What's Up! Magazine

KARP Lives. Circa high school. Courtesy Image.

KARP Lives

KARP Lives

Back in 1998, when What’s Up! had just started publishing, a new band called Federation X came down to our offices to drop off a demo tape (back then, we had an office and bands had tapes). I knew Ben Wildenhaus, his brother had been my neighbor, but it was my first time meeting Bill Badgley and Beau Boyd. We had just started this magazine and this band, a band that would go on to be one of the best to come out of Bellingham, was dropping off a tape. It made us feel legit, like the publication actually mattered. It’s fitting that Fed X would be the first band to drop off a tape as they would play a huge part in the town over the next seven-plus years. So, suffice to say, those three guys have always had a special place with me.

In 2004, Bill moved to NY and the band began their inevitable break up. They still toured, recorded an album and later played some reunion shows (including my birthday show coming up on Nov. 13), but they moved onto new projects. For Bill, his new project became a documentary on the seminal Northwest band, KARP (Kill All Redneck Pricks), called “KARP Lives.”

Bill’s love of the band started after he caught the band in 1994. “KARP’s music was aggressive and fun at the same time and as a young boy growing up during the Riot Grrrl stuff where we wanted to ditch the macho weirdness of metal in the 80′s, KARP was a really awesome opportunity to essentially have your cake and eat it too, meaning that you could wack out on the metal energy and be respectful of the folks around you at the same time.”

In addition to the music, Bill was drawn to the band’s dynamic. “Even as outsider viewing the band at the time it was obvious that there was a real serious friendship within the band and that this friendship was the guiding force behind the whole thing. Seeing the quality of that friendship probably did more to shape my early attitudes about what a band should be more than anything else. I began to feel very strongly that the quality of the band’s dynamic determines the quality of the music inevitably.”

In late 1997, Bill, Ben and Beau started playing music as Federation X and the following year, KARP would call it quits. Four years later, KARP’s bass player Jared Warren and drummer Scott Jernigan got together with Joe Preston to form The Whip. The following year, Scott was tragically killed in a boating accident. “It was such a devastating event that seemed yet another sad chapter to the overall story of the friendships within KARP.”

Bill added, “Even to an outside viewer Scott’s passing was just so tragic that it seemed baffling that a band and ultimately a friendship that had provided so much carefree joy through music should be so beset by tragedy.”

There was an important story there, but Bill couldn’t wrap his head around it in terms of a film.

That changed in 2006 while on a ferry in New York with Ben and Beau guys who had also grown up with the music and friendship of KARP. It was there that Bill found out Jared, who had been playing in Big Business with Coady Willis, had joined the Melvins (along with Coady). “When I heard that, it was all sewn up for me, I knew from then on that there should and would be a film. The KARP story up until then had been so full of tragedy that this piece of excellent news was all I needed to realize that the story of KARP had been oddly completed and that love and a beautiful fate had surrounded some really devastating events.”

In 2007, Bill began filming without any idea of how to make a documentary. By the fall of 2007, he got a job working in a small production office in Brooklyn that made documentaries so he could learn all aspects of the film industry. Over the next two years, Bill learned while also filming the documentary when he could make it back to the West Coast for some of the interviews (many of those interviewed now live in the Northeast). Bill interviewed 67 people in total with each interview running one to two hours long. He left the job to begin the initial edit of the documentary which took eight months and to also work on festival submissions.

While Bill has done the vast majority of the work on the film, he received help from his sister Brooke as well as Todd Dienes who “provided a lion’s share of the transcription work (part of the editing process).” Other people included Nick Cearlock, who worked with social media, web help from John Devoy, and camera assistance from Dahlia Kozlowsky, Rachel Bowers, and Hagan Hinshaw.

The documentary goes through the band’s history from their inception at Tumwater High School, playing in a shed, to their break up in 1998 as well as the impacts of Scott’s death. Throughout, he examines the music and the dynamic that drew him to the band back in 1994 as well as the tragedy they’ve suffered. “Yes definitely, the film follows the members of KARP until present times so of course it is included. Scott’s death had an incredible impact on them both, their relationship was so elemental and formative it would be impossible for it not to. I know for Jared, based on things he’s told me, that Scott’s death at least in the long run was a huge motivator for him to work harder, be stronger, and to carry on no matter what.”

He added, “That’s really what I think is so important about their story is that it isn’t just fun, or sad, or successful, or tragic, it’s all those things because it’s real life, so it contains all those things,” stated Bill.

Bill is raising funds for the final costs, which he describes as “steep,” in order to submit to festivals, mix the music, do color correction and other final touches. He plans on following the traditional release format, with the festival submission, festival premier and theatrical and DVD release.

The whole filmmaking processis what Bill loves the most. “As hokie as this sounds I really love it all. I love the production office and I don’t feel above any job, every single aspect of work that it takes to complete a documentary feeds and comprises the overall product so I feel strongly about each position and team member.”

Segments of the film will be shown Nov. 11 at JINX Artspace. For more information, visit www.karplives.comThat’s really what I think is so important about their story is that it isn’t just fun, or sad, or successful, or tragic, it’s all those things because it’s real life, so it contains all those things