Fishbone's Ska-Punk Casts A Long Shadow In New Film

Photo by Ann Summa

​The documentary Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone flirts with a balance between history and character as it looks behind the scenes at a group that failed to achieve large-scale commercial success, but inspired many groups that did.

Directors Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler paint a portrait that feels like an accurate representation of the music scene spanning multiple modern decades. They were able to pull this off, in large part, because of all the footage of the band taken over the years.

"When you're doing a documentary, one of the biggest challenges is finding old footage," said Metzler. "It's difficult at first because you don't really know what's available. So all you do is start spreading the word, and then eventually lots of fans came out of the woodwork and started e-mailing us about things.

"It just so happened that Angelo [Moore], the lead singer of the band, spent some of his money on a camera and passed it around between friends and family," he added.

The documentary centers heavily on remaining original Fishbone members Norwood Fisher and Moore, who are living from paycheck to paycheck while still touring with the band.

Fishbone's debut EP, released in 1985.

​"Angelo is this really magnetic guy and is very open and honest about his feeling, so you really just kind of connect with him, and that's what makes him great onstage, too. When he's onstage, he gives it his all, and pours his soul into it, and that same thing happens in regular life whether he is on or off camera," said Metzler.

He continues: "Most definitely Angelo and Norwood are focused on the future. These aren't guys that are living in the past. They're really about enjoying the moment and planning for the future, whatever that may be."

"When you're a trendsetter and a groundbreaker," Metzler added, "sometimes the rewards that you get are a little bit more intangible, and in the end, Fishbone did the thing that they wanted to do and enjoyed doing it. In the end, maybe that's the greatest reward."

While members of Fishbone are not household names, their names are mentioned in other interviews from people such as Gwen Stefani, Perry Farrell, Flea, Ice-T and George Clinton.