Medicinal Relevance For You

The Ship Still Floats

Haven’t stopped this. Interviewing Ian again next week for an article I am writing about Fugazi.

Vic Ruggiero Interview.

Reblogging this and the previous post with Dustin Kensrue would be appreciated.

Approaching your 20^th year as a band, how have you guys stayed together so long and would you say your mindset has stayed the same?

Its just a matter of not stopping…its like being stuck in an unimaginative. You cant imagine doing anything else you just stick with it. Keeping the same characters has helped, it adds to the vibe. We all learned how to play better, but I’m not sure if that helped. Sometimes if you don’t know how to play, just simple, you play practical material, when you learn how to play better its worsen. Then you have more choices, you only get one take because thats all anyone can do. Its gotta be real good so you reach that magical moment of “oh wow you got it” When you know how to play better you know what you can do better. It makes it hard though because you can lose the magic of things.

Have you seen any changes in your audience over the years? A change in scene if you will?

Its always been real good. New York in particular has never been a big ska or reggae crowd for us. We just get people that like music, just straight music fans. Jersey is more scene oriented. The jersey scene is definitely like an actual “scene” The punk thing comes into it, and kids get into a specific type of scene. Right now its getting cool because I see a whole bunch of different types of kids getting into the music. One guy that plays with us has been playing shows since the sixties, and he says to me. “ Damn you guys have the cutest girls coming to your shows.” And I said to him he must have had cute girls coming to your shows in the seventies and he goes “nah man, in the seventies it was just good because they all put out.” (laughs)

So does that age gap help?

Every time you play you try and make a connection to people, you cant expect, you don’t really expect anything. Like in Jersey for example, if we go play the Asbury Lanes or the Stone Pony, those are always like really great shows for us. The vibe down there, is a lot more fun than you might get at a New York show, its like a different world down there. Even if you get the same kids they aren’t going to act like they do in Asbury Park when they come to Manhattan. They are gonna come to Manhattan and they are going to dress up, maybe they are a little intimidated by the whole Metropolitan atmosphere. The Jersey kids really dress differently when they come to New York.

Is there any one constant source of inspiration you will always be able to draw from or pattern to composing a song?

I don’t know, same old stuff. People always say you gotta go with what you know. There is nothing in particular. We got lucky over the years because everybody became writers, they don’t depend on one or two guys to write the songs, everybody writes tunes now. Its good that everyone can take criticism or someone will always be there to say, “hey that word doesn’t work or this part could sound differently.” Its a chaotic process.

Does that make the music better, having more input?

Yeah, yeah, chaotic is better, if you get into a system thats when shit gets boring. If you get into a process or a system you write the same shit over and over again. The more chaotic it can be, the better. What young bands do when they are writing a song nobody knows how to explain the part they want to hear to the other person. More is left up to chaotic interpretation thats when things are cool. Thats why people like bands when they make their first records better. But if you listen to like a Rolling Stones record or something, they kept that vibe for so long. Only in the 80s they learned how to communicate better and thats when their shit starts to fall off. Thats why reggae is great because nobody knows how to play properly its just all vibe.

Would you say you are more influenced by reggae now than when you were younger?

Music is music so you keep your ears open. If you get stuck in one thing…they talk about the first generation reggae musicians against the ones the followed. Those guys didn’t listen to reggae, they didn’t try and play reggae, they played everything. These guys that learn how play by playing reggae, it starts to get into a rut.

In terms of a record or a tour, whats the status of your solo work, and whats ahead for the band?

Oh yeah, always, there’s just a matter of time, there is only so much time to do shit. We’ve got a little time off right now. We do some cool holiday shows, so there are some gigs around the holidays. We’ve got some of the Aggrolites guys stopping in to do some tunes. We are doing New Years in San Francisco and have some California dates around that. Then in January everything goes to hell. You work as far up to the holidays as you can, because after that everyone is broke and nobody goes out for a while.

How do you make a set list when working off such a wide range of music.

There’s no rhyme or reason, it just comes up as it comes up. Thats the magic of things. Maybe with me I am more of like an anarchist. I don’t ever want to have a process. I just want to be inspired and just do it. If you think too much about it that usually means you don’t really wanna do it. Its like you’re lazy, you don’t want to come up with short-cuts and trick yourselves.

How important is it for someone to identify as a ska fan and be familiar with the origins. What were you into when younger?

Oh yeah, anybody that likes the genre you gotta always go backwards. That’s a good part of it, there is such a wealth of stuff that proceeds you,and everyone. If you ask the old blues guys why they were doing it, its because they want to keep the old tunes alive. Pre-record stuff. I was into fifties stuff, Motown, rock n roll. I had a moment with the Beach Boys but I could never go after that music one hundred percent.

On your website you have a section called surrealist theorems, little one-liners about authors or thinkers. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little further on what kind of literature really influenced both your music and yourself.

Ah interesting, the fifties is it man, not to say that stuff before that wasn’t great. The fifties were the coolest for writing in America and stuff like that. Everybody, not just the beat guys, Richard Wright all the black writers. The fifties is suddenly like everything being inspired at the same time. You may have had all these great influence. Suddenly there are all these writers that are like “we get it, we get it!” I’ll read short-story compilations or be reading a book and really like it and wonder when it was written. Almost always its the fifties. Right in the middle of everything. They say that writing is always ahead of music, and painting is ahead of writing,so you look to see where everything is going. If painters are doing something, writers will do it ten,fifteen years after that, and music picks it up ten fifteen years after that! It’s all combined, all apart of the same dynamic, sometimes you feel like a jerk. I don’t want to associate myself to too many fucking props by going. Oh Picasso did this, or Mingus did this, you start feeling like a jerk comparing yourself to these guys that are so great. But its all about following the legacy, to try and do something yourself that will matter to somebody as much as it did to you.

Is there any one lasting memory you have of Washington D.C where I am located?

We played this one gig with the Pietasters really early in our careers, at some place…it had a cat in the named. Not the Blackcat. Man, the kids were so crazy, it was the first time we really saw kids go crazy and dance. It was the first time I saw the floor turn into that rubber look. When we went to the bar downstairs, you could actually see the ceiling buckling. The fire department came and they closed the place down that night.

One question I try and ask everyone deals with Plato’s theory that once an artist creates something, he no longer owns it and it almost must be assumed he must feel a disconnect with it, what are your thoughts on that?

Not disconnect, its more that like what people say, that as soon as the art goes into a museum its dead, even Dylan says that. Dylan would say that records are like a cemetery, thats not where the song is living. The song is living in the performance, so you can never stop performing it. It’s definitely true, you don’t get like a final version of the song. As far as not owning it anymore I totally agree with that. As soon as you put it out there its not yours anymore. People will tell me their interpretation of a song, and they will tell me how a song really means so much to me and it perfectly describes this part of my life, and I think to myself “shit, thats not at all what I was writing about.” I could write about politics and somebody will tell me its about their girlfriend. But then I think what right do I have to tell them what to think of my tune. I’m flattered that someone thought long and hard enough about my work. You can’t tell somebody what a painting is about, they just look at it.

On the topic of interpretation of lyrics, I was wondering if you could talk about what the song “Soldier” is about.

Oh thats just running from the cops, when I was a teenager your pissed off at the cops, and they are always pissed off at you, and it just gets in a hassle. Its also slightly about, when they changed the uniforms. The cop uniforms used to be real loose, and then sometime in the nineties they made them real tight. It looks real gestapo, like great we’ve got gestapo in New York now. Someone explained it to me once, the cops used to almost dress like door-men, because New York had class. Almost like, oh welcome to New York kind of thing, the NYPD will open the door for you. Guns were covered. It wasn’t about being intimidating it was about being friendly. When you approach things like that, and intimidate people they react un-kind. If you want violence act violent. If you expect intimidation acting intimidating.

Dustin Kensrue Interview.

Just wrapped up an interview Dustin in Baltimore. Reblogging to your friends would be greatly appreciated.  Also I have no idea what my bold or italicized words wont appear as such.

***Jan 26 2011. I re-edited this piece as it was pretty brutal with grammar errors etc. When I originally transcribed it I rushed to get it up and by no means did a final proof read. Thank you to everyone who pointed this out. Enjoy.******

Thrice has played a lot of varied spaces, be it small clubs or 20,000 seat arenas. Does the mindset change depending on where you play? Is there a quintessential environment to see Thrice?

I would say mid-size clubs, there are benefits to everything. Its fun playing those big places in terms of having more space on the stage but a lot of times it ends up having a disconnect between the band and the audience. Small rooms, it gets very overly chaotic and smooshed we are aware of that sense of lost intimacy though.

What about playing a festival, does that change your mindset at all?

Our mindset doesn’t really change much going into anything, there are certain weird situations like playing a TV show that is a little more disconnected…the people are faraway, being filmed, its just weird. We try and approach it all the same.

You have said before that earlier in your career Thrice didn’t start off with the thought of making music their full time thing, at one point did that change?

It really just kind of happened over time. We all of a sudden were gone all the time. Touring constantly trying to get our name out there. I had been working part time when I was home, and then I wasn’t home at all to ever work. When you stop going to school and working you make that call to try and make it your career.

A lot has been said about the punk scene of the beginning of the decade. How already it is a time and place that is lost to a new fan. I don’t know if you agree with that but I was curious to get your take.

I’m not really sure. We’ve been thrown into various things over time, groups, names, I never really felt an affinity for any of them. We have always been on the outside at least in our own opinion. Coming up in Orange County playing with any type of band you can think of, from pop/punk to hardcore to whatever. We just played the shows but never really felt like we fit in with any of them. There has never really been a sweet spot in our heart for anything emo or screamo or whatever that thing kind of evolved into. So never really anything that we felt good from that, though there was a lot negative because we didn’t like being associated with it.

Each one of your records has a very distinct sound to it, is that at all deliberate?

I guess partially, the actual sound it ends up being is not necessarily deliberate but there is a deliberate drive to challenge ourselves and do something we are excited about doing at that time. We never wanted to be constrained by what we would guess to be popular or what might appease certain people, be it fans, or..radio,TV. That has been the driving force just to express differently at different times, sometimes its a response to response to what we did previously, whether we liked it. Beggars is very much a response to The Alchemy Index, though we liked Alchemy, I don’t want to do anything like that right now. So we decided to do something totally different, and made a completely different record.

Going forward do you see yourself following that kind of pattern?

I think coming out of Beggars we had a ton of fun making that record and playing those songs live. So I think the next record will have the least jarring change that we have had between records for a long time. There will be definitely have its own sound as well but it will definitely be a less jarring experience.

You started covering Helter Skelter a while back, did you always intend to record that as a b-side?

We had talked about it and then busted it out really quick…the record leaked so early that we had to scramble to figured out ways to salvage that. Even covering that sound was very influential to how Beggars ended up feeling, the way that song feels to play live, it definitely had some influence on the way we wrote that record.

You have talked a lot about how you felt about the leak, I’m curious as to if there are any preventative measures you can make as a band to further insure that, that doesn’t happen again.

There is absolutely nothing we could have personally done. It was deliberately stolen from the website. Not like at the plant that makes the records like it usually happened. We didn’t even have the record in our hands by the time that it leaked so there really is nothing more we can do.

What literature has had an impact on both your music and as a person?

Outside of the Bible I would say C.S Lewis probably the most formative for me. I like G.K Chesterton a lot. I try and read a bunch of different things, be it fiction or non-fiction. I draw a lot of ideas from non-fiction though I think reading fiction, even if you don’t connect to the lines directly its feeding your brain with images and things to draw from.

In terms of inspiration is there any one thing you will always be able to draw from?

Definitely the Bible I draw from that a lot. Usually not as the starting point for things, but it is very much where I am rooted. I feel like it speaks to a lot of things, thats where I naturally gravitate from. I constantly inspired and challenged by reading it.

I know you have an interest in Philosophy. Plato holds a theory, and I paraphrase here, that once an artist creates something, be it a drawing, a song or whatever, as soon as it reaches the consumption of others it is no longer his. Do you think that is valid, is there a disconnect from your work once its out there for people to pick apart.

I think there is definitely a life that it takes on that is beyond what you have put into it. There is actually a song on The Alchemy Index that is basically about that, “ As The Crow Flies.” Its this metaphor for finding this big bird that is speaking to the idea of a muse, that already you are discovering something more so than you are actually creating it. You attend to it for a while and help it develop and then, “oh” its out of your hands. I don’t think that that implies that there shouldn’t be lasting meaning to what you have put into something. You should at least intend for it to be something, you definitely don’t have the control over it to a certain degree.

Is there added pressure knowing that your work will always be picked apart.

Well that is going to happen no matter what, even if you do try and avoid it. Even if you dropped any kind of poetic license, people will still mangle it. My pressure more comes from wanting to do something that isn’t lazy. It is very easy to write a lot of lyrics that are very….I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t write lyrics that are cryptic because I certainly do it at times, but there is a way to do it that is very lazy and easy, I strive to stay away from that.

Is there any one set scenario you find you get your best work out of, or do you just write as you go?

I spend a lot of time like playing with puzzle pieces in my head, I have this image that I can make but I don’t know what it is yet. So I kind of look at them next to each other and shuffle them around. Its like you have a bunch of puzzle pieces from different puzzles and some of them are for a puzzle you aren’t making so its like “ah this one isn’t for this puzzle, but it can work over here.” Thats how my brain sort of approaches it. In terms of making the songs work, aside from the lyrics its a rather democratic process as a band.

How do you separate ideas for Thrice material and what will be on your solo work?

I am taking down snippets of things all the time and try to categorize them to see where they are going and slowly develop little bits of things. The solo stuff comes out of things I am needling around with that don’t seem to work for Thrice they slowly develop as I pick up a guitar and mess around with.

How do you approach making your set lists? As you acknowledged before, your records all have very distinct sounds. How do you make them all flow live?

There is definitely no easy way to do it, that kind of sucks(laughs) You are always bumming someone out if you don’t play there favorite song. You play songs that may not really be your favorites but you try and keep the balance to things that you enjoy and you know the people enjoy. You try and balance the flow the mood the shift in tempo. Its extremely hard, at least for us. I think our catalogue is pretty varied and it makes it more difficult than for a lot of other bands.

Anything specific played for the fans and not so much yourself anymore?

Nobody likes playing “ Artist and the Ambulance” I don’t mind playing it but everyone else kind of hates it. Ed has always hated that song(laughs) thats just Ed’s taste. We have been playing a lot of Beggars stuff, the older songs we are not especially excited to play.

Does having a personal relationship with someone who’s music you admire change how you go about listening to it?

Well, if they are a sucky human that kind of ruins the music. Though there are cases where the music is so good that you kind of have to deal with knowing that they aren’t a good human. For like Matt’s(Pryor of The Get Up Kids) music, or Chris’s(Conley of Saves The Day) music… I didn’t grow up listening to Anthony so thats a bit of a different category. I grew up with The Get Up Kids and Saves The Day, it makes me excited for them, I just heard their new records in the car-ride down here, it’s cool to have that opportunity, its very different being around your peers, but its good to always encourage. It is a different vantage point from consuming it on a personal level than consuming it on another level.

What’s next for both your work and the band’s work for the next year?

Thrice is writing a record right now and that should be out next year. I make no promises on my stuff because every-time I do I end up being wrong. God willing there will be more solo material in the future, soon.

Is there an attempt to separate yourself from some of the other bands that you are sometimes lumped in with. As an example, I saw Thrice at Bamboozle a few years back, and at this point, there aren’t really a lot of bands in your vain playing a festival like that or Warped Tour.

There are not a bunch of bands that we really relate to that came out of the same place as we did. Glassjaw, Brand New, Saves The Day, bands that have continued to push themselves and seem to care more about the music than about being successful. All of those bands sound very different, but they came from a solid place and are pushing forward and are trying to be the kings of this little pack. I don’t have an affinity one way or another…I have more a negative feel for a lot of this stuff, because there are so many copy cat, shallow bands, making poor music that is unimaginative. As something develops it tends to generally turns into that and that kind of movement you see now. We just play shows and its not always easy. For us we wish we could move out into a larger realm but we have also a stigma about us because we have people that will go “oh thats that band from 2003 that put out Artist and The Ambulance or Illusion of Safety.” So that band is put into this category with all of these other bands, and we would never tour with those other bands. We are a completely different band from even a couple records ago, and we will continue to be. So we are kind of between a rock and a hard place in terms of that.

Anonymous asked: How did this all happen? How did you get from Middletown, New Jersey to where you are today? What inspired you to actually enjoy your life? Because from the looks of it, it seems like you're having a blast.

Having a blast is exactly what I am doing, though I try not to be personal on this tumblr, solely for my interviews. If you want answers to what you said contact me IRL.

Dustin Kensrue Interview.

Just wrapped up an interview Dustin in Baltimore. Reblogging to your friends would be greatly appreciated.  Also I have no idea what my bold or italicized words wont appear as such.

Thrice has played a lot of varied spaces, be it small clubs or 20,000 seat arenas. Does the mindset change depending on where you play? Is there a quintessential environment to see Thrice?

I would say mid-size clubs, there are benefits to everything. Its fun playing those big places in terms of having more space on the stage but a lot of times it ends up having a disconnect between the band and the audience. Small rooms, it gets very overly chaotic and smooshed we are aware of that sense of lost intimacy though.

What about playing a festival, does that change your mindset at all?

Our mindset doesn’t really change much going into anything, there are certain weird situations like playing a TV show that is a little more disconnected…the people are faraway, being filmed, its just weird. We try and approach it all the same.

You have said before that earlier in your career Thrice didn’t start off with the thought of making music their full time thing, at one point did that change?

It really just kind of happened over time. We all of a sudden were gone all the time. Touring constantly trying to get our name out there. I had been working part time when I was home, and then I wasn’t home at all to ever work. When you stop going to school and working you make that call to try and make it your career.

A lot has been said about the punk scene of the beginning of the decade. How already, it is a time and place that is lost to a new fan. I don’t know if you agree with that but I was curious to get your take.

I’m not really sure. We’ve been thrown into various things over time, groups, names, I never really felt an affinity for any of them. We have always been on the outside at least in our own opinion. Coming up in Orange County playing with any type of band you can think of, from pop/punk to hardcore to whatever. We just played the shows but never really felt like we fit in with any of them. There has never really been a sweet spot in our heart for anything emo or screamo or whatever that thing kind of evolved into. So never really anything that we felt good from that, though there was a lot negative because we didn’t like being associated with it.

Each one of your records has a very distinct sound to it, is that at all deliberate?

I guess partially, the actual sound it ends up being is not necessarily deliberate but there is a deliberate drive to challenge ourselves and do something we are excited about doing at that time. We never wanted to be constrained by what we would guess to be popular or what might appease certain people, be it fans, or radio, or TV. That has been the driving force just to express differently at different times, sometimes its a response to what we did previously, whether we liked it. Beggars is very much a response to The Alchemy Index, though we liked Alchemy, I don’t want to do anything like that right now. So we decided to do something totally different, and made a completely different record.

Going forward do you see yourself following that kind of pattern?

I think coming out of Beggars we had a ton of fun making that record and playing those songs live. So I think the next record will have the least jarring change that we have had between records for a long time. There will be definitely be its own sound as well but it will definitely be a less jarring experience.

You started covering Helter Skelter a while back. Did you always intend to record that as a b-side?

We had talked about it and then busted it out really quick…the record leaked so early that we had to scramble to figured out ways to salvage that. Even covering that sound was very influential to how Beggars ended up feeling, the way that song feels to play live, it definitely had some influence on the way we wrote that record.

You have talked a lot about how you felt about the leak. I’m curious as to if there are any preventative measures you can make as a band to further insure that, that doesn’t happen again.

There is absolutely nothing we could have personally done. It was deliberately stolen from the website. Not like at the plant that makes the records like it usually happened. We didn’t even have the record in our hands by the time that it leaked so there really is nothing more we can do.

What literature has had an impact on both your music and as a person?

Outside of the Bible I would say C.S Lewis is probably the most formative for me. I like G.K Chesterton a lot. I try and read a bunch of different things, be it fiction or non-fiction. I draw a lot of ideas from non-fiction though I think reading fiction, even if you don’t connect to the lines directly it’s feeding your brain with images and things to draw from.

In terms of inspiration is there any one thing you will always be able to draw from?

Definitely the Bible I draw from that a lot. Usually not as the starting point for things, but it is very much where I am rooted. I feel like it speaks to a lot of things, thats where I naturally gravitate from. I am constantly inspired and challenged by reading it.

I know you have an interest in Philosophy. Plato holds a theory, and I paraphrase here, that once an artist creates something, be it a drawing, a song or whatever, as soon as it reaches the consumption of others it is no longer his. Do you think that is valid? Is there a disconnect from your work once its out there for people to pick apart.

I think there is definitely a life that it takes on that is beyond what you have put into it. There is actually a song on The Alchemy Index that is basically about that, “ As The Crow Flies.” It is this metaphor for finding this big bird that is speaking to the idea of a muse. That already you are discovering something more so than you are actually creating it. You attend to it for a while and help it develop and then, “oh” its out of your hands. I don’t think  that implies that there shouldn’t be lasting meaning to what you have put into something. You should at least intend for it to be something; you definitely don’t have the control over it to a certain degree.

Is there added pressure knowing that your work will always be picked apart.

Well that is going to happen no matter what, even if you do try and avoid it. Even if you dropped any kind of poetic license, people will still mangle it. My pressure more comes from wanting to do something that isn’t lazy. It is very easy to write a lot of lyrics that are very….I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t write lyrics that are cryptic because I certainly do it at times, but there is a way to do it that is very lazy and easy, I strive to stay away from that.

Is there any one set scenario you find you get your best work out of, or do you just write as you go?

I spend a lot of time like playing with puzzle pieces in my head. I have this image that I can make but I don’t know what it is yet. So I kind of look at them next to each other and shuffle them around. It is like you have a bunch of puzzle pieces from different puzzles and some of them are for a puzzle you aren’t making so it’s like “ah this one isn’t for this puzzle, but it can work over here.” Thats how my brain sort of approaches it. In terms of making the songs work, aside from the lyrics its a rather democratic process as a band.

How do you separate ideas for Thrice material and what will be on your solo work?

I am taking down snippets of things all the time and try to categorize them to see where they are going and slowly develop little bits of things. The solo stuff comes out of things I am needling around with that don’t seem to work for Thrice. They slowly develop as I pick up a guitar and mess around with it.

How do you approach making your set lists? As you acknowledged before, your records all have very distinct sounds. How do you make them all flow live?

There is definitely no easy way to do it, that kind of sucks(laughs) You are always bumming someone out if you don’t play their favorite song. You play songs that may not really be your favorites but you try and keep the balance to things that you enjoy and you know the people enjoy. You try and balance the flow, the mood, the shift in tempo. Its extremely hard, at least for us. I think our catalogue is pretty varied and it makes it more difficult than for a lot of other bands.

Anything specific played for the fans and not so much yourself anymore?

Nobody likes playing “ Artist and the Ambulance” I don’t mind playing it but everyone else kind of hates it. Ed has always hated that song(laughs) thats just Ed’s taste. We have been playing a lot of Beggars stuff, the older songs we are not especially excited to play.

Does having a personal relationship with someone whose music you admire change how you go about listening to it?

Well, if they are a sucky human that kind of ruins the music. Though there are cases where the music is so good that you kind of have to deal with knowing that they aren’t a good human. For like Matt’s(Pryor of The Get Up Kids) music, or Chris’s(Conley of Saves The Day) music… I didn’t grow up listening to Anthony(Raneri of Bayside) so that’s a bit of a different category. I grew up with The Get Up Kids and Saves The Day, it makes me excited for them. I just heard their new records in the car ride down here, it’s cool to have that opportunity, it’s very different being around your peers, but it’s good to always encourage. It is a different vantage point from consuming it on a personal level than consuming it on another level.

What’s next for both your work and the band’s work for the next year?

Thrice is writing a record right now and that should be out next year(2011). I make no promises on my stuff because every-time I do I end up being wrong. God willing there will be more solo material in the future, soon.

Is there an attempt to separate yourself from some of the other bands that you are sometimes lumped in with. As an example, I saw Thrice at Bamboozle a few years back, and at this point, there aren’t really a lot of bands in your vain playing a festival like that or Warped Tour.

There are not a bunch of bands that we really relate to that came out of the same place as we did. Glassjaw, Brand New, Saves The Day, bands that have continued to push themselves and seem to care more about the music than about being successful. All of those bands sound very different, but they came from a solid place and are pushing forward and are trying to be the kings of this little pack. I don’t have an affinity one way or another. I have more a negative feel for a lot of this stuff, because there are so many copy cat, shallow bands, making poor music that is unimaginative. As something develops it tends to generally turn into that, and that kind of movement you see now. We just play shows and its not always easy. For us we wish we could move out into a larger realm but we have also a stigma about us because we have people that will go “oh thats that band from 2003 that put out Artist and The Ambulance or Illusion of Safety.” So that band is put into this category with all of these other bands, and we would never tour with those other bands. We are a completely different band from even a couple records ago, and we will continue to be. So we are kind of between a rock and a hard place in terms of that.

Coming Up.

12/9/10: Vic Ruggiero- The Slackers

12/10/10 Dustin Kensrue- Thrice

Two New Interviews This Week.

Two cool new interviews this week going on, heading to Baltimore for one, you guys will love em.

Ian McKaye Interview.

*Reblogging this would be great, I am very proud of this.*

As a lifelong resident of the District, and someone active in the music scene down here for a long time, what do you feel are the biggest changes you have seen both in the city itself and what an artist has to do to get noticed.

Well honestly the biggest difference is the fact that someone can even ask that question. In my mind, Washington is not a music town so the very notice that people expect to be noticed in this town is so shocking to me still, that was just not a question anybody would have asked. When I was a kid you would leave, you would just got to New York. I don’t really think about Washington in terms of the music scene, I don’t think about it like that, by and large I just think about the work that is in front of me. Im not really connected to what may be called the formal music scene though certainly it is formal, I am probably one of the more well known musicians out of the city. It has taken me a long time for me to come to terms with the fact that I am a musician, I see myself as just a do-er, and part of my work happens to be playing music. I don’t think of it as a career, its just what I do. I’m not trying to be coy or vague, I am just being honest with you, those kind of questions I find challenging because I don’t really know the answer.

As a kid the idea that Washington would be a music scene or a town, there just was nothing going on here like that. I mean there were bands of course, but I think you would be hard pressed to name….I don’t know what kind of music you are into, but have you studied the music of the town? Do you listen primarily to sort of punk or underground kind of stuff?

I listen to a lot of things, but punk is certainly a big part of it, I am not as well versed on the underground bands though as I am on others.

Do you feel knowledgeable about it? Could you name a band from Washington from the last ten years, the 90s the 70s? Thats not to say there was nothing going on, there were bands here, but in the 70s this wasn’t really looked at as a music town,by any terms of rock. There was a very strong blue-grass influence here in the late 60s and early 70s, but by and large if you were playing rock or anything like that, you were expected to get the hell of of town. Thats a pretty fundamental shift from where we are at today, though it has kind of changed back, everyone is going on up to Brooklyn now. It is very quiet these days.

Well compared to New York, there must be about a dozen or so active music venues down here compared to the endless amounts in New York.

There used to be way fewer than that, now there is more venues and less bands, it used to be the other way around.

You mentioned before that my first question was something that you wouldn’t have even fathomed ever being asked. In doing some research for the interview, I found it interesting that the first Teen Idles record is going for upwards of 500.00 on eBay.

I mean it really is interesting but its just not something I think about. At the same time people are walking down the streets in Afghanistan and fucking being blown up by drones. Who cares what the Teen Idles records sell for? Its a strange phenomenon, who knows, I mean baseball cards, stamps, people part with hundreds of thousands of dollars for these things. Is that insane for you?

The need to collect, to have every bit of something is certainly very interesting.

Yeah, like I don’t think people are fucked up or evil because of it, its just a really weird phenomenon. When I think about the record stuff, you know, its not about the music. You know that, people who collect stamps are not interested in it for the postage. The reason that things are invented have nothing to do with why they are collectable now. Like the other day I was talking to someone and they were talking about some record I was on, and they were saying “ It’s so crazy! This record is going for so much money!” And there was another band whose record was going for more money than our record and they were really offended by it! “That records terrible compared to yours!” And I said, this has nothing to do with the music, it has nothing to do with the music at all, its all about the collectable stuff. Fact, people who collect records(like that) they certainly aren’t going to be playing those records. They have to protect their investment.

Do you think that ties in with the amount of bands that are getting back together lately? A need to supply, I guess….in some ways people who collect memories. I’ll use DEVO as an example, is there a mindset that is “well I saw DEVO and you didn’t!” That strive to collect memories in a way.

I think that DEVO for instance, those guys were probably like “hey you wanna go play shows” “Eh sure lets go do it” Now I don’t know those guys personally at all but I would think probably, that someone pitched them an idea to play some shows, and probably there was some money involved and they thought “fuck it lets go do it” For people that want to see them, for instance, I saw a lot a lot a lot of bands early on. But I never saw DEVO. Not back then, because to me they were new-wavers, and I wasn’t that interested in new-wavers at the time, so I didn’t go see them. But I went to go see their show at the 9:30(club) a few months ago or whenever it was, I was interested in seeing what they would be like live. I didn’t pay for it, I don’t think I would have paid to have seen it but thats just me. I kind of think in those situations like a lot of people….wait well how old are you

I’m twenty.

Alright so I don’t think you could have possibly seen DEVO, I don’t know who would be bragging about it, if you are interested in seeing DEVO and some incarnation is playing go see it if you want to. In my mind the real situation is, if you really want to see DEVO, your version of DEVO, thats a band that is playing today. That’s a band that the media isn’t paying attention to, that is some weirdo art thing, DEVO was just a weirdo art thing, nobody could make heads or tails out of them. They were not like a massively popular band at the time, certainly not. You and I are talking about on the idea that for instance a band like Minor Threat is kind of a well known band, and my work is well known. But I can assure you that thirty years ago, by work was not well known. Where are you at Georgetown?

No, I am at Catholic actually.

Ok, so had you been a student at Catholic University in 1980 and you were to call a guy who was forty-eight years old, who had been a band for thirty years so I would have been in a band in 1950, if you were to call me and we were to talk about music, you certainly would not have any idea about who Minor Threat was. Right now, if you really want to see DEVO, the true essence of DEVO, you would see a band that was playing today, a band that we don’t even know who they are.

Do you often get contacted by promoters in attempt to get any of your bands back together?

Yeah, well not often because I think everyone knows us pretty well, that if we are going to play we are going to play, and if we’re not going to play, we’re not going to play, money has nothing to do with it. Most bands that are touring that have reformed or whatever, if you took the money out of the equation they wouldn’t be doing it. I have never…none of my bands have ever played for money and I wouldn’t start now. That’s not being judgemental I am just being straight up about it. To those bands more power to em, thats just not something I would do. We have already been offered insane amounts of money to play. Insane amounts of money for one show. Its just not the way Fugazi has ever been, or not the way Minor Threat would ever have been, it just wouldn’t have happened. With Minor Threat I mean we broke up for real, that band won’t play again, Fugazi never broke up we just went on our hiatus. Who knows, there is always the possibility we might do something if the four us decide we want to play music together. That’s a time and place that may or may not ever occur. There are logistical issues that would have to be sorted out, namely, one of us lives in Europe, that makes it complicated to practice. I have no idea, thats something that is not being discussed. With Minor Threat, that was it, and I think people should be thankful, if people want to see Minor Threat they should just form a band.

Did you ever find any difficulty being an objective fan of music, when you have such a close relationship to your peers?

That goes without saying, for instance lets say you go get up a coffee and you see some friends, and they are talking about something that happened on twelfth street, and you sit down and have a chat with them. You may go another day and there a bunch of other people you have never seen before and they are also talking about something that happened on twelfth street. And you go “well who cares, fucking idiots” you cant contextualize them, you don’t know who they are. With bands, if you are seeing a band play and there are people in the band that you have sense of their context and their history, you know a little bit of the story, you may have a different kind of read. For instance, I can remember shows where I would see a band, and I knew the singer, and I knew that one of his parents just did, information I was privy to that others weren’t. I might say, “oh my god, the fact that he is playing, doing this show, is incredible”. Nobody else knows that, he may be playing and absolutely falling apart, and I can think what a brave performance because I know about his situation. But if someone else who has no idea, could dislike it.

I recently watched the FEAR Saturday Night Live video the other day. And I have read interviews with you where you tell that story, and about how unhappy the SNL brass was and about you and your friends being put in a sort of makeshift holding cell in 30 Rock. What I wanted to know though, was what was the actual studio audiences reaction to that?

They fucking hated us, they were trying to fight us. They were not into it at all, they hated it. Really fucking hated it. The people in the front row were kicking us, and just really fucking hating it. (laughs)

That whole thing was just bizarre. We all knew who FEAR were, we knew them, but we didn’t take them too seriously. We always thought of them as kind of a joke band, and I don’t mean that disrespectfully they were just kind of a joke band. For us it was ironic to be asked to dance to them because we thought it was so funny. Black Flag we took very seriously, but I don’t think any of us really took FEAR seriously hardly at all. Yeah we’ll come over there and dance around, but we never thought it would be such a big deal, we just thought it was a funny absurd thing to happen. It got really…it got punchy.

From my vague perspective, being a 20 year old college student, it seems like there is so much more accessible vinyl now, especially new vinyl than even from just a few years back. As the owner of Dischord Records, how do you approach the distribution of vinyl and are you surprised the main-stream has kind of latched on once again?

(Laughs) Well we never stopped making vinyl. It certainly is interesting, I think you should keep main-stream in lower case, vinyl is back in a way but its nothing close to what it used to sell. What I really think is interesting is how the hip-hop world saved vinyl, we can thank hip-hop for vinyl still being around. Most people I knew got rid of their records. They would say “oh fuck records, we’re out.” When vinyl died, when it was sort of sent off to the grave by the record companies, it could have been the end. But since hip-hop got so huge and all the DJ’s were using turn-tables. So even if there were no new records being made, turn-tables were still pretty important, so they kept making them, if they hadn’t kept making turn-tables I don’t think vinyl would have ever made this come-back. The record is nothing unless you have the turn-table, thats pretty incredible to me, that in some ways hip-hop saved Rock N’ Roll. I like that.

How long have you been doing the speaking engagements, and do you have any clear objective you want people to get out of it?

Just Q and A, just straight Q and A. What I hope people get out of it is a pleasant evening or a good conversation, especially now with people spending an enormous amount of their lives engaging in this bizarre version of social interaction online. I have never seen so much community in current isolation. I think that having me do a Q and A, it requires the participation. If they don’t ask any questions, we are just going to sit there quietly. You can’t really organize unless you can actually converse.

That whole period is so accessible to my generation. Does that amount of accessibility ever catch you off guard?

Well I am quite used to it, my picture has been on a lot of things and I understand the trade-off about it. In my image I am Ian Mckaye (pronounced me-kai) but to a lot of people in the world there is another person called Ian McKaye (pronounced mik-kay)I am quite used to that, I acknowledge the existence of Ian McKaye(mik-kay) but its not necessarily who I am, its just what people made of me. My work is in the doing, but unless I make something I can’t control it, all I can do is keep on making new things, and try and be as thoughtful, reasonable and sensitive about things that I make so they wont be misappropriated.

In terms of making new things, do you see anything new from The Evens in the future?

This was a rough year this year, a lot of family issues, but we have been working on new songs, just haven’t finished anything yet, we are hoping to do some recording in the coming months, the coming weeks, and do some playing at the end of the new year.

Obviously there are tons of books, documentaries, anything you can wish to consume about the early 80s punk scene. At what point did you realize that people were creating a part of your life into this sort of nostalgic mythical tale? Something where people doubt that something that good could have actually happened.

I remember when that movie Suburbia came out in 1981 or 82( 1984 Penelope Spheeris) there was a character that somebody told me was based on me which I thought was absurd. In some ways I think punk-rock was always being portrayed in this kind of ridiculous manner, on a more nostalgic level. With that book “Dance of Days (2003, Anderson, Jenkins) I never read the book, I find that I can’t read my own history, too weird. That felt a little odd because its when I began to learn how history works. Its a bit of an allusion. People read that and go “well thats what happened!” but its just an interpretation of what happened. A lot of times people talk about things….currently, the way people approach documentaries, they have this sort of idea that its a story. They approach documentaries as a sort of narrative. The problem is, when you make that narrative, you have to stick to the story, and I don’t think that life works that way. You can make it into that but then you have leave out inconvenient truth’s. You get into a weird situation with these sorts of stories. You have to leave out certain people or situations because they don’t fit into the story, at that point you realize its not about real life. Many of the times I have heard or read about how when Reagan came along and we were all so mad at Reagan, it’s kind of nonsense. We were kids, we wanted something to do.

New Followers.

So Absolutepunk.net and punknews.org picked up my Milo interview; very cool. The feedback has been pretty solid aside from one or two angry internet guys. To the new people, go through and read some of the older pieces, there will be many more soon to come.

Slow.

The last week has been slow, I have so many things in the pipe that eventually it is going to burst into a chain of awesome.

In other news, I have become satisfied that I have so far avoided all tumblr stereotypes others may exhibit. 

Absolutely Elated

At who I got an ok from today. Hopefully I will have something up tomorrow.

What is this all about?

A lot of people have contacted me asking why I am doing these interviews, and frankly, its a valid question. I interviewed Frank Turner a year ago after sharing some emails with him, at first i thought it would be something kind of cool to have in the back of my mind, that I interviewed this man that I admire so much….seven months later when I did a second interview it was for a more structured purpose.

Like many, I am interested in journalism, and no my dream isn’t to write for Rolling Stone, I just want to write…for something. As this fall began and I began to realize that soon the real world would be calling I started doing some research on different internships etc in the DC area for students interested in journalism. Sure, my credentials may match up well with other applicants, but I needed something to stretch that further. There are people out there with better grades then mine, people who have written more articles about bad cafeteria food, and certainly people who look better in a tie. This project details one of my biggest passions. 

After completing my rather disastrous interview with Henry Rollins, I realized that this was possible. The last few weeks have been a blur of emails, both responded and unanswered and weeding through questions for those I admire. When someone completes an interview I post it on my Tumblr, for whatever corner of the internet finds my words and the words of others enticing. Then, I edit the interview down and compose it into three parts.

1. The interview in its purest form, the raw back and forth.

2. A 2 page long article using the quotes of the interview as the focal point

3. a 2-5 page short story detailing why this artist is someone to admire, and perhaps an anecdote from my life in reference to their work.

This now showcases three aspects of my writing for anyone to see. Sure, I have certainly developed some stars in my eyes through out this process, but I am really proud of what has become of it.

My goals right now are to get 10 more interviews, at which point my piece will be over 150 pages long and complete. At that point, not only will it be attached to my resume for years to come, but I am going to try my damnedest at seeing how far I can take it. Lofty dreams? Sure, but I think that that is what everyone needs. I am not saying that I am writing the acknowledgement page to a world renowned piece here, but I know how I write, I know how people react to it, and I know how to pitch it.

Thanks for reading the interviews and whatever personal commentary I have thrown along with it. The fact that there are a few people that give a shit about this is a constant reminder that I need to keep pushing. So reblog to your friends, send the newsworthy bits elsewhere, help me make my dream a reality, if you so choose of course. Or unfollow me and we will call it a day, but that will never mean I am not going to stop. Look forward to the following in the next two weeks.

Vinnie Caruana, Chuck Ragan, Ted Leo, Ian McKaye, Ben Nichols, Vic Ruggierio. Those are the definite’s. I am working on a ton more.  

Questions For Chuck Ragan

Speaking to Chuck later, let me know if you have any specific questions.

Help.

I have about half a dozen interviews that will be posted up in the next ten days or so. That being said, whatever amount of followers I have, WHO DO YOU WANT TO READ NEXT? 

Drop any suggestions in the ask box. 

Jason Shevchuck Interview: Kid Dynamite, None More Black

1. I was in attendance for Kid Dynamites performance at this years

This Is Hardcore and was witness to one of the most passionate

audiences I have ever seen. For a band that hasn’t been regularly

active in a decade did it come at all as a surprise to you how well

you and guys were received?

We’ve been lucky in the way that we have a connection with kids who like the band. If we take the stage and mail it in, then I think we will lose that connection rather quickly. We practiced hard and put all of ourselves into it. It’s a constant back and forth between the kids and the band. Energy is very contagious. It is very surprising how the band has grown in popularity since we broke up. I think the same can be said for None More Black. I’ve noticed a big change in our live shows since we’ve gotten back together.

2. Were you pleased with the final product that was “Four Years One

Gulp” and do you still have any interest in pursuing film seriously?

I am pleased with Four Years. It was really difficult for me to pull that together—took more than 3 years. I’m still  pursuing film. I work as an editor. My number one interest is and has always been film. I’m working on some projects right now with a friend of mine which have gotten my creative juices flowing. When I finished school I went to work for a TV Commercial Production company. I’ve been working ever since.  Try balancing that with a touring band—it’s hard to focus on anything else. My time has been freed up a bit more and now I can finally focus on other things that I may have neglected for a long time. I’ll do the occasional music video, but only for friends. I really don’t like music videos. 

3. With members of None More Black residing in different cities does

that put any sort of strain on the writing process or does it give you

all a chance to breathe a little more?

I think it was more of strain. It took over a year to pull these songs together. Some songs fell through the cracks in that time, so it means that only the stuff we were stoked on was what we would record. In that sense it was helpful. 

We would sometimes go 4 months without practicing. Our practices would consist of  3 marathon 8 hour days of hashing out the tunes. The entire first day was usually spent getting back to the place where we left off from the last practice. The last three albums were much different. Our practice schedule was very structured—two or three times a week. Now it’s really fun, cause we rarely see each other outside of band activity, we enjoy each others company and appreciate it more.

4. I am sure you are aware that ICONS leaked recently. Does that put

any kind of added pressure on the band and have you been pleased with

the reaction so far?

We don’t feel any pressure ever. We have nothing riding on the success of the band. 

I’m a bit upset that someone leaked it. You can’t really trust anyone to do the right thing these days. We would prefer the album to be presented as it’s total package, artwork included. Fat was cool enough to put money into Paul Romano doing the art. He did a beautiful job. People should see it. I know that kind of thing gets lost with digital releases. We wanted Fat to do a PDF of the artwork, but we couldn’t get it worked out in time for it’s release.

5. Are there any plans for NMB to go on tour in support of Icons?

No touring plans. We can’t support ourselves on the road. We would lose money and have to do things that we normally wouldn’t do. Not to mention, none of us can afford to take that kind of time away from the rest of our lives. We’ll play weekends here and there. Perhaps a bit of traveling isn’t out of the question, but we have no desire to tour like maniacs.

6. You have said before in interviews how everything you write is very

introspective and personal. With that in mind is hard to play a show

with Kid Dynamite singing words that represent a time in your life

that has since gone by?

Not hard at all. It feels like it wasn’t that long ago. My dad was right, time flies when you get older.

7. In 2007 NMB announced a hiatus but were back one year later, was

that just how things came together or were you always planning to take

a break for that period?

We broke up with no intention of getting back together. There was no planning involved. I was out one night with our friend Katie and she texted Colin about something. He mentioned that he was miserable and that he missed the band. That was all I needed to hear. She then proceeded to text Paul about playing again and he said yes. That next weekend I had dinner with Paul and Colin and we decided to play again. Had it not been for Katie, we’d probably still not playing

8. For each NMB full length there has been a different producer, thus

each record has its own unique sound, is that deliberate and what

specifically did Will Yip bring to the table for this recording?

Having recorded with Lauryn Hill and The Fray, those are certainly two

artists that may not make you think NMB.

The first record was recorded by Nick Rotundo. He was one of our earlier drummers. I thought it would be cool to record with him. The EP was recorded with Vince Ratti for three reasons. 1. He was good. 2.He fit our budget. 3. He was local.  For Satire we thought it would be cool to bring someone else in. I had reached out to a bunch of different producers; Jim O’Rourke, Chris Walla, Matt Balas, Jeff Tweedy and even Mike Ness. Some of them never got any further than the first contact. Colin had just recorded with J. Robbins on the Paint It Black  record and thought that J. would be a great fit. He was right. J. got us. That recording session was a lot of fun. A lot has changed since then. When it came to time to record Icons we had a few hurdles to jump. We all worked full time and our budget, since everyone downloads music for free, was 1/4 of what we spent on Satire. We had every intention of recording with J. again, but realism set in. We couldn’t just drop everything and move down to Baltimore for 3 weeks. We just didn’t have the time or the money. Will Yip had recorded Colin’s other band Aneurism Rats as well as Blacklisted, and Lighten Up, not just Lauryn Hill and other popular stuff. With Will we could record in Philadelphia on a 3 day weekend schedule. This worked out really great for us. Will was fantastic and has become a good friend. 

9. What are the major differences in the gratification from your film

work and your career as a musician? I’d imagine that it is hard to

find something similar to the rush of a live show when working on

film.

Everything I do for work is commercial. I’m part of team that brings a brand identity to life. Which is cool sometimes. With NMB, I’m part of team in which we only represent ourselves and what we’ve created. Yes, live shows are the icing on the cake—that final sentence that says, “Hey!, we hear you”.

10. The bands appreciation for Seinfeld is obvious, what did you think

of the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm? Did the fake reunion do

the show justice?

I didn’t really care too much for the last season. Like the later seasons of Seinfeld, I feel like the characters became parodies of themselves. There was no middle ground for Larry anymore. He was always turned up to 10. I think the dynamics were lost a bit. 

11. None More Black, Kid Dynamite, Lifetime, Paint It Black, The Loved

Ones….the list could go on of the seemingly very tight knit musical

family your bands have belonged too. Not a lot of artists can say they

have been apart of something like that. Why do these bands work?

We have a lot of talented friends, which goes beyond music. We can feed off one another.

12. Are you surprised at the general publics newfound obsession with

vinyl? Not too long ago waiting for the vinyl release of a record

could take years, now its an automatic.

Not really. Vinyl is great It’s big and the artwork really shines. I love when labels put effort into the packaging of Vinyl. Fat finally gave us a gate fold for Icons, which is something we’ve always wanted. It’s also  very deliberate when you put on a record as opposed to putting your iPod on shuffle. You know what you’re listening to and why. 

13. Icons comes out tomorrow. After having put so much time and effort

into putting out this record and anticipation being high after a four

year absence in full length releases, what do you hope people get out

of this record?

I want people to enjoy it and feel as energized as we do when we play these songs. Smash stuff!

14. And finally, having been an active member for years, what

separates the Philly hardcorescene so special?

To be honest I haven’t lived in Philly for 7 years I moved to Jersey then New York—now I’m back in Jersey. 

I don’t feel like part of any scene aside from the bands that I play in. I lived in Philly for 8 years and it was the best time in my life. All my friends were in walking distance and we all made serious efforts to hang out. It really was special. 

I think what sets Philly apart is that there are still spaces to see shows that aren’t legit venues. When I lived there we had spots like Stalag 13, The Killtime, The church, and later the Rotunda and 4040. These were places where you would just go even if you didn’t like the bands that where playing. You went to hang out and help out. NJ used to have the Manville Elks, Handy St., The Down Under, Middlesex college and about half dozen other spots that consistently had shows. Take away the places to see shows and you’ve got no scene.