0:19

If you're listening to one hundred words or less with

0:21

Ray Harkins, what is up

0:23

humans? How are you doing today, this

0:26

afternoon, this evening, whenever you're listening to it.

0:28

Welcome to the absolute

0:30

nerd fest that is this podcast

0:33

where we talk about independent music. We're

0:35

talking punk, hardcore, indie rock,

0:38

emo, metal, whatever it is that is

0:40

in small, sweaty rooms. That is what

0:42

we care about. I hopefully get

0:44

to paint a picture with the guests

0:47

on why they care about this particular

0:49

subculture, why they still do it, why

0:51

they were involved with it, all of those things.

0:54

And I am incredibly grateful for

0:56

this conversation with Aaron Burruno,

0:59

who you may know him as

1:01

one of the guests,

1:03

like one of the more successful,

1:06

like you know, radio rock

1:08

rock artists out there. He performs

1:11

under the name a Wall Nation. And

1:13

for those of you that are deep nerd

1:15

heads like me, you

1:17

know that he has a very very connected

1:20

hardcore past. He played in a band

1:22

called Insurgents, which was

1:24

you know, started around I would

1:26

say, like late nineties. We get into it with Aaron,

1:30

but I saw Insurgents a ton because

1:33

I was just worshiping it at the altar

1:35

of anything that was straight out of hardcore and

1:37

anything that was affiliated with strife,

1:40

which Insurgents was absolutely affiliated

1:42

with. But Aaron has

1:44

started a new band called The

1:46

Barbarians of California with his longtime

1:49

collaborator and producer Eric Stenman,

1:51

who also is a you know, old

1:53

hardcore kid as it were, and maybe not old,

1:56

I'll just say you know a person

1:58

who's been involved in the scene for some time. But

2:02

Aaron and Eric have collaborated for a long time

2:04

with All Nation, and they wanted

2:06

to make something aggressive. So yeah,

2:08

I will include links in the show notes

2:10

for you to follow along with The Barbarians

2:12

of California, which is an awesome project.

2:15

Also obviously be playing a little bit of

2:17

the music as we head into the conversation with Aaron,

2:20

But this was a great chat. Him

2:22

and I actually got to share the stage together.

2:25

I never met him prior to this,

2:28

but we both did guest vocals

2:30

with the Almighty Snapcase. Gosh,

2:32

I can't remember twenty eighteen. It was many years

2:35

ago, but it was one of those full circle moments for

2:37

me of just being like, wait a minute, I get

2:39

to sing on stage with Snapcase

2:41

like a band I started listening to when I was, you know, fifteen

2:44

or sixteen years old getting into hardcore.

2:46

Oh my gosh, this is wild. But anyways,

2:48

Aaron's story is great, awesome chat

2:51

and we recorded it during

2:53

a massive, massive

2:56

rainstorm here in southern California, and so

2:58

there were times where conversation got

3:00

a little spotty, so I needed to edit

3:03

around it where just the you know, internet

3:05

was going out. It just wasn't working because

3:07

of the weather conditions. But

3:10

you know, all most of the conversation

3:13

was you know, completely awesome,

3:15

and as far as the audio quality is concerned,

3:18

so you know, just stick along. If there's ever

3:21

a little you know, hiccup or what have you, you'll

3:23

be able to understand why that exists. Anyways,

3:26

you can email the show please one underwords

3:29

podcast at gmail dot com. I love

3:31

to sear feedback and just general

3:35

vibes as it were, whether it

3:37

was like, hey, I've been able to you

3:39

know, put up this record for this band. I want you to check it

3:41

out. You know, I've gotten some cool care

3:43

packages recently. This is not a

3:45

plug for free stuff, by the way, but I

3:48

just love to have that you know, back and forth

3:50

communication because you know, podcasting

3:52

is a isolating medium. As it were. I

3:54

mean, yes, I get to have these discussions with people and then

3:56

bring them to you. But you know, I've just put it

3:58

out there in the world. See the thousands

4:00

of downloads that I get, and I'm like, cool, Like

4:03

someone's listening to it somewhere, So always

4:05

appreciate that. And I also get

4:07

emails on like how to support the show. Just

4:10

go on Spotify or Apple

4:12

podcasts wherever you listen to it and

4:14

leave a writing, and

4:16

then on the Apple podcast page you can leave a

4:19

review. It helps out the algorithm

4:21

and just basically makes this show

4:23

discoverable in ways that it wasn't before. I

4:26

want to continue on with my weekly

4:28

recommendation series. There is a link

4:31

in the show notes where you will be able to follow

4:33

along with these weekly recommendations

4:35

because you know what, I just love

4:38

talking to people about music. Obviously that's

4:40

why we're here. But I love being able

4:42

to recommend stuff to people as

4:44

they're going about their lives. And

4:47

you know, I do it once a year on like a

4:49

yearly best of list, but I just wanted

4:51

to, you know, get the momentum week over week,

4:54

and that's what we're doing. So yeah,

4:56

the playlist contains all the stuff that I've recommended,

4:59

including this week's pick, which is

5:01

the Birds in Rows Birds

5:04

in Row. I almost said Rose and

5:07

Coil Guns Split EP. This

5:09

came out a couple of weeks

5:12

ago. I want to say, I freaking

5:14

love Birds and Row. I've their

5:16

last record was just I

5:18

mean, it was made my year end list, and

5:21

I just am really really paying

5:23

close attention to what Birds and Roe

5:25

is doing now, and they released this awesome

5:27

collaborative split with Coil Guns, which

5:29

was a band I had never heard of before. And

5:32

I want to say they're also from France.

5:35

Birds and Rows from France, but

5:37

if you like anything you know, heavy

5:40

sort of you know, scream o adjacent, but

5:42

just a really interesting and collaborative

5:44

EP where you could tell that they were all

5:46

in the studio and we're working together to

5:49

create this. You know, there's only three songs,

5:51

but they are really really good and

5:54

I highly highly recommend this

5:56

split. So Birds and Row Coil Guns

5:59

Split EP. I don't know if there's vinyl

6:01

of it yet. I'm totally just paying attention

6:03

to all of his social media's for both

6:05

bands now, being like, hey, we got

6:08

a physical release for this thing. Anyways,

6:11

that is my recommendation for this week, and like I said, link

6:13

in the show notes you'll be able to listen to all

6:15

of the stuff that I've recommended thus far up until

6:17

this point. Anyways, let's dive

6:19

into the conversation with Aaron. And

6:22

it's really cool to talk to a person

6:25

who has had massive amounts of success

6:27

from a mainstream music industry

6:29

perspective. I mean, his song was a theme song

6:32

for the Olympics. It's

6:34

just wild and to have a person

6:36

that you know is doing

6:38

things on such a high level, but then also

6:41

is just like, yeah, I want to start our hardcore band.

6:43

So that's what I'm going to do because that's what I really

6:45

really, you know, don't enjoy and my heart

6:47

is pulled towards So anyways, that's

6:49

what we're discussing. So here is the chat

6:51

with Erin. Yeah,

7:26

as I first started to go to shows

7:30

in the southern California area, I

7:33

think the first time I saw you with Insurgence

7:35

was definitely at the Showcase Theater in Corona, and

7:38

it was one of those things where I had already been

7:41

introduced to kind of you know, the big Victory

7:43

record stuff, you know, your Staffcase,

7:45

Strife, Earth Crisis, the you know, Holy Trinity

7:47

as it were. I

7:50

remember seeing you guys, and I was like, who

7:53

is this band?

7:54

This is cool?

7:55

They kind of sound like Strife, but they're

7:58

yeah, I don't know they you obviously were playing

8:00

you know, lower on the bill, And honestly, I wish

8:02

I could remember the first time I saw you, but

8:05

it seemed more for lack of a better term, like

8:08

approachable for a person like me, whereas like watching

8:10

Strife, I was like, oh, these guys are already

8:12

like, you know, bigger than ever,

8:15

and like, you know, I can't they

8:17

seem far removed from me as

8:20

you started to like, you know, play out and obviously

8:23

I'm sure got compared to Strife like all

8:25

the time. Was there any

8:27

I guess, for lack of a better term, like weirdness

8:30

with Strife as far as like, hey,

8:32

here's this band that you know lives in the same area

8:34

as US, and you know, is there any uh, you

8:37

know, misgivings about them being like,

8:39

oh, here's a band that just sounds like us.

8:44

I would say mostly that while

8:49

we were naturally compared to

8:51

them, let me just start by saying not too many people

8:53

were talking about us to begin with, so

8:55

we'd be lucky to have

8:57

that comparison at any point, right. But

9:00

you know, I was in a punk band

9:02

before, called the Ice Monkeys, and

9:05

we played a couple of shows, a couple of backyard parties.

9:07

There was a three piece I

9:10

played. I played guitar and sang

9:13

not well at either and

9:16

then and then I my life

9:19

changed, much like I'm sure yours

9:21

did. And we all have our own stories of when

9:23

this moment happened for us, and mine

9:25

was the Lost Palmer's Theater and

9:28

I want to say it was nineteen ninety five and I went

9:30

and saw someone said, you know, at this point,

9:34

if there was a punk show or the

9:38

term indie rock wasn't even thrown around very much

9:40

back then, at least that's

9:43

my memory. But if there was anything independent

9:45

of mainstream, we were

9:47

interested in going. We loved punk

9:49

bands so much at the

9:51

time, and you know, hardcore was the underground

9:54

of punk rock in my opinion back

9:56

then. Okay, and heavy

10:05

to say the least, it sounds cool, what

10:07

is that? And some you

10:09

know, this person said, it's there's a straight edge

10:11

thing and it's just really it's

10:14

just really heavy punk rock music. And I thought,

10:16

okay, well that sounds perfect, sign me up.

10:18

And we went and I remember there was just this

10:20

gigantic line down the street and

10:23

it was Snapcase, Strife,

10:28

Ignite, Undertow,

10:31

and eleven thirty four that I totally

10:33

botched the order, but those are the bands that

10:35

played. And there was a band by the name of

10:37

Pale Fire that played first. Actually I do remember

10:39

that.

10:39

Oh hell yeah, definitely definitely

10:42

remember that band.

10:43

Yeah. I was like yeah, I was like, this

10:46

is this is cool, this is cool. And it was packed

10:48

and everybody seemed to know each other. There was no barrier.

10:53

And eleven

10:56

thirty four played and

10:59

they opened up with with

11:01

with I'm pretty sure it was it

11:03

was the Death Star March, like they'd covered

11:05

a Star Wars song and the

11:07

Imperial Mark Sorry, and I thought, and I love

11:10

Star Wars. I'm like, hmm, this is really

11:12

striving to accord with me right now. And

11:15

they were they were a fairly new band at the time.

11:17

I think they had an EP like sort

11:20

of demo out. This was before

11:22

their New Age record And

11:25

and then Ignite played and

11:27

the play started to go off in a different way because

11:29

I'd seen Bad Religion with

11:31

Sam I Am and the Supersuckers at the Santa Monica

11:34

Civic Center prior

11:37

to that. So that was my first kind of punk show, multiple

11:40

mosh pits, crowdsurfing, but it

11:42

was a different trip. It was more of you

11:45

know, there's a barrier and security

11:47

and whatnot, and so this is a different experience. So

11:49

Ignites playing, Huh, people

11:51

are stage diving. This is pretty cool. I've never seen stage

11:54

diving in person. And uh

11:56

they were. They were really good, obviously different singer

11:59

back and then then

12:03

uh Strife

12:06

played. It changed

12:08

my life, Like I mean, at one point

12:10

they were I

12:13

don't know, one hundred and fifty people dog biling

12:15

Rick on the stage,

12:17

and Andrew was climbing up this dog

12:19

pile like like you know, King of the Mountain, and

12:22

I thought, I want to be a part of this. And you

12:24

know, there were rumors like hey, the singer Rick, he

12:26

works inside the til Mall, and

12:29

I thought, well, I could go there, I could talk to this guy.

12:31

And I was just so impressed with the

12:34

whole experience. I could go on and on and on about

12:36

this show, and I have it on via tacking.

12:46

Who's this door surfer

12:48

with long blonde hair running around here? You know,

12:50

kind of thing, and I got a couple a couple of eyes,

12:53

you know, my way, and that that's fine

12:55

anytime you 're into a new situation. It's

12:57

actually so I and that

12:59

was my first stage dive. Didn't know any of the

13:01

songs. I'm sure a lot of people there

13:04

were, but

13:17

I remember doing the stage dive didn't hit the ground.

13:19

I was pretty proud of that. And

13:23

then undertow Play blew my mind.

13:25

His voice is, you know, just absolutely

13:27

incredible, John Pettybone. I would say John

13:29

has one of my favorite hardcore

13:32

or screams at all. And I remember

13:34

thinking, like, this is metal too,

13:37

this is amazing. It's everything that I like, you

13:39

know, and then of course

13:41

snapcase play. I remember Darryl

13:44

saying something like shout out to

13:46

Strife for putting on one of the best sets we've

13:48

ever seen, and yeah,

13:50

the rest is history. And I've kind of been chasing

13:53

the euphoria of that show ever

13:55

since and and it'll never

13:57

happen, So that's

14:00

my interest. So yeah, to answer your question in a

14:02

roundabout way, then I became friends

14:04

with those guys and then I started

14:06

a hardcore banks. I was so inspired and

14:10

my buddy Ryan, his name's Ryan

14:12

Cox, also known as Ray Guy. He

14:15

was sort of helping Strife and

14:17

was Sid's drum tech

14:20

and went on tour with him, So we

14:23

kind of inherited a connection

14:25

to Strife with Ryan and we all became

14:27

buddies. And you know, I'm

14:29

sure they were a little annoyed with my ambition at

14:32

times and all that kind

14:34

of stuff, and I was probably kind of annoying, but nonetheless

14:37

I was very passionate. And then as a

14:39

result, later on they offered

14:42

for us to open up the California

14:45

Takeover the second night. As

14:47

you recall, the first night was at the Whiskey,

14:49

and then the second night was the Showcase, which is maybe

14:51

where he saw us. And we opened that show

14:54

and I was like, just seeing my

14:56

name on the flyer, I thought that I was in the Beatles.

14:58

I was already sober, you know, I

15:00

was only sixteen years old, and I thought, oh,

15:03

these this represents sobriety

15:05

basically right in a nutshell. So that's

15:08

me. Sign me up. Because I was always afraid.

15:10

You know, I ended up not being straightedged later later

15:12

on in life, but

15:15

at the time it was it was totally appropriate

15:17

and in a fun outlet

15:22

rather than going

15:24

to parties and getting wasted. And

15:28

you know, even my parents. I explained

15:30

it to them, and they were way more comfortable with me driving

15:33

two and a half hours to the Showcase Theater or

15:36

further at times Huntington

15:38

Beach wherever there would be a show Sam

15:42

Bernardino. They

15:44

trusted that I wasn't going into

15:47

a situation, you know, where there was a bunch of alcohol

15:49

involved, and that was that was helpful for my development

15:54

as a concert goer, an observer

15:56

of you know, the industry if you will

15:59

work so a sound check or

16:01

you know, flying different cars

16:03

or going to different high schools, and it was all innocent

16:05

fun for music rather

16:08

than you know, getting hammered and all

16:11

that. So my parents, any

16:14

of your parents out there, if your

16:17

kid discovers the straight edge scene, you know, it's a

16:19

blessing, right, No,

16:22

it does.

16:22

It feels like a skeleton key where

16:25

you're able to like open doors that obviously

16:28

are locked, you know, part

16:30

in the metaphor, but are locked for your friends

16:32

who might you know, be dabbling

16:34

in things that are you know, something

16:36

are typically what parents are watching

16:39

out for. So then the fact that yeah, you

16:41

do feel like, oh my gosh, like I'll

16:43

drive you a show two and a half hours away, like no

16:45

problem. And my parents won't even think twice about

16:47

it because they know that a majority of the

16:49

people will not be you know, they'll be up to

16:51

tom foolery, but like, you know, innocent tomfoolery.

16:55

Yeah. The worst that could happen is you get your nose

16:57

broken because you know, your buddy did a front

16:59

flip and they're you land it on your nose.

17:01

You know, right, totally

17:03

totally, And

17:05

so I know, like getting some biographical

17:08

information out there. I mean, I know you were born and raised

17:10

in like Westlake Village, which

17:12

is like this weird and I know that whole

17:14

area is obviously, you know, completely

17:17

in between your you know, Ventura

17:19

County, Santa Barbara area and Los

17:22

Angeles. Did you feel

17:24

like being in that proximity to both

17:26

places made it, you know, kind of

17:29

like easier for you to exist as a kid

17:31

and like figuring out who you were or did you always

17:33

feel like you were removed from

17:35

one thing or the other?

17:37

I would say a little bit of both. Certainly, one

17:40

benefit was being so close to the ocean

17:42

and growing up in Westlake

17:45

Village in the nineties, eighties

17:47

and nineties. Really, Chile's

17:51

was the most exciting thing we had, right and

17:56

we would have to use creativity to figure out,

17:58

you know, ways to find art. So it

18:01

was hard to discover new music. And

18:03

if there was a show, we were there, whatever

18:05

it was, whether it was at the you know, twenty x

18:08

teen Center or the

18:10

there was there was an old coffee shop that used to

18:12

have bands and Agora as well.

18:14

But yeah,

18:17

geographically it was nice to be able to go

18:19

to Venture or you know, go

18:21

to the ventur Theater, although that was a little too

18:23

fancy and expensive you know, for

18:26

us, for us kids really at the time.

18:28

But there

18:30

were a few venues in Santa Barbara

18:32

we would go to as well. Everybody,

18:34

I'm sure as familiar with the pickle patch in

18:38

the living room. Do you remember the living room? That

18:41

was a pretty cool place to see bands as well.

18:43

It moved locations, I remember, but so

18:46

yeah, that was kind of cool too. So we were sort of in the middle

18:48

of of everything, but

18:51

spend you know, part of all

18:54

that was listening

18:56

to records on the way to these shows with

18:58

your buddies, you know, someone saying,

19:01

hey, I know we're going to see earth crisis right now, but

19:03

check out Texas is the reason. What do you think

19:05

or listen to

19:10

check out this band. It's a little heavier

19:12

and crazier than what you're listening right now. They're called convergedon

19:14

and getting your mind belowed by that right or

19:17

bloodlet or whoever it was. And that was

19:19

such a cool thing that

19:22

I hope people get to experience these days.

19:24

And you know, we're living in an era where

19:28

I think it's really exciting, but

19:31

it's also you know, only time

19:33

will tell what

19:36

the availability factor does

19:38

for us now or kids growing up.

19:41

In other words, if they're a band that

19:43

I liked, I mean I would have to

19:45

drive to Huntington Beach to

19:48

a record store to

19:50

get their CD or tape

19:52

or seven inch or

19:55

maybe even order it online. It would take forever

20:00

where Now, of course, if you hear of a band, if someone hips

20:02

you to chain his Strength, you just pop on Spotify

20:04

and listen to it. So that's incredible. As a music

20:06

junkie, I feel like I'm in heaven

20:08

right now. But I do

20:11

appreciate the patience it took

20:13

for a new record to come out, or having

20:16

to do. You remember borrowing

20:18

demo tapes from your buddies like getting in fights

20:20

about that. I remember my buddy Brendan Kling had

20:23

the first Hate Breed demo and

20:25

their breakdowns were so good and so different

20:27

than we were listening to that.

20:29

I'm like, you have to let me. It was called under the Knife,

20:32

and I'm like, you have to let me borrow this and

20:34

he's like no, no, no, no, and I and we fought over

20:36

it. And I

20:39

would have been a good lawyer in another life because I convinced

20:41

him to let me borrow that tape.

20:45

Right.

20:46

Well, you're I love, Yeah, I completely

20:49

remember what you're talking about. Where it's like you also

20:51

you had that decision that you made

20:54

when you're ordering from the Victory Records

20:56

catalog of like you know, maybe you'll maybe

20:58

you have one friend that you go in with where

21:01

and you know, you got thirty dollars to buy like three

21:03

CDs or maybe two CDs and then

21:05

you just hope and pray that obviously

21:07

they're good. Where you know, you get the Donut

21:10

CD and you're kind of like, it's

21:12

okay, But I was looking

21:14

for something a little bit different, and so yeah,

21:17

you really I think

21:19

the the what you're

21:21

talking about. I think something that is

21:23

obviously great where the

21:26

availability of everything is awesome, but

21:28

then it's also trying to build the context

21:30

around it. And I think that's why it's

21:32

really easy to just

21:35

obviously surface level look at everything and kind

21:37

of be like, oh yeah, like I understand what this

21:39

thing is or whatever, and it isn't

21:42

until you like just dig even a

21:44

little bit below the surface is where you understand

21:46

like how these bands connect to one another. And it's

21:48

like, you know, it's very easy for people

21:50

to look at, you know, what you've done musically and

21:53

never have any context for the fact that you

21:55

know, at the core of it, you're obviously just like a punk and hardcore

21:57

kid. Yes you're a musician and you have

22:00

had a lot of success playing a lot of different styles

22:02

of music, but like you know, it's gonna

22:04

take it takes just a moment

22:06

of research where people to realize like, oh no, like this

22:08

a real deal. This isn't like some you know, some tourists

22:11

or whatever.

22:13

Well, you know, thanks for saying that. Even

22:16

through those days

22:18

of specifically

22:20

learning more about hardcore and the

22:22

underground, I always loved mainstream

22:25

music as well, and I always loved metal.

22:27

I love Metallica, I love Pantera,

22:30

I love Sepulta. When

22:32

Roots came out, I couldn't believe how good that

22:34

sounded. That was another level of production.

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have so much merch shotgunned

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you've articulated this in other interviews previous,

24:00

where you know, a band like Rage Against

24:02

the Machine is very foundational

24:05

for you know a lot of people getting

24:07

into heavier music, politics

24:09

like it. Just you know, it's a very mind

24:12

altering band. When

24:14

did you start to make the

24:17

connections as far as like them having

24:19

the connection to you know, the punk and hardcore

24:21

scene with inside out and hard stance and everything

24:23

like that. Was it just like absolutely,

24:27

you know, mind blowing for you to realize, like, oh,

24:29

I already liked the band, and now I like them

24:31

even more because they came from something that

24:34

I hold so dear.

24:35

Yeah, I think someone just hit me

24:38

to to

24:40

that fact early on, and Zach's

24:42

voice sounded the same basically,

24:45

you know, I mean he matured and

24:48

hone in his craft a little bit and sharpened

24:50

his tool, to say the least, but

24:55

inside out was pivotal for everybody.

24:58

I wish I would have got to see him. And

25:01

then, you know, through my travels, I ended up becoming

25:03

buddies with Tim Kummerford and he's

25:05

someone I talk to you almost every day now,

25:10

and to be honest, all we talk about is the Raiders

25:13

and the Broncos. He's a huge Broncos fan

25:15

and I'm a diehard Raiders fan. Shout out to Raider

25:17

Nation and new coach

25:19

Antonio Pierce. But so

25:22

that's kind of our things. It's it's funny and you

25:24

know both. But

25:27

Raye just you know, probably

25:30

the closest thing to hardcore.

25:33

That's probably the biggest

25:35

hardcore band, right. I mean,

25:37

I don't know how to say it, but let's be honestly,

25:40

I don't. I can't think of a band that got any

25:42

bigger than that.

25:45

That was that was incredible.

25:46

I know this is a little bit I mean, it's

25:49

related to music, but a little bit left of center. And

25:51

regards to I know you've obviously

25:53

spoken about it at length and regards to the

25:56

lack of hearing in your left ear, which

25:58

I know you were born with it, and so you obviously

26:00

just adapt and get used to it. Was

26:03

there ever a time where you had that sort

26:06

of either crisis of confidence

26:08

or just like, oh my gosh, my life will

26:11

never be the same because I have this, and you

26:13

know, music is obviously important

26:15

to me, but like, am I going to be able to do it?

26:17

Did you ever have to go through those, you know, soul

26:20

surging moments as you, you know, became more

26:23

aware of music as as an

26:25

art form for yourself.

26:26

You know, Ray, I wish I had a more romantic, motivational

26:29

story about this, but it's actually quite boring.

26:31

I just don't know any different, and

26:33

I was born this way, so I never

26:35

heard any different right, and I've

26:40

tried to use it to my advantage, you

26:43

know, when we're trying to finish a mix,

26:45

if there's something I like more, maybe

26:47

I pan it to the right because that's my good ear right

26:52

and I'm

26:54

able to sleep a little better because I could put my

26:56

right ear down on the pillow on my left ear. It's

26:59

imagined having a pretty

27:01

good ear plug in your

27:04

left ear only, and that's kind of how it is for

27:06

me. But I don't you know, I don't have any balance issues,

27:08

and it's never it's

27:10

never affected me in a negative way. That

27:14

being said, when

27:18

there's nothing you could do about a situation, you

27:21

just got to move on, you

27:23

know, and make the best fit. When I'm writing songs,

27:27

whichever projects it may

27:29

be, if I hit a wall and I

27:32

can't sing a part the way I heard it in my head,

27:34

let's say, or if

27:36

the words aren't coming to me correctly, or I

27:38

can't hit that note that I had had heard,

27:42

I move on and I try to write something better,

27:45

you know, and I see obstacles

27:48

as opportunities.

27:49

There's the motivational thing right there, because yeah,

27:52

you to your point, if you don't know the difference,

27:54

like you can't ComBar contrast. It's just like,

27:56

this is my life and that's what I'm dealing with

27:59

as opposed to you know, and before

28:01

and after. It's just always been a quote unquote after And

28:04

you've been able to use that to your point as

28:07

a you know, an interesting wrinkle

28:09

on yourself as opposed to just

28:11

the way that you know, quote unquote normal

28:13

people hear stuff.

28:16

If there are people out there who have you

28:19

know, damaged hearing along the way.

28:21

Hopefully you know, they've heard

28:23

that I've been able to make music with

28:27

the hearing loss and feel

28:30

comfort in that and not feel alone, so

28:32

that that would be the best positive take on it. But

28:36

really I don't know any different.

28:38

So when you started to get into

28:41

you know, blunk and hardcore and everything like that, really

28:43

became you know, immersed in the scene

28:45

and playing, like you said in you know, your first band

28:47

and then obviously Insurgents. You

28:50

know, it sounds like your parents were permissive

28:52

and allowing you to shows and everything like that. Were

28:55

they ever like, what the hell

28:57

is this stuff that Aaron is getting into?

28:59

I don't understand it. I mean, he

29:02

seems to be doing okay, but you

29:04

know, was there any concern or you

29:06

know, turmoil to obviously reference

29:08

a great band in the house, Uh

29:11

that your parents were just not understanding

29:13

where you were coming from.

29:14

Definitely. I

29:17

played a lot of sports growing up, and

29:22

I was a promising young baseball

29:24

player, little league guy, you know, and

29:29

once I fell in love with music and surfing, you

29:32

know, something I had to give and I had

29:34

to make time to rehearse

29:37

and Chase Waives when when

29:39

appropriate. So baseball

29:42

was left behind, and so you know, that was probably

29:44

something difficult for my dad to

29:46

to deal with.

29:47

But he was supportive and

29:50

and then and then for that music, right, so he's

29:52

gonna wait, you could

29:55

maybe get a scholarship and

29:57

have your college paid for, but

30:00

dead you're gonna play music where

30:02

I cannot understand what

30:05

the hell you're saying, and

30:07

you're.

30:07

Not gonna go to college what. So

30:12

I'm sure he was concerned as it, you

30:14

know, but I

30:17

think there was just an understanding that I loved

30:20

music so much and I understood

30:22

it very well. Whether

30:25

people like my music

30:27

or not or

30:33

you know, that remains to be seen always one

30:35

way or another. But I

30:38

confidently feel like I understand music

30:41

as best as I can. And

30:44

that was basically my college is discovering

30:47

and listening to as many different songs,

30:50

any different genres, see as many shows as I

30:52

possibly could. And you

30:55

know, it really wasn't until after

30:57

the hardcore scene that I thought,

30:59

like, I think I want to start singing

31:04

and using melody in some of these songs and

31:07

seeing if if there's something

31:10

there, because I'd always sang a little bit behind closed

31:12

doors in the shower. If

31:15

you will. But a

31:20

lot of these different bands

31:24

that kind of came out of the hardcore scene started

31:26

to get record deals, and I thought,

31:29

well, maybe

31:32

it's possible for me to have a career at this

31:34

because I don't have a backup plan. And

31:37

that was that was the start of going in a more

31:39

melodic direction with

31:42

all these other bands that came after. But I

31:46

think my parents were just happy that I was doing something I

31:48

was very passionate about and that I understood.

31:50

To say the least, focusing

31:52

specifically on insurgents. You know, I know

31:54

that you had your six five

31:57

or six song demo CD and then obviously

31:59

the release on New and you

32:01

know you played a decent amount of shows and

32:03

did some West Coast tours. If I'm not mistaken,

32:05

you got you. I know you played a lot of shows

32:07

with counter Vail. Did you actually do a West Coast tour

32:09

with them?

32:10

Yes, we did.

32:11

What are some memorable gigs from

32:14

that era for you? It

32:16

doesn't even have to be necessarily like the biggest

32:18

show you played, but what were some of

32:21

those you know, hardcore shows, with the exception

32:23

of, like you mentioned previously, you know, playing

32:25

with Strife, the California Takeover, that's obviously

32:28

huge, you know what, we're what

32:30

are some standout moments for you with Insurgents?

32:33

Off the top of my head, a

32:35

memory comes to

32:37

me that I haven't thought of since since

32:40

it happened, And there's maybe a reason. But we

32:43

had a show booked and I can't

32:45

remember because it's sort of a blurb if

32:48

somewhere in northern California, and

32:50

it was at like some kind of rec

32:52

center. The person putting on

32:55

the show shows up to the show to us in

32:57

counter Vale. We're on tour together. Sorry,

33:00

you know what? I think it was us an Eyelid, but

33:03

Ilid now had a different singer and wasn't Russ

33:05

Martin. I love Russ

33:07

as a as a singer as well. But so

33:11

we showed up and our

33:14

director buddy, Darren Doane, who

33:17

directed a bunch of Strife videos,

33:19

penny Wise, early punk rock and

33:22

a lot of hardcore as well. He

33:25

was sort of a ring leader and

33:28

tour manager, if I could call him that

33:30

even And so we show up

33:32

at this place to play and

33:34

there's no one has the key to get

33:37

inside the actual building where

33:39

we're supposed to play. But there was

33:41

a there was a you know, a coke machine

33:44

outside and it was free and it

33:46

was cold. I remember it was cold, and

33:48

there were like two people, the kid,

34:00

the other bands that were going to play. So we decide,

34:02

okay, we could at least plug one amp

34:05

into the outlet where

34:07

the coke machine is plugged into. So

34:09

we just played on the boo flyer of the show and then

34:11

maybe his girlfriend. There may

34:14

have been a few more, but let's keep it at too

34:16

because that sounds about right, and

34:19

the other band

34:30

on the deck of this building, and

34:33

I remember thinking like this kind of sucks, like this

34:35

isn't this isn't fun

34:38

because it's really cold, and I

34:41

was I had higher hopes.

34:43

I thought there'd maybe be twenty people that we

34:45

get to play it. You know, remember then playing

34:47

for more than ten people was incredible,

34:50

right, but this was two and

34:52

not really a real show, and I was it was like the first

34:55

first show of the tour, and you

34:58

know, I thought, man, this is this how this

35:00

whole tour is going to go? What are we doing? And

35:02

and the point of this memory is

35:05

that when we were done, I remember Darren,

35:08

who I'm still friends with, saying to

35:10

me, you know what, you

35:12

didn't give your all up? There, I'm

35:15

like, what

35:17

what? There was no all to give a

35:19

brother, you know, and he said, yeah,

35:21

you know, we're

35:23

out here for reason and you need to try

35:25

harder, you know, And that blew my mind and to this

35:28

day and how cool of that, How cool

35:30

is that of him to have said back then, you know,

35:32

and it probably stuck with me in a lot

35:34

of ways, and ever since

35:36

then, I have felt, I have felt a certain

35:38

responsibility if someone was there to see you went

35:41

out of their way, you know, you have a responsibility

35:43

to muster up the strength

35:45

to do your best. Yeah.

35:47

Well, And I think it's really telling

35:51

when you either get that advice or you recognize

35:53

it yourself, because you

35:56

do understand, especially would

35:58

you have played those shows in front of negative four

36:00

people that anybody

36:02

that shows up like they've intentionally

36:05

been there, they've made some effort, and

36:07

you need to show up, whatever that may

36:09

mean, even if it's a matter of like, and I'm sure

36:12

you've played shows like this before, because I know I sure

36:14

have where you actually

36:17

invite people on stage and you turn your equipment

36:19

around and you play to the people on the stage

36:21

because you're like, dude, this is like a two hundred cap

36:24

venue. And there's like five people here like

36:26

how about you just hang out with us? But it's

36:28

like you want to make it. Yeah,

36:30

to your point, you want to make it special. You want to put yourself

36:33

into it, and it only is through people

36:36

sharing advice or you just playing those shows. Do you understand

36:38

that, Like, yes, we're shown up here regardless

36:40

of what's happening.

36:41

It's really incredible to look back

36:45

and acknowledge that the older

36:48

brother character of this band shamed

36:50

me for not giving a better effort because

36:53

it was already it was already really difficult to begin, Like

36:55

it was so cold that I think we

36:57

had these cute jumpsuits we made that

36:59

were going to war and stuff, and like one

37:01

guy's like, I'm not I'm not fucking a wearing this, you know,

37:03

it's too cool, and like I wore I don't

37:06

know, but uh I learned something.

37:08

There moving past Insurgents and I know

37:10

hometown euro was after the fact, and I

37:12

remember when you guys first started to play

37:14

shows and there was that you

37:17

know, I mean obviously the scene talks and

37:20

people were like, okay, it's a

37:22

you know Rey from you know, Countervale

37:25

and some of the dudes of insurgents, like

37:27

they're you know, trying to figure

37:29

out how to like make this whole music thing work for

37:31

them. And I remember at that time too,

37:35

you could maybe see some hardcore

37:37

bands having some path forward of

37:40

like actually, you know, being able to

37:42

make this a career, whether that's like you know, a

37:44

breed poison well all that stuff. But

37:48

with you know, with Hometown Hero, was

37:50

it one of those things where

37:53

it was just exciting to kind of do something

37:55

different than all of your past stuff

37:58

and to be able to you know, obviously you have a

38:00

little bit more room

38:02

to pet with the broader brush musically.

38:05

Yeah, definitely, And it was just time,

38:07

you know, it was time to start to

38:10

introduce melody into my life, you

38:13

know, because I had been only

38:15

screaming and you

38:17

know, much

38:22

different than the

38:24

barbarians, which is what were the

38:26

point of this all is. I suppose I

38:31

was very limited vocally, you know, I was only

38:33

screaming. A little talking here

38:35

and there, but only screaming. And I just learned

38:37

how to scream. So I was a young screamer

38:40

and it

38:44

got old to only do that for

38:46

a while. So of course, what

38:49

do you do after that? You don't scream really anymore.

38:51

So I had to learn how to sing and incorporate,

38:54

incorporate, you know, different

38:56

tools I'd learned along the way to

39:00

try to come up with more

39:02

of a rock and roll sound,

39:04

you know. And at that time, I

39:08

love Weezer, I love Jeff Buckley, I

39:11

love the Stone Temple Pilots, and

39:13

so I think that early

39:16

Hometown Hero was some sort of combination

39:19

of those of those three bands, and then, you know,

39:21

always having a little bit of the influence

39:24

of where we had come from.

39:28

The kind people at evilgreed

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right away. And I think I only

40:49

saw you guys play once, but it was it

40:53

was very eye opening for me to

40:55

think about how you can approach

40:58

music with the same through the same

41:00

lens of you know, punk and hardcore

41:02

and DIY, but not have

41:05

the you know, stylistic trappings

41:07

of being like, oh, yes, we're just going to you know, be

41:10

a screaming band or whatever. I

41:12

just thought that was so cool and it's not like, you

41:14

know, I'm saying that hometown Hero invented that idea,

41:17

but just just that notion of

41:19

being able to take what you've learned from

41:21

the hardcore and punk scene and then be able to, you

41:24

know, apply a different lens on it.

41:26

Well, thanks for saying that. And you know, you've got to read the

41:28

room sometimes, and I don't. I don't think Insurgence

41:30

was going to get any bigger than it was. And you

41:33

know, we released that one record called Let's

41:35

Rock and that was fun, but

41:39

no, we weren't necessarily ever fully embraced

41:42

like a Strife for an Earth Crisis or

41:44

one of those bigger victory bands.

41:46

So while I appreciate

41:49

anyone who ever liked any of those songs

41:51

very much, we certainly

41:53

were going to make a living that way. And you know, I remember

41:55

thinking, like, I

41:58

have a desire to commune dedicate

42:00

with all

42:03

different kinds of music fans, wherever

42:06

they're coming from. So if there's a way, and

42:09

I wasn't ready at the time. That

42:11

ended up happening much later in

42:13

a wall, but that

42:17

was kind of the start of the journey to get

42:19

to that point

42:21

where I was able to

42:23

communicate with millions of people, millions

42:26

of listeners, I should say, and

42:28

and then to weirdly, I feel

42:30

like that has become slightly

42:36

not tired, but I feel

42:38

like that's gone as far further than I

42:40

ever had dreamt it would and

42:44

and I'm still going to do that, but

42:47

there's there was just this

42:51

this ground swell of a

42:54

desire and passion

42:57

kind of wrestling in my soul

42:59

to do heavy music again. And that's what

43:01

brought me to this

43:04

Barbarians project.

43:06

Had you always liked touring,

43:09

what's been your relationship been

43:11

like with, you know, being on the road. Has

43:14

that something you've always taken to or is that something you

43:16

kind of like learned how to learn how to love.

43:18

When I was younger with Insurgence, I loved

43:21

it. It was so fun and you felt professional,

43:23

right, So even if there was negative two

43:26

to four people at the outside Vending

43:29

Machine show, you

43:31

still felt like you were doing something. You know, instead

43:34

of sitting in your bedroom talking

43:36

about a show, you were actually doing it.

43:38

And you know the whole theory. I remember

43:40

talking to my old drummer Ray and

43:43

he was always very forward thinking and really

43:46

good a promotion, great drummer too,

43:50

and he would always say, look if

43:52

we play for two people, they'll tell and

43:54

we're good, they'll tell hopefully

43:56

four people, and then

43:58

they'll tell ten people. That becomes the

44:01

next time you come through, you'll play it for forty people. Maybe

44:03

next time we'll be four hundred. And I heard this

44:05

other band did that same thing with that same formula.

44:08

Now they're playing they're selling out four thousand and see

44:10

theaters or whatever. You know, And it's not that simple,

44:12

of course, but that was the theory.

44:14

That kind of touring was fun. It was brand

44:16

new, and I was very young, so I

44:18

had the stamina. And

44:20

then touring when there's more on the line, and

44:23

some of these signed bands where

44:25

there's more money and record labels,

44:28

you know, believing in you, the

44:31

failure, the

44:33

failure of the DIY thing. It's

44:36

kind of no harm, no foul. You're just proud that you did

44:39

something right. You're proud that you put music

44:41

out, and that's the accomplishment.

44:43

I think when you're signed to

44:45

a major label, which I had to deals

44:47

with later

44:52

and both both

44:55

failed, and the pressure

44:58

of that it

45:01

was pretty heavy and and you know, so you'd be on tour

45:03

and you'd see firsthand the

45:06

failure, so you you know

45:08

that you got this major label, this powerhouse behind

45:10

you, this force, and you're going to play

45:12

in Buffalo, New York in front of the bartender only,

45:15

and it's you know, that's that's a little bit different.

45:19

So that kind of touring wasn't

45:22

as fun because then you know, you're

45:25

becoming a little

45:27

older, more responsibility.

45:30

Maybe maybe someone in the band has has a

45:33

kid. Uh, maybe there's a marriage

45:35

and more responsibility,

45:39

and the failure

45:41

of that weighs on people and everybody's

45:43

different, and uh, you know, that's

45:46

that's a big part of being in a band

45:48

and the

45:51

relationship of everybody's

45:54

intentions and expectations

45:57

being different. So

46:00

to answer your question about touring, depending

46:04

on the touring, you

46:06

know, when it's going good,

46:08

it's really fun. But when it's going bad,

46:10

it's usually a sign of the business

46:12

going bad as well. Because once you sign a major

46:14

label deal, unfortunately, there's a business

46:16

attitude and you know, when

46:19

they say you sign, you

46:21

know, make a deal sort

46:24

of thing, there's some truth to that because you

46:26

know you're you're chasing some sort of debt that

46:28

you've incurred. Right, even

46:32

though there are moments of gloyd. Let's say you get a cool

46:34

opening tour and you're opening for a bigger

46:36

band. It's it's a it's

46:38

almost a it's a great opportunity, but it's almost

46:40

a false sense of success because

46:42

you walk out and like we just we just were amazing.

46:45

People are cheering really loud. Then

46:48

you go back to that same city and no one shows up.

46:52

It's a different thing, right, And it wasn't

46:54

until really the A Wall

46:56

stuff you know, took off

46:58

to my absolute sup prize and shock that

47:01

touring became you know, really

47:05

fun and hearing people sing

47:07

along, you know, the sing alongs I

47:10

dreamt of, and Insurgents came later

47:12

in A Wall, just in a different way, you

47:14

know.

47:15

Well, and kind of on that tip too, where

47:17

you know, as you were navigating

47:20

a lot of like you said, you entered, you know,

47:22

deals with pager labels and all the business

47:24

implications that come into

47:27

playing music and playing with the band. Did

47:29

you, I guess like that aspect

47:32

of the music, you know, the business side

47:34

of things, or was that something you always just

47:36

like kind of knew you had to take a part of, because

47:38

that's obviously, you know, how one makes a living

47:41

or whatever.

47:41

Out Looking back, I appreciate the experience

47:45

the schooling of it all, because

47:50

it's necessary as a developing adult

47:53

to know how to pay bills

47:55

right and pay taxes and hopefully

47:57

not have to pay so much. But

48:05

you see, that was the thing with the major label

48:07

deals with these bands, is it

48:11

immediately became a responsibility in

48:14

a business. And it wasn't until

48:16

those bands all

48:18

went our separate ways. And I only

48:21

have love for all of these band members and their

48:24

talents, and I learned so much from

48:26

these guys about songwriting and all

48:31

that. But it wasn't until

48:33

I let go of any expectations

48:37

that I actually found success. And

48:41

when my second

48:44

signed band, called under the Influence of Giants,

48:46

we all split up. I

48:48

thought, Okay, I've been doing this long

48:51

enough that at the very least, I would

48:53

like to try my own thing and

48:56

just do everything myself. Maybe

48:58

it'll suck, maybe will

49:00

like it. In fact, I'm counting on most

49:02

people not liking it. But I'll be able to

49:06

look in the mirror and say, at

49:08

least you did that one wild

49:10

experiment once,

49:14

which kind of brings me full circle back

49:16

to what it felt like to start. And

49:20

then you know again, to my surprise, that that's

49:22

what you know put me on the map.

49:24

One last thing I wanted to hit with the Ale Nation

49:26

before we talked about the you know, Barbarian

49:29

stuff, like

49:31

when you started to, you

49:33

know, reach the levels of

49:35

success, you know, I mean from the song sale

49:37

just like I mean, anytime you look at the

49:40

numbers of that, like I just you know,

49:42

even when I like had no real

49:44

connection to you besides knowing the fact that it's

49:46

like, oh, yeah, Aaron's a hardwork kid from insurgents

49:48

or whatever. Just you know, seeing that

49:50

song spread across the world as it did,

49:54

I'm sure you have memories attached

49:56

to like when that song

49:58

first started to you reach

50:01

that global audience, reach people in

50:03

ways that you're like, yo, I

50:05

can't even I can't even begin to fathom this.

50:08

You know, what were some moments like as that

50:11

stuff started to trickle out there where

50:14

you kind of recognized that it was having that resonance.

50:18

Well, it was such a strange slow

50:21

build that it's

50:25

hard to pinpoint one moment because it didn't

50:27

happen as cliches

50:29

it sounds overnight necessarily,

50:32

But I think, you know, I could go

50:34

back to the first moment I thought that this could potentially

50:37

really work, and that was when a

50:42

radio station in Austin, Texas

50:44

started playing it. And it wasn't even supposed

50:46

to be the single it was, you know, it was It was

50:48

far from that. It was just a song that

50:51

I liked that I thought my older brother would dig and

50:53

some of my friends. That's really it, you know. And

50:55

I also do remember, you know, excuse

50:59

me, by the way, I'm just

51:01

getting over my first like huge family sickness.

51:04

I feel great now, but I sound a little messed

51:06

up. I apologize to the listener and

51:08

you. But yeah,

51:12

I do remember thinking, you

51:15

know, I'm going to singer to singer here, right, thinking

51:18

like, well two things.

51:21

Wow, Really the song I'm basically

51:23

screaming on is the one that's like

51:26

resonating with people. And this

51:29

was the tail end of phones

51:33

lighting up at a radio station because I kept

51:35

hearing this, right, it's like twenty ten, I

51:37

think twenty eleven. We played

51:39

it and the phones won't stop ringing, you

51:42

know. It's like that the movie that Thing You Do or

51:44

something right, And I

51:47

kept thinking like, did

51:50

they realize I'm singing that hard?

51:52

This is unbelievable that this is the thing

51:54

that And I felt comfortable in that place

51:58

vocally, I think there's a lot more press or

52:00

in songs, you know, where you have to sing

52:05

real pretty or or maybe

52:09

in your falsetto or like a ballad,

52:11

right, And there were some ballads

52:13

on that record that we all thought,

52:16

my team all thought that were

52:18

more likely to have commercial success.

52:21

Again, you know, at

52:24

this point, I was just happy to put out a record and I

52:26

wanted to sell out the Roxy once that was it.

52:29

Because I thought coming from the hardcore

52:31

scene and knowing what it took to put

52:33

together a hard working show

52:38

of connectivity, I felt

52:40

that at the very

52:42

least, I think we'd be pretty good live, take

52:44

that energy from the underground and

52:46

present it maybe a more mainstream

52:48

way, a lotic who knows.

52:51

And so you know, it being said

52:54

was such a blessing for all hardcore

52:56

kid because it was. And then you know, we ended up

52:59

doing all the all the

53:01

all the the high pressure

53:04

late night shows and Coachella

53:06

and everything, and it was it was always like, oh, this is like

53:08

the easiest song on the whole set to play. I'm

53:11

so glad it's this one.

53:14

But yeah, there was you know, there was there was a moment

53:16

where a

53:18

guy in my band, we got on a flight and it

53:20

was like two and a half maybe three years

53:23

after the song had started

53:25

to take off, and it was always a new a

53:28

new territory that was happening.

53:30

It was not. It was never all at the same time. In

53:32

fact, a little strange fact

53:35

is that it was never number one.

53:38

It was never a number one song. Even

53:41

though it has all these other hilarious

53:43

in shocking records,

53:46

that's not one of them. In fact,

53:49

the follow up single off the next record called

53:51

Hollow Moon, it's not even it doesn't even hold

53:53

a candle to the size of sale. But it was number

53:55

one. So it goes to show you that numbers are and everything,

53:57

you know. But

54:00

we were on this flight and

54:02

my buddy goes, you know, I just did this

54:05

these statistics and there's

54:08

a high likelihood that ninety percent of the people

54:10

on this plane have heard that song. And

54:12

I don't know if that's bullshit or not, but I was like, Wow, that's

54:14

really amazing, that's cool.

54:16

And that's the thing where it's like when you do

54:19

come from a place of you know, just

54:22

operating off of instinct and putting your

54:24

stuff out there and existing in

54:26

you know, the DIY scene, your expectations

54:29

are always going to be viewed through that

54:31

lens, even if you do, like

54:34

have success at the level that you have

54:36

been able to. I know, in

54:38

your head, it's always like, well, I don't

54:40

know, is anybody can care about this next thing I put out

54:42

or whatever? And it's like, yeah,

54:45

you never know. And that's that's where

54:47

the you know, I guess real

54:50

expectations can kind of come in with whatever

54:52

you're putting out there, all viewed through

54:54

the lens of you know, the DIY scene

54:56

that we've all come from.

54:57

Yeah, just you know, when I look back at the crew

55:00

people to like even

55:03

even the

55:05

friends who were just driving, you know, driving

55:08

to these shows with me in high school,

55:12

hold a deer part

55:14

of my heart in my journey. You know

55:16

that was kind of my college

55:19

again. I know I said that earlier,

55:21

but it's true. So I was like, yeah,

55:26

that's where you heard about, That's where you heard

55:28

about inside out having the guy from.

55:29

Range bring us to the The sensible

55:32

reason that we're obviously talking is the fact that you

55:34

know, you have launched and obviously

55:36

are you know, with a great mutual

55:38

friend Eric Stenman, have you

55:41

know brought this you know, hardcore

55:43

project to life called you know, Barbarians

55:45

of California, and it's

55:49

I mean, I always love when and

55:51

I'm throwing no shade your direction because I'm old

55:53

as well. We're like I love when old people

55:56

play hardcore because you

55:59

are are playing it through a lens

56:02

of like you're talking about originally,

56:04

where it's like you want to

56:06

feel that connection and you have that

56:09

love of the genre. But then you

56:11

know you arguably, like are obviously

56:14

a much better singer

56:17

slash screamer now than you were

56:19

when you were you know, nineteen years old yelling

56:21

at the barnet riverside or whatever. And

56:24

so I guess it's

56:26

a real easy question to ask, just like

56:28

why did you want to do this now? Besides the fact

56:30

that Eric already had the music written? Like

56:33

why you know, why scream still?

56:35

Those people that I've

56:37

met in my travels say like, wow, you guys are so

56:39

much heavier live. I like

56:41

when you do that right, or I like when

56:43

you scream more. And so

56:47

that always planned a little scene. I've

56:49

been flirting with us for twelve years,

56:51

like thinking that, man, when the time's right,

56:54

I'd like to do a heavy project again. And

56:56

you know, I love metal very much. I love heavy

56:58

metal, I love thrat I love punk

57:01

ros you know, And so I

57:03

don't even know what this is, Ray,

57:06

I don't know, you know, like I don't

57:08

know if this is more hardcore, more metal, more I

57:10

don't I don't know. I have no idea. But

57:14

there was a certain kind of energy that that felt

57:17

necessary. And it's almost like I'm playing a character,

57:20

you know, and it's

57:23

it's it

57:25

represents all of the passion

57:28

and and frustration I

57:30

think we need to get out sometimes,

57:33

kinda like that of a

57:35

good workout or you

57:38

know, therapy

57:41

session or

57:44

good talk with an old friend or family member.

57:47

You know, that's that's kind of what this is. And

57:49

Eric, if if it hasn't been explained, you know, he's

57:51

he's been my engineer with

57:54

with all the A wall stuff, and then you know he

57:57

actually recorded the first Insurgents

58:01

well the only full record as

58:03

well, and I think you're going to talk to him anyway,

58:05

so he'll explain how we how we how

58:08

we met a little better. But it's

58:12

nice to have a partner in this because you

58:14

know, the other project is all me, So it's nice

58:16

to have a to go back to feel

58:20

like a little gang of two and you

58:22

know, some of the other guys, some

58:25

of the other guys are deeply

58:27

involved in this too. My drummer Isaac Isaac

58:31

Carpenter plays on this, and he

58:33

came up he saw food Gazi

58:36

in person, you know, in Tri City's Washington.

58:39

And then my guitar player, Zach Irons, best

58:42

guitar player I know besides Eric. Of course,

58:45

he's doing a bunch of stuff on this, so it feels

58:47

more like a band this time around,

58:50

just headed by a by

58:52

me, I guess, and it's

58:54

really really fun.

58:56

The one thing I was curious about

58:58

in regards to you know, typically

59:00

speaking with obviously, the song you

59:02

know, sale that you know completely puts you

59:04

into, you know, a whole other stratosphere

59:07

of like oh, yes, like this is

59:09

now you know, a big artist and a big

59:11

band and what have you. I'm sure there

59:14

were many unexpected places

59:16

where you heard that song. What

59:18

was the most kind of like entertaining

59:20

or off the beaten path or unexpected place

59:23

where it was like, wait, that song is being

59:25

played where?

59:26

Really?

59:26

Okay, I guess that's what we're doing here.

59:29

I can't say that it happens so many times to

59:31

me personally, you know, The most obvious

59:33

example, and this may be somewhat unoriginal,

59:37

would be hearing it in a grocery store, the

59:39

local grocery store, and going, whoa,

59:43

you know, and it's not only that song, that's been a

59:45

few others, and I

59:48

like to look around and see the mood of the store.

59:50

So all of a sudden, you know,

59:52

perhaps the

59:55

gentleman next to me is seems like he's

59:58

maybe a better mood, or you know, moving

1:00:01

around a little bit or dancing, or maybe there's someone

1:00:04

in you know, like waiting for a smoothie

1:00:06

that's singing the words. Right, that's

1:00:08

that's pretty cool. But I can't,

1:00:10

you know, more than my

1:00:13

personal journey, it's really about

1:00:15

the text messages from friends

1:00:17

I haven't talked to, you

1:00:19

know, in twenty five years, and

1:00:22

everyone in between saying, oh my god, this is

1:00:24

crazy. I just heard your song. I'm

1:00:27

watching, you know, some insane

1:00:29

show with my wife or my mom

1:00:31

or my girlfriend or whatever, and

1:00:33

and your song just came on. And

1:00:36

if nothing else, I'd say, it's

1:00:39

been a really nice reunion accidental

1:00:42

reunion invitation. Right,

1:00:45

So, whether it's an ex girlfriend or

1:00:48

you know, the first drummer of my first

1:00:50

punk band, or you know,

1:00:52

someone I played Little League baseball with. To have

1:00:55

the opportunity to

1:00:58

stay connected to so many people

1:01:00

because of the reach of

1:01:03

of that song in particular has been an absolute

1:01:06

blessing. Yeah, obviously,

1:01:08

and would that territory

1:01:10

comes some unfortunate

1:01:12

text as well, like ah to

1:01:16

me to begin with that, let's let that one

1:01:18

die. But you know you

1:01:20

take the good of the bad.

1:01:22

Yeah, well, and I like, I

1:01:25

do like that feeling that you get

1:01:27

where yes, of course it's you know, really cool

1:01:29

to you know, hear your song in a commercial or whatever

1:01:31

and that sort of stuff. But to your

1:01:33

point, the fact that it gives

1:01:36

people a reason, you know, like

1:01:38

you said, maybe some good some

1:01:40

bad reaching out and saying

1:01:43

like, wow, that's really cool. I thought, you

1:01:45

know, you pursuing music

1:01:47

was just like an idiotic thing, like just

1:01:50

like that idea like hey, you know, Aaron,

1:01:52

you did good kid, like that sort of vibe.

1:01:56

Yeah, the narrative

1:01:58

usually is is more more on the positive

1:02:01

side, you know, something like hey, I just

1:02:03

I was watching football

1:02:07

on Sunday and this commercial

1:02:09

came on with your music on it, and wow,

1:02:13

I'm so glad you stuck with it, you know, something

1:02:15

sort of positive like that.

1:02:18

You know, no one's going to go onto their way to text you like your

1:02:21

piece of shit. I thought you'd never.

1:02:24

Totally right, Yeah,

1:02:29

yeah, no, yeah, I mean obviously,

1:02:31

if you're you know, getting text trolls,

1:02:34

that's you know, you're changing your number

1:02:36

at a certain point.

1:02:37

And it was just happened over a course of

1:02:40

years, you know, it wasn't an instant,

1:02:43

overnight success. And I

1:02:45

still get text messages to this day about stuff

1:02:47

like that, you know, And so I'm really

1:02:49

grateful, and I think we touched on this

1:02:52

before, but I

1:02:54

feel very lucky that it was a

1:02:56

song that I enjoyed singing that wasn't

1:02:59

incredibly differenticult to sing. There are some

1:03:01

songs I sing that are really hard for me,

1:03:03

and this happens to not be one of them. And

1:03:06

coming from the hardcore scene, you

1:03:09

know, it's I

1:03:12

think I think people clears to hear it can tell

1:03:14

that that had

1:03:16

a huge influence on this song. Mm

1:03:19

hmm. Yeah.

1:03:20

And I think that's that is

1:03:22

where and I'm sure that you've

1:03:24

experienced this where you

1:03:26

kind of you know, you see the nods to subculture,

1:03:29

whether it's you know, someone wearing a shirt or

1:03:32

you know that's an obvious thing. But

1:03:34

then to your point, the idea of

1:03:36

just like, wait a minute, like that song structure

1:03:38

feels like something like, oh, that's an actual

1:03:40

breakdown or it's like they

1:03:42

probably know what's up. And then when you dig a

1:03:44

little deeper, you do see

1:03:47

that through line of having that experience

1:03:49

where it's like, oh, yes, they

1:03:51

did have that same experience as me, and you

1:03:53

know, sometimes it's not true. It just happens

1:03:56

to be that they, you know, have a breakdown

1:03:58

in there or whatever, but yeah, you do. You

1:04:00

you see that connective tissue.

1:04:03

Definitely. And I think I've

1:04:08

always been open to all genres of music,

1:04:11

even if the discovery

1:04:14

or you know, the

1:04:16

honeymoon phase of a genre, whether it's

1:04:18

you know, hardcore punk, even country

1:04:21

music, you know, hip hop, whatever

1:04:24

come. You know, it could come at a different time in

1:04:26

your life. But just being open minded

1:04:29

to other genres of music was

1:04:32

incredibly helpful for me to have a wide

1:04:35

range, a wide palette

1:04:37

to choose from while creating music

1:04:40

and now going full circle back into

1:04:43

the realm of heavy music with the Barbarians,

1:04:46

I feel grateful that I like and

1:04:49

I've opened, you know, my ears

1:04:51

to so many different genres

1:04:53

and well it sounds like

1:04:55

you know, it will be compared to whoever.

1:04:58

But it's

1:05:00

not necessarily that that these

1:05:04

vocal arrangements or these cadences

1:05:06

necessarily are coming from only the hardcore

1:05:08

scene, only metal, or only punk. It could be

1:05:11

from hip hop, it could be from country, like I

1:05:13

said, or pop music. And you

1:05:15

know, I encourage anyone, any

1:05:17

young songwriters that may be listening to

1:05:21

to try to listen to everything you know and then

1:05:23

and then you could choose what makes most sense

1:05:26

to you and what is most authentic

1:05:29

to yourself and how to put that forward. But

1:05:32

at least you'll have a wide variety, you

1:05:35

know, of options and ideas

1:05:38

to choose from. Kind of like, you know, if you

1:05:40

watch a you may have a favorite genre of

1:05:43

film, let's say sci fi, but

1:05:46

you're still gonna watch all these other movies. And then when you find

1:05:48

a good sci fi film that you really fall in love

1:05:50

with, you know, you're

1:05:52

better off having dabbled

1:05:54

in the you know, romantic comedy

1:05:57

sexually, right, you know, and it

1:06:00

it just makes me more well rounded.

1:06:02

Yeah, oh absolutely, And plus like

1:06:05

you never know where the

1:06:07

areas of influence that

1:06:09

you're pulling in and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh

1:06:12

wait a minute, like this, this was good.

1:06:14

I never thought about delivering this piece

1:06:17

of music in this context, but now

1:06:19

that it is, it's like, wow, I didn't

1:06:22

think those two genres would go well together, but they

1:06:24

do, so that's cool.

1:06:26

Yeah, and you have to be open minded and you

1:06:29

know, every any interesting

1:06:32

dish came from you

1:06:35

know, we all know the classics, right, but but there's

1:06:37

some fusion

1:06:39

dishes that can be quite nice to eat.

1:06:42

Yeah, totally, totally,

1:06:45

And kind of on that topic, the you know, the

1:06:47

fact that you are

1:06:50

now collaborating obviously in a band

1:06:52

environment like we were, you know, alluding to where

1:06:54

it's exciting for you to get

1:06:56

back into that creative mode where

1:06:59

you are creating with other people. Not to say

1:07:01

that you know you haven't done that in a wall,

1:07:03

because obviously you have, but you know it's

1:07:06

primarily come from you. Does

1:07:09

it feel I'm sure it feels natural

1:07:11

because you're obviously playing with friends and playing

1:07:14

with a familiar genre. But does it feel

1:07:16

I guess weird or you know, completely

1:07:18

new to shift backed into that.

1:07:20

It feels exciting to not bear

1:07:23

the weight of the world on only my shoulders.

1:07:25

So my engineer

1:07:28

buddy Eric Stenman, who recorded

1:07:31

my first ban Insurgence's full

1:07:35

length for New Age Records

1:07:37

in Sacramento. He's

1:07:41

been he's been my right hamm guy

1:07:43

all along with Aywall from the first

1:07:45

record until now, so he's been my engineer. And

1:07:49

as I think I stated before, he had all this, all

1:07:52

these instrumental tracks that were, you know, kind

1:07:54

of stone or rock metal, and then

1:07:56

I, you know, I heard I heard a little bit of it and thought,

1:07:58

okay, let's above to sing on this

1:08:01

as like a side project. And

1:08:03

then over the years it became more serious

1:08:05

because it became more fun and

1:08:08

and the emotion was there. There'd

1:08:10

be no reason to do this if the emotion wasn't there,

1:08:12

and it is. It's very sincere.

1:08:16

I feel extremely passionate about it, just as

1:08:18

much as I do with with the A Wall stuff. It's just

1:08:20

different, you know, it's obviously on a different scale

1:08:23

altogether. In fact, it's interesting,

1:08:25

you know, talking to you after the first song has

1:08:27

been released. My expectations are

1:08:30

I have no idea. I don't know if if

1:08:32

if you're gonna like

1:08:34

it, or if you know, any

1:08:38

A Wall fans gonna like it. And that's not the

1:08:40

point. The point is that if it's sincere

1:08:42

first and foremost and seem

1:08:45

necessary for me to release, it's almost

1:08:47

like a character. I get to play a

1:08:51

passionate character at

1:08:53

that And so

1:08:56

then inviting Zach Irons, who

1:08:58

plays in A Wall and also in the band Iron

1:09:01

Tom, and then Isaac Carpenter,

1:09:03

who also plays in A Wall but also you

1:09:05

know, played with Duff McKagan for a

1:09:07

while and he was in this great band called Loudermilk

1:09:10

from Tri Cities, Washington, where

1:09:12

I originally met him, and putting

1:09:15

their stamp on it in a way

1:09:17

that that is more available and possible

1:09:19

with the Barbarians of California

1:09:22

rather than the A Wall stuff has always been just

1:09:24

kind of my deal, right, but this

1:09:27

is this is more open for for

1:09:30

them to contribute, so they have some

1:09:32

ownership on it as well, and certainly Eric

1:09:34

does. So it's nice, it's it's fun,

1:09:37

and and you know, with a project like this, yes,

1:09:40

the vocals are from the center, like

1:09:43

almost all genres, but you

1:09:46

know, if my voice went out, they could just lay

1:09:50

into it right. Over

1:09:54

the years, there have been times where whether it was a

1:09:58

you know, a late night show or something like that, and

1:10:00

I was feeling a little bit under either or

1:10:02

maybe you know, my voice

1:10:04

was strange or from

1:10:06

the night before whatever, And oh

1:10:08

my gosh, that's the scariest thing in the world when

1:10:11

you when your main instrument

1:10:14

doesn't work at one hundred percent. I

1:10:16

mean, I could survive with sixty percent, but under

1:10:18

that man. So with

1:10:21

the Barbarians, it's they'll

1:10:23

lift me up. So it's more feels like more

1:10:25

of a gang like it did yep,

1:10:29

you know, but ultimately yeah,

1:10:31

me and that's that's fine. It's something I'm comfortable with.

1:10:34

Yeah, oh absolutely. And

1:10:36

also I'm sure it feels

1:10:39

different, you know, writing a hardcore

1:10:41

as an adult, because you know,

1:10:43

even though there is that notion

1:10:45

that the I mean, it's

1:10:47

not notion, it's the truth. Obviously. You know, punkin

1:10:49

a hardcore is you know, a youth based

1:10:51

culture. But there is something to be

1:10:53

said about, you know, bringing

1:10:56

the experience that all of

1:10:58

you have as far as writing, producing,

1:11:00

all of the things that you've gathered

1:11:03

towards, like, oh, yeah, we can't approach this

1:11:05

with a little more confidence than you know, youthful

1:11:07

ignorance like we did in the past.

1:11:10

Yeah, And there's a you know, there's a

1:11:12

there's a talent level that these guys

1:11:14

have, you know, and with

1:11:19

my with my day job, I

1:11:23

play a lot of the instrumentation myself. And

1:11:26

then you know, so with barbarians, they're

1:11:28

doing stuff I could never do. You know,

1:11:30

whether it's one of these guitar solos or leads

1:11:32

that Zach Stone or Eric Stoner,

1:11:34

the way Isaac does a drum fill, I couldn't. I couldn't

1:11:37

do it a million years. It's

1:11:39

nice to lean on their hard work and

1:11:42

talent in years of experience, not to

1:11:44

say that there aren't sixteen year old

1:11:46

kids that absolutely already

1:11:48

rip and tread. But you

1:11:50

know, I'll also say that there's something

1:11:53

incredible about

1:11:56

being a

1:11:59

similar age to some of these

1:12:01

gentlemen. For example, if you

1:12:03

know I sent

1:12:05

Isaac I woke up if I wake up super

1:12:08

early these days, so I woke up at five

1:12:10

point thirty and it occurred to me

1:12:12

that I had never really searched

1:12:16

on YouTube. Huey Lewis

1:12:18

Power of Love live, great

1:12:21

song from my favorite movie, Back

1:12:23

to the Future of All Time, And I thought,

1:12:25

like, I bet you this kicks ass, because I'm always

1:12:27

searching for the most powerful YouTube performance

1:12:30

that no one would think of or at least people

1:12:32

around me wouldn't have write And

1:12:35

sure enough I found this massive show that

1:12:37

they did. And his voice was unbelievably

1:12:40

great. It was so good, so powerful,

1:12:43

the drummer was amazing, it was hilarious, all

1:12:45

those things. And I said it to Isaac and

1:12:47

it hid him right and it meant something

1:12:49

to him. And the point is we're

1:12:51

basically the same age. So it's really nice to

1:12:53

go through the journey of

1:12:56

playing music together with other people who

1:12:59

know the same pop culture references that

1:13:01

you do, or even the references

1:13:03

from the underground, you know, like

1:13:06

Isaac, I think I mentioned this before. He saw

1:13:09

a bunch of really cool bands. You know, he saw

1:13:11

Sunny Day, he

1:13:13

saw I think his band opened up for

1:13:15

food, Gazi locally and stuff. So

1:13:17

you know, we have the same reference points and that's really a

1:13:20

nice thing as well. Yeah.

1:13:22

Absolutely, Well, there's when you

1:13:24

have a common language on top of

1:13:26

like shared experience, it just

1:13:29

you know, it makes everything you

1:13:31

don't you don't have this

1:13:33

you know, long laborious process to kind

1:13:35

of get on the same page. You can kind of just be like, oh,

1:13:37

yeah, like you know, I know what you're talking about. Like if you're talking

1:13:39

about it you know, Fugazi part or whatever, Like I get

1:13:42

what you're talking like angular guitars or whatever,

1:13:44

like there's not thinking.

1:13:45

About yeah, or if you're talking about ten thousand

1:13:47

Maniacs unplugged and

1:13:50

what that means. Ye know, totally

1:13:52

totally another buddy of mine. The other day, I'm like, oh my

1:13:54

god, remember this cover because of the Night originally

1:13:58

written by Bruce Springstin. Obviously, but you

1:14:00

know that that made me feel all sorts of ways. It made me

1:14:02

feel more in love with with, you

1:14:04

know, my seventh grade girlfriend and all that.

1:14:07

Yeah, totally

1:14:10

totally.

1:14:11

A confusion of that. You know, it

1:14:13

was really cool and we're so lucky

1:14:15

to be in

1:14:19

a place where, if you think

1:14:21

about it, all you have to do is have the imagination

1:14:23

to think about the band you want to see, and you could see

1:14:26

that, you could find it,

1:14:28

you could watch it on YouTube, and that's so

1:14:31

so cool. I'm still wrapping my head around that

1:14:33

being able to you know, find

1:14:37

well, really any hardcore band and just type in one,

1:14:40

you know, some older show and see

1:14:42

that. You know, you could probably I think inside

1:14:45

Out is on YouTube, right, raid

1:14:47

shows of course, or now I was

1:14:49

just looking at there was this bloodlet

1:14:52

song that I used to like a lot and I wanted

1:14:54

to see, you know, a late nineties

1:14:56

version of that, and sure enough, me and Eric found

1:14:58

that right away. I didn't watched it. Yeah,

1:15:02

totally such a good tool, and I you know, each

1:15:04

day I'm thinking what can I look up that I

1:15:06

never thought to look up? But

1:15:08

I like it, right, that's

1:15:11

a cool thing to do.

1:15:12

Absolutely the I mean, they don't call it a

1:15:15

YouTube rabbit hole for nothing, and just

1:15:17

the idea that you have people like

1:15:19

I mean, I'm sure you've watched some of his

1:15:22

filming work, like Hate five six. I'm sure

1:15:24

you've seen, yeah, And it's like

1:15:26

for him to be able to document

1:15:29

a band like Rage against the Machine on their most

1:15:31

recent tour before obviously you know Zach

1:15:33

hurt himself like that.

1:15:36

Not only is that a full circle moment, but then it's

1:15:38

like people like you and I can

1:15:40

consume the visuals

1:15:42

that he is producing where it's like he's shooting

1:15:45

Rage like a hardcore band and

1:15:47

it's like they're in a stadium, and it just you know,

1:15:50

to your point, it does kind

1:15:52

of just like pingpong you in all these different

1:15:54

directions where you're just like, yeah, let me see if I can find

1:15:57

you know, this random show that I remember

1:15:59

attending and it's like, oh yeah, like there is

1:16:01

some footage of it somewhere.

1:16:04

Yeah, not only the hardcore scene or heavy music,

1:16:06

but you know, I mean whatever it is, like, when

1:16:09

was the last time you looked at Chris Isaac's

1:16:11

unplugged? Right? Totally?

1:16:15

My wife would hear his voice, right and think, like, she

1:16:18

loves music? Who's that? What if? Goes

1:16:20

frong? I mean, that's got to be in the top hundred songs of

1:16:22

all time? And yep, she

1:16:24

didn't know what he looked like, right, And she's much younger

1:16:26

than than us, and and she walks into the

1:16:28

roof and sees him and she goes, oh, that's what

1:16:30

he looks like. I'm like, yeah, yeah, he's a he's

1:16:32

a beautiful man. It's all good, you know, totally.

1:16:37

It's it really does reconstitute

1:16:40

the way you think about songs

1:16:42

or and especially too where it's like there, I

1:16:45

mean, yes, you could argue that their

1:16:48

most genres of music. You know, if

1:16:50

you look like a presentable human being, like

1:16:53

your likelihood a success is you know, raised

1:16:55

by a little bit. But then there's that idea of you

1:16:57

know, within country music, it's like you can look

1:16:59

at like whatever, but

1:17:01

it does like when you have people

1:17:04

who were just like the same way that you could argue,

1:17:07

you know, it's like, oh, yes, before

1:17:09

people elected presidents, when television didn't

1:17:12

exist, like they didn't care what they look like. They kind of

1:17:14

you know, maybe saw them once or twice a year. Now it's like,

1:17:16

oh, yeah, that's all part of the same milieu.

1:17:19

Yeah. And I've

1:17:22

been playing this little game with myself and you know,

1:17:24

a couple of friends to try to figure

1:17:26

out what music has aged well and

1:17:28

what hasn't. And you know, I mean

1:17:30

there were certain bands that we

1:17:32

weren't even allowed to like when we were younger,

1:17:35

right because, oh, they're stealing from the underground

1:17:38

into the mainstream and we can't

1:17:40

have that, right, whether it was corn or whoever.

1:17:43

And you know, limp biscuit and stuff. And then

1:17:45

you look back at some of it, and

1:17:47

I'm not using them as an example of what I

1:17:49

think has aged good necessarily, but there are a lot of

1:17:51

bands that I was afraid to admit

1:17:54

that I sort of liked when I was younger, when

1:17:56

I was eighteen years old, that I

1:17:58

like quite a bit now or you know who

1:18:01

have just aged really well, and it's

1:18:03

it's kind of I'm enjoying this whole

1:18:05

getting older thing, you know,

1:18:08

as time goes on, because I'm able to look back and

1:18:10

go, you know what, that's a great song, right,

1:18:13

you know, the dude looks wild and

1:18:15

you know, was wearing this and had the craziest

1:18:18

guitar. But that's a good song, you know.

1:18:20

Yeah, absolutely, And

1:18:22

you also understand kind of the

1:18:25

flip side of that, where there

1:18:27

are totally

1:18:29

there are records that you listen to that

1:18:31

were so meaningful. I mean, especially in the

1:18:33

context of punk and hardcore, where

1:18:35

I'm often taken

1:18:38

aback by kids that are

1:18:40

you know, in the whatever game that were

1:18:42

clearly younger than us, and listen

1:18:45

to certain bands where it's like I have

1:18:47

the ability to make fun of choke Hold because I

1:18:49

was able to put out some records with the label

1:18:52

of the singer of choke Hold, But like joke

1:18:54

Hold's recordings were always terrible, and

1:18:56

it's like the fact the fact that sounds

1:18:59

like you know, guards being thrown out a

1:19:01

hallway, and you're like, we love

1:19:03

those records, but does anybody

1:19:05

you know that listened to joke Hold now is like,

1:19:07

oh my gosh, like these recordings are immaculate,

1:19:09

whereas like if you compare them to you know,

1:19:11

integrity, where you're like, oh my gosh, it's

1:19:14

night day here.

1:19:16

Well that's a great example too of technology.

1:19:18

And the advantage of making this

1:19:20

Barbarians project now is

1:19:23

that technology is so much more

1:19:25

user friendly and in order to accomplish

1:19:30

a sonically elite

1:19:34

recording in the nineties

1:19:37

cost a lot of money or lightning

1:19:39

needed to strike the studio that day for you to

1:19:42

be so lucky. And we all knew those records

1:19:44

that came out, you're like this, this sounds amazing.

1:19:47

And the other ones where there were you know, there were

1:19:49

so many good bands that just didn't have the

1:19:53

means to record properly or

1:19:55

you know the engineer. You know, they thought one engineer

1:19:57

was going to do it, but this other guy showed up. Like for

1:20:00

us in my bands, it was a matter

1:20:02

of oh, I heard I heard this guy

1:20:04

in the valley. If we give if we muster up

1:20:06

three hundred and fifty bucks, we'll record our

1:20:09

three song demo cassette

1:20:11

tape. And we've even met the guy

1:20:13

before. And you show up way too early

1:20:15

obviously, and you

1:20:18

know, like a one hungover and you load in

1:20:20

and you take three million hours,

1:20:22

you know, getting the drums

1:20:25

right and mic and stuff, only for them to sound

1:20:27

like absolute garbage. And people

1:20:29

struggled and some people didn't. You know, some recordings

1:20:31

of ours were better than others way back then,

1:20:34

and and now I'm

1:20:37

just so impressed with how

1:20:40

heavy music sounds. It's so impressive,

1:20:42

whether it's like a newer converge record that's

1:20:44

like whoa this is? You know, even

1:20:48

you Family sound Jane Doe

1:20:51

sounded incredible even

1:20:54

then, but like where recordings come.

1:20:56

That band Nails sounds so good

1:20:58

for such technical music and such

1:21:01

bombastic changes and the

1:21:04

musicality of all of it. But yet it's all really

1:21:08

digestible somehow. So it's it's it's

1:21:10

cool to see that heavy

1:21:14

music can be understood

1:21:17

better than ever. And I'm all,

1:21:19

I'm here for.

1:21:20

It, you know, yeah, absolutely,

1:21:23

Well kind of on that last

1:21:26

tip where you know, I'm kind

1:21:28

of putting you on the spot, and there's to be clear,

1:21:30

there's no right or wrong answers. This is obviously

1:21:32

just your personal opinion. Where oh

1:21:35

Neil, Yeah, Todd Jones, Yeah, incredible bands

1:21:38

like the fact totally the fact

1:21:40

that you can make. Yeah.

1:21:46

Yeah, well, the fact the fact you could.

1:21:48

Even when I was only focused on

1:21:51

the Abell stuff. I still have friends

1:21:53

from the past, like my buddy Chris Strausser

1:21:55

and played bass in that Van Kaprio. I'm

1:21:57

sure you know Chris, he

1:22:00

would always keep me grounded. You know. They're like, hey,

1:22:02

you.

1:22:02

Should check out this this brand.

1:22:05

I was like, oh, there's some care et

1:22:07

cetera, et cetera. I'm like, whoa this is?

1:22:09

This is just really really good, you know, Yeah,

1:22:13

it's really cool from Vegas. There's

1:22:16

a there's there's just a crop of

1:22:19

of great bands and it's really exciting to

1:22:22

to hear. Oh yeah, this

1:22:25

question.

1:22:27

No, it's like I said, no right

1:22:29

or wrong answers. Basically, if you could, if you

1:22:31

could build your you know, mount

1:22:33

rushmore of you know, either hardcore,

1:22:35

hardcore punk, whatever classification

1:22:38

you want to put on it. You know,

1:22:40

we're we're talking for bands, uh

1:22:42

that you could you know, basically you know,

1:22:44

etching the side of a mountain where it's like, okay,

1:22:47

this will you know, summarize either

1:22:50

my experience or hardcore bands

1:22:52

for people to check out. You can interpret it anyway.

1:22:54

Like I said, there's no wrong answers. But what would you place

1:22:57

on your mount rushmore.

1:23:00

Moving this right? You?

1:23:01

Honestly you're you. You

1:23:04

paint with whatever brush you want to.

1:23:06

I know, but this I don't. I don't feel like this brush

1:23:08

should have metal in it, because then a

1:23:11

totally different mountain.

1:23:12

I don't. I don't disagree with you, So I

1:23:14

think, yes, I think if you narrow, I think if you like.

1:23:18

It's always and you know, I don't even know

1:23:20

what the Barbarians of California is.

1:23:23

You know, to me, it's kind of metal, but it's

1:23:26

so far being except that it's hard

1:23:28

for I don't know what it is. But you

1:23:31

know, because like

1:23:33

I said before, Sepultura changed my

1:23:35

life, Panterea change my life, said, you know, every

1:23:38

Metallica record, not so much the new stuff, although

1:23:40

some of the new stuff has gotten got to be better. Yep.

1:23:44

But yeah, okay, I'll keep

1:23:46

it focused on hardcore.

1:23:47

Slash pop sounds good yep,

1:23:50

and in no particular orders. Yes

1:23:53

four, Yeah, you're you're edging inside of a mountain

1:23:56

or not inside outside? I guess technically, Yeah.

1:24:00

What's the weather like? All right? So

1:24:03

I'm gonna

1:24:07

maybe you could edit this if I take too long to answer,

1:24:09

but it's fine because

1:24:13

I love these guys and their their their friends.

1:24:19

I mean, I'm mean, I have to put Strife in there, and

1:24:23

they taught me about hardcore music, so I

1:24:25

wouldn't know about all these other bands I'll mentioned next

1:24:29

if it weren't for Strife, because I saw him at the last Palmas

1:24:32

Theater that was my first hardcore show.

1:24:34

That's where I was introduced to Undertow

1:24:38

and Snapcase, and

1:24:40

so it would be impossible. I mean, dude,

1:24:42

it's hard to not just off the top of my head

1:24:45

just bust off the

1:24:47

victory bands because I was so yeah factful

1:24:49

at that time in my life. So it's really hard for me to

1:24:51

not say it's simple Strife Earth

1:24:54

crisis. Yeah.

1:24:57

No, I And honestly, I'm.

1:24:59

Not gonna possibility.

1:25:03

So basically, you're a journey it.

1:25:07

It is like I said, it is absolutely

1:25:10

not, and I I'm putting you on the spot, but I do

1:25:12

think it's you.

1:25:15

To push the boundaries even further,

1:25:17

you know, and and and other bands that have come since

1:25:19

in some of these newer bands I just mentioned, but I'll

1:25:21

keep it, keep it with the classics. Definitely refused

1:25:24

obviously the shape of Punk to Come was I met

1:25:26

my buddy Darren Jone who I mentioned earlier in that story.

1:25:29

He got an advanced copy of that record

1:25:32

because it was on I think it was on Epitaph, right,

1:25:34

that record correct, And

1:25:36

you guys like, oh, we need to sit down

1:25:38

and listen to this. I'm like, okay, and

1:25:41

you put it on. I didn't even know what to do. I don't even know what to do.

1:25:44

You know, everything

1:25:47

was over. I heard that and I go, what

1:25:51

am I doing now? I don't even know?

1:25:52

Right? Well, that's that,

1:25:57

you know, totally.

1:25:59

So that was a big deal. Side

1:26:01

note full Circle Refused

1:26:04

had a big reunion, uh

1:26:07

you know, comeback and they played Coach

1:26:09

Hell of the same year that A Wall did, So that

1:26:11

was a really really special moment for me. Yeah,

1:26:14

only not only playing the main stage at

1:26:17

Coachell on Saturday afternoon

1:26:19

at like four or five, but

1:26:24

Refuse it was the first time they did three three

1:26:27

Nice or maybe two nice I forget,

1:26:29

but Refuse played the night before and

1:26:32

I went and singing along, I kind

1:26:34

of blew out my voice. So when A Wall

1:26:36

played the next day, I kind of wasn't.

1:26:43

Of course, now you you and I were and

1:26:46

they were so good, unbelievable.

1:26:50

You and I opened up Snapcase

1:26:53

on Fanning the Flames of Discontent

1:26:56

that record, which was another great record. Yep.

1:26:59

I remember thinking like, oh,

1:27:02

this guy's a rock star. He was he looked like James

1:27:04

Brown or mc jagger up there, like he threw up the mic,

1:27:06

did the drop. Oh by the way, the Donuts opened up

1:27:08

that show back full circle through your Donuts

1:27:11

comment, so it was like yet refused

1:27:15

and then staff case. But yeah, I remember thinking like, oh,

1:27:17

these guys are awesome. This is

1:27:19

some Swedish elite, like, you know,

1:27:21

next level art that I wasn't even prepared

1:27:24

for. Then I fell in love with that record, and

1:27:26

you know, and that's a good example of a record that if it

1:27:28

was recorded today would

1:27:30

sound quite different, you

1:27:32

know, quite a bit more powerful. I

1:27:35

like the simplicity of that record. And they're tuned to

1:27:37

eat it's you know, it's do

1:27:40

you remember the music video for Rather Be Dead? Have

1:27:42

you seen that? Oh?

1:27:44

Yeah, that was the one where slugs and stuff.

1:27:46

Yeah exactly, totally.

1:27:51

Oh yeah, yeah that was amazing. Yeah, so the shape

1:27:53

of punk tocom. Darren got an advanced coffee.

1:27:56

We sit in his upstairs condo

1:27:59

bed room and we just sat there. They were like bunk beds

1:28:01

in there for some reason. We were sitting there and he

1:28:03

played it and that, Yeah, that was a big deal. So, you

1:28:06

know, off the top of my head, keeping

1:28:08

it in my era of

1:28:10

when I was mostly involved in the hardcore

1:28:12

scene, it's I'll just and some of these

1:28:15

you know, this may not be the most popular answer, but I

1:28:17

think I'm gonna go with my gut instinct,

1:28:19

which is strife, snapcase, earth crisis. I

1:28:21

mean, Firestorm was unbelievable when I

1:28:23

heard that, and it was already out by

1:28:25

the time I entered the hardcore scene. And then what

1:28:31

was what's the name of the record that had goomor

1:28:36

Season's End on it?

1:28:37

Goodmor Season Ends Yep, yep, that was the name

1:28:39

of the album. Yeah, that was the name of the album.

1:28:41

And the Yeah, the song, I mean, the first song

1:28:43

of that Broken Foundation where it's like, you know, I am

1:28:45

straight edge like that saying a long was.

1:28:48

Like because they were

1:28:49

they pushing the boundaries too. They

1:28:52

were math with math in a lot of ways. And then

1:28:54

that part kicked in. It was like a huge breakdown.

1:28:57

Yep. We recorded the California take

1:28:59

Over two

1:29:01

point zero or a Wolf part two, let's say A

1:29:04

number two. I was so disappointed

1:29:06

with the recording of that part because

1:29:10

I wish there was no one singing. I mean, I wish it

1:29:12

was Carl, but instead he threw the mic in the crowd.

1:29:14

I think it's just like one random guy got in

1:29:16

sang that card. I was.

1:29:19

No, totally.

1:29:20

It's the thing about hardcore too, you're you

1:29:22

know you there's a certain vocal

1:29:24

part that you're thinking, I can't wait

1:29:27

to hear how this person pulls this off?

1:29:29

Right, yep. You know

1:29:31

oftentimes it's the mic falls

1:29:33

or there's no mic at all. You know how many shows.

1:29:36

The mic is gone where

1:29:39

it's like totally totally,

1:29:41

yeah, No, it's a It's a beautiful thing. And I fully

1:29:44

back and endorse all of your choices because

1:29:46

they are I mean, they're there.

1:29:48

Those are monumental bands for a reason.

1:29:51

Not only are there recordings

1:29:53

just immaculate for that time, but there are

1:29:55

timeless there's a timeless nature to every single

1:29:57

one of those bands you spoke about.

1:29:59

And if I think we've talked to Rick and

1:30:01

maybe Andrew on here, but if

1:30:03

you think about one truth as well,

1:30:05

it's like it's a pretty produced album

1:30:08

actually, and it's it's more artful than

1:30:10

you may remember, like not you personally,

1:30:12

but others. Like there's

1:30:14

a lot of reverb on there, and I

1:30:17

think Rick actually had a more

1:30:20

metal in him than than

1:30:23

one realizes, you know. And even I

1:30:25

remember doing, you know, when we recorded this, and

1:30:27

I mean.

1:30:28

This is with all love and as a as a deep compliment,

1:30:31

but when we recorded that the

1:30:33

takeover too, his voice sounded

1:30:35

amazing because it was fun for me, as

1:30:38

an old fan and an observer of this,

1:30:40

to go, Okay, what

1:30:42

are these.

1:30:42

Guys all sound like? That? Earth Prices

1:30:45

was so tight. They were a machine.

1:30:47

You know. They had their original drummer back. I hadn't

1:30:49

seen them with him. I think it was like a

1:30:51

fallout VOI drummer tour with them at some point

1:30:53

and I saw that, you know, it wasn't the same. It

1:30:56

was cool, you know, it wasn't the same. But snap

1:30:58

Case was great. The Snapcase was always

1:31:01

like to me, you

1:31:03

know, the like the radio head of hardcore at that time,

1:31:06

you know what I mean. They always they were always sort

1:31:08

of pushing art to another level

1:31:11

for hardcore, I thought, And I

1:31:13

remember all the girls around me thinking like, you

1:31:15

know, all our girlfriends were like, ah, he's so cute, Darrell,

1:31:18

you know, being but you

1:31:20

know they're they're not wrong, and I still

1:31:23

remain friends with Daryl. In fact, he's uh,

1:31:25

he's rumored to be

1:31:29

featuring on a future Barbarian

1:31:31

song because we're gonna put out the whole album right now. We're

1:31:33

just introducing song a song at a time, and

1:31:37

I'm trying to get some old heroes of mine to uh

1:31:39

to join forces, and so far most people

1:31:41

have said yes, so that'll be

1:31:43

cool. But yeah, back to the takeover, snapcase

1:31:46

sounded good like they always do. But

1:31:49

Rick's voice was like, to me,

1:31:52

incredibly impressive just listening

1:31:54

because I, you know, I was able to listen to all that stuff

1:31:57

raw, I could just you know, solo out of vocal, which

1:31:59

I whatdn't usually do because

1:32:02

it's rude. Quite honestly, no

1:32:04

one wants to hear their vocal soloed

1:32:06

out acapella, as you know. But he

1:32:09

sounded awesome. That was a really fun experience.

1:32:13

There we go.

1:32:13

There was Aaron from a Wall Nation and

1:32:15

please check out his new band, The Barbarians of

1:32:17

California. If you're a fan of anything heavy

1:32:20

I can guarantee you you will like

1:32:22

it. So that was really fun.

1:32:24

And next week I have another

1:32:27

old head in this conversation

1:32:29

with John Coyle from Outspoken,

1:32:32

who just recently played I

1:32:34

wouldn't call it a reunion, maybe just played

1:32:36

a show after a hiatus,

1:32:39

as it were, because Outspoken never really

1:32:41

breaks up per se. They just you know, tip in every

1:32:43

so often. But they just played

1:32:45

a show at Program Skate Shop

1:32:48

and I went and it was incredible. I

1:32:50

love Outspoken so so much.

1:32:53

But John came over my house. We did

1:32:55

it in person. It was great. Love to

1:32:57

have those in person chats when we can, So

1:32:59

that is what we have next week and until

1:33:01

then, please be safe, everybody,