27. Ryan Fredette (In Control)

Who played in Stand Your Ground with myself for a minute. And he played on the demo on the 7-inch. And we brought him in to interview Ryan and myself. Because it's like a third party. And it came out pretty good. I hope you guys enjoy. If you want to support the podcast, please like, rate, and review. And subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Please do that for me. That's an easy way to support the podcast for free.

And if you want to donate, you can go to patreon.com slash 185milesouth and become a monthly patron. And all my patrons are my heroes. I love all you guys. It is so appreciated. And also you can donate through PayPal. And that's paypal.me slash 185milesouth. And that's a way to do a one-way donation or a one-time donation. Big shout-out to Mike Maul. Love you. That's it. Let's do the show. This is 185 Miles South, the In Control Edition.

And like what some of my questions are. When I, when I was doing it before, it was just, it felt too masturbatory. Like, We're just stroking each other off. Yeah, like, tell me about this show that I fucking

They covered PMA by Unity. That's true. I could have confirmed that. I could have saved you from that one. Well, I actually thought he did run away, and he was just gone, because I was still involved in the show. I definitely, all I knew was that he just ran away. Yeah. You know, I mean... No, he went like this. He went... Not bad. We're fields of fire. And then threw the microphone down and then ran away. And so I assume that he just went right back into the van, you know?

That's what I assumed. And then it was just funnier in my head thinking about someone storming down three flights of stairs. Because that was such a shit load-in, you know? Trust me, I know. Because I'm the one that had to load all the goddamn half-stacks and eight-pipe tents up that goddamn three flights of stairs. It fucking hurt.

But that's the thing is, like, I didn't... remember somehow I even my head commingled the tumbleweed story and the bed story together and I forgot about the body slam but it was like and then I looked at Zach she knows like oh oh shit the tumbleweed story has nothing to do with the next year I wasn't even there let's move your mic like two inches back from the table right okay sorry there you go okay so let me bring everyone up to speed uh Welcome.

This is 185 Miles South, and this is the In Control podcast. I tried to interview Ryan before, but it was just too weird, like interviewing someone that I knew the answers to the stories. So we brought in our good friend Aaron Belshare, the legend from the Stand Your Ground demo. Legendary Stand Your Ground demo. Back when it was also with Max and Corey Young. Corey. And Corey Young. Yeah, dude. I think he was technically hardcore-y at the time. Hardcore-y. Hardcore-y? Yeah, it was hardcore-y.

It was before he was in Carry On. That's right. And Max with three X's. Yes. And Todd. And Tony. And Tony. Tony was in the... Oh, jeez. Tony Molino. So... Yeah, we're going to have Aaron interview us about the In Control stuff. But I'm going to lead a little bit because I wanted to do a Ryan Furnette podcast that a lot of people wanted to have me do. And that part of our previous pod was pretty good. But I don't know. Whatever the fuck ever. It's better to just redo everything.

So what I wanted to talk about was you getting into punk rock, which was you said you were like 12 or some shit and started going to the Mayfair Theater. Yep. I think at that time it was called Insomniac. May 5th Theater, Insomniac. The first show we went to, it was me and Max and Anthony Nigro, and we saw the Brandon Cruz band face-to-face before they were anything. They were just a band from Victorville, and we saw ads, ADZ. They were basically adolescents after adolescence.

Put that on a timeline for me of that show and your brother... kicking our asses in your bedroom listening to Listen to Ill Repute. That seriously was around the same time. Like the same time. Because Mike Pritchard came over to our house, and he played that Ill Repute tape. It was called What Happens Next, and the first song is called Oxnard. And my brother was like, dude, listen to this song. Listen to this song. It's like, Oxnard, Oxnard, not good!

And then from that moment, it was like, holy shit. This is fucking amazing. Like, we gotta do this. And that was around the same... It was in the wintertime, I remember... And that's when we went to that show. And the next couple months later, we went and saw Pennywise and who the fuck else? Oh, my gosh. Just some other rage horrors? No, it was... Like the Pennywise Ventura Fairground show? No, it was at the Insomniac. Oh. It was Pennywise, and I think it was Bad Religion. It was like...

That Pennywise show wasn't until 94 or 95. I thought it was 92. I thought it was 92. The one at the fairgrounds with Strife? No, not the fairgrounds. No, no, no. This was at the Mayfair Theater. You know, it doesn't exist anymore. And you're 12. I was 12, yeah. Yeah. And, okay, this is the funny story about that show. We sat there, me and Max and Anthony, and we were sitting in the front row.

And some fucking skinhead, full-on, full-blown, like, skin just comes up to me and goes, Are you going to slam? I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll slam, man, I'll slam. I'll do whatever you want. I'm sorry. I'll do it. I'll do it. And then, of course, Anthony was like, no. And Max was like, Sure, I guess. But I was terrified because, I mean, he's probably like five or six years older than me, but of course, you know, he's a fucking skinhead, so he's been in lots of fights.

Even if he wasn't racist, he's still been in lots of fights because if you're a skinhead, you have to fight no matter what. I mean, skinheads at that time were racist. Like there weren't like Ventura trad skins at that time. Yeah, they probably were. Now there's like Fred Perry skinheads in Ventura. Yeah. But it was just, that was funny the way he came up to me and he just, he leaned forward and his head came right to my face. He's like, are you going to slap? Do you read Sutter King?

I mean, it was a funny thing because you guys came back to school with that story. And that was like the first thing I knew of a show. We were waiting in lunch line together. It was like the first thing I knew of a punk rock show. And like, I could not be more terrified about going to a show. Yeah, but you went, like, you went to the armory and saw Good Riddance, right? Like, the next year? Yeah, something like that. Like, two years later or something like that.

Like, I still, like, I mean, but then, like, shows of people's houses and stuff like that, for sure.

Aaron, didn't you do a project in school and you had to go to a Nazi show and you had to like, and you had to like, like you had to recite something. No. So yeah. Yes. So I did my thesis project, which was like a kind of elective project you could do in school and and I was in anthropology and I was like, man, I want to find like a, you know, people like, you know, they go to rainforests or they, you know, study the ins and outs of the hippie movement or whatever.

You know, it's like, there's a lot of frogs and you're like, I'm going to do a knucklehead. Yeah. And I was like, I was like, I'm going to do some shit that like, I feel like I can get access to that will be fucking frightening and weird and something that I've always been curious about. And so I was like, I'm going to research, um, you know, racist music and the racist music scene and try to just access it and find what I find.

And like fast forward past like, you know, some interviews and message boards and buying CDs that I would never, think should ever be in anyone's CD collection ever. And I finally find a show. And the shows are hard to find. Because they're really secretive about the shows. It's like going to a rave in the 90s. You go to a place and they tell you about the other place. Because they actually want to keep it really secretive. Pure. It's like, what's that shit?

When you get a list, it's like, oh, you got to go find this and this. There were steps. So I'm going to go see what I perceive from the Blue-Eyed Devils, who are the biggest band in that scene. And I go out there, and it's out at the raceway in Paris Raceway. You know where that is? I thought it was at Styx in Orange County. No, it's east of Anaheim. Which might still be Orange County. I don't know why that'd be an instance.

But so we go and we go and we roll up to the show and I take one buddy with me and I'm like, I'm not trying to like, it would be unethical, you know, given anthropology or something to actually dress like that to pretend I'm a skinhead. So I just dressed kind of like just regular skinhead. You know, I've got short hair. I'm wearing like, you know, I'm wearing like a red polo shirt and like some washed out jeans. Like, you know, I'm like. You show up, you're like, I'm close. Convert me, brother.

It's like, you know, it's like nine o'clock at night and we walk up and sure enough, there's like, you know, there's like an armed security guard and there's this guy working the door and he's a fucking Nazi. This guy is a lot like a Nazi who would show up at a punk rock show here.

This guy's like, you know, like a Nazi from like, tv you know what i mean like like he's like you know like has the like the fucking vest on and he's fucking booted and he's just like you know everything it's just like is so gnarly and he's huge and and i roll up and i'm like hey he's like what do you guys want like oh you're here to see this show i want to slam yeah i was like are you want to slam and he uh And he just gives us a look up and down.

He's like, well, are you down for the white race? I was like, yeah. Among many others, yes. Amongst the races I'm down for, white is one. I'm really trying because I really want to be an anthropologist. I'm trying not to violate the rules of basically lying. And he's like... He's like, so what do you guys think of black people? What's that? And he doesn't use the term that I just said. He uses the shit word, the shitty word. He uses the real deal word. And I was like, oof.

And like, you know, it's not that many times I've heard that word used by someone like that maybe ever. You know, I've seen it. And like serious. Yeah, serious. And it wasn't like there wasn't like a, you know, there wasn't like a dangling R at the end. You know, it's like a real like. And, you know, and Dusty knows this. And, uh, Dusty knows that he knows that I can't like do this, you know, if I'm going to do this and do this for real. So he just steps in and he's like, we fucking hate him.

It's like, and I was like, and he's like, and I'm like, and I just sort of like nod my head. I'm like, yeah, totally. Like, and, uh, and he's like, and he leans over like right into me, you know, right into this skinny guy with a big nose. And he's like, what do you think about Jews?

twelve dollars jesus did you have to go home and like take a fucking bath it was i mean the crazy thing is it's like as you go in and i'm there to see the biggest band like you know the sort of the preeminent like screwdriver of our times and they kind of like sound like a you know like a low budget hate breed and yeah like there's like 50 people there jesus 50 people yeah it's like you know like a like the super wide open kind of pit and actually like everyone's really nice like i'm

legitimately like everyone's because they're not like in a place where they're gonna you know anyone is in conflict conflict with them they're like zeke hailing but they're all like arm and it's they're really really happy and nice like i'm buying well you already got vetted yeah you're in the door so you're like you're basically in the you know you're in the clubhouse And, uh, but holy shit, like the amount of like literature and music and stuff like that.

And like, and this feeling all night of just going like someone is going to, cause I'm trying to like sort of casually interview people I'm recording. And I'm like the feeling that I could be like found out or chased or whatever was like, you know, exactly what you expected to be. Yeah. It's like, you could, you know, like there was no point in the night where like, There was no point in the night where I felt comfortable about the size of my genitalia. There was just that shrinkage of ego.

It was inside you. Yeah, exactly. Did you go up to the blue-eyed devils and be like, hey, you guys are pretty good, but the bad brains are way better. Yeah, he thought about getting some other races in this band. Well, I told about, I told Adam Lentz, our bass player at the time, the next year that you had gone to that show. And Lentz, he was like. He's your shoe. Yeah, I know. He's like, dude, your first roadie saw the Blue-Eyed Devils live? I'm like, yeah.

He's like, holy fuck, that's fucking awesome. He was all stoked about it. I'm like, Lance, whatever, man, that's cool. Yeah. Well, you know, needless to say, I got an A. You do your research. So back to Ryan. So I wanted to say that, like, you're tipping your toes into punk, but your biggest passion of the time is surfing, right? You're surfing all the time. And you're, like, well, before you hit puberty, but you used to be, like, a small kid, right?

Like, you're a big, normal-sized dude now, but, like, you're a little kid and, like, just charging these waves, so you look like a little fucking ant. Yeah, I was like a little speck. Yeah. But I only did that because my brother coached me to do that. You know, I had my older brother and he used to tell me, he's like, if you don't go on this wave, I'm going to kick your ass. And he used to kick my ass all the time. In a good way. In a good older brother way.

But so I was forced to push myself over the ledge on these waves that you would never want to go on, on a small tiny board. And I did it because, you know, and once I figured out how to do it, it was like, okay, this comes easy. But when you grow up as a surfer, you grew up watching all these surf movies. Well, in 1999, This guy named Taylor Steele came out with this movie called Momentum, and all he had was punk rock music. That was it.

It was Pennywise, Bad Religion, and some other band called Sprung Monkey. They fucking suck balls. Anyways. San Diego represent. Sprung Monkey was a San Diego band? I think so. Were they? It's probably another thing I'm wrong about. They're not from fucking San Diego, you moron. I didn't like them anyways. Whatever. That explains why they're in those videos, because you'd watch the whole video, and whoever had the Sprung Monkey part, it was awful. It was like unlistenable music. Terrible.

Okay, but anyways. Shout out Spring Monkey. Yeah. Sorry, I told you guys you suck balls. Anyways, when you grow up in such a violent sport, nobody thinks serving is violent. It's actually very violent. It's very dangerous. You kind of get attracted to, I don't know, punk rock shows to me are actually scary and violent and very exciting. So it makes sense. They go hand in hand to me. And unpredictable. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen. Like a show in the ocean.

Yeah. It's like you don't know if you're going to get eaten by a shark or drown or a wave's going to break on your head when you have no breath. It's like it's fucking scary, man. And you know what? That's fucking entertaining. I like that. It's very – I don't know. I appreciate it a lot. So it came from there. Yeah. This is 1990. It was a long time ago. Okay. And so surfing is your main passion and you're – You start to get really good at it, and your brother is how many years older than you?

He's three and a half years older than me. Okay, so he starts going pro, like right around 17, 18? Yeah, he was pro like when he was 17. Yeah. He left. And you're like almost on his level. I want to say I was, but like I have my moments, but no, I wasn't as good as him. In a couple years, you'd be styling though. If I didn't break my fucking leg. That's what we're getting to. You're on your way. You're on your way. That's what we're getting to. You're on the same trajectory.

Yeah. Several years earlier, you're close to being equal, and you break your leg. Yeah. Okay. You break your leg the summer before freshman year? Yeah, right before I became a freshman in high school. Yeah, so 14 going off 15. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't just break my leg. I shattered my entire femur. Right. And to explain for people, surfing is – It's a finesse sport, right? Because if you're on the tour, not every competition is going to be big waves.

So a lot of times you've got to be very finesse in a two-foot wave. You have to be very good at what you do. Yeah, and fluid and so forth. So if you totally fuck your leg, you're a little more herky-jerky, and it's just not going to be there. You can still see it to this day when I go stand up for a wave. They can see me whip my leg around the board going... What a gimp. That's a point off. It's like, fuck, man. I mean, it became your defining thing. It's like, oh, there's Frenchie.

Yeah, there he is. Right out there. There's that leg. There's that leg. So a couple things with that, though. One, maybe it threw you into music a little more. And two, you talk about getting bullied as a freshman in high school. Big time. Yeah. And that's... The interesting thing about that is I always think that it's interesting how people that when they had something bad happen to them, when they turn it around and eventually you're a popular guy, you never like shit on people.

Well, I think it helped my personality a lot. I think all the bad things that happened to me, I will never let anybody bully anybody in front of me. I will never treat women wrong. I don't know. I think it worked for me because – You know, we went on tour. I met my wife. I got married. I'm a happy man. All the stuff that was bad in my life turned into actually more positive energy. Like I had more energy to do fun things. Yeah. Like you were with me at millions of shows. So was Aaron.

We used to fucking stage dive off 12 foot platforms into nobody. Yeah. And we did it because it was just fuck it. That was mainly you. That was mainly you. You did too. I staged over the whiskey once, and that was fucking terrifying. Yeah, because that's high, and the speakers are like three feet above the stage, and the stage is already like, you know, chest high. Yeah, so you're always into punk, but then it's like when we're like 16, 17 and stuff, we get into like...

Ignite is probably the band that draws us over to hardcore. They were like the California Orange County hardcore band. Because they're so good, and they're semi-local, so we can go see them all the time. Yeah, and they always played. Yeah, and they're good, and they're such a good entry band because if you like No Use for a Name and Lagwagon and that shit, it's like here's an upgraded, more serious version. Yeah. It's just better, you know?

Yeah, they're kind of a gateway drug in that way because they're still melodic, right? They had some of the best songs I've ever heard in my life. And they would play with bands that were from both sides of the world. Oh, yeah. They were playing with Powerhouse or Madball and then also playing with Mill and Cullen. And we saw them with the Aquabats ones. Damn. Yeah. We saw them play at the Showcase Theater in Corona, California with Visions of Disorder.

And, oh God, who was the other fucking metal? It was like, I'm talking like VOD, Ignite. It was at Fahrenheit 451 or something. And I think Hatebreed played that show too? No. No, Hatebreed was a different show. It was a different show. I can't remember. But still, seriously. You've seen it a million times now. That build doesn't make sense. No. You're playing VOD and Ignite. These bands don't sound anything alike. Yeah. But the show was fucking awesome.

The best one was that one at the living room. Oh, God, that was a blast. There was like 50 people there. It was all of us. Remember? And it was plenty. It was just enough people so everyone could stage dive. Yeah. Yeah, it was like two rows. You still had to stage dive diagonally. You couldn't go out. You had to go kind of parallel to the stage. That show was great because it was all of us. We all knew each other. There was no lame half circle pit where people kind of scared.

No, everybody packed up to the front stage. If you caught somebody, then you had the right to go and do a stage of yourself and everybody was going to catch you no matter what.

I never did that, but it was mostly because of social pressure, to be honest. We talked shit about it so much, but it was clearly the safest way to stage dive. Superman. Superman stage dive. I don't know. Stepping on someone's face versus rubbing your balls on them. Trust me, I rubbed my balls lots of times. I didn't want to. Foot first stage diving. Not cool. Which also none of us ever did. It's not cool. Ryan, do you remember I finally walked on heads the last holding on show?

Oh, and Twin Cities? Yeah. And the fucking Triple Rock? Yeah, because it was so packed up. That was like... If you remember during Modern Life is War and Holding On, it was packed up like 20 people. Oh, dude, there was like 10 rows. Yeah, like 10 rows minimum of dudes packed up. And I was like... Tonight's the Night. I don't recognize any of these motherfuckers. It was one of the best shows we ever played on tour, by the way. Oh, yeah, because holding on is what, Minnesota? Yeah, Minneapolis.

It's their hometown, and that's the Dillinger 4 bar. Oh, they played the Dillinger 4? They played that night, but they didn't play that show. But I got drunk with Patty from D4 before the show, and it was sick, dude. Anyway... I did a legit four steps of head walking, and it was ill. And I loved it. It was so good. I mean, four steps for the listeners out there. That's ten rows of people. Zach's not the small guy in the crowd. No, it was really packed up. It was great.

But, yeah, I never did it here because I didn't want to hurt my friends. So, anyway, my point is you have the right mentality for all that shit, and that is – why when my previous man broke up and I was out recruiting, I was like, I'm going to do a band and write everything because it's like an insurance policy. It's kind of like how Todd was talking about on the nails podcast with like, he's like my next band. I'm going to play guitar and sing.

Yeah. Because you know, heaven forbid people come and go. And, and I was just like, I'm going to get this fucking guy that understands how hardcore works. Right. Like, Like, even though you hadn't really sang in a band, you did Buttslam, like a cover band. Yeah, we used to play covers. Yeah, it was fun. I had no timing. I had no skill. I was never a singer. I was a frontman. And I was actually pretty good at being a frontman. But I was never a good singer. And you know that. My timing was shit.

I had to be coached by you on every record. Oh, you mean like ever in your singing career? Not just in Buttslam. yeah but I mean like I mean like obviously you guys know I mean you know I would say you became a great frontman because even the first year I don't know if you were a good frontman nah I used to put my hands on my hips yeah very hardcore-esque like hey that's something that went away in hardcore like remember the singer that would like put one arm behind his back.

What happened to that? To try to look tougher? And the dangling of the mic cord by the finger has also gone away. People just out there with a mic like it means nothing. People are scared of the mic cord now because didn't some dude choke himself to death? Choke himself? Or he choked to death? No, I think a dude was doing the mic wrap around the neck thing. Actually, I saw Death by Stereo play in Ventura Theater and he was swinging the mic... Like, crazy.

I don't know how the microphone didn't come off the cord, but he would bop, bop, and he would just nail people in the crowd. Jesus. Like, what the fuck, man? This is fucking dangerous. I would be upset by that. You're like, dude, I just want to sing along. I'm supporting you. I'm here supporting your band. I'm here because I like you. Why you got to hit me with the fucking mic?

Yeah. So we start in control, and in control is me on guitar, you singing, Tony Molino on drums, who came from the previous band. And we got Chris Holton on bass. Same reason. He was just like an excited kid about playing, and he wasn't that good yet or anything, but we just really liked his attitude. And then if we want to be 100% legit, Matt Zolkova practiced with us probably two or three practices. Yeah, I think so. How about that? We actually practiced in his garage. We did.

Our first practices were in his garage, and then it just didn't work out. I think that... He's actually a really nice kid, and it was so nice that, I mean, we kicked him out, right? Yeah. Basically. Just because I wasn't feeling it, but he never held it against me. No, he never complained. When we got the demo out, he was like, oh, this sounds great, man. Good job. I love it. It was more so just that he wanted to write songs, and I wasn't having it. Oh, Chris wanted to write songs.

Well, it's like, I mean, that band was going to be my vision, and, like, that sounds like you're an asshole saying that, but you have to have someone that has the vision, and, like, especially when you have someone coming in that you don't know how long they're going to be around and stuff, and they're just going to be a second guitarist, like, The whole reason why my previous band broke up was because someone else wrote the songs and then left the band. So we couldn't play those songs anymore.

So I don't want this guy writing these songs. And then it's like, oh, what if he writes the hit song and then leaves the band now as a cover band, right? No, but you were never an asshole. I know this is going to sound like a meathead saying, but you were actually kind of like a coach. I know that sounds really meathead and pretty stupid. But aren't most coaches assholes? Well, they kind of have to be to make the team great. Well, to make the vision for the thing come to life.

But what is the vision for In Control when you start? I don't know, to be honest with you. When we started, it was just we wanted to do a band. Again, because that summer, after Standing Around broke up, It was that weird summer where, like, all the shows were, like, dead as fuck, except for, like, what, the 97A show probably had 70 people. But then we did, like, we did Buried Alive, Reach the Sky. I remember that. All Out War. All Out War, yeah. It was, like, 20 people.

Yeah. You know, and even, like, I think it was before Standing Around Broke Up, but it was, like, that... It was on Easter, like, Blood for Blood, Powerhouse. There was probably only, like, 50 people there. That show was fun, though. No, that show was awesome, but, like... Why would that show have less than, like, a Voice of Defiance show? Like, Voice of Defiance and Black Opal.

Yeah. So it's like the scene was going down, and our goal was to have a band and put the scene up, and then eventually just put NARD back on the map, because it had been decades since, like, any of the NARD bands had toured the country. Right. In a city where we have one of the strongest punk rock scenes ever, since 1979, 1980... These shows that happen in this city should be like – there should be 300 or 400 kids every show. And that's not a lot of people.

But to us, to a punk rock venue, that's fucking killer. Fuck, if there's 60 people at a show and they're all into it, you've got a great show. Yeah, if you have the right room and 100 kids, your show is rocking and rolling. Yep. Now, do you think that like – people weren't going to shows when there was no local band playing there because the scene was dying or because the local bands were basically what was stimulating it? No, I just think that they just didn't know about it.

It's a little of both. Plus, it was so high school related that summer is going to be harder because you can't fly her at high school. But I think it does help to have a big local band be the focus, especially in that era when hardcore was so regional. And we are a small satellite scene that like we're not Los Angeles. We're not Orange County. We're not San Diego.

And these places that have like they just have legacy scenes built in where like there's always a passing of the torch to like a new band or genre within hardcore. Not at the time. You know, you have the glory years in like the mid 80s.

Yeah. stretching in to like the late 80s when it kind of like goes away and then you have like that early to mid 90s push um but a lot of that was a lot of it was like kind of separate from hardcore like what what we were doing right like it seems weird talking about that now because the scene is so united but like we weren't being our bands weren't being put on Yeah, well, there was a whole other piece of hardcore that had kind of nothing to do with us. Well, there wasn't really...

If you think back to, like, 1994, 1995, can you think of, like, an actual hardcore band from Oxnard? It was all just kind of, like, punk rock, new school, you know, like, kind of, like... It was, like, from gritty punk to, like, new school punk. There was a lot of bands. And a lot of great bands. Oh, dude, trust me. A lot of great bands, but they weren't...

You know, they would do, like, kind of the numbskull circuit of, like, going to Slow or going to Santa Cruz or maybe the Bay, maybe out to, like, Bakersfield. Maybe San Diego Corona. Yeah, you know, but. Showcase San Diego. Remember that place? But not going out and, like, playing everywhere. And, like, Nardcore is not dead, you know? And, like, a lot of them didn't put out records either. So, like, we wanted to do a full force band to put Nardcore back on the map.

Strawberries from my city. Shit, man. Joe really lucked out. It was like it just happened just like that. It's like, you know what? Have you not had our strawberries? Don't you realize what we produce for all you people? Yeah. And then like, you know, I think it worked because... The scene right now has never been firing harder. And that doesn't, it's not a direct correlation to us, but we were like kind of, we were a part of like a rebirth of it. You know, that continues through to today.

But like NARD right now is better than it's ever been. Better than like when we were doing shit. Because it's firing like every generation like is firing. From like the younger kids, the civil conflicts to the, the pushing thirties, like the dead heats to the us, like pushing forties to like the dudes, like, you know, the jokes, the pushing fifties and then to the fucking, the Tony's like, I hate to say it, but you know, he mid fifties pushing sixties, right?

It's like, he still rocks on stage, dude. It's like, it's still move, but that's, that's every generation firing and playing in bands. And like, yeah, that's it. It's just like, right, right now, in my opinion is like the holidays of, of this scene here. And it's, It would be the time for someone to step up and document it if they wanted to do it. You mean like have a podcast? No, to basically put out Nardcore. That's Patreon.com. Put out Nardcore 3 if we want to consider localism Nardcore 2.

Yeah. You know? I think you're right. Yeah. There's a lot of history here. There's a lot of bands that came from here. There's a lot of people that love still going to shows, love music. You know, it's... It's

So, I mean, the demo's out before the show, and the first show is sick. I don't remember anything about the first show, to be honest with you. I was probably so nervous. I don't think we made a mistake, but I remember I wasn't the front man that you wanted yet. The guy knew I had to get in the motions. Well, I was not very good at guitar, so I highly doubt that my head was up much. I don't think that I was paying attention to you that much. You're probably just looking at this.

I was looking at the crowd and what they were doing, and I'm going, dude, you guys, it's us. Get fucking crazy. We've earned this, all right? But I remember, I don't know. We earned it. It's our first show. Nah. We earned through a lot more shit than that. All the stage dives we did, all the fucking fights that we've been in, it was pretty gnarly.

That's an interesting thing, though, is, like, you know, some bands are kind of immediately, like, there's energy around them right when they come to be. And maybe that's because they're a former member of something. But, like, I don't know. In a lot of ways, people, like, talk about bands that don't earn stuff. But, like, you know, like, you guys built the scene around here. Like, you know... It's kind of like... Well, he was in fucking, what, three bands before that? We were in four. Mm-hmm.

Well, in poached. By all means, against all odds, in poached. In poached. I was going to say voice defiance, but yeah, in poached. They were the shit. No, by all means, it was Roger's band. By all means, you weren't in by all means? Mm-hmm. You weren't against all odds, and it doesn't matter. Yeah, but neither of those bands meant anything. But voice of defiance is standard ground. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter. It meant something to me. I liked you guys.

Yeah, especially if you saw us when we were at Two Piece. It was like, dude, with this death metal pedal, we don't need a bass player. I'm so fucking heavy. I guess what I'm trying to get at is people are excited. People around Oxnard are excited about In Control. You guys don't remember that first show being good? No. I remember being great. I remember we played first, and it was pretty crowded. Granted, there's probably only 200, 300 kids there.

But, dude, that's pretty fucking badass for your first show. I remember we were kind of nervous. They didn't really do anything for us, but we played. I don't think we made a mistake. I don't think we fucked up live. I don't know. I couldn't tell you. We definitely didn't fuck up big. Nothing that you'd stop for. Still got the picture. That first show. It had a... a USSA surf shirt on. And Fred Hammer, of course, slapped a big It's Alive sticker right over the NSSA surf logo.

So it's like, yeah, I'm wearing an It's Alive shirt. Okay, cool. Like, fucking bullshit. I mean, what does that sound like for you, dude? Like, this is the first time you sing in a band with, like, your own words. You're singing. You're on stage. They weren't his words yet. I like that one lyric on the demo that you wrote. Be the first to say I'm sorry. Be the last to start a fight. That's a good lyric. That's a healthy contribution. That's the only lyric I wrote that he likes. This is shit.

This is shit. I wasn't there to write music. I was there to I was there to be the front man. Yeah. That was my job. Yeah. You know, I had to be scary and violent and cut myself. I mean, fuck man. I did fucking blade jobs on stage. I mean, professional wrestlers do that. You know, that's the only people who do that.

We're going to go everywhere. Yeah. Well, but, but, but we had like the, you know, we took the name from Stalag. We took the logo from Stalag. Yeah. And it's like, we're fully going in on this Nard shit, you know? And, and, In our heads, this band was going to last, right? And it did. I mean, four years is a nice run for a hardcore band. Four years. It's almost five years. Yeah, OK. Yeah, it's five years. But that last year, we barely did anything.

But yeah, two LPs in five years and four US tours and a bunch of runs to Texas and up the West. No, it was fine. We played in cantaloupes.

British Columbia and the kids were chanting our name like these kids that probably only seen like 20 punk shows maybe in their life were fucking chanting our name because they were just stoked for us to be there and it was like fuck man that's one of the best shows we ever played yeah it was a very young crowd and it was like we played that one like the Iron Maiden part from a song on another year like and they're all like and they're all clapping they were like like chanting like yeah fuck

clapping along and shit and then that's like second US tour No, that was West Coast John. Yeah, we just went up. Maybe back it out then for a second. The timeline between you guys putting out a demo and going on a first tour, a lot happens pretty fast. Well, we had a 7-inch out after the demo, of course. Yeah, we went and recorded probably like four months later for the 7-inch. And not that long. And the sound we honed in a little bit. The demo is pretty intricate.

And I don't really know... what I was going for on either really. Um, it's just songwriting, but the demo of those songs are definitely a lot more intricate and the seven inches, like more straightforward, more like sing along friendly. The seven inch comes out and we played a lot of fucking shows that year. Yeah. Um, partly because we'd already made friends in San Diego and San Diego had the shake FA and the shake FA was firing.

And, um, Spencer had already established himself as the booker down there. So we had a friendly guy down there that was booking us. Also, the PCH was firing full stop. So it was easy for us to go out of town because we had two really friendly clubs for us. They wanted to book us, and they knew us because we'd been going to shows for years. Like I said, the work we put in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we were friends with these people, and all you have to do is be a competent band, and they're going to book you. And we were competent. And we played, I don't know, on the list, but we played a shit... And also Headline Records. Headline, yeah. We played there a shit ton. I never enjoyed a show there. Never enjoyed playing or never enjoying going? I enjoyed going. We had a good show there. We had a pretty good show there.

I'm sure we had a good show there, but for me, playing on the floor with the lights on is always kind of weird. I'd rather... kill the lights and buy a couple fucking... A couple construction lights. Yeah, buy a couple construction lights, do something. Just because when the lights are on, I don't know, the band doesn't get into it as much and the kids as much. You're a little more timid. And me too. I wouldn't participate as much with the lights on when I'm going to see a band.

It's just not the same. There's something about the vibe of the lights going down and a band comes out and they play a song. Think about... Okay, going back to what we were talking about before, like thinking about seeing Ignite like one of the first times and they fucking – you're at some club and they start playing the fucking Notes of Asher turn, like the bass. It's like, dude, like – There's fucking rules.

Yeah. Like you just – you feel this like – this feeling inside you and it's like I'm going to fucking – go nuts. Like, you know, like who's like, you're looking around for whose shoulders are going to jump on. Well, that's the interesting thing too, is cause like you guys, I think embrace that a lot, which was like the power of the intro. Yeah. Like not a lot of bands, your contemporaries really were doing intros. Yeah. I don't, I don't know like what that is.

It's, it's that we loved ignite and we loved one life crew for sure. And those are two bands that have intros. Yeah. I don't know who else does. Oh, and Leeway. Leeway had a great intro. But we were definitely all pretty obsessed with the One Life Crew intro. The One Life Crew intro is very good. But yeah, we wrote that intro last minute. So we do the 7-inch. We do a year of local shows. At the time, Over My Body was already on Indecision Records.

And... I worked at Starbucks for a year, and I was still living at home. I didn't have really any bills except for maybe my cell phone. And so I was able to save up a bunch of money. I saved a few grand. $3,800. Okay, so $3,800. And so we were just going to record an LP and put it out because that's the next logical step of – I don't know. That's kind of like what hardcore bands did then, right? You do a demo, then you do a 7-inch, then you do LP. Yeah. It's like that's the order you do it in.

Your LP typically sucks when you go away. Your LP bombs and you fucking – I thought it was the best record of the year personally. Well, that's the thing. That's an interesting segue because, I mean, me personally, this is like the first time I hear this – LP is in the van when we're literally leaving for tour. I like your band a lot, but then your LP is something that's significantly different. But the LP didn't come out until... Remember we put out the demo, then the 7-inch?

Then we went on tour, and the LP was going to come out. So we had it on tape. No, I know it's not out. We had it on tape. We're listening to it in the van. But let me get to the LP. Okay, so... We were going to put it out ourselves, but then Daniel sent from over my body. They were already on indecision. He kept telling me, go talk to Dave. Go talk to Dave. And it's like, how fucking awkward is that? I don't know if I'd talk to Dave Mandel more than three times in my life. Just kind of like, hi.

I don't know. What the fuck? And so it was so awkward that someone's goading me. And so I basically called him and just said, hey, uh... can I come over or some shit? And it was like, it's like the most fucking awkward thing I've ever had to do in my life, you know? And, but I mean, obviously he probably knew what it was about. Right. And so I went and talked to him and like, I already had like, I, I have this giant in control tramp stamp, you know, all the way across my back, you know?

And I was like, I, I went to him and I talked to him if I remember this right. And I'm going to get Dave on here and maybe he remembers, um, But he probably doesn't. This is probably way more important to me than him. He's like, I don't fucking remember. I don't give a shit. They already recorded this. He's like, I put out In Control records? I know. It's like, fuck. I know. We were a drain, huh? But anyway, I just remember telling him, I saved up all this money. I'm going to put out our LP.

So it's not going to break my heart if you don't do it. But if you put out our LP, I promise you... I will spend all the money that I saved on the LP to purchase a van. And we're committed to going on tour. And we're not going to break up because I have this giant fucking tramp stamp that says in control. And he was on board. And so we went and we recorded another year at Double Time Studios in El Cajon, California. El Cajon, California. Yeah. And I don't even remember why.

I think maybe over my body recorded there. I know Unbroken recorded there. Todd Jones recorded there. Is this with Paul Minor or is it not? No. No, it wasn't Paul Minor yet. No. This was the year before. But I remember Todd Bodybag specifically said, he's like, go to Double Time. You guys will fucking love it. You'll get your money's worth. I think Carry On did. Yeah, because they didn't roll with the punches. I think they did it there. And so we're like, okay, fine, sure.

And we didn't really think twice about it. Sure, let's go. We stayed at Daniel Sands' house that night before we went. And we, you know, of course, we were drinking 40s. And I think I spilled like 40 over Daniel's carpet. No, this is funny, though, because I went out because I was like, can we drink beer? He was like kind of bummed. Like, oh, man. I was like, come on, dude. You know what you're in for. You're straight in school. Come on. And so I went out and I got those fucking.

You know what you're in for. I got those. Don't act like that. I got those country club 40s because they have the three X's on them. It's like the fucking shittiest, worst beer. It's like, see, dude.

be compromised fucking straight edge beer and of course of course my luck I spill the beer over his carpet he's fucking pissed but it's the favorite beer of the English straight edge man well yeah I mean of course we woke up the next morning I'm like alright Zach I was still kind of asleep I'm like Zach we gotta get on the 10 we gotta get on the 8 I'm like no we gotta get on the 10 we gotta go east to El Cajon he's like Ryan we're in San Diego the 8 runs east and south I'm kind of going Oh,

yeah. Sorry. Still kind of asleep. That's the weirdest thing to remember. You don't remember that at all? No. So we record the record over, like, we did it in two days, I think. Three days. Three days? Yeah, two consecutive days, and then the third day was the day after. We had a day off. I don't know why. If you look at the record, it says, like, July 21st, 23rd, and 24th or something. I don't know. But if you see it, you'll notice. It was in three days.

Okay, so we recorded in three days, and then, yeah, and I think that we must have recorded right before we went on tour, because if you're saying we have the tape of it before we went on tour, but we didn't have that out. But we also did a CD on six weeks that we recorded with Armo of Night Demon fame, and that CD came out on six weeks, which was the demo on the 7-inch re-recorded, which was weird, right? Jeff and Athena. Was it Jeff Six Weeks? Yeah, Jeff and Athena from Six Weeks.

Yeah, that's right, yeah. It was just the demo and the 7-inch put together. And why re-record that? I don't know. I think that we... It's weird because I actually really like how the 7-inch sounds. So maybe I didn't like it then. But definitely the demo recording is weird. Because we're like... There's no distortion on the guitar. It sounds like my shit is... I didn't know anything about playing guitar.

And like... you're with people in a studio and they're like, I don't know, they care about tone and shit. And it's like, I don't fucking want tone. I just want to be heavy. But I don't know how they set my guitar, but it literally sounds like fucking minor threat distortion. And we're trying to play these songs that should be sounding heavy. And so I definitely wanted to re-record that, but it didn't get any better. And re-recording anything is stupid. It never works out.

It's actually kind of funny that you say that, because I remember... When we went to Double Time Studios in El Cajon, the guy that was recording us, he was like, okay, what do you guys want to sound like? And Zach's like, go to the van, get the One Life Crew record, and let him listen to that. But I didn't have it. So what I had was I had Hate, Preach, Satisfaction, and Death Desire. I'm like, look, man, this is as close as I can get. Zach's like, all right, let's do it.

So he listened to it for like two songs. He goes, okay, I got it. All right. Before Breaking the Curse? No, no, no. This was... For another year. For another year. Oh, for another year. Yeah, for another year. But I wanted to play him the One Life Crew record, Crime and Society, but we didn't have it. Yeah. So I was like, fuck, dude. I mean... But the record does sound sick. It doesn't sound... Hatebreed sick, but it sounds pretty fucking amazing. It sounds... Compared to everything before it?

Totally, but it's also... It's weird. The drums sound weird. It sounds really dated to me. But it does sound... It's dark in a way that I like, kind of. Do you pick that up at all? It sounds different. It's hard for me to find another record and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the time when everyone was doing that because it sounds really different. I don't mean the songs, we can get into that, but the recording is way different.

Yeah, it kind of falls into, I don't know, I love that Outspoken record so much and that sounds kind of different than everything else. Love that record. It's a little spacey sounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. For hardcore that's so interface, In Control is not an interface record. It's weird. But some of the songs were. But I don't know. That recording is fucking wonky and weird. I bowl every Tuesday.

You know, we have every week where if your team number is that weak, you get to play whatever music you want, and everybody has to listen to it. And it wasn't our week. Some other guy had it, and he played three in control songs. I'm like, yes, we made it. We fucking made it. We made it. We crossed over in the jock culture. Yeah. Buena Lanes has claimed in control. No, no, it was Cambodia. We don't bowl in Ventura. We bowl in Cameroon.

But it was just cool, because every week, any teen could try to catch up over here. Yeah, I'm trying to catch up. I learned earlier today that the new nickname for Camarillo is Cambodia. I never say Camarillo anymore. I literally asked Ryan, I was like, dude, what street do you live on? Cambodia. He's like, Cambodia. I'm like, California Street? What are we talking about? Where the fuck is that? Well, I mean, congratulations on... Reaching.

No, it was just a good feeling because they played the song What Is Right and I'm going, holy fuck. And I kind of step back and I look at Dave and Nick and I'm like, this is us. Also, that's fucking deep in the cut. That was the first song of the second side. That was our opus. I'm a What Is Right fan. Never heard it live. I don't think ever. Nick kind of looked at me and he's like, look, Ryan. Nobody gives a fuck.

So that was good that we went with another band. And played. Yeah. It was quite convenient, actually. Even though they never let us stay in all their crash pads. That's true. That was rough. That's... We slept in the van. Every night. Almost every single night. And... Yeah, I don't know. Because... People don't understand this is like before high speed internet. So it's like you're not really like getting to chat it up with like the people of the area, you know, like, I don't know.

We went out with like. We'd print all our shit before we went. Yeah, we printed MapQuest directions every night. Yeah, we did MapQuest. We had our Atlas, which I still have, by the way. We had both. And I had to study all the routes. Like, to get to Kirksville, Missouri, I had to figure out, like, okay, guys, we can go this way or we can go this way. We had MapQuest in 01, though, didn't we? Yeah, no, I printed the MapQuest directions on my sister's computer. Yeah, I think we did.

But we used the Atlas predominantly. He's like, look, I want you to write all this shit down. And I actually looked at the map of the country, and I was like, okay. Going from this city to this city. Well, we had to... Okay, so I believe that we always toured after MapQuest was around. And we would print stuff out. But this was like MapQuest in its infancy. Because there were places that weren't mapped. So I'm sure that if we went to Kirksville, Kirksville probably was not mapped yet.

No. Because I remember... Right, right. So you just had the freeways that probably went... But guaranteed... Oxnard to Las Vegas, you could do a MapQuest. Yeah. To get to MGM. To get to a hotel. I mean, it's also not pre-cell phone, but it's pre-most regular dudes. It's pre-we had a cell

I looked at it once we were there. I was like, oh, it's not actually taking us. It took us to Tachipi. It got us to Tachipi, but it just took us to city center. And then it's like, what the fuck? Now we got to go call on a pay phone and hope his mom picks up. Was that the gig that we played? With Movie Life or... I think it was that garage show, yeah, because we only played there once.

Remember, there was that lady with the little dog, and I ran as fast as I could, and that dog was, like, biting my... I was like... That dog was, like, biting my heels the entire time. We had everybody roll it after that. It was fucking great. I mean, another thing happens on that tour, though, because there's a kind of multi-tour odyssey that starts on that tour.

Well, we should talk about, like, how... gnarly the first few shows were because like you're you're setting off across the country for your first time ever you're in a van our van like we'd have the van for a few months and it was just it was having problems overheating so what we were doing is we were we drove through the night we drive through the night all the time and have the heater on so like we left the night before to go to vegas so we drive through the night because if people don't know

there's like coming from Oxnard to Vegas there's like two really big hills you have to go over and like you know in the summertime out there in the desert it can be over 100 degrees easily so like if you're going to overheat anywhere it's going to be on one of those big ass hills on the way to Vegas so we went through the night our first show was in Las Vegas and it was like We were like looking at the map and it's like, well, there goes Vegas. It's like behind us.

And we go and we show up because we're early as fuck. And it was like up in these hills above Vegas. It was in a desert outside the city. It's in the middle of the desert. There's a picture that I still have right now that I always look at. It's me, Zach, and Robert that you took. And it's 115 degrees outside. Sun's up in the sky. And we're all just kind of like this. We look so roadburned, and we've been on tour for 24 hours. Is this our first show? We haven't even played a show yet.

I remember, like, it was, like, 110 degrees, and Robert and I were splitting, like, a Safeway chicken, like, out in the middle of the desert. And I feel like I've been on tour for, like, my whole life. And we're also out in the desert, where it's, like, the desert where you, like, bury your body is kind of desert. Yeah, pretty much. It's like a concrete slab. And it's where... Dudes go to party. Because remember, there was all those bottles. Yeah, and I played barefoot that night.

That were unbroken. There was all these unbroken beer bottles, which was really fun because we had hours to kill. And we were just breaking every single... We had a baseball bat where we were pitching the bottles, remember? And they were just disintegrating. You had to close your eyes before you hit the bottle because you didn't want to get the glass in your eyes.

Yeah, and then these people show up and we think that... maybe this is just a meeting point and like they got like a fucking clubhouse somewhere you know like and they're like we're like hey so where are we playing they're like right there and it's like a fucking pile of broken glass broken glass with a little concrete enclave it's fucking great so we play that night and there was actually a fair amount of people there oh there's a lot of people there it was like a hundred people there yeah at

least it was a decent show it was killer yeah and then the next day though we drive through the night to Denver to Denver Colorado to play a junkyard a junkyard where They had no money to pay us. But so the guys that like live there was like, all right, I don't got any money to pay you guys, but check this out. I'm going to siphon some gas. We're going to give you some gas. And so he puts a tube through some like old used cars and hold on. The fuse are making me really dizzy.

He wouldn't try to siphon gas on like five cars. I'm like, dude, it's okay. And he had to like, he had to sit down. Like he was loopy and we're like, dude, You tried your best. You gave it a shot, man. That's fucking cool. And then there were these dudes at that show that were talking about they do gutter fishing. It was a thing. I just overheard them. I was like, yeah, I was fishing in the gutter the other day and caught a... Like, he caught something that was cool.

Like, I got a new Walkman or something. Like, I think if I dry it out enough, it'll work. You know? Like, some shit. Like, literally, because it just rained, like, the week before, and the dude fishes in the gutter to see what comes along. You know? It was like, oh, shit. And then I think we drive to Kirksville, Missouri. Yeah, the third show was in Kirksville. Because then right after that, we went to Iowa.

The first year? No, that was... Oh, yeah. No, I was there. You were there when the kid goes, in control kicks butt. Do you remember that? I mean, the thing is... It's on the TVD. Every night of that tour, we were trying to find some water to go in because we couldn't shower. And it was a little bit hot, it turns out, in other parts of the country that aren't oxygen. A little bit? I think we swam the first eight days. Yeah, because we were in rightful Colorado.

Remember we went in that lake and it was freezing cold and we still jumped in? It's like, fuck it. I don't care. Yeah, because I think we made it all the way. When we were in Chicago, we still swam. And I think that our streak hadn't been broken yet. And Chicago, that would end up around that eighth day. And then I feel like after that, then we didn't get to swim every day. Well, Chicago, we went to Lake Michigan. That's right. Yeah, and we got poked by the lifeguards. I was literally bathing.

I literally had a bar of soap. You remember when I took the water and all the trash came up? I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, we went in to Lake Michigan, and we had bars of soap, and we're bathing ourselves in the lake. In Lake Michigan? Well, it looked super clean and pristine. I'm like, there's a lifeguard, and they have these beaches and shit.

And then we're moving our feet around and shit, and all these cigarette butts are coming up and like fucking trash and condoms and fucking it's all good it's all good i got a bar of antibacterial soap the lifeguard actually left her beach and ran over to us like guys really you can't be here you have to go over there and pay six dollars to go to the beach i'm like lady i'm from fucking southern california all right Actually, I'm from Central California.

I don't need to pay you $6 to go to fucking water. I could swim across this goddamn lake. First off, we're bathing in this fucking lake. Do you think we have money? I might not have your $6. We're on $12 per diem. I think one day I actually ate a bag of peanuts, and that was it. I had one bag of peanuts, and I ate that for the entire day. And that was it. I maybe had a soda. I don't know. But, Ryan, you eating a bag of peanuts is a meal since you eat the shell, too. Of course.

Doesn't everybody eat the shell? Everyone eats the shell. You eat the shells of peanuts? Yeah. Right now, you do that. Oh, yeah. You catch a foul ball, and you're eating peanuts. The peanut guy knows me. Shell guy. There's the shell guy. That's why he knows you. Exactly. The shell is edible. It's edible. You can eat it. Yeah, tree bark is edible if you swallow it. No, tree barks don't taste good. The shells taste good. It's covered in salt. Yes, it's covered in salt. It's fucking good, man.

I mean, because most of Zach's listeners out there, they suck on the shell. because it's full of delicious salt. And they open it with the teeth of their hands. Everybody thinks that I'm insane. I actually think I'm the most sane person on this earth. I think everybody else is fucking crazy. You might just be ahead of the curve. That's what it is. You're the harbinger of the future where we're all struggling to find peanut protein. We're going to take a break.

What do you have in that canteen from the future? This canteen from the future is full of ground-up peanut shells. I recently learned that they're high in protein and they help you catch foul balls. I think our next gig after Chicago was Twin Cities, St. Paul. Not Minneapolis, Twin Cities, Minnesota. That would have been before that. Because we cut up from... Oh, it was in Iowa. No. Yeah, we cut up from Kirksville and then went to Minneapolis, St. Paul. We played St. Paul in the basement.

But then we would have gone to Chicago after that. Okay, so that was our fourth show or fifth show? Something like that. And that was a sick basement show with Tear It Up and shit. And I got so many mosquito bites that night, it looked like I had a disease. Dude, I did a stage dive on a grass lawn, and the blades of grass cut my fucking skin apart. We were in those sprinklers. Yeah, remember? I totally remember that. I was like, dude, I'm fucking bleeding from... grass and sprinkler heads.

What the fuck? But we had to do it because it was hot and we needed to get wet. It was like every chance we could, we'd get in water. I mean, we got to Ypsilanti and we started playing with snowballs and people were like, dude, what are you guys doing? Like, what are you doing? It's freezing outside. Fuck you. I want those snowballs. Dude, it's every, like that tour was so hot constantly. And you wake up in the van with no relief and you wake up in the van and with Zach's four-stripe Adidas.

They were just chilling. Not a sock was worn the entire summer. We finally get to Michigan. I spent all my money on a van. I couldn't afford Adidas anymore. I got the best story. Actually, I was sleeping in the van next to Zach. We were sardines, so his feet were there and my head was here. And I remember I turned around just to shift because it was so miserable. And I put my nose right in his Adidas

So you're right with the heat being relentless on that tour. And... That tour was booked, I think, by Bedge and Jesse. I think primarily Jesse. Okay, so Bedge and Jesse. So anyway, I just remember that. So they did a good job in their order. No, they didn't because we went back and forth.

Remember on the East Coast, we'd be like, we're playing like Virginia and now we're playing like... up and then we're playing back down in dc and it's like we were all over the fucking place once we hit the east coast seaboard yeah but but their path no the path going out was fine and coming back was even though we skipped four fucking states when we left uh georgia we went right through we didn't play yeah we didn't play that many shows on the way back yeah we just kind of came through this

yeah it was like a big b line it was like a long b line out And a long beeline back. Actually, that's funny because that was... Because we played North Carolina and then we didn't play a show until Texas. We played Raleigh and that's when Robert picked Bedge up and body slammed him. And we didn't see Bedge again until we played. You body slammed him, fool. Yeah. What the... You think Robert

Three stories up, by the way. Three stories up. The most horrific load-in of that tour, maybe all time. Yeah. And Fields of Fire is playing. I already told this story on another podcast. Oh, you did? Yeah. See, we haven't seen it. We should have listened to the Fred one before this. You got to listen to the Fred one. Stay up to date. Fred was actually there. Stay up to date and mush that Patreon button. You should ask. But the funny thing is we didn't see him again for their two days.

I want to hear from Ryan's first person perspective. Oh, yeah. Robert body slammed bad. It was crazy. You know what I'm talking about. You know where I was coming from. What I was trying to say, though, is like, The heat being so bad and unrelenting like you talk about is fucking insane because we slept in the van every night except for probably four or five nights. And it was a short tour. It was three and a half weeks. Three and a half weeks. Right? Maybe a tiny bit over three weeks.

It might have been like three weeks in a day. But that is so long to not have a consistent shower. And that is way hotter than any of us are used to. We're from Oxnard. And we have... perfect fucking weather in Oxnard. Like, absolutely perfect. Like, hot is just wear a tank top. Cold, just put on a hoodie. You know, like, it's perfect. Every time we stopped at a gas station... Not only did I take a whore bath in the sink, I would take Tony's shirts and I would scrub them with soap

And that was in my head that never again am I going to book a tour in August. It's stupid. And the next year we went in our... In 2002 – It was the month of June. But our tour is based around playing posi numbers. Yeah. Because it was in 2002. So we had to book it around something. But in 2003, we went on two tours. Yeah. And that was like fully me in control and not having to book around anything. And if you remember, we went in April and we went in like – September.

Well, late September and October. Yep. And it's like – that's like – the fucking perfect touring months. It's like April and October. It's like the weather is the best it can be across the country. So that's what I learned from the first tour, other than that Fields of Fire is a terrible band. I'm just joking. I really do love the first 7-inch. I never want you to buy it. It's fucking good. And you guys were playing a lot with them locally at the time. Yeah, and they were good.

I actually like that style. I think that they should get more props. If you like Betrayed, you should like Fields of Fire a lot. I think those two are very similar. They're very melodic and... I don't know. They were just like a straightforward melodic hardcore band. Both melodic and both just have a lot to say. Yeah, the vibe, the message is similar. They're well thought out songs. Like you're not – Bedge was not trying to write filler songs. He was like, I got six songs.

I'm going to try to have six good topics. And I appreciate that. It's just they had a crash pad every fucking night and they wouldn't even let us like – park the van in the fucking driveway. Okay. So, so like if they have to, if they have to be like whipping boys for some jokes, then so be it. You know, I would never like remember that too. No, because we're like, we're staying. Okay. It's fucking terrifying.

If you think about it, like we were 20 and 21 and we're in these places in the country we'd never been before. And you want to like get sleep and, So you want it to be like dark, but you want to stay safe. So you want to be somewhere like kind of populated, but then you want to fly under the radar. So you don't want it to be populated. And this is like, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. You're just parking the van in a fucking parking lot and hope you don't get fucked with.

Yeah. You know, like Walmart parking lot situations and stuff like that. When really it's like, you're the easiest motherfuckers to rob. Yeah. You know, you're a bunch of fucking white kids that are carrying around a lot of money, you know, and you're like, You're in neighborhoods you don't know. You don't understand. You don't know where you are. Dude, we played a gig in Hyattsville, Maryland. You remember this. We played to one guy. And that guy that we played to was the promoter of the show.

The other people in the room was Fields of Fire. And Zach got lost that night with Robert. The show in El Paso was the same thing. There was literally no one there but the actual band. That was Las Cruces. But they fed us. It was El Paso. Was it El Paso? Yeah, it was El Paso. I thought it was Las Cruces. No, it was El Paso. And that club was cool, and they fed us. They fed us veggie burgers. Yeah. But yeah, and they paid us eight bucks. It's like, you can't round up. Just give us a 10 spot.

You know? But yeah, anyway. But like I was saying, like, okay, every night, I remember that night after that Hyattsville gig, after we found you and Robert, or you guys found your way back, I had to sleep – Across the two front seats of the van. And I used our two bags of t-shirts they way to sell. I used that as a back support. So I was pouring sweat on all of our merch. I was just sitting there going like, this is fucking miserable. Like, it's 4 o'clock in the morning.

I got all the windows down. It's 101 degrees outside and it's 99% humidity. This is fucking miserable. And... This is uncomfortable, to sleep across two front seats of a goddamn fucking Dodge Ram van. Oh, yeah. We ought to rotate into the front seats, but I think you did it the most. I think I did the most, but there was a couple times where you actually slept on top of them. remember because we had the amps on the side and you had to sleep on top of there it's like

We just played more local shows, I think. Can we tap into just the, I don't want to harp on this tour too long, but probably one of the best and worst days of that tour were back-to-back, if you think about Plattsburgh, New York. Oh, some things we don't talk about, dude. Some things we don't say. Yeah. Some questions you don't ask. Some questions you don't ask. That was actually a pretty good show. That really was. Yeah. And I remember before we started playing, Graham was like, hey.

That was a decent show and it was a fun day. Yeah, it was a fun day. Actually, that day was a blast. I have lots of pictures from that day. Jumping

And we're just having fun jumping off the bridge. And Chris Grande from Fields of Fire and Annihilation Time He actually, at the time, I don't know if he can now, but he couldn't swim. And that was such a ballsy move. Do you remember that? He's like, I want to jump. And we're like, oh, shit. Chris is going to jump, and he can't even swim. So I told him, I was like, if you jump in, we'll have a circle, and I will get you. I will get you, and I'll get you on my back, and I'll swim you out of here.

And I did. Remember when we formed a circle around him? I did. We were right next to him, and Zach actually carried him, and I was holding his feet. Yeah. That's so ballsy that he fucking did it. It's like, dude, if you're here, you got to do it. Come on, man. Because it was a perfect fun jump. It was probably like 30, 35 feet and no possibility of injury. The top of it was 79 feet, and that was fucking scary. Yeah, but just as a normal jump. That backwards you do jumped off the top.

That was insane. I know. That's like almost. I hung on the bottom. That really happened, huh? That's like a thing where I can't remember if it was a dream or not. I remember. He walked up the side of it like it was nothing and did it. Yeah. But I feel like, did that guy, he didn't go all the way off the top, did he? All the way off the top. Okay, because I remember it then like I had a fucking weird dream about it. It was like some like native dude. He was native to the area for sure.

But I'm just saying like I remember it being like a story like, oh, yeah, then. You know, so-and-so just showed up and walked right on the top and did a swan dive and left. Well, the story the year before was he actually went up there with a six-pack of beer, drank all six beers, and then jumped. But when we were there, he just fucking... I mean, in my head, he was wearing jeans, too. Does that check out? Sounds about right.

I have a picture of... all jumping off the bridge but then I have a picture of me climbing up the metal bro works and I get up like I'm like this laughing and then I am hanging I have another picture and then I have a picture of me mid-flight and then there's another picture of me in the water going yeah like because I didn't hurt anything I didn't get hurt yeah 79 feet that's pretty fucking high that's so high you can really hurt yourself but the way that I flung myself out yeah I was just kind

of I don't know I just I just nailed the jump I nailed the landing and I was like, ah, no big deal. If I did that now, I'd probably crack my sternum, crack my tailbone, break three ribs, maybe puncture a lung. You'd just turn into a piece of dust. Because your luck is bad or because your body is old? I've beat the shit out of my body in the past 10, 15 years. Pretty bad. So, Aaron, was that a bad day or a good day? That's a great day. That was a great day.

Okay, what's the worst one that's next to it? What's that? Because you're like, oh, it's crazy. Like one of the best days and the worst days is back to back. Well, there's a part that you're not wanting to talk about, so we're not going to talk about it, right? We can talk about that. We can talk about the first tour part. Yeah, we can talk about the first tour part. Yeah, well, it's just the story has been told. Just read MRR.

Zach does an interview the next year through this guy who's working for Maxim Rock and Roll. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. They do the whole interview. It's about 45 minutes. I'm sitting right there. I'm listening to every single word. Zach goes, and by the way, fuck Maxim Rock and Roll. And I'm like, why? He's like, that's my name. That's my name. They publish in that magazine that 50,000 people read. I don't know if it was 50. It was probably like 20.

But none of them took fucking responsibility. Because every time that we played Gilman, there was people from there. And I'd always ask them, who fucking let this letter get printed? And it'd be all, oh, no, no, no, no. It's like, dude, fuck you. That's some bullshit. They didn't print that interview that you gave, too. Yeah, but they're not going to print every interview. Yeah, but that was a pretty good interview.

It's like, especially if somebody told me to go fuck myself, I'd be like, all right, I can respect that. I want to fucking let everybody read this. Do you guys actually want to give context to the story or do you want to just move on? No, I want to move on. Okay. So that tour ends. I could talk about it for like two days straight. It's not a bad story. If you pound that Patreon button, we can tell the story. Yeah, exactly. 185 miles south premium. The pay-per-view version. Moving on.

Check it out on Zach's premium snap. So we get back and we just play more shows, I think. And we'd probably jump right into... I think... Well, no, the truth is... I think we... No, at the end of the first tour, we got a show that got canceled, right? Yeah. We were playing Phoenix. That is the perfect sign of how gnarly the tour was, actually, is the feeling... Because they're like, tomorrow night's show's canceled, and we're all

So I need to take heat off the engine because we got to the next gas station, which is 50 miles from here. So I crack on the heater and he doesn't even know. He's just sitting there going, dude.

just want to go home man we should tell that story about so we're in austin texas like right at the end and uh you know tour i don't know now because like everyone has a smartphone and fucking an ipad right but then it was like we had nothing when it's so hot It's like all we would do is we'd get there early, go to either Taco Bell or Starbucks, and just sit there for fucking seven hours playing spades. So me, you, and Zach go to Starbucks, right?

Yeah. And we sit in the nice, cool, air-conditioned Starbucks. Zach's got like, you know. Just play cards. Yeah, we're just hanging out. We have no idea where Robert is. Where the fuck is Robert? So finally, after four or five hours of playing spades in an air conditioning room, we go around the corner and we see Robert in the alley. He's got a long black sleeve shirt on and jeans on with shoes. And he's just got his head in his hand. He just looks homeless. He looked like a bum.

No, he looked like if we left him there, like that would be his final resting place. Like that was it. Yeah. And like what happened? We just asked him like, hey, Robert, you okay? He's like, I want to go home. But Robert, you could have just hung out with us the entire time inside Starbucks. Like we all want to go home, dude. I mean, there was a funny thing is like, I mean, I don't know. How you guys felt during that time.

But it was like, you know, we kind of grew up like reading like Henry Rollins, get in the van and stuff like that. And there was this sense that you kind of just had to tough it out. Yeah. You know what I mean? No, I'm serious. That, that tour. I would say that book gave me zero inspiration, but, but yeah, you're going to tough it out. There was nobody there that we, we met a lot of people. The show in fucking London was awesome. Remember that show? Yeah. Play in the garage.

That was a killer show. It was a fucking great show. That's the show that sticks out in your head as a killer show? All of them were. Even when we played in fucking Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, there was nobody. Dude, no, that London, Ontario show was fucking great. Do you remember that night? The fucking... There was that... Okay, so we're in the shittiest strip club ever. And we just walk in, and the first fucking chick... We walk in, two bands worth.

And the first lady on stage is just straight up fat. Like, not like portly or like... Gotta tip her. Gotta tip this girl. Respect. Respect. It was awesome. And the next girl comes out, and she's just smoking a cigarette. Like, she wasn't even dancing. She just got naked. And it was like, you can watch me smoke the cigarette naked. Just standing on stage smoking a cigarette. This is fucking sketchy as fuck. And then there was, like, this big, fat native chick.

And she went and whispered in Ben's ear, I'm going to fucking kill you. How did she know? He got traumatized because of that. Yeah, because he was completely... came up to me. He's like, we gotta go. This chick's gonna kill me. I'm like, hey, dude. I'm trying to enjoy the fucking show. This chick's smoking a cigarette. We are stuck. She pointed to some dudes in the back of the room. She's like, see those guys back there? They're gonna fucking kill you guys. Dude, just enjoy the show.

She's halfway done with her fucking parliament. I'm loving this shit. We had no sense of urgency. This guy got He was getting killed. And we're like, fuck you, man. Well, the best is you remember how we actually... Because the guys got up and they left. And then she rolls in. She's like, now you guys can't leave. And it was just like, what? And like, you know, like, I'll admit, you know, for Ben's sake, I was also...

Concerned for a well-being but like here's the thing is like we all blasted out of that place remember we all exited like in like a hurl of like a Like, we charged out there. Like, we were going to get, like, clobbered, and there was just no one out there. You were like, bring it! That's probably just because someone didn't pay. I don't know. That's what it's like.

Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, it was probably just bad strip club manners because there was a bunch of, like, straight-edge kids there who didn't know that you need to give someone a dollar if you're going to sit there. Yeah. Anyway, that show was great. And then... So, yeah, that's when there was Robert Mellon down, and, like... We're like, Robert, you just got to come on. And that night we played a weird show. It was on the roof. Yeah, the rooftop.

And it was with the snobs when everyone thought they were the hype band. Oh, they're the new band. Oh, they're so cute. They're 14 years old. They're so cute. You can play punk rock. They sucked. Dude, the highlight of the night to me was when the other rooftop was partying as well. And we were like, hey, we're out of beers. And so they started hurling Bud Lights at us. And we're like, holy fuck. It's like Bud Light. I don't drink Budweiser. I don't drink Bud Light.

But I was like, yeah, fuck it. It's cold. It's cold. They threw it at us. I'm drinking this shit out of respect. Yeah. So we used to play with that big emo band, right? Like that... And you'll notice by the time we're dead. If only someone wrote down all the shows we played. I know, because we could have some good notes. Well, there were like bands of like... Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, we did. We played with Taking Back Sunday in Long Island before. Yeah, Taking Back Sunday.

Anyway, so... But you're thinking like Texas is the reason level, right? Like you're thinking of... Just because we're in Texas. No, I mean, you're thinking of like a really... No, we didn't play with anyone super big. No, I mean, and you know us by the Trail of Death became a pretty big band. And that was who played on that rooftop. Oh, I never even heard of them still. Yeah, yeah. No, they were like a thing. Well, that's cool. That's why we got paid over $100 for one time on that tour.

They were filming a video on that rooftop. That's why they played there. Oh, we're experts. Hope we're in that video. Yeah, sorry. As an up-and-coming emo kid at the time, I was curious. The best show was Houston because Will to Live played. Houston was probably the best. And Will to Live is the shit. They played first, I think. And it went nuts. And then we played after them. And remember Robert got on the stage. He was like, Friday night, Stars and Stripes.

And the whole crowd was like, Deep in the heart of Texas. That was not you. That was Robert. That was Robert. That wasn't me. That was so awesome. And I'm going. That fucking ruled.

Okay, so this is where I got confused. You tell them. You tell them. No, you go. Okay, so I don't know why, but the show is pretty crowded. There's a lot of people every stoke to see us again. Place is going off. Fields of Fire gets on stage. They play their whole set. And at one point in time. It's because Bedge goes into the crowd. I'm not sorry, right? Yeah, he gets off.

he does that long ring out and he's like oh yeah here's a really theatrical moment yeah yeah literally drag it out he comes off the stage and for some reason i have no idea why robert turns him around and hits him like four times in the back as hard as he can like and then ben's like Dude, Robert is, like, tenderizing Benj's back. Like, hitting it like a fucking heavy bag. And Benj is, like, trying to, like, crawl on stage, but it's like, there's, like, you know, some riffraff in the front.

And Robert's just fucking pounding him with all the fucking venom that he felt that day in Austin, you know? And just thinking, like... Dude, you never gave us crash pads. Like, I was melting down in an alley. Like, ugh. I almost died in that. But it was weird because, like, Robert is such a sweetheart. He wasn't going to, like, sock Benj in the face. But he literally... He fucking beat the shit out of his back. So I'm standing, like, at the back arc of the pit.

And Robert gets done beating him up. And he walks back. I'm like, Robert, what the fuck? He's like, can't stand that fucking guy. Yeah. It's like, dude, after Benj got back on stage, Robert... And it's like, dude, you just... I just got done assaulting this guy. He's like our friend, right? And he looks over at me and he's just like shaking his head. He's like, I'm going to fuck him up. I'm going to fuck him up. He's like, dude, you already did. The guy wasn't fighting back. It's over.

Who is about half your weight and quite a fucking piece. Yeah, you just gave like five kidney punches to a full-on pacifist. And the whole time I think of it like... Why? Why would you do that? That one's for Austin. This one's for the Alamo. And Ben said, he's like, I just took your fucking band on tour. I know. It's like, we booked the tour, and this is how I get thanked? That's true. That's actually really true, because even though it was a rough tour, they did book everything.

Because I booked every tour after that, but it took me... a solid eight to ten weeks to book a full US tour.

Yeah. It takes that long because you have to plan out your weekends and your drives and so you have your tentpole weekends and then you have to figure out how to fill it in between and it takes a long fucking time and then stuff falls through like, oh, I need to play here on this weekend and then they can't get the show on Saturday but they're like, oh, we can get here on Friday and it's like, oh, now I have to fucking figure out how to move everything up one day. It's like, It was so gnarly.

Oh, dude, we got a show in Cleveland. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Show got canceled. Oh, sorry. Three years in a row our show in Cleveland got canceled. Nah, you're not playing in Cleveland. Go fuck yourself. Even though we had one of the best nights ever in Painesville. Yeah. It was badass. No, the guys were always really awesome. Yeah. Every year it fell through. Although we did finally get to play Columbus and they all went. Dude, that was the night that I... I don't know if you remember this.

There was an awning. There was like a... Like, just a regular awning, like, made out of, like, you know, vinyl, whatever. And I did a stage dive off the roof because everybody was going, do it, do it, do it. Yes, I totally forgot about that. And I did a fucking stage dive off and landed, and I went right through this awning and landed on the fucking concrete. And I'm talking, like... It was in the street. It was a 20-foot building. Oh, like movie shit. No, I'm serious. Like, it was, like...

In the alley, in the alley, the side of this building. I was like, I got this, guys. No problem. And I did it. You were like, do it. It's like, how could you say no after that? Like, of course I'm going to fucking jump. Like, fuck this. And I just, I destroyed the awning, laid it on the concrete, somehow didn't break any bones. I don't know how that's possible. Yeah, just everything hurts now. And everybody was just high-fiving, and we all just ran.

Like, let's get the fuck out of here, because we can't pay for that. You literally stage dove through a fucking audience. Like that shit that's like... Like a 10 foot by like 5 foot canopy. Yeah, like the shit that's out in front of like a hotel. Like for a blocking rain or... Wait, but you called this stage dive, but was it just falling out of a building? No, I dove. Was there a crowd today? I thought it was... There was like 20 people down the street going, yes, yes, yes.

And I'm like, fuck it. But I seriously... You thought that I was going to bounce off the vinyl and then roll over and they were all going to catch me. No. I went straight through the fucking painting. Jesus, how high is this? It was like a 20-foot building. The awning was probably 12 feet up above the concrete. Yeah, it was probably the awning was, it was a 20-foot jump with a 10-foot awning and then 10 feet to the ground. But it slowed its fall. It was basically, you just fell 10 feet.

Yeah. It's funny because at a certain height, everyone roots for you to jump, and there's another height where you're like, is that guy committing suicide? Well, the funny thing is, actually, me and Zach went to ECW one time down in LA. I don't know if you were with us. But I saw, was it Sandman? He jumped. No, it was New Jack. It was New Jack. And it was XPW. It was XPW. See why this previous interview is terrible? Okay, check it out. This guy jumped from about...

60 to 70 feet, but there was all these tables stacked on top of each other. So it was like just a regular table that folds out on top of another table, on top of another table, another table. And he hit it perfectly where he broke through every single table and landed on the mat and then got up on his feet and walked away. And so I was like, okay. Broke through the tables? All of them. Like chopping through them? Yeah, like he just used his body weight just to snap. I think they're doctored.

The tables are already cut. Oh, you're talking about pro wrestling. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. But because of that, I was like, okay, if that guy can do that, I'll see what I can do. And that would be the first time that you took pro wrestling into the hardcore performance arena and had some fun with it. It took me actually an hour driving down there to write my sign. And the sign said just, Blade, you bitch.

Well, then the record releases whenever the record came out. Oh, that, by the way, that show, that was a show where I took all my clothes off and I did a stage dive and there was like four rows of people. I'm talking like packed, like people just completely packed against the stage where they couldn't move. And I did a stage dive with my fucking hairy balls swinging. And for some reason they figured out a way to just part the Red Sea. And this is not your first nude stage dive.

No, my first one was at a showcase. A showcase. And showcases before the U.S. tour. That was when Dave Vandell signed us. No way. The showcase theater show was the show that Dave Vandell was like, okay, you guys are in a decision. That show, the one we covered, G.G. Allen. Really? Yeah, that was the show where he was standing on the side of the stage and taking pictures of us. We were good that night.

It's kind of a thing, too, because no Oxnard band has played the showcase. I think it might have been her first gig there. No, Stog played Bailey there. Oh, yeah. And everybody was saying you could make fun of Blake. It's just a knowledge flex. But seriously, though, we were good that night. And, you know, fuck. I mean, I got naked in front of fucking, what? There were 600 people there? 400 people? Covering Gigi Allen. Well, that's why I got naked.

Yeah, we ended with Gigi Allen because we knew we were going to do it. Yeah. It was pre-planned. You knew you were going to get naked. Well, I took my shirt off first. And then I kind of, like, loosened my belt. I'm going... And I just dropped my pants and I had my jeans around my feet. So I couldn't really move. Was that before or after the Camel Clutch Thongs? That was after. Camel Clutch Thongs was one of the first that we had. That's what dipped your toes in.

Because we played that show at Shea Cafe. And you fucking did a song. I came out of the bathroom at Shea Cafe and had to weed myself through the crowd wearing just a Camel Clutch Thong. And a couple years later, Fred Hart comes up with a book called The Power of Expression. And I'm on the cover. And I'm going, hey, Fred, you know what's kind of funny? You see what I'm wearing? I have no shirt. I have board shorts on. Underneath those board shorts, I'm wearing a fucking Camel Clutch thong.

And it was really comfortable. Right at the crack of my ass. I just put my shorts on and I kept the thong on. So I had to play that entire gig with that thong on. It's like, dude. And Camel Clutch is like, the Camel Clutch thong, besides actual records, is the only piece of Camel Clutch merch. It's true. At the time. At the time. Yeah. It was great. Yeah, so that's how you dipped your toes in the nudity water. I think I got naked before that. You got naked before the showcase show?

That show was the first show of our 2002 tour. That was August 8th, I think. Or no, September 8th. Shea Fest. Remember it was called Shea Fest? Like 20 bands played that night. Yeah, it was a great show. It was packed. I just remember by the time... Posse numbers and he got naked there, I was like, okay, this is more than welcome. Yeah. I'm done with this. Well, Posse numbers, I got naked and I did a blade job. So I got hair down to here to my shoulders, right?

Fucking bleeding everywhere and I'm butt naked. What's a blade job? You don't know what a blade job is? I know what a blade job is. I just think you need to describe it for the rest of the world. Okay. So this is what I've seen in the wrestler and what I know. They have all their... Their wrist garments on, right?

Well, they hide a razor blade in there so that when they feel the time is right, they take the razor blade out and they hit one of their gushers right here where your hair is so they can't see it. You cut your forehead right. You cut your forehead. You cut your scalp right where the hairline is. Yeah, so they don't see the cut. You can't see the cut, but you see all the blood. So it's more theatrical.

And we used to do it during Omega Point where there's a pause and then it comes back in on a cymbal hit. And you'd like headbutt the cymbal. I would headbutt the cymbal. And then like go down, like take a knee. Like, oh,

They were like, wait, wait, wait. What? I'm like, no, I did that on purpose. It was just a blade job, you know, like professional wrestling. And he goes, I don't know what's cooler. If you actually really split your head open from the symbol or you did that on purpose. I can't believe you really did that. I mean, being in the audience for that Pat's Warehouse show and seeing, that was a ridiculous amount of blood. That was a scary amount of blood. And I was totally fine. It didn't even hurt.

I felt no pain. Because you're half dead. Yeah, I mean, it was like... I mean, that's what I was going to ask you after. Was there ever an amount of blood that actually put you down a little bit or made you feel like you lost a lot of blood? I've donated blood many times in my life, and I've never felt dizzy, never felt weary. No. You eat pineapple juice. No amount of blood can stop this man. Well, that was the biggest one, was the first one. It was never gnarly like that again.

Because I didn't know what to do, so I actually... I mean, I'm talking like... I'm like, I took that razor blade and cut it because I wanted to make sure it worked. But then I realized you don't really need to do that. It works quite easily. It's crazy what a razor blade can do to human skin, man. We got pulled over at the border of Canada, and we had all our merch. That's a good time to cut yourself. Yeah, that's a good idea.

No, I had a bunch of razor blades, and I didn't want to tell the lady. She's like, okay, you guys don't have any drugs. You have all these fucking weapons, which is weird. Grocery dividers, baseball bats, nightstick. That's fucking weird. What the fuck are all these razor blades for? And I was like, oh, you know, I don't know how I pulled this out. I was like, oh, they're for cutting cardboard, you know, when you mail seven inches. She's like, what?

I'm like, you know, like EPs, like seven inches when you cut cardboard and you mail them to people? Because I didn't want to tell them, like, I use those. Oh. I remember my first Negro Modelo. Ladies and gentlemen, a beer has been spilled on the table. It's cool. It's like when we were recording the Stand the Ground 7-inch with Paul Minor, and I spilled that 40. That was right before Bow My Honor.

Yeah. Every show I booked because I loved them and they couldn't gain traction for whatever reason, but they were so fucking good. And not to knock on – well, they're so fucking good. Let me tell you why I fucking stopped booking them. Yeah. They could never fucking show up on time. And it was like, they're the opening band. And so I finally had to stop booking them. They played fast. They were hard. They were loud. They had short, fast songs, which we loved.

And the singer sounded just like the singer of RKL, really. They were so good. They were so good. Yeah, so it was probably two months after the tour comeback show then, right? It's kind of an interesting choice to put Missing 23rd on that show, too. That's like us doing our Unity shit. We love Miss 23rd. Yeah. That's true. And we were... There was... I don't want to talk about negativity too much, but there was a little bit of a schism because we were all...

There was a moment of time that Fred and those guys didn't get along. Yeah, Mike Droman and Fred fought. Remember? That's right. And Scoops and Martin. And... we were like Fred's friends and they were like on the other side, but it had nothing to do with us. And so it's like, as soon as we're, you know, we're adults and we are running our own ship, there's no need for this bullshit anymore. A good band is a good band and they're from the area. Then we should play together.

It's so silly not to, right? Yeah. I mean, missing 23rd was like a pretty important band when we were coming up everywhere and they play all the time. They played like fucking five gigs a month, maybe even more than that. Well, no, they were really, really, really good. And this is like them kind of like, this is later Missing 23rd. So it's hard to stretch out a band like that because they started as such a good, perfect sounding, simple, like DC band, but executed really well.

But the longevity of being able to write perfect, simple songs like that is very hard. So at this point, they are... They've definitely done the first LP. I don't know if they've done the second one. I'll have to check back on that episode, dude. Yeah. So anyway, but they've been around for a long time now. So they're out, and they're also slogging kind of the same scene we are. They're playing PCH.

They're playing... I don't know how many times they play with Shea, but they're definitely playing with PCH. Same places, but very different scene. You guys aren't playing with the same bands. I don't know at that point, because... We are crossing over a fair amount because they're playing with like Nerve Agents, you know, those kind of bands. And we're kind of playing with them too. 1134. I mean, that was a different time then.

Yeah. I mean, like I would say that the common ground is we're both playing the PCH. And it's like if we're playing out-of-town shows together, why the fuck aren't we combining our draw and playing local shows together? Well, that's the thing is like different people are going to come to see Missing 23rd. that are going to see in control. And those people are combined at your record release. Yeah, and now it's a little more combined. We played with them also. It was like a weird Moorpark show.

Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, in the daytime? Was that before or after? We played on the bed of a semi-truck. You mean the show where you did a stage dive and I fucking caught you and you chipped my top tooth? That fucking hurt really bad. Yeah, the show was on the back of a flatbed. Yeah, it was like a flatbed in the daytime. And, yeah, there was probably, like, what, 40 people there? And still I staged over, missing 23rd. I got you, buddy.

Ryan was, like, on the front row, you know, like... arms up on the flap end and fucking I landed on his head and he fucking pancaked into the fucking into the flap end and I chipped a tooth half my front tooth came off and I had to go to the dentist the next day because my mom's like you can't look like that there was definitely like a strong period in our lives where we would not miss a good time for a stage dive oh no of course not well stage diving is the greatest thing about hardcore yeah

like I mean the participation part of it like if you want to rush it's that YOLO moment of like not knowing what's going to happen And it's not like a... Like I said earlier, it's scary, it's frightening, and it's very exciting. Yeah. And it fucking makes it worthwhile. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen. It's like, just fucking go for it, man. Fuck it.

Remember going to big shows at the Showcase, and I was like... the proving ground for stage diving because, dude, there were so many fools that like, I don't know, I don't feel like that stage was low. Do you? It was like a normal perfect size stage. It was like three feet. It was a little bit bigger than the living room and it had four big floor monitors. But people got rejected there. Yeah. Do you remember? Oh, yeah.

There was people that would like go to try to stage dive and they got rejected. And it's like, dude, this guy has tried to stage dive like four times and keeps getting pushed back onto the stage. Yeah, it was your little brother. Oh, yeah. Before he grew like a foot. Yeah. I mean, that was the thing. Shout out Josh Belcher. Shout out Josh. Also, best picture of your bloody head was from Josh. Oh, really? The picture with your blood all down your scalp and you have long hair.

That's Josh. That's great. Shout out Josh Belcher. Patreon click represent. That's my dude right there. But seriously, the showcase was scary because not only were there people stage-diving in front of you, there was a rail that was about eight feet back that people were stage-diving from behind you, and there was idiots that would get on that balcony where they sold all the merch, and they would stage-dive with that rail, too. It's like, you had it on all fronts. This is fucking scary.

I mean, showcase is like a stage-dive arena. That makes it gnarly because it's like, you go to the living room during a good written show and just slam on top of some heads of some girls who are in the front, and it would be fine because no one's expecting a stage-dive, whereas a Everyone at the showcase is like holding their hands up. Yeah, just waiting. Like waiting to throw you back on the stage. The living room was perfect too because it had a thick carpet on the stage.

So like all those shows where it was only like three rows of dudes and you had to do like those diagonal stage dives where you're like – you're jumping but you're trying to be very parallel to the stage. Like if by chance you don't fucking make it, you're just skidding on the carpet. Yeah. It was very forgiving. Well, there was actually – wasn't there four living rooms? Yeah. There was one on Fairview. There was one on Los Canarios. Oh, you mean like all the different locations?

If you count Sniffy's, if you count Sniffy's, there's four. There was four. Yeah, because there's that original one. And we have Joe Revis in the room, too. He can correct us if we're wrong. But there's the first one. On Fairview, right? Whatever the first one was. What's the first one? Fred Pass Turnpike. The first one, the one that we all know. The original one. There's one on Fairview. Yes. Okay, then there's the one that was like next door to Sniffy's.

and then there was Sniffies, and then there was that other one that was like really narrow and long. Yeah, that was the one where... That was the one where we slammed... That's where we saw E-Town Concrete. Nobody gave a fuck about it. A legendary E-Town show. And Crevice opened for E-Town, didn't they? Ray Crevice, guys. And Bane played there. Whoa. Bane played there with Carrion. That's what the Carrion live recording is from. I remember that night. Oh, I don't remember that being Bane.

That was the night that I was at Moorpark Raiders Stadium. I was watching the football game. And at halftime, I'm like, Dad, I got to go. He's like, why? I'm like, I got to go hightail up to Goleta because I have to see this fucking show. This band called Bane is playing. My dad's like,

No, but okay, we only played Showcase. It was my dad's truck. We borrowed your dad's truck, so it was after Micah left, so we didn't have a van, and it was before we bought our van. Yeah. So we were going in your truck. It was my dad's truck, by the way. No, no, no. I think it was because it was raining. We took your dad's truck because it had the shell. So we went and played the show. And then on the way back, we got in a car wreck at the city of industry? The city of commerce.

I think we were in the City of Commerce. Yeah, you're right around there. I think it was the 101 Freeway. One of those Inland Empire raffles. No, no, no. It's right there before you hit LA. It's where the fucking casinos are and shit. Right off the... I think it's City of Commerce. Right off the 5. Whatever the fuck it is. Okay, so what we're doing is we're driving down the freeway, right? I'm driving. Everybody's kind of chilling. We're cool. It's all good. It's pouring down rain.

And there's like a six-car pileup in front of us. But I didn't see it because the car in front of us was still driving. And then the car in front of us... Takes a hard left turn into the shoulder of the median. And so I just slam on the brakes. The steering wheel locks. So now I can't even turn the steering wheel. And we just fucking nail into this car. And that car hits the car in front of us. And so, you know, of course, Tony's in the back.

It was like an eight-car pileup, but in the back of the truck was Tony and Livia with all the equipment. Yeah. Tony and Livia. Tony and Livia, yeah. Ryan's high school girlfriend. Yes, my high school sweetheart. Our... In the back of the truck? Yes, they're in the back, just laying down in those seatbelts. In the cab, and with all the equipment, so it's like fucking ping-ponging. Oh, my God. They could have easily done it. I get out of the truck, and I go check on the person in front of us.

Like, are you okay? Okay, you're okay. Are you okay? Okay. The guy that the car in front of us had a bloody nose, he was like bleeding. I'm like, oh, fuck. He was like a car pilot. Yeah, and so the cops come, and they go, so have any guys been drinking tonight? I was like, no, of course not. He's like, where do you come from? Oh, Punk Rock Show? Oh yeah? Punk rock show, huh? And Zach goes, dude, it's all ages. We weren't drinking. I'm going, yes! Good idea, because we all were drinking.

Brilliant answer, Zach! Not drinking, of course not. Where are you coming from? The next day I have to face my dad. I have my two cousins, my sisters. Let me jump in before you get there. So we're stranded out there and it's raining. It was fucking terrible because... There was nowhere to go. We just literally had to stand in the rain while we were waiting for AAA to show up. To tow the truck back. And Pat Gromney came and picked us up. Pat Gromney came to pick us up.

He drove from NARD out there to pick up the people. And then me and Ryan went home with the tow truck driver. And it was wild because we were coming home that night. And it was just like... Well, first off, with no shelter, it was like... We tried to go into all those casinos. Can we just stand here? And everyone was like, get the fuck out. So we literally had to stand in the rain. It was fucking terrible. So we're going home in the tow truck. Pat shows up. We send everyone home.

We go home in the tow truck. And it's just a bad night. It's pouring rain. There's so many accidents on the way home. We see three different accidents. And each one, I see body bags. And it's just like... We're so fortunate that no one died. Like, we're all totally fine, and these people are dead on the side of the freeway. Yeah, and that's fucking... Fixing progress. Fixing progress. That's what the song was written about. Yeah, but really?

So the next day, Tony goes to the hospital because his fucking ribs hurt. Anyway, fuck your song. Tony goes to the hospital and my dad's going to whoop my ass. That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Fuck your song. Pretty much the whole deal. Man, I tried to weave right into that in case anyone was interested because I never wanted to talk about the wreck. That's really getting these segues down really hard. You guys don't understand.

When my dad walks up a flight upstairs the whole house starts shaking like the walls are moving yeah anyone your dad's a fucking caveman yeah anyone who knows Ryan think of like a a Ryan twice as big which is like who's a full-blown like Neanderthal type body like it doesn't move without groaning he's like a big bear shout out Terry Shout out Terry. Shout out Moorpark Raiders. Moorpark Raiders! So that would be the actual inspiration for Victims in Progress, which is kind of a softer song.

It's a great pussy song. The thing that we thought was we were in such a bad dire straits that we're stranded here. It's like, dude, those people are dead. At least we're fucking alive. We made it. What I was thinking about when I wrote the song was all these people die and it's just like Yeah, whatever. They're just a stat because no one's going to think about it and drive slower in the rain. It's just like, yeah, some people are going to die. Hopefully it's not me. Yeah, exactly.

But I want to get home. That's a death rate we're totally comfortable with. That's literally victims of progress. Those people wouldn't be dead if they were born 100 years ago and there wasn't fucking freeways and cars, right? It's just you're literally – you died because of human progress. Yeah. So it's just interesting. Yeah, I mean, 100 years ago, they would have been killed in like a duel or something. They would have died by more noble means. Or just eaten by a bear.

Yeah, or would have just died by natural causes at 37. Exactly. Never would have made it to the highway anyway. How do they know that? Yeah, that's a perfect segue. Ryan says that's enough for this episode. That's it. 2001's over. Okay. Until next time, huh? Perfect.