I feel like every time I do a Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick’s Day Boston show, I tell myself it might be the last year I do it, because it’s a lot. It’s always near Fenway so parking is a bit of a nightmare and it’s always just A) so many people in general and B) […]
I feel like every time I do a Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick’s Day Boston show, I tell myself it might be the last year I do it, because it’s a lot. It’s always near Fenway so parking is a bit of a nightmare and it’s always just A) so many people in general and B) so many people ossified on green beer and Jameson and the older I get, the less that’s my thing. I mean, I come from a Boston Irish family…but I’m not THAT Boston Irish if you catch my drift. But then, something happens that inevitably pulls me back in and reminds me A) why I still love going to shows and B) why Boston can be the best place in the world for a few days. You see, Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick’s Day runs feel like – well, they feel like a homecoming weekend of sorts. This weekend, I saw people I hadn’t seen since last St. Paddy’s Day, or the St. Paddy’s before that even. And I saw people from around the country (and Canada, which I guess will be part of this country before long if a certain orange puppet gets his way) and introduced old friends to other old friends and watched them become new friends, united by the common language that is punk rock.
Wait, sorry, this is supposed to be a show review and photo gallery, not a cultural thinkpiece or whatever that was. Mea culpa. ANYWAY, part of the reason that I jumped at the chance to make my way to Lansdowne Street for another year’s festivities was that the lineup for this particular weekend was insane. I’ve told people before that the last year that I went to a Mighty Mighty Bosstones (RIP) HomeTown Throwdown was for a lineup that featured opening sets from Flogging Molly and Avail and these very Dropkick Murphys and that the lineup couldn’t get better so I had to go out on top. If I never go back to a Dropkick St. Patrick’s show, I’ll have gone out on top there too, as the Sunday lineup included local favorites Rebuilder and the legendary Hot Water Music and Bouncing Souls performing opening duties. That lineup is bananas (not that the other nights weren’t also amazing lineups, with The Kilograms and The Menzingers and Cody Nilsen also helping to burn the neighborhood down over the course of four nights).
Rebuilder in the leadoff position was a particularly special moment. The band have been one of the finest punk rock bands in the city’s underground for over a decade at this point – and co-frontman Sal Ellington and bassist Daniel Carswell have been familiar faces to anyone who’s been in the MGM merch lines since the venue opened – so to have them occupy the bright lights at center stage was an awesome moment. The band – which also features co-frontman Craig Stanton on guitar and vocals and Brandon Phillips on drums and, in a return appearance for the big day, Patrick Hanlin on keys – kicked their set off with “Mile or an Inch” from 2017’s Sounds From The Massachusetts Turnpike, and blazed through a half-hour set that primed the surprisingly early-arriving crowd for the festivities to followed. I’ve seen close to two-dozen Rebuilder shows in venues of all shapes and sizes at this point, and while many of those venues have been of the sweaty, dive-bar variety, they more than showed that they belong on stage with a bunch of career heavyweights in a 5000-cap room.
Hot Water Music were in the two spot, and boy it says something about the quality of your lineup if Hot Water Music gets a half-hour set as second of four on a bill. The foursome ripped through “Remedy” to start the set in high-energy fashion and never really took their foot off the collective gas pedals. The iconic cheat code of a rhythm section that is Jason Black and George Rebelo pushed the tempo from their spot at stage center creating space for Chuck Ragan and Chris Cresswell to soar and wail through the set’s nine songs. I wasn’t quite sure how they’d be able to make a thirty-minute set seem representative of their thirty-year career, but it turns out that following “Remedy” with “Menace,” “Flight and a Crash,” “After The Impossible,” “Turn The Dial,” “Wayfarer,” “Burn Forever,” “Drag My Body” and, of course, “Trusty Chords” does a pretty good job of that. The latter song especially, turned into the first of what would be many full-venue singalongs, with most of the band even cutting out of the last chorus, letting the audience lead the charge before kicking back in in full force. Ragan seemed particularly amped up, at multiple points looking like he was trying to stomp a hole in the floor.
Accompanied by their longtime walk-up song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” the almighty Souls batted third and set themselves a high bar by jumping right into crowd favorite “Hopeless Romantic.” Much like Hot Water Music, the Souls have been headlining stages around the world for decades at this point, so they seem to be of a similar opinion that when occupying a comparatively abbreviated opening spot, there’s no time for messing around or exchanging pleasantries, and it is better to just get down to business. Probably doesn’t hurt that they also have George Rebelo behind the drum kit to keep the needle pinned. I know I’ve mentioned it a few times on these pages in recent years, but I genuinely think that the Souls sound as good or better now than they ever have. Greg Attonito’s voice is probably stronger now than it was three decades ago, and now that he’s recovered from the broken ankle that had him booted-up last time we caught them, he’s a ball of constant motion at center stage. And Pete and Bryan are – well – Pete and Bryan. They’re a package deal, left and right brain at this point, effortlessly creating high-energy melody after high-energy melody in a way that fills out the sound on a live stage more than you’d expect from merely a single guitar and bass. Highlight’s from the band’s fifteen-song, forty-five minute set included “That Song,” The Ballad of Johnny X,” “Gone,” and of course given the location, “East Coast! Fuck You!” The links between the HWM and Souls camps go back decades – long before Rebelo started doing double-duty – and in honor of that, Ragan made a return to the stage to join the Souls on gang vocals during set-closer “True Believers.”
And of course, that means Dropkick Murphys batted clean-up in this Murderer’s Row of a lineup. Wait, sorry, that’s a Yankees reference. Whatever, the Red Sox don’t have a similarly-named team. I mean yeah, the Morgan Magic lineup was fun, but Boggs and Barrett and Evans and Greenwell wasn’t exactly Ruth and Gehrig and Meusel and Lazzeri. I’m gonna regret this section text time I walk through Quincy Center, aren’t I… ANYWAY, accompanied by somber tones of the Chieftains/Sinead O’Connor classic “The Foggy Dew,” Ken Casey led his squad onto the stage and stormed into high-octane singalong renditions of “The Lonesome Boatman,” “The Boys Are Back” and “Middle Finger” before so much as taking a breath. Oh, who am I kidding…it’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Boston – every song the Dropkicks play is a singalong.
Casey spent the bulk of the ninety-minute set in a state of constant motion, pacing the length of the stage and making endless trips atop the barricade to whip the devoted into a full-throated frenzy. Tim Brennan and James Lynch hold down stage right and stage left respectively, the latter baring likeness to a punk rock Keith Richards (the one from the Stones, not the one from the Bruisers – he’s already punk rock!). It seemed like every time I looked up from the spot I was wedged in in the photo pit, Jeff DeRosa (guitar/mandolin) and Kevin Rheault (bass) had switched places, which actually came in handy given the limited elbow room in the scaled-down pit. As per usual, Matt Kelly maintained as steady a backbeat as you’ll find in the business from his perch at the rear of the stage, flanked by the band’s most recent piper, Campbell Webster. The setlist on this night drew predominantly from the earlier portions of the Dropkicks’ career, with songs from Do Or Die, Blackout and The Warrior’s Code making up close to half the set. It feels like it was during the Red Sox “Tessie” inspired run during the 2004 playoffs that there started to become a multigenerational feel at local Dropkicks shows, but it never really gets old seeing people across a forty or fifty-year age spectrum belt out the lyrics to songs like “The Fields Of Athenry” or “The State Of Massachusetts” in unison, arm-in-arm.
The Dropkicks found themselves at the center of media attention for what seems like the dozenth time in their near-thirty-year career for making pro-Union, anti-fascist commentary at a recent show. It baffles the mind that there are people who were somehow clueless as to where the band stood politically and who somehow find themselves bewildered that their for democracy and for the American worker and against things like Nazis and dictators, but then again, it’s 2025, so there are a lot of things that baffle me. This weekend found yet another on-stage confrontation with a MAGA-hatted showgoer. You do have to wonder if people make such style choices at a show like this hoping they’ll be singled out from the stage, which seems weird, but we know that proverbial shoe certainly fits.
The four bands on this bill – and really all of the other bands on the bills across the four-night, two-venue run – made for an epic event, and I don’t say that lightly. If it was my last Dropkick’s St. Patrick’s Day show – and I’m not assuming it will be – then I definitely went out on top with a lineup that was second to none and an evening full of performances that were poignant, cathartic, and representative of why this little corner of the music scene (and probably this little corner of the country) is just the best. It was like Homecoming Week for punks from across the land to come together amidst the growing chaos in the outside world to reinforce that we’re all in it together and that there are some people out there – like Rebuilder and Hot Water Music and the Souls and the Dropkick Murphys – fighting the good fight. Check out more pics in the galleries below – and probably stay tuned for more Dropkicks coverage in the coming months!
He was my brother’s favorite player growing up. I remember telling one of my fall ball coaches that and he said “great player to have as your favorite if you don’t care about the fundamentals of playing outfield.”
In what has rather selfishly become one of my favorite show-going events of the year lately, Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy and a cast of supremely talented friends brought their touring REM tribute show to Boston’s Royale nightclub. It’s an idea that really took root close to a decade ago, when Shannon and Narducy started enlisting […]
In what has rather selfishly become one of my favorite show-going events of the year lately, Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy and a cast of supremely talented friends brought their touring REM tribute show to Boston’s Royale nightclub. It’s an idea that really took root close to a decade ago, when Shannon and Narducy started enlisting a few friends to do a handful of one-off shows covering albums they considered staples: Modern Lovers and The Smiths and Neil Young records for example. In 2023, they honored the 40th anniversary of Chicago’s Metro and the 40th anniversary of REM’s Murmur, and it went so well they took the act on the road the following year, adding songs from the Georgia legends’ Chronic Town and Reckoning and a few others to round out a full evening’s set.
Thanks to the success of that run last year – and thanks to the 40th anniversary of REM’s Fables Of The Reconstruction happening this year – the band hopped in the van (proverbially, I think) again for a run of dates that brought them to Boston’s Royale nightclub. The venue – which was previously known as The Roxy, which Narducy played back in 1997 with his old band Verbow – is roughly twice as large as the Sinclair, which was the local stop they sold out on the Murmur run. The larger venue brought with it an expanded venue and a band that was firing on all proverbial cylinders.
Shannon and Narducy and friends (on this run, the “and friends” consist of Narducy’s fellow Bob Mould rhythm mate Jon Wurster on drums, Dag Juhlin on lead guitar, Wilco’s John Stirratt on bass, Vijay Tellis-Nayak on keys) wasted no time diving into the evening’s main event, REM’s 1985 album Fables Of The Reconstruction. Fables is a bit of a weirdly-remembered album. Serving as the legendary band’s third studio full-length, it was also a bit of a transitionary album that still held onto some of the “college rock” sound that made them early 80s critical darlings, but started to dip their toes in waters that were a bit more experimental. It’s an album that I think is received much more fondly in hindsight than it was upon its initial release, but then again, I was 6 when it came out, so what do I know…
ANYWAY, as I was saying, Shannon and Narducy and crew wasted no time, diving right into Fables… opener “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” and proceeded to blitz through the entire album in virtuosic fashion. The band sounded razor-sharp. The addition of keys and a second guitar player gave this lineup the ability to stretch out a little and add a few more textures than the four-piece touring machine that REM was able to in the early-mid 80s heyday. This doesn’t change the core feeling of the songs that so many hold so close to their respective parts, just fills and brightens out the sound. Shannon, for his part, channeled a good deal of Michael Stipe’s stage presence without doing a straight impression. Stipe was a one-of-a-kind ball of energy on stage, especially in the earlier years, and Shannon does a good job of mimicking the energy while not simply aping the entire “thing.” As a critically-acclaimed actor, I wonder if Shannon finds it more important to channel the performance of Stipe himself or his poetic words and the characters they told stories of. Someone should interview him about that; Michael, have your people call my people.
It’s an interesting thing, because it feels cheap to call Shannon and Narducy and Friends a cover band, although I suppose to the letter of the law, that’s what they are. Maybe that’s just semantics – although in the case of two of the Herculean set’s songs, they were technically not covering REM songs, but covering songs that REM were known to dip into in their live show in the early years – Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale” and Aerosmiths “Toys In The Attic.” But it didn’t FEEL like watching a cover band, like a group of weekend warriors living out their alternative rock glory days by starting a band called like Dirty Deeds or Stone Temple Posers or something, giving dive bar performances that are equal part messy garage band practice and Halloween costume audition. Instead, it feels like a group of monstrously talented musicians giving life to the songs created four decades ago by one of America’s most iconic bands. They genuinely do the songs justice, and the night is a bit of a marathon; the Boston stop found them hitting thirty-three songs on the setlist; I think DC reached thirty-seven. And yes, the project has been given the blessing of Stipe, Buck, Mills and Barry, who’ve been known to pop up on occasion at gigs and join the group for a massive homage to their iconic work. There were no original REM members in the room on this evening BUT Ingrid Schorr was in the building, and astute REM fans will recognize her as the muse behind the Mills-penned “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” which was, on this night, performed in her honor. Also, the stripped-down version of Reckoning’s “So. Central Rain” that Shannon and Narducy played as a duo to kick off the evening’s third set was goose-bump inducing.
Like last year, the multi-talented Dave Hill (Dave, from before…Dave Hill from showbiz, ringleader of the Dangerous Snakes Who Hate Bullshit) kicked off the evening’s festivities in fine fashion. I generally hesitate to review comedy sets in too much detail at the risk of spoiling the bit, but this is also the social media age, and so you probably know the bit already. If you’ve not taken in the Dave Hill live experience in person, it’s equal parts comedy show and blistering guitar performance art. Like a heavy metal late-stage Elvis, Hill barrelled onto the stage in a full one-piece jumpsuit adorned with flames and wolves and snakes and all other sorts of badassery. From there, it was a barrage of tasty riffs – part of Danzig’s “Mother”! A little bit of “Free Bird”! A cursory “Eruption” appearance! – on his sweet Flying V. For a while, he was joined on stage by a bit of a jazz trio (drums and bass and keys) as he regaled the audience with regionally specific pickup lines that would only work in the greater Boston area (shout out to South Station and the abandoned Medfield State psychiatric Hospital) before diving into set-closer “I Was In A Fight.” If you were at last year’s Murmur show, Hill’s set was pretty similar in tone and context, but his individual performance and stage antics make each night a little unique.
Check out a bunch more pics from the evening below, and stay tuned…word on the street is that Shannon and Narducy and Friends will be out on the road in 2026 to mark the 40th anniversary of Life’s Rich Pageant. (And really, Michael, let’s chat!)
In the worlds of substance use prevention and treatment – and public health in a broader sense – it wasn’t all that long ago that the term “harm reduction” was considered taboo in many circles. I can attest to that firsthand, as I was one of those people who was biased against it after years […]
In the worlds of substance use prevention and treatment – and public health in a broader sense – it wasn’t all that long ago that the term “harm reduction” was considered taboo in many circles. I can attest to that firsthand, as I was one of those people who was biased against it after years of working in abstinence-based programs like residential addiction treatment or alternative sentencing day treatment for people on probation and parole. And that stands to reason; in a residential setting, continued alcohol/drug use jeopardizes the safety and well-being of the milieu as a whole. In a court-ordered program for folks on probation and/or parole, obviously failing a drug test tends to result in your freedom being revoked, at least temporarily. And this is in a stereotypically progressive place like Massachusetts.
Perhaps I should back up. For the uninitiated, the concept of “harm reduction” in the substance use world involves a move away from an abstinence-based framework, and instead involves meeting people where they are at. It means trying to reduce the negative consequences of substance use – whatever those consequences might be. It’s tailored to the individual needs of the person and their community and seeks to minimize the stigma that is generally associated with the use of licit and illicit drugs without minimizing the harms and dangers of using those substances. It seeks to keep people alive and as well as they can be. Why are we talking about this on a punk rock website? Well, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the harm reduction community existed for a lot of years in the shadows. In the streets. In parking lots and alleyways frequented by illicit drug users. In fact, in many places, it still exists that way given the taboo nature of the subject matter. At the core, it’s been a grassroots coalition of people working in a textbook DIY capacity, looking out for their brothers and sisters and doing so without prejudice or judgment. Sounds like the core ethos of “punk rock” in my book.
More specifically, we’re talking about it here as a means to highlight a great charity that’s working on continuing the principles of harm reduction work and bringing them directly into our scene. Meet Travis Williams, founder of an organization called Safe Scene NJ. Williams has been involved in the DIY punk scene in the Garden State for close to a quarter-century at this point. It’s a scene that remains as vital as it ever has during a time when many of its corresponding scenes around the country have been gentrified out of existence. It’s a world that, like many others, has also seen its fair share of the ravages of the opioid epidemic that started to balloon with the rise of OxyContin in the early ‘00s and exploded with the rise of fentanyl in the last decade. “I’ve probably in my direct friend group, I had four or five people die within like a year of graduating high school,” Williams explains. While Williams reports he was mainly a drinker, he also did his share of dabbling in other substances for a time – though he’s now been free from everything for five years.
It’s that dabbling that has helped fuel the rise in overdoses over the last handful of years, as the potency and contamination of the drug supply has rendered casual users increasingly susceptible to accidental overdose, and those overdoses resulting from the use of stronger substances have resulted in a skyrocketing number of accidental deaths. Says Williams, “I think now there’s a lot of casual drug use, which is honestly just as dangerous or even more dangerous, you know what I mean? Like somebody who uses drugs, they know they’re high and they know when something’s off, you know? Somebody who doesn’t and they’re just like a recreational, like pick a bag up on the weekend or whatever, you know, they don’t have the tolerance. They don’t have the knowledge. I think there’s a lot of that going on now.” Enter the world of harm reduction. Williams started by volunteering with a larger organization that frequented a large number of larger, prominent shows. And while that was a great experience, it seemed like something was missing in the smaller, vibrant corners of the scene. “The casual listeners that are coming to bigger venues, a lot of them travel, it’s not your locals and the people that are in the scene.” He adds “I checked out some street outreach stuff and kind of found a middle ground where we could focus on the people that are in our core scene in New Jersey, who are out hitting shows every weekend…I just kind of wanted to like, move back into the roots of where I came from.” It was from those roots that Safe Scene NJ grew.
Nowadays, you can find Williams and crew set up at all manner of punk and hardcore shows across New Jersey, handing out Narcan, fentanyl/xylazine test strips, mental health resources, and more. More often than not, bands and clubs are generally supportive of the group setting up a table and giving out resources at shows, though sometimes it does make for pointed conversations. “I’ve said it a bunch. “I go to a lot of shows; somebody’s doing coke in your bathroom. There’s no way around it, you know? Would you rather that person use a test strip, or do you want to find out the hard way?” The longer he’s around and the more shows he goes too, Williams has seen the scene itself become much more supportive. Of course, it helps having a band like the Bouncing Souls cosign what you’re doing, as the band and Safe Scene NJ recently collaborated on a fundraiser t-shirt. “That was really cool. I think we’re going to try to do more, because there’s a lot of artists who do support what we do,” Williams explains. “Whatever t-shirts and stuff that we sell help. So collabs help, and they make us a little more recognizable, so if the Bouncing Souls want to jump on a shirt with us, awesome. Plus, it’s a really cool shirt too!“
Check out our full chat below, all about Travis’s story coming up in the iconic New Jersey punk scene, and the ways that Safe Scene NJ and other organizations like it are working to make the scene and the state safer. “It’s like a weird underground network of harm reduction groups, and just a bunch of like punk rock kids that, you know, want to look out for people in their scene.” You can also check out more info on Safe Scene NJ if you’re in the Garden State. If not, you can check out the National Harm Reduction Coalition to find out what’s available in your area (like if you’re north of Boston, check out Healthy Streets)!
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): I’m trying to figure the best place to start in talking about SafeScene, and I guess maybe for the folks that don’t know, fill them in a little bit about Safe Scene New Jersey and how this, like the sort of origin of it over the last year. It’s been like six months to a year or so basically, right?
Safe Scene NJ (Travis Williams): Yeah, yeah. So I volunteered with another group, and I liked it. Hitting bigger shows is cool. And like, I’m still down to do that. Like I jumped on an Underoath show or whatever. But New Jersey has a huge VFW and basement scene. That’s where I grew up at, going to these smaller shows and checking out new bands. The casual listeners that are coming to bigger venues, you know, a lot of them travel, it’s not your locals and like the people that are in (the scene). So when I was a kid, you know, 25 years ago, first time going to shows, nobody was doing what we’re doing now; you know, like, handing out mental health resources, or, you know, overdose reversal drugs, or test strips. We were all just fending for ourselves. So like, I liked what this bigger organization was doing. And then I checked out some street outreach stuff and kind of found a middle ground where we could focus on, you know, the people that are in our core scene and around New Jersey that, you know, they’re hitting shows every weekend. And, you know, whether they’re people who use drugs or not, everybody’s affected by it. So it’s just a great chance to like oversaturate New Jersey with tools and resources so that less people die, get hurt, whatever, you know? So yeah, I just kind of wanted to like, move back into the roots of where I came from.
You grew up in New Jersey, yeah?
Yeah, yeah.
Like Central Jersey? Which I know some people say Central Jersey isn’t a thing, except for the people that live in Central Jersey.
It’s a thing, it’s a thing.
Of course it is.
But yeah, literally like, dead center on the shore. So like, you know, 30 minutes north of Asbury Park. When I was a kid, there were shows everywhere. You just go to, you know, a VFW or whatever, a church. It was a cool spot to be. We had really cool venues within like, 20-25 minutes of us. Chrome, Birch Hill, we had, you know, everything in Asbury, the Lanes. You know, we pretty much had it all as far as a scene goes.
I feel like as much as any place in the Northeast, really, especially for the last, like you said, 25 years, that sort of tracks with me. As much as anywhere else that I’m familiar with, that scene exists in New Jersey. Like, I’m from New Hampshire. Sort of like 45-ish minutes outside of Boston is where I grew up. And we had a little bit of like the remnants of the Elks Lodge clubs, the VFW clubs, shows like that. But because I’m a few years older than you, as the mid to late 90s approached, a lot of that stuff went away in the Greater Boston area. But I feel like in Jersey, that is still very much a thing.
Yeah, I mean, we’ll throw a show anywhere we can, you know? I mean, we still have New Brunswick. Somehow that city just…every new college generation or whatever, they just rename the houses…
Is that what it is, like mostly Rutgers kids, basically, that keep that scene sort of going?
Yeah, and it’s wild. Like, I did a basement show there recently, and they had, you know, touring bands – small touring bands, but still touring bands – come through and play. And it was during winter break, so there wasn’t a lot of people around, and it was still a packed basement, you know?
I want to go to a show like that again. It’s been so long. Like, I mean, even here, so we’ve had, especially since COVID, even the smaller clubs that would attract essentially like our version of those shows, places like O’Brien’s in Allston and whatever. That’s really like the last holdover from that era, like the hundred capacity maybe, dive bar shithole kind of place. Otherwise that doesn’t exist in Boston anymore, a city that has such a music history and has music colleges and whatever. But because of gentrification and all that, like it doesn’t exist in the city anymore. And we went through a whole thing with the cops, like infiltrating message boards and whatever to find out where all the basement shows were. And part of me misses those days. Part of me is also like, “I’m 45. I don’t need to go to a crazy ass basement show.”
But we still have places like the Meatlocker. I mean, I don’t know how it’s still going. And I don’t know how, like, you know…It’s a bring your own kind of place, it’s a basement under, I think, an Italian restaurant.
Oh, wow.
So like last seating is like eight o’clock and music starts at nine underneath. (*both laugh*)
Is the scene essentially the same as it has been since your younger years? Is it the same sort of punk rock, hardcore roots like it always has been?
I don’t know. It’s weird because like, we had a really broad range of music, you know, in the early 2000s. And there’s like a goth scene that like they have shows at a house in the woods in the sticks…
Really?
Like when I thought we had everything in, you know, the early 2000s, like there’s EVERYTHING going on right now.
Wow. That’s really cool.
So like if you know where to look, you could find it, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s really cool. And it’s really sort of inspiring because you I always feel like the younger generation doesn’t quite care about music the same way that some of us – I hate to call myself an older person because I don’t feel that way – but the way that some of us older people do, right? I think about this a lot because I live in suburbia, but it’s still within 10 minutes or 20 minutes of Boston. You can’t walk through the neighborhood and hear like bands practicing in garages. And I feel like that was such a thing like early 90s, mid 90s, late 90s when I was growing up. There were always kids playing guitars in garages and basements and the one drummer that everybody had because nobody else could find a good enough drummer whose parents were like cool with them playing drums. I feel like that doesn’t happen here. And maybe that’s just exclusive to where I live. But so it’s good that scenes like that still exist.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, probably if you dive hard enough, you’re still going to find it. And like the reality is I’ve talked to a lot of people about it because, you know, I hit as many shows as I can, you know, with a family and young kids and stuff like that. There’s a lot of young kids out there making great, amazing music. I was talking to my buddy Benny about it. We were at a show in a log cabin in Tom’s River. Infest came out from California, like, you know, powerviolence, hardcore from the 80s and 90s and played a set. But these young kids, like they’re still in high school, like 16, 17. And they’re so far beyond like in talent from where we were, you know, in our teens. But like I think the thing is, like, there’s no boundaries in music anymore.
That’s true.
Like, you know, when I was in like middle school, like you were either into punk or hip hop or, you know, maybe you’d get lucky and get like an E-Town Concrete that like kind of crossed over so you could like feel out that scene. But like these kids, you know, they’re listening to whatever they want and they’re taking influence from everybody and everywhere. And like they’re just locking in and just turning out INCREDIBLE music.
That’s awesome. Because my kid is a junior in high school. And so I’d sort of think about like the people in her circle and her peers and the boys at school who traditionally are the ones playing in bands. And like, there’s nothing. We used to have Battle of the Bands at school all the time or at like the Knights of Columbus or whatever. And I was saying a few years ago, “are you guys going to have like a Battle of the Bands now that COVID is over and you can do things at school again?” She’s like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Seems like everybody just plays hockey and basketball.
Yeah, I’ve seen some like Battle of the Bands kind of gigs coming up, but it’s a lot of like college-age stuff, you know, and it’s people like organizing on their own. But we also don’t have like the Warped Tour, Battle of the Bands, you know, where you’re playing at the Stone Pony at a matinee, you know? Like that happened, it’s cool, but it’s not around anymore. Everybody got tired of that, like pay-to-play thing and hustling your friends for tickets and that kind of thing, too. So I just think it went in a way different direction. But like even my nephew is like an unbelievable musician and he’s happy with just like doing videos online, you know, writing riffs and like teaching people how to play and stuff like that.
We need those kids, too! We definitely need those kids, too! You mentioned that obviously when you were coming up, there was nobody handing out like harm reduction tools and whatever at shows. There definitely was not up here when I was going to shows. I think the most you would get for handouts really at any sort of shows was like Food Not Bombs stuff or Anti-Racist Action stuff, because we had a problem with the skinheads like a lot of places did. So then we had a like an anti-skinhead movement, especially around like Bosstones shows and that whole crew. And that was the extent of the activism and outreach really, I guess, until Dropkicks came along. But how embedded in the scene did hardcore drugs become in Jersey? And I ask because I think about this a lot because I have worked in and around like behavioral health substance use treatment, et cetera, for 20-ish years now. And I’m so thankful that I grew up like five years before all the OC. stuff came around. Which just like decimated like white suburbia, which is obviously like that’s why people started to care about it, because once it became a thing that infested white upper-middle-class suburbia, people were like, “Well, this is bad.” But obviously it had been a problem for a long time. But I consider myself thankful, lucky that I grew up just a little too early for that scene because the age bracket, like five, six years younger than me, just got decimated up here, I’m sure down there, too. But so how embedded in the scene did that world become?
So, I mean, obviously, when you’re in it, you’re kind of blind to it, right? Like, you know your friends are falling off or whatever. And like I’m right in that age bracket where I’m a little bit younger than you. So like I’ve probably in my direct friend group, I had four or five people die within like a year of graduating high school.
Wow.
You know, and it got bad. It’s weird. So like, you know, when I was younger, people were like hooked in it and they were on it and whatever. I think now there’s a lot of casual drug use, which is honestly just as dangerous or even more dangerous, you know what I mean? Like somebody who uses drugs, they know they’re high and they know when something’s off, you know? Somebody who doesn’t and they’re just like a recreational, like pick a bag up on the weekend or whatever, you know, they don’t have the tolerance. They don’t have the knowledge. I think there’s a lot of that going on now. But it did get really, really bad. And I mean, full transparency, like I was in it, you know? I’m five years right now without anything.
Hell yeah! Right on. Congratulations.
And, you know, it was definitely way more accessible than anything else. You know, just as easily accessible as beer or whatever or weed. If you want it, you can get it.
Yeah.
You know, I grew up in a town like I could go to my neighbor’s house and be like, “Yo, what can we do?” It was there. Honestly, any neighbor’s house and anybody on the block. And even like kids, you know? I want to say I don’t mean kids but like, you know, people my age. They were hustling. And it wasn’t just my town. It was adjacent towns and it spread out. And even the towns were like people had more money or whatever. It was there. It was just a little more quiet.
Is that like when you when you got clean, is that sort of like the beginning of the like the fentanyl era really sort of taking over? Does that kind of line up?
Yeah. I drank way too much, which, you know, turned into other things. But I was more like a recreational user as far as any sort of other substance goes. But like, I’m glad I stopped when I did, because that was like the boom. I mean, you remember, we were seeing it right around 2019, 2020. It was just everywhere. And there were no protocols. There was no accessibility to testing and stuff like that, so people were just kind of winging it.
Oh, it was taboo! I feel like up until very recently, even to have Narcan at places was. Because I worked at a program that was like an alternative sentencing program for people that were on probation and parole. And for a while, we weren’t allowed to have Narcan in the building. The court and the sheriff’s department didn’t want us to have Narcan in the building. Mind you, I worked in a city in northern Massachusetts where the fentanyl problem was so bad that it was on the front page of the New York Times about it being the epicenter for fentanyl regionally. Like above-the-fold, Sunday New York Times. That’s how bad it was. And we couldn’t have Narcan – the precursor to Narcan, the old school one that you had to like assemble together, before the nasal spray. We had a place that would give it to us. So we’d have to go like meet them in the parking lot and get like a bag and bring it in the building in like a brown bag. We’re like, “this is so fucked up…having to go meet somebody to get your bag in the parking lot and smuggle it into the building. So I’m glad, but it is wild to me how that has changed. I don’t know if it’s been, I guess, the last five years, like really since COVID, whatever, is kind of where I set the marker. But it’s amazing to me how far we have come with that.
Yeah, I mean, but honestly, like I have like friends that do harm reduction in other states and all around the country and stuff. And like, there’s still spots where like a xylazine test strip is contraband.
Yeah!
You know? Are you fucking joking? Like you’re making it illegal to just be able to test a substance to save somebody’s life. Like, they’re oppressing right there.
Right.
So, you know… it’s unreal.
Harm reduction, I mean, obviously has come a long way from whatever, 10 years ago. But what’s the sort of prevailing attitude towards harm reduction in Jersey? People are pretty much on board with the concept in most places?
I mean, there’s some venues that are still a little leery about it, just because they have outdated information or, you know, they’re run by a parent company that’s international and they have their rules and whatever. But I mean, like overall in the state, New Jersey really tries to push harm reduction. Like I’m sponsored by the Department of Health on the Narcan side, so that helps a lot. But just to keep the legality of like harm reduction, they still follow AIDS prevention protocol. So, like, unless you’re doing syringe exchange and stuff like that, you can’t actually be a harm reduction group.
Oh, really? Oh, interesting.
So like the blanket idea in New Jersey is that unless you’re doing bloodborne pathogen or, you know, AIDS reduction, you’re not a harm reduction group.
Interesting. Interesting. So then what I guess, what are you? What do they consider you?
So I do offer syringe exchange, safer smoking, injection alternatives, stuff like that. Not at shows because, you know, there’s a level of trust with the venues where, you know.
Giving out Narcan is one thing…
Yeah, yeah, but giving out syringes and then pipes and stuff like that…(*both laugh*). You know, I get it. But on like the street outreach side, we do that. So, yeah, technically, we’d be considered a harm-reduction group. I actually had to blanket under another group for a little bit until I think the 27th, then I actually get like an approval from the state to be like a harm reduction group.
Yeah, that’s cool.
But there was some like weird stuff because we don’t have a physical location, so it was hard for them to classify us.
Oh, interesting.
They don’t have a true classification for somebody who’s specifically mobile. So they might have like classified me as a vending machine. (*both laugh*)
Which, by the way, do you guys have those? Do you have the places that do Narcan vending machines now?
There’s one in New Brunswick. I think there’s one in Elizabeth. They’re starting to pop up. Not like not like the newspaper box ones like that. You know, like it looks like a like a hospital sort of vending machine or a hospital snack machine. But they also have Narcan, test strips, syringes, you know? So, like I said, New Jersey’s really, really into access on that stuff, which is really great.
Yeah, which is sort of why I’m surprised that they didn’t have a way to classify mobile outreach like that, because I feel like that was such the thing for a long time. Like that was that was the way a lot of places had to operate almost under cover of night. Like there’s an agency that I have worked sort of overlapping with for a long time here in a local community, that especially during COVID, they were operating out of the back of a U-Haul truck.
Yeah, yeah.
…in random parking lots, which is kind of what you have to do.
I just bought a van. Like a 2002 Astro that’s like half converted. So it’s like half passenger, half utility. And like, I mean, that’s how we’re going to do it for now. Hopefully once we get the approval, the State dumps a ton money – literally all the recovery funds go to what they classify as harm reduction. People doing, you know, syringe exchange and stuff like that…
Like the opioid remediation funds and stuff like that?
Yeah! So hopefully once I get approved next week, we can like pull some funds out of there. Right now, we operate on like literally the tightest budget, you know, and we make it work. But like to be able to set up at more shows or do more street outreach or even have like a physical, third space location would be so rad. Because like, you know, a place to train people that isn’t, you know, a library or whatever. Or just like, a place to host a fundraiser, you know? Like right now we’re starting to throw together some fundraiser shows, which is cool. And we’re working with some bands to do some fundraising and spread awareness, get the name out there, help some other social justice groups and stuff too. But being able to bring people to your doorstep and show them what you do would be like a really great opportunity.
I feel like it would. Yeah, I feel like it would. I feel like there’s always going to be a need for it.And I feel like the more that places do to reduce, I guess stigma is the word that we usually use, but the more that people do to reduce stigma and improve accessibility, you start to treat it like it’s an actual public health thing and not like an us versus them, war on drugs thing.
We lost the war on drugs. We’re never going to fucking win it.
Yeah.
I mean, like harm reduction groups, there’s probably like 40 in New Jersey, something like that.
Wow!
And like they take the burden off the public health, you know what I mean? Like literally, there’s numbers you can look at research. It’s fucking there.
Right.
You know, and honestly, I’m not standing in the freezing cold on a Sunday handing stuff out like for nothing…I’m doing it because I care and because it helps. Like, yeah, you know?
You don’t get into this world for the paycheck.
No, no, no. It makes a difference. You know, even if it’s a small difference, that small difference turns into a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger, you know?
Have you had people from other places like outside Jersey reach out? Because I could envision people from other scenes, people from other places sort of hit you up to get ideas about how they can set up their own sort of version of it or how to approach even even have those conversations with local public health people in places where it’s a little more taboo.
So, yeah, there’s a couple of groups that like we kind of all started at the same time, so we do a lot of bouncing ideas off of each other and like feeling out what works. It also turned into a network to, like, share information, like, what new additives or adulterants are in the street supply? Like, if I know somebody sees something in Philly, I know that shit’s coming to Trenton and then I know it’s coming up north. And, you know, it’s like a weird underground network of harm reduction groups, and just a bunch of like punk rock kids that, you know, want to look out for people in their scene. And it’s cool. As far as like groups in other places, though, I’ve had people, you know, suggest, opening up some stuff in other states, but I don’t know their legalities, you know? I’ve done a ton of research about what we could and couldn’t do, how we could do things that maybe we weren’t supposed to do but needed to do, ways that we could work around issues…
Easier to get forgiveness than permission sometimes, right?
Yeah, it’s easier to do the right thing than to sit down and do nothing. If anybody out there wants to get into it, you’ve got to dig deep and reach out to your local public health organization or advocacy groups that are out there in the area. See what the need is, see what the gaps are. I don’t want to say you have to just dive in, but you really have to go full bore into it.
You’ve got to do the work.
Yeah, you’ve got to do the work. Sure, you can get a few boxes of Narcan and set up at a show, but when it comes down to it, you’ve got to be able to talk to people about it. You’ve got to show people how to use it.
Yeah, and how to explain to venues that it’s a good thing for them to have you there; that it doesn’t cast you in a negative light if they have drug testing strips at their venue. That it’s actually a good thing.
Listen, I’ve said it a bunch. “I go to a lot of shows; somebody’s doing coke in your bathroom. There’s no way around it, you know? Would you rather that person use a test strip, or do you want to find out the hard way?”
Sure, or even like someone took an Adderall or a Xanax or something, because of how easy it is to press god knows what into pill form now.
Yeah, I could go onto Temu right now and buy a pill press. You want something that looks like Xanax? I got you. (*both laugh*)
That, plus Fentanyl and Xylazine the last few years is really what changed the game, isn’t it? Because forever it was the cartels controlling it, and you could really only get presses in Mexico or like Denmark. The fact that you can get your own pull press now changed the whole landscape. Because if you don’t know what you’re taking, but your friend takes Adderall and especially now with the Adderall shortage, and your friend says “here, take one of mine” and it would be nice if the thing they gave you was actually Adderall, and the only way to tell is by testing for what else it could be. It seems so simple.
It does. It does. And I’ve had some run-ins with venues and they’re like “you can’t!” and I had to play the card and be like “One, show me the law that says I can’t. And, listen, you’ve got a bar right next to where I want to set up. Why shouldn’t this be as accessible as a beer or a shot or a glass of wine, because I know you didn’t check every fucking boot in here. Somebody’s got shit in here.”
And maybe the people who work there. Heaven forbid we have that conversation…
Right! Maybe. And in New Jersey, the hardest part I’ve run into is obviously if a venue wants me there, great. But it comes down to artists. So I spend a lot of time talking to artist management or artists directly. I don’t want to scare them into letting me set up at their shows. People say “no.” But hopefully the next time they come around in eight months or a year or whatever, or they talk to their friends or see something online, maybe they’ll want us around next time.
I feel like it can’t hurt having a collab shirt with the Souls too. I feel like they’re the godfathers of the whole New Jersey thing, so having them vouch for you I feel like must help.
Yeah, that was really cool. I think we’re going to try to do more, because there’s a lot of artists who do support what we do. It helps, because we don’t take grants, we are 100% public funded through donations. Whatever t-shirts and stuff that we sell help. So collabs help, and they make us a little more recognizable, so if the Bouncing Souls want to jump on a shirt with us, awesome. Plus, it’s a really cool shirt too.
It really is. I can’t wait for mine to come in.
Yeah, Josh from School Drugs has helped me with pretty much every shirt we’ve done, and he knocks it out of the park every time.
He’s so great. I can’t remember if he and I have ever actually met in person, but we’ve certainly communicated a bunch and obviously know a lot of the same people. I feel like half my friend group at this point has ties to the Jersey punk scene, and everyone knows and loves Josh. He’s super talented.
There’s so many Jersey punks, you can’t avoid us! (*both laugh*)
(*all photo credits: Nick Hebditch. Cover Art: Timmy Tanker*) When Boston-area punk rock singer/songwriting legend Lenny Lashley releases his fourth solo studio record in the not-so-distant future, he’ll be doing it so in a manner that is both new to him and is, in the grand scheme of things a bit peculiar and revolutionary. Although, […]
When Boston-area punk rock singer/songwriting legend Lenny Lashley releases his fourth solo studio record in the not-so-distant future, he’ll be doing it so in a manner that is both new to him and is, in the grand scheme of things a bit peculiar and revolutionary. Although, given the trajectory of Lashley’s career to date, perhaps “peculiar” and “revolutionary” are exactly what we should expect. Barring any unforeseen technical glitches, Lashley – who not-so-coincidentally turns 60 this weekend – plans to make his new record, Pray For Death, available digitally for as close to free as is allowed. Physical copies will also, hopefully, be available for pre-order from Lashley himself in a manner that helps ensure that he makes no profit from the record; pre-order costs will be transparently capped at whatever the cost of production and shipping for the individual record was. Short of driving to your house and hand-delivering a burned CD to your mailbox, it’s about the closest thing you can get to a DIY release in the modern era, and Lashley wouldn’t have it any other way. That all is the “who” and the “what” and the “when” and the “how” of the story. The “why” takes a little explaining, so let’s back up.
Lashley initially rose to musical prominence in the Boston scene during his time fronting iconic, rabble-rousing punk rock band Darkbuster, and later, his countrified side project Lenny And The Piss Poor Boys. In 2011, he put out his first release under the moniker Lenny Lashley’s Gang Of One, a self-titled seven-inch on Asbury Park’s Holdfast Records. Save for his stint in Street Dogs prior to their hiatus, the Gang Of One project has been home to all of Lashley’s work since then, and has found him working with a wide variety of friends and fellow musicians and playing in lineups of numerous shapes and sizes. The initial 2011 self-titled seven-inch record was followed by his debut full-length, Illuminator, in 2013 and All Are Welcome in 2019, both of which were released by Pirates Press. After a parting of the ways there, 2022’s Five Great Egrets was released by Omerta/Durty Mick Records.
Chronologically speaking, that brings us to Pray For Death, Lashley’s fourth Gang Of One full-length, whose release remains imminent (hit him up on Instagram if you want it early though). As he has done on each Gang Of One release to date, Lashley once again collaborated with producer extraordinaire (and Bouncing Soul) Pete Steinkopf. “It’s almost at the point where I don’t think I’d feel comfortable working with anybody else now,” Lashley explains. Their working relationship began in 2011 after an introduction from Holdfast Records owner Joe Koukos. In addition to the store and record label he operated in Asbury Park under the Holdfast name, Koukos had been a staple in the local scene from his time working at the Stone Pony and Club Deep, and had booked Darkbuster at the latter establishment a few times. “Eventually, when (Koukos) found out I was doing this stuff,” says Lashley, “he said ‘Hey, I can put you in touch and we can do a seven-inch with Pete‘.” The pair hit it off virtually instantaneously: “I think it took all of fifteen seconds for me to ask if he wanted to do a full record.”
While much of the previous recording that Lashley and Steinkopf have collaborated on took place on the latter’s home turf at Little Eden Studios in Asbury Park, Pray For Death was recorded at Somerville, Massachusetts’ Q Division Studio. For the project, Lashley called in a few longtime Boston area musician friends, many of him he met during his days tending bar at the legendary Midway Cafe. Chuck Hargreaves (Field Day) engineered the project. Andrew Stern and Cody Nilsen man the electric guitar and pedal steel duties. Sam Gelston plays drums. John Sheerhan (who played in a band called The Spitzz with Victoria and Tom from Showcase Showdown!!!) played bass. Tom West played the keys and the accordion. Jared Sims led the horns. New Jersey heavyweights Jared Hart (Mercy Union) and Doug Zambon (The Vansaders) and some guy called (*checks notes*) Brian Fallon helped with backing vocals. Stylistically, it’s very much a “Lenny Lashley record,” meaning that it draws influences and textures from a pretty wide palette, albeit maybe not quite as wide as the palette on Five Great Egrets. “From the get-go with this album sonically, I suggested to Pete that we chase the idea of Damn The Torpedos by Tom Petty,” he explains. “That was such a once-in-a-musical-history type of recording, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of the history of that and what it entailed. So sonically, we tried to chase a little bit of that dragon. Not that we were making Damn The Torpedos, but we recorded everything in a live-ish way, and we went for takes. That’s kind of not done a lot that way anymore.“
The resulting nine songs that make up Pray For Death are among the most honest and well-thought-out of his career, which is saying something. Part of that is due to Lashley having much more time to solidify his ideas before going into the studio. “When I went in to record Illuminator, a few of the songs were really raw,” Lashley chuckles. “Matter of fact, I remember that (Michael) McDermott (The Kilograms, Joan Jett, ex-Bouncing Souls) did drums on “Hooligans,” and Pete asked me to play it for him on acoustic guitar, and McDermott sorta shot me a look because I couldn’t even play it at that point.” This time around, the songs were generally much more polished going into the studio. That, coupled with the caliber of the musicians he compiled, made for what Lashley refers to as the “most magical musical time of (his) life.” One track, “One Shot Down,” started as a rough sketch and was essentially composed real-time in the studio. Two other tracks, “Hate Anymore” and the John Lennon cover “Working Class Hero,” were recorded live in-studio in one take with no overdubs, with Lashley both singing and playing guitar simultaneously, something he’d never done before. “(That) probably would never occur if I hadn’t had quite a bit of time to get myself up to speed. The other guys are competent musicians, I’m a bit of a third wheel, you know?” he jokes.
Eschewing the traditional label distribution models that he’s used in the past, Lashley is going completely on his own for distribution on Pray For Death, virtually ensuring – by design – that he makes no profit from the record, though he jokes that “in my short span of twelve years of doing my own releases, (profit) has been negated to zero anyway.” In part, this takes some of the worry about expectations or being beholden to outside influences away, relying instead on the word-of-mouth support of the fanbase he’s cultivated over the last few decades. It also has to do with the wisdom that comes after achieving more than nine years of sobriety at this point, and after years of chasing the proverbial carrot that the music industry – even in the punk rock scene – tends to always promise but so infrequently deliver. “I’ve been chasing my tail and this idea that music is going to provide some type of lottery ticket for me down the road or some type of accolades,” he explains. “I’m much more comfortable being present with what I have and being grateful for what I have now…I can be okay with just the way it is.”
Check out our chat below, which covers all of this and more in great detail. It’s been somewhat edited and condensed for content and clarity’s sake. And stay tuned for where and when you can actually get your ears on a copy of Pray For Death – or just check in with Lenny on Instagram!
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): I tend to start every interview this way, but congrats on the new record! I feel like somebody commented online that they had heard either all or parts of the new record, I forget who it was, but they made a comment that “Lenny Lashley fans will like this.” Like, if you liked Illuminator, if you liked All Are Welcome, you’ll like this record. And I think that’s entirely accurate. Lenny Lashley fans are going to dig this one.
Yeah, I hope so. I mean, they’ve been the sole source of support throughout the whole process anyway.
You mentioned that you’re giving it away, essentially. Not to fast forward to the release of the record right at the beginning, but you mentioned that you’re essentially giving the new record away, or as close to giving it away as you can?
Yeah, you’re beholden to some sort of charge with the distro and the digital release system. There’s no viable way to just give it away. However, the way that it’s set up through the digital distributor, there is a lowest amount they’ll let you charge, so that’s the only option really in that department. My goal throughout, as far as physical copies of it, is to hopefully have people contribute to the manufacturing and shipping costs. In other words, no potential profit which, I mean, in my short span of twelve years of doing my own releases has been negated to zero anyway (*both laugh*). It was just a way to give it less pressure and not have to worry about any expectations about recouping anything on my part, you know?
So, there will be physical copies of it?
Yeah, I have yet to determine how many there will be. When it is finally released in the digital realm, my hope is to then announce a pre-order and see how many people are into getting a physical copy of the record. Because the manufacturers want the cash upfront, I’ll have to have people that are willing to come on board with that so I have a basic amount of how many. I’m hoping between three- and five-hundred, because I think three (hundred) is like a minimum pressing. So then, if you get the three hundred, they give you a significant discount to get to the five hundred option, so maybe I’ll be able to swing some money out of pocket to kick it up so I’ll be able to have five hundred copies. Then people can order them from me, you know, pay for the cost to make the record and ship the record. I want to be transparent about that and show people the invoices from the manufacturer about what it costs to make and ship media through the Postal Service or whatever, you know?
So, sort of like a Kickstarter thing, but just without the mechanism of using Kickstarter, and just essentially trying to do it yourself?
Yeah, right, exactly. The thing is, for me personally – and not to come from a place of sour grapes or contempt or anything – but the idea is to connect directly with the people that are interested in the music and take the middle people out. In fact, I saw a thing the other day from Kay Hanley of Letters To Cleo. She had a little Instagram thing and she was talking about the record industry. She was really talking about more of the major labels and how they’re not geared really to help out new artists. Now, for a number of years, who knows who they’ve really been geared to help out – but her point was that all of these people who are trying to make it in the music business or whatever, they don’t have a real viable way to make a living. They’re beholden to whatever crumbs they can get from these guys, you know? It doesn’t bother me anymore, it just is what it is. So for me personally, as a musician or an artist or whatever you want to call it, it’s empowering to run it the way I’ve always managed to run things, you know?
That just seems like a lot. I mean, knowing just sort of peripherally, and obviously I have never released music, so I don’t know all the details of how that works, but that, like, that just seems like such an overwhelming thing from where I sit, that I sort of get why people either stop making music, or just let the label deal with it, if you have a small label, because it just seems, like, daunting to try to take on. So, I give you all sorts of props for doing it this way.
Yeah, it’s really a matter of getting your ducks in a row as far as manufacturing goes and all that kind of stuff and then being diligent about who’s ordering stuff. It’s just taking notes really, and you do that quite a bit, Jason. I’m not really good at it myself. But the point is, the whole process has been pretty enlightening in that regard. And that’s not to diss anybody from any scope of the businesses that I’ve been lucky enough to work with in the past. This is much more me getting to have the last word on what things are from the album art to the content to whatever. There’s no middle person in there giving me an opinion on things, except for Pete (Steinkopf), who did the role well as a producer. And the other guys who were in the band or whatever. That’s as far as any critique goes prior to making anything, you know?
Was that always the plan when it came time to record album…four? This is technically the fourth full-length Lenny Lashley’s Gang Of One record, right?
This would be the fourth, yeah.
When it was time to write for this record, was it always the goal to do it yourself this time, or did that come together as you were writing it or pulling it together?
It wasn’t really. After not being with Pirates Press anymore after the second record and into the third record or whatever, Dirty Mick at Omerta was nice enough to help me get the Egrets record out. And he did that as a sort of family favor sort of thing, it wasn’t a profitable venture for them really, in the end. It was really just something where Mick had some experience from a previous record label that he had and he had some connections with Revelation, who was able to do some distro, and the Coretex people. He’s a friend and somebody I’ve known for a long time and basically had full support of regardless of what the content of the record was, you know? And that was important to me. You’re into music as much as I am, when you read things from a guy like Tom Petty or a guy like Frank Zappa, it’s always difficult broaching a higher-up in a situation like that and what their views are on what an artist is trying to do, you know what I mean?
You mentioned working with Pete again. Did Pete do all four records? He did Illuminator, right?
Yeah, he did Illuminator, and the first thing he helped me out with was a little three-song seven-inch that he helped me out with, and that was through a mutual friend, Joe Koukos, who had a record store down there in Asbury, Hold Fast Records.
Oh sure, that was a great spot.
So Joe, knowing those guys and being a staple in the Asbury Park scene – because he had worked at the Stone Pony for years, and Club Deep for three or four years before that. He had had Darkbuster down there at Club Deep, and eventually when he found out I was kinda doing this stuff, he said “hey, I can put you in touch and we can do a seven-inch with Pete” and then I think it took all of fifteen seconds for me to ask if he wanted to do a full record.
Yeah, of course. Pete’s the best.
I’ve been very fortunate. It’s almost at the point where I don’t think I’d feel comfortable working with anybody else now, you know?
Yeah yeah yeah. What’s his role in the process? Do you go to him with completed ideas? Or is your relationship the kind where you can go to him with a sonic idea and then go to him like for advice like “Should we do this? Should we do this instead?” Because there’s a bunch of cool sort of textures and different sonic themes, musical themes, on the record. How much of that is your vision or Pete’s vision or both of you together?
For this particular one, there was like a year or something in between. I had been writing and working on stuff, so a lot of things were quite a bit more developed than in the past, you know? When I went in to record Illuminator with him, a few of the songs were really raw. Matter of fact, I remember that (Michael) McDermott (The Kilograms, Joan Jett, ex-Bouncing Souls) did drums on “Hooligans,” and Pete asked me to play it for him on acoustic guitar, and McDermott sorta shot me a look because I couldn’t even play it at that point (*both laugh*). He was like “go upstairs to Kate’s kitchen and try to get it together a little bit.” This one had a little bit more time for me to develop things at home and try to work on my vocal range. Pete is a super encourager of when an idea is flowing. He did have some tweaks or ideas about extending a break or doing a chord break here or little things like that that give things a little bit more body in the whole. I’ve learned to trust him. He’s such a good producer that if he suggests something, he wants what’s best for the song. Even if it’s out of my comfort zone, I defer to his judgement.
It’s funny, before this, one of the last interviews that I did was with Sammy Kay, who has recorded like twelve projects with Pete now, between splits and seven-inches and full lengths and whatever. And he says almost the exact same thing about having the trust in his vision that you were just talking about.
It’s funny because I’ve developed, over the years, a real respect for the things I’m doing musically. I feel really lucky to be able to make music, even if it’s self-funded, but just the fact that people want to listen to it occasionally. Pete really gets the gravity of that stuff. I remember after a long day of work on that first record, Pete would say “well, this is forever. This is going to be forever.” So that kind of changed my perspective on mailing something in. It’s a tremendous amount of effort and resolve to get something done the way that I want to get it done.
When you write at home, if you’re sending him demos, let’s say, or even just when you’re writing at home in general, are you, I mean, for somebody who plays so many shows as a literal gang of one, right? Like, there’s a lot of different sounds. You’ve always got horns. You’ve always got, like, pedal steel, especially lately. Like, how much of that comes from, like, do you write that stuff in your head or do you demo stuff like that while you’re writing as well? Or do you wait until you kind of have the song fleshed out in the studio with Pete to figure out what to add to it?
It kind of depends on what would serve the song. Luckily enough, the group of folks that I’ve worked with are super talented. Cody Nilsen, who’s been phenomenal as a pedal steel guy, is someone I’ve done a bunch of shows with just him and me. It’s a very unique sort of sound that it brings to the country-er sounding stuff. So automatically, I know that that should be a voice that’s in there, and Cody is so intuitive about what to put down. He doesn’t need a tremendous amount of coaching or whatever.
He’s so good. I’ve seen the two of you together a few times. He’s so great.
It’s mind-blowing to me to be in the type of position like Cody or like Andrew Stern. They are both phenomenal guitar players that can translate what they have in their brain to their fingers and they can play it instantaneously. It’s like alien shit, you know? (*both laugh*)
And to be able to sort of know what you’re going for, probably without you playing it for them all the way through. Like, you could start playing them a song and they know what to do while they’re hearing it, basically. Even though they haven’t played it yet and they didn’t write the song.
It’s a real strange talent that folks like that have. Tim Brennan of the Dropkicks is very intuitive like that. So the one song that has the horns on it on the new record, “Devil Behind The Wheel,” I had worked with those guys before. I had them do some stuff on the previous record, so I knew that they had it in their wheelhouse. I did give them a little direction, because there was a line that I had in my head. They had a more elaborate part worked up, and when Pete heard it, he said “well, maybe we can scale it down a little bit” because he didn’t want it to step on some of those beautiful organ lines. I just kinda deferred to Pete. He knows enough to tease people into some ideas and not totally just standing on a table, jumping up and down and beating it into the ground. I’m a ‘beat a dead horse’ kind of person, so I appreciate that. (*both laugh*)
So who else plays on the record? Obviously Cody and Andrew, but who else plays on the record this time, because I want to make sure those people get their flowers too.
The guy who played the drums is a buddy of mine, Sam Gelston. He worked with me at the Midway (Cafe) for a bunch of years. Super talented all-around musician. Plays guitar and sings and is a really good drummer, unbeknownst to me. I didn’t realize he was as good of a drummer as he is. A buddy John Sheeran played bass. I’m going to space it on some of the bands he’s been in, but he was in The Spitzz with Tom and Victoria from Showcase Showdown. He’s been around forever and I’ve always kinda known him but never had gotten a chance to get to make music with him. He does a lot of stuff with Andrew Stern, who I also developed a relationship with through the Midway. He was coming in and playing a lot of Wednesday night gigs there when I was tending bar, so we got to be friends. Andrew suggested “oh, we should do something together at some point!” And then on organ is a guy Tom West, who is just like the coolest old cat ever. He’s done stuff with Peter Wolf from J. Giles Band and fills in with a bunch of other folks. I had met him too from coming in the Midway. It’s kind of mind-blowing that all of the people that I had watched doing other projects and was in awe of wound up being a part of this. And also Jared Hart did some background vocals. And (Doug Zambon) who is so nice, did some other background vocals. He did a bunch of stuff on the previous record too. And also, a real big surprise is Brian Fallon from Gaslight Anthem. I had been back and forth with him a little bit on Instagram, messaging about how much I loved the solo stuff that he had recently done. The common denominator was Ted Hutt, who has done a bunch of stuff with Dropkicks and did The ‘59 Sound with those guys. But that solo stuff from Brian really, really struck me more than the Gaslight stuff, you know what I mean? I reached out to him and conveyed that and on one song, I actually heard his voice in my head. I’d listen to his solo records so much that it must have subconsciously seeped in and I heard his voice, you know? I just asked and he said “sure, I’d love to do it!” That was a real mind-blowing thing. He’s such a nice guy to do something like that, you know?”
What song does he do backup vocals on? Is that “Mrs. Breeze”?
Yeah, “Mrs. Breeze.” He actually starts the song. It’s his vocal from the get-go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That totally didn’t dawn on me. I mean, I actually wrote in my notes to the song “who’s doing the other vocal here?” So it’s funny that I’ve been listening to him for 20 years and didn’t register that that was his voice.
It’s funny because Pete had him over and they did that at Little Eden. And Pete said “you guys have such a similar tonality, it sounds really good with you guys singing together.”
It does, yeah.
Brian really bought into the whole thing. There’s the whole call-and-response part on the bridge, and he just took the ball and ran with it. It just brings so much to the song. At the end, he’s singing with me. I sing a line and he sings a line and we sing it together on the last line. I’m just so pleased with how it came out.
Yeah, I almost wondered if I was just hearing like… because I was listening to it in my car and my 10-year-old Honda Accord doesn’t have the best stereo system in it. But I was like, oh, I wonder if I’m just hearing like left channel, right channel as the different voices. So it’s interesting that that’s Brian. I love that song, by the way. I was making a list and trying to prioritize the songs that I wanted to talk about. And I think that one might be my favorite one on the record. I’m not entirely sure…
Here’s a thing that I’ve come to terms with over the years, Jason. I write on a really emotional level. It doesn’t fit in with a lot of the criteria in the music business because it’s kind of depressing, sad-ish stuff, you know what I mean? I’ve always gravitated toward that stuff even since I Was a kid and listening to the AM Radio. With that one, there’s an obvious nod to classic rock, like “Call Me The Breeze” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The tale of eating orange sunshine, those are my teenage years. That was high school, you know? Popping kegs and eating acid or whatever. I don’t know how relatable that is to the younger generation, but the emotion I think comes through. It’s about a lost kid or a kid that just gets swept up and away from their parents.
I thought from like the first line of the song, it’s sort of like retelling the Petty song, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Because “the Indiana Boys and the Indiana nights.” I was like, oh, it’s interesting to think about this as like the same character, but from like if things went a little more sideways.
It’s so funny that you mention Petty, because last night, when we were rehearsing, we did “Gone World,” and Andrew said “That feels like a Traveling Wilbury’s tune” and until he said that, I didn’t quite get that, but from the get-go with this album sonically, I suggested to Pete that we chase the idea of Damn The Torpedos by Tom Petty. That was such a once-in-a-musical-history type of recording, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of the history of that and what it entailed. So sonically, we tried to chase a little bit of that dragon. Not that we were making Damn The Torpedos, but we recorded everything in a live-ish way, and we went for takes. That’s kind of not done a lot that way anymore.
No, I think because of like digital music and the way that like people will just take 40, 50 takes and like make sure you nail a part and whatever. So I think one of the things that that sort of recording style has gotten people into bad habits around, like just record a bunch of takes of it rather than the old-fashioned, like get you all in a room and play the damn song together. Because that’s like… Those are the records that translate the best, I think, to a live show anyway, right? Because that’s essentially what we’re going to hear.
Ideally that certainly is a thing. It’s a little bit of a tightrope walk, but the spontaneity and the magical, unquantifiable moments don’t happen if it’s all pre-determined. That’s how we did “One Shot Down.” That was pretty much just a sketch of a verse and we worked it all out right there. Nick Hebditch did a video of the whole experience in there and at some point in my life, I can’t wait to watch that, because you can kinda see the whole thing transpiring. Me explaining it to the guys and Andrew picking up a twelve-string and everybody working it out, and the next thing you know, we’re ripping through a take. It was pretty magical, you know?
That’s awesome. I mean as necessary as it is for people to write and record sometimes digitally and by themselves and whatever, you’re right about that sort of studio magic thing, which I hope never goes away.
I defer to Rick Rubin’s sort of methodology, that everything is a tool in the box. And don’t really ever say no to anything. But this particular record was really the most magical musical time of my life. Two of the songs on the record were first takes, all the way through from start to finish. And that’s with me singing and playing guitar, and I’ve never done that in my life. I always go back and track a vocal as a separate thing.
Which two? I’m curious about that. I mean, you sort of mentioned “One Shot Down” but…
So that one was worked out in the studio. Every song was done full takes, but first, complete takes without having to go back was “Working Class Hero,” the Lennon cover. Pete heard that one the first pass through with me singing it and playing it and said “well, dude, I just got some goosebumps. You don’t need to do that one again.” And then the closing track, “Hate Anymore,” was done all in one pass too. It was me playing guitar and singing and the band playing and it was one take and that was it.
Wow. That’s really impressive.
It probably would never occur if I hadn’t had quite a bit of time to get myself up to speed. The other guys are competent musicians, I’m a bit of a third wheel, you know? (*both laugh*)
They’re your songs but you have to catch up. (*both laugh*)
It took me a year to get to be able to play the stuff good enough to record. I’ve never had that luxury going into the studio. I’m always learning on the fly and a little bit behind the curve with everybody.
When did you start writing for this one? Do you essentially just write straight along and then when you have a batch done you make a record?
Generally I’m always writing or getting ideas, and if I’m lucky some things seem totally close to where they should be. Other things I’ll just kinda bank and won’t hammer them out too much until it’s time to pull a record together, you know? I like to keep ideas that are fresh. Sometimes things go by the wayside and you hear them again three months later or a year later and you’re like “What the heck was I thinking on that one?” you know? (*both laugh*)
Fallon, to go back to him for a minute, I remember during Covid he was doing a songwriter Instagram podcast sort of thing, and he and another writer would go back and forth and play songs, and one of the things he talked about all the time was “just write all of it.” Don’t worry about what it is, just write all of it, you’re going to throw out most of it, but then you can look back at it and you might find some line or some chord progression in there to build on if you just keep going.
Years ago, I read a book called The Artist’s Way. Coppola’s wife I think wrote it. (*editor’s note: it was Julia Coleman, Martin Scorcese’s wife) That was like “when you get up in the morning, don’t think, just put the pen to paper and write.” It was designed to help eliminate some kind of writer’s block. Editing is such a big thing. But that being said, it is nice when you can catch lightning in a bottle where the whole thing just writes itself. A lot of people argue that those are the best ones. I don’t know. I think those are the lucky ones, but the best ones can require a little more effort, you know?
Do you like the songs where you’re telling your story more first person, or the songs where you’re telling a character’s story? A song like “Mrs. Breeze,” for example. Do you like one exercise more than the other?
It’s really, to be honest, when I look at it introspectively, aspects of it are really all me anyway, you know? Like the line in that song “Mama, don’t you worry ‘bout me,” is really kinda trying to make amends to my mother, because I put her through a lot of hell when I was a kid. Fortunately we got to see the other side where hopefully she doesn’t worry about me anymore. But I was a troubled kid. A troubled not even kid, a troubled adult. I must have caused her a lot of anxiety over the years. So there’s always a little bit of a personal thing. It’s much easier to build characters around it because it doesn’t hurt as bad, you know? It’s nice to tell a story in the Springsteen fashion. That was a great thing that I picked up from him years ago, that “the big secret is I made it all up!” And he didn’t make it all up. I don’t believe that’s true. If you listen to his stuff, you believe that it was him because he believed that it was him when he was writing it, you know?
He had the ability to be an empath enough that he could observe what was going on around him and tap into the emotions that other people were feeling and relate to them. So it maybe didn’t happen to HIM, but it did happen and it certainly happened around him.
He had the gift to be able to convey that to the listener. Like when you listen to “Factory,” there’s no way you could tell me he wasn’t getting up in the morning walking to the factory, or walking home at the end of the night with death in his eyes, you know?
That’s a thing that we give songwriters like Springsteen shit for but we don’t really do that in other artforms? Like we don’t do that in film, we don’t do that in painting or sculpture. You don’t assume that Francis Ford Coppola or Marlon Brando went through the things that they were putting on the screen, they weren’t documentaries, you know.
The music scene is pretty savage about the vetting process, yeah. And I don’t get it, really. I’m a Gram Parsons kind of guy – good music is good music, you don’t have to classify it or prove that you like Taylor Swift by reciting every song that she ever wrote. Or the Circle Jerks or whoever. And maybe that’s the 60-year-old in me too. I don’t feel like I have to justify anything. If I like it I like it and if I don’t, I don’t.
Yeah, and I think that punk rock especially has had so much gatekeeping involved historically. What is punk, what isn’t punk, who sold out, whatever…who gives a shit, if you like the music, you like the music.
You want to talk about the big lie, there’s a big lie. Punk rock was supposed to be all inviting. I really defer to that thing about making music that speaks to you. That’s a Bowie thing. Make music for yourself, and if people happen to like it, that’s cool.
I haven’t seen the cover art for the record yet, but I saw the video for “Gone World,” that Lewis Rossignol did, who did the Egrets record. I love him. That came out so great.
Yeah, he’s awesome.
And it’s a weird thing to say that about somebody who paints the way that he paints.
Yeah, he gets a lot of hate for the childlike way he paints. It really speaks to me too. Yeah, he did that video, and it came out so good. The album art was done by an artist who goes by Timmy Tanker. He does woodblock stuff. He did a design for me a number of years ago. I find a lot of people through social media or mutual friends or whatever. If something speaks to me, I’ll usually beg them to do something for me. So a bunch of years ago, I begged him to do a shirt design, and as is often the case, not everybody is always as enthralled with some stuff as I am. Some people are Renoir guys, some people are Van Gogh guys.I really always appreciate Tim’s style and his honesty and the place of emotion that comes from the stuff that he does, so with the Pray For Death title, it’s a little doom-and-gloomish, so he seemed like the obvious choice, you know?
I hope that the pre-order thing goes well, because I’m excited for people to hear it and I’m always excited for it to be a real, physical thing. It’s a super fun record. It’s a Lenny record.
Yeah, I hope so. I think there’s some variety. And to put my professional musician hat on, the plan is to not repress it or anything. The industry in a large scale has developed a commodity sort of ideology, with short runs of different colors and variants. There’s nothing wrong with that, it seems like a great trend for people who are collectors, but this will be all black, one pressing of however many it is. I don’t plan to press it again. Kind of like the Piss Poor Boys thing years ago. You get in where you get in, otherwise pay a tremendous amount down the road on Discogs or whatever. I feel like it should have a finite kind of thing about it.
I can appreciate that. I get that people are collectors, but for me personally, I think it’s a little weird to chase down like 40 different variants of the same record. I think that music was meant to be listened to, so I’m not a “collector” like that. I love Born To Run, but I don’t need fifteen copies of Born To Run, you know?
And I’m guilty of it a little bit too. The supply and demand thing has always struck me a little funny insofar as commerce. We’re so lied to as a people generally, and I tried to make an example of it when Illuminator was out, with the gold records. If you look at DeBeers, the diamond company, and you look at the value that the world places on diamonds…if DeBeers just opened the doors to their warehouses and flooded the world with their stockpile of diamonds, the value of a diamond would be like a glass marble, right? It’s basically a smoke-and-mirrors kind of thing. It’s the way a lot of the world is now, and I don’t want to be someone who goes down in history as someone who was smoke-and-mirrors.
Oh I don’t think there’s anybody who would accuse Lenny Lashley of being smoke and mirrors. (*both laugh*) I can stand on that. I know you, and the other people I know who know you I can guarantee would never accuse Lenny Lashley of being smoke and mirrors.
That’s something that makes me feel good.
And we laugh, but I do mean that genuinely. The amount of people that will comment when I have my Lenny’s Gang Of One hoodie from time to time, that they “Love Lenny, he’s such a good dude.” Whether they’re in the music scene or not.
It’s not lost on me. I really love that other people, especially peers, appreciate it. I would be lying if I said that that stuff wasn’t important. Because when people like Pete or Brian (Fallon) in the industry can say they appreciate it and get a little bit real, it’s encouraging to know that maybe I’m not far off the right track with what I do.
That stuff helps, right, with the imposter syndrome stuff that we’ve talked about before? Like knowing that someone like Chuck Ragan is a big fan. Tim Barry…
Yeah, and there could probably be a list, but thing about it is, I’m a recovering drug addict and recovering alcoholic, right? The internal stuff, it does make me feel good. But there’s never really enough for that, somewhere deep in my psyche. So to just be okay with who I am now, that’s been a real transformative part of this process and this particular record, you know what I mean? Therein – like the Lennon song says – it’s okay to just be not chasing my tail for some sort of bigger success. It’s the King Midas thing, you know? Be careful what you wish for, because if everything you touch turns to gold, then everything you eat is gold. There are no long-term emotional benefits from that, you know?
I think the first time you and I talked like this was back for Illuminator, maybe just before it came out. Do you think we’d be having that sort of conversation and you would have that sort of insight back then?
Absolutely not. No fucking way. I’ve been chasing my tail and, if I’m being totally honest with you – this idea that music is going to provide some type of lottery ticket for me down the road or some type of accolades. I’m much more comfortable being present with what I have and being grateful for what I have now. It’s night and day compared to how I was back then. It’s not illusory, it’s not always how I want it to be, but it’s better than I deserve most of the time. And that goes into the recovery piece, you know? And some Buddhism and some other spirituality that’s crept into my life. I can be okay with just the way it is.
When Tim Hause put out his debut album, TIM, a couple of years ago on Blood Harmony Records, the label that he shares with his older brother Dave, it served as a bit of a watershed moment in the careers of both Hause brothers. While the album was written largely as a collaborative effort, Dave […]
When Tim Hause put out his debut album, TIM, a couple of years ago on Blood Harmony Records, the label that he shares with his older brother Dave, it served as a bit of a watershed moment in the careers of both Hause brothers. While the album was written largely as a collaborative effort, Dave was largely not present for the sessions, as Tim recorded it with Will Hoge in Nashville. As Tim explained it when we caught up last week, “(Dave) wasn’t there for the first one because I felt like I had to sort of like earn my stripes on my own or whatever. And it was kind of a bummer, but I’m glad that we did it that way now.“
When it was time to record TIM‘s follow-up, the younger Hause brought big brother back into not only the writing but the production and recording folds as well. “Dave sort of was like a co-producer on this one,” Tim states. “It was awesome to have him involved.” Going into round two, Hause knew he wanted to make a higher-octane record than he did for his debut record. The brothers Hause returned to Nashville to work with their “Southern cousin” Will Hoge again, as they had on TIM as well as on Dave’s Blood Harmony and Drive It Like It’s Stolen. Hoge’s sonic bread-and-butter might be more traditional Nashville-style Americana, but at his heart, he’s still a rock and roller, meaning he had just the right ideas on how to approach Hause’s souped-up sophomore effort. “I said to Will ‘I want to turn the gain up. I want it to be a rock and roll,” Hause explains, citing touchstones like Green Day and Jimmy Eay World and Weezer’s Blue Album as the sonic divining rods he wanted to employ. “Will was like “I know just what to do!” So, it turns out, did the elder Hause brother.
Tim and Dave Hause, Shirley, MA – November 2024 (Photo by the author)
“We made the record in Nashville,” he explains, “but it wasn’t the kind of usual suspects that played on it.” Independent from one another, Dave and Will, it turns out, both had the same drummer in mind to serve as the backbone to the musical structure they were building: none other than Atom Willard. Willard has long been known as the heavy hitter behind such bands as Rocket From The Crypt and Against Me! and, more recently, Alkaline Trio, a band that happens to be one of both Hause brothers’ lifelong favorites. “Atom has this energy in the room with anyone,” Hause reports, adding that it “doesn’t matter how high the stature of the session player is. When he’s in the room and you’re playing guitar with him, you are fired up. All the guys light up when they hear those drums.” Chief among those other guys in the room was another familiar face from the annals of recent punk rock history, Willard’s Alkaline Trio rhythm section comrade Dan Andriano. Daunting as it might have been to have two-thirds of one of your favorite bands in the studio giving life to the songs you created, Tim insists that the familiarity he’d already had with Andriano especially helped that dissipate. Not only has Andriano been one of Dave Hause’s good buddies and occasional bandmates (see: The Falcon) over the years, Tim’s been in that circle for a time as well. “We did a tour with Dan (a few years ago,” he explains. “I played keys with him, sang with him and played some guitar, and so over the years, (we’ve spent) a good amount of time together and have a friendship.”
Rounding out record two’s sound are the two-headed guitar attack of Nathan Keeterle and Kyle Cook. The former is a Tennessee-based guitar wunderkind who, despite still being in his twenties, has played on records by the likes of Darius Rucker and Chris Shiflett and Jelly Roll, which I’m told is a big deal. The latter is, well, he’s from Matchbox Twenty, a band that certainly knows a thing or two about guitar-oriented rock. Hause went into the project with a profound confidence in the material he’d written, a necessary part of the process always, but especially when you’re going in the studio with such a group of heavy hitters. “I gave them a lot of runway because I had a tremendous amount of trust in the whole system,” he says. “It all came out so much better than even I really anticipated.”
The fruits of their collective labors will be borne this Friday – Valentine’s Day – in the form of Pre-Existing Conditions, the junior Hause’s sophomore record that consists of ten tracks that are raw, honest, compelling…and very much rock-and-roll. Much as the senior Hause’s sophomore record Devour did to his stellar debut record Resolutions a dozen years ago, Pre-Existing Conditions raises and resets the bar that TIM initially set two years ago. Yes, I’m positively comparing Pre-Existing Conditions to Devour, and if you know me well, that’s about the highest of praise I can give a record.
But I digress. Pre-Existing Conditions starts with “Here In The Bluelight,” “Make It Take It” and “No Call No Show,” a trio of songs that find Hause turning his songwriting mirror inwards, focusing his pen on some of the fears, doubts and insecurities he’s built up over the years and how they manifest themselves in daily life. Then comes “Tyrannosaurus Rx,” a song that starts to delve more into the struggle of the pre-existing conditions that give the album its title and central theme, albeit in somewhat of a playful fashion. At its core, the song is about the push-and-pull relationship that many people have with their care providers, particularly those in the mental health treatment world.
“When I play the song live,” Hause explains, “I usually say “oh it’s about, it’s about a crappy psychiatrist. My psychiatrist is great, but this is about a crappy one who all he wants to do is (up your meds) and that’s really not how mine is!” Still, it reflects the internal struggle that many folks have when hearing even the best of practitioners advise you to increase the amount of medication you’re taking for fear of feeling, well, for fear of feeling “crazy.” Hause explains rather candidly that he was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder close to a decade ago after a hospital stay that was the inspiration for Pre-Existing Condition‘s cover art. “I was in a really bad way,” he states, adding “I just kind of lost my mind. I was hallucinating, and I didn’t sleep for days and days.” Hause credits his devoted family and tight circle of friends for closing ranks and helping him get the help that he needed. Although, in what seems to be typical Hausian fashion, there’s a bit of dark humor behind his condition. He explains: “It’s funny because in health class, when we did the mental health unit…I had a particular aversion to (bipolar disorder). I thought that that would be like hell…and fast forward all those years later, it turned out it was!“
That dark humor has helped Hause through what seems to be an extraordinary number of catastrophic deaths and losses in his three decades on the planet, starting with his mother when he was only eleven years old, a time that was chronicled on the soul-crushingly heavy TIM track “4000 Days.” The grim reaper shows his ugly, hooded head again on Pre-Existing Conditions on songs like “Summerkiss,” which could be interpreted as being about the loss of a relationship or the loss of a family friend. Though it was admittedly inspired by the latter, “I had the self-consciousness about making (another) song about death,” he tells, “so I thought maybe I can tie in like a summer love as well and have it be sort of ambiguous.”
Then there’s the semi-tongue-in-cheek “Fear Ate My Faith,” a personal favorite, that deals head-on with not only feeling like a harbinger of death, but with the cold reality that being the youngest child in a family of five presents the very real likelihood that one day, he’ll be the only one left. “I sent that to my family and was like ‘Hey, I’m going to kind of joke about you guys dying before me. I just don’t want you to be surprised about it‘,” he laughs. “They’ve called me an emotional assassin at times, so I know that I have to kind of prep people for that.“
Which brings us, of course, we have album-closer “Catacomb (Only In Dreams)” – a track that tells the story of the loss of Tim’s lifelong best buddy Shane. If you’ll recall from our chat a couple of years ago, Shane’s house essentially became Tim’s second home after his mom passed away twenty years ago, a place he’d go to hang out and find a home-cooked meal while his dad worked to find normalcy after the loss of the family’s emotional epicenter. Fast-forward a decade, and Shane’s life met a tragic end when he accidentally drowned in Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River after a night of traditional Thanksgiving Eve revelry. Shane would essentially vanish without an initial trace, leaving Shane’s mom to reach out to Tim right as he was sitting down to celebrate the holiday with his family. “I was just sitting down to my Thanksgiving dinner. And I got a text from her saying, ‘Hey, have you seen Shane? Did he crash at your place last night?’ And my heart just sank,” he explains. “I think that some of the losses that I’d been through, especially my mom, have kind of colored my perspective on life. And I kind of just knew that something was terribly wrong. If he wasn’t at Thanksgiving dinner, it’s like, “oh, shit, something is going sideways.”
It would take more than five weeks for authorities to recover Shane’s body from the icy December waters of the Schuylkill. It would take incalculably longer to process Shane’s death in a productive way. One such start was helping with the Philly-based A Piece Of Shane Foundation, a charity geared toward raising money for artists in need. “For instance, there’s a school whose music program had a fire and all their music equipment got burned up,” he explains, “so we gave them a grant.” (Shane’s mom is the president of the charity; Tim sits on the board.)
Tim at Faces in Malden, MA – April 2024 (Photo by the author)
Another way was through the “Catacomb” track that brings the album to a close. It’s a bit of an on-the-nose retelling of Tim’s way of receiving the news that Shane was missing, the horror story their lives became during the month-plus-long search for him, and picking up the pieces once he was laid to rest. The track was recorded live in the studio with Hoge at the helm, prior to Hause explaining the song’s background to the performers. After tracking, one-by-one, the players returned from the studio room to the control room. “Atom sat down next to me and was like ‘Wow, that is some potent song,'” he reports. “I told him the story and he said ‘Oh my God!…I’m going to go back in, I want one more take.” That second take and all of its immense weight and goosebump-inducing gravity is the one you hear on the record. “That was just such an amazing example of there being some type of magic pixie dust in the air.“
To mark the release of Pre-Existing Conditions, Tim has put together a rock and roll band that’ll play a few celebratory dates in the Northeast this week: Malden MA on Thursday, Brooklyn on Friday, Philly on Saturday and Asbury Park on Sunday. It’s different than the band you hear on the album: Luke Preston (who plays bass in Dave Hause and the Mermaid) handles lead guitar, Nick Jorgensen from Mercy Union plays bass, while drumming duties are handled by Francis Valentino, who has most notably played for – checks notes – David Lee Roth. The band will also appear in full form at this year’s Sing Us Home Festival, the third installment of the weekend-long concert series the Hause brothers throw in their hometown of Philadelphia. This year, in addition to appearances from both Hause’s, headliners include the likes of Frank Turner and the almighty Bouncing Souls, a full circle moment for Tim Hause, as his first appearance on a record is the version of “Manthem” on the Souls 2005 live double album. There’ll undoubtedly be more solo shows and duo shows with Dave, but given the nature of the album itself, if you live in or around one of those areas, you deserve it to hear the songs celebrated in full, amped-up fashion. Until then, fire up Pre-Existing Conditions (if you ordered it from the Hauses themselves, you’ve certainly already got your copy), and check out our full and incredibly honest and in-depth interview below.
(*NOTE: The interview below has been edited and condensed for content and clarity. Yes, really.*)
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): So congrats on the record. Congrats on Pre-Existing Conditions. I really, really like this record. I mean, I really liked Tim a lot obviously…but I really, really like this record. I have been listening to it kind of just on repeat.
Tim Hause: Awesome. Yeah, I’m really proud of it. It seems like a jump for me. It feels like a level-up. And not to take anything away from record one. Everybody’s got to make a record one, and I’m proud of the way that one happened. But just pretty much every facet of how this one was done, I’m just really proud of and really pumped for everybody to be able to hear it in its entirety.
I was going to say that it felt like a level-up, but then I almost wondered…I was like, “wait, is that sort of a backhanded compliment?” I don’t really know. Because the first record is great. But yeah, it seems like everything just sounds better.
Yeah, yeah. No, it doesn’t (seem like a backhanded compliment). I don’t take it that way. I always think that in life, if you’re not trying to level up, then you’re probably backsliding, which I’ve certainly been guilty of in various realms of life. But I mean, in terms of career, you hope that you’re always, you know, moving forward and improving and getting better and honing the craft. But yeah, what an experience. It was great. We made the record in Nashville, but it wasn’t the kind of usual suspects that played on it. There was there was a dose of that. There was this guy, Nathan Keeterle who I think the secret is sort of out around town, but I think he’s twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
Really?
I mean, we had Tom Bukovac play on a couple of records, and he’s kind of like known as “the guy” in Nashville. You know, I think he played with like Willie Nelson. He only really does shows of that caliber at this point because he’s so busy with his YouTube channel, which he calls himself Uncle Larry. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that.
Yeah, yeah!
And then he does really high-profile live gigs. And to be quite honest, I think Tom is in kind of a league of his own. But Nathan…Nathan might be in that league or he’s knocking on the door. I mean, he’s amazing.
I heard someone else refer to him almost in those exact words. It was Chris Shifflett, I think, because I think he played on one of Shiflett’s sort of country or sort of Americana albums. And I didn’t realize the kid was only like twenty-seven or twenty-eight. That’s wild.
He played on a Shifflett record?
He played on like a Jelly Roll record or something like that, too.
Yeah, yeah.
He played on I think it was the most recent Shifflett record (Lost At Sea) because he’s kind of gone the Americana way recently. I heard Shifflett, I think, in some press article say something about that he didn’t really play guitar much himself on the record because Nathan and I think there was somebody else that played with him too (*editor’s note: the other person was Tom Bukovac. Duh.*) Like they were just so good. And I think Nathan was playing slide as well, especially and like they were just hitting home run after home run that Shifflett – for a guitar guy to be like, yeah, “I don’t really need to play here.” It’s pretty awesome.
It’s amazing. I mean, he is unbelievable. And I guess, well, that shows how little I know about the music industry, that I don’t even realize that the secret has been out. I know it’s some big gigs, but yeah, the Jelly Roll thing is that’s a huge, huge deal. And yeah, I mean, he’s just amazing. He’s like …he’s like a Martian being here to play guitar. (*both laugh*)
Is he from Nashville? Do you know? Or does he just do the thing?
Yeah, I think he’s maybe not from Nashville, but he’s from Tennessee. Maybe like a suburb or something like that. I mean, he’s just unbelievable. Amazing guy. And it was cool because, you know, it’s the same kind of effect that I went into this with. I said to Will: “I want to turn the gain up. I want it to be rock and roll.” I gave him touchstones like Jimmy Eat World or Green Day or Weezer. Like, Weezer’s Blue Album is a really meaningful record to me. And those were kind of like the sonic fields that I wanted to be kind of foraging in. And he was like, “I know just what to do.” And, you know, Dave sort of was like a co-producer on this one. He wasn’t there for the first one because I felt like I had to sort of like earn my stripes on my own or whatever. And it was kind of a bummer, but I’m glad that we did it that way now. And then it was awesome to have him involved. And they both cast Atom Willard as the drummer without knowing that the other one had cast him as the drummer.
Oh that’s funny!
Yeah. So that was really cool. And then and Dan (Andriano). So to have like two-thirds of Alkaline Trio, which is just one of my all-time favorite bands, to be playing on it, that was really special. And Atom has this energy in the room with anyone. It doesn’t matter how high, you know, the stature is of the session player. Like when he’s in the room and you’re playing guitar in the room with him, you are fired up. You are pumped. And it’s just like there’s an infectious sort of thing that goes around in that room. And you could see it, see all the guys light up when they hear those drums. Yeah, it was great.
And he plays so heavy. It’s like you have to be sort of sucked into it. It’s going to raise…you talk about raise the gain on the record, but it’s going to like raise the level of everybody because you have to like keep up with him.
Yeah, yeah! But you know what’s wild is that it’s so loud, but it’s not overloading any of the microphones or anything, which is why because like the power is there, but it’s not so much attack that like the recording itself, like the engineering part of it struggles.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s amazing.
Is that sort of a pinch-me moment? Because we’ve talked before about Alkaline Trio being like one of those signpost bands for you, at least in punk rock. Is that sort of a pinch-me moment to have two-thirds of them in the studio playing your songs?
Yes, I’d say yes and no. I mean, yes, because yes more of like the reflection and looking back, but no, because I went in really confident with the songs. And, you know, we did a tour with Dan and I played with Dan. I played keys with him, sang with him and played some guitar. And so over the years, just spending a good amount of time together and, you know, having a friendship has kind of like not totally made that that feeling dissipate, but it’s kind of just become normal in a way. But in the reflection, it’s definitely been like, “wow!” for sure, the pinch-me thing is there.
And that’s before even mentioning Kyle Cook from Matchbox 20? Like of all random things that have come up.
I mean, Kyle is fantastic. And that was so cool because, you know, sometimes these like guitar players can be snooty about their boutique pedals.
Oh, yeah.
And Kyle came in and like every pedal on his board was like a Boss pedal and he made them sound amazing. Like some people, some guitarists will kind of thumb their nose at those (sorts of pedals) and like they’ll kind of be uppity about it. And he just came in with those and he crushed it. I mean, there’s some of this stuff. I had a couple people tell me that one song in particular, “A Wake,” was one of their favorite vibes, like guitar vibes that they’ve heard.
Absolutely. Yeah, that’s on my list.
Yeah, and that was like all him. I kind of directed him a little bit because I kind of like I wanted to have some certain thematic things that were references to the person that it’s about. And once I said those things, he immediately knew where to take it and just was like unleashed. And it just it all kind of like fell into place really, really quickly. It was awesome.
Is what we hear close to what you had in your brain or your demo versions of these songs? Like did you give those guys a lot of runway in the studio or did you kind of like paint by numbers it?
Yeah, these came out in my mind, the way that I envisioned them. They actually came out better than I envisioned any of them, and I think that that’s a really rare, rare thing. Like, however many records I’ve made now, is it like nine or 10 or something? I’m in that area. I’m almost at double digits. Maybe I’m at nine. And like, it just is not an easy thing. You have something in your head; you have a picture of what you want the song to be. And, you know, a lot of times it changes. A lot of times, like, it’s scary to put a demo down because you realize what the song isn’t. You have these ideas for what it could be, and it just misses the mark. And, you know, you hear it back, and you’re like, “oh, shit…Now I’ll do it again. And now I’ll do it again.” You’re just slowly rolling the boulder uphill. And with this one, I just gave them a lot of runway because I had a tremendous amount of trust in the whole team. And then it just all came out so much better than I really anticipated. And really, that’s true of every facet of the record, the way that the cover came together. It was just so cool. I’m so happy with it and so pumped.
Yeah, there are a bunch of songs I wanted to talk about. As I go through the list, I tend to make notes and then I’m like, “man, I feel like I want to talk about all of these songs!” Because there’s so many cool things and cool little notes, cool little like that echoey sort of vocal and guitar sound on “A Wake” is like unexpected. It’s really fun. “Fear Ate My Faith” is such a cool song. “Catacomb”, like that song kicks me in the stomach every time I hear it.
Yeah, that one, there’s a really cool story with that one. I don’t know how much I’ve spoken to you about this, but in 2014, the day before Thanksgiving, I just turned 21. And you know, everybody comes back home from college or whatever. And my best friend growing up, he lived across the street from me. So when my mom died – I was 11 when she died – and you know, my dad was kind of reeling. (The Hause) parents had more of the old school, like gender role thing going on. They both worked, my dad was a breadwinner and like my mom kind of handled everything else. She was like sort of the liaison between him and us in a way and like really the emotional epicenter of the family. And then when she died, (my best friend Shane’s) house would be where I would go to get like a home-cooked meal. And I still have a really wonderful and special relationship with his mom. She’s the president of a board that we’re on together. It’s called A Piece of Shane Foundation. They were at Sing Us Home last year and they’ll be there again this year. We raise money and we do all these fundraisers and stuff for artists in need. Like, for instance, there’s a school whose music program had a fire at the school and all their music equipment got burned up. And so we like we gave them a grant. And so we pay like if somebody’s gear got stolen from a van, like we’d swoop in and, you know, you could either apply or someone on the board would be like “hey, this scenario happened, can we jump in and help out?”
That’s so great. That’s awesome.
But anyway, like I would go over there for like a home-cooked meal. That was like sort of my second family. They took wonderful care of me, like especially after my mom died. And so fast forward 10 years later. He and I were best buddies. He was home (from school) and went out for a night of drinking, as everybody does the night before Thanksgiving. It’s like the big party night. And I got a text from (his mom) on Thanksgiving. Like I was just sitting down to my Thanksgiving dinner. And I got a text from her saying, “hey, have you seen Shane? Did he crash at your place last night?” And my heart just sank. I think that some of the losses that I’d been through, especially my mom, have kind of colored my perspective on life. And I kind of just knew that something was terribly wrong. If he wasn’t at Thanksgiving dinner, it’s like, “oh, shit, something is going sideways.” And, you know, fast forward 38 days, he was missing and there was no trace of him.
I think he must have like gone to the river to take a leak or something. And it was like right around the time that the bar closed and he was not seen. And there was no footage of him for a long time. It took weeks to uncover, like there was a bit of footage where you could kind of make out that it was him moving towards the river. And it took a volunteer dive team going in and pulling him out. And that was like, you know, after 38 days or whatever it was, 36 or 38 or something. I think it was 38. After that amount of time, that’s kind of the best you could hope for because if he is still alive, he’s not going to be in good shape. He’ll be kidnapped or something. Your brain starts to do all this stuff. But it was like our lives became a horror show, you know? The stuff that you see on HBO or in the movies or something, our lives became that. We’re hanging up missing person posters all over. It was really a horrific time.
And it was weird because, you know, Scott Hutchison, I think I’ve talked to you about him, but he kind of died in a similar fashion. He took his own life but it was very triggering when that happened because there was a similar image of him moving towards the water.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah.
And it was so…it just harkened back immediately to the image of Shane moving towards the water, and I just couldn’t. And it was some years later, but it was like, breathtaking when I saw that image, because I’m like, “oh, my God, that’s an insane parallel to my friend.” And so what happened with the song was, you know, we the guys were tracking it, you know, the full band take of the song in the studio. And they came back into the control room and like sort of one by one, they were like, “man, that is some song, dude. Holy shit.” And Atom, he sat down next to me. And maybe he was the last one to say it, or they kind of came in one by one and didn’t know that the other one had said the same kind of thing. And he sat down next to me and he was like, “wow, that is some potent song.” And I said, “yeah, man, I don’t I want to tell you what it’s about without trying to, you know, drag the mood down, because I know it’s kind of a downer to bring this up, but I think it’s meaningful for you to know.” And I told him the story and he said, “oh, my God!” And he just said that they thought that they had the take and he was like, “I’m going to go back in, I want another take.” And after I told him that story, he went back in with one more take. And then that was the one.” And that was just such an amazing, like, example of there being some type of magic pixie dust in the air. That he heard that, was able to like internalize it and then emote it on the drums after hearing that, was just such a special thing. I’ll never forget that five-minute sequence of events where I told him that story and then he just went back in and crushed it. It was just… it was awesome.
Actually, somewhat surprised to hear that that’s how it came together, because that sound like that song has such a powerful sound to it that it almost sounds like you recorded it all together on the floor in the studio and maybe put vocals in afterwards. But especially like that at the end.
Oh yeah, we did. That’s how it was. That’s how it did happen. They all got it. Once they heard the story, they all said “we’re taking another we’re taking another pass at it.” Which is just so cool. So, so, so cool.
Yeah, that song gives me goosebumps. I mean, I knew the story. I remember when that happened just from me…I guess we actually knew each other back then, 12 years, 11 years ago, whatever it was. But I remember when that happened. And I think we’ve talked about it at some point along the line. And as you know, probably from when we saw you out in Shirley last year, that my wife’s mom passed away the Thanksgiving before last. So obviously that night had a lot of emotion in it, and then hearing that some and “Summer Kiss” – which is obviously about something different but the theme is the same. She texted me the other day something like “well, I’m crying on the train, thanks Tim”!
Oh, that’s awesome.
Like in a good way, right?
Yeah, yeah. That one is sort of like, I think that every now and then, you know, there’s been so many deaths in my life. And I think that every now and then I’ll go to write, and that’s kind of a natural lean. And I’ll get self-conscious about it, because I’m like, I don’t want to just be the death guy. Like, I don’t want to only write songs about this, but it is. So with that one in mind, our friend Lindsay Summer, who passed in November as well, in a freak kind of capacity, a couple years back. Dave had to leave a tour.
Yeah, when you were here.
Yeah, it was that time. So like last time when you when you guys came to see us, that was sort of like an exorcism of sorts for me, because it was like a gauntlet the time before to get through emotionally. Without my brother, my heart was kind of elsewhere. So that was really meaningful to come back to Shirley and come back with him and having grown since then and whatever. But yeah, this past September was 20 years since my mom died. And then this past November was 10 years since Shane went missing. And so that was that was intensely on my mind this November. And then, you know, obviously, like the Lindsay thing always comes up. But, you know, “Summerkiss” is a song I’m really proud of. I think I had the self-consciousness about making a song about death. So I thought maybe I can tie in like a summer love as well and have it be sort of ambiguous. Is it about death?
It seems like there’s a double meaning there, yeah.
Yeah, and sometimes you have that kind of grandiose, you have a grandiose kind of goal in mind for a song and you wonder like, OK, can I actually pull this off and serve both masters? Make it so I’m landing the plane on both of these metaphors? And it doesn’t always happen. And when it does, it’s a really good feeling. And for that song, I’m really proud of it because I think I think I was able to do that.
You even sort of joke about the and maybe joke is the wrong word, but on “Fear Ate My Faith,” you make reference to being the “kid who walks through the valley of the shadow of death.” You sort of – tongue in cheek, maybe – but refer to yourself sort of that way. And we have talked about that before. So hearing that line initially, I was like, “oh, I know exactly what he’s going for here.”
Yeah, there were a couple songs that I had to send around and give trigger warnings to people, and that was one of them.
Yeah I can imagine.
I sent that to family, and I was like, “hey, I’m going to kind of joke about like you guys dying before me. I just don’t want you to be surprised about it.” I said, “it’s kind of a joke. It’s kind of tongue in cheek and also kind of not.”
And you’re also the youngest of five. So, I mean, natural progression of things. That’s what happens.
Yeah, right. In their minds, that’s how they hope it goes, too. So I’m not really talking out of school, but I was like “I just wanted to let you know that.” They all kind of laughed about it. They’ve called me an emotional assassin at times. So I know that I have to kind of prep people for that. And that’s how I was with the song about Shane. I sent it to his mom and I sent her the words, had a conversation about it and just said, “hey, look, I know that this is really going to be a tough one to listen to because it’s going back to that time that was just so dark.” I knew I needed to write the song. I actually had the song before record one, and I just didn’t feel like it was time. And I’m so glad that I waited, because now it’s you know, I told you the Atom story, but also having it be around the ten-year mark, that’s a landmark anniversary.
Did the song change at all? Where you had a couple extra years to think about it after you wrote it, did the tone change at all, or is it pretty much the way you wrote it?
It’s pretty much the way that I wrote it. I think there’s a couple things that changed and then also I was more confident and self-assured with some of the lines I was questioning. Before, there were a couple things where I was like “can I say this? Can I sing this and can I do it convincingly?” Having the experience of making the first record and then having the experience of going out and playing all those songs live, it’s a very vulnerable job that we do. You’re kind of baring your soul to people right in front of them. Having more shows and more repetitions under my belt got me to the place where I could deliver the vocal the way that it needed to be delivered. I was really proud of that.
You should be. There are so many feelings on this record. I know at one of the more recent shows, I said to either my wife or maybe my daughter, that watching you play the last couple of times by yourself, your vocals have sort of gone to a different gear I think. There’s a different sort of rawness in your vocals now that gives so much meaning and depth to a lot of the songs. Songs that are already crazy deep anyway. Like, you’re not exactly writing about tiptoeing through the tulips. You really dig into a lot of the vocals I think more than on the first record.
Yeah, for sure. That was something that was really cool, because on record one, it was kind of a vocal boot camp in a way. There were times when the engineer and Will, that duo, were really pushing me. They were like “no, it’s not right. No, it’s not right. No, it’s not right.” Over and over and over again. It was awesome in the long run. It sucked in the moment but it was awesome in the long run. That was one of the things that Will said on this record, he was like “man, you have just leveled up with the vocals on this record, that it took you a fraction of the time to do them and they were better than what you had on record one.” I think that one of the songs that he said he was most proud of me for was “A Wake.” It’s so meaningful to have a guy who you respect and look up to share that. We might be buddies and sort of like brothers in a way, but it hits different. I have full faith in Will and I really, really look up to him as a songwriter, as a guy, the way that he carries himself in life, the way he carries himself as a dad. He’s an awesome guy and someone you’d want to model your life after. When he says something like that, it does really matter to me. It’s really impactful.
He’s one of the good ones, for sure. He’s one of my all-around favorites. One of the other songs I wanted to pick your brain about is “Tyrannosaurus Rx.” Obviously there’s the image on the shirts which is great, but I’m wondering if you could talk about the imagery and the story behind that song, because it’s really interesting and honest.
I think I had a snippet in my notebook that said like “Tyrannosaurus Rex” and then I thought that, “oh if I delete the e in there then it’s like Rx. Oh, that’s kind of interesting” and then I was also having a back and forth with my psychiatrist about, you know, he kind of recommends that I go up in the dose and I’m very resistant to it, even though I’ve actually gone through with it and been better off for it. So I don’t like to throw him under the bus, but I try to go as little as I need to have a healthy and happy life. Or maybe not happy but content. I don’t know what happiness really is. I think maybe happiness is kind of fleeting or something. But anyway, this is an ongoing sort of conversation that he and I have. He’s kind of like, “well, with your condition and your metabolism and whatever, you really could go up in your dose” and I kind of always am like “no.”
It’s the eternal struggle, right?
Yeah, which is funny, I don’t know exactly why. I think maybe there’s a little pride there or something or I don’t know what it is but I went through with it and you know, it turns out he was right. But, it’s a better song if he’s wrong! (*both laugh*)
Oh absolutely!
If I’ve got an axe to grind with him it’s better off so I usually when I play the song live, I usually say “oh it’s about, it’s about a crappy psychiatrist, my psychiatrist is great, but this is about a crappy one who all he wants to do is (up your meds) and that’s really not how mine is!” He’s really great at his job and he works with me and we have a great relationship but yeah, I just, I think I maybe I was like frustrated and thought I could write about this frustration and this kind of push-pull between us and I could couch it in this sort of like, you know, accusative way or whatever.
Yeah, that’s that eternal struggle. I think what’s different between behavioral health – mental health- and physical health is usually like if your primary doctor tells you to go up on your Coumadin or whatever, like your blood thinners, you’re like “well okay, he knows better than me” but then when it comes to behavioral health stuff or addiction medicine, we’re always like “no, no no!” Whether it’s because of like the idea of being labeled as ‘crazy’ or whatever…I mean when you boil it down, that’s what people still think. Like, we can reduce the stigma all we want to but people still boil it down to “crazy” and you start to thinking “no, it’s fine, I can do this on my own…”
You know it’s funny because there’s always that thought of like “am I crazy?” The answer is yes but you know, so is everybody else.
(*both laugh*) Yeah, right.
I guess the caveat and I think that my philosophy on the whole thing, and mental health in this day and age is that you know we’ve just made so many advances technologically speaking and this sort of technological revolution that we’re in, we have no idea what it’s doing to our brains yet. And clearly we haven’t evolved with the rate at which we’re progressing and so I think that there’s this divide between the reality we live in and our evolutionary trajectory. I think that so much of the time so many people I know really should try being medicated. I know it doesn’t work for everybody and I know that everyone has their own journey and path with that, but I think that right now in this weird window that we’re in where we’re doing this kind of foray into AI realm, on an evolutionary level it’s so far beyond what we’re wired for, so we’re gonna have to take a long time to catch up. I don’t think we’ve we’re there yet.
Feels like the more we learn specifically about brain chemistry…I mean that’s been at least peripherally the field I’ve worked in day-job-wise for 20 years now… I feel like brain chemistry wise we’re so, like… there’s a Don Henley song with a lyric like “the more I know, the less I understand.” (*both laugh*) Like, the more we learn about sort of how the brain works we realize like “oh shit like we don’t really know how the brain works but now we don’t know all these different things!” We unlock enough to realize that oh we’ve only kind of scratched the surface, right? And so even with medications you’re like “well what class of medications am I going to be on? Is my thing depression or is it depression masked as something else? Is it attention deficit disorder or is it anxiety or is it some combination of all of them?” And then you get to feeling like a pincushion. Like, there’s a lot of anxiety with day-to-day life in general but then add to that trying to deal with and dig into your own shit… You write about yourself pretty honestly. When you started writing songs, was that a conscious thing, that like “this is an outlet for me, I need to write about this shit.”? Because some the way that I hear your lyrics is almost … I don’t want to say journals because they don’t listen like journal entries, but there’s definitely like some processing going on in the lyrics to your songs. You’re almost like working through the issues that you’re writing about in the music, if that makes sense.
For sure, yeah. I mean, I’ll just put it right out there and be very open with it. I haven’t veiled it enough in the writing to, like, dodge it. I’m pretty open. Like in “Fit To Be Tied” or “Tyrannosaurus Rx” I’m pretty openly like going into a manic realm. I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder – bipolar 2 – and like we were talking about this psychotic thing I had, the medicine that I take for that part of my brain is an antipsychotic which definitely it comes with … I don’t know if it’s a stigma, it’s just like when you know that that’s the class of medication, there definitely is like “Oh shit well, if I’m on an anti-psychotic what does that mean?” And it’s like “well, it’s kind of just an umbrella category, it doesn’t mean you’re psychotic.” But, it also means that you could be, you know? But then it’s like “what does psychotic even mean?” and then there’s that whole negative connotation. But yeah I’d say like you know that’s a part of my “pre-existing conditions.” That’s why I have the hospital bracelet on and I’ve got the thumbs up (on the cover). It’s like “hey I have this but you know, I have a pretty great life too!” Part of my makeup is that sort of struggle and who knows, we don’t really know how that happens. We don’t you know for instance if we took out some of the tragic things like if my mom hadn’t died or if my buddy didn’t go missing or whatever; if you take out any of those pieces in the Jenga tower or whatever, maybe it doesn’t fall down. But those pieces WERE taken out and it DID fall down and I lost my shit and then I sort of had to work back up. And thank god for my family and my friends in my circle because I was in a really bad way. I was like 22, 23, something like that and I kind of just lost my mind. I was like hallucinating and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep for days and days and days. It’s funny because in health class, when I did the mental health unit, I particularly had a thing with bipolar disorder. That was a part of the unit in health class in 10th grade or whatever it was, the teacher was doing the percentages and he said “you’re in a class of this size there’s a chance that one of you is going to have this or two of you are going to have that” and he went down through all the different disorders. With the others, I thought I could figure those out, but that one I really hope I don’t come down with was bipolar disorder.
Oh that’s really interesting!
Yeah, I remember it being that I had a particular aversion to that. I thought that that would be like hell and certainly, you know, fast-forward all those years later and it turned out it was hell! (*both laugh*) I think that manic depression if you want to call it that, or bipolar disorder, it’s got a long history in rock and roll and it’s got a long history with artists and I think there’s something about a brain that goes that far to both extremes. I think that in a certain manic state or in a depressive state, you’re kind of aware of certain frequencies that if you’re in your right mind, you’re not aware of otherwise. I know that maybe sounds a little woo-woo or whatever, but it’s just true. Actually that’s where the lyric “if I can’t get out of this ditch / I better make a home of it” came from.
Oh interesting. That makes total sense, yeah!
I think that you’re in such a state and your feelings become all that you can see, and it does kind of lend itself to songwriting in a way. I think that’s why this record has “Tyrannosaurus Rx” as a lynchpin for that part of things. And then a lot of the other songs are about certain deaths or events but they all have that throughline. “Who Let The Dog Out” has the same kind of thing where it’s more depressive but then there’s a little kind of sparkle of crazy in there too. Actually that’s a true story with the squirrels. We had squirrels living in our old house and they were driving me crazy. That’s the way that I’ve been able to process things and it’s been a great outlet. And it’s also that music is a safe place for me to let that part of my personality out. I think that in the aftermath of being diagnosed or whatever, I think that I like to have things a certain way and I like to keep myself under control. I think a lot of people that know me well, when they find out that I have (bipolar disorder), they are very surprised because I’m pretty even-keeled. And both things can be true. I think that’s when you’re dedicated to treatment and wellness and really taking it seriously and not fucking around with “oh I’m not going to take my meds” or any of this kind of heroic bullshit or whatever. And I get that there’s tendencies. I have those tendencies too but I’ve just been really hyper-committed to staying well and honestly, it’s a lot. Our health care system is such a labyrinth and especially when you’re at your worst, to try to figure that out just makes you crazier, so I really do all I can do and by the grace of God or whoever, I’m like so thankful that I have my family. I don’t think I would have made it through that time without them, you know? It was awful, but yeah they were able to kind of like circle the wagons as a family and, you know, took the necessary steps and I’ve had a really healthy, pretty successful life ever since, you know? Some people don’t get a diagnosis until later. Like, I’m 31 now and over the last like 10 years or so, if not for having that diagnosis…It was tough to go through and you’re wondering like “oh, is that who I am? Who am I?” There’s a lot of identity stuff that happens but ultimately, you’re still you no matter what the diagnosis is. Now you just have more tools to know how to be. Mental health is such a finicky thing and there’s all the societal attachment to it or whatever, and it makes it difficult to see clearly. What’s also nutty about a musician’s life is that it’s pretty much bipolar. (*both laugh*) Like with touring, for example. Because we have the label and the festival and all this other stuff, it’s like we’re always changing hats. Your performance thing is really only just for that hour, and the rest of the time, you know, you’re a driver or you’re a merch seller or there’s all different kinds of things and that almost is bipolar by nature.
I kind of wonder if that makes it easier for you to adapt to that lifestyle in some way because your brain kind of wants to anyway…
Well that’s the thing is like, in some weird way, I almost view it as a superpower because I’m able to do things that certain…like when I tell people about the nuts and bolts of travel and when I tell people about staying up for however many hours or not getting any sleep or whatever the case is, when I tell people that don’t live that way about that, they are like “ohhh…” because they have a completely different assessment of what they think a touring lifestyle is. And then when you tell them, they’re like “oh there’s no way I could do that.” I think that in some weird way the brain chemistry allows me to thrive in that. But I mean it’s kind of unclear. This is an ongoing discussion with the therapist (*both laugh*)
I can imagine, yeah.
It’s like something we’re working through actively; is this exacerbating my life and my struggles every time”
But I wonder if you had tried to have a nine-to-five cubicle farm job, if your brain would allow you to even do that? But then I guess it becomes chicken or the egg, like “does my brain allow me to tour or does touring allow me to have the brain that I have?”
Right, exactly. Yeah I’ll get twisted up in a pretzel thinking about it.
People talk about – as I sort of did – the way that your lyrics are shaped by the mental health issues that you are dealing with, but sonically or musically, when you’re writing does whatever sort of part of the cycle, for lack of a better word, that you’re in…does that change how you write music? Like do you find that you write more up-tempo or down-tempo or odd time signature music based on what’s going on for you?
I think so. I also think that it is dependent on whatever the idea is, and so for a song like “Tyrannosaurus Rx,” I wanted it to sound unhinged. I think, you know, mission complete. It sounds unhinged. If you listen closely to some of the stuff that Dave is doing vocally, he went full – like, this is a derogatory term and I probably shouldn’t say it – but he went full loony bin. I feel like I can say that because I’ve been there. (*both laugh*) But like he went fully crazed..
And you can hear it especially when you listen on headphones.
Yeah yeah! He’s doing all kinds of shit and sound effects and it sounds like he’s running up the walls, and that was the desired effect. So I think that there’s an inextricable link between the two but it also is really dependent on whatever the topic of the song is. I don’t want to be like sort of enslaved to either thing, but yeah I think it absolutely comes out. “Who Let The Dog Out” is for sure a period of depression and working through depression, and I guess, yeah the instrumentation is sort of led by whatever I think the song needs. In that case, that’s what I felt like it needed.
So that means you tend to be like a lyric-first songwriter? Or I guess an ‘idea for a lyric’ first songwriter?
I think that that’s what really gives the weight to any idea; any melodic idea. I feel like I can kind of just, even on the spot, come up with a melody that is compelling, but to me, it’s not worthy yet until there’s like an idea attached to it. It definitely has happened the opposite way, where I have a great melody and then like I’m searching for whatever will give it its real due; which is like yeah the idea that attaches to it. So yeah it happens for me in any type of way. There’s been all kinds of different ways that I’ve kind of stumbled into songs. Melody can happen first, but I feel like it doesn’t really get its wings until there’s like a thought behind it that makes sense
I believe you told me this but you’re playing the upcoming run of shows – the album release shows – as a full band?
Yeah, full band
That’s got to be exciting. Have you done the full band thing?
No, not really. I only did it on one show. It was the first year of Sing Us Home, and to be quite honest, record one with a full band was awesome, but this record is a full band record.
It’s a rock and roll record.
Yeah! And it’s great Luke (Preston) is one of my best buds. He’s going to be playing lead guitar which is really exciting, because, you know, he’s played bass in The Mermaid but he’s just an amazing guitar player too and really talented performer. So he’s going to be on lead guitar and then Nick Jorgensen from Mercy Union is going to play bass.
I love Nick!
Yeah, I love Nick. Doing that tour in the UK was so fun and I just bonded with those guys.
He’s such a good kid. Like, I’ve known Jerry forever, I’ve known Rocky not quite as long as Jerry but I’ve known Rocky for a while, but a couple of the last times that Mercy Union came up here or even when we’ve gone to Jersey, getting to talk to Nick more has been great. He’s such a good human, it seems.
He really is. And just has like the right kind of energy that you want in the in the car or in the van. So yeah, Luke and Nick and then Francis Valentino who drums for David Lee Roth is going to be playing drums.
Oh, some little guy named David Lee Roth.
(*both laugh*) Yeah, that guy! It’s gonna be cool. I’m really excited. We just we have one rehearsal and then we’re gonna just rip it and and see what happens. I’m really really looking forward to it. It’s gonna be fun. I hope that people show up. I mean first time headlining in places that aren’t your home, it’s kind of like “we’ll see.” It’s an experiment in a way, but you know I wanted to celebrate the album coming out with a rock band.
It needs it.
Yeah and I just think like…I’m able to deliver the material in a solo capacity too, but just for this, this is the celebration of it coming out like I better come correct with a band. So yeah, we’ll have this band together for these dates and then for Sing Us Home as well.
Oh awesome!
Yeah!
That’s really great. I’m excited for you. I’m excited for people to dig into this record and I hope to give it a chance because it’s really, really good. Like, you did good man.
Thanks, man. Yeah I’m really proud of it. It’s funny, we did like a little bit of a radio campaign with this one and it’s like, I don’t even know what any of this means, but like there’s been certain reports that have come back and songs are kind of sticking at certain stations, which is really cool, you know?
What songs do you give them, the singles basically?
Yeah we give them the singles. We give them “Make It Take It,” “No Call, No Show” and “Summerkiss” I believe. And maybe “Fear Ate My Faith” went to some heavier playlists and such, streaming and stuff. It’s been really exciting. I’m not sure what to think. It was funny because having Kyle with us at the studio, he sort of told us what happened with Matchbox 20. I don’t think it happens these days now, but he said it was exciting to sort of see some of the radio reports because basically like, there was one station in I think Alabama that latched on to to a song of theirs. Maybe it was “3 AM” or something but there was a song that they were working and it didn’t go over well and then like a certain station – I’m probably butchering the story – but like a certain station picked a different song and like it just lit up that station and then it was like wildfire and then they became Matchbox 20. Radio doesn’t work that way anymore but it was kind of like “oh this is cool, like who knows if one day I go to some of these kind of like bizarre places where it’s kind of connected; like if there’s a following there or something.
Like being big in Japan…
Yeah, right
Like people like Dave doing okay in Germany, you know? It’s bizarre. It will never make sense to me who gets popular like grand scheme of things but especially who gets popular in certain markets. It’s always fascinating to me.
It is, yeah. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, and we drive ourselves crazy trying to attach rhyme and reason to it.
Happy Wednesday, comrades! We’ve got another cool new track to debut for you today. Today’s track comes to us all the way from the famous hills of the virtually-unpronounceable city of Worcester, Massachusetts, by way of a duo who go by the name Sunday Junkie. The duo – multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tom Martin and drummer […]
Happy Wednesday, comrades! We’ve got another cool new track to debut for you today. Today’s track comes to us all the way from the famous hills of the virtually-unpronounceable city of Worcester, Massachusetts, by way of a duo who go by the name Sunday Junkie. The duo – multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tom Martin and drummer and percussionist Shawn Pelkey – are planning to put out their debut full-length later this year, and the brand-new track “Holy, Holy” gives us a taste of what’s to come.
Here’s what Martin had to say about the track:
“I had issues with drinking in the past, and the lyrics on ‘Holy, Holy’ pretty heavily revolve around using alcohol as a means of self-medicating and ignoring a larger, underlying issue. It can be pretty insidious when it seems to provide relief, but the toll it’s taking is more evident to those around you and they just hope you can eventually see it too. The line ‘Honey on our tongues / Sucking on the rind’ is more of a reference to having everything at your fingertips, not realizing it, and choosing to throw it away instead.”
Check out “Holy, Holy” below (and dig around at Sunday Junkie’s bandcamp page to check out their first two singles, “Vultures” and “Haunted Head” while you’re at it!
In sad but I suppose somewhat not unexpected news, long-running indie-rock band Murder By Death have decided to hang up their spurs later this year. Originally hailing from Bloomington, Indiana, Adam Turla and Sara Baillet and company spent a quarter-century plying their unique “spooky Western” musical wares before deciding recently that it was time to […]
In sad but I suppose somewhat not unexpected news, long-running indie-rock band Murder By Death have decided to hang up their spurs later this year. Originally hailing from Bloomington, Indiana, Adam Turla and Sara Baillet and company spent a quarter-century plying their unique “spooky Western” musical wares before deciding recently that it was time to quit while they were ahead. Here’s an excerpt from band leader Turla’s statement:
We weren’t covered much in the press, we never had a song that had a lot of radio play, nothing ever went viral, we didn’t have a big social media presence, we never played a good festival spot where there was a sea of people in the audience, not once opened an arena or even a big shell auditorium show or tour. We constantly lost opportunities because of the band name and were somehow always treated like nobodies or yesterday’s news by most of the industry. But you, you gosh dang wonderful audience, managed to keep us growing, and we never had a career slump.
When we were our busiest — playing over 200 shows a year — we were chronically underpaid and always barely scraping by. But people kept writing us or telling us how much we mattered and kept showing up, and we started to believe it a little. And then over the years, we grew to a more manageable place and it seemed possible to carve out a niche in this massive, mean world of entertainment.
When I reflect on how good our career was and how lucky we were, I’m left with just gratitude for the small team of folks who have worked with the band and this grassroots fan following that has lifted us up the entire time. I feel like we owe any and all our success to you.
I never called us DIY — despite taking on much of the work ourselves — because there are always people behind the scenes helping: it takes a village. Thank you to the promoters, clubs, bands, managers, agents, artists, publishers, lawyers, publicists, crews, etc. etc. etc. who believed in us and everyone who made this work for so long. An enormous thank you to those of you who helped us through the many difficult periods.
Thank you for your relentless support, your passionate listening, and your generosity.
The band went on to say that they are presently working on a final album, and they also announced a fairly lengthy going-away tour that kicks off in Bloomington in June and wraps up in their newer hometown of Louisville, KY, in November. They’ll also continue on with their annual Cavern shows in Tennessee and the odd festival date down the road, so it’s not necessarily “good bye” good bye, but it’s pretty close, Dates and support acts are below and most tickets are now on sale.
06/07 — Bloomington, IN @ TBA 06/19 — Newport, KY @ Southgate House * 06/20 — Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall * 06/21 — Toronto, ON @ The Axis Club * 06/22 — Montreal, QC @ Le Studio TD * 06/23 — Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater * 06/25 — Norwalk CT @ District Music Hall * 06/26 — Portland, ME @ Portland House of Music * 06/27 — Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club * 06/28 — Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw * 06/29 — Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Lanes * 07/01 — Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop * 07/02 — Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop * 07/04 — Pelham, TN @ The Caverns ! 07/05 — Pelham, TN @ The Caverns * 07/10 — Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar * 07/11 — Washington, DC @ Black Cat * 07/12 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer * 07/13 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls * 07/15 — Grand Rapids, MI @ The Pyramid Scheme * 07/16 — Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall * 07/17 — Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall * 07/18 — Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre * 07/19 — Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue 07/20 — Maquoketa, IA @ Codfish Hollow Barnstormers * 09/27 — London, UK @ Islington Hall 10/15 — St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall ^ 10/16 — Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall ^ 10/17 — Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre ! 10/18 — Aspen, CO @ Belly Up ! 10/19 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Depot ! 10/21 — Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall ! 10/23 — Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile $ 10/24 — Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ! 10/25 — Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall ! 10/26 — Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall $ 10/28 — Berkeley, CA @ UC Theatre ! 10/29 — Los Angeles, CA @ Regent ! 10/30 — Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up ! 10/31 — Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s ! 11/01 — Phoenix, AZ @ Van Buren ! 11/02 — Santa Fe, NM @ Tumbleroot ! 11/05 — Dallas, TX @ The Kessler Theater ! 11/06 — Austin, TX @ Mohawk ! 11/07 — Austin, TX @ Mohawk ! 11/08 — Houston, TX @ Heights Theater ! 11/10 — Tampa, FL @ The Orpheum 11/11 — Orlando, FL @ The Social # 11/13 — Charleston, SC @ Music Farm 11/14 — Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle# 11/15 — Louisville, KY @ Headliners
* w/ Laura Jane Grace ^ w/ William Elliott Whitmore ! w/ AJJ $ w/ Shawn James # w/ BJ Bahram
2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the legendary Stone Pony, the Asbury Park, New Jersey icon that has been the lifeblood of a region and of numerous music scenes since well before any of our regular readers were born (except probably my parents!…hi guys!). The venue closed out its 50to year anniversary celebration with the […]
2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the legendary Stone Pony, the Asbury Park, New Jersey icon that has been the lifeblood of a region and of numerous music scenes since well before any of our regular readers were born (except probably my parents!…hi guys!). The venue closed out its 50to year anniversary celebration with the return of another local institution that helped revitalize both the venue and the Asbury Park area itself: the Bouncing Souls Home For The Holidays celebration.
I will admit rather candidly that I love Asbury Park. I’m not “from there.” But I was raised in a house where music was ever-present and the music of Bruce Springsteen was probably the closest thing we realistically had to Gospel, so the myth and the lore of both the city as a whole and the Pony as a singular place have been part of my upbringing pretty much from the beginning. Some of my earliest family vacation memories were my parents loading my younger brother and I in the car for the six-hour drive from New Hampshire to my aunt and uncle’s house in one of the Brunswicks so that the adults could go see Bruce at what was then Giants Stadium.
You certainly don’t need me, very much an outsider, to explain to you the importance of the Stone Pony to Asbury Park and to the history of modern American rock music. That’s been done before by people smarter and more connected than I – check out Nick Corasaniti’s wonderful I Don’t Want To Go Home: An Oral History of The Stone Pony that came out last year and includes discussions from everyone from Springsteen and Southside Johnny and Steve Van Zandt to Brian Fallon and Geoff Rickly and Pete and Bryan from The Souls. But what I can tell you that 2024 being the Pony’s 50th anniversary was enough to get the Souls to resurrect their “Home For The Holidays” festivities for the first time in almost a decade. And what I can also tell you is that because of where it fell on the calendar and because of who was on the bill, it made sense to finally make the drive to Asbury in the Winter and to finally…FINALLY…see a show inside the friendly confines of 913 Ocean Avenue.
I’m a veteran of a few Bouncing Souls “Stoked For The Summer” festivals. They tend to be a highlight of any summer season. If you’ve not been, they take place on the Stone Pony Summer Stage, which is essentially an outdoor venue created in the lot immediately adjacent to the Pony. It’s a big, outdoor space that holds somewhere around 4500 people and it’s directly across the street from the Boardwalk and the beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the right day it’s just a perfect place to see a show. (Seriously…watching a sold-out hometown crowd sing the chorus to “Gone” in unison under a warm, mid-summer twilight sky is the type of memory that can make the hair stand up on the back of your next for years after.) The bonus is that the regular venue is open, so you can use the bar and merch area and bathrooms inside the venerated venue and take in the history and the weight of the place in comparative calm. It’s a pretty cool experience and you should do it.
But seeing a show inside the Pony itself – as yours truly finally for the middle night of this year’s HFTH – is different. The decor and the footprint have changed a few times and the audio and lighting rigs have been updated several times over, but for all intents and purposes, walking in under the awning at the corner of Ocean Ave and 2nd Ave feels much the way it has for five full decades. The venue is much wider than it is deep, so even if you’re in the back by the soundboard, you’re not super far from the stage. When the show is banged out – as was the case for all three nights of this year’s Home For The Holidays – it is really banged out. It’s a tightly packed venue that becomes a little hard to maneuver through, but when everyone is dancing and enjoying themselves, it very much feels less like a crowd and more like a living, breathing organism.
Seaside Caves kicked off the festivities on this particular evening. As memory serves, it was the New Jersey-based four-piece’s first show since before Covid, yet you’d never really know it. Their half-hour dark synth pop set was super enjoyable and took advantage of what seemed to be the venue’s surplus of smoke machines and chaotic lighting. The band also just put out a new album on bandcamp. Entitled drugless, it’s a collection of songs written and recorded over the course of the last four years. It’s fun and moody and it was recorded by Pete so it obviously sounds great. The Ratchets (pictured below) were up next. Aside from the Souls themselves, The Ratchets have probably been as synonymous with the Asbury Park punk scene as anyone over the last decade-plus. The Pirates Press stalwart four-piece ripped through a half-hour set of no-fuss, no-muss, straightforward street punk jams that included the recently released ripper “Hoist A New Flag.”
Dave Hause And The Mermaid occupied the direct support slot on this middle night of the weekend-long festivities. I’ve seen Dave solo, as a duo alongside his brother Tim, and fronting numerous iterations of The Mermaid for years now, but this was the first time I’d seen him on anything close to “home turf.” Yes, I know Dave and Tim are Philly guys, but Philly and Asbury Park are only just over an hour apart, and Dave spent years as a part of the Souls camp, recorded with Pete a few times, and has been a part of the scene for years; his first solo record, Resolutions, has a song about the old Lanes that name checks a great many of Asbury Park regulars (hey Christina!).
Hause and Co. took the stage accompanied by Tom Waits’ junkyard boot-stomper “God’s Away On Business,” a song that would have been particularly apropos in Asbury fifteen years ago, a spiritual kin to Springsteen’s “My City Of Ruins,” which, while it appeared on the latter’s post-9/11 ode to NYC The Rising album, was actually written about Asbury. But I digress. The band ripped immediately into “Pretty Good Year,” the first of two classic Loved Ones tunes that the band would perform on the evening. While they aren’t Hause solo songs per se, they do have a special place in his musical catalog, as the Loved Ones second album, 2008’s Build & Burn, was recorded by Pete and Bryan from the Souls right down the street at Little Eden. We did an oral history of that whole project a few years ago – read it here if you like.
Hause has employed numerous iterations of his backing band, The Mermaid, over the last decade or so, but the one that appeared on this night at The Pony is probably the tightest and highest energy, with longtime collaborator and Jersey native Kevin Conroy on drums, another Jersey native Mark Masefield on keys, Nashvillian Luke Preston on bass and Hause’s brother Tim on guitar and backing vocals. The band is a juggernaut and seeing them in this capacity at this venue accentuates the elder Hause’s ability to engage the crowd as in a way that draws heavy on his past life as a punk rock band frontman. A personal favorite in the set was “Autism Vaccine Blues,” and other highlights included “Damn Personal” and “Dirty Fucker” and set closer “The Ditch.”
And then it was time for the Souls. At 9:25pm promptly and accompanied by their longtime walkout music, Simple Minds’ 1985 classic “Don’t You Forget About Me,” the quartet took the stage and immediately vaulted into the singalong that is “Here We Go.” Granted every song in the Souls catalog turns into a singalong at some point, but if there were any audience members who weren’t already primed and ready to go based on the openers, they were immediately brought into the fold here. Frontman Greg Attonito sported a walking boot and a cane, the result of an injury suffered while he was playing soccer with his son. He stated from stage that he’s almost all healed, and he was still just about as energetic as ever, but there’s no doubt a joke to be made here about lacing up your Samba’s and kicking it about above a certain age.
What followed was a solid mix of longtime crowd favorites and more than a few “holy shit!”-inducing songs from the back catalog that keep the audience guessing. Near as yours truly can tell, this night marked the first time that “Serenity” had been played since pre-Covid and the first time that “Holiday Cocktail Lounge” had been played since before current drummer George Rebelo joined the band in 2013. The Bouncing Souls – Pete and Bryan and Greg and now George – have attained legendary status for a reason, and it was on full display on this night, as the band blew through two dozen songs in as tight and energetic and catharcit fashion as they ever have. They really do seem to be getting better and better with age. Oh, and speaking of drummers…old friend Michael McDermott, who was in town to play the following evening’s HFTH show with his new band The Kilograms, hopped behind the kit for “Gone.” Another fun moment was “Lean On, Sheena,” a song that was certainly popularized by the Souls but was initially written and recorded by The Kilograms‘ Joe Gittleman in his Avoid One Thing days (Gittleman would join the Souls on stage for it the following evening).
Sure the Souls got their start in the New Brunswick area in the late 1980s, but for all intents and purposes, they’ve been synonymous with the Asbury Park area for close to twenty-five years. They’ve started businesses there and raised families there and brought more friends and attracted more like-minded individuals that have helped shephard the Pony and the greater Asbury area through the resurgence it’s seen in the last decade. Obviously the Home For The Holidays long weekend is trickier to pull off now, what with only Pete and Bryan being locals nowadays (and George splitting his time with a little band called Hot Water Music). That just made this tenth (and final? maybe?) HFTH that much more special. Home For The Holidays is obviously more than just a punk rock show or three. It’s an art show and a flea market and an acoustic singalong and it features events at a variety of venues and it helps breathe life into a week that can be a little slow, what with a lot of folks traveling between the holidays. For those who do stick around – or in our case who make the journey – it can feel like Olde Home Week, with lots of friends and hugs and familiar faces that we see less and less frequently. To have all of it take place in such a storied venue in such a hallowed place seems nothing short of special. And sure it’s the last (?!?) Home For The Holidays, but the Souls aren’t going away. They’re recording as we speak, in fact. So they and their influence and certainly this weekend’s festivities are by no means in jeopardy of being forgotten any time soon.
If you’ve been in or around a Ben Nichols solo show (or I guess his Instagram) over the past year or so, you may have heard rumors that the Lucero frontman has been hard at work on a solo up. Details were obviously scarce, but you can find YouTube snippets of working versions of a […]
If you’ve been in or around a Ben Nichols solo show (or I guess his Instagram) over the past year or so, you may have heard rumors that the Lucero frontman has been hard at work on a solo up. Details were obviously scarce, but you can find YouTube snippets of working versions of a few tracks if you try hard enough. And so it may have come by surprise to some that the follow up to Lucero’s last studio record – 2023’s Should’ve Learned By Now – was not a new Nichols solo record and not a new original Lucero record, but a secret third option: an unplugged record that features a mix of classic Lucero tracks combined with some deep (and some SUPER deep) cuts, and starring not the full band but just Nichols and longtime Lucero sideman Rick Steff.
“Rick and I, we’ll do shows just the two of us from time to time, and they’re always so much fun,” Nichols told us over the phone in anticipation of this Lucero Unplugged release. “I’d had that in the back of my mind for a long time that I wanted to capture what me and Rick do at those shows and try to put it on a record. This is pretty close!“
Instead of committing one of those Ben and Rick shows to wax, however, Nichols and Steff opted for a slightly different approach. They convened at frequent collaborator Matt Ross-Spang‘s Southern Grooves Studio in Memphis – of course – and ripped through a few dozen tracks in minimalist fashion; just Nichols on guitar and vocals and Steff on the studio’s Baldwin F grand piano. “I wanted to keep it as simple as possible,” he explained. “We knew what we were getting. We knew the piano that was in Matt Ross-Spang’s studio. And Rick loves that piano. And so yeah, it was kind of the natural choice to just focus on that.“
When it came time to compile a setlist – er, tracklist – for this project, Nichols certainly had plenty to choose from. Lucero turns 27 years old in a couple of months and has put out eleven studio albums (the latest three – Among The Ghosts, When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now – with Ross-Spang); twelve if you include 2000’s The Attic Tapes). If you’ve seen a Nichols/Steff duo show or if you’ve seen Nichols perform solo, say at a Bikeriders tour show or his annual one-off at Crossroads in New Jersey, you’re probably no doubt aware that, sure, there will be some crowd pleasers involved, and there will be a few b0sides, and then there might be a few REAL deep cuts. Such is the case on the new Unplugged record. “I wanted it to be an unplugged record. I wanted it to be a greatest hits record. I wanted it to have a couple of rarities and surprises, and I wanted it to be some of my favorites,” Nichols told us. “I think it walks all those lines.”
A quick scan of the album’s back jacket reveals tried and true staples like “Tears Don’t Matter Much” and “Nights Like These” and “Texas And Tennessee.” It also includes a few comparative deeper cuts that find new ways to shine in this stripped-down format. Songs like “Diamond State Heartbreak” and “In Lonesome Times.” And then there are the deep cuts. Like, REALLY deep cuts. Like “The Prayer” and “Tell Me What It Takes.” No, the latter is not a cover of the 1989 Aerosmith track, it is in fact an old Lucero original that appeared not on a studio record, but in a much more unlikely place: the soundtrack to season three of coming-of-age teen TV drama One Tree Hill. “The guy from One Tree Hill was a big fan. He named a bunch of the episodes after Lucero song titles. That was very nice,” Nichols laughs. “He actually asked us to write a song special for the soundtrack, and that was “Tell Me What It Takes.” We did it real quick,” he continues. “There was no budget. We did it in a friend’s studio, no producer, no nothing, and just kind of recorded it ourselves. That…is what we sent him.”
The result of both the song and the record itself is tremendous, a fun and engaging listening experience that gives the impression of a live show without the threat of the entire thing careening off the rails, which can be enjoyeable in the moment when you’re at the show but maybe doesn’t translate as well in recorded form. Inspired by the bright, twinkly sounds of the grand piano, Steff in particular is allowed to stretch his legs a little more than when he’s competing with horns or dueling guitars. Check the solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak” or the E Street Band-esque vibe of “That Much Further West” for prime examples. Not that his ability to adapt to this unique setup was going to be a challenge for a musician of Steff’s caliber. “It’s so funny,” Nichols laughs. “Bringing brand new songs to him…stuff he’s never heard a note of in his life. I’ll play the first few bars…and he just lays in on top of it like he’s played it a hundred times. He already knows how it goes. I think Rick had my number from the very get-go.”
Will there be duo shows this year to support the release of the Unplugged record? That’s the hope, sandwiched in between Lucero tours (like the upcoming Menzingers support run that runs May 8 to June 8 and covers a large swath of the US). There’s also that issue of a new Nichols solo record, which will be his first in more than fifteen years. “The only other solo album I’ve ever done was The Last Pale Light in the West,” he explains. “And that was when Rick was still kind of brand new back then, and Todd Beene was kind of brand new for me back then, so it made sense to do (that record) with those two guys, just to make it kind of separate.” The new record is essentially in the can, and it features a unique lineup: Cory Branan on guitar, the aforementioned Beene on pedal steel, and MorganEve Swain from The Huntress And Holder Of Hands on strings and backing vocals. Nichols hopes to have that album out this year as well (more on that later), and then, well, then it’s time to get to the next Lucero record.
Check out our full chat down below. Lots of goodies about the Unplugged record and the solo record and the evolution of the writing/recording process and how Covid messed with Lucero’s trajectory and much more. And, obviously, check out Ben Nichols & Rick Steff: Lucero Unplugged, officially released tomorrow (January 24th) on digital and double LP!
(Editor’s Note: The conversation below has been edited and condensed for content and clarity. You’re welcome.)
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): So congrats on this record. I’ve listened to it a bunch now. It’s really fun. And it’s not what I expected. I think because you had sort of talked about doing a solo thing for a while, I just kind of figured the next thing in the chute would be like the full Ben Nichols solo record. So to have you and Rick sort of re-imagining a bunch of songs is really fun. It was different.
Ben Nichols: And you’ve listened to all 20 songs, haven’t you? They sent you the whole thing?
Yeah. Yep.
That’s great. Yeah I do have the Ben Nichols solo record in the works. That’s what I was working on at the beginning of the month. But yeah, before that, I felt it was…I don’t know…I felt it was appropriate to go back and revisit the old stuff first. I’m glad it worked out that way. Rick and I, you know, we’ll do shows, just the two of us from time to time. And they’re always so much fun. I’d had that in the back of my mind for a long time that I wanted to capture what me and Rick do at those shows and try to put it on a record. So this is pretty close.
Yeah, it’s interesting you mentioned that because it sounds like, and it plays like, a live show. Obviously, it’s not a live show because you guys are in the studio. But like, the setlist seems like it’s put together, like, especially like one of your solo live shows.
It definitely was. And that was kind of intentional. On a piece of paper somewhere I’ve got the order that we recorded them in the studio. And it was probably pretty close to what ended up as the final arrangement of songs on the record. There’s five more out there that we did that just didn’t quite gel. Like if we would have had another day to go back in and, you know, do a couple more takes of things, there might have been a couple of different songs in place of some of these. But yeah, this functions, like you said, almost like a live set. And so kind of what we ended up with is what you get, just like at a live show.
I mean, obviously, there are some songs that if you’re putting together a live show, whether it’s you or the full band, there’s songs that are going to be there nine times out of 10, like “Tears Don’t Matter Much,” “Nights Like These,” stuff like that. But when it comes time to dig for some of the rarities… like, “Tell Me What It Takes,” for example. Is that from…I don’t remember that song, aside from fucking like One Tree Hill or something like that.
That’s exactly what it was from.
Is that right? Wow.
Yeah that was back in ’04 or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, right whenever Rick joined the band. I think he’s on that original recording. I’m pretty sure that was whenever he joined up with us, so right around Nobody’s Darlings, Rebels, Rogues era. Yeah, the guy from One Tree Hill was a big fan. Like, he had named a bunch of the episodes, the TV episodes, after Lucero song titles. And that was very nice. That was cool. That was one of the first times Lucero had really been, I don’t know, used in television or anything. And yeah, he actually asked us to write a song special for the soundtrack. And that was “Tell Me What It Takes.” And we did real quick, you know, there was no budget. We did it in a friend’s studio, no producer, no nothing, and just kind of recorded it ourselves, basically. And that recording is what we sent him. And that’s out there somewhere.
Yeah, I feel like I’ve heard that song like twice, maybe.
Me too. (*both laugh*) Yeah, I haven’t heard it very often. But yeah, I was able to scrape up a copy somewhere. And I was like, “Oh, me and Rick, maybe we could do this justice.” And so yeah, I thought it was good enough to give it a second chance at life, or give it a second life. I think it came out really nice on the record. That’s one of my favorites on this unplugged album, actually.
Yeah, it’s a total like, out of left field sort of moment. And you don’t always get those when it’s an album…well, like this, right? Like, it’s not just quote, unquote, the hits. You kind of dug really deep.
I wanted this album to function as a little bit of everything. I wanted it to be an unplugged record. I wanted it to be a greatest hits record. I wanted it to have a couple of rarities and surprises. And I wanted it to be some of my favorites. And so yeah, it walks all those lines. There’s a little bit of each of those. I mean, obviously, the whole thing is unplugged; just guitar and grand piano. And then there’s a lot of hits on there, enough to make it a great live show if this was the setlist. And then yeah, you got “The Prayer” and “Tell Me What It Takes.” “Darby’s Song,” “When You Decided To Leave.” A couple of things that don’t get played very often with the full band. It’s nice to have those in there to kind of balance it out. And those are some of my favorites, too. So yeah, this record, it became real close to being all of those things for me.
Yeah, you even threw in like, “Hate and Jealousy,” I think is a song that I don’t know if I’ve ever heard live. Maybe once.
We’ve done it a few times recently. We did it at one of the New Year’s Eve shows actually, just the other day. So it pops up from time to time. We relearned it when That Much Further West came out on vinyl. And we did the whole That Much Further West show. It’s on there. So it’s in the arsenal again.
Which I’m glad about. I love that song. I love “Can’t Stand to Leave You.” I’m glad that that one sort of, in somewhat more recent years, like popped into set lists again. That’s such a cool song. And it’s a different song for Women & Work, too. It kind of sticks out.
I think when it was written, it might have been written before Women & Work, or at the very end of Women & Work. I think it was written before. It might have worked better on All a Man Should Do, or even 1372. But it ended up on Women & Work, just because that’s how it worked out. But that’s one of my favorites. I love the lyrics to that. And I just love the little guitar riff in it.
Yeah, so do I.
And I wish, I don’t know, in live shows, it seems too delicate sometimes. And I can’t find the right place to put it in the setlist. But I think I’ll try harder. I would like to play that one live more often.
With the full band? Or when you do your solo thing?
Both. I like it both ways.
Did you have to do much rehearsing? I mean, obviously you haven’t played some of these songs ever. But did you have to do much rehearsing, you and Rick? Or did you just kind of say, here’s what we’re going to play, figure it out? I mean, Rick feels like he could figure that stuff out with his left hand.
Yeah, luckily, Rick is that kind of musician. He’s just a top-tier musician. It’s so funny, like bringing brand new songs to him, stuff he’s never heard a note of in his life. And I’ll play the first few bars, and I’ll start singing. And he just lays in on top of it, like he’s played it a hundred times. Like, he already knows how it goes. He knows where I’m gonna go. I think I’m a pretty simple man. I’m a pretty simple songwriter. And I think Rick had my number from the very get-go.
So I think he could do it with almost anybody. But with me in particular, we’ve been playing together so long and he’s just so good. He knows what I’m going to do before I do sometimes. He knows the chord I’m going to pick and the vocal melody, and he knows how to complement those perfectly. So yeah, we did a couple of days, I guess, of rehearsal. Just a few hours of rehearsal, running through, especially some of those ones that we needed to kind of the prayer and tell me what it takes. We’re like, all right, how do we do these? But once we had those figured out, everything else came pretty naturally. So no, not a lot of rehearsal. We did a nice four-day run on the West Coast, just me and Rick. And so a lot of that, that run kind of functioned as the rehearsals for this album.
Yeah, it seems like you kind of let him go a few times, like took the leash off a few times, not that you keep Rick leashed necessarily, but I think in that sort of format, there’s a moment on that first Atlanta live record where you talk about just wanting to be home, drinking a whiskey and listening to Rick play the piano all night. It seems like there’s a few times in the studio where you’re just like, “just go, man.”
Yeah, yeah. And that’s just fun for me to hear him play like that. And yeah there’s something about just recording as a two-piece. There’s a lot of room for him to work in. And there’s a little more space and he can kind of stretch his legs a little bit. And I think just from the very start of the record from “In Lonesome Times” and “That Much Further West,” which are the first two singles released, you can just hear him just being able to focus on those piano parts and really let those kind of shine through. That was one of the special things about this album.
Yeah, he gets real twinkly at the end of “That Much Further West” like that. He’s sort of playing the horn parts that kind of got incorporated into that song over the years. And then he just goes off. I sent it to my dad and my brother and said “tell me that’s not such an E Street Band sound…” And it’s just the two of you!
Yeah, that’s I’m glad you hear that in it. Yeah, like this solo on “Texas and Tennessee.” The little solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak” right there. It’s real honky tonk, you know. And then I love this solo on “Buy A Little Time” as well. The piano solos really shine on this record. Because yeah, he is taking elements of maybe some of Brian’s guitar parts or some of the horn section and just kind of incorporating and covering all the basses that would be there with a full band. And he’s just doing them all himself. It’s just really fun to hear.
But he’s not doing it on like keys or synthesizer like he would live. Like that’s just him and a piano.
Yeah.
Like just a big grand piano.
Yeah, nothing’s plugged in. There’s just some microphones above the grand piano. So yeah, that’s just him and you know, the sustain pedal. You know, on the piano, built into the piano. And that’s the only effects that are on there. Yeah, it’s a pretty raw album.
So even Rick’s stuff sounds different on this because of just the way that it’s just on grand piano.
Yeah, I can see that. I hadn’t thought about that too much.
Was that the plan going in like to do grand piano? Or did you kind of get in the studio and realize now this is how it should be like as about as stripped down as it gets?
I think that’s what I wanted. Everybody’s like, “Oh, you’ll have him play an accordion.” No, not this time. Maybe later. I wanted to keep it real. Yeah, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. And we knew what we were getting. We knew the piano that was in Matt Ross-Spang’s studio. And Rick loves that piano. And so yeah, it was kind of the natural choice to just focus on that.
Yeah, if it would have been a different studio with a different piano, you would have gotten maybe a slightly different performance. But um, but yeah, I the whole kind of ‘it’s like a live show’ aspect. Yeah, like you get what you get from the day and the studio and the performances. It’s just kind of capturing a time and a place.
I know you’ve worked with Matt Ross-Spang before a bunch. But is this the first time you recorded in that studio? Or was Should’ve Learned By Now there too?
Should’ve Learned By Now was there. And yeah, and then…well, we did When You Found Me there as well, actually.
Oh, okay. I thought that was Sam Phillips with him.
No, Among the Ghosts was started at Sam Phillips. Maybe… wait, hold on. Maybe When You Found Me might have been started at Sam Phillips, but then we finished it at Southern Grooves. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. We did Among the Ghosts at Sam Phillips.
That sounds right, yeah.
But then he was building the studio during the pandemic while we were all separated and I was writing When You Found Me in my basement. Yeah. And then we finally got in there and recorded When You Found Me. Yeah, I don’t know. Man, everything blurs together in my old age…
Well, yeah. And the pandemic fucked us all that way, too. Like there’s so much from those four years…
It really screwed with Lucero for sure. I feel like we were really hitting a stride. You know, 2018, 2019…2018 was our 20-year anniversary. That Lucero family block party was one of my favorite memories.
Mine too.
That was a great one. And I feel like we were really going strong. And then, yeah, COVID really took the wind out of us. Like we put out Among the Ghosts. And I think that’s still one of my favorite albums, favorite Lucero records. And then we all got locked down. And yeah, with When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now, those are both COVID albums. One was kind of my deep dive into my basement synthesizers. (*both laugh*) And then the next one was supposed to be the exact opposite of that. And I think they’re both kind of… I don’t know, they both suffer from the isolation of me writing them completely by myself and not being around the band enough. Just in my opinion.
Yeah.
And so, so yeah, it was nice to go back into Southern Grooves with Matt Ross-Spang, with just me and Rick Steff and make everything very simple and play some songs that that I’m still a fan of from, you know, the back catalog. And so, so yeah, it was a really fun day back with Matt Ross-Spang in the studio. I feel good about that.
It also gave me sort of the vibe of, and I don’t mean this negatively, but like those COVID live streams that you would do in the studio, because like, you’d rip through a version of a song. And then like, when you play a song live normally, obviously, you’re feeding off the audience, they’re feeding off you, people are clapping and whatever. And then to just go like, stop, okay, on to the next song. Like, it kind of plays like that a little bit. Does that affect you? Like, when you play a song, like “Nights Like These” or “Tears Don’t Matter Much,” which are like, those are full band, full audience participation songs at this point. Is it sort of weird to play them theoretically live, but to like an engineer?
For some reason, to me, it was different in my brain, just because I knew that we were recording a record. A live-in-the-studio record, but still, I knew there was no one out there actually listening at the moment. I knew that they would be listening in the future. And for some reason, that made it just fine and not awkward, and not, I was playing them, you know, I was performing the songs for me and Rick. And knowing that if I thought the performance was good, that would probably translate onto the album. Whereas, yeah, during those COVID live streams, you know that the internet’s not working. (*both laugh*) And you know, there’s glitches. You’re freezing. And the audio is not matching up with the video. And as you’re playing a song, not only, do you not have that live interaction with the audience, you know, that it’s a shit show, and that everything is screwing up. And that yeah, those were terrible, horrible moments for me. (*both laugh*) I’m glad it helped. I’m glad we had some kind of connection with our audience.
Yeah, I wish it would have been a smoother, more polished connection. But those kept us alive; they kept us afloat. But those were not my preferred ways of doing things. I would rather have the full live show, 100% or this kind of live-in-the-studio album where by the time the audience hears it, we know that they’re gonna hear the right thing.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of liked both. I didn’t care. Like during COVID… if it’s glitchy, fine, it’s glitchy. If it’s good, because they recorded it ahead of time, fine. Good. Because we were just so starved for anything, you know? Like, sure, I could see it being frustrating on your end, absolutely. But like, we were just so starved for anything. And not just from you, but like, literally anything that anybody did… like, wherever you want to do a live stream in a barn, fine, do it. Like, here’s my 10 bucks.
Yeah, it was. I got to remember it was tough on everybody. It was tough on the audience, and the fans as well as the bands. Yeah, it was tough on me as a music fan. I mean, I’m with you. When Joey Kneiser or Cory Branan would do a live stream, someone I’m a big fan of, I’d want him to just play all night. I’m like, “don’t stop! Like, an hour is not enough.”
Yeah!
Just keep going. I don’t care. I was like, I don’t care if it’s a little glitchy. I don’t care if you’re a little drunk. Just keep going.
I’d rather watch that than Grey’s Anatomy or some shit. (*both laugh*)
No, I hear you. So yeah, that’s not necessarily a bad way to view this album. This is just like, the way I would have wanted it to sound with no glitches. That’s kind of what you’re getting here too.
I want to…I know we talked about him a little, but sort of give Rick his flowers a little bit. And I wonder if you could talk sort of about how now that you’ve been in a band with him like 18, 19 years, does that change the approach of how you write a song, knowing that you have like, that bullet in the chamber to go to all the time? Thinking about how Rick has got…even if you can’t necessarily quantify it, like knowing that, oh, Rick playing piano on this or whatever keys on this is going to sound a certain way. And does that change even how you write songs for your solo record? Like, do you hear stuff that’s like, ah, this, this one needs Rick, so that’s in the Lucero pile. Or this one needs Brian…
Right, right, sure. Yeah, that definitely has happened in the past, because I haven’t done that much solo work over the course of Lucero’s career. The only other solo album I’ve ever done was The Last Pale Light in the West. And that was, Rick was brand new still kind of back then. And Todd Beene was kind of brand new for me back then. And so it made sense to do (that record) with those two guys, just to make it kind of separate. And obviously, since those songs are based on a novel, it was easy to keep that batch of songs separate from the batch of Lucero songs. And yeah, since then, yeah, I’ve mainly just focused on Lucero. And so, yeah, the question about whether it changes the way I write, I don’t, I don’t know if it does. I think, as a writer, as a songwriter, everything’s so, what do you call it when it’s an accident, but it works out? Serendipitous. I just fumble around on a guitar, or I’m just tuning a guitar, and then I play a couple of random chords to see if it’s in tune. And sometimes those chords are like, “oh, wait, I haven’t played those chords in that order before.” And that’s where a new song starts. Everything is so unintentional with my songwriting, that I just kind of end up with what I end up with. And so I feel like the songwriting is going to be the same. I’m not smart enough to factor in Rick into the songwriting. (*both laugh*)
No, but you might be open-minded enough, right? Like, you might be open-minded enough so that if you bring it to him, and he’s like “no, put that there, like that chorus should be a bridge, or that chorus should be the verse, or it’s like… “
Right, right. And I do. I would take advice on that. One great example of something that really kind of altered the song was I’d written “Always Been You” off of Among the Ghosts. And, you know, I played it by myself, and the chords were nice. It’s an A minor, which is one of my favorite keys. And I took it to the band, and then Rick came up with his piano part. And we listened back. We actually kind of wrote a lot of Among the Ghosts in the studio. And so we listened back. And I really heard his piano part. And I was like, “oh, yeah, just take all the guitars out. Like, that’s, that’s the song, that piano part.” And so, so yeah, that song got kind of completely transformed. It was still the chord arrangement that I’d written out, and the vocal pattern was there. But the focus became the piano just because the part was so good.
And so when I’m writing, I don’t necessarily write with Rick’s parts in mind. But I’m always excited to take the songs to the band and see what Rick can surprise me with. And yeah, it’s funny. There’s some songs where, yeah, he’s not hearing it the same way I do. And sometimes it’s interesting to watch him struggle for a part, which is rare. But every now and again, watching his process of working through a problem, and it’s like, you know, kind of like doing a math problem and figuring out what the keys aren’t doing that the song needs, or vice versa, what the song’s not doing that the keys need. And so just as a musician and watching somebody that’s that good work, it’s actually kind of cool to watch it work, even when it’s not working. But like I said, that’s rare. Usually, he just sits down and plays it perfectly on the first take.
Do you miss that part of it? I know it’s not probably cost-effective to write in the studio now, and obviously Covid changed a lot of that too, but do you miss that part of it…
Oh man…I do. Sometimes I wish we could make every record like Among The Ghosts. On that one, we’d go into the studio at Sam Phillips, and we’d work for a week and just throw stuff at the wall. We’d just kind of record whatever parts I had. Maybe we’d get some rough mixes while we were out on the road and then we’d come back and do another three or four days, and then leave again. Over the course of ten months, we were in and out of the studio whenever we could get in there, and that gave me a lot of time to listen to rough mixes, think about song arrangements, think about lyrics. That might not work every time you wanted to record an album, but it worked really well for that album. I think it benefitted from that kind of unique recording situation. Most times, you’ve got a producer, you’ve got two weeks, maybe three weeks, whatever it is, to get in the studio and get everything down, and then once that’s done, you’re done. That’s how we did 1372 and Women & Work and All A Man Should Do, and I like those records too. It can work either way. But yeah, as times have changed, the band doesn’t hang out together as much as the band used to hang out. We’re all over 50 now, which is insane. (*both laugh*)
It’s a badge of honor for sure, but yeah that is crazy.
Yeah! And we do all have families and lives outside of the band, and we used to not. Very literally, the band was our only thing going in our lives. That’s not the case anymore, so things have to change because of that, and you adapt. You figure out the right way to make the next Lucero record…which I’m still figuring out.
You haven’t taken to emailing or Dropboxing song ideas and riffs to each other yet?
Not yet. Not yet.
That’s got to be such a weird process to get used to for bands that started before all that.
I guess we did that some with When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now. We did it a little bit, because you’re trying to limit your time in the studio as much as possible, so you try to get as much work done outside the studio as you can. So we did some of that, but that’s not the best way for us necessarily. We might benefit from a nice balance, where maybe you start like that but then I’ve got to get to Memphis and we’ve got to get face to face and work in the rehearsal room, and then hope for a little bit of that serendipitous magic once again in the studio. But we’ll see. We recorded this unplugged record about a year ago. So I’ve been waiting for it to get mixed and then work out a deal for release and wait for release day to come. It’s such a long process. And now I have the solo record, which is a whole other beast. All of the songs are there, I’ve just gotta finish up mixing it and make a deal for that to get released.
I’m excited for that. I’m excited to see what you came up with. Obviously, I feel like I’ve seen you a few times occasionally play an idea for a new song – like in Garwood, which is the only place I’ve really seen you solo –
Yeah, you’ve heard a couple of snippets. There’s a couple of things floating around, some live clips of some of those. But final mixes are…I’m curious to see what people think. I think they’re real special. I recorded with Todd Beene on pedal steel, MorganEve Swain from The Huntress And Holder Of Hands on violin and backup vocals, and then Cory Branan on electric guitar and acoustic guitar. I’ve got a cool, acoustic-centric band put together. I’m real excited about that. I still don’t know who is going to release it or when it’ll be released, but I’m hoping this year. And then that means I can work all year on the new Lucero record. I’ve kind of gotten these acoustic things out of my system. I can’t wait for them to come out. I’m not sure how this year is going to pan out. I would love to do a lot of acoustic shows around the releases of these albums, but we’ll see…
I can imagine balancing five guys and a crew in a band that sort of rely on that, so then does that take a back seat or do you work double time? It’s tricky.
We’ll see what I can get away with. But then it’ll be time to make a new Lucero record. Maybe if I get a couple of songs together we can start working on those immediately and then maybe do it like Among The Ghosts, where we do a couple days here, a couple days there, and then go our separate ways or go on tour or whatever, then come back and do a few more days or a week. We’ll see. Still planning out the rest of the year. I’ve been living with these unplugged songs and these solo songs for so long; for the last year or year-and-a-half, that I’m ready for them to be out in the world and then focus on new Lucero.
I’m excited. The official release date is what, the 24th?
Yeah, January 24th. Another week or so, and then all twenty tracks will be out. I’m really stoked to see what people think about it. There’s some cool stuff on it. I want people to hear “Tell Me What It Takes.” I want them to hear Rick’s solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak.” And there might be some bonus stuff that pops up here and there. I’ve got a couple more videos to go with this stuff that we’ll post. It should be cool.
I think people are going to dig it. It’s a cool way to reimagine some of The Attic Tapes’ stuff. It’s a cool way to reimagine some of the Tennessee stuff, and some of the songs that, like I said, I’ve been around for a while and I’ve never heard them more than once or twice. It’s fun.
I’m hoping that it’s a stripped-down record that old-school fans will appreciate. But I’m also hoping that it’s maybe a different palette that might be appealing to new folks? Or to folks where Lucero might be a little too rough around the edges? Or a little too…whatever?
“Whatever” is a good word.
Yeah, whatever Lucero is. It’s still a little undefinable. (*both laugh*) Even to me. But they might find this more appealing. I’m hoping it’ll seep out into the world and maybe grow a few more Lucero fans.
I think it will. I mean, what do I know. (*both laugh*) But I think it will. I’m excited to hold the physical copy of it. I was excited to hold the physical copy of the calendar in the mail yesterday, because I have a picture in the calendar and that was a cool feather in my cap.
Oh hell yeah! Man, that’s great. I don’t have a calendar yet, I have to get one myself.
February is my month! I sent Brian a shit ton of pictures. It was sort of last-minute…
Everything we do is last minute…
And I love Brian. I love him to death. He was like “do you have anything we can use” and I was like “yeah, what’s your timeline?” and he’s like…”uh…how’s tomorrow?” (*both laugh*)
Sounds about right.
I sent him a big Google folder broken down by like year and city because I’m totally OCD about that. And then Brody was like “hey can we use this picture?” and it was totally not a picture I expected. I’ve taken probably 4000 pictures mostly of the whole band or of you and Brian because of where I tend to situate myself, and I have like 10 decent pictures of Roy because he’s always in the back and there’s not much of a riser and it’s dark…so February is a cool picture of Roy that I got. I thought that was cool.
The last time we caught up with Sammy Kay – like for real caught up, interview style, for the website – was a couple of years back. It was about his then-upcoming EP, Inanna. It was a half-dozen folk-inspired mostly acoustic tracks that grew out of a project to write sonnets. Twelve-to-sixteen lines, no repeating […]
The last time we caught up with Sammy Kay – like for real caught up, interview style, for the website – was a couple of years back. It was about his then-upcoming EP, Inanna. It was a half-dozen folk-inspired mostly acoustic tracks that grew out of a project to write sonnets. Twelve-to-sixteen lines, no repeating choruses, character-driven thought experiments. Backed by the likes of John Calvin Abney and Corey Tramontelli and produced by frequent collaborator J Duckworth, it was another journey down a road he’d been traveling for some time. “In my head, the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to chase fucking Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan,” explained Kay when we caught up again last week about his latest project’s newest release. The running joke for a while was that Kay, who grew up in punk rock and ska-inspired bands primarily in the NY/NJ area before trading in his Tele for a Harmony Buck Owens acoustic, would only pick up an electric again as a mid-life crisis. But Kay is now 35 years old and, as he put it in a manner that is so quintessentially Kay, “the world doesn’t need another fucking Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan.” Instead, Kay would come to realize; quickly – organically – magically; is that the world does need, a new project. A supergroup in the realest sense of the word. A band that will take queues from The Clash – both sonically and realistically. A band called The Kilograms.
Featuring Kay and punk rock legend Joe Gittleman (co-founder of Avoid One Thing and, you know, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones), the project initially started a little over a year ago as a one-off collaboration for the Black Sand Relief compilation to benefit a mutual friend, Michelle Ska, who lost everything in the Maui fires. “We got pulled into helping some friends do this comp just as like…I’m going to sound like a businessman…’consultants’,” explains Kay. “We were consulting with some buds on how to wrangle some bands for this thing for Michelle and we both were supposed to do some good.“
In addition to their consulting roles for the compilation (which includes tracks from Catbite and Westbound Train and Spring Heeled Jack and The Pilfers and The Slackers and a bunch more second- and third-wave faves), the duo teamed up for the track “Who Am I.” As mentioned above, they of course named their collaboration The Kilograms (Get it? Kay and Gittleman? Kg? Kilogram? Get it?). And what started as a one-time thing very quickly sparked in both a newer and deeper creative streak in the two longtime songwriters. Kay – originally an East Coaster who, after a few stints in California, has called the greater Cincinnati area home for the last handful of years – looped frequent collaborator and Cincy native J Duckworth (Newport Secret Six) into the fold and the two began woodshedding ideas, trading them back and forth with Gittleman, who was back home in the northeast. “I don’t know if it was the sabbatical or free time or whatever, but Joe just was ripping all summer,” Kay laughs. “There was a point where I told Joe to stop sending me songs because we were both so excited and I couldn’t keep up with his output!“
The Kilograms: L-R Kay, McDermott, Gorsline, Duckworth & Gittleman. Credit: James Walker. Solo Sammy picture in the cover credit: Kim Moenich
The creative output alone meant that the project was destined to graduate from a writing exercise to a live performing one. Craig Gorsline, an old-time collaborator of Kay’s from the Sammy Kay and the Fast Four days, hopped in the proverbial van on keys. For the first handful of dates, Dan Alfonsi from Flatfoot 56 manned the drumkit, keeping the seat warm for the veteran Michael McDermott (ex-Bouncing Souls) to finish a summer run providing the backbeat in the legendary Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Together, the band ripped through close to two dozen shows in the back half of the year, including a prime spot alongside Big D & The Kids Table at the latter’s annual Halloween show in their hometown of Boston.
In between shows, the band continued to write and record. The initial EP in February 2024 was followed by another EP in September. There was also plenty of work for their own outside projects in the queue. “The core of the Kilograms, right? All the members, we put out three fucking full lengths” last summer, explains Kay excitedly. “June, July, August – Newport Secret Six record (Rising Tide), my record (July 1960) and Joe’s record (Hold Up) this summer. On top of a 12-inch, on top of a 7-inch, on top of a comp, on top of a couple of digital singles that I did while working on a full length.”
Oh, about that full-length. The band continued to write and record ideas in their respective areas, trading tracks back and forth until they had enough for a legitimate full-length record. But it wasn’t quite right, yet. “We made the whole record remotely and it was OK. It was just fine,” explains Kay. “And then we had a couple of days off between some shows and it was like, well, let’s go to Pete’s. Let’s spend three days and set up a drum kit and a guitar and a bass amp. And me, Joe and McDermott ripped, I think we did 14 songs…” As is probably obvious, the “Pete” in question is the one-and-only Pete Steinkopf, who in addition to playing guitar for the iconic Bouncing Souls for thirty-five years, has been producing records at Little Eden Studio in Asbury Park for close to two decades. Wonderful records by the likes of The Loved Ones and Dave Hause and obviously the Souls and Space Cadet and, of course, Sammy Kay. “Me and Pete have been going for like twelve years now? This will be the fifth full-length record I’ve done with Pete, plus a bunch of other stuff and demos and a few splits that never came out.“
While Kay is certainly no stranger to the unique setting that is Little Eden – still owned by longtime Souls manager Kate Hiltz – it’s the first time he’s recorded there without being a local. “I’ve always made a record in my hometown or in my region,” Kay states. “(This time), we stayed at Kate’s upstairs, in the bunkhouse and it was just real nice to be able to like wake up, walk to Frank’s, walk to (Cafe) Volan, have a couple of smokes on the beach, walk back to Little Eden and just plug in the guitars, you know?”
Beliefs & Theives artwork by Joe Maiocco
The result of those sessions is Beliefs And Thieves, the band’s upcoming full-length debut. Due out in April on Rad Girlfriend Records and the band’s own Weights And Measures imprint, the album is ten tracks that run the full gamut of sounds that you might expect from a band that includes a Mighty Mighty Bosstone and a Bouncing Soul and, well, and Sammy and J and Craig. “I’m always leaning towards The Clash,” says Kay. “I think that if it was just a ska band, I would have been gone already. Like I would have done a 7-inch and the EP and said “okay, that was fun. We don’t need to do this.” Indeed, there are full Clash catalog references aplenty on Beliefs And Thieves. Case in point, on the song “Hard Lines.” “Hard Lines” was a completely different song that I ended up rewriting and we rearranged it in the studio. I got to say “trust me.” Sometimes when you say “trust me,” it works,” he declares rather emphatically. “Joe had a groove and it was OK, and I was like, “let’s lean Sandinista Clash, like “Junco Partner.” Just trust me.” And we did. And it’s really fucking cool. It’s really groovy.”
That trust is at the core of the relationship between the band’s core members (seven if you count Pete and Paul Kolderie, who mixed the record as he has with countless other brilliant releases and dozens if you count the band’s extended families, who’ve also become close in the year-or-so that the band has existed). “We’re all aligned in the sense of doing whatever we need to do as long as we leave the light on; as long as we leave the room a little brighter than we found it,” says Kay. “For the five of us to cannonball and just try and start a new project, and just be able to put out a seven-inch, let alone a seven-inch AND a fucking 12-inch EP AND a full length in a calendar year, and play twenty shows, that’s a fucking win.“
Check out the lead single, “Beliefs And Thieves,” and all of the available pre-order options, and keep on scrolling to check out our extensive Q&A with Kay, which goes in to great detail on the band’s process. There’s a lot about the growing Kilograms family (go ahead and maybe throw a few dollars in the pot and help Sammy’s partner Liz in her grueling battle with uterine cancer, yeah?) and an awful lot about what it’s like to be in a room writing music with not one but two punk rock legends. Here’s a hint from Kay himself: “There’s Gittleman and McDermott. Like, that shit’s a masterclass.“
(*Editor’s note: The conversation below has been edited and condensed for content and clarity. Yes, really.)
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): You’ve been releasing records for a long time now on your own. Does it feel different being a Kilograms full length?
Sammy Kay: Um, no. I just had someone ask me how the record was coming. I just got the master in, and they were like “are you stoked?” I’m like, “yeah, I’ll listen to it once.” And then I’ll make sure it’s good. I listen to it in the headphones, I’ll listen to it on the stereo in the house. I’ll listen to it in the car. And then when the test presses come, I’ll listen to it on like the junk record player, my record player. and then I’ll go to Jay’s. Jay (Duckworth, producer and fellow Kilogram) has like a nice system, you know? And if the test sounds good on all three, then we’re good. And then I don’t. I’ll listen to whatever song we never learn when it’s time to play a show.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I know already off the bat, like one song will never get played live. Or probably two. Like we’ll learn them, but they’ll never rotate in. There’s a little too much going on for that arrangement you know? But I’m also not mad about that either.
Are you at the point now where you’ll vary songs based on what the crowd is or what kind of lineup you’re on? Like if you’re on a ska show vs. a Dropkick show?
Yeah, absolutely. It seems like we’re about 20 shows deep now. We’re starting to figure out the right blocks, and we figured out the right blocks pretty quick. Figuring out where (the songs) live, you know? Like we just flipped a song that has been song five in the set to now be the second-to-last song. And it’s like, “oh yeah, that sits real good there and sets up the last song or the last two songs real well.” I’m just excited for us to learn all of them proper and start being one of those bands…None of us want to play the same set every day.
Yeah, right.
Your first block and your last block is usually always the same, but to be able to just totally flip-flop the middle is what I’m eager for, you know?
Totally. You recorded this with Pete, yeah?
We recorded this with Pete Steinkopf. The legend.
All together in the same room. Obviously we’ve talked quite a bit or texted quite a bit, so I sort of forget what you’ve talked about in interviews and what I just know, so some of this might be redundant to shit you’ve talked about. But was that really sort of around the first time that you all were all together?
In a studio, yeah. It was the first run of shows that McDermott was around for. We did this run last May, and then McDermott was out with Joan Jett all summer and he flew in and we started doing some shows. And we essentially made the record…this is technically the third time I’ve made this record.
I will say some of these songs sound like, wait, I’ve heard these, right?Wait, I don’t remember if I’ve heard this.
So we made the whole record remotely, and it was OK. It was just fine.So here’s how the Kilograms work. When we started, we did “Who Am I?” and then all of a sudden, me and Joe had nine songs right away. And then Jay threw a couple in the hat. I threw a bunch in the hat. Some things got removed. Joe was throwing a song in the hat every week that was done. And we were recording and then we kind of found ourselves with a record that was just OK. And no slight to us, it just needed to get done again. We started playing the songs. We found different little drum nuances or pattern changes or tempo changes. And it was like, “let’s do this right.” We had a couple of days off between some shows and it was like, “well, let’s go to Pete’s. Let’s spend three days and set up a drum kit and a guitar and a bass amp.” And me, Joe and McDermott ripped, I think we did 14 songs…We just hunkered down for three days, did drums, bass, guitar. We threw out all the guitar. It was just scratch just to get the bass locked in with Pete’s beautiful preamps. And then we went home and then me and Jay and Craig hunkered down for about a month, working three days a week and just built the songs.
So that wasn’t necessarily writing new material at that point. That was like rounding out the sound of the songs that existed or writing new?
We were still writing. There are like two songs we wrote in the studio because We hashed out in the room, “Beliefs and Thieves,” “Saddest Songs.” “Fireworks” was written pretty much on the fly. I had it in my notebook, but there wasn’t a demo besides just me yelling at my phone. “Lorelei,” and “Ya Ya,” we had demos done for, like ready mix things. “Lie To Me,” there was a working demo that was almost there that we hashed out. “Hard Lines” was a completely different song that I ended up rewriting and we rearranged it in the studio. I got to say “trust me.” Sometimes when you say “trust me,” it works. And Joe had a groove and it was OK, and I was like, “let’s lean Sandinista Clash, like “Junco Partner.” Just trust me.” And we did. And it’s really fucking cool. It’s really groovy. And then I ended up rewriting the lyrics post-leaving because the words just weren’t lining up with the new groove. So that wasn’t on the first round. “Hoodie Song” has been floating since like day two, since Jay really showed up and became a Kilogram. But like probably seven of the 11 songs are pretty new. We had already kind of cherry-picked the bangers. “America In Black and White” was written the same time. Those were all that initial batch. Like everything that’s out now, plus like “Lorelei.” So when we recorded, we knew we could get five songs done in an afternoon because we’ve been playing, and then we had two days to get weird. “Battles” was a song that’s been around for a while, but we’ve done I’ve three or four different variations of “Battles” since it showed up. Like, different drums. We tried a couple different ways. But having Pete being able to do that with…for me to be able to go back and work with Pete after five years…
Yeah, when was the last time previously? Did he do Civil/War?
Yes, he did Civil/War. Civil/War would be the last time I saw Pete in a room. And (this time) having Joe there with Pete and their long, long friendship and McDermott back in Little Eden where he would hide out (back in the day) I guess…it was just magic. Like, Little Eden is always magical, but it was just fucking magical.
I was going to say; all of you have been around for a long time, but that sort of amalgamation of all of you together and that location and Pete and like that seems like it must have felt special. I mean, it felt special to me and I’m like three levels removed from that.
And the coolest part was I’ve never like flown somewhere (to make a record). I’ve always made a record in my hometown or in my region. We stayed at the studio. We stayed at Kate’s like upstairs and in the bunkhouse and it was just real nice to be able to like wake up, walk to Frank’s, walk to (Cafe) Volan, have a couple of smokes on the beach, walk back to Little Eden and just plug in the guitars, you know? Like, “all right, cool, you guys are going to get lunch, I’m going to take a shower, then we’ll get back at it.” But also be away from life and home and kind of the like, “well, shit, like, all right, guys, I’m going to bail out for half a decade (*both laugh*) or I got to walk the dog, or I have to go to work, you know what I mean? It was real, real nice just to lock in and be there.
And I mean, aside from Pete’s, but that’s nobody’s home turf. So you’re all able to just kind of shut everything else off and work on this.
Yeah. And I think that was the magic of like being able to cut whatever, 13, 14 songs in three days and like writing and learning things on the fly.
It seems like this came together really quick. The whole band, I was trying to think back about, like, when you sort of told me that it might become a thing because it was sort of the joke, whether online or through text or whatever, that like that that mid-30s ska band thing, like, it’s like…
Like, it’s my midlife crisis.
Yeah, right.And that was sort of the joke, like, oh, I’m never going to play an electric guitar again or whatever. And then this kind of happened.
I have a midlife crisis tour van! I own a fucking piece of shit, 20-year-old fucking van with a tow hitch and a fucking broken TV in it. You know…Joe called me two Thanksgivings ago…so like 14 months ago.
So I was trying to think about this timeline, that show you played in Malden with Amy Griffin and whoever else. But Joe was there.
That was like the first time Joe came and hung out with me.
I remember talking to my brother after that once this band actually started, I was like, “I have to check with Sammy but I feel like I feel like we were there when this thing like happened. Like, I feel like we were sort of tangentially in the room.“
I’ve known Joe for a while in passing, and I’d always ping him and be like, “hey, man, like, let’s think about this.” It was always like an industry favor, like, “hey, man, like any chance you could link me with somebody at Side One Dummy?” Like, “I have this record. Do you have a label that you think might be into it? Or do you have a good publicist?” And then while we were doing July 1960, I was like, “what do you think of these songs? They’re like sonnets? I know you’re a songs guy.” And we started really rapping. And he was like, at one point, I wanted him to produce that record because he produced the first Chuck record. Los Feliz is a Gittleman production. And he had a big part in the next record, too. And those records… I mean “The Boat” is “THE BOAT”… the boat is the boat. I feel like every interview, it all goes to Chuck Ragan. (*both laugh*) But I wrote him about like coming to Boston and wanting to go to Wooly Mammoth Studios, which is like, we’re the dude that engineered the Replacements records. I was like “let’s go hang out and make a Replacements record. And he was like, “no.” He was like, “I would love to. I’ve been making my wife Angie live on my schedule for like 30 years now or 40 years. Like, if you book the time and I happen to be there…but I can’t promise it.” But then we played that show in Malden. He came down for the weekend and he went to see Amy and went to see me. And we hung out and bullshitted. And he had some really, really sweet, nice things to say. It was big hugs and it was it was fucking cool. And then we got roped into helping some friends do this comp just as like…I’m going to sound like a businessman…”consultants.” (*both laugh*) We were consulting with some buds on how to wrangle some bands for this thing for Michelle and we both were supposed to do some good. So he wrote me, he just posted on Instagram like a screen grab, like, “hey, can you help me finish this demo? And we’ll just be like Sammy and Joe” and “I was like, yeah, sure!” And I called Jay (Duckworth). “Jay, Gittleman from the Bosstones wants to do this thing. What are you doing tomorrow?” He’s like nothing! Let’s buy smokes and tacos…
Yeah, right.
You know, and then it just kind of spiraled out.
So when did you feel like this isn’t just like a fun little project, and this is a real band now. Is that when Jay or McDermott get involved or…?
Detroit. We played Detroit. We played Cincinnati and it was the first show. I was like, “oh, shit…ee just played 40 minutes with the music and we said, ‘Hi, ‘we’re the Kilograms!” And that was great. And then we played Detroit the next night and it was off the fucking chain. And it was like, “oh, yeah, this is the thing.” We did those shows just to see if we could do it if we wanted to do it. We had Supernova booked. And then McDermott was out with Joan Jett, so Danny from Flatfoot filled in on drums. That’s when Craig came into it. We did those shows and me and Joe felt something magical, something fierce. And then it was like, “let’s do this.” We knew there was like…magic. Like, when you announce a record and it sells out eight hours later, and (people) have never heard more than one song, there’s some kind of excitement or magic, at least for us. Like this is some cathartic shit. This is a means to create with folks that like I’m grateful for. I mean, I’m grateful for everybody I get to create with. Like I love Corey. I love Todd. I love John Calvin. Right? Mitch and Will, all the dudes, whether it’s like the Sammy punk rock band or the (Seasonal) Depression, like the folk thing. But to be able to like…dude, there was a point where I told Joe to stop sending me songs (*both laugh*) because we were both so excited and I couldn’t keep up with his output. He’s been on sabbatical. He just went back to school to teach again, so he had just been like sitting in the woods writing songs. And it’s been…like we could go and make – on paper – another full length tomorrow. There are enough demos for a second record. You give us two weeks, we can knock it out. It’s really beautiful and cathartic. And Liz came with me on the last run of shows and so did Joe’s wife and the two of them were real cute because we never met Joe’s wife until the other day. And the two of them were like…you know, Liz has gone to see us two or three times, and Joe’s wife hadn’t seen it. And they were in the room together laughing like “we can’t really be mad at these guys for like the amount of time they put in.”
Yeah, right.
It feels there’s something special here, at least for me and Joe and McDermott. McDermott is like…I’ll be like calling and bothering him about something like and he’s like “you know, I’m in this band, it’s really good. I have to practice the drums. Get off the fucking phone!” (*both laugh*). Even Jay is like one of my best friends. But even Jay gets like I’ve never seen Jay. I don’t think I’ve ever smiled this much playing music like on stage. I’m a stern motherfucker. I am like hating being on tour, always. Playing shows is my least favorite thing about the industry. I’m sorry, the 40 minutes I’m on stage telling stories and doing things (is the best). But everything that leads up to it.
The other 23 hours and 20 minutes.
Yeah. I’m 35. I should be out of this game. I should have been out of this game. Like buying a van and getting in the van is a young man’s sport. And my sport these days is framing fucking bathrooms, man, like…
It’s tangible, though. Like prior to that show with Big D here, I don’t think I had talked to McDermott or Joe two decades anyway, maybe longer. And it’s tangible, the sort of joy that they have in this band, too. And even Joe said that directly. I don’t think it’s telling stories out of school, but because obviously he put out his record last year and it’s great and it’s a Joe Gittleman record. But we sort of talked about it a little bit just that night. And he was like, “I don’t really want to do an awful lot else with it for now because I really like this band! Like I’m having too much fun doing this.“
Yeah, we legitimately opted to do a co-release on the record with Josh and Rad Girlfriend with the agreement that we are going to have our little label. We called it Weights and Measures. Myself, Joe, Jay, Craig, Dermo, whatever we want to do, we have the means to release. And have a conjoined mailing list and just have a little imprint that we can do whatever the fuck we want. Because at the end of the day, we’re just making music. And even if you look at the Gittleman record like this, I’m on a couple of songs, McDermott’s on a couple of songs. Jay engineered some stuff for some of it. Like we’re there, you know? You know, I engineered… engineer is a loose term, I hit record on a tape machine and line up a tape machine on Jay’s record. Me and Jay have collectively have released – between the Newport Secret Six and the Sammy whatever, 40 songs since I moved to Cincinnati.
That’s wild.
Like the core of the Kilograms, right? All the members, we put out three fucking full-lengths this summer. June, July, August. Newport Secret Six, my record, and Joe’s record. On top of a 12-inch, on top of a 7-inch, on top of a comp, on top of a couple of digital singles that I did while working on a full length. And there’s more done that didn’t make the record or that needs to get mixed. The output is the magical part of this band.
Did you ever have a conversation about what the band was going to sound like stylistically or what you were going to write about lyrically? I don’t know if you guys necessarily sing the songs that you write lyrically, but some of this sounds a little more like you said, sort of Clash-like, outward-facing, like social commentary versus the solo stuff. Did you ever actually have a conversation about what it’s going to be like, “what are we going to sound like?”
The only conversation we really had was that we wanted to have fun. In my head, the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to chase fucking Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan and the world doesn’t need another fucking Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. They’re a dime a dozen. And I personally feel like my one thing was just, I want to take notes from The Clash and ultimately their full discography, all band members, all bands, right? I want to take from Big Audio Dynamite, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros. And like my two cuts on the record, all of the shit that I got to do on the record, all I really wanted to do was have Craig playing organ and me laying on a floor spinning delay pedals and reverbs and Mellotrons reverse delayed with like the weird shit. Like, I want to go and be like sneaking Cumbia into punky reggae. I talked to McDermott the other day, we both really love this band Soft Kill. I stumbled on them about the time McDermott got off the road with Joan Jett at the end of the summer and jumped in the band. And I listened to it a lot. We’ve been having discussions about how we can sneak 808s and fucking drum machines under his shit now. That’s the next move. Like, “how do we get a sample? Do you have a sample pad? Can we start doing 808 shit?” The only agreement we really had was that we were smiling and having fun, and if we weren’t smiling and having fun, we were going to change that really quick. I’m always leaning towards The Clash. I think that if it was just a ska band, I would have been gone already. Like I would have done a 7-inch and the EP and said “okay, that was fun. We don’t need to do this.” But the fact they support me opening my mouth every night and shouting about things that are important in my life. I have zero censorship. We censored one line in “America In Black And White.” Joe said “you should have it be this,” and we changed it and we finished it and we immediately regretted the censor. It was “do we say ‘from Palestine to Mexico’ or do we say ‘from East Berlin’?” in regards to building walls? In regards to genocide? That’s the only time that any of us have said “well, do you really want to say that?” After we heard the master, we said “yeah, we should have said Palestine.” They let me shout about trans youth and about affordable healthcare and about how Luigi is not a fucking terrorist and the hills that I want to die on with equal thoughts and equal sentiments. We’re all aligned in the sense of doing whatever we need to do as long as we leave the light on. As long as we leave the room a little brighter than we found it. As long as we are trying to help build an inclusive community for all. That’s what human nature should be, right?
That really gets to the core of what this scene has been about and should be about. Whether you look at The Clash or you look at Joe’s old band. Obviously I’m in my mid-40s and I’m from the Boston area, and as someone who grew up wanting to be a bass player, Joe Gittleman was THE GUY. And the Anti Racist Action stuff and the Food Not Bombs stuff that used to be so present at those shows…that was the thing. When they talk about “what radicalized you…”
Dude, Let’s Face It was my political awakening within records.
Question The Answers for me, but yeah.
As I got older I realized a lot of those songs were about addiction and recovery.
The scene got weird for a while and there’s been some negative element in and out, but I think it’s important to replant that flag every once in a while about this is why you’re here. This is why we’re here. This is why any of this shit matters.
Exactly. At the end of the day…at our shows, I’ve got a microphone. And I’ve got 45 fucking minutes. And we’re going to be reminding you that this is a community. And that community is important. And whatever my rants and rambles might be that day, every show we’ve played, a couple people come up to me and say “thanks for saying those things.” I got a text right before we started from the kid’s old fifth-grade teacher. They and their family came to see us at 9:30 two weeks ago, and was like “hey, what you said on stage really affected my nephew in a good way, and they’re thinking about things a little differently now.
So I’ve been told to ask about the song “Lorelei” because I live in a house of Gilmore Girls fans, and so I jokingly have to ask, is that written by like Christopher’s perspective or Luke’s perspective?
(*both laugh*) Um, my favorite thing about Joe Gittelman and Joe Gittelman’s writing is that these people exist. I haven’t met Lorelei, but I met Lorelei’s dad, who’s an old-school Bosstones guy. And in recent show folklore, I got to meet Josie Bee, who is the namesake in “Glimmer” on Joe’s record. Chad Price is that way too. They don’t change names if they’re writing about somebody. I think in Lorelei’s case – and apologies if I’m speaking outta hand – but he just loved the name and wrote it down. I’ve talked to both (Joe and Chad) about it and I started doing the same thing. Like if I, if there’s a name – like Jim on 1960 is a friend of mine. I started doing the same thing. If I’m going to write about a story or that involves you, I’m going to reference you so you know I appreciate you
I’m not just going to call you Mary, like a guy from Jersey.
And I did that for fucking a decade, right? And now, it’s all like, if you were important to me that I want to tell a story or our story, I’m going to use it, you know? I think that’s honest and it’s fucking cool. Like, I mean I was stoked to meet Josie Bee. Like I was stoked to meet Lorelei’s dad, you know? So the Lorelei story, and this might not be a hundred percent true, the show I played in Malden, two days later was the Bad Time tour and Lorelei loves Catbite and somehow Lorelei jumped up and sang with Catbite. Joe was there, and Joe saw his old friend, and the friend was like “Oh, that’s my kid!” Lorelei, I guess, is in a band and I’m assuming they’re, you know, 16, 17, but, uh, Lorelei has a version of “Lorelei” too. I haven’t heard it yet, but it’s done, and I guess Joe was like, “let’s put out ours and then you can put out yours.”
It is a good name. I mean, even for like songwriting, and especially for a bright sort of upbeat song like that.
Yeah. Banger. Super fun to play. Love that song. It’s later on the record, track eight maybe?
It’s nine in the list that I have.
Yeah, that, “Hoodie” and “Old Dog” at the end.
What’s the actual release timeline?
April 4th.
Quick turnaround for vinyl nowadays? Have things gotten back to normal?
Things are back to normal. Cutting takes about four weeks. Then it takes like two weeks to get test presses. And then it’s once the test presses go and you’re clear, it’s pretty quick. Most places are like about 10 weeks if you’re doing it in the States. There’s a little press in Northern Kentucky, right outside of Louisville that Josh likes that I’ve been using. He did the seven-inch. They’re doing the full length and they have a pretty quick turnaround. The cutting is the hardest part from what I understand. Once you start, once you get your plates made, you can knock out a thousand records in a day. It’s just getting the plates made, you know? Because there’s only so many guys that are cutting. There’s so many wonderful, like three or four men, small businesses, putting records down in the States that even with merch, I’m trying real hard to keep everything like… I don’t want to do die-cut pins because they’re all getting outsourced. It’s all brokers. And the only guys that were doing it, I won’t use because they did some fucked up shit with the union and like, once their crews unionized, they fired them all. So like, that’s why I don’t have die-cut pins. I haven’t found a guy that’s doing them in the States that’s solid. Our merch is, is all, you know… the cotton might be made outside of the States, but we’re using sweatshop-free certified companies. We’re getting some bandanas made, like I found a guy that’s doing them in New Jersey and not in wherever, you know? There’s power in the union. There’s power in the fucking workforce, you know? That’s important. These guys trying to do these little presses and put records out, good for them, you know? I will support you as much as I can.
Artwork is already done? Joe Maiocco I’m assuming?
Oh yeah. Joe Maiocco all day. He was the secret fifth Beatle of so many bands. James Walker did some stuff too. I love James Walker. But Joe did the full layout, inserts, whole nine. All the merch. Our buddy Josh (Jurk), who sings in School Drugs, did a shirt designed for Rad Girlfriend for us.
That’s a rad band. I’m not a hardcore kid, but that’s a rad band.
Oh, dude. I’ve known Josh since I was like 11 years old or something like that. We go back a very, very long time. Josh is the reason why I got a job at the (Asbury) Lanes.
Really?
Yeah. I would like cover for Josh when he had to go work at the Pony. I initially started filling in for Josh at Snack World at the Lanes. Josh is multi-talented and he’s always been that way. He’s like a great drummer, great guitar player, great songwriter, great graphic designer, great human being. But, uh, yeah, Joe did the art. It’s all done. I’m in shipping hell, you know, rates, figuring out rates and trying to figure out the projected rates are for three months from now. I’m excited. I just saw Joe texting me that “we already won!” Like Paul Kolderie mixed the record. He’s got more fucking Grammys nominations than I have teeth in my mouth.
I didn’t know that!
Oh yeah. Paul Kolderie is the only person that checked every box in my book. He produced and mixed all the Uncle Tupelo records. He also did like Devil’s Night Out and Let’s Face It and all those golden Bosstones records. He also fucking produced the Radiohead’s Creep.
Really?
Yeah, all the Pixies stuff. Hole’s Celebrity Skin? He fucking produced and mixed that shit. Massive catalog. And he did like the Toots and the Maytals record. He did like the third Bedouin Soundclash record, the “Walls Fall Down” one. Like okay, he can do ska, he can do punk, he can do shoegaze, he can do Americana, he can do weird. And I don’t really know about Grammys, but he’s definitely got more gold records than I have teeth in my mouth, you know? Which has been real epic because I’ve never worked with somebody like that. The closest I’ve worked with anybody like that is Jon Graber, who, you know, produced a NOFX record. He did a couple Fat Wreck records. He’s done a lot, but nothing of that caliber, you know? He didn’t do Kid A. And no disrespect to Jon. Jon taught me how to write songs. I thought I knew. And then I hung out with Jon for a little bit and my world got overturned, right? In the Sammy catalog, right? “Better/Worse” and “Methamphetamines” are Jon Graber’s production. That’s when the world opened up. Like, “oh, it doesn’t have to be electric guitars and drums and bass. Let’s put a marching snare and a fucking horn section on strings.” But me, Jay, Paul Kolderie, Joe, Dermo…we won. We made a cool record that we’re real proud of. So nothing else really fucking matters. I guess if we break even, then we’re happy. You know, we have to make back the investment on the press. That’s fucking fun. I was going to say, like, yeah, I hope people like it. I mean, sure, I do care, but I don’t care. We got to win. Gittleman sent me a cool guy sunglasses emoji three times and said, “yeah, this record’s pretty good. And then he said, “you know, we won, bud. We did the thing. And I was like, all right, cool. Cool guy emojis, sunglasses back, bud.
It’s good that you feel that way before people have even heard it, right? Before people can even pre-order it. Because it’s authentic internally.
Yeah, we already put this out. It exists. We won.
Whatever it does, it does. But the fact that you feel like it’s a win already is awesome.
Dude, the win already is the fact that I’m the youngest and I’m 35, right? Craig’s 37. Jay’s 40. Dermo and Gittleman are pushing 60, right? (*both laugh*) Dude, the win is that somebody like myself or Jay or Craig, we’ve never been in a bus. Like, Jay’s claim to fame is he opened for fucking Weezer at a casino in northern Kentucky 25 years ago, right? Like, lovingly, you know? And Craig and me did the Fast Four, you know, like, with Tim and Ben and Chris from Catbite. Like, the Fast Four was the three of them and Craig, pretty much. Like, we were happy and content, but the win is that, like, Dermo and fucking Joe were in a fucking van, loading in, with the utmost respect and they’re stoked. Like, dude, starting a band is hard. Writing a record is hard, even for the best. Doing the fucking thing and committing, cannonballing a new product is not an easy thing. And essentially, like, with love and admiration to Joe, and even myself, like, starting over, you know? I’ve never been—I haven’t been in a band that wasn’t “Sammy and the…” in the better part of 20 years, 15 years. For the five of us to cannonball and just try and start a new project, and just to be able to put out a seven-inch, let alone a seven-inch AND a fucking 12-inch EP and a full-length in a calendar year, and play 20 shows, that’s a fucking win.
I feel like, particularly because the way that you’re doing it is not—
And we don’t even live in the same state!
Well, that’s what I mean, right. Right, that like, you weren’t in the same room writing together. You weren’t in the same room jamming ideas back and forth to each other. And that seems like a thing that none of you had done independently before, so now you’re all trying to figure it out on the fly.
Dude, and on top of it, like, my childhood memory is listening to Let’s Face It with my dad, right? And the first time I saw The Bouncing Souls happened to be McDermott’s first show.
Oh, wow.
In a fucking skate park. And McDermott shows up, and the first show he plays with us is in a fucking skate park. Like, all of these little things are just fucking magical. And it’s just a fucking win. You and I have talked enough, on record and off record, that you know I don’t give a fuck. I don’t need to be doing this. Like, most days I don’t want to be doing this. Sorry, I always want to be doing this, but most days it’s a struggle just being 35, Liz being sick, having an 11-year-old in the house, navigating all that and having a deaf dog. Making ends meet, like, trying to cover fucking cancer meds. Like, that shit’s hard enough. I’m just stoked that, like, we have this little crew, down to the spouses. All of the spouses are friends, you know? Like Jay…it’s not ever just Jay, it’s Jay and Mel Fox. Always. Like, the kid doesn’t want to see Jay, they want to see Mel. When we go to a show or go get tacos every once in a while – just to have this kind of circle or this new little family, and to have this beautiful bond so quick…there’s something cathartic about doing this. Like, I love music again. I love it. I love electric guitars. I love delay pedals. I love screaming into a crowd. And now they’re starting to scream back and that’s really cool. I’m 35, I’ve been playing punk rock music in New Jersey since 2003. I had never played the Stone Pony, and I had never played with the Bouncing Souls. Just getting that call was huge, you know? Getting to do Big D on home turf in Boston? We have another Boston show coming up in March. We’re playing at the venue attached to fucking Fenway Park with the fucking Dropkick Murphys, and our first Boston show was at the venue attached to the Garden with Big D. Like, who the fuck can say that?
Out of the gate, too!
Out of the gate! Again, I’m 35. I’m no spring chicken.
And you’re the baby!
Yeah, I’m the baby. But if we’re talking baseball, I’m like coming back off of ACL surgery. (*both laugh*) I’m like Joey Votto right now – well, I’m not the greatest – but, in my head, I’m on the farewell tour. Like, I’ve played four shows as Sammy Kay in the last 18 months. Maybe five shows. And two of those, I got asked to play the day of because somebody had to drop off. I’m not fielding shows, I’m not actively chasing that. I put out a record, and bless Sell The Heart, I was like “I don’t wanna play shows” and they were like “that’s fine, the record is good enough, let’s break even and call it a day.” I’ll play shows on it eventually, but right now I don’t want to. I’m loving playing guitar, and creating music, and it doesn’t feel like work or a chore. And it did. Even with 1960, I went to Jay’s twice a week, religiously, and the second we finished that, it turned into Kilograms world and I was going there religiously and working and working and working. And now that things are done, it’s like “holy shit…this rules.” I’m in a band with Gittleman and McDermott and one of my oldest bandmates – me and him swore we were never going to get in a van together again; not in a bad way, just like “we’re not doing this anymore” – and Jay, who’s been not my longest collaborator, but me and Jay have probably done as much music together as me and Pete have. Me and Pete have been going for like twelve years now? This will be the fifth full-length record I’ve done with Pete, plus a bunch of other stuff and demos and a few splits that never came out. But me and Jay have probably cranked out as much music as me and Pete have, but in only like two-and-a-half years. And like, writing with Joe, is fucking wild. There’s this kind of wonderful respect for what each other does, and I think we’ve finally figured it out. Like, “Lorelei” is all Joe. I might have helped change a couple lines, and that was just guidance. And vice versa, like “Old Dog.” Or he guided “Beliefs And Thieves.” I had a lot of that in a notebook in different phases and I smushed it all together. But I didn’t write a lick of music on that song. He sent me a song that was called like “No Good Managers” and I was like “I don’t know about those words, can I try?” And I had the line “anarchy at the Flying J” in my notebook for years, and I knew I wanted to make fun of Morrissey and I knew I wanted to make a statement about the upcoming administration. And I had “I try and I try my best but I still just stand conceited/nobody wins when we all just stand defeated” line.
Yeah, that sounds like a Sammy line.
That’s been in my notebook since the day Trump got elected. I’ve been trying to write that song for a long time. There’s like ten versions of that song that all had “viva Los Reno” as the hook, and then I wrote down “beliefs and thieves,” and once I had that, it all poured out. But Joe was setting me up. Like “Faith And Love” he had this chorus, and he was like “go do the thing.” And my thing was to tell the story. It’s beautiful, because I think he’s understanding how I write a little more and setting me up even better. Like in “Faith And Love” – “a little faith, a little love, I’m just another kid from a long long line of breakdowns” … that’s such a Sammy line!
Oh absolutely.
I didn’t write that! (*both laugh*) He just handed me that and said “do the thing.” Like “innocense and shambles, you’re hanging by a thread / thoughts of ‘Hallelujah’ is the chorus in my head.” That’s some Sammy shit right there! I didn’t write that! “Fireworks” is another example. “Fireworks” was this whole song except for the pre-chorus. Like, “every whisper said just a little too loud each and every night.” And it was like the chorus. And I was like, “no, that’s not the chorus, that’s gotta be the pre-chorus.” You can set it up to be something and he’s like, go with it, you know? Just the grace of being able to co-write and everything’s on the table. Like, “yeah, fuck with what I gotta say,” you know? And vice versa. It’s real magical. A lot of the record, man, like “Hardlines.” “Hardlines” is a song called “Born to Run.” By me. “Hardlines” was this whole, like, the big ending, the “one more road to roam,” that was the whole song pretty much repeated. And there was some, like, doubles. And then we recorded it, we got the groove, we did it. I did the overdubs and the vocals weren’t laying. I was like, “yo, can I just try something?” And that just happened. “Born to Run” became, like, the verses, the “is it okay, is it alright.” And then, like, there was another song on an earlier day for the record that got split up over like six songs. Like, the third verse of “Hardlines” is the second verse of that song. The “rosary feelings” line. And the outro of “Old Dog” is the third verse of the old song. And it just got spread out. There’s a riff that came from it that got moved to something else. It’s really beautiful because everything’s fluid with what I’m saying. It’s like, “oh, that didn’t work, but that riff ruled, so let’s remember that, you know?”
Is that stuff you were doing when you were sending ideas back and forth, or is that, like, when you’re finally in a room together in the studio or whatever?
Sending back and forth, for the most part. Like, “Faith and Love” was done. We had the arrangement and we had GarageBand drums on it, you know? Like, we had the tempo set and we knew the gist of the song. “Battles” was like that. “Battles,” when we hit the studio, was like that. I think there’s three different, like, Jay iterations of it, you know? But for the most part, like, “Beliefs And Thieves,” like, the riff is there. Everything was almost note for note, the music. I don’t know if it was the sabbatical or free time or whatever, but Joe just was ripping all summer. And, like I said earlier, there’s probably another six Joe songs that have, with maybe an hour’s worth of work each, could be a full another record.
Have you talked to him about, like, what was his frame of reference with or his, I guess, level of knowledge of your music prior to this whole thing starting? I mean, did he have ideas like, “hey, that song or that particular album, let’s do something like that.” That seems like a huge leap of faith for somebody like Joe.
I think it was just a massive leap of faith for both of us. I’ve never really written with anybody. I knew he loved me. Like, we had played together a couple times. But I don’t know if he owned the records. I think it was just like, “oh, it’s Sammy. He’s writing a lot, I’m writing a lot.” You know, we had gotten a bunch of shows with friends of his. So I don’t know if Lenny (Lashley) had been like, “oh, Joe, do you know Sammy?” Or Big D. Like I’ve opened up for them for fucking almost 20 years now, you know? But, yeah, I’m not really sure how much of what I was doing came in. I don’t think it really mattered.
It feels like it was just destined to work. And I don’t know if that’s like New Agey or whatever, but it feels like it was just destined to work.
Yeah. Liz and Angie were saying that, like…there’s a picture of me and Joe that Liz or somebody took in the backstage of The Pony of us, like, after the set, sitting with our legs crossed, looking like we’ve been friends for 30 years, you know, like 20 years, like old friends.
Yeah!
That’s like the really beautiful, magical thing about this band is that, like, we all, like, locked in. Even Wes, who you met in Boston…Wes is now tour managing.
That’s great.
Because I got a lot on my plate and just trying to relieve a little stress for me. He got in the van just to fill in for fucking three shows and McDermott was like, “that’s a tour manager. He’s coming everywhere with us.”
That’s awesome.
Like, when you fucking find your people. Building a band or being in a band is no different than finding your wife. Like, you’re in. You know when you find your people, you find your claim.
Yeah, right.
I’ve said it a dozen times. There’s something fucking magical about this that, like, no matter what happens, we win. We did something really cool. We all are on the same page, like, doing the fucking thing. We’re doing something. We got a hill that we’re standing on together and, like, unified. If one person doesn’t want to do anything, we don’t fight it.
Right.
If it doesn’t make sense, let’s not do it. You know, you can challenge it. Like, I’ve said, “trust me” a couple of times. Jay said “trust me” on some mixes. Joe said “trust me”. Like, Dermo said “trust me.” But, like, if someone say “trust me,” you trust him and you see it through. You stand by your fucking crew. You know, you stand by and say, “all right, let’s fucking do this.” You know, even if it’s, like, dumb shit, like, “I want to do a shirt color that’s this color. I don’t know if it’ll sell, but, like, let’s try it.” And it works. It works, you know? You just gotta fucking do the thing. And it’s real great when there’s a crew that’s ready to go down with the shit, doing the same fucking thing, you know?
I’m glad you did it. It’s not just because I like the music and I like you and the guys, like, separately and collectively. But I’m glad you did it. Like, this project makes me happy for you, for the band, for the scene. Like, I’m glad you guys did this and are doing this. I’m glad you are doing it.
And selfishly, like, I love McDermot’s drumming in the Souls. I love it. I love it. And it’s nice to see Dermo, like, shredding on the drums, playing ska-punk and punk. And, dude, like, I’m sure Avoid One Thing will do another record or would have done another. I don’t know. Like, I’m just stoked that, like, there’s Gittleman music in the world.
Absolutely.
There’s Gittleman and McDermott. Like, that shit’s a masterclass. We don’t rehearse often. We usually rehearse for, like, two hours the night before we go play shows. But just sitting in that rehearsal, watching the two of them walk in and go. Like, first song is like, “all right, cool, we’re playing music.” Second song is like, “all right, there’s some cobwebs.” Third song is, they just become this well-oiled machine. And it’s just a fucking masterclass. Watching two people legitimately listen to each other while they’re playing and being able to work off of each other without fucking looking at each other, without cueing each other, just by hearing, like, “oh, Joe hit the A string, he’s about to hit a fucking shredder.” And Dermo will lay back and then immediately come back with a shred. Like, like a call and response. Or, you know, watching Jay, like…you know it’s starting to go when he starts spinning.
Yeah, right, right, right.
And God, I hate using the word frontman, because there’s not really frontman in this band. But as the guy that yells a lot, having the confidence with that rhythm section and with two old, old friends. The stage is split, right? I got two guys that I’ve been in the trenches with for a long time, and two guys that have rightfully earned their place in American history. Being able to just do what I like to think I’m okay at doing, and never have to worry is just fucking epic. At the end of the day, I think I’m the worst musician in that band. I’m the worst player, I’m the worst at music theory, I’m the worst at a lot of things in that band. But for some reason that shit doesn’t matter. You know?
Right.
Just because I have such a sturdy foundation to stand next to, you know? I’ll say it again, man. It’s just fucking magical. It’s a really beautiful. And if this shit lasts for a year, that’s cool. We got a year, you know? If we get another record out of this, fuck yeah. And if we don’t, like, that’s cool too. We did something cool. We did something that we’re fucking proud of. That we feel like we won. And that I, as both a fan of everybody in this band and their respective projects… The kids’ still got something to say. And I’m hoping the kids also want to hear what we got to say.
I mean, I have no concept of what people like and what they don’t, clearly. But I think people will dig it. I mean, Joe fans in and of themselves will dig it. And then, like, obviously, you and the rest of the guys expose that to a wider audience. But, like, Joe’s obviously got Joe fans. They’re gonna love it. I’m happy for you guys, man. I’m proud of you guys.
Nora Googled Joe, and was like, you understand you’re in a band with a guy that created a genre? Yeah?” And I was like, “I’m real grateful for that every day.” You know, that’s a cool fucking thing, man. Like, to be able to create with him and then create, like, the palm of my hand is the Bouncing Souls logo. (*both laugh*) You know, like, Derm did some solid work with them for a number of years, you know? It’s a pretty beautiful thing. It is a pretty fucking beautiful thing. Which is why I think I’m loving slinging a hammer as much as I am, because I’m creating. I’m really enjoying, like, staring at a deck or, like, I just saw a room that I framed it out and, like, demoed the whole thing; like, I took it down, reframed it, like, and there’s a bathroom sitting there. It’s like, that’s a finished product, you know? It’s a cool thing. Just to have something, you know?
Yeah, to have a tangible thing that, like, you created, whether you did it yourself or you helped other people and you created it together. There’s nothing else like that, I think.
There’s nothing else like that. That’s the ticket.
Warren Cohen
A Mike Greenwell reference in a punk rock show review! I’m glad to be alive to read it.
jaystone
He was my brother’s favorite player growing up. I remember telling one of my fall ball coaches that and he said “great player to have as your favorite if you don’t care about the fundamentals of playing outfield.”