward to spending a Sunday reliving the memories of his chainsaw-wielding youth.
“People have been asking me to play again,” he says. “So I figured I would do one more.”