INDUSTRY REPORT # 46
Sometimes It’s Hard to Be a Gimme
A Chat with Spike Slawson
September 25th, 2025 by Kevin Gomez
For three decades Me First & the Gimme Gimmes have been taking classic American songs and giving them a punk rock twist. But they don’t just play sped up versions of the song; they will often mash it up with a punk classic.
Take for instance on their latest live album, “¡Blow it… at Madison’s Quinceañera!” their take on Abba’s “Dancing Queen” is kicked off with an intro based on The Clash’s “Janie Jones.”
This past April, Fat Wreck Chords co-founder Fat Mike, and Gimmes lead singer Spike Slawson posted a video explaining that moving forward the touring band would be known as Spike & the Gimme Gimmes.
I spoke with Slawson about the name change, his past warehouse job with Fat Wreck, and what it feels like to get booed by 35,000 fans in his own hometown.
He explained the name change was due to being more accurate and half-jokingly added, “My own egotism drove the decision.” But fret not Gimme fans; when asked if the super group still planned on making music he said, “I can speak for Spike and the Gimme Gimmes – I’ll definitely be making music in the years to come.”
Slawson grew up in Pittsburgh but left for Northern California in his early adult life, where has now resided nearly three times as long. In 1997 he joined legendary Bay Area punk band, Swingin’ Utters on bass when Kevin Wickersham could no longer travel.
Prior to that he worked for Fat Wreck Chords in the mail order department. His service was enough to catch the attention of The Aquabats who wrong a song about him, “Dear Spike.”
Despite this loving tribute, Slawson admits he once accidentally mailed an entire merchandise shipment to the wrong continent when the band was on tour. “They figured I’d need at least a lateral move (how he describes being offered the job as lead singer of the Gimmes) instead of outright firing me.” Seems like a pretty fair trade-off.
Slawson told me his earliest vocal influences growing up were, “The Beatles, The Yardbirds, and the Stones, not necessarily in that order.” He then said that once he started listening to punk, it was Joey Ramone and Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks).
I asked him what it’s like to have none other than CJ Ramone playing in the Gimmes these days and I think he summed it up best, “When the bands you fan boy over fan boy over your bassist, it’s a weird dynamic in the room.”
The Gimmes have six full-length albums, two live albums (of all new material), and a couple of EPs. Slawson told me they’ve never been rejected by an artist to cover one of their songs, since as long as they obtain the proper licenses there isn’t much the original artist can do to legally object. He did tell me however, that one band refused to let the Gimmes film a music video – it was for their cover of the song, “Desperado.” I’ll let you figure out which band that was.
The Gimmes have recorded two live albums, both thrown at actual birthday parties, a rite of passage in two distinctly different ways. The first being “Ruin Johnny’s Bar Mitzvah,” recorded while the band played a young man’s bar mitzvah. Much to my surprise he told me that the family and guests were really cool about a cover band that presumably none of them except for the guest of honor had ever even heard of. “We ended up recording two sets and for the first one the crowd was a bit timid. But there was an open bar and for the second set people got a little more active, unpredictable, the kids started slam dancing. It was great.”
Their latest album is “’¡Blow It… at Madison’s Quinceañera!,” their second live album of new material. They cover Vicente Fernandez (“Por Tu Maldito Amor”) and their most contemporaneous song to date, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 You.”
For “Madison’s Quinceañera!” the Gimmes brilliantly mashed up Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” with Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” highlighted by CJ Ramone’s heavy bassline. Slawson told me that genius idea came from their drummer, Andrew Pinching (“Pinch”), former drummer for The Damned. “Pinch has come up with some of the most insane juxtapositions.”
If you’ve ever seen a Gimmes show, you probably know Slawson is also a talented ukulele player (often playing “Santa Baby” and “Feliz Navidad” at their holiday shows).
In 2014 he released a solo album under the cheeky moniker, Uke Hunt. I asked if there were any plans to release a follow-up. “We’re in the process of it; it’s just a really long process. COVID intervened, you know.”
But he assured me that, “We are hard at work, already have a couple of tracks ready, and are anxious to get details out there to fans.”
In 2017 I happened to see the Gimmes no less than half a dozen times. That’s a lot for any band. I told Slawson that I recall when the band would introduce their cover of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” he would make the remark that “35,000 angry Pirates fans can’t be wrong.” It was something I always found comical even though I never understood the meaning behind it. “We were hired to play three nights for Fireworks Night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. It’s completely sold out,” he recalled.
“They picked the songs for us, which was really strange. And one of the songs was ‘Sweet Caroline,’ which unbeknownst to us was the anthem/fight theme for the Boston Red Sox.” Well, you can imagine where this is going. Things were already rocky as the band flubbed their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
“Hiring us to play was a really weird move on the part of the Pirates’ Organization.” The crowd was “tepid” to say the least, “dead silence” as fireworks began going off. And it was not lost on him all of this happening in his hometown made for a real psychedelic effect. “And we still had eight songs to play. By the end of the eighth song, we had pretty much most, if not all of the sold-out stadium booing us. It was a real inflection point in my life.”
Well, fortunately, fans at their shows are far less hostile and more much supportive. You can be one of those fans at their upcoming Hot for Christmas winter tour with special guess, The Aggrolites, Manic Hispanic, and Greg Antista and the and the Lonely Streets.
The mostly West Coast tour kicks off in Santa Cruz on November 28th before coming to a close December 6th in San Diego. The boys will be gracing Orange County at the House of Blues Anaheim on December 5th.
The boys finish up the year across the pond for Operation: Ho Ho Ho in the UK, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.
TO FOLLOW
SID 250927 | TRACI TURNER | EDITOR
