Home Grown was formed in Orange County, California by guitarist John Tran and bassist Adam Lorbach in 1994 with Ian Cone (guitar) and Bob Herco (drums). Blending punk, ska, and surf music they released their first LP, That’s Business, showcasing these sounds. The band picked up more traction as time went on and soon they were picked up for radio play when they released, Act Your Age in 1998. The album wasn’t too much of a departure from their roots, but definitely an evolution in their sound. Act Your Age showed they could play poppier songs just as well and still stay true to the space they made for themselves. 

As life happens, so do line-up changes. Home Grown recorded a couple EPs, but lost band members in the process leaving John and Adam to carry the torch. Recruiting Longfellow drummer, Darren Reynolds, and signing to Drive-Thru Records, Home Grown recorded, Kings of Pop, twelve tracks of nearly perfect pop punk. The band added guitarist Dan Hammond and continued to play shows. This new lineup recorded one more EP, 2004’s When It All Comes Down. In 2005, Adam left the band, leaving John as the only original member. After playing some shows with a replacement bass player, Home Grown called it a day later that year.

Fast forward to now, Home Grown is back. After playing a couple shows in Southern California, the band has a hometown gig in Orange County and will be playing the Slam Dunk Festival in Europe in May. We caught up with Home Grown to talk about these upcoming shows, thirty years of That’s Business, and more. (Edited for clarity)

Dying Scene (Forrest Gaddis): Thank you guys for this interview. I’m happy you guys are back together.

Adam Lorbach: Thank you.

John Tran: Yeah, I was happy to be back, too. 

Dying Scene: How did reuniting come about? Were there any attempts before now?

John Tran: I don’t know what happened. I think it was like 2023, probably in the fall. Adam was poking around the idea and we were talking about it. It never came into fruition. Kind of like, we’ll talk next year because at the end of the year. You got a lot of stuff going on. We started getting offers from Something Corporate and asked us if we wanted to do a support tour with them. Then we just threw out a group text and asked if there was interest. We wanted to have a meeting first before we make anything official. We all met up and it was great. We literally didn’t talk about music or the band for like a good hour, hour and a half. Then we all started talking about what we all want for the band. We basically all met in the middle and here we are, reunited.

Dying Scene: In October, it’s going to be the thirtieth anniversary of That’s Business. Are you guys going to do anything to celebrate it?

John Tran: It’s in the works. We just signed with the new management company and we all met up a few weeks ago to figure out where to go and see if we even have the rights to our old albums. Once we get that path clear, then we’ll have more of an idea what we can do with all the releases. It’s been thirty years. Holy crap.

Dying Scene: I went back and listened to it. It’s longer than I remembered. Not in a bad way.

John Tran: That album is older than most of the people I work with. They’re all in their mid-twenties. 

Dying Scene: I’m with you. I’m always talking about music and my coworkers always ask who I’m talking about?

John Tran: Don’t worry about it. Never mind. Taylor Swift.

Adam Lorbach: That record was back in the reel-to-reel days. To all the young ones that are still under thirty, this was before Pro Tools and recording in their friend’s bedroom or studio. The concept of having to just get it all in pretty much one take or cutting tape.

Dying Scene: Where was it recorded? 

John Tran: We recorded at this place called Westbeach Studios. It was up in Hollywood and it was owned by Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion. It was a very famous studio. Pretty much every Fat Wreck Chords band recorded there. We wanted to go there and it was actually awesome. Who’s the guy we worked with?

Adam Lorbach: Steve Kravac, Yeah, that was a great experience. We didn’t know what we’re doing. It’s our first time in a studio, really. We’re just being a bunch of goofballs and we had no idea.

John Tran: Yeah, I mean, no idea. We’re like nineteen years old, just driving up to Hollywood. There was a Chinese takeout place like a block away. 

Adam Lorbach: Yeah, I think one of the guys from Ten Foot Pole was hanging out a little bit. It was kind of like a punk stomping ground. 

Dying Scene: Were those songs you guys wrote in high school?

John Tran: No, the band was formed like right after high school, but we still sing about things in high school. I mean, thirty years later, we’re still singing songs about high school stuff. I think that album was basically about growing up in suburban Orange County. If you weren’t on the football team or cheerleading squad, you weren’t cool. If you were a skater kid, you’re a total outcast. Adam and I met each other through skateboarding through a mutual friend. And then I went to his house and hopped on the drums. First time playing drums ever. Adam was playing some Beastie Boys song. I started playing. He asks if I know how to play. I’m like, nope, I have no idea. I knew how to play guitar, a lot of air drumming. And then what happened was Home Grown was just a cover band. Our bass player at the time went to school. So I asked Adam to play for us and he hopped on. Next thing, we have three albums and four EPs.

Dying Scene: The album is really critical of people trying to infiltrate the scene a lot. You can hear that angst.

Adam Lorbach: Yeah, the skaters and the punks made our own space with the music. Everyone’s kind of figuring out how to write songs and put a couple of chords together. Playing shows and bad parties and then the scene started growing. The outcasts have something that is cool for ourselves. Then all of a sudden, I guess it sounds so silly to talk about now, but like the cool kids and the jocks started trying to claim the spaces that were created by the punks and skaters. They didn’t come with the same sort of reverence for what it was and how it was built. It kind of just made you mad. Like, get out of our space. This is our space.

John Tran: I remember growing up in high school, I got bullied a lot. I got into a lot of fights. The people that I got bullied by started coming to our shows. I’m like, what are you doing at our show? But thank you. It was weird, man. Adam and I, we were listening to the same kind of music. NOFX, Bad Religion, OP Ivy, Screeching Weasel. We just started writing songs, being influenced by them. All of a sudden we had an album. Then we got signed to a major label, and became seasoned studio veterans after one record.

Adam Lorbach: John, you remember back in the punk days. There’s this kind of skinhead culture and we played some shows in a warehouse. I think it was Guttermouth or something like that. There were always skinheads who would come to the show and I remember, it was a thing to think about. One of the main singers is Asian. We’re getting up on a stage full of all these racists. Who did we play with?

John Tran: It wasn’t Guttermouth. It was Circle Jerks. 

Adam Lorbach: Circle Jerks? We played with Circle Jerks? 

John Tran: It was a venue in Anaheim for one hot second. It was open for two months, and they had a lot of big punk shows and ska shows. We got on that show and there were a lot of skinheads there. It was kind of weird. Like someone told me to get off the stage and said some derogatory racist stuff. 

Dying Scene: When Act Your Age came out, did you guys bump heads having to re-record “Surfer Girl”? Was it a studio request thing? 

John Tran: It was a last-minute request from our A&R people because we already had the album. We did all the pre-production for all our new songs. At the end, they asked, “Hey, why don’t you guys record ‘Surfer Girl’ and ‘Hearing Song,’ just to have it.” I thought it was fine. I mean, at the same time, I was like, “oh, I don’t want to. We’re selling out, blah, blah, blah, blah.” They want to put that song on the album just for the radio. Looking back now, I understand, record labels sign you for a reason. We were on an indie label and then the progression to go to a major. Of course, they want to push your singles and still to this day, like thirty something years later, that’s almost everyone’s favorite song.

Adam Lorbach: I’m hoping that song gets us back to Hawaii, John. 

John Tran: Oh, I’m trying. We’re working on it, man. 

Dying Scene: One of the things my buddy and I were bummed out about was when you guys stopped playing ska. Was that because you guys were writing more popular music and just no one was listening to ska anymore.

John Tran: I don’t think it was like, “Oh, it’s not popular. We’re not going to write it.” I think our approach is we write what we want to write, whatever we’re listening to at that moment. Like Act Your Age, I can’t remember what I was listening to then, but I was really heavily influenced by Weezer and Jimmy Eat World at some point. You can hear some of that on Kings of Pop. I don’t know. We just kind of started going more rock, I guess. It wasn’t anything planned.

Adam Lorbach: We just were really influenced by it. Just became more rock and some of the chord structures we were kind of getting into and experimenting with. It’s just kind of the direction we went.

John Tran: Our drummer at the time, Bob, had the most eclectic taste in music. We had to listen to his music a lot. We listened to the Deftones. What was that one band from Sweden? That really crazy math, like metal band.

Adam Lorbach: Meshuggah?

John Tran: Yeah, Meshuggah. We listened to a lot of that.

Adam Lorbach: We were starting to get a lot more musical influences around us, I think, too. Some of the Fat Wreck Chords to some of the overseas stuff. I remember for me, like Bracket. They’re introducing some new chords, kind of out of the box, but some other kind of odd little augmented or diminished things like that. I wouldn’t even have known what to call them back then. It was just, oh, that sounds cool, Like the Impossibles. Remember the Impossibles?

Dying Scene: The Impossibles are so good. I love the Impossibles.

John Tran: I’m really influenced by them, too. Like all those crazy progressions and the ugly notes.

Dying Scene: That’s a band that’s criminally underrated and needs to come back. 

Adam Lorbach: That band, in my opinion, I would love to hear them redo their old records and get an amazing recording. Don’t have to change a thing about it. Just redo it.

John Tran: Rory Phillips, if you’re reading, do it. I think it’d still be really well received. They did a reunion show. They came out here and they also played in Austin. That’s where they’re from, but I didn’t get a chance to see them. I think that was like 10 years ago.

Dying Scene: Mind you, as soon as we heard Kings of Pop, we were like, it’s okay they’re not playing ska anymore. We loved it. It’s an underrated pop punk masterpiece. 

Adam Lorbach: Yeah, well, I mean, it’s really good. So, everyone loves it. The reason you love it so much is because it’s just so great. It’s so damn good. 

(everyone laughs)

John Tran: I mean, I’ve been listening to it a lot just to remember the lyrics and all the chord changes that we do for all the shows. Honestly, looking back, that is one album that I am completely, one hundred percent proud of everything we did. Right after Act Your Age was released in 1998, our drummer, Bob, had a brain tumor. That was rough to deal with. Then we went through multiple drummers. Then the label went under and it really killed our motivation. Then trying to search for labels. Once Drive Thru came around, we hadn’t put an album out in like four years. This had to be the best album we ever put out. The pressure was there for sure, but at the same time, I think we really, really dug really deep. Best producer, best studios within the budget. 

Adam Lorbach: Yeah. Steve Evetts was the one who engineered and produced that, and he did a phenomenal job on it. It sounds good.

Adam Lorbach: It’s a very raw record. Things are pretty untouched on it. It’s not auto-tuned or anything. We just played it really well and slapped it together. Everyone was ready to record and get it done. It was a good experience.

Dying Scene: Every album sounds different, but it’s all Home Grown. It’s not like there’s eras of the band, but each album has its own sound. Even the EPs in between, they each were like extensions of whatever album came before it. It all just works so damn good.

John Tran: Thank you. It’s just a big, long, giant progression. You know, songwriting wise, we’ve stuck to what we want to be. There was a period where we were unsigned and we had some A&R people like, “Hey, Papa Roach is selling like 30,000 records.” We’re like, no, we’re going to write what we want to write. If you don’t want to sign us, they don’t sign us.

Dying Scene: So after you guys split, did either of you play music in between that time?

John Tran: I know Adam did. I did also. I had a little project. I wanted to go back to Japan. I got a little deal, went to Japan, did a little tour over there, came home and didn’t play guitar for like 10 years.

Adam Lorbach: Oh, wow. You’re talking about Red Panda, right? 

John Tran: Yeah, Red Panda.

Adam Lorbach: I got like a little project called Radical Radical. Then with a mutual friend from the past, just doing some synth wave stuff with a band called Signs of Summer, which is totally different. It’s fun. Whatever you can put in within the rhythms of family life. Home Grown’s got a lot of gravity. John’s in a really great cover band called Little Strokes, basically a Strokes cover band. They crush it.

John Tran: That’s with Dan (Hammond). I didn’t play music after Red Panda. We did a tour in 2008, came back, and I was like, “all right, I think I accomplished music, I’m good.” I didn’t touch my guitar, literally, for like 10 years.

Adam Lorbach: I didn’t know that. 

John Tran: I was like, yeah, it can’t get any better than it was. I started focusing on my career. Then Dan, our guitar player asked, “Hey, you want to do a cover band?” I was like, sure I’ll play. Then, a few years later the whole Home Grown idea came about.

Dying Scene: When you guys play the older songs, are there any songs you stay away from playing or have you altered as your views have changed?

Adam Lorbach: Well, I know at least for me, I’m not swearing on stage. We’re all kind of older and a little bit more toned down. We have families and stuff too. 

John Tran: Songs we don’t play, like we don’t want to play. There are songs we don’t want to play because we just don’t want to play them. Why would we play those songs off of That’s Business that are just awful? There’s definitely some skips. I told Adam the other day at our practice. I was listening to one of the songs, “Worthless.” That song is so bad. How did that make it on the album? We were 19. We didn’t care. We literally did not care. We’ll put it on the album. It was our first album. With the second, we only need to do like 12 songs. Next album, only 12 songs. That’s it. People listening, their attention span. They don’t want to listen to like an hour-and-a-half album.

Adam Lorbach: Yeah. Now they don’t even want to listen to albums. They want to listen to singles and maybe EPs. The world’s changing.

Dying Scene: You guys have some shows coming up. You got the one out here in Orange County with Limbeck, which I didn’t even know Limbeck was still playing.

John Tran: Yeah. They’re still playing. They don’t tour anymore because I think they all have families, their drummer and their bass player live in different States. They just played like six months ago with The Anniversary. Rob (Maclean) and I are still really good friends. Adam had mentioned in our group text it’d be cool if Limbeck played with us and made that happen. We’re playing that. We have a show this Saturday (February 8th) with Unwritten Law down in San Diego? We have two festivals (Slam Dunk in London on May 24th and May 25th) that we’re doing with a lot of friends that are in bands. Like Starting Line, Finch, The Used are playing. I don’t even know half the bands, man, but yeah, it’s, it’s gonna be fun.

Dying Scene : I didn’t realize that the  Drive-Thru Records bands were big in England.

Adam Lorbach: Yeah. Drive-Thru was a phenomenon, honestly. We were just talking about when we went over to England. You had to grind in the States here. You have to keep on people’s radars, put out new music, make sure that you’re staying on top of things. You can’t just keep going around and around. You build it up. We go over to the UK and it was almost instantaneous. It was crazy. I mean, shout out to Something Corporate for taking us out there and kind of getting us our first tour legs in the UK. After that, it was game over. You just go and everything’s raging.

John Tran: We went out there three times. I think we did a Something Corporate tour, a Drive-Thru tour, and then we also went out there with, maybe early November. The first show we played, we probably did a one and a half month tour in the US, and then went straight to England to do the Something Corporate tour. The first show was in Glasgow and because of the time change. We were just on the bus waking up probably like 4 PM. We opened the door and there’s a line of people already waiting for the show with posters. How do you guys know who we are? It was crazy. 

Dying Scene: You guys are working on new stuff too?

John Tran: Yes. I promised Adam that I would come over to do demos. 

Adam Lorbach: (laughs) We’re going back to ska. It’s all ska.