185 miles south. A hardcore punk rock podcast.
Hey everyone. This is a cool episode. Todd Jones is one of my oldest friends in punk and hardcore. And it was fun to talk about the old days. We kind of came up together. And it's fun to reminisce about a lot of stuff. So stay tuned for that. If you want to support the show... Please like, rate, review, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Please share this podcast on social media or call up your friends.
Maybe you got some friends that haven't listened to hardcore in a long time, but fuck, they want to reminisce about some old times. Sometimes people like to listen to this stuff when they're commuting to their work or whatever, and it's a fun thing to bring old friends together. If you really want to support the podcast, you can go to patreon.com slash 185 miles south and become a patron. You can contribute $1, $3, $5, whatever you can do a month. And that is much appreciated.
That helps me out big, big time for the costs of doing this, which seem to just build. And And also with that stuff, you know, it's like a monthly thing that you're helping out, but you can cancel at any time. Don't feel obligated. You know, if you want to just shoot me a dollar, sign up, give your dollar, and cancel that shit. Fuck it. Anyway, here comes the man, Todd Jones. This week we have Todd Jones from every band ever.
Standard Ground, Carry On, Terror, Internal Affairs, Betrayed, Snake Eyes, Blacklisted, Nails, Knife Fight, Fireburn.
Yeah, Fireburn.
And a million others that we play drums for the River Modern Nightmare Band for a show.
Mm-hmm.
I don't remember that. No, didn't you? No, I don't think so. Okay. No, I didn't know those guys. I don't think I knew those guys.
Okay, there was someone you filled in for. Now, one thing that I think is wild about your career is that do you think your first band, Initial Distrust, is actually the most similar to your current band, Nails? I can't believe you even brought that up.
Isn't that wild, though? Um... nah man i you know what i mean the thing is with initial distrust i think we were so young we didn't know what we were doing and joel looked like a crazy punker like a crust guy but i don't i don't even know those i don't even know i can't even remember what those songs sound like
well i only know the song on the localism comp and that's very crusty sounding but also like kind of catchy i can't even remember that song
yeah joel had a vision though Joel had a vision. Honestly, man, I think Terror is probably the closest thing I've done that sounds closest to nails. Just sonically as big. Yeah, like the lowest of the low record. That's really fast. Nick came from a punk background, so he played super fast drums and lots of punk beats as opposed to maybe some hardcore beats that other people would have chosen. Yeah.
Yeah.
when do you pick up the
guitar the first time how old are you uh 11 years old November 2000 or November 2000 November 1992 um I was super into uh what was popular which was uh Nirvana Nevermind and the Black Album by Metallica that's like what set music off for me like you know um probably about that same year I mean I wasn't into music too much farther before that um but I was lucky because, you know, my father was a musician and, um, I was listening to the music and I was paying a lot of attention to MTV and the
bands that were on there and stuff like that. And for some reason I saw the, or one day I saw the video for Nirvana's Lithium and I've seen it a hundred times before that, but for some reason, um, Chris Novoselic jumping around with his bass seemed like fun. Yeah. So I was like, dad, I want to play bass. And he got me a bass, um, that he had and he, you know, showed me how to fret it and play it or, and, uh, or at least, you know, so I could start.
And I, within two weeks, I was like, this isn't really making that many cool sounds. I want to give a shot at guitar. Yeah. And he had a guitar laying around. I just kind of went with that. He showed me like, you know, open E, open A, all the open chords, a power chord. And shortly after that, I found at the music store, Master of Puppets tablature book. So that's kind of how I learned how to play guitar. And did you actually like follow the tabs?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it took me a long time to learn them. I couldn't listen to the song and play it as it went, but I could. Did your dad know how to do the tab stuff? Did he give you a kind of like, here's how you read this? He probably did. but I don't remember that so much. I mean, I think, you know, tablature, it's like, it's kind of easy. It's almost a common sense thing. But as far as reading music, I mean, I still can't do that today. My father didn't know how to do that then either.
Yeah. And your dad took you to see Nirvana. That's right.
Yeah. At the
forum,
right? Yeah. You remember that? Yeah, dude, I've seen two shows at the forum ever in my life. They were both on December 30th, one 1993, which was Nirvana, um, butthole surfers, choke bore. And, um, Bobcat Goldthwait doing comedy in between the sets. What the fuck? Were you like
old enough
to
even take that in?
Cause he's
kind of out there.
Well, I was, I was 12.
Yeah.
So we're talking about December 93. I just turned 12, like two months earlier. So I was really too young to know his humor. Cause it is kind of like, Dark and mature, and maybe obscure. I remember he made an Axl Rose joke and the whole place exploded. Sure, that's the one they could get? Yeah, because I was fucking Cousin Rose's. But yeah, and then the last show, I saw The Misfits there last year. Whoa, that's awesome. That was really
fun. I saw Iron Maiden there, and I saw Van Halen there, about 20 years apart. I've got to close that window. Holy shit, yeah, we can hear the airplanes. But now we're in a big...
That's okay. We'll be all right.
What year was Van Halen? I think that that was 92 because my dad was taking me, and it got delayed because of the L.A. riots. Okay. Yeah, right on. So the shit got canceled, and, like, yeah, it was, like, six months later. And that was cool. That was Van Hagar. But it was, like, loud as fuck. And now I wonder... i just wonder if things are that loud anymore like are we just deaf yeah we're just that's what it is right absolutely because like 12 year old ears taking in something like that is
out of this world i i think so and it being like one of the first times you're exposed exposed to music that loud it's absolutely like um it's just a new experience
it was blistering
yeah you know it was like
i mean what did nirvana sound like do you can you take it in
yeah i mean well they sounded awesome um I was just so young, you know, that was probably my second or third concerts I've been to at that time. Like my father took me to go see Los Lobos and Etta James and stuff like that. But as far as like a concert I wanted to be at, when we were going to for myself, that was the first one. And I think I was just in shock, man.
I mean, I looked up to, well, not looked up to, but I like worshiped, you know, at that age, you don't really look up to people or bands. You're just like kind of in awe. Like I loved Nirvana and I loved Kurt Cobain and I loved Dave Grohl's drumming. And, um, I think I was just, just so enamored just by being there and being in the moment and feeling like, wow, this is amazing. This is, this is fucking crazy. Yeah. Wow. And you could play that stuff already, right?
Yeah. I mean, um, that was, dude, that was, I think that was, I talk about this all the time to some pals of mine, but I think that was like a really good era to get into guitar and especially being the age that, you know, I was, you're a little bit older than me, but only one year, I think. Yeah. Okay. So, um, you know, um, Learning guitar to Nirvana is pretty gratifying because you don't need to practice too long to be able to mimic it. Yeah,
and you see the level of success they have. Yeah. So it's like sky's the limit with just being able to be a songwriter. I
suppose so, but at that age, I was just concerned with learning how to play correctly and not necessarily writing songs, but just, I don't know, being a kid and... Just being psyched on stuff.
Yeah. So your first band, though, is Additional Distrust. Did you meet those guys in junior high? You knew Tony because Tony's your cousin. Tony's my cousin.
Prior to that, I had jammed with Tony, and it made me think of this recently because I recently heard Nick Olmar died. Rest in peace, Nick Olmar. Fuck. I jammed with Nick and Sean Cisneros and Tony, and I don't know what happened with that, but... Shortly after that, Tony and I and Joel and Eric. What was Eric's last name? Barker. Barker, right? The Barker twins. Yeah, we got together in a garage, in Josh Poole's garage, in Orion Azard's garage, once every week.
We would just try to write songs and play songs. And, you know, we were basically just mimicking. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just basically trying to mimic the things we were listening to at the time, which is, you know, a lot of minor threat. Yeah. And a lot of those epitaph bands and stuff like that at the
time. Just fast riffery and then Jules going... Pretty much. Trying to be Darby Crash. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. It was kind of a sick mix, though. Like, I don't know if you could recreate it now if you tried. Oh, I don't like that. Thank God. Nobody wants to hear that. Yeah. So the first time you ever make it to vinyl is our band that we did. After Initial Distrust, we did a band called It Doesn't Matter. And that was the first time you recorded too, right? Went to the living room and shit?
Yeah, that was the first. Yeah, that's absolutely right. What do you remember
about it? Anything? Yeah, I remember driving in the car. You had a Camry with your girlfriend at the time, and we drove up to the living room. She was fine as fuck. Dana? Yeah. Yeah, she was easy on the
eyes. I don't remember. That's why I didn't get a shows for like... You probably started going to shows like a year before me. You were a little bit of a hermit.
You always hung out in your house, you know, with Dana. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. She was hot. Yeah, I got... Yeah, so... So yeah, we drove up there. We recorded. I remember we set up live and recorded live and then you did the vocals afterwards. And it was just a really rad experience. I was excited to go to the living room partly because not just to record, but because that was a venue that at the time was, you know, that was one of the venues that we went to all the time.
And that was the first time I ever went there. I didn't go there for a show. I went there to record. So I was just, I was excited just to be in the, be in the room and just you know, and of course be doing what I was doing, which was recording. And
yeah, I think I had only seen the flyers. I don't think I'd been there yet.
Exactly. That's, that's how it was for me as well. Yeah.
Yeah. So it was super exciting. And then just to get your music and listen to it. And it's weird. Cause like listening to yourself, you never know how you're going to sound. And then it sounded pretty good. Like the three songs that were fast and like the two other ones were like, whatevs.
Yeah. I mean, it did sound good. Um, That was a great spot to go to because I think it was $15 an hour. It was $10 the first time we went. Okay, $10 an hour. And yeah, when we walked out of there, we walked out of there with a mixed cassette of three or five songs we did.
Yeah, probably for like $60.
Yeah, it was great.
Great experience. Yeah. And then you do what may have been the first Oxnard Hardcore band, which would have been Last Chance. Because that predates... That predates voice. I mean, oh, of our era? Yeah. Yeah, in the late 90s. Like, if you wanted to trace back, like, what was the first band that was, like, playing hardcore music? Like, as we know it. Oh, as we know it.
Yeah. Like, from our scene. Yeah, from
our scene. Because this is, like, the, this is kind of the start of building from scratch.
Okay, right. Don't you think? Yeah. I suppose so, yeah. I just never really thought of it that way. Yeah. Like, I thought, I always thought In Control was, like, the first, like, of our era, like, hardcore band. I would say voice.
No? No. And I would say his previous voice.
I'm not trying to say anything negative or anything, but In Control put out records and went out and toured. Voice of Defiance definitely had a seven-inch, and I think Pasta, I don't know. Yeah, another one came out later. After the band was broken up. But as far as... Yeah, you're right. From our scene, definitely the Voice of Defiance was probably the first one to
be good. Well, that's what mattered first, right? Is building up... a scene at home and being able to draw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the voice of defiance and then standing around, we're both able to do that. Like draw a hundred kids. Yeah. And, and that's important. I think that before you like now access to being able to record and tour is so easy. I think people should draw a hundred kids at home, you know?
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I mean, that's, that's a mindset you and I definitely, um, I think that's very of the time of the time we came up though. We were very, um, because we had to do those things. And, um, I mean, that's one of the things I did with nails too.
Um, when I, when, when we started nails in 2008, I was very adamant of, of playing shows before we put out music because I didn't want to be, you know, it was very of the time then to just put out, put out a band camp link or put out some songs and then hopefully your first show's nuts. I was like, no, I want to do it the other way around. I want people to you know, not a lot of people cause we were playing small shows.
Nobody had ever heard of us, but you know, I wanted to establish ourself as somewhat of a live entity before we're just putting out records and making t-shirts and all that bullshit. Um, so I, I'm right with you on that one for sure. I think it's important. Bands should be able to, um, you know, draw in their hometown and, and, uh, and just, and, and do that thing before they try to conquer the world. Yeah. I always thought that was weird.
Yeah. And so, um, Last Chance was just like a blip. But it was nice because you got Phil in the music, and then I used Phil for voice. Well, I
think Last Chance was definitely significant to us, the people that were in it, and the people around us in regards to just us trying to figure out how to do things. You know what I mean?
And it's when your riffery started, right? like the super fast left hand. Yeah. Cause like, think about it. Think about that Rodney roof. Yeah. It's like, what the fuck?
That's like some left hand shit. Yeah. I was trying to, I was trying to play guitar. Yeah. I was trying to do it. And, um, and, and, uh, Kevin was always a good drummer. Um, I remember being blown away by, by listening to Kevin play drums by, by, it doesn't matter rehearsing, you know, back to one, um, Not to go back to when I joined the band, but I always thought it was fun playing in Last Chance. I mean, it was a lot of fun. And Phil was an awesome, awesome bass player.
Yeah, I mean, I think you and Phil kind of hung out more than me and him did, though.
I loved Phil.
Yeah, Phil's sick, man.
And then he had an interesting perspective on hardcore, too. He was really into mouthpiece and outspoken, and that stuff's like... It feels a little darker. Yeah,
that's right. That's right. He was more attracted to that stuff while I was probably more attracted to bands like Youth of the Day and Chain of Strength. And you liked all that stuff, too.
Yeah, I liked the mix and then also the weirder tough guy stuff.
Yeah, we loved One Life Crew. Yeah. Crime and Society. One Life Crew and Madball. Yeah. You know what? You brought a lot of that to our circle. It's interesting, though. you know, pointing out Phil and pointing out everybody, because I, I guess I never thought about that. I have thought about that. Um, everybody in our, in our friend, in our immediate friend group brought something interesting to the table. And especially at a time when, um, internet wasn't rampant there.
Yeah. Well, there was, there wasn't internet yet. I mean, maybe there was low speed internet, right?
Like there was low speed internet. And you were one of the people, you were one of the only people who I knew at the time who was, you know, out there learning about newer bands. Like you had the death threat demo, right? Yeah. You brought that to the friend group. That's how I knew Death Threat. Yeah, Larry sent it to me, the bass player.
Yeah. Because I met him on AOL chat. I met him on AOL chat. I was like, oh, shit. And when that Death Threat demo came, my god, dude. It sounded just like Hayfreed with different vocals.
I thought it sounded like Hayfreed mixed with Youth of Today, which is maybe a bad reference now. But when I was 16, it made so much sense.
Dude. If a band sounded like it makes me hate-breeding you today, I would fucking love it.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
because the influencers are coming from the same place. Yeah. You know? It's like, yeah, whatever. But yeah, that's super cool. So the first hardcore band that you do that records is Standing Ground. Yeah, I would say so. And you go back to the living room, and you do a demo. Yeah.
Yeah.
And that was cool. It was like very well thought out. Like it's like the full J card professional. I think you have the demos professionally pressed.
Corey, Corey, Corey brought the, uh, brought that he was really good. He was, he was the only person at the time that I knew who even knew Photoshop whatsoever. And he was, um, you know, he made like a good looking logo and a good looking cover and printed them out. And, um, there was a tape duplication place in Chatsworth that you just go drop off a DAT tape and they give you however many cassettes you ordered. And yeah, we were, we just wanted to make something that looked cool.
Yeah. And I remember when you guys started, I was so excited because now there was two of us, there was two bands and like now we're starting a scene. That's true. Because there it's, it's weird now in hindsight and I don't want to talk about anything super negative, but, um, You know, when you look at it now, like the scene is totally united and everyone's like super cool. But at the time that we were doing this, we like no one was helping us. That's absolutely right.
Like no one was helping us put on shows. And we were like, I mean, I remember you and me going around like in my car, just trying to talk to like every little like bowling alley, every little nook and cranny, like, can we do a show?
That's right. I thought about that this morning. You and I used to drive to places that if they looked like we could potentially have a show there, we'd ask them if we could have a show there. And now thinking back on that, I'm like, we were 16. I know. And it's like, maybe I was 15 and you were 16. And I think about any responsible business owner
having
two 16-year-olds walking to their joint being like, yeah, can we do this thing which is potentially illegal and is going to cause you problems?
Yeah. Well, that's why the only people that bit... were people that took advantage of it, right? So you had that one lady at Laserstar that was just pulling off the top. Yeah. But she was an adult that somehow talked to Laserstar like, who the fuck was that lady? Now that I think about it.
Marianne. Something like that. Marie.
Yeah, something like that. And it was just like, there was this lady around that was like, kind of like the go-between, but she had zero to do with anything.
We were able to go around to her anyway after a long time. Yeah. Eventually. I think you booked directly there with the
owner. I did. Well, I just went and got a job there. That's what I did. Oh, that's right. I went and just started working there because then we could get around her. I was like, this is bullshit. I don't know who this lady is. And then it was like, you're fucking out, dude. I teach laser tag. That's right. And I'm booking the show. And then I started doing security too.
Amazing. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, you know, that came out of necessity. You know, our bands weren't really getting booked on any other local shows. So I think, you know, you and I have always had like a very, you could call it DIY, but I would say it's more of like a go-getter. You know, if we want to do something, we didn't let anybody tell us no. I think that was really admirable. I think a lot of people like that came out of our
scene. Yes. There's a big DIY thing. I think that you mentioned Nick Ulmer. He was another one. There's a bunch of people that came out doing that. Do your own records, do whatever.
Yeah, and it's because we had the drive to do it. Again, we weren't going to let anybody say no to us. We were going to do our bands, we were going to play our shows, and we were going to put our records out. It was great.
Yeah, and we kind of built that scene from scratch. Oh, um, well,
you know, I, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we have, yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess so. I mean, I don't, it's kind of weird to take credit from that. We, you know what though? We, you know what we have?
Well, where's off star hardcore without the standing around the voice of defiance in fucking playing laser star.
Well, I got to say is we were definitely as far as age and as far as music, we were definitely not part of the original, uh, Nardcore culture, right? Because we were too young to go to those shows. And, you know, when we started going to shows, we were 13, 14, 15, 16, whatever. Those guys were probably already in their mid to late 20s. They weren't.
They would hang out with us at the show, but we weren't hanging out with those guys on Silver Strand Beach or wherever they would fucking hang out with. We were very divided. But there were a lot of cool guys from that scene who definitely, I think, helped our attitude. Someone like Joe Revis.
Absolutely. The Joe Revis's, the Fred Hammers. Yes, Fred. And Tony Cortez.
Yes, absolutely.
Even just like, I remember voice playing Laser Star and Tony showing up. And it just gives you so much validation, like, I'm on the right path. Absolutely.
That's the most validating thing, when you can get another musician who you look up to, admire, listen to, whatever, to come out here and kind of give a stamp of approval on what you're doing.
Yeah, and not be bored. Yeah. You know? Because I don't know, dude. I don't know if I'm going and watching a 16-year-old's band play 20 minutes. You know? Yeah. Like, I guess I still do. But it's weird, because like... You get older, you get a little more choosy about the shows you go to, and then, like, I don't know if you've ever had this happen, but, like, you show up at a show and, like, you're the oldest one by, like, at least 10 years. Dude, I got... That shit's fucked
up. Since I had kids, my involvement going to shows... Like, I had kids when I was 30. Yeah. And my involvement since then, I just don't really go to too many local shows anymore, or really any shows too much anymore. Like, maybe I'll go to five shows a year that I'm not playing. Yeah. Otherwise, like, I... I would go, I guess. I would definitely go if it was in my hometown. I mean, I live in South Corona. Bring back the showcase.
Dude, Niels was on tour, and this person, Gabe, came with us, a really cool guy. And he lives near Corona, and I was telling him, I'm like, just break in there and throw a fucking show. Dude, that'd be sick. I mean, why can't you just open the back door, get a generator, invite... You know, whoever you could invite and have a show, it gets shut down. What's going to happen to you?
Did nothing ever take the place of it? Like there's not like a nail salon or something
in there?
No.
That's crazy.
I heard that the city had plans to demolish that as soon as all the businesses were out of there and make condos. I don't know if that's true. I haven't confirmed that, but that's what I heard.
That would make sense. But otherwise, that would be cool if the city turned into a youth center or something. I mean, it's already built out. It's perfect.
I heard that basically the owners just took their shit and left, so the stage is still there, the stairway, everything's still there. But anyway.
Yeah. Do you feel like you come into your... like proper songwriting in the later standing ground. Like the last demo we did, like the music is pretty well thought out. Like you're writing good songs.
I think the first good thing I ever did was that demo with you and Tony and Chris Grande. Yeah. I think that was the first thing that... I think that's probably one of the first things all of us ever did that I think was, wow, you know what? It's still very of the time, but I listened to it the other day and I was like, you know what? This is not bad for 17 and 18-year-olds. It had energy, you know what I mean? Because I think that was a time when...
The way I look at it is humans learn to evolve by watching other people do things and just mimicking them. And I think when you're 13... and you know, you're in your teenage years. It's basically what you're trying to do in a band as well. You're just trying to, we were just trying to have a piece of our own. We saw all the hardcore scenes that were going on and on the East coast and wherever else. And we were just, cause that was primarily what I liked music from that area.
I'd assume it's the same thing for you, I believe, but we just wanted a piece of that for ourselves. Right. And so we were mimicking things and we just, doing whatever it is we thought we were supposed to be doing but i think on that recording is when we learned this has to have this kind of energy it has to have these kind of like you know it's it was less about like having a sing-along or having a mosh part it was more about like dude this song needs to have energy this song needs to move
well if you think about it like the the influence on that on that recording are pretty stupid it's like that like that visual discrimination, come back seven inch and like that records and that record is still good. Yeah. And like the clubber Lang demo, I'm trying to think of like all the weird, like influences on that recording. It's like, it's the first one where you're drawing in from a bunch of stuff, not just like, tenor fight and 97a and then the old stuff
yeah i think so like that you know i was super into all that stuff like floor punch and and stuff like that but i think that was probably the first recording where yeah it was probably more varied and as opposed to sounding like a particular band it was more about just having a particular energy as opposed to mimicking something you know yeah but yeah i think that last recording i think it's still still kind of slamming i know i wish
we weren't so silly with the lyrics Aaron was right. Whatever. What are you going to do? Those are the things that were important to us at that time. Just to be so young and angry and stupid. But whatever. Yeah. I still believe most of it. Then you joined Carry On. And is that strange going from like you're doing your band and like being the sole songwriter to did you join right during the second 7-inch? Like was it already written? The line is
drawn? Yeah, that was already recorded, actually. But back to that, man, I never felt like Stand Your Ground was my band or anything. I felt that you and I were very equal in regards to that. After Aaron left, I felt like you and I were steering the ship. Actually, more so you, because... You were the guy that was kind of getting us the shows. Well, you got us
all the floor punch shows. I mean, that's kind of the biggest there was. I guess you're right. All five floor punch shows on the West Coast.
Yeah.
Or whatever. Four of the five, right? Four of the five,
yeah. You went to the Northern California one. I didn't go to that one, but I went to all the other ones. That one was pretty sick and legendary. Yeah, I saw the pictures. Yeah, it was pretty brutal. I joined Carry On on Thanksgiving of 1999. Corey worked at Kinko's, which is now known as FedEx. And, um, you know, I would just, I would just go there to hang out with him and stuff like that while on his work shifts and use the computer and whatnot.
And, um, Ryan called Corey and advised him that basically Jordan, um, in order to keep his health insurance, he needed to do well in college. And in order to do well in college, he had to stop playing music. So they asked me to join the band. And, um, in the line of his drawn had been recorded that summer already. It came out in January or February of 2000.
And, um, Yeah, I just joined the band, and I was super happy to join the band because at the time they were one of my favorite bands, not just locally, but I was so excited about what Carry On was doing. Yeah, it was a fun
7-inch. And I liked the first one, too. Stabbed in the face. Yeah. There was one song on there that was sick as fuck. Pride. Yeah.
Straight edge for life. Faded for life. I have a live set of you singing along to that. I know. I wish I had that. I think that Corey had it, too, right? Corey has it. Yeah, I sent it to Corey a couple years ago. Put it out,
dude. Put it out as bootleg.
That was that Living Room show, right?
Yeah. And that's all that middle shit that gets... Did you write that stuff? No, no, no,
no, no. So between Stabbed in the Face and between Lion is Drawn, before Corey joined the band, it was Ryan, Jordan Johnson on guitar, Josh Luce on bass, and I forget his name, but he was on drums and he was a really good drummer. But he was from the same area, Tascadero, and they had written a whole bunch of stuff between Stabbed in the Face and Lion is Drawn that never got properly recorded. And it's at that Living Room show and I have the recording of it.
There's a ton of songs, but this is the thing with that, like I I have no entitlement over that. I had the tape and I gave it to Ryan. I said, hey, this is yours. You should contact Sean from Youngblood and see if Youngblood would want to put this out. They were talking about it. I don't know if it's still a thing that's happening.
When is the last time you listened to that? Six months ago. It's good, right? It's really good. Those songs I remember... That's a really... interesting like transition because they went straight from kind of like doing a more metallic hardcore to going full on youth crew and so that's sick that middle space like when they're transitioning
I also think it was a case similar to how that last Stand Your Ground recording where we sort of learned how to write songs I feel like they kind of went through the same thing and yeah it had a ton of energy and I can email it to you after we get off this
I need it I remember there was one song on there that was like One of my favorite songs. I can't remember, though.
Yeah, Corey joined the band, and then they wrote Lion is Drawn, and they were like, oh, these are now old songs. We got these new songs, so we're going to put our new songs out. And I think those songs just got lost to time.
I know that's crazy, because there's definitely... there would be an appetite for that stuff still. Right.
Yeah. I think, I think if, if that came out, like I think people would be super into it. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I mean that burn the second seven inch, like the last crazy that came out like 10 years after they recorded it. Right. Yep. That's true. Yeah. Make it happen. Well, I guess you're right. It's not yours. Um, so the first time that you do the songwriting though for carry on is roll with the punches. Yeah, that was the first. And, um, Yeah, that's true. And you come in and obviously, by this time, you're a guitar juggernaut. Oh, I wouldn't say that. Oh, come on.
Compared to most youth crew-y guitarists,
you're a good guitarist. Oh, I see what you're saying. I would say my guitar skills were acceptable. You're in the...
Top 5% of guitarists by that
point. No?
Well, nobody knew who I was at that time still, though. I know. So you break them off with the fucking speed pick. Even the first 10 seconds, they're
all like, what up, dude? Dude, that song, the Roll With The Punches song, Corey and I, for some reason, drove down to Orange County in rush hour traffic on a Friday, met up with Dave Mandel. Dave Mandel took us back to his house, and he was just showing us some of the records that he was putting out before they came out. And he played that Count Me Out record, 110.
Mm-hmm.
And I was blown away. Do you like that
record? Yeah. I mean, sonically, it's perfect. Okay. Lyrically, it's interesting. Okay. Because every single song is funny. It's funny to me because every single song, it says ourself, myself, yourself. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, sonically, it's one of the best sounding hardcore records ever. I think it's a really, I agree. And I love that song. It's like at the end of the record, it's like, I call it like the Blue Oyster Cult mosh part.
It cuts out and it sounds like he's going into like Don't Fear the Reaper. You're right. Yeah, the open notes. Yeah, he does like Don't Fear the Reaper, but then it's a mosh part. Like, oh my God, this is fucking brilliant.
You know? But we went back to our apartment because we lived together and I was just sitting there in our living room together and Corey was watching TV or playing Tony Hawk and I was sitting there playing guitar for like two hours and I looked over at him I'm like, how's the sound? He's like, ah, it's cool. So we all got in a room and organized it and put the song together.
At that time, I can't remember ever making a conscious decision like, I'm going to put forth all this effort to try to write music for this band. I just think that when Carry On was going, I think maybe the creative process guitar people were josh loose and jordan
and they were both gone
jordan jordan with the band but josh jordan at the time when i joined the band josh josh either couldn't make it to la when we were rehearsing or he was off i think you know he joined the army
that's what happened yeah that's what happened yeah yeah i think that he would have left because in standing around when we broke up we played two final shows yeah and josh played with
us that's right
and i think that he joined
the military right after directly after so josh was like kind of gone i think we put his name in the seven inch because yeah you know we didn't have any we didn't have a bass player
side story the first thing a troll tour we actually went out to go see to arlington cemetery we were out there okay so we could see him because he was the he was the guard that was guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier That's right. So you could go out and, like, see him. We're like, it's Posse Josh. That's so sick. Posse Josh. Did you guys talk with him at that? No, you can't. Oh. It's very, like, dude, that's, guarding the Tomb of the Undone Soldier is, like, so fucking serious.
Okay. Yeah, because, like, that's, like, you're basically, you're honoring every single person that died in war. Gotcha. That, like, wasn't. you don't have a name for him. Sure. You know, so it was very serious. And so you can't be like, so did you guys go like point at him, wave and then no, no, no, just in the back. And we're like, Oh, that's cool. Like, that's what he's up to. Oh yeah. You know?
And we didn't have a cell phone then or anything to be able to like text him, you know, text him and be like, Hey, let's get a beer later. But, um, so that's sick. The, the seven inch comes out. And then do you remember why he did it on teamwork instead of young bud at that time?
Um,
At that time, I can't say the bands really stuck on labels. It's not like we were on Youngblood. I mean, you remember. No, I know. It just
seemed like Youngblood would have wanted to get the next one. Because the first one was well-received. It went into multiple presses.
Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember at that time. I don't think we thought about it in that way. I think we were just like, let's do a seven-inch-long teamwork now. You're just like, the Youngblood guys are too nice. I want to be on a cocksucker's label. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, Chris was Chris. Yeah, whatever. He's like one of the only guys who was ever mean to me. Yeah, he was an impatient dickhead. I mean, that's pretty much what it came down to.
He was an asshole. Yeah. I mean, it's just funny because I've been snubbed by very few people in my life, which I feel very fortunate for. So the people that do it, it's like... Why be a dick? I mean, what a shitty fucking energy to
throw it to the world. And you know what? That's his, that's his karma for doing that. You know what I mean? Cause remember when the floor punch guys came, they were super cool. They introduced us to straight ahead and hung out with us, break down with us, break down, dude. And then you have someone like Chris Kelly who comes from the same area and it's like 20 years later, it's like, here we are in a room talking trash on them. It's like, That's karma for you, man. You were a fucking dick.
You were entitled and you're kind of fucking rude to people. So yeah,
we're like, yeah, I guess you're right. Like the, the four punch guys. Fuck. How could you say, think bad about them? Those
guys were nice. They were just fucking cool. And they were cool to younger kids. And, uh, and so there you go. But yeah, teamwork. I, I, I, I, Looking back on it, we probably should have put it out with Youngblood. I mean, just out of loyalty, but also because you're right, they did do a good job and it didn't make sense to quote-unquote leave Youngblood. But
Teamwork was sick at that point, right?
We liked every single record. I loved every team. That had to be why. Yeah, of course. Ryan and Corey and I, I mean, everybody was. You were, Josh was. I mean, we were very into Teamwork records and Youngblood records. So I think it was just like... You did one here, let's do one here. The thing is with Carry On, it's like we didn't... I mean, we wanted to do things. But when you thought about your own hardcore band back then, there was a very low ceiling.
It's not like there was a lot of opportunity for bands to really do anything. To put out a full length would have been some Godhead-level shit. Do you think? At that time, that's what I thought, I'm pretty sure.
That's weird, because I would think then, if that was your mentality at that time, that's the one time in your life you ever had that limited thinking.
Yeah.
Uh, in regards to hardcore and music. Yeah, I think so. Because think about it. We were, our bands were playing shows like, um, like carry on and in control. Like when we would play shows at the PCH club, if we were like, you know, up on the bill, we were probably playing shows to 40 or 60 people, you know, like, you know, in control and carry on in California, played a lot of shows to 50 people. And some people listening to this might think, Oh my God, I can't believe it.
Like, If I was at an In Control show now, there'd be hundreds of people there. A Carry On show now, there'd be hundreds of people there. But our bands played shows through a lot of fucking... We played a lot of small shows, which I'm not complaining about, but we were never accepted by some of the bands from Orange County who had shows at the Showcase Theater where there's 500, 600 people there.
Maybe we just came out a tad bit later, though. We were too late and too early. I want to say, first off, it wasn't just those. It was basically every band from our genre. Life's Hall, No Reply. We all played small shows. That whole scene didn't break through. It was very PCH, 60-person thing. Yeah, absolutely. And then as far as me thinking we came a little late, maybe you're right. Too late or too early. But we were just a little late on that, dude. And also... I'm not an outgoing person.
You were more outgoing. And I don't know. You could have done it, but you had barely just put out the 7-inch. Yeah. So you can't expect everything right away.
No, I guess not. But I think my vision at the time was I was still just trying to have a piece of something for myself and my friends.
Yeah, because my eyes broke through. I mean, I know they're East Coast, but they would come out and play. It would be like Adamantium Throwdown and In My Eyes.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that Carrion could have done that at that time with an LP. With an LP, you're probably right. Yeah, I was probably just short-sighted. Yeah. That's weird. I think that's the only time in your life you're ever like, I don't think this can happen. Because any other time, you think about it and do it. I wonder
if it was, I don't think it could happen, versus just like, I was just... I only looked as far ahead as the next thing in front of me. I didn't have a big vision. My big vision was sound like Chain of Strength and play shows to my friends and hopefully do support for the East Coast bands when they came through that we liked. Yeah,
it was not breaking through into the showcase scene like the impetus of the Fuck California labels.
Yeah.
I'm sure that. I don't know. I don't think that had anything to do with it. I just don't think that that scene really cared about us. Is that on every press? Yeah. I mean, there's only one press. I think there was 2,200 copies of that. They're all on black and then a couple hundred on blue. Yeah. Because that was weird, right? Because we're talking about building up the little scene and stuff. Well, me and Ryan were very bitter. We were very resentful.
Ryan and I were extremely resentful because we knew, or at least we felt, that Carry On was a great band. We were really into what we were doing. It wasn't like we had an ego about it, whereas we were like, we're the fucking shit. Everyone should bow down to us. We were just like, dude, we know we're a good band. Why can't we just play some shows? with some of these other straight edge hardcore bands around here that are drawing hundreds of kids. Like, why aren't they interested in that?
And it's, it was a really
older too. So he may have even had more perspective of like, dude, I've been going to hardcore shows for this long. Like our band's fucking good.
Yeah. I mean, that's true too. Brian is four or five years older than me, I believe. I think he was born in 76, but yeah, I mean, we, we just wanted opportunity. We wanted a shot to play some of the bigger shows and we just never really got it. But you made friends with all the Throwdown guys. Did you just do that too late? Oh, well, I made friends with all the Orange County guys and all the Throwdown guys after I was in Terror. Oh. Like a year after I was in Terror. No, that's not true.
Terror toured with Throwdown the fall of 2002, and that's when I met all those guys and became buddies with them.
Did you ever ask their perspective on that?
Nope.
Yeah, because you may have just not been on the radar, period.
Nah, Carry On was a very... at that time when I was in terror, I had like a lot of negative feelings about carry on because of the way the band ended, you know what I mean? Ryan stopped being straight edge. And, um, and I think, and you know, it's not like it was, everything was Ryan's fault, but I think maybe I wasn't, me and Ryan weren't really getting along too well at that time.
Um, yeah, I don't, I'm not trying to point fingers, but the band ended and, um, well, we're going to get into all of it. Oh, okay. Cool. Now we're gone. But the band ended and, um, I just, talking about Carry On and thinking about Carry On wasn't really, like, something that was, like, very positive in my mind at the time. Sure.
Especially when you're doing something off-the-chart sick. Well, yeah, I was in Terror. Yeah, the beginning of Terror when, like, literally, from you going from, like, bummed I can't get on the show to, like, I'm starting this band and sky is the limit.
Oh, Terror had every opportunity. Yeah. I mean, my first... And deservedly so.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, Scott had, yeah. I mean, I just, I, it was, it was fun. It was a lot of fun in regards to that. Like my, my first European tour was on a bus. Yeah. Like that's, that's cool. Yeah.
That's super sick. Yeah. So carry on after the, it's all our blood, seven inch or roll with punches. You do. It's all our blood. That's the CD. Yeah. That's a compilation. Seven inches. Plus the song from Graham's memories of tomorrow. Comp and Graham's
all the, so two comp songs. That's right. Okay.
Yeah.
No, no, no, no, no. Graham's comp song wasn't on that. It wasn't on that. That comp song is just left on that comp. So the Skate or
Die comp
song.
What was it? Was Carry On on that? I don't know. I made a lot of notes, but I can't write War and Peace. So let's talk about going and doing the LP because this is something that you took a lot of time on. You like flew out East coast. We did. So let's talk about how it starts because obviously like that's a big jump and see, you've discussed it with people. Right. So do you, you meet Chris?
Okay. Yeah. So how that's the way that started was, was, um, American nightmare was coming out to California for the first time. And their first show was in Bakersfield at Jerry's pizza. I think in control play that show. I think so. Um,
Did you meet Wes when he was out with 10-yard fight?
Well, yeah, of course we met Wes. You booked the
10-yard fight show.
Yeah, we did. I did. One of us did. We booked the 10-yard fight show in August of 1998. It was 10-yard fight, fast break, carry on, stand your ground. But I think only those two
played because there wasn't enough time.
The PA showed up late. Remember, we had problems with the PA, so stand your ground and carry on kind of play. So the PA finally comes, fast break plays, and... 10-yard fight plays during 10-yard fight. Wes and one of his other buddies, who at the time was roading for 10-yard fight, were almost about to get into it with Fred Hammer.
Okay. 10-yard
fight stuff. It's on video. You can go check out the Laser Star video on YouTube.
It's on YouTube, rather. Yeah. I remember seeing one of them spit on David, and I'm glad he didn't notice that. Oh, David Otenaro? No, David Black? Yeah. Oh, that would have ended very poorly for them. I think that Ray dude spit on them. Yeah, that would have ended very poorly for
them.
Because that Ray dude was friends with Zarian and shit. That's right. Anyway, weird tangent. So American Nightmare comes out here. American Nightmare comes out here and we
play with them. I mean, I met Wes, but I don't think that thing... I mean, I met Wes and became pals with Wes, but I can't remember if we ever talked about that incident happening. But... But we met all those dudes at that show, and Chris was with them, Chris from Bridge Nine. And after we played the show, Chris was like, yeah, I'd love to do a record with you guys. And we were like, ah, that's fucking awesome. We would love to do an album. Because, dude, we wanted nothing more.
Carry On wanted nothing more than to be on Indecision Records. And it wasn't happening. Did you tell Mandel? I told him after the fact. Well, fuck yeah, we told him. Corey told him. I told him. And I don't think he really knew Ryan. But during the time, yeah, we told him we love Indecision. I don't know if we just straight up said, yo, we love Indecision. We want to be on the label. It was more like... Well, I had to be that straightforward.
I know you did. I went over and I showed him I had an In Control tattoo. And I was like, here, I'm not going to break up. And then I also said, I'd saved up money for the first LP. And I was like, if you put this out, I'll buy a van with this money. And we'll go tour on the LP. And then he was on board. Although I think Daniel thinks that Daniel got us on all the way. Oh, really? But then Daniel could have gotten you on all the way if that was the...
I found out later that... I found out later, years later, that Dave didn't really... Dave didn't like our band. Well, he liked our band, but there was somebody in the band he didn't like. Okay, I won't make you say it. I'll
tell you afterwards. Okay, well... Where's that fucking pen? I'm going to forget. Oh, you don't forget. I don't forget. Very well. So Chris comes out here and struck the lottery. He's carrying on in the prime. And he's like, oh, they're not on a label. Let's do a record.
Yeah. You know, that was... Yeah, I mean, you remember at the time, Bridge Niner wasn't really, they were the label that had just put out American Nightmare, and American Nightmare 7-inch was, not only was it good, but the packaging on that thing was fucking next level. Like, I don't think, like, that's one of the things that I don't, that I think a lot of people don't realize is how shitty packaging was on records prior to that era happening for hardcore.
Like, you know, it was not uncommon to buy a 7-inch that had a cover made at Kinko's, just straight up copied off the machine. you know, especially if you bought it from me. Yeah. Yeah. Like we did. Yeah. So, Hey, we were 16. We didn't have any fucking money. We didn't come from families with money, but, um, but yeah, so they had, I mean, it was just like, wow, this, this seven American nightmare is good. The seven inches fucking awesome.
Like we, we would like, yeah, this sounds like a fit for us. It sounds like we're carrying on to do an album. So, you know, they played four shows out here and the last show was in Santa Cruz. Um, And Control played that one.
We did. It
was Time in
Malta. Yeah. Remember that? I don't remember anything about it, except I literally just saw that flyer like last week.
Yeah. So weird. Yeah. You guys played the show. I remember watching your set. And we discussed with Chris after the show. It's like, yeah, well, let's do an album. And so that was December 30th, 2000. And by April... 15th, we were at God City Studios in Salem, Massachusetts. So four months later, we were recording our record. And
had you been writing the whole time since
the 7-inch? Yeah, man. That was actually... The thing with Carry On is between recording the... We recorded that Teamwork 7-inch in June of 2000. And then we were back in the studio April 2001. So if you think about that, that's only like 10 months. That's insane. Plus, is Lucas living here? No. So who are you playing with? Well, that's the problem. So a lot of time that Carry On spent was teaching fill-in bass players, fill-in drummers how to play the songs. That was the bummer of Carry On.
We didn't have a steady group of members. Lucas... We I don't remember the exact details, but he ended up being our drummer and he came out, I think, on two separate occasions for like two weeks at a time to write a record and prepare a record. Now, prior to those American Nightmare shows, I think we had like. Two or three songs that we could have recorded at that time. And then in January and April, I think we really got busy and just started trying to write as much music as we could.
I don't remember a lot of it. One thing I do remember is two things in regards to writing music that I remember. The first song on the record was written on the last day of drum tracking.
Wow.
Because we needed a 12th song. We didn't have a 12th song. And I was like, why do you need a 12th song? the suit, the album was super rushed. And that's, that's, that's kind of one of, one of the reasons why I wanted to tell you this was, um, the last songs, we just didn't have a 12 song. I mean, around, you know, you said today I had 12 song albums. So we had to have a 12 song album. So you feel like that's what you
have to hit.
At that time, we were like, yo, we need that. You know what I mean? Six songs on a side, two seven inches, one seven inch was six songs. Sure. I thought that was a standard. Yeah. For the music we played. And, um, so I was like, well, you know, what are you going to do? And Ryan just started, let's have something super spastic, blah, blah, blah. And me and him sat together and we just, we figured it out and we jammed it and it all worked out.
Um, but the night before we went to go fly, we only had like eight songs and we wrote, we wrote like three songs the night before we went to go fly. Yeah. And it was just, you know, we, we all got together with all the riffs and, and at Ryan's house on Curson and Hollywood. And, um, we listened to a bunch of records where we liked and, and, you know, showed our riffs and put the songs together.
That's some of the best stuff though, right? Cause you're under the gun sometimes. Also like you're right sometimes, but I feel like sometimes it's the best is cause you got to go. So you can't think too much about it. It's not overworked, you know? And it's just like, you're like YOLO. And sometimes it's your most interesting stuff. Yeah. Cause do something that sounds sick. You can take a risk, you know, and there you go. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. It
worked out for us. I mean, I look back on that 30 year record being written. It's a what?
That's a third of your record being written at the very last minute. Yeah, that's true. Of a record that people consider like a classic, right?
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to... Man, I hate to hear that... I hate to say that it's like so last minute. I mean, it's just... Like I said, we... We didn't have a lot of time to spend rehearsing, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, people seemed to like that record. I heard a band from St. Louis the other day, and they straight up opened their song with a fast tremolo picking harmonic. I was like, they must like Carry On. And they sounded like that. I can't remember their name, but it was cool.
I was psyched to hear that. Dude, I love talking about Carry On. I'm super psyched. Nobody ever really does it, but if anybody... came up to me and wanted to talk about carry on. I could talk about it for hours. Yeah.
Well, cause there was a long time, like you said a little earlier that you were negative on it. Yeah. Let's talk about all the happy stuff. Okay. Yeah, sure. Okay. So this is the first time you're in like a real, real studio, right? How, like, let me think about that. Like roll with the punches. What, where do
you record that? Down here with that guy, Jeff, um, double time studios.
Oh yeah. Yeah. In El Cajon. Did you ever record? Yes. We did, uh, another year there. Okay. There you go. So yours came out better.
Well, we had no idea what we were doing. We had no idea what we were doing either. And to attest to that is we recorded that Teamwork 7-inch there. We did it in two days. We went back six months later and we re-recorded Linus Drawn. and a bunch of other new songs that we were working on, and we tried to do that in the same amount of time, and it sounded like shit. We just didn't know what we were doing. I assume In Control probably did a lot in a short amount of time as well.
I had no idea. Yeah, I mean, I think we took three days.
Yeah, for an album? At the time, that made sense. We weren't going to spend more than like $1,500 or $2,000 on a record. But now it's like if you were to go back and do a full length at a studio, you'd probably want to spend like five days at minimum, six days at minimum.
Yeah. It was just weird. And it was also... I don't... I never not recorded with either one of my friends or with John Lyons. Okay. And so it was weird being in somewhere and having some guy kind of like tell me what to do. Like I did like four guitar tracks. Yeah. And like if... It's okay to give someone that idea, but I think he needed to tell me a little more. Because I wasn't thinking about, okay, I need to play the same thing three times and do one different track.
Because otherwise it's just too muddy with me not playing it perfect every time. You
bring up a good point because we were recording with a guy who... He was considerably older than us and didn't have any interest in hardcore. His experience in recording hardcore bands was the bands that have come to him previously. I think in our era, there wasn't a lot of folks who knew how to record hardcore.
No, no, no, no. And that was a problem for us. No, I agree, which is kind of why... I think that Carry On record broke things kind of open, right? That and American Nightmare, the first... The first recordings of the next generation of good-sounding hardcore stuff.
Yeah, the youth crew, kind of noisier kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. I mean, I guess all the Floor Punch and the In My Eyes stuff all sounded good. You could hear everything.
Those bands always recorded at good studios. That In My Eyes stuff was recorded at the same place the Count Me Out record was recorded. Yeah. Floor Punch album was recorded at the same place Hatebreed album was recorded. Yeah. Crazy. They had... It's like... They had way better options in regards to people who knew how to record bands that sounded like that. Yeah,
like the battery guy recorded people. Yep. That was the guy, yeah. Yeah. So, oh, that's wild. Okay, so you go in and you spend... Two
weeks. Two weeks. Straight up 14 days. Sick. I mean, it was... I don't want to say it was boring, but there was a lot of downtime.
Yeah. Yeah. When would you consider the downtime? Just like of him mixing things down?
Yeah.
Because you played everything, I assume,
right? No. I mean, Corey played his guitars. I played my guitars. I played the bass. We didn't have a bass. That's not true. So prior to us doing that album, we had gotten Jeff Newman from In My Eyes on bass. He had moved out to California. And he played like one or two shows with us. We're like, all right, we're going to record an album. He's like, Oh, I have this trip. I'm going to go on with my buddy and we're going to go out to Southeast Asia. I can't go on, can't go record with you guys.
Yeah. Okay. No problem. So we go out there, I recorded the base. And then when we came home, he wasn't straight edge anymore. So that was, that was, that was his, that was the end of his tenure and carry on.
Well, that's a short, that's like a Abe Simpson. Like when he walks into the circle, I'm right back. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. But yeah, that was my first time in the studio. You
let
Corey do his
tracks. It's not that I let him do his tracks. He was in the band. I
know, but I don't know. I would have thought that at the time you would have wanted it to be perfect, perfect.
I mean, maybe, but Corey definitely recorded on that record. I remember watching him play. He had that blue Les Paul gem. It's a pretty guitar. Yeah, that was a fucking dope guitar.
He got good at guitar really quick. Yeah. Cause right when he joined carry on, he was not a good guitarist yet. Well, you know,
and then it went like this. I mean, he was, I mean, yeah, I mean he, you know, he had to get to when we met him, he had a guitar and then we asked him like, dude, you have a really cool guitar and you're really awesome. And you like really cool hardcore that we've never heard. Like he exposed me to a lot of shit and big jumps. And he had cool stage presence, awesome fucking stage presence.
And, um, so he joined stand your ground and yeah, I mean, he wasn't the best guitar player, but he did like in that you're right. And that short amount of time going from stand your ground to carry on, he got, he did, he did considerably get better at guitar. He, he, I mean, he was playing, some of those carry on songs are pretty technical too. Like they were, he was playing with some pretty good, pretty good people. So he, he definitely got his chops up for sure.
But yeah, he played on that album. He did a good job. And, uh, I played the bass and, and you know, the guitars and, uh, I, I was there. I was the one guy who was there the whole time. Oh, they came and like, they come and do their part and leave. I don't, I don't think it was necessarily like supposed to be like that. It was just, you know, I think dudes, I don't know. I can't remember, man. I mean, fuck, that was like almost 20 years ago. Who was there for the mixing though?
I don't, I don't remember. I mean, we were, we were, I mean, Corey and me and Ryan and Lucas, we were there till the end. Like we were all there until the end. Like it wasn't, you know, again, we were very young. We didn't know like, well, maybe, you know, I don't need to be there for this long. So I'm going to go home. Like we were just like, Oh, we're going to go record for two weeks. I don't necessarily remember that, but yeah, I don't know that we recorded.
We were, we, that was definitely probably the first like major, like recording studio I recorded at. Yeah. That's
true. And then from you recording it to a coming out, do you remember how long it took?
Yes, because that was a big grievance on my part. It was forever, right? Yeah, it was like we finished the recording at the end of April, April 29th, and the record didn't come out until the first week of October. So that was like six months. In hindsight,
that's not that bad, though.
It's not. I mean, it's six months. I mean, that's... Recently, that was like a standard. But if you have all your ducks in a row, a label like Bridge Nine or any of those other labels can get a record out in three months. But the problem is having all that shit lined up. You have to have mastering lined up right after you're done recording. You have to have the album cover and the artwork and all that shit turned in. But typically, I think three months. it takes for an album to come out.
But, but we didn't have all that stuff. We didn't know what we were doing. You know, we hired Jake Bannon to do the layout and he did it. But I don't, you know, it wasn't one of those things where, you know, it was done a week after the record was done being recorded, you know, everything, you know, it came out in October and it was fine. But when you're that age, it's just six months seems like fucking eternity.
Totally. I know. Like if you, like when you talked about, The last version of Standing Around with just you and me, I mean, that couldn't have been more than six months.
That's right.
Right? Yeah. It's weird. When you're younger, time just... I don't know. Maybe it's because you're doing so much that's so different. Yeah. It feels like it's a lot longer. Yeah. Where like when you get older, it's like a year just goes by and you're like, what did I do this year?
I think it has a lot to do with like, it's a, you were experiencing things for the first time.
Yeah.
And you
have a bunch more tentpole moments.
Yeah.
Like of the year. Like, Oh, this happened, this happened, this happened. Went to work.
Yeah. You know, five years passes and you blinked.
Yeah. And you, you guys are excited for this record, right? Cause yeah. I remember everyone playing it in their cars. You've got to come over to the car and listen
to it. We fucking loved the record. I mean, I love that. I still like... I loved that record up until we played our last shows or whatever, until 2005. I still like it, but I remember listening to it between... Those last shows we did gave me a lot of closure, but I remember from the time we recorded that record up until... I mean, I still love the record. There was a time when I listened to it a lot for years.
Yeah.
You left Lucas off the stuff, and that was just a straight mistake. That was a mistake, yeah, because we put him in the credits for sure. It was just something that got lost. That got corrected, though, on future pressings.
Oh, sick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I only know the original
press, though. No represses. Yeah. So is the popularity... Taking off a
little bit more? Well, dude, this is a problem. The record came out in October, so that's when people started hearing it. Those were not the days of leaked records. Right. Or at least our record didn't leak. So the record comes out in October while we're on tour. We had a week-long tour with Hope Conspiracy, Over My Dead Body, No Warning played a couple shows, and fucking Death Threat. And that was on the East coast and we played those shows and people were really excited about us.
Yeah. We got like, we were, we were like one out of four, but, but people showed up and people were into it. I mean, we were selling, we were, we were doing numbers of merch that I couldn't fucking believe. I was like, Oh my God, this is crazy. That was like probably the first time I've ever experienced like, A band I was in, people like it on a bigger scale of just outside Southern California. Yeah, sure.
So that was good, but then I can't remember why, but we didn't really have anything lined up after that. The last show we played was in December with Converge at the Troubadour. It was Converge, Hope Conspiracy. American nightmare planes mistaken for stars. And we opened the show and that was the last show we played. And at that time, Ryan was pretty like, obviously not straight edge. I don't think he was like, um, he called me in August of, of, of 2001 said, Hey dude, got something to tell you.
I'm not straight edge. I was like, okay, like my, like I worked, like I had a job and my job was to fund my band. Like all I wanted to do was my band. I just wanted to have money so I could have a good amp, a good guitar. And like, I was carrying on was like what I looked forward to doing. And it was right there. It's just like all that work that we put into the album. And before it's even out, it's like, you know, this, this, this can't happen. I can't even imagine. Yeah. It's crazy.
It's crazy. Right. It fucking sucked. And I was just like, well, I mean, Did he break right before that tour? I mean, yeah, because he called me in August, so I assume it happened in August or July. Actually, that's not true. I called him to confirm that tour, that tour that we were doing in October. I was like, all right, we got this tour. We're doing this tour. Can you do it? He's like, oh, got something to tell you. I'm on straight edge. So
you knew months before.
Yeah, I mean, I knew months before, and I didn't tell anybody. I called up Chris Wren and told him from Bridge Nine. I said, look, this is a situation. What did he say? And he's like, Oh no. Cause you got, you got to think about it. Like he's sitting on one. It's his first full length, right? That's crazy. It's his first full length. And he's lucky. His label is new at that. Well, it's not really new, but it might as well be. It's the first time people are finding out about it.
If it's the first full length, that's pretty new. Yeah. And you're putting, you know, it costs like, you know, anywhere from 10 to $20,000 to put out a full length. So he was, so him and I discussed, I was like, look, we're going to do this tour. Like we're just, I'm just not going to tell anybody. Yeah. And we're going to do this tour. So this record doesn't fucking tank. Like, so you don't lose your fucking ass on this. And we did that. And pretty much any momentum we had was gone.
Like, I don't know if people really even found out that Ryan wasn't straight edge or what the extent of that really was, but everybody pretty much knew.
But you're saying that on that tour, you were killing it, immersion
and so forth. No, I'm saying after the tour. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. After the tour. Because we played the record release show in Ojai on October 20th, 2001. It was with Over-Minded Body and some other bands. Some Still Believe and some other bands. And everybody at that time, I think, knew. But I think that
maybe if you wouldn't have played those shows, you wouldn't have pushed the album forward. in the right direction. Because obviously it recouped. Yeah, yeah. It recouped, yeah. He still presses it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It recouped, yeah. Which is amazing for you breaking up right away. It is, yeah. We're very fortunate. And maybe the record wouldn't have had that ascent if you wouldn't have played those big East Coast shows. And then those Ohio shows, people talk about them very fondly.
Yeah, you're right. It's definitely possible that that record could have gotten lost to time. Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, you would think not.
Because it's very good. But then that genre of music is so small, though. You know what I mean? True. I'm a firm believer. People talk about, you've got to be on the right label. You've got to be on the right label. And I'm not talking about carrying on. I'm just talking about overall. I'm a firm believer that if you're in a band and you make a good record, it might take a little bit longer for people to find out about it, but eventually people will find out about it.
I worry, dude. I mean, I think that it also has to be like, like now it's a little easier because the vinyls, well, the vinyls back, but dude, I mean, two of my favorite nineties records, like that powerhouse, no regrets. Like that's lost the time. Yeah. Because it never came out on vinyl. I mean, that's like in my top five of the nineties, like
easy. I think that was a little bit too thugging for like, for like maybe the, the youth crew crowd. Yeah.
Maybe a little too tough for the youth crowd and not tough enough for the tough guy crowd. I think that's what it was. It has that old school sound. But that's why it's fucking perfect music. It's an awesome record. I love that record. I still listen to it. It's insane. I think that if it was on vinyl, it would be held up a little more. I don't know. I'm trying to get Bert DeLasta to do it on vinyl. Is he doing a label? Yeah, Bert has a label. What's his label called? It's Funny You Should Ask.
Burt and Aaron from Built to Last got one of the best up-and-coming hardcore labels going right now. So I'm going to shout out to them, Safe Inside Records. They got the new Time and Pressure LP coming out. The Gateway City sound is pretty fucking awesome. If you're a fan of Carry On, Count Me Out, that aggressive modern hardcore is sick. The fucking current reigning champions out of St. Louis on that style. That comes out... They're thinking it's going to ship on August 12th, 2019.
So that is a pre-order right now. Or it might be out, depending on when this episode comes out. Also, they're doing the Bystander 12-inch EP, Where Did We Go Wrong? And that's a follow-up to their self-titled 7-inch on Safe Inside. And it features Greg from Trial and a bunch of other scene veterans. And it's super sick, like fast, melodic, hardcore, without being sorry. And... It's fucking rad. And I'm going to leave this episode with a song off that Bystander record.
It's the first one off it, Where Did We Go Wrong. And tune in next week for part two of the Todd Jones podcast.