28 years after their debut album ‘Anywhere but Here‘ marked the band’s entrance to the US punk scene, we caught up with The Ataris long-term bass player Mike Davenport to reflect on nearly 30 years in the pop punk game, how it feels releasing new music after so long and how watching Nirvana changed everything…
We were lucky to snatch some time with Davenport. At the time of our Zoom chat, the bassist was juggling back-to-back meetings from his laptop and getting ready to make the 5-hour journey to Aftershock Fest where he and his bandmates were going to be playing amongst a pretty illustrious lineup including the Deftones, Alkaline Trio and Turnstile.
Despite having a lot going on that day, Davenport was full of energy about being out playing with The Ataris again and gearing up to a new album release in 2026, something that after so many years together has been an emotional journey for the band:
“ The new record is done! It’s our first record in 17 years and we’re looking at a March/April release next year. ‘Car Song’ [the band’s May 2025 single, dedicated to the memory of frontman Kris Roe’s father] is on it and is a good preview of what to expect on the new album. I am really excited about it! We are anxious to get the full record out and for you all to hear it.
It has been emotional and I can tell you that Kris put everything he has into that record. It has been a long time and before he was trying to handle too much and so by getting us all back he can focus on what’s truly important. His best attribute is writing songs and putting the finishing touches on everything in the studio. One thing I can tell you from standing beside him every night on stage is that some people lose their voice over the years, but his voice has gotten better. When old friends come out and see us on tour they all say ‘his voice was amazing last night’. He is putting everything into his voice and performance and I think that shows on the new material”.
After 30 years in each other’s orbits, it is no surprise that there’s a whole heap of shared memories and experiences between band members that time and separation can’t erase. And this extends to the wider pop punk enclave- when The Ataris are on a bill with other groups that they remember from back in the day, there is a shared sense of camaraderie, a connection based on parallel journeys tied together with nostalgia and the feeling of having survived the industry after all these years.
“It is funny because we played Riot Fest this year which was their 20th anniversary show and it was amazing. And when we weren’t playing, we were literally on side of the stage being fans! Green Day, Jawbreaker and Weezer… we were watching them and we just like ‘wow’! We were fanning out, I was taking pictures…it was so great.
We were playing Boise, Idaho with MXPX last month and it was a sold out show and when you see 1000 people hanging on every song, it is something special. Especially experiencing that with a band like MXPX – our history goes back to the beginning, all just kids together trying to figure it out. And our fans really like each other so wherever we are- Australia, Japan, or anywhere in the US- we are all friends and get on well, it’s like being with your brothers.
If you run into bands you haven’t seen for a long time- like at Riot Fest, we saw Dancehall Crashers, they don’t play that often now but our very first tour was with Unwritten Law and the Dancehall Crashers so I got see Karina for the first time in a long time. It was really good to reminisce. There is a resurgence of our style of music so all the bands we started out with are coming back so it is great to see everybody again”.
The Ataris have been through their share of ups and downs, lineup changes and stops and starts which is to be expected from a band pushing three decades in a changing and fickle music industry. And as with many things in life, there’s an element of luck (if you believe in it) or kismet (if you believe in that) that brought a teenager from Indiana over to California and into the life of a Santa Barbara native with a bass guitar:
“When I met Kris Roe he was 19, he was a kid. I was a little older at 24 so I was kind of like the older brother and Chris Knapp was 18.
I was born to play – I had a rough early childhood and I wasn’t able to be a kid and so I think music was my escape. Beatles were my first band and bought a record of theirs at 6 years old and had a little turntable and I would just lose myself in these records. I got my first bass at 12 and I realised that all the kids in my neighbourhood played guitar or drums and I was scheming to get a band so figured I would play bass as no one else was doing that! I started my first band at 13.
I am from Santa Maria in Santa Barbara county. The Ataris met 29 years ago in Santa Barbara and I went there because I heard bands from that scene there were starting to make it, it had a thing like Seattle had, its own thing that was making waves. We had bands like Toad the Wet Sprocket and Mad Caddies, Lagwagon etc. NOFX had some roots there as one of their members was going to college there. All these bands of different genres were starting to make noise and there were some GREAT shows! So out of high school I went to college there and met Kris who had signed a contract with Kung Fu Records off of a demo tape which was him and a drum machine. They brought him to Cali and said ‘we will find you a band’. And they did- me and Knapp on drums. So it has been us 3 a lot of the time, me and Knapp left a while in the middle but we have been back since 2021 and we both did all of the first 12 years of the band“.
Long before The Ataris were a concept in Davenport’s mind, he was imbibing himself in the eclectic and vibrant music scene on the US West Coast in the late 80s and early 90s. And like many young punks who had their eyes and ears open at that time, one band seemed to blow the old rules away and usher in a fresh sound that changed the course of alternative music:
“I had seen Nirvana and was a fan of theirs from their club shows. I had seen them play a club called Raji’s and there was maybe a couple hundred people there and I was aware of them through the Maximum Rock N Roll zine. So all of us were scouring this mag because it had something called ‘scene reports’ and it would what was happening in Chicago, LA or Seattle. So I picked up on Nirvana and followed them and when I saw them play live in person around 1991, I was blown away as most people were.
Then I remember that I had heard they signed to major label and I remember sitting on the couch with my cousin and Smells Like Teen Spirit came on MTV late at night and I literally fell to my knees, it was so powerful. At that moment I thought that what I was doing could be more than playing these little shows. It was as if Nirvana opened the floodgates for punk rock and I don’t think they get credit for that but it changed the music industry completely.
Then I went to see them at Cow Palace in San Francisco, playing to 10,000 people. They went from a couple hundred to 10K and still had the same power and explosion. They opened the door for bands like Green Day and that was the next big thing- when Green Day exploded, a lot of us in bands were like ‘Oh, my little punk rock band might have more potential than playing a basement and backyard’. And Nirvana songs are just great! We have been inspired by the way the records are mixed and how they sound sonically- I think our record ‘So Long, Astoria’ is much more akin to ‘Nevermind’“.
And there were more signs from the universe that not only were The Ataris meant to be but Nirvana were a clear part of Davenport’s lore when the two bands found themselves on the charts simultaneously:
” So in 2003, when ‘So Long, Astoria’ came out we were on the charts and it was us, Linkin Park and Nirvana! Nirvana had rereleased a song that year and that song was on the chart at the same time as us! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see our band names side by side in the chart!”
Fast forward to 2025 and The Ataris have come full circle and they are a band refreshed, ready and raring to go with all the enthusiasm and positivity they had back when they started as young men. As well as the new (as yet untitled) album next year, there are plans to tour Europe and show they still have what it takes to wow a crowd. And there’s a palpable sense of excitement from Davenport when contemplating getting on stage and showing what they can do with all the cumulative wisdom and experience they bring with them when they step on a stage now, something that doesn’t seem to have lost its magic for them or their fans:
“It is a gift. When you get older you realise ‘wow this is a gift to be able to make people happy’. Almost 30 years we have invested in this band- we were together 12 years and then split up and got back together 6 years later, then we split apart again. Then there was Covid and we got back together. Of the 30 years since The Ataris started, we’ve been together for 20. We have gone through lots of relationships in our lives and so much has happened but we still find each other, us four- me, Roe, Knapp and Collura.
Covid was a reset- the band came back from that on a mission which we haven’t been on since we were kids. Our focus and our mission is to make new music and be the best band we can be every time we go on stage.”
We’re all get the chance to see The Ataris as they schedule dates for 2026 and keep an eye out for news of the band’s first full length release in 17 years.
Get all your Ataris links and news HERE including streaming their last single ‘Car Song‘.
