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*)