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Killer Instinct With MIKE NESS From SOCIAL DISTORTION · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Mike Nest from Social Distortion. Uh, and
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Born to Kill today.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Fantastic Mike, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Pleasure, pleasure to be here.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: No, Lis, you mentioned Social Distortion release your new album
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Born to Kill on May the eighth, which isn't long now, mate,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: So how are you feeling.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm ready, and I mean I feel like
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: this record has been done for eight months, you know,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but you know, of course, like you finished the record
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: in an artwork has to get done and manufacturing and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's the wrong time of year to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: put it out and blah blah blah. So I mean
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: literally I had to sometimes a couple of times go
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: in my car and listen to it just to make sure, Uh,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it was real.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic. You mentioned the idea like munsting there might
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: have been.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: In reality, it's been fifteen years since you did release
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: an album, so I guess you're feeling the extra pressure
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: or expectations after so long.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And what's happened.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I mean a little bit. I mean I didn't mean
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: for fifteen years to go by, but you know, a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: lot of things in life came up in the last
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: fifteen years, but I didn't know that. It was definitely
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a thought in the forefront of my mind that when
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: it was time to make this record, it couldn't be
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: a sleeper, you know, it needed to be like, it
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: needed to get people's attention.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely So can you talk into it a
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: bit deeper from a musical point of view.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: And what you were gone for?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, look, every record you kind of want
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to try and reinvent yourself. But for me, it was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: as simple as just going back to the late seventies
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and the music I was listening to, you know, to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you know, just to inspire me. It was a chance
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to pay an homage, if you will, to some of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: my idols and play around with some different grooves and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: rhythms and and kind of go back, you know, to
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit more primitive you know. Style evolving is good,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: but primitive is good too.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: But how do you put yourself in that primitive bond site, Like,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: do you guys back then you sit down.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: And listen to records from that era while you're in
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the creative process.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: No, not really. Uh, you know, it's pretty easy for
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: me to get in touch with that with that attitude
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and angst and uh, you know, it's just I just
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: feel like it's it's for some reason, it's coming out
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: more right now. You know. It's just it's there. I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: can feel it. You know. It's like I don't know
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: how to explain it. You know, it's it's it's almost
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: subconscious or something or unconscious. Yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what you're saying.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Most of the world's only heard the singles Born to Kill,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Partners in Crime and the way things were, so are
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: they You've got to sonny representation of the album overall,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: do you think?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say if you added Partners in Crime
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and that, and that would be a very close like yes,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it's it's. Uh, it's got that late seventies kind of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: punk vibe, you know, everything from the artwork to you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to the references and grooves. But yeah, I mean that's
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that's kind of the vibe I was going for.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I be hot for you too.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: That might like when I sit down and listen to
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: the whole album, like it's it's the stump of all
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: of its parts, but it's not an album that it
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: stands out and that stands out.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So to be able to get the full experience.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: It to be hard to represent that by just choosing
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: one or two songs, wouldn't it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean it's quite It's an interesting collection of songs,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and some of them are brand new, I mean brand new,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: like never even been played live yet. And some go
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: back to a couple go back as far as the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: White Light White Heat demos, you know, just songs that
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: never got finished and some were written in the last
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: fifteen years. So it's but putting it together. I just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: wanted to put together something that had peaks and valleys
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and was going to take you on a an hour
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: or a fifty minute you know, little journey if you're
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: listening to it and start to finish.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Definitely along those lines.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: But like you say, some of the roofs are some
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: of the music date back to fifteen years ago, Like
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: when you go back and revisit that, like, what do
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: you think those ideas some then have actually come together
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: now for this one, Like is it a matter of
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: stubbornness and you keep going back over or is it
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: a matter of timing?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like a song like Tonight, I remember
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I wrote that after hard times and nursing rhymes, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: so it's been I mean, it's just been a song
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that's been sitting around for fifteen years, you know. I mean, yeah,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you just have to you know. It's like they're kind
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of like bells. They're just been a drawer. You could
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: have been a drawer. When you finally open the drawer
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: discover them, you're like, ah, pay this.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: You do you ever get like like belligerent with it,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Like you look back at a song, say for fifteen years,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: and go right, I'm not leaving this table until I've
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: turned you into his song.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I've had enough, Yes exactly, Yes, yes it's amazing. But
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you do you get a general stands like you listen
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to it even if it's a voice memo, you know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and you can tell like if it fits in with
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: your vision of the record or or maybe you wait
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: till the next record with it.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: You know. I read an interesting thing like during your recovery,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: you started writing country style music as as a form
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: of comfort, I guess, But since then you've described Born
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: to Kill as having aggressive optimism, Like was it difficult
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: to go from one extreme to the other? I guess,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: like the country down sort of stuff too, Like, but
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: you can't compartmentalize things when it comes to writing.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I was only I was only playing
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and writing country songs because I was learning to sing again, right,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I had to learn to swallow and eat
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: food again, and then I had to learn to speak again,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and I had to learn to sing again. So country
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: was a great way around the house for me. It
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, ease into it. You know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's not requiring me to sing at ten. Yeah.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you think one day maybe you'll go back
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and turn those country songs into social distortion songs?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure, that'd be interesting.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: And it's a.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Beautiful term tore in it, like aggressive optimism. Where did
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: you come up with that?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Mate? Like it almost sounds romantic but it's nasty as well.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know, some records
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I've written were pretty dark and some weren't, and this
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: one is just kind of like maybe in the middle.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's hot, isn't it.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: That's best you look back in ten years, Simon, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: you'll be able to judge that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: You've also got a really cool rock version of Chris
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Isaac's Wicked things on the album, like ferstally watching is
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: that song to cover?
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And secondly, like someone like me that's a non.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Musician, like, how hard is it breaking down an original
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: song and then reconstructing it into something that's your own.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's pretty easy for me to I mean, I look,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I've heard that song since it came out, and I
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: just thought it was just such a brilliantly written song
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and a beautiful song. And how I always pick a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: cover song is really, when it comes down to it,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it's just a song that I want to sing, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I want to sing it my way. I want to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I want to play guitar in my way and try
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to make it my own. And I just literally one
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: day sat down with a guitar and started playing it
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and go, I think I really want to do this.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I think I want to record it. I think we
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: can make this our own. And so it was a challenge,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: but it was a fun challenge and it's.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: A beautiful thing too that I don't think a lot
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: of people realize that when it comes to do and
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: cover songs, Like the first time I heard Wicked Game
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: was when.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Corey Tyler covered it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: It's sour and I thought it was their song because
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I'd never heard it before, and then I found out
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: it was Chris ISACs and I went back and listened
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: to that, and then, yeah, it took me to a
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: lot of Chris ISACs music because of that. Yeah, there's
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: going to be kids out there that listen to your
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: version and think it's a social media time to discover
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: the original artist.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean yeah, I mean that's how I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: discovered the Blues was through the Rolling Stones, Yeah, or
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the Beatles. It's like, oh wait, they didn't write this song,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: oh you know. So yeah, in.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: A ways keeping music alive because let's say, twenty years
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: down the track had introduced someone to that song.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: They'll go back through the whole timeline until they.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Find exactly all of a sudden, Yeah, exactly.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, come back in Joba, b Brother, Like you started
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Social Disortion in California back in nineteen seventy eight. So
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: what was the musical climate like back then they gave
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: birth to the band and where did you see yourself
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: fitting in initially?
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Well, the musical climate was it was in a transition
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't for us. It was great because it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was something fresh and new and you know kind of
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: like you know, a lot of us were from broken
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: homes and we had a a place that we belonged.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: But for the old rockers, it was not They weren't
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: they weren't ready to say goodbye to Stairway to Heaven
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and then and listen to hey, hey, uh let's go
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you know, true, but you know, but you know, it
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: was it was time. You know, rock and roll had
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: become a stadium rock thing, and and punk music brought
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it back from the streets into the clubs again, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and uh and it was fresh and it was new,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and it was and we were singing about things that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you know, really mattered to us.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: When ready to put it like that, like you say,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: like all the old rockers weren't quite ready to tell
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: you which is a good point. But was in much animalsity,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I guess, from the older ones towards the younger one.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: What you coming through that?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, not so much in the big cities,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: because you know, in the big city there's all kinds
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of freaks walking around. But in suburbia that's a different story.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, it was dangerous, you know, I mean, look,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I was seventeen years old, one hundred and forty five pounds.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But you know, I had to fight grown men. They
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: just I mean, hey, they were pissed. Hey, hey they
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: didn't want this, you know. And but you know, that's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: about the worst thing you could do is tell me
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I can't do something. It's the worst, your biggest mistake,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: because not only am I going to do it, but
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to succeed at it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: You get a tight down anyone that stands in your wife. Yes,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: love that attitude. I read another interesting quite that said
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Social Distortion continue to reinvent themselves while remaining two to
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: their punk rock roots. Switched on the surface is a
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: simple statement, but when you think about it, it's pretty impressive.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Mate.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Like, you would have seen and been part of a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: large number of changes in music over your career, and yeah,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: you sort of try to change and adapt to.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: With those times. But Social Distortion always buy your own.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Path, mate, Like, was that something you made a conscious
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: effort to do by not following trends?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It did? It did? Because you know, I'm by the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: mid eighties, I felt that, you know, a lot of
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the bands were just kind of starting to sound the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: same and doing the same thing, and like, I wanted
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to stand out, you know, I wanted to be different,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and I think we did by our first record, but
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I wanted to maintain that. And that's really when, uh,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I started bringing a little bit of Americana, old Americana
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: into Punk in combining it, and that was I was
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: carving out our own. We made a hard left, you know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: we just like, wait a minute, let's go left here,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and let's go down a different path. I don't want
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to do what everyone else is do it, you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and uh and you know that was Ah. I didn't
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: know at the time. It might have been a risk,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: but it just felt like the thing to do, you know,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. That's the whole reason I got
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: into this was to express myself, you know, in my way,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: not not any other anyone else's. And that's about That's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the whole thing about Punk was I thought was about individualism.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: But you say, there's every point that that you did
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: something just because no one else was doing it, or
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: just because it was.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Going against it rain.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure. I mean when I was writing story
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in My Life and Sick Boys and Ball and Chain,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I was certain that the public was not going to
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: like it. I was sure, but but I was like,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but I'm you know, but I have to try, you know,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm making a record that I like. I want to.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I can't make something I don't like. That doesn't make
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: any sense. So I made a record that I liked,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and it turns out that people liked it too, So
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that kind of gave me a lot of confidence and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: believe in myself.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's beautiful. Do you remember the very first song
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: you heard one of your songs played on radio? And
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: where were you and what song was it?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Oh? My god, yeah, I never remember, like it was yesterday.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I was. I was twenty twenty years old, and I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: worked at this porno shop and I was a clerk
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: there and on Sunday nights, there was no manager there,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: so they had this show on the radio on a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: big Rodney Bigenheimer was all I had a Sunday night
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: show where he would play all the new punk and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: all this, and so Sunday nights at this porno shop,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I would have a six pack of beer in the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: fridge in order of pizza and turn on the radio.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, one day I heard Social Distortion nineteen
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: forty five on the radio. And I was like, oh
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: my god, this is this is insane. I wasn't able
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: to quit my job or anything. You know. Yeah, yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: it was to be years. It would be years until
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that happened, but it was the beginning.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Well did did that? Did that give give you more inspiration?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Like you sort of oh for sure? Oh yeah, it
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: was just like, oh, we can do this.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Then you're working in a porner shop at the time.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, people videos, and you're handing out your albums instead of.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Hey, yeah, hey, why are you buying that?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: May I interest you in this?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Has you taken that off of and you're putting that.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: In their heads?
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I love it, Marble, Thanks for your time made. It's
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: been a pleasure of.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Born to Kill is out maybe the eighth and I
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: know I'm an impatient person, mate, but I would say
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: it's going to be a pretty harsh pretty that says
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: this album wasn't worth the weight.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Mate, You've done well.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Well. I really appreciate that. You know, I have to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: say that the responses that we've gotten from the industry
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and journalists and radio is it's been incredible, you know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: it really has. And you know, look, you know when
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: we get and everyone in the crowd is clapping. It
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: feels great and they tell you this that you love
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: your record. But when the industry takes time to acknowledge it,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: that mean it's just as important, you know, for it's
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: fulfilling as an artist to get that kind of a response.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Well, July deserve it, my friend.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: All right, buddy, I'll see you in twenty seven.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: You're coming out ius?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: All? Or do you want me to edit that out?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Wow? I mean, I don't have any dates in front
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of me, but I've got management who are listening to me,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and I tell them what I want and they know
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I want to come back to Australia.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I fucking love you, man, I'll see it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, right, cheers, Thank you,