Bad Copy

Both I guess. I think when people see who’s in the band it might spark some interest, but they also might have a tendency to compare us to our old bands. Hopefully the music is strong enough that they’ll take it for what it is, because it just doesn’t sound anything like our old bands.

It was supposed to be a hardcore band initially. I started writing a couple really fast old school hardcore songs when we first talked about doing the band.

Then at some point early on I asked Craig Setari (he was supposed to be the original bass player) what style of music he wanted to play and he replied… “Whatever we feel”.

I said to myself, why didn’t I ever think of that? Don’t try to be anything, just let it happen. That’s when it started becoming more Oi! etc. Will really liked what I was writing so I kept rolling with it.

Carlos and I had talked about playing together before. I’m pretty sure I might have asked him if he would want to fill in if Craig wasn’t able to play any shows. He’s someone I hang out with in my circle of friends.

It’s really important to me these days to be in a band with people I like being around and make playing music enjoyable. The same with Will. We’ve been friends a very long time and it’s great to hang out with him a lot again. We love playing with each other too. If people like what we’re doing, it’s an added bonus.

It was pretty easy for me. I didn’t force anything, I just let it happen when it wanted to, if you get what I mean? It took a couple years for me to write it, but that’s normal for me. I definitely was a little nervous that I wouldn’t be able to write a whole albums worth of lyrics. I’ve never done that before and I always thought I needed someone else to write lyrics. Somehow it happened though and I have to say I’m really proud of myself. This is a big accomplishment to me regardless of if it’s a success.

The process basically was: When a song would come to me musically, I’d record a guitar track and send it to Will. He’d figure out what he wanted to play, record drums tracks and send them to me. I’d throw guitars and bass over it so I could work on my vocal ideas. When I felt it was close to finished I’d send the demo to Will to see what he thought (very little changed).

Later on, we rerecorded the songs for the album. Some of the vocals from the demos did make it on the record.

It wasn’t very different than recent records I’ve made like the Spudmonsters last record. I’ve been recording them myself because there’s just no money for recording budgets for small bands anymore.

I do miss the days of going into a big studio and just concentrating on playing, but it is nice to do things at my own pace. It’s a lot of work though, but I guess it’s a labor of love.

Probably “No Tolerance.” It’s an anti racist song that has a little bit of a Motörhead feel with a lot of attitude and energy. It’s one of my favorites on the record as well.

I asked Muna Salik if he’d be into doing the artwork for us. He’s done artwork for a lot of bands that I’m into and I’m a fan of his work. He drew a rough idea that reminded us of Agnostic Front’s Cause For Alarm record. We liked where he was going with it so we just suggested he make a few changes.

We were thinking about calling the record Class War for a minute but decided it’s been used too many times. Eventually we asked Muna to make the theme of the cover ‘Class War.’ We think he did a great job!

We picked that song because it seemed like it was the one most people liked the best, honestly. We had a really great time making that video and, in my opinion, it perfectly represents us. I can’t thank Drew Stone and Jeff Pliskin enough, they killed it.

We started at 10AM and the first shot was the bar scene. Everyone was drinking all day long. I think it’s safe to that by the time we filmed the live show, everyone was hammered!

I think “Class War” was the only name we were seriously considering. In the end we just couldn’t come up with something that we felt was great, so we just left it untitled.

We’re also going back to Europe in October to play with Cock Sparrer. We’re going to play a couple of shows around that, then we’re doing a mostly UK tour for a couple weeks with Agnostic Front in November.

We’re also trying to work something out for the West Coast and possibly the south for the Fall as well. I think the best place to find out what’s going on with us is on our website. You can find everything there. Music, merch, tour dates etc. We hope to see you on the road soon!