Latest / San Joaquin Sound / Loser Life - The Most Underrated Band of the 2000s - E18

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Loser Life - The Most Underrated Band of the 2000s - E18 · San Joaquin Sound

• 0:00
  Every time there was a flyer, it always said
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  from Bakersfield. It didn't say from California
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  or didn't say from the U .S. And I thought that
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  was something I was really proud of. It always
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  said from Bakersfield. And that's the one thing
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  I loved that we were doing at the time, not just
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  us, but like the pine contaminators, all the
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  amino stuff. It was like, we are from Bakersfield.
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  It was like, it wasn't we are from California
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  or we're from the Central Valley. It was, we're
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  from Bakersfield. You're listening to the San
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  Joaquin Sound Podcast. I'm your host, AJ Rodriguez.
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  This episode is about the band Loser Life. Back
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  in 2005, they were the flagship band of the Munoz
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  Boxing Gym. If you don't know about Munoz Gym,
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  check out episode one because it will give you
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  a lot of context for this episode. In addition
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  to shows at the gym, Loser Life toured all over
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  the US and throughout Europe. while releasing
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  multiple albums and EPs. For this episode's interview,
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  I call drummer and vocalist Stephen Kuntz, who
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  now lives in Chicago. I grew up by the fairgrounds
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  and I just got into skateboarding at like a young
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  age. It was the mid 90s. That was like what it
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  was people were doing. It was, you know, I went
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  to school on the other side of town. So a lot
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  of people wouldn't come to my side of town to
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  skate. So I was just kind of by myself. And through
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  skateboarding movies, I got more into punk and
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  hardcore. with neck hand to hand with each other
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  right like skateboarding and music yeah and like
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  the mid especially the mid to late 90s it was
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  like very distinct where it was like you got
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  into you got into punk or you got into hip -hop
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  and i was already really into like metal and
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  rock and roll because when i was a young kid
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  i was i got like my first three cassettes were
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  guns and roses alice cooper and danzig not because
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  i'm like some cool kid that got into danzig it
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  was because that song mother was popular and
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  i'm like oh that was a cool song and i bought
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  the cassette tape out of those three that was
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  probably my least favorite but then when you
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  didn't really have a lot of access to music you
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  just listen to it over and over again and so
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  that was my base and then yeah again i was into
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  like anything from like you know smashing pumpkins
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  whatever was on the radio smashing pumpkins to
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  porn or whatever and then when around six fifth
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  sixth grade we start skateboarding get skateboard
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  videos And that's when you hear everything. You
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  hear Misfits, you hear Black Flag, you hear,
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  I mean, especially like Welcome to Hell from
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  Toy Machine. Nice. Thrill of It All and Misled
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  Youth from the Zero videos. Like those three
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  movies and then Jump Off the Building, those
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  four movies, they like defined, got me into almost
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  everything that I'm into even nowadays. Right?
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  That's cool. That's how I got like into punk.
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  And then. at my school the guys who skateboarded
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  they also got into punk and hardcore and just
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  music whatever but i had way more of a passion
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  for it than they did like they were in this they
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  were like really into skateboarding and like
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  i and so was i but they i like really got into
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  the music aspect of it and so i started my mom
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  i was just my mom and i and she worked nights
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  and so i would play i would like my first like
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  punk cd that i got that wasn't like that was
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  like obviously like misfits and black flag but
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  then the first one i got was operation ivy um
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  the you know the the compilation the lp in the
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  seven inch yeah and i heard the song the crowd
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  that's the song five on the cd and it was so
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  good that like my mom worked nights so i would
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  go home and i'd get butter knives and i'd learn
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  how to play drums on pots and pans And that was
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  the song I'm like, this song is fucking incredible.
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  That song alone was like drums in the beginning
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  and the bass line and the singing. It's amazing.
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  It didn't age well for me. It's still awesome.
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  But if people would be like, oh, what's the song
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  that got you into everything? Or the band that
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  got you into everything? It wouldn't be Operation
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  Ivy. But I just remember getting my hands on
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  that. really became my whole focus and passion
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  yeah so then and then like sixth grade i just
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  like start you and when you're skateboarding
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  you start meeting people around you start meeting
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  people around right so like uh we eventually
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  moved from by the fairgrounds over to southwest
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  and then that's when i met more skaters who i've
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  been friends with for a very long time and we
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  all got into music together and eventually and
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  some of them played bass and so then when they
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  played bass or guitar I asked for a drum set.
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  Again, I was getting pretty good with the pots
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  and pans. And then we eventually started just
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  jamming together. Probably like my eighth grade
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  and freshman year in high school. That's cool.
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  So were you starting a band before you ever went
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  to a show? Yeah. My mom hated that I was into
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  all this stuff. She hated that I liked music
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  and skateboarded. She kind of, like, laughed,
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  like, oh, he's just a boy. But, like, I think
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  she always, like, wanted me to be, like, a football
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  player or whatever. So, like, the allure of downtown,
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  of 19th Street and all that stuff, allure of
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  downtown was, like, really dangerous and scary.
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  So we couldn't get a ride to go. Like, you know,
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  she was like, you're not going down there. That's
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  too, like, you're, and in our brains, again,
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  like, 13 years old, you know, 14 years old, you're
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  like, yeah it's like it's scary down there so
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  like we would take we got really proficient using
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  the the get bus because we would you know we'd
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  go and skate downtown we go to the courthouse
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  or we go to the beach park or there's all different
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  skate parts around town but like at night like
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  we wouldn't want to 19th street was terrifying
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  totally scary you know so yeah we didn't ever
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  go to shows it wasn't until i was a freshman
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  in high school where I had an older friend who's
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  a year older than me. He didn't skateboard. He
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  was just like a guy who liked to dress very punk,
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  and he would go to shows. And he lived next to
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  a guy who was always downtown, hanging out with
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  all the people at the shows. So I started hanging
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  out. We were already friends, but his other buddy,
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  we all started hanging out, and he was kind of
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  our Trojan horse into hanging out downtown on
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  19th Street. this is before 19th street was a
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  whole gang this is like wait this is 2000 2001
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  so and that's so this would be prime jerry's
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  right prime jerry's and i would say this is like
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  um i didn't know ronald then but this is like
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  when mino's gym was just kind of starting yeah
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  um uh and that's a whole other thing but yeah
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  so this is like and the guys who like i started
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  gravitating towards again all the skated and
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  i still had my skate friends but like i started
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  getting more with the my i guess it's kind of
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  kind of lame but like punk friends i would just
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  listen to anything that they had um this is before
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  like the internet or you know like you could
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  download things like there's just not like if
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  you would hear things on a skate video or you'd
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  read on the back of a record tape or a record
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  i didn't have a record player then a tape or
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  a cd You'd see the thank you list, and you'd
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  go and try to find those bands. And it was when
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  I met a guy named George Quick. He gave me my
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  first tattoo. He was, to me, like, anything he
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  said was good. I also thought it was good. He
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  dressed cool. He was cool. Super funny. Gregarious.
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  He was always on AOL Instant Messenger. He'd
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  always talk back to you. So, like, he got his
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  name. And I remember his name. His name is Pussmort.
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  And I would go and I'd ding him. And he'd be
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  down to talk about anything. So I'd ask him all
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  about all these fucking bands. And he would spend,
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  I think I'd spend, because my mom worked nights,
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  two, three, four in the morning talking about
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  bands. And it was pretty awesome. And he would
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  give me a cassette. And I listened to that cassette
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  over and over and over again. George Quick was
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  the guy who really got me in. from like listening
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  to like Misfits and Black Flag and what I was
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  getting on skate videos to like a deeper stuff.
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  I went straight from like Misfits and all that
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  stuff to cross punk, like disrupt, apolitical,
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  discharge. You get the idea. So, you know, he
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  was like, while some kids were being raised on
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  bad brains, I was like being raised on discharge
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  and disrupt. So, yeah. There was a division,
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  right, between kind of like the 19th Street punks
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  and the Munoz punks, right, that went to Munoz
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  Gym? In the beginning. I wasn't the beginning,
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  beginning. Ronald, I was maybe a year after or
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  two years after Ronald was booking shows. Yeah.
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  So there wasn't a big divide. But what it was
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  is the kids at 19th Street, up until, honestly,
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  even until I moved. They would go to the gym
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  and not know how to act. There's like pivotal
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  shows that changed my life. Two of those shows
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  are at the gym. And they're my first two shows.
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  The first one was The Locust with Catholic Decapitation.
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  And it was the first time The Locust played there.
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  Wow. It was amazing. It's on YouTube. And the
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  second show was George Booked It. And by the
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  way, George and Ronald had a great relationship.
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  So there was no static there. And George was
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  very much on the side of Ronald. But a lot of
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  the lackeys, I would say Georgia's lackeys, the
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  drunk idiots from 19th Street would go there
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  and they treated it like shit. And so this incredible
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  show, it was a band called Axiom and Wolfpack
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  that later changed to Wolf Brigade, played the
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  gym. It was because of that show that I started,
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  well, we started a band already, but we really
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  started to gravitate towards cross punk. That
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  was my first band with Ruben from Loser Life.
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  But that show, a lot of the 19th Street kids
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  got so fucked up. They were like pissing everywhere.
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  They were leaving beer bottles everywhere. And
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  then they started tagging squatter rights stuff
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  all over the gym. And then they either broke
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  a mirror or they broke a door in the bathroom.
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  And so Ronald was like, what the fuck are you
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  doing? I let you guys come to, you booked a show
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  because Jerry's wouldn't let you do shit, right?
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  And there was no other place to do it. Yeah.
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  And you guys came and you completely destroyed
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  the place. And it wasn't like, oh, like a little
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  this and that. No, no, the place was trash. And
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  that was also when I was kind of like, man, fuck
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  these guys. That's when I really started to kind
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  of go away from that stuff as well. Hanging out
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  with a lot of the 19th Street cross punk kids.
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  Yeah. They were more for the party. And I was
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  kind of like, again, I was just passionate about
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  the music. Now, obviously not all of them. And
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  some of them who were into the party, they're
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  not even around anymore. So they they they burnt
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  out pretty quick. Yeah. I mean, it's something
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  that's unique about Munoz Gym because I can't
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  think of any other venue that didn't sell alcohol
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  that was about the music first. What Ronald did,
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  though, see what Ronald did is that like Jerry's
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  sucked. Nate, who ran Jerry's, was a pedophile
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  asshole that was a shithead to everyone. What's
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  funny is that he, Trojan Horse, he was in wolf
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  in sheep's clothing acting like he was in an
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  incredible band, Sharon Tate. Not incredible,
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  but an awesome band. And then he was just an
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  asshole. And he's notorious for ripping bands
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  off. And at that point, Jerry's... was also starting
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  to become a cool place to go. So all the football
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  players that got into pop punk started going
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  to those shows. So you couldn't book a band like
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  Axiom and Wolfpack there, right? So Ronald, you
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  can book it here. Yeah. And it's all ages. And
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  so then they did it, and then everyone treated
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  him like shit. So it wasn't that there was a
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  fight. There was a static between Ronald and
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  George. But Ronald's like, if you're going to
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  come here, you're not going to act like that.
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  We're not going to have shows where you can act
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  like that. And it was a pretty long time until
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  we started able to have cross -punk shows. And
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  that was, I would say, probably like five, six
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  years. Because that faction of kids who were
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  just getting fucked up and destroying things
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  burnt out. And then the new people came. So that
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  was kind of the thing too. Yeah. So you're playing
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  in some bands. It's like early Munoz Gym era.
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  What about Ten Stabs to the Throat? Is that one
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  of your first bands? So the first band I was
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  in was with two childhood friends and Ruben.
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  It was called Grassroots. Okay. And we, again,
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  like we were a cross -punk band. And we covered
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  Disrupt. Then as a band, after two months together,
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  we went to the Axiom Wolfpack show. And then
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  we really went full throttle. We had a CD -R.
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  I listened to it a few days ago. Not a few days
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  ago, a few weeks ago. And it's fine. It's kind
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  of funny how it's my first band. And then the
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  bass player and I did another band after that
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  called Down Syndrome Kids. I've seen that on
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  a flyer. DSK. DSK. So what happened... was grassroots
• 14:44
  played this is where like my introduction to
• 14:47
  a lot of uh the stuff that ronald was putting
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  out not physically but like ronald was he was
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  the guy that like if he liked something it was
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  good right so uh we played our third show at
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  this place in the east side i don't remember
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  what it's called like the phoenix theater i believe
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  and it was Patrick and I, the guy who did DSK
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  with, we saw The Locust and loved it. And then
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  from The Locust, we got into spaz and different
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  power violence stuff. So that's how we started
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  DSK because we're like, oh man, we liked it.
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  We wanted to start making music like it. So we
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  started just playing spaz, like spaz type music,
• 15:33
  power violence. Yeah. But then at the Phoenix
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  Theater, we saw prolapsed nation and that was
• 15:43
  ronald's band yeah and that was like they were
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  like i was like oh fuck that's so cool like it
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  was like what we like like jews all crazy and
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  scary and ronald's going nuts and melvin the
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  bass player screaming i mean fucking 14 years
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  old that blew my mind so we that was like oh
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  we want to start doing that it's funny the way
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  like the guitar player of grassroots he starts
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  He made fun of me because I used to have a five
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  -piece drum set, right? Two toms and a floor
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  tom. And then after we saw Prolapse Nation, I
• 16:19
  took off my right tom and I put my cymbal there
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  like Ronald did. So I was like, my floor tom,
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  my cymbal, my rack tom, my cymbal on my floor
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  tom. So I'm like, well, Ronald from Prolapse
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  Nation does it. I want to do that too. So we
• 16:35
  did that my freshman kind of sophomore year high
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  school. And then at the end of sophomore year,
• 16:41
  we started going to all the gym shows. We started,
• 16:44
  you know, we started every, like everything was
• 16:48
  Munoz gym, Munoz gym. So at that point, Jerry's
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  pizza wasn't even really part of the scene anymore
• 16:53
  for us. Like we started going from 19th street
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  to the gym. And, um, that's when we started,
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  I was like a junior in high school. We started
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  10 steps to the throat because we liked that
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  kind of music. Right. So what, from like quest
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  punk to power violence. always in the middle
• 17:10
  and then more of the screamo stuff. Here's a
• 17:15
  question that Matt Riot told me to ask you. But
• 17:20
  he just said to ask you about your very first
• 17:23
  fight with some military dude. Wow, I haven't
• 17:30
  thought about this in a very long time. I don't
• 17:33
  know how it started. I don't know if we played
• 17:35
  the show. or if Death by Driver played this show.
• 17:38
  But it was like, we had a studio that was right
• 17:41
  next to Jerry's in Jake's record store at the
• 17:44
  time. And I think either we played, I was getting
• 17:47
  my drums. Yeah, I think we played. And I think
• 17:51
  Prolapse Nation or Death by Driver played. I
• 17:53
  don't know what happened. But this military guy
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  came down, and I don't know, he was talking a
• 17:58
  lot of shit. And I think it might have been the
• 18:02
  kill, actually. Not Prolapse Nation. And so...
• 18:06
  I don't remember. They have a better memory than
• 18:09
  I do. But the guy wouldn't shut up. And it was
• 18:13
  on video. And those guys, again, I looked up
• 18:20
  to them. I liked them all. But they were so cool.
• 18:22
  Yeah. I remember the guy said something. And
• 18:26
  I was like, I was a pretty good shit talker.
• 18:30
  And I just remember looking at him like this.
• 18:32
  Boom, boom, boom, boom. And then he kind of like.
• 18:38
  I don't know how it happened, but I just went
• 18:40
  and I laid the perfect into his jaw and he was
• 18:45
  flying back. And I run upstairs and this guy
• 18:50
  can barely move. I think he was bloody. And I
• 18:52
  go upstairs from Jerry's and he's trying to follow
• 18:55
  me down the street, but there's blood everywhere.
• 18:58
  That's all I remember. So all I know is I think
• 19:01
  the kid was playing. He was talking a bunch of
• 19:03
  shit. And I was like pointing at him and I was
• 19:07
  talking back to him. And then he's like, what
• 19:09
  are you going to do? He might even throw in a
• 19:11
  first punch. And then I decked him. But I would
• 19:13
  say like, that's like what, that what's that
• 19:16
  right there. Actually, I would say this, that
• 19:18
  right there is what got me kind of stapled in
• 19:21
  with that group. Right. Like they saw that I'm
• 19:23
  down. Yeah. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. And
• 19:25
  like, it was like my growing moment with them.
• 19:28
  So maybe it does, you know? So. Okay. That makes
• 19:31
  sense. During 10 steps to the throat. I was also
• 19:34
  in another band with a guy named Bo. Yeah. Bo
• 19:36
  played guitar in Prolapse Nation. And he left
• 19:41
  Prolapse Nation, and then we started our band
• 19:43
  with him, me and Patrick from Down Syndrome Kids.
• 19:47
  And it was like a Yaflet Kodosite band. Again,
• 19:51
  it was just a part of the all Minos crew. What
• 19:55
  about Bo Mingus is that I was 15, and he was,
• 20:01
  I think, 25 or 26. And he, uh, like at that point,
• 20:06
  like he, he, he didn't drive and I had my, um,
• 20:10
  my permit, but I could, you're not allowed to
• 20:13
  drive with someone in the car unless they were
• 20:15
  25. So Bo would come over and I would get in
• 20:20
  the car. I would get the car and since he was
• 20:21
  25, I was allowed to drive with him. Again, my
• 20:24
  mom didn't know this and then we'd have, we'd
• 20:26
  have band practice together. And so that was
• 20:28
  kind of how we did that as well. So we were in
• 20:30
  a band together as well. I really enjoyed playing
• 20:32
  with him, and it was one of the bands that I
• 20:34
  look back, I wish I had more recordings of. I
• 20:36
  liked that band compared to Ten Stabs to the
• 20:39
  Throat or even Grassroots. I wish I had some
• 20:42
  of those recorded. What was the band's name again?
• 20:45
  It was Every Day On She Dies. Not my favorite
• 20:47
  name. We played a few shows, but again, it was
• 20:51
  a pretty big stepping stone. Same with Ten Stabs
• 20:54
  to the Throat and getting to what we do now.
• 20:57
  My junior year high school. Ken Staffs' throat
• 21:01
  broke up because that's what bands do. Again,
• 21:05
  I was pretty active. I loved playing music. I
• 21:09
  was trying to play with anyone. I played with
• 21:12
  a few different people. Then I joined The Pine
• 21:15
  because that's when James left. When I joined
• 21:18
  The Pine, that was kind of like a dream come
• 21:21
  true. One of my all -time favorite bands. Then
• 21:25
  I get to play for him. That was where a lot of
• 21:29
  stuff started to change for me. Being with Roger
• 21:32
  and Kurt and Bill, those three are some of the
• 21:36
  best musicians, if not the best I've ever played
• 21:39
  with. It was the songwriting and the structure
• 21:44
  and just how things were run. I ate it up. Their
• 21:49
  drive and passion for stuff was equal to mine.
• 21:53
  That was the first time in all the bands. was
• 21:56
  like i all i wanted to do was just tour record
• 21:58
  play music right it's all i wanted to do and
• 22:01
  that's all they did so it was awesome songs were
• 22:04
  like an itch in the brain for the pine and that's
• 22:07
  how the music came out right like it was like
• 22:10
  like you have that itch you just have to like
• 22:12
  get out and then that was the song that needed
• 22:16
  to come out and when it came out it was like
• 22:17
  we satisfied that itch and then immediately you
• 22:20
  have another itch we have to make another song
• 22:21
  and then it was like playing shows and we played
• 22:24
  all the time and it's the same with loser life
• 22:26
  I didn't it wasn't the same itch for songwriting
• 22:29
  and art but like it was like we just loved it
• 22:33
  and we loved playing and it was like all it was
• 22:35
  our whole passion yeah while I went to school
• 22:37
  and they weren't and went to work like it was
• 22:39
  like what we did on weekends right either go
• 22:42
  to the show or practice so that's cool yeah we
• 22:45
  did and we did a lot it wasn't until things started
• 22:48
  to slow down a bit I learned so much from those
• 22:52
  guys that I started writing songs for Loser Life.
• 22:56
  Again, The Pines is incredible, but like something
• 22:58
  about like, well, let's try this. And we started
• 23:01
  just getting a little bit even more quicker with
• 23:03
  our Husker Du, Hated, and, you know, Articles
• 23:07
  of Faith type of output. And so I started just
• 23:10
  playing guitar and like writing these songs.
• 23:13
  And then Bobby Allison, who ran The Gate, him
• 23:19
  and I kind of geeked out over Husker Du and SST
• 23:21
  stuff. And like... And we just kind of, hey,
• 23:26
  do you want to start jamming together? Because
• 23:28
  again, some of the Pine stuff, we were just kind
• 23:31
  of slowing down a little bit. And so Bobby and
• 23:34
  I started jamming and we were looking for a bass
• 23:37
  player. We had this guy, Alex, still a friend.
• 23:40
  Alex is great. He didn't have the same kind of
• 23:42
  drive that we did. Like we were practicing three,
• 23:44
  four times a week. And then I don't know why
• 23:46
  I didn't ask Bill, but then I asked Bill from
• 23:48
  the Pine. And when Bill got in the band, it was
• 23:53
  like, this is pretty cool. And all Bill wanted
• 23:55
  to do was play. All Bobby wanted to do was play.
• 23:58
  And all I wanted to do was play. So we just started
• 24:01
  playing constantly. It got to the point, I think
• 24:03
  we were practicing sometimes five times, six
• 24:05
  times a week. Wow. Because we had the gate. We
• 24:07
  had a practice space, right? We could just leave
• 24:09
  it there and practice. And that's how Loser Life
• 24:12
  started. That's cool. I didn't know you played
• 24:15
  guitar. That's cool. Nothing to talk about. Talk
• 24:30
  to me about the demo. When Loser Life started
• 24:33
  playing, I pretty much learned how to play guitar
• 24:37
  through Roger and Kurt. I saw how they wrote
• 24:40
  songs and we were playing together all the time.
• 24:43
  I just started copying them. And I had a guitar
• 24:46
  at home and I just started making my own stuff.
• 24:49
  When we did the demo, Bobby, he was so good at
• 24:54
  making these Rick Agnew type solos. Not solos,
• 24:59
  what's the right word? Riffs, maybe? Riffs, yeah,
• 25:03
  whatever. And Bill could just carry the whole
• 25:07
  song. The challenging part is we couldn't find
• 25:10
  a singer. At that point, especially with what
• 25:13
  was going on with 19th Street and Munoz Gym,
• 25:15
  everyone who was at 19th Street were just kind
• 25:17
  of like drunks or on heroin or doing some stupid
• 25:20
  shit. And a lot of the Munoz stuff, we were all
• 25:25
  intertwined anyways. Yeah. Ronald didn't want
• 25:29
  to sing for it. I guess we could have asked Drew
• 25:31
  because he would have sang for anything and get
• 25:32
  to ask for it, but we didn't want Drew to sing.
• 25:34
  We wanted someone who was a little confident,
• 25:36
  right? Yeah. So not like I'm confident, but like
• 25:39
  at one point where I said, I just said, fuck
• 25:41
  it, I'll sing and play drums. And so we did,
• 25:44
  and that was a demo. I sang and played drums
• 25:45
  and it worked for a little bit, but like, I'm
• 25:49
  not that good of a lyricist and I'm just like
• 25:52
  not that good of a drummer to keep singing and
• 25:53
  playing drums. Like just, it just seemed kind
• 25:56
  of whatever. And then I run into a childhood
• 26:00
  friend, the guy who was in Grassroots. He sang
• 26:02
  for Grassroots, Ruben. And I go, what's up, Ruben?
• 26:05
  How you doing? He was one of my favorite people
• 26:07
  to be in a band with. I was like, hey, do you
• 26:09
  want to sing in this band I got going on? I don't
• 26:13
  know why I asked him. It was just like one of
• 26:15
  those random things. And he's like, sure, I'll
• 26:17
  try it out. He tried out. And he was like, I
• 26:19
  gave him the demo. And he tried out. And he was
• 26:22
  awesome. He did a great job singing my stupid
• 26:25
  shit. And then. We had a couple songs that we
• 26:28
  didn't finish lyrics to yet. And he put his own
• 26:32
  lyrics to it. And we were like, that's the guy.
• 26:35
  So that's how we got Ruben. We used to joke,
• 26:38
  because he always looked homeless, that I found
• 26:40
  him in a gutter drunk. And that's how he became
• 26:43
  in the band. And to be fair, it wasn't far off.
• 26:46
  I think he was definitely on a four -day bender
• 26:50
  when I saw him. I think I was working at a grocery
• 26:51
  store. I hadn't seen him for a good... five years
• 26:54
  at that point i think he moved to humboldt he
• 26:56
  had long scraggly blonde hair and his voice had
• 27:00
  like a like a total like scuzzy brunch feel to
• 27:04
  it you know yeah and then so we did we did our
• 27:07
  first show with him and he looked really dumb
• 27:09
  he's like dancing around flopping around this
• 27:11
  didn't look that good then he goes i want to
• 27:13
  play guitar and sing we're like are you sure
• 27:17
  you can do that yeah and he was great he did
• 27:21
  a great job um He wasn't the best guitar player,
• 27:25
  but like his, his like his singing and presence,
• 27:28
  like between him and Bill, they were why the
• 27:32
  band was any kind of relevant of good. You know,
• 27:35
  those two guys like gave it all its uniqueness.
• 27:38
  And I'm not going to take it away from Bobby,
• 27:40
  Bobby as well. Like Bobby's licks, but like there
• 27:44
  was something special with Ruben and Bill individually.
• 27:47
  And I would say, I don't know if we were a special
• 27:49
  band in general. But like altogether, we were
• 27:54
  a good we were a good foursome. Yeah. I mean,
• 27:56
  you you seem unique. I mean, I'm someone who
• 28:00
  discovered all this stuff later, like after it
• 28:03
  already happened. And so Loser Life was one that
• 28:07
  really stuck out to me. You know, we but the
• 28:10
  thing is, is that like there was a pretty big
• 28:12
  disconnect with like the 19th Street. That's
• 28:15
  when 19th Street started becoming a thing. We
• 28:18
  all hung out at 19th street, but then like it
• 28:20
  became 19th street punks. And it kind of started
• 28:23
  with, I'm not going to name the guy cause he's
• 28:24
  a fucking dickhead, but like he was in a, and
• 28:27
  you know, I'm not going to say his band because
• 28:30
  that would be like, Oh yeah, he called me a dickhead
• 28:33
  if he ever heard it. But there was, there was
• 28:35
  a, and some of the guys in the band are cool,
• 28:37
  but like this band was playing all the time and
• 28:40
  they were just like fucking on heroin, doing
• 28:42
  drugs, thinking that there was some GGL and cover
• 28:45
  band. Then there was like loser life and contaminators.
• 28:48
  shit some other bands but like it's just kind
• 28:50
  of us two and it was like they wouldn't they
• 28:52
  would come to our shows but like not pay or what
• 28:56
  or like but just try to watch a touring band
• 28:58
  and then but like have a shit ton of alcohol
• 29:01
  and then leave again goes back to like like treating
• 29:03
  the gym like shit leaving alcohol everywhere
• 29:05
  starting fights right and so like it was really
• 29:08
  annoying because they weren't there to like yeah
• 29:10
  be a part of the scene they were just there to
• 29:12
  like be wild and crazy go be wild and crazy at
• 29:14
  jerry's yeah fuck nate fuck jerry's go go do
• 29:17
  that Like go, go, go destroy that place. But
• 29:20
  like what Ronald was doing at the Munoz gym,
• 29:23
  letting me book shows there and letting our bands
• 29:25
  play there, like, and letting touring bands play
• 29:28
  there. It's just like legendary spot. As you
• 29:30
  know, what's funny is that no one, every, everyone
• 29:33
  at the time, everyone, a lot of people at the
• 29:34
  time took it for granted and now it's gone. And
• 29:37
  everyone's like, Oh, do you remember the Munoz
• 29:39
  gym? Like, yeah, I do. I was at every show. Where
• 29:41
  were you? You know, like, Oh, and the shows you
• 29:44
  did go, you were drunk. not in like not watching
• 29:48
  the bands like pissing in the corner you know
• 29:51
  there's so much more i could say but there's
• 29:53
  a big disconnect between what was going on at
• 29:55
  19th street punk that like the original part
• 29:57
  of that gang and i'm not shitting on 19th street
• 29:59
  because i know it evolved to a whole different
• 30:01
  thing yeah but the the origins of that to like
• 30:04
  what was happening there and like it pissed us
• 30:08
  off we were the ones bringing like ronald and
• 30:11
  i were bringing sick bands mainly ronald but
• 30:13
  we're bringing sick bands on tour like these
• 30:15
  like sick punk bands And they would .com. And
• 30:19
  we did hard flyering. This is before, like, Facebook
• 30:23
  or anything like that. We would get wheat paste,
• 30:25
  and we'd go around. We'd go to high schools,
• 30:28
  and we'd paste all these flyers everywhere. Overnight,
• 30:30
  right? We'd make our own wheat paste. We'd go
• 30:34
  in, and because of Bobby and the gate, we were
• 30:37
  able to use a copy machine, and we'd make massive
• 30:40
  flyers, and we'd wheat paste all over town all
• 30:43
  night. Like, we would advertise all the time.
• 30:46
  And if Ronald couldn't do the show, we were able
• 30:48
  to do shows at the Boiler Room, which was a sick
• 30:51
  venue, too. The beginning of the 90 Street Punk
• 30:53
  Kids, they would play the Boiler Room and those
• 30:55
  places, and they would destroy it. They had a
• 30:58
  little bit more respect for it because Bobby's
• 31:00
  dad, who ran the place, gave them a lot of leeway.
• 31:04
  But it wasn't until they started going to the
• 31:08
  gym and became a little afraid of us that they
• 31:11
  really started to behave more. how they became
• 31:15
  afraid of us i none of my i think just more so
• 31:19
  you can only reputation yeah you could shit it
• 31:23
  you could shit on something so long until someone
• 31:25
  gets pissed off right and so yeah also our bands
• 31:29
  were good right like yeah contaminators were
• 31:32
  awesome like user life was fun like it was you
• 31:35
  know sick and even like and then the bands that
• 31:39
  were coming through all the time like harpoon
• 31:40
  guns and and crime desire like those bands were
• 31:44
  like became staples, like the Bakersfield scene
• 31:46
  from like San Diego and Huntington beach. They're
• 31:49
  like, you wanted to be a part of it. Right. So
• 31:52
  you had to start behaving. You have some crazy
• 31:56
  stories from playing at the Munoz gym with loser
• 31:59
  life. It wasn't like, because loser life was
• 32:02
  playing. It was crazy. It's just at that point,
• 32:05
  like Ronald and I were the enforcers, not just
• 32:09
  Ronald and I, but like the people who were like,
• 32:11
  like, People came in and misbehaved. Like, got
• 32:16
  checked. I remember an Iron Lung show. This guy.
• 32:21
  So we used to always say, punks get in free.
• 32:24
  And so these punks would come in and be like,
• 32:26
  oh, punks get in free. And the joke was, well,
• 32:29
  you're not punk. That's why you're not getting
• 32:30
  in for free. It was stupid. But like, you know,
• 32:35
  they would come and it would be such a... We
• 32:38
  were asking $5, $6. And these guys would have
• 32:42
  a bag full of 40s. And they'd say, I don't have
• 32:44
  any money. So we said, well, then leave. And
• 32:47
  then one guy would like, well, I'm going to go
• 32:49
  in. And I don't know what happened. Kind of a
• 32:52
  bully, not in a good way. And the guy got a little
• 32:56
  hyphy. So at one point, I don't know what happened,
• 32:59
  but I'm like, get the fuck out of here. And he's
• 33:04
  like, I'm not leaving. And I think, I don't think
• 33:06
  I threw a punch or anything. Maybe I did. I don't
• 33:09
  know. So many stories. But I do remember is grabbing
• 33:13
  him by his collar, either a sweater or t -shirt
• 33:17
  and dragging him across the gravel. Cause there
• 33:20
  was no, it wasn't like cement. It was gravel.
• 33:22
  So like your feet would hurt at the end of the
• 33:24
  night, probably, you know, and Ronald got his
• 33:27
  beer while I'm dragging him. Ronald got his beer
• 33:29
  and poured the beer all over the guy while I'm
• 33:31
  dragging him. I threw him in the street. And
• 33:34
  what was cool at that point is a lot of the,
• 33:37
  the, the 19th street that were like, becoming
• 33:42
  more part of the scene that are now like the
• 33:44
  leaders of that whole thing now yeah i would
• 33:47
  say mario and stuff mario was like get the fucking
• 33:51
  he would he would start regulating it you know
• 33:53
  so that was kind of cool that was when things
• 33:55
  really started to come together of course there
• 33:58
  was fights and stupid shit and dumb things but
• 34:03
  like for a good four or five years man like at
• 34:07
  least twice a month if not three times a month
• 34:09
  there was a show at the gym and like thank god
• 34:14
  that loser life had that had like loser life
• 34:17
  had that place to to do that to book bands and
• 34:20
  to have us play because if we didn't have that
• 34:23
  we would be nowhere right um we would be trying
• 34:27
  to fucking coddle nate to try to play over at
• 34:30
  jerry's pizza you know and we did have the boiler
• 34:33
  room which is great but it wasn't the gym yeah
• 34:36
  and what's funny is that is that in the beginning,
• 34:40
  especially during the Pine days, the bands that
• 34:43
  came through, like the Screamo bands, were so
• 34:46
  fucking stuck up and rude about the gym. They
• 34:49
  had their noses so high, and they just thought
• 34:54
  they were so... It was not novel to them. It
• 34:57
  was like, why am I playing a venue like this?
• 34:59
  It's dirty, it's gross. But then, especially
• 35:03
  the Loser Life days, with a lot of different
• 35:06
  types of bands coming through, they loved it.
• 35:08
  and i remember a band named chronic seizure well
• 35:11
  i'm good friends with the here from chicago i'm
• 35:13
  good friends with the guys now they brian brings
• 35:16
  it up all the time to me that no one showed up
• 35:19
  to that show because the day before or the day
• 35:22
  after was hell shock and so no one came to their
• 35:25
  show because everyone already went to the show
• 35:28
  before whatever and they played it was one of
• 35:30
  the best stuff i've ever seen because they like
• 35:32
  were just so stoked to be there and playing in
• 35:34
  a boxing ring to them it was like It was such
• 35:37
  the coolest experience. So it's funny who loved
• 35:41
  it and funny who kind of stuck their nose up
• 35:44
  to it. And now it's funny who's like talking
• 35:47
  about how much they miss it when we know who
• 35:49
  was there and who wasn't there. This band put
• 35:52
  lighter fluid on his cymbal and lit it on fire
• 35:55
  while he was playing drums. And Ronald goes,
• 35:57
  what the fuck are you doing? This is like a wood.
• 36:00
  This is like a flammable wood building. What
• 36:03
  are you doing? And like stopped the whole show.
• 36:06
  And to be fair, yeah, it was obnoxious what the
• 36:10
  guy was doing. One time, a band called Hot Crossplay,
• 36:14
  and I remember this dude named Aaron Caldera
• 36:17
  jumped off the drum set because fucking loving
• 36:20
  the band, going stoked. And then the drummer
• 36:23
  stopped in the middle of the set, said, don't
• 36:26
  you jump off my drum set. This is an expensive
• 36:28
  drum set. And so then every kid there just sat
• 36:31
  down. and watched them play in the ring. It was
• 36:34
  like, that was a pretty cool thing. I've read
• 36:39
  a lot about venues. There's nothing like it.
• 36:41
  There's just nothing. It's so unique. There's
• 36:43
  just nothing like it. And there'll never be anything
• 36:46
  like it. Not that this is going to sound like,
• 36:48
  oh, I played here, I played there. I've been
• 36:50
  lucky to. Not because I'm, you know, I've been
• 36:53
  lucky to play a shit ton of different bands and
• 36:55
  tour for a long time. That like, nothing beats
• 36:59
  the... the specialness that was uh who knows
• 37:02
  jim we talked about the demo and then you had
• 37:20
  the 45 things will never change yeah so that
• 37:23
  was um that was our first seven inch and that
• 37:26
  was like we recorded We recorded like five songs
• 37:29
  with Ruben and we did those two songs and three
• 37:33
  others. Maybe Ronald put it out. And that was
• 37:35
  one of Ronald's first, as one of going underground
• 37:37
  first records. Yeah. And it was pretty cool.
• 37:40
  I already kind of had like a big chest, like,
• 37:42
  Oh, I've had records out in the pine. But when
• 37:45
  we did, when Ronald put the lose life record
• 37:47
  out, that felt really like, that felt really
• 37:49
  cool. Like, Oh wow. Like maybe people do like
• 37:53
  it, you know? And so it was great. Is that the
• 37:57
  start of your partnership with Jeremy Cravens?
• 38:00
  So we met Jeremy. He's a guitar player of a band
• 38:06
  called Active Ingredients. That first Active
• 38:09
  Ingredients CD, it's one of the pillars of my
• 38:13
  favorite records. A good friend at the time was
• 38:18
  in the revamped Active Ingredients, which was
• 38:21
  a Christian band at that point. His name was
• 38:23
  Javier. He actually toured Europe with us. He
• 38:26
  played drums in the Christian Act of Ingredients.
• 38:28
  They never played the gym. They would play Jerry's,
• 38:31
  and they would play The Gate or The Boiler Room.
• 38:34
  Javier was a part of the gym scene. He would
• 38:36
  go to a lot of the shows, but Jeremy and Dennis
• 38:42
  did not. Jeremy started as a side gig, just kind
• 38:46
  of recording, and so he set up a whole recording
• 38:48
  studio in the South Side, or I don't remember.
• 38:52
  And we started recording with him. I think for
• 38:56
  as shitty as our crib, it was, and for, we did
• 38:59
  it. It sounds pretty good. So your next record
• 39:11
  was, I want the world. Is that one still your
• 39:14
  favorite? I would say that's my favorite or my
• 39:17
  health, my favorite call it. Did I want the world
• 39:19
  seven inch? He's from Crying Desire. He did a
• 39:23
  label called Life's a Rape. I think that record's
• 39:25
  just awesome. I loved how it started, how it
• 39:27
  finished. Again, that was when we were really
• 39:29
  just going for it. We were touring in my grandpa's
• 39:34
  minivan on a demo tape. We were doing two weeks
• 39:37
  here, three weeks there. We were playing all
• 39:40
  the time. I think we practiced three or four
• 39:43
  times a week. Songs were just churning and churning
• 39:46
  and churning. I saw this interview that you did
• 39:50
  and you said, some people write about taking
• 39:53
  over the government. Some people talk about wanting
• 39:56
  to kill themselves. I got no self -respect. I
• 39:59
  got no dignity. I got nothing to worry about.
• 40:03
  I thought that sums up a lot of like some of
• 40:07
  the lyrical themes and stuff of Loser Life. You
• 40:10
  know, there was, they say you're like the worst
• 40:13
  version of yourself from like 17 to 25, right?
• 40:17
  I was the worst version of myself during that
• 40:21
  time. Mortified's a little aggressive, but I'm
• 40:24
  pretty humiliated. I'm pretty embarrassed by
• 40:26
  a lot of stuff that happened during that time.
• 40:28
  I don't know why I said that, but I said, I'll
• 40:31
  just say this. We were all pretty, like, as a
• 40:36
  band, even as friends, I'm not going to speak
• 40:39
  for the Munoz gym, like Ronald and the Contaminators
• 40:42
  and stuff, but we were all just kind of in a
• 40:44
  really dark time. I think all individually were
• 40:47
  going through a lot of weird shit. And that was
• 40:50
  our outlet. And being able to venture out of
• 40:55
  Bakersfield, you started to really feel the lack
• 41:01
  of respect you got being from Bakersfield and
• 41:04
  touring at a band from Bakersfield. And it gives
• 41:09
  you a chip on your shoulder. So putting a lot
• 41:12
  of the dark stuff that we were all dealing with.
• 41:14
  coming up with and then going out and feeling
• 41:17
  like we were being treated like i don't know
• 41:20
  peasants peons whatever the right word is and
• 41:24
  like it just started to really accumulate where
• 41:26
  like there was a lot of anger and a lot of sadness
• 41:28
  it was a thin line so yeah between ruben and
• 41:33
  i writing some of the lyrics he was a much better
• 41:35
  lyricist than i was but between him and i i mean
• 41:39
  it was like At one point, I'm surprised if anyone
• 41:43
  ever read it, like if they ever checked up on
• 41:45
  us, he was okay. To fast forward, Ruben eventually
• 41:48
  became, was diagnosed with manic schizophrenia
• 41:52
  and bipolar, where a lot of the stuff that he
• 41:56
  was writing about and doing on tour started to
• 42:00
  check out why it was happening. And it became,
• 42:02
  I mean, outside of my own psyche and paranoia,
• 42:06
  he also contributed to a massive like. divide
• 42:11
  in the band because of his sickness. It's his
• 42:14
  fault, I guess, you know? Your first album, I
• 42:28
  Have Ghosts and I Have Ghosts. And you went on
• 42:31
  a big tour, right? Let's talk about that. All
• 42:33
  I wanted to do was tour. When The Pinted Europe,
• 42:36
  we got back and... roger and kurt were kind of
• 42:40
  like wanting to not tour as much if tour at all
• 42:44
  and just write songs and i wanted to keep touring
• 42:46
  and so that's kind of why also lose life started
• 42:50
  it's like i wanted to just i wanted to live on
• 42:52
  the road nice so we booked this i think it's
• 42:54
  about four and a half weeks five weeks u .s tour
• 42:57
  we bought a van and uh used all my contacts for
• 43:01
  the people that ronald booker i booked and also
• 43:04
  just like went on myspace and found random bands
• 43:06
  on thank you list kind of like when you when
• 43:08
  you're trying to discover a band you're like
• 43:10
  oh and then you go and you find their thank you
• 43:13
  list you go so you buy you get the band's record
• 43:14
  that you like or that you've like played with
• 43:16
  you go to their thank you list and you go they're
• 43:19
  from buffalo new york and you reach out to them
• 43:21
  and that's how i booked the first us tour i did
• 43:23
  the first lp it was a pretty successful tour
• 43:25
  we came back with some good funds it was kind
• 43:28
  of one of the Funnest times of my life. It was
• 43:30
  the first U .S. tour that I did that was like,
• 43:33
  it just all went by really smoothly. You know,
• 43:36
  we didn't have any flat tires, no fights, nothing.
• 43:39
  You know, it was cool. Yeah. We didn't have a
• 43:41
  roadie. It was just us four. And yeah, we just
• 43:44
  played. It was fun. It was great. Any memorable
• 43:46
  shows on that tour? Prime Desire joined us for
• 43:50
  the East Coast portion of the tour. And then
• 43:53
  we played a couple really gnarly shows. One time
• 43:55
  with a band called No Fucker in New York, Ithaca,
• 43:58
  New York. And then we played a show in Virginia
• 44:01
  or D .C. And we played a show in Cincinnati.
• 44:05
  And the show in Cincinnati was funny because
• 44:07
  no one showed up to the show. When you're booking
• 44:10
  a show, it was like, hey, give us Friday. We
• 44:12
  can get a lot of people at the show. And we're
• 44:14
  like, OK, you could have Friday in Cincinnati.
• 44:16
  And this guy was like, it's going to be so sick.
• 44:19
  Prime Desire is going to fly in. They're going
• 44:21
  to rent a car and they're going to use our equipment.
• 44:22
  And we're going to start like this, like seven
• 44:24
  days with them. And so this guy booked the show.
• 44:28
  No one showed up. And it's in like the middle
• 44:32
  of summer and in one of the gnarliest, ghetto
• 44:35
  -est neighborhoods in Cincinnati. And you can't
• 44:38
  really go outside to your van because it's like
• 44:40
  one of those things that you just don't know
• 44:42
  what you're going to run into. So we're just
• 44:44
  kind of like hanging out in the venue. We play
• 44:45
  the set. No one's there. Honestly, the sound
• 44:48
  guy and the guy who booked the show. Wow. Who
• 44:51
  is a notorious ripoff who's now popular again.
• 44:55
  I'm not going to give that person, it's a girl
• 44:58
  now, credit. He, at the time, was like, okay,
• 45:05
  I have money for you guys. Stay here. I'll come
• 45:09
  back. I'm going to go get it to my ATM and I'll
• 45:11
  come back. We wait like an hour. He's never back.
• 45:14
  This is before when texting was like this is
• 45:17
  2005 right so the texting wasn't really that
• 45:22
  like yeah fluid 2006 so we're like hey where
• 45:26
  are you and he stopped returning our text so
• 45:30
  loser life at the time had a bat and our bat
• 45:34
  had loser life spray painted on it and we called
• 45:39
  it the manager if there's ever money issues or
• 45:41
  anything wrong we take it to the manager So we
• 45:44
  actually showed up to this guy's. We found out
• 45:46
  we know where he lived. We drove to his house.
• 45:48
  He lived about 45 minutes away and showed up
• 45:50
  to his house looking for money. And we got, I
• 45:53
  think, like, I don't know, 35 bucks out of him.
• 45:57
  We had the manager in hand, ready to go. It's
• 46:00
  kind of a funny story. And we all went to a Waffle
• 46:03
  House. And, you know, I'm still pretty good friends
• 46:05
  with the Crime Desire guys. It was just a lot
• 46:07
  of fun and laughing. And we all enjoyed the story.
• 46:11
  It goes back to like, again, we had a chip on
• 46:13
  our shoulders, right? Yeah. We already had unmitigated
• 46:17
  sadness and anger. And then we had this chip
• 46:19
  on our shoulders that like, don't fuck with us
• 46:20
  kind of thing. All right, so My Hell, you mentioned
• 46:38
  that EP earlier. I think that's, if I had to
• 46:41
  be a critic, that's without a doubt our best
• 46:43
  record. We played those songs, and again, that
• 46:46
  was probably our darkest. When we went into the
• 46:48
  recording, we always recorded live, and I was
• 46:51
  like, I'm going to play as fast as I can go.
• 46:53
  Keep up. Wow. So when we practiced songs, we
• 46:56
  practiced them normal, and then when we did the
• 46:58
  recording, we're like, let's just play as fast
• 47:00
  as we can go. I don't know why we decided to
• 47:03
  do that. At that point... I think we really liked
• 47:05
  those songs. We wrote those songs all together.
• 47:07
  We wrote the lyrics together. We were always
• 47:09
  together. We were always hanging out. But yeah,
• 47:11
  I just thought everything came out great. I am
• 47:13
  very proud of that record. So you went on a Europe
• 47:17
  tour. Was that supporting this? Yeah. So after
• 47:20
  we did the first US tour, we did another West
• 47:24
  Coast tour. We were kind of writing a new record,
• 47:26
  a couple of new seven inches, and practicing.
• 47:28
  And we got asked if we wanted to tour Europe.
• 47:30
  I didn't think that was possible. The Pi did
• 47:32
  Europe. And so, yeah, we want to go. And so how
• 47:36
  long do you want to go for? I said, you know,
• 47:38
  as long as you can take us. So Colin from Pride
• 47:42
  and Desire, he also released a My Hell 12 -inch.
• 47:44
  We were like, yeah, we'll go to Europe. So we
• 47:46
  took that record with us and some of the first
• 47:47
  LP and some 7 -inches. And we did six weeks in
• 47:51
  Europe. What we did, what a lot of bands weren't
• 47:53
  doing, is I was studying a lot of like Ukrainian
• 47:56
  and Eastern Bloc history in school and like anarchist
• 48:00
  history and all that stuff. So I'm like, can
• 48:02
  we play? We played Ukraine and Slovenia, Slovakia,
• 48:05
  and all that area. So a good portion of that
• 48:08
  tour, like two weeks of that tour, we were in
• 48:10
  deep Eastern Europe. Wow. And there's some videos
• 48:14
  that are just incredible for our shows in Ukraine.
• 48:21
  Yeah, Ukraine. That's cool. And it was awesome.
• 48:25
  So what sucked is Bobby, the guitar player at
• 48:29
  that point, goes, I can't go to Europe. I don't
• 48:33
  want to go to Europe. Money was an issue. Working
• 48:38
  was an issue. And then he goes, he was going
• 48:41
  to go with his church to go to China. I don't
• 48:46
  know if Bobby was actually trying to be a missionary.
• 48:50
  I actually don't think at all at the time. But
• 48:52
  he looked at the China trip as like a free trip.
• 48:54
  And at that point, I said, we're just going to
• 48:57
  get a new guitar player. And that's when we got
• 49:00
  Mike Diaz from Crime Desire. He played bass in
• 49:03
  Crime Desire. And he said, I would love to play
• 49:05
  guitar in Lose A Life. I can move back to Hanford.
• 49:08
  And he started playing with us. So he learned
• 49:10
  all of our songs really quickly. And he brought
• 49:13
  like a kind of intensity that Bobby didn't have.
• 49:15
  Bobby was smooth and had like a, Bobby had his
• 49:19
  own feel. And honestly, he was amazing. So there's
• 49:22
  no better or worse. But Mike brought like a type
• 49:26
  of intensity that was pretty cool. that we didn't
• 49:28
  have before. I mean, Bill was a fucking maniac
• 49:31
  anyways. It didn't matter what was happening.
• 49:32
  Bill was the wrecking ball that was taking care
• 49:35
  of everyone. Mike joined the band and we did
• 49:38
  Europe together. And that's when Ruben and I
• 49:41
  really started to fucking hate each other. We
• 49:45
  really did not get along. One of the shitty things
• 49:48
  for Ruben is that he had to drive. He was the
• 49:52
  only one who got... He was the only one who got
• 49:54
  the license. Yeah. The European license. So then
• 49:58
  he, he drove and we didn't want to pay for a
• 50:01
  driver. So he drove everywhere. Wow. And that's
• 50:05
  pretty taxing on someone. So he would stay up
• 50:08
  cause we got all the free alcohol and he was
• 50:10
  the only one who drank. Well, Bill kind of drank,
• 50:13
  not really. Uh, Mike didn't drink and I didn't
• 50:15
  drink. I drank occasionally, but you get the
• 50:18
  idea. It was not much. Yeah. And, um, he, uh,
• 50:22
  He would stay up till two, three, four in the
• 50:24
  morning and then drive all night. I drive all
• 50:26
  day and then play a show and then drive all day.
• 50:29
  We got to the point where like, he got so sloppy
• 50:31
  playing guitar because he was either drunk or
• 50:34
  not sleeping that, you know, I tried to no drinking
• 50:37
  before shows. And I tried to be this tyrant and
• 50:40
  I was really a stupid person. And, um, that wasn't
• 50:45
  the issue at all. The issue was he was completely
• 50:47
  burnt out, you know, like he was driving and
• 50:49
  playing and drinking every, every day. for six
• 50:52
  weeks straight. I don't remember where we were,
• 50:54
  but I remember we were sleeping in a squat, and
• 50:56
  I hear Ruben talking to someone, and he's talking
• 51:01
  all night, and Ruben starts speaking some different
• 51:04
  language. Who the fuck doesn't know German? I
• 51:07
  go upstairs, and the lights are off. He's by
• 51:10
  a candlelight, just drinking bottles of beer
• 51:14
  everywhere. He's been talking to himself for
• 51:18
  three hours. and started just speaking random
• 51:22
  languages to himself. And that's when we started
• 51:25
  to realize, that's when I started to realize
• 51:27
  maybe something's wrong. It's pretty scary. We
• 51:30
  spent a lot of time together. I think Mike getting
• 51:32
  in the band also brought a weird dynamic. His
• 51:35
  personality was a little different from our personality.
• 51:37
  He wasn't from Bakersfield. And from Bakersfield,
• 51:40
  he just kind of built different. He couldn't
• 51:42
  keep up with the Bakersfield guys. I'll tell
• 51:43
  you a funny story. We were in some, we were playing
• 51:46
  some sick fest in Poland. we had about four and
• 51:49
  a half weeks of tour at this point. So we were
• 51:51
  exhausted. We smell like shit. We're in the van,
• 51:53
  tired. We play in the middle of the set. So it's
• 51:56
  like not, it's like in the middle of the show.
• 51:58
  So it's not like, you know, we're not headlining
• 52:00
  or we're not like opening. So we just have some
• 52:02
  time to kill. And this Polish guy comes up to
• 52:04
  us and he goes, I fucking hate Americans. And
• 52:07
  at that point I set up like, what did you say?
• 52:09
  And it's like by our van. So like he came and
• 52:11
  instigated us. Like, what did you say? And I
• 52:13
  think Bill was in the seat. And then. Ruben was
• 52:16
  on the outside, or Mike was on the outside. And
• 52:19
  I'm like, what did you say? He's like, I fucking
• 52:21
  hate Americans. And then he spit at me. And so
• 52:24
  I grab him. We throw him in the van. And I'm
• 52:28
  going to leave it at that. And then we throw
• 52:29
  him out of the van. So that was kind of like
• 52:32
  our unifying moment as a band. But we were tired
• 52:36
  and beat up and cranky. And we didn't get along.
• 52:40
  So Bill got along with everyone because Bill's
• 52:44
  a... It was great. And again, Ruben's burnt out.
• 52:47
  And Mike was just a, he was a rigid guy to talk
• 52:51
  to. And I wasn't, I'm probably the biggest villain.
• 52:56
  What's the biggest show that you played in Europe,
• 52:59
  do you think? The first time would have to be
• 53:02
  Berlin. And then some of those Ukraine shows
• 53:04
  were pretty sick. We played a lot of shows with
• 53:06
  a band called Discarga. In Amsterdam, we played
• 53:08
  like this awesome festival where we didn't headline,
• 53:11
  but we were like third or fourth from headlining.
• 53:14
  I think I looked out and it was, you know, I'm
• 53:16
  not good with numbers, but it was a sea of people,
• 53:18
  not like Woodstock or anything, but it was pretty
• 53:22
  insane. And we played a lot of festivals in Poland
• 53:24
  that there was just, you look out and it's a
• 53:27
  lot of people. So it was cool. So on a Lose a
• 53:31
  Life Last Coast tour, we had a roadie with us.
• 53:34
  He was actually the guitar player of my first
• 53:36
  band, Grassroots. So he was close with Ruben.
• 53:38
  Cool. And he, he, He had some trouble where he
• 53:44
  lived in San Francisco and then he got in an
• 53:47
  accident moving and then got stuck in vacation
• 53:49
  for a few months. So he came on tour with us.
• 53:52
  Well, we were driving all the way to Canada and
• 53:55
  we were playing. And this was like our second
• 53:56
  West Coast tour, which was really, it was like
• 53:59
  a really successful tour. It sounds cheesy, but
• 54:03
  we made a lot of money, which is how we paid
• 54:04
  for some of the recording for the last LP. Nice.
• 54:09
  And we did this West Coast tour. and uh we were
• 54:13
  going to vancouver canada and we got stopped
• 54:15
  at the we got stopped at the um border and he
• 54:22
  was trying to find the guy border guy was like
• 54:24
  trying to like you know like detaining us like
• 54:27
  why are you coming here since we had a bunch
• 54:29
  of equipment and merch we're just like visiting
• 54:31
  for a couple days they know what we're doing
• 54:33
  so he thought he would he thought he would um
• 54:38
  he thought he would get us she's like all right
• 54:42
  you four can go, but you have to stay here. Thinking
• 54:44
  that he was going to break the band up. But the
• 54:46
  guy he had stay there was our roadie. We left
• 54:50
  our roadie at the border town, went and played
• 54:53
  this show in Vancouver, which is right out of
• 54:55
  the border. And it was an insane show. It was
• 54:58
  one of the coolest shows we've ever played. It
• 55:00
  was in a basement called the Alf House. Alf House
• 55:03
  that the Pine originally got kicked out of, you
• 55:06
  know, five years before. So it was kind of funny
• 55:09
  that Bill and I were there. We were enjoying
• 55:12
  it. And he got kicked out. And we played the
• 55:17
  show. And then now it's like midnight. We have
• 55:19
  to drive back. Go get Eric. So we drive back.
• 55:23
  We go to this border town. It was a Thursday
• 55:25
  because the Raiders were playing. And he comes
• 55:28
  from this bar. And he's like, he's blackout drunk
• 55:33
  because he's been sitting there drinking for
• 55:34
  14 hours. And he ran out on his bar tab. So he
• 55:41
  runs into the van. He's like, let's go, let's
• 55:43
  go. I'm like, why? He's like, just go. So we're
• 55:45
  driving off and this person's running out of
• 55:47
  the bar, shaking, throwing beer bottles at the
• 55:51
  car, trying to get him to come pay his bar tab.
• 55:53
  That was probably the hundreds of thousands of
• 55:55
  dollars. He did say Nelly was playing the same
• 55:59
  night in Vancouver and Nelly's bodyguard didn't
• 56:02
  go over. So he was hanging out with Nelly's bodyguard
• 56:04
  the whole time. So pretty funny. I'll tell you
• 56:07
  another story. So we flew from. Our first European
• 56:10
  tour, we flew from Frankfurt or Berlin, I forget,
• 56:16
  the UK, and we were doing our final stint of
• 56:19
  the UK tour, the tour in the UK. It's really
• 56:23
  hard to get in the UK without any kind of visa
• 56:26
  or passport. We land, three of us went to one
• 56:29
  airport and two went to a different airport.
• 56:31
  We did that on purpose so they would be like,
• 56:33
  oh, you just have guitars. They wouldn't think
• 56:36
  that we're a touring band. Well... Our guitar
• 56:39
  player, Mike and Ruben, got detained. So me,
• 56:44
  Bill, and Brody, we had Javier from the drummer
• 56:49
  from Active Ingredients. He was on tour in Europe
• 56:51
  with us. We were at a different airport. And
• 56:54
  then Ruben and Michael were detained at the Heathrow
• 56:58
  Airport. They got detained and put into a room
• 57:03
  for about 16 hours and fed bologna sandwiches.
• 57:06
  And we had to miss our first show. And at one
• 57:10
  point, Michael told me, Ruben was a really stubborn
• 57:13
  person. He, as a vegan, he took the bologna out
• 57:17
  and he put mustard on the bread. And then he
• 57:20
  went and he started eating the bread. And then
• 57:23
  the guy kept trying to get questions out of him.
• 57:27
  This is what Mike told me. Ruben just starts
• 57:29
  spitting out all of the bread with mustard everywhere
• 57:32
  and pretending to answer his questions. I don't
• 57:36
  know how they got through. And then at one point,
• 57:38
  Mike's like, Can you just answer the question
• 57:41
  so we can get out of this room? But Ruben was
• 57:44
  so pissed, he wouldn't do what he was supposed
• 57:46
  to do to get out. Eventually, they got out of
• 57:48
  the stuff, and that's how they moved on. And
• 57:52
  then we finished our European tour through the
• 57:56
  UK. That's cool. Yeah. The final album, Friends
• 58:20
  With A Demon. Yeah, so that was the album we
• 58:22
  did with Mike. I really hated singing. I wasn't
• 58:25
  in the best shape. And I just wasn't a good drummer,
• 58:27
  singer at the same time. That was the record
• 58:30
  that Colin wanted to fully do from Carbon Desire.
• 58:34
  And he's like, I want you guys to go to an actual
• 58:36
  studio. And so we wrote a lot of those songs
• 58:40
  on the European tour. We wrote a lot of those
• 58:43
  songs on there, like Michael and I did. Nice.
• 58:49
  You can hear a pretty distinct difference from
• 58:51
  Michael's songs to my songs. My songs are a little
• 58:54
  bit more simpler. His songs are a little bit
• 58:56
  more elaborate. It's not a secret here, but it
• 58:59
  might be shocking to some. The lyrics that me
• 59:02
  and Ruben had were pretty much about how much
• 59:05
  we hated each other. My songs were sometimes
• 59:08
  about him, his were about me. If you even go
• 59:10
  through the lyrics, he'll say something, and
• 59:12
  then I'll say something. I guess it got some
• 59:14
  good tension. That's one of my least favorite
• 59:16
  ones. Some of the songs are pretty good. But,
• 59:19
  you know, we were in a real studio. I think that
• 59:22
  everyone was pretty tired at that point. I didn't
• 59:24
  give a shit about being famous or making money.
• 59:26
  But I wanted to record. I wanted to write songs.
• 59:28
  I wanted to tour. And then Michael had to drive
• 59:31
  an hour and a half from Hanford every practice.
• 59:34
  And we couldn't do practicing two to three times
• 59:36
  a week anymore because he had to come from Hanford.
• 59:39
  And Bill was fatiguing me on the band. and Ruben
• 59:44
  was becoming just a little bit... He had a girlfriend
• 59:47
  and becoming more and more into his home life.
• 59:51
  It's not like the prize of the band to me was
• 59:55
  the My Hell stuff, and I went to World 7 -inch.
• 59:59
  But we did the LP, and it came out, and yeah.
• 1:00:04
  And then Europe, taken by surprise, he did a
• 1:00:08
  My Hell version and a Friends of the Demon version.
• 1:00:11
  And I think maybe he sold 100 of each. That poor
• 1:00:14
  guy is sitting on thousands of records of our
• 1:00:18
  band that never sold, and that sucks. But after
• 1:00:22
  that record, we did a U .S. We were going to
• 1:00:26
  do another U .S. tour, and Michael, I wish I
• 1:00:29
  said no to him, but he's like, why are we doing
• 1:00:31
  U .S. again when we can do Europe again? And
• 1:00:35
  I'm like, let's just do the United States. And
• 1:00:37
  we get into an argument. I said, fine, let's
• 1:00:39
  just do both. And so then we did three weeks
• 1:00:42
  US tour, which is fucking crazy. And Adam Schwartz
• 1:00:47
  came on tour with us, which was nice. And then
• 1:00:49
  we did three weeks. Then we took two days off
• 1:00:52
  and then three days Europe. And Bill came to
• 1:00:57
  me and said he can't do the tour. He couldn't
• 1:00:59
  get time off work. And I think it was just six
• 1:01:03
  weeks off work. and then six weeks after the
• 1:01:07
  last u .s after the last european tour and then
• 1:01:10
  the u .s tour before i just don't think he i
• 1:01:12
  don't think he didn't want to do it i think he
• 1:01:13
  was just tired um and this is also like we've
• 1:01:17
  had multiple west coast tours right like we were
• 1:01:20
  playing and we're playing weekends here weekends
• 1:01:22
  there we weren't playing like gold where they
• 1:01:26
  play every weekend but we were playing a lot
• 1:01:27
  and um we so we got a replacement bass player
• 1:01:34
  and again change the dynamic and it was uh the
• 1:01:40
  u .s tour and the parts of western europe were
• 1:01:45
  really successful probably our biggest shows
• 1:01:48
  not really simple and not like huge shows but
• 1:01:51
  it was like our most successful successful shows
• 1:01:55
  because their second time through and and uh
• 1:01:57
  we had a lot of material i don't think we were
• 1:02:00
  that good like i think at that point like We
• 1:02:03
  were rushing to the set and we were just kind
• 1:02:05
  of like going through the motions. But yeah,
• 1:02:09
  they were popular shows. And then in Europe,
• 1:02:14
  we started touring. We wanted to do the Eastern
• 1:02:19
  Europe again. So we got booked at this festival
• 1:02:24
  in Hungary. It's about 40 miles south of Budapest.
• 1:02:31
  So we're playing this festival. And we show up
• 1:02:34
  and we're, it's like, this is like out of a movie.
• 1:02:37
  So what's that movie with a green room. It's
• 1:02:39
  almost like a scene out of green room. So we
• 1:02:41
  drive, we drive through, but this is a, you can
• 1:02:44
  ask you to the band members. They would, they
• 1:02:46
  would tell you the story. We drive to drive to
• 1:02:49
  this venue. We pull up. It's like in the woods,
• 1:02:52
  middle of nowhere. There's like, I would say
• 1:02:54
  over a thousand people insane. It's a huge park.
• 1:02:57
  And they're all, they're all like punks. They're
• 1:03:00
  all like dressed to the nines. and we see like
• 1:03:03
  these three gnarly they looked nine feet to me
• 1:03:06
  but they were probably like six foot something
• 1:03:09
  nazi skinheads walking out of the venue out of
• 1:03:11
  the park and we're kind of like oh maybe they're
• 1:03:14
  just getting kicked out you know whatever kind
• 1:03:16
  of weird so we go we park the van and we go in
• 1:03:21
  and we find the promoter and it's just again
• 1:03:24
  we don't have a driver it's just us four you
• 1:03:26
  know and we go up to him like hey we're losing
• 1:03:29
  life And he said, oh, here's some food. You want
• 1:03:32
  some food? And I'm like, is it vegan? Because
• 1:03:34
  at the time, both the bass player who was touring
• 1:03:36
  with us, Daniel, and Ruben were vegan. So he's
• 1:03:41
  like, yeah, it's vegan. And I go, hey, let me
• 1:03:43
  try it. So I went and tried it, and it was full
• 1:03:46
  -blown meat. It was like a full -meat soup. So
• 1:03:50
  the vibes of this place were just a little off.
• 1:03:53
  And at one point, it was us four hanging out.
• 1:03:57
  like we just like wouldn't leave each other's
• 1:03:59
  side um we go to this like this picnic table
• 1:04:01
  and there's this guy that's like doing a lot
• 1:04:03
  of weird stuff to this girl and we like stop
• 1:04:06
  it and then they cut then he like runs off i
• 1:04:09
  don't know it was again blurry then she goes
• 1:04:12
  to her friends and then at this point we're like
• 1:04:16
  what's going on with this venue and now the the
• 1:04:18
  show and now the lights they're like the the
• 1:04:21
  sun's going down it's getting darker and darker
• 1:04:23
  and everyone that's at this show is watching
• 1:04:28
  this next band and we're playing after him and
• 1:04:31
  the guy says something in hungarian and then
• 1:04:34
  all of a sudden he goes he says something else
• 1:04:37
  and then you could see on his neck a death totem
• 1:04:40
  tattooed on his neck the lights the lights go
• 1:04:44
  off like the lights from the stage go off and
• 1:04:46
  he says seek hell seek hell and all of a sudden
• 1:04:48
  the lights shine on the whole crowd and everyone
• 1:04:51
  starts oh my gosh that's horrifying We're having
• 1:04:57
  a Nazi festival. And on top of that, not to make
• 1:04:59
  it about us, the bass player with us is Lebanese,
• 1:05:02
  looked like he came straight from Israel. And
• 1:05:06
  Michael, the guitar player, looked like another,
• 1:05:12
  like a doppelganger of Steve Perry from Journey,
• 1:05:16
  who also looked like he came straight from Israel.
• 1:05:19
  And then you have me and Ruben, who were blonde
• 1:05:22
  hair, blue eyes. So those guys. At that point,
• 1:05:26
  I'm like, I have to be banned out. I look at
• 1:05:30
  those guys. I go, go to the fucking van right
• 1:05:31
  now. They run to the van. I go, Ruben, I need
• 1:05:35
  you to get all of our equipment. All we had were
• 1:05:39
  guitars and cymbals at that point. I said, go
• 1:05:41
  and put it in the van real quick. So we go and
• 1:05:42
  put it in the van, and I go up to the promoter,
• 1:05:45
  and I go, hey, our guitar player and bass player
• 1:05:49
  are vegan, and this isn't vegan food. Can we
• 1:05:51
  get the money now so we can go buy some food
• 1:05:54
  real quick? before we can come back and play.
• 1:05:55
  And the guy's like, yeah, no problem. Gave us
• 1:05:58
  the money we're supposed to pay for the show.
• 1:06:00
  And we start leaving town. Because it wasn't
• 1:06:04
  euros, it was the Hungarian dollar or whatever.
• 1:06:07
  Well, while we're leaving town, we're supposed
• 1:06:09
  to go to Romania after this. So while we're leaving
• 1:06:12
  town, the promoter figures out what we just did.
• 1:06:14
  We stole the money. We had like a cell phone.
• 1:06:19
  He starts calling the cell phone and he says
• 1:06:21
  he's chasing us. So now, Like, holy fuck, we're
• 1:06:28
  going to get killed. At that point, we turn around
• 1:06:31
  and we start heading back for Germany. We had
• 1:06:35
  our home base in Berlin. Our label was in Berlin.
• 1:06:38
  So we get to Germany and we only had like four
• 1:06:42
  or five days left. The van wasn't really working.
• 1:06:46
  It was time to cancel the tour anyways. That
• 1:06:48
  was the final thing. So we canceled the last
• 1:06:49
  part of our European tour. So that was that that
• 1:06:53
  was one of the scariest stories. And then we
• 1:06:55
  played like one show outside of Berlin before
• 1:06:58
  we had to fly back. And Michael and I got into
• 1:07:02
  a fistfight, kind of. He just wouldn't shut up.
• 1:07:05
  And I was tired of it. And I also wasn't. I probably
• 1:07:09
  was really stupidly annoying. And we got into
• 1:07:12
  a scuffle. And then that was the end of Lose
• 1:07:15
  A Life. And that Life No. 2 had already come
• 1:07:33
  out by then? But Burning Fields and Life No.
• 1:07:35
  2 were recorded around the same time. Right,
• 1:07:38
  the exact same time. So I guess after Loser Life,
• 1:07:43
  right, kind of combined some members with Contaminators
• 1:07:46
  to make Human Mess. So that was all during the
• 1:07:50
  exact same time. Contaminators, Human Mess, Loser
• 1:07:52
  Life. Ronald and I, we were pretty close. I would
• 1:07:55
  work Ronald's store, and that's who I'd go and
• 1:07:58
  hang out with. and our friend mark they just
• 1:08:01
  said we have some songs would you be interested
• 1:08:03
  it wasn't that formal it was like hey let's have
• 1:08:05
  some songs let's like start a band cool again
• 1:08:08
  it kind of goes back to what i said originally
• 1:08:09
  like we were all dealing with all of us were
• 1:08:13
  just dealing with a really fucked up time in
• 1:08:15
  our life and we did the seven inch and the songs
• 1:08:18
  came like that and i heard the songs i had lyrics
• 1:08:24
  already because i was writing all the time and
• 1:08:26
  i would even just write on the spot I'm really
• 1:08:29
  proud of a lot of stuff that human mess did.
• 1:08:31
  I wasn't then, but when I look back at it, I
• 1:08:35
  think those songs are really good. And I think
• 1:08:37
  the lyrics were some of the best lyrics I've
• 1:08:39
  written. I think it was three to four maniacs
• 1:08:43
  who just kind of found each other at the right.
• 1:08:45
  It was lightning in a bottle and, um, can't be
• 1:08:48
  replicated. And it was, uh, it just happened
• 1:08:51
  to come out. Yeah. All happened at the exact
• 1:08:54
  same time as lose a life and contaminators. I
• 1:08:56
  would say Ronald was the same way. We were all
• 1:08:58
  extremely passionate about what we were doing.
• 1:09:01
  We were either booking shows, listening to music,
• 1:09:04
  writing music, recording music. Ronald was releasing
• 1:09:07
  records. He also did the Heartbeat side project.
• 1:09:11
  He did Every Song is a Revolution at that point.
• 1:09:14
  So it's like we were all so busy. Again, we kind
• 1:09:17
  of fast forwarded, but Adam Schwartz came on
• 1:09:19
  that U .S. tour with us the second time. And
• 1:09:22
  he was 18, just graduated high school. It was
• 1:09:25
  awesome. Best Friday I've ever had. It's just
• 1:09:29
  incredible being around. I know I listened to
• 1:09:31
  this podcast, Laugh Now, Die Later, that's hosted
• 1:09:35
  by Ricky. And he interviewed Adam. And on that,
• 1:09:38
  Adam credited you with teaching him how the business
• 1:09:42
  works, how to book shows, how to work with other
• 1:09:46
  people and stuff like that. I love the behind
• 1:09:50
  the scenes aspect. of the band stuff. I loved
• 1:09:54
  booking shows. I loved organizing. I loved having
• 1:10:00
  a map and learning how to go here and there and
• 1:10:03
  juggling the itinerary. I loved it. I loved talking
• 1:10:08
  to labels. I loved wrestling with bands and artwork.
• 1:10:13
  I loved behind -the -scenes stuff. To say I'm
• 1:10:15
  good at all of it is a different thing, but I
• 1:10:17
  really enjoyed the business aspect of it. Even
• 1:10:21
  when I moved to Chicago and toured other bands
• 1:10:22
  in Chicago, it was cool that I took over for
• 1:10:26
  a lot of these bands. It worked a lot of times,
• 1:10:29
  so it was rewarding. That's cool. It's a lot
• 1:10:31
  of fun for me. I'm really proud of some of the
• 1:10:34
  bands I've been in in Chicago. It's going to
• 1:10:36
  sound cheesy, but I was in a band. One of my
• 1:10:40
  favorite bands was Pillage. It's with these guys
• 1:10:42
  who were bands I grew up listening to. It sounds
• 1:10:45
  cheesy, but... a dream come true to play with
• 1:10:50
  these guys you know it's like members of crudos
• 1:10:53
  and charles bronson and mk ultra and it's like
• 1:10:56
  holy shit i'm like playing with these dudes you
• 1:10:58
  know it's pretty sick that's like a super group
• 1:11:01
  yeah and yeah totally it was and like it was
• 1:11:04
  just awesome being in those bands and buddies
• 1:11:06
  those guys and uh did a couple bands with some
• 1:11:11
  uh a couple lps here and there some demos here
• 1:11:14
  and there and then uh I'm really lucky and fortunate
• 1:11:17
  to have known who I've got to know and play who
• 1:11:20
  I've got to play with, especially for not being
• 1:11:23
  the best drummer. The availability and the wantingness
• 1:11:28
  and willingness to do it. Again, the passion
• 1:11:30
  never went away. I love it. I love the grind
• 1:11:34
  of it all. I play in a band now with a good friend
• 1:11:38
  of mine. He has his own recording studio, and
• 1:11:40
  it's just kind of fun. We write songs together.
• 1:11:44
  We have no... drive to try to make play a show
• 1:11:48
  we have an lp and someone wants it we'll sell
• 1:11:52
  to them it's just easy it's fun and then i'm
• 1:11:54
  with the pine those guys and some of my closest
• 1:11:57
  friends and it was awesome because you know we
• 1:11:59
  didn't talk for a decade or so maybe you have
• 1:12:03
  shit maybe more than that and uh maybe it was
• 1:12:06
  you know 15 years 16 17 18 years and it's like
• 1:12:12
  uh it's like we never stopped talking and so
• 1:12:15
  It's nice being with those guys. It's nice that
• 1:12:19
  Ronald and Adam are spearheading a lot of great
• 1:12:21
  stuff for us too. So very thankful for them.
• 1:12:24
  If it wasn't for Ronald and Adam, none of this
• 1:12:26
  would have happened. And it's been great. The
• 1:12:32
  grind never went away. If I get hyper -focused
• 1:12:36
  on something, I'm never going to stop. With Roger,
• 1:12:39
  Kurt, and Bill, we're all marathoners tonight.
• 1:12:43
  There's nothing better in my book. We match each
• 1:12:45
  other's intensity. That's cool. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:12:48
  I was so excited to go to the Pine Show at the
• 1:12:52
  4 and 5 a couple months ago. Going to the Pine
• 1:12:55
  Show at the 4 and 5 was so fun. And to really
• 1:12:58
  see the type of energy that the Pine brought
• 1:13:02
  versus what other bands bring to the 4 and 5
• 1:13:06
  was really cool. The Pine is just an iconic Bakersfield
• 1:13:10
  band. You went on tour all over and everyone
• 1:13:15
  that knows anything about emo knows how important
• 1:13:18
  the pine is. And so it was just fun to see. Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  Um, it was, it's awesome. I just, I love it.
• 1:13:27
  I love those guys. Love playing in a band with
• 1:13:29
  them. Love writing songs with them. It's great.
• 1:13:32
  As of all the bands I've been in, uh, I'm the
• 1:13:35
  most proudest in the pine. What are some local
• 1:13:39
  bands, past or present, that you want to shout
• 1:13:42
  out? A lot of bands that were never unearthed,
• 1:13:46
  where the demos did really well. Again, I said
• 1:13:50
  it earlier, the Active Ingredients first CD,
• 1:13:52
  the Everything Sucks CD, was incredible. The
• 1:13:55
  Acrylic The World's Given Up CD, without a doubt,
• 1:13:58
  was like, I listened from start to finish. Everything
• 1:14:00
  Sucks by Active Ingredients, Prost Nation. Just
• 1:14:03
  any band that came through, I just... I'd always
• 1:14:06
  buy something or like I'd always, I guess your
• 1:14:08
  podcast can't see, but if you look behind me,
• 1:14:10
  I've kept every single artifact from every show
• 1:14:13
  I've ever been to or every record. Like I don't
• 1:14:16
  sell. I just, I love it all. So it's past acrylics,
• 1:14:22
  that first after gradients record. Um, that's
• 1:14:26
  about it. I guess again, props nation. It was
• 1:14:29
  awesome. Um, a big figure of like where I started,
• 1:14:32
  you know, Roger is in a band called Fletcher.
• 1:14:35
  That was before my time, but it's still really
• 1:14:37
  good. I'll just say this. What Taylor and those
• 1:14:41
  guys are doing right now, what Gold and every
• 1:14:43
  offset of band that Gold is doing is pretty incredible.
• 1:14:47
  I like to support and keep up any way I can.
• 1:14:51
  I make sure to get all that stuff. They're doing
• 1:14:55
  it better than I think we ever did it. It's pretty
• 1:14:58
  cool. It's awesome. The 415 is the DIY place.
• 1:15:03
  It's the best one. and going on going underground
• 1:15:06
  records is without a doubt like it is what ronald
• 1:15:10
  said then was cool and what he says now is cool
• 1:15:12
  and he's always right he he's a guy that was
• 1:15:15
  uh monumental in like what i got into he'd be
• 1:15:19
  up there with skateboard videos and the music
• 1:15:20
  they got from there all right i want to talk
• 1:15:24
  about something that is a pretty consistent theme
• 1:15:28
  on the podcast all right it's basically that
• 1:15:32
  bakersfield can be a really rough place to grow
• 1:15:37
  up and live in, you know? And kind of like, how
• 1:15:40
  do you make something with that? Well, what do
• 1:15:43
  you do? You're stuck here. Well, what do you
• 1:15:45
  do with that? I mean, there's specific songs
• 1:15:47
  that you've written about how hard Bakersfield
• 1:15:52
  is to live in, even on your MySpace of loser
• 1:15:57
  life that used to say Devil Town, California.
• 1:16:00
  Do you have any advice to people that live here?
• 1:16:03
  Like, what to do? I don't mean, like, for fun.
• 1:16:06
  I mean, like, vis -a -vis art. Yeah, I don't
• 1:16:08
  know. I don't have advice. I'll say this, though.
• 1:16:11
  I thought we were romanticized in the struggle
• 1:16:13
  of what Bakersfield was a lot when I was there.
• 1:16:16
  And then I moved to Chicago 17 years ago. And
• 1:16:21
  it's funny that, like, I used to think when I
• 1:16:23
  lived in Bakersfield, like, oh, maybe we just,
• 1:16:25
  like, romanticize this whole thing. But then
• 1:16:28
  when I moved to Chicago, it really is a really
• 1:16:31
  fucking weird heart. awkward place to live to
• 1:16:33
  grow up and live like this i can't explain it
• 1:16:36
  there's something in the air you know it'll say
• 1:16:39
  it's uh 50 degrees outside but it feels like
• 1:16:43
  30 right like the air is thick there while a
• 1:16:46
  lot of times it's it's like for some people they're
• 1:16:50
  able to swim but trying to do any kind of like
• 1:16:53
  art or whatever in bakersfield is like swimming
• 1:16:55
  through vaseline it's a lot it's a lot harder
• 1:16:58
  there and the cream always rises it's kind of
• 1:17:01
  crazy what has come up because what is pressure
• 1:17:04
  creating that breaks pipes or makes diamonds
• 1:17:06
  and i believe it's made a lot of diamonds and
• 1:17:10
  that's kind of like i don't have advice for anyone
• 1:17:12
  yeah because like just do it you know um matt
• 1:17:17
  mickey one of my closest friends he if you give
• 1:17:21
  him a phone call and he's what he's like a world
• 1:17:24
  renowned rollerblader you give him a phone call
• 1:17:26
  and you get his answering machine he says He
• 1:17:29
  doesn't say, you called Matt and make it. He
• 1:17:31
  just goes, do what you love and do it now. That's
• 1:17:33
  what the advice is in Bakersfield. Just do it.
• 1:17:36
  You know, Ronald wanted to book shows for the
• 1:17:39
  bands he liked because he couldn't do it at Jerry's
• 1:17:41
  because Nate was an asshole. So what did he do?
• 1:17:43
  He booked it at a gym, right? Yeah. And now look
• 1:17:46
  at Taylor. Taylor wants to book bands, wants
• 1:17:50
  to keep booking for things, and Jerry's is not
• 1:17:52
  there, and there's no real good venues anymore.
• 1:17:55
  So what did he do? He opened up. 415. Yeah, 415.
• 1:18:00
  Those are the guys that you look at and you're
• 1:18:01
  like, wow, that's what's incredible. The same
• 1:18:04
  with the bands, right? Ronald is passionate about
• 1:18:07
  records. What did he do? He opened a record store.
• 1:18:09
  I was his first customer at the Haberfield building.
• 1:18:11
  He opened the record store because Andy Noyes,
• 1:18:13
  the record store before, was trash. So he bought
• 1:18:16
  it. And then look where that was, what, 20 -something
• 1:18:19
  years ago? Look at him now. He's one of the best
• 1:18:22
  record stores arguably in the world, right? Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  And it's won in LA. So it goes back to what Matt
• 1:18:29
  and Nikki said. Do what you love and do it now.
• 1:18:31
  It's like, don't let anything hold you back.