Underestimate 311's longevity at your own peril.





The Omaha, Nebraska band has been recording music together since 1988; they've been beloved by a massive audience since '95. Many musical fads and fancies have come and gone since then, but 311 have stayed around. To people who are in their twenties, they're best known as the band who wrote the reggae-tinged sleeper hit "Amber". Folks a decade senior will have their own host of hits they remember them by.





The point is, 311 has shown a remarkable knack for durability. Their most recent album, Mosaic debuted at number six on the US Billboard 200. With a show at Whitewater Music Amphitheater on Sunday, August 6th, we spoke with founding member Aaron "P-Nut" Wills about the worst nightmare he's ever had, being "the Beatles of rap-rock," his first AOL screen name, and more.





















Do512: What's a good piece of hindsight advice that you wish you could give your younger self?





311: That's such a tough one. We took so much good advice when we were kids and we learned a lot when we were young trying it out. We just got on the road, relentless, and kind of addicted to playing shows. I don't know, we haven't done anything outside of that too much except for stick together and write music. I regret nothing, I have no regrets as I jump off the bridge.





What is your first memory of the internet?





311: I don't really remember. I mean, it was logging on to AOL of course, and the sound. The mechanics of it all were so intriguing. My first real experience was chat rooms, like atheist chat rooms. 'There's other people like me out there that are smart, and I can't see them so it makes it even better!' So yeah, I think that's the first thing I really remember is being able to interact with people not like on a phone chat situation, which always seemed so strange yet we're doing it right now. Online, you get like infant anonymity and you can talk about subjects that you're maybe uncomfortable talking about in public that you can talk about in this semi-privacy. I think that's what I remember first.





Do you remember what your atheist screen name was?





311: It was probably like hellfire or something like that probably jabbing at the fundamentalists.





P-nut_is_God?





311: I had that T-shirt!









Photo Credit: Jason Hradil





Awesome. My favorites were like all the chatbots there was like the Austin Powers one where you can talk to it and it would talk back to you in an Austin Powers personality.





311: Nice, yea that's great. I remember seeing a page that was like a video camera reaction page, but there were no cameras on any of the computers yet. It kinda knew what you were doing in the room. It was the weirdest thing. It might have been a dream.





You have no regrets, but is there something that you have tried once that you would not try again?





311: [Long Pause] No. I don't think so. I like all the things I've tried. I tried being promiscuous but I prefer being monogamous. I've been married 16 years. I don't know, I've tried a lot of things I'm into trying things. I got an open mind, I got an older brother, all the guys in the band are older than me. This goes back to the first question kind of. Everyone kind of solves things out for us before we had to make terrible mistakes. I never tried heroin, which would've been one of those things I probably would've regretted and just hard drugs, in general, are a no-go. I didn't really need to learn that lesson it was kind of painfully obvious in front of me. So I let friends do that for me and I kind of learned from that.





The advantage of being a baby.





311: Yeah, exactly and I'll take full advantage of that.









What's a song that you love from a band that you aren't a huge fan of?





311: That's a good question. Well, the Lego theme track Ninjago is pretty damn catchy. It actually puts a tear in my eye. My son is like playing Ninjago and I'm like, 'oh gosh here it comes I hope he doesn't see his dad tearing up over this commercial about ninjas that are made out of legos'. The band is called, The Fold and I think they're a Christian band that just found a niche doing the Lego soundtrack, which has a lot of emotional impact. Give it up to the believers. There is something in that music. People will deliver if they're feeling something super strong, so you can be surprised by musicians that you never heard of or influences that you wouldn't expect and still have a soft spot in your heart for.





Photo Credit: Jason Hradil





Christian Lego rock is like one of my favorite genres.





311: It's up and coming.









What is the best compliment you've ever received?





311: The best compliment we've ever received was from John Oliver when he said that the second most important three-digit number in anyone's life, besides our credit score, was 311 and called us, "The Beatles of rap-rock." It was a big one-two of good compliments and the platform that it was on, on HBO is a gigantic platform for us. So, to even be mentioned in front of that many people at once is pretty cool.





What is the scariest nightmare that you've ever had?





311: Oh there are things I can remember. So I watched Deliverance when I was probably way too young. I was probably about 8 or 9. I remember waking up at about 2 in the morning and seeing like actually seeing because I thought I was awake or I'm still under that impression that I was awake. Although it was so weird and real that I couldn't have been totally awake. So I saw the hand coming out of the lake that finished the movie, coming out of like this far corner in my room. Which was just the beginning of my screams, "No, no more deliverance, cancel the deliverance!" Yea, it was bad. But that's really all I had. I've been pretty lucky not having a bunch of bad dreams, but when I took a year off of smoking marijuana I had some really scary dreams but I had some really cool ones too. I used the chemical blocker for nightmares.





What are you tired of people complaining about?





311: I think my wife's complaints, or my kid's complaints, or my band member's complaints, it can be so many things. I don't know, like inconsistency -- when people are surprised by inconsistency. It's a funny thing to just kinda laugh at and of course, that doesn't do anything, you can improve on this as much as you want. I'm a much more go-with-the-flow kind of person than the people that I surround myself with. Which actually, I probably drag them down a little bit and they lift me up a little bit so it works out really well for me. So, perfect.









Photo Credit: Jason Hradil





What song plays as 311 goes riding into battle?





311: We got a song that finishes our new album Mosaic, number six on the Billboard record charts this week. Our 10th album in a row to debut in the Top 10, the song is called, "On A Roll." That is definitely our battle cry.





I'm gonna sit down and write the 311 biography, what would I title this chapter?





311: "Fuck The Naysayers"





Nice. Also, nice 311 reference.





311: Yes, still true. There's still naysayers, I can't believe it. We told them to fuck off so many times.





If the universe had a suggestion box, what would you slip into it?





311: Pay the teachers more.











