[to stop playing ska], but I think it just naturally happened because there's a lot of different styles of music that we play. I've always been into bands like Ween and things like that, that can chameleon-like drift from genre to genre and play whatever music they want...there's no boundaries. If you set yourself up as a punk band, then you pretty much just have to play punk. Or if you're a ska band, you just play ska". Chad Larson, speaking on the same matter, explained "Having the same guitar rhythm for every song gets kind of boring...even on the earlier albums that had ska rhythms we were focusing more on the 'adventure' songs than really 'ska' songs. So as we grew as musicians, we wanted to experiment with different rhythms", adding "we were never really a good ska band anyway". Live performances Since the earliest days of the band, The Aquabats have earned a reputation for their theatrical live performances featuring a variety of comedic stunts and antics based around their superhero-themed persona. During the 1990s, when their concerts were at their most elaborately staged, a typical Aquabats performance would often include choreographed fight scenes with costumed villains, the use of numerous props, acrobatic stunts and varying degrees of pyrotechnics, ranging from small fireworks to The MC Bat Commander fire breathing. While many of these elements were eventually phased out of the live shows in the early 2000s, the one consistent staple of every Aquabats concert has remained the band's onstage "battles" with villains and monsters. These villains, typically played by The Aquabats' road crew, will crash the stage at one or two moments in the show and exchange humorous banter with the band before engaging each other in mock combat. These fights have ranged from short, improvised fistfights to fully choreographed stage combat utilizing breakable props, maneuvers such as flying kicks and back flips, and sometimes spreading out into the audience, with The Aquabats ultimately winning most—but not all—encounters. For some performances, in place of a villain, The Aquabats will feature a sketch with one of their "allies": for example, to segue into their song "Magic Chicken", the titular character— a man in a chicken suit— will come onstage to hand out fried chicken to audience members. Audience participation is a common element of The Aquabats' stage shows. Both the band and their onstage characters regularly interact with