0:00

So, you know how words can

0:02

mean different things or

0:04

names can be for

0:07

radically different products? Alright,

0:10

let me give you an example. I was trying to think

0:12

of this like an example of one of these yesterday morning,

0:15

and the first thing that popped into

0:17

my head was the word Jawbreaker. So today,

0:20

we're gonna talk about Jawbreakers,

0:22

three ways. Way

0:24

back in 1999, a movie came

0:26

out called Jawbreaker. It's listed as

0:28

a comedy. I think it's definitely

0:30

a dark comedy. I never saw

0:32

it when it came out. It starred

0:35

Rose McGowan and who, I

0:37

mean, everybody knows who Rose McGowan is. Judy

0:39

Greer, who has gone on

0:41

to become pretty successful in her own right.

0:44

It had cameos from Marilyn Manson. Oh, it

0:46

had Julie Benz. If you don't know who

0:48

Julie Benz is, she was on Buffy the

0:50

Vampire Slayer. She played Darla. She was great

0:52

in that. It had Pam Greer as well

0:54

as Judy Greer. No relation that I'm

0:56

aware of. I

0:59

believe Carol Kane was in

1:01

it. Jeff

1:03

Conway was in it. It actually had a lot

1:05

of cameos. As a matter of fact, you know

1:08

who I noticed in there who... I

1:11

may be the... Well, you might have noticed it

1:14

too. But there's a nurse in there who looked

1:16

so familiar. I looked it up. The lady is

1:18

Sandy Martin, and she's the lady who plays Max

1:20

Mom on Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And

1:22

I think that might be the first time I've ever noticed

1:24

her in anything else. Anyway,

1:26

so this movie comes out. It's a

1:29

dark comedy about teenagers in high school.

1:32

I did not see it when it came out.

1:35

I was 24 years old. I had just gotten out

1:37

of the army. And I remember

1:40

this era of teen movies hitting like Can't

1:42

Hardly Wait, This One, How to Lose a

1:45

Guy in 12 Days, I think it was

1:47

right around there. She's All That, Varsity Blues,

1:49

10 Things I Hate About You. Anyway,

1:52

there were all these movies. You know,

1:55

we have them now too. But it

1:57

was that generation's movie of like teens.

2:00

Separating and going off to college or their

2:02

adult life or whatever and I just remember

2:04

at that time being 24 and after having

2:07

You know just come off sir. I

2:09

was exhausted after serving five years in

2:11

the military. I remember. I just remember how

2:13

fucking Just worn out I

2:16

felt all the time right after I got out

2:18

of the army and how I just needed to

2:21

God, I just I needed some time to just recover.

2:23

It was such an intense five years, you know and

2:26

I Just remember seeing

2:28

all those movies come out and having no interest in

2:30

any of them My friends all wanted to go watch

2:32

them I think I actually got drugged to see can't

2:34

hardly wait at the theater and I fucking hated it

2:36

I've never seen it since I saw it

2:38

in the theater when it came out and I just I just remember

2:40

feeling really far away From those stories and

2:43

those problems and that age, you know what I

2:45

mean? And so I have kind of

2:47

a blind spot in in in my movie knowledge

2:51

Around that time frame so

2:54

I sat down and I watched the movie Jawbreaker

2:56

this morning And I don't want to spoil it

2:58

for you. So if you've never seen it and

3:00

you plan on seeing it maybe Fast

3:03

forward a little bit. But if you I'll try to

3:05

talk about it as much as possible without giving too

3:07

many spoilers but You

3:10

know the movie came out a hundred fucking years ago. So

3:12

cut me some slack. The premise is basically

3:14

Heather's I don't know if you've seen Heather's that was my

3:16

that movie came out like 1988 or 89 I

3:20

want to say yeah and they at 1988 I think so I

3:22

was like 13 years old when it came out

3:24

and it is about a click of mean

3:28

Popular girls who kind of torture people and

3:30

get away with it This

3:32

movie is a by the way phenomenal film if you ever get a

3:34

chance to go back and see it It

3:37

was well, I say it's phenomenal. I haven't seen it in

3:39

many many many years, but I loved it I was definitely

3:41

the right age for it at that right time And

3:43

I think I was just a little too

3:46

old for Jawbreaker, which was directly influenced by

3:48

Heather's It's not a retelling of the story,

3:50

but there are very similar

3:52

themes and It's I

3:54

think they said they were inspired by Heather's

3:57

it's also 11 years before Mean Girls, which

3:59

is the much more successful version of this

4:01

trilogy of films which is also a lot

4:05

safer and more family-friendly. Job

4:08

Breaker starts with this group of popular Mean Girls. They

4:10

kidnap one of their friends on their birthday. It's a

4:12

thing they do. They say in the movie it's a

4:14

thing that girls do. They kidnap their friends on their

4:16

birthday. I'm not a girl. I don't

4:18

know if that's true. To my knowledge, nobody's ever kidnapped

4:20

a girl around me on their birthday. Maybe it's just

4:22

a thing from the movie but or maybe it was

4:25

a thing from the 90s that I missed or maybe

4:27

it's incredibly common. I don't know and I'm just an

4:30

idiot. So if you make

4:32

a practice of kidnapping your friends on their

4:34

birthday, let me know. It might just be something

4:37

I'm ignorant of but they kidnap

4:39

their friend. Rose McGowan has the idea

4:41

to shove a jawbreaker in her mouth so she can't talk

4:43

when they duct tape her

4:45

up and it happens in the

4:47

first five minutes so it's not a huge spoiler. The friend dies and

4:50

then they have to figure out what to do

4:52

with their dead friend that they've unintentionally killed and

4:54

this is Rebecca Gayhart and

4:57

Julie Benz and Rose

5:00

McGowan. So now they've got this

5:02

dead friend and the whole movie is them

5:04

trying to navigate hiding the

5:07

disappearance of their friend and not look

5:09

guilty and deal with the

5:11

guilt of it but also somehow in

5:13

it Rebecca Gayhart becomes the protagonist and

5:15

Rose McGowan becomes the antagonist and there's

5:18

a boyfriend who's in the theater and

5:20

then Pam Greer comes in. She's a

5:22

cop to investigate and she's trying to

5:24

get to the bottom of it and

5:27

then Judy Greer catches them finds

5:29

out what they did. She's like this nerdy

5:31

mousy girl and they

5:35

do the transformation and turn her into the

5:37

hot pretty girl and then she becomes a

5:39

monster even bigger than Rose McGowan and then

5:41

there becomes this power struggle and

5:43

then there's like it all ends at

5:46

the prom of course and so there's

5:48

a carry moment and

5:50

it all unravels. It's honestly

5:53

not very good. I don't remember people thinking

5:55

it was good when it came out that

5:57

might have influenced my desire not to see it. And

6:00

it's interesting to

6:03

see 1999 again,

6:06

I'll say that I got hit with a

6:08

lot of interesting and fun nostalgia because

6:11

everything in that movie, the soundtrack, all

6:13

the actors and actresses, you know, I'm,

6:17

I think, I think Rebecca Gayhart is like two

6:19

or three years older than me. Rose McGowan

6:21

might be a year or two older than me. There were

6:23

all like Julie, Julie Benz, we're all about the same age.

6:25

I think, I think they were all like one or two

6:28

years older than me. So it's like, it's

6:31

like seeing old friends almost in a way, you

6:33

know, in a way that I'd never seen them. I

6:35

mean, I've seen all these people before, I've seen them in a million movies,

6:38

but I'd never seen them in

6:40

this configuration before. And it's fun

6:42

to get to go back in time to

6:45

a very familiar point in time and in

6:47

your past and see stuff that's very familiar,

6:49

but stuff that you're seeing for the first

6:51

time. If you have an opportunity

6:54

to do that, if you're a little bit older

6:56

and there's a movie you never saw that was

6:58

kind of steeped in the pop culture of the

7:00

time, maybe go ahead and check it out.

7:03

Just for the, just for the fun little peer

7:05

through the past. It's really, it's just kind of

7:07

cool to see the world in 1999 again,

7:10

in a way that I haven't seen a thousand times in

7:12

some movie that I've watched over and over again, if that

7:14

makes sense. I definitely don't

7:17

recommend it. It's a very stylish movie.

7:21

There's some interesting cinematography.

7:23

Rose McGowan gives some decent

7:26

performance at different

7:28

points. Rebecca Gayhart is a

7:30

better actress than I remember her being. I

7:32

don't know if you remember Rebecca Gayhart, but

7:35

she was famous because, interesting. It doesn't really

7:37

happen this way anymore, but she was famous

7:40

because she was the Noxemah girl. Like

7:42

she got a contract, she was a model.

7:44

She got a contract to be the face

7:46

of Noxemah and she became like

7:49

overnight famous because of that. Everybody

7:51

was kind of charmed with her. I know all, everybody

7:54

I knew had a crush on her. And through that,

7:56

she ended up becoming an actress and kind of had

7:58

a six, a lot of. success. I actually looked her

8:00

up because she was working pretty regularly. She was doing

8:02

I feel like a string of like five or six

8:05

movies in a row and then just

8:07

kind of stopped and I never knew

8:09

why or maybe I did and I just forgot

8:11

it because apparently it was big news but I

8:13

guess she hit a pedestrian driving her car in

8:15

the early 2000s and they died and

8:18

I don't know if she was at fault. I didn't lead too far

8:20

into it. I just think it that put

8:22

a stop to her career for a while. It's crazy.

8:24

I mean Caitlyn Jenner is going strong right? What

8:26

are you gonna do? Anyway, that's a piece

8:28

of early 2000s trivia that I either did not know

8:31

or did not remember. Film

8:33

didn't do well. I think it made

8:35

like three million dollars in the box

8:37

office. I guess it's become kind of

8:39

a cult classic. Like

8:41

it's clearly garnered some level

8:43

of cult following and status

8:45

but it really mediocre, really forgettable

8:48

film. Not to be rude. It

8:51

didn't miss out on anything by not seeing it at the time. I'm

8:53

actually kind of glad I never saw it at the time because it's

8:55

cool to go back and see it so many years later and

8:57

like I said, just be like

9:00

a warm blanket of familiarity. It was really

9:02

nice. So that is the

9:04

movie Jawbreaker. Oh, one other thing before

9:06

I move on to the next Jawbreaker. I mentioned

9:09

those actors and actors in that film. They

9:11

were all a little bit... My age

9:13

were a little bit older. I was 24. I

9:15

think Rebecca Gayhart was 28 or 29 at

9:19

the time of filming. These people were

9:21

all supposed to be 16 and 17 year old high

9:23

school students. It

9:26

is so jarring to see

9:29

damn near 30 year olds playing high school students.

9:31

There's a dude in that movie, like a hunky

9:33

dude in that movie who looks

9:36

older than some of the teachers. It's crazy to me

9:38

that we're supposed to believe that he is like 17

9:40

years old even though he's

9:43

clearly been working out in a gym for 15

9:45

years to get the body he has. It's ridiculous.

9:48

Oh, and one other cameo

9:50

that I forgot to mention at the prom,

9:52

the prom band because there's always a prom

9:55

band, right? And that prom band is always

9:57

somehow famous. It's always... never

10:00

make sense to me but it's always

10:02

like and now playing for your

10:04

high school prom Passion Pit you're like kind of

10:06

fucked it they get that bit whatever the

10:09

band is the Donnas who I

10:12

guess were the right band for that time they were I don't

10:14

know if you know them or if you're familiar with them so

10:16

I apologize if I'm explaining something

10:18

that you're very familiar with but they were

10:20

kind of like an all-girl Ramones kind of

10:22

meets like Ramones meets the Runaways is how

10:25

I would describe them maybe they

10:27

were potentially like the new it bands like they

10:29

were I remember I felt like I felt like

10:31

media was really pushing them hard to be the

10:33

next big thing and then it just never they

10:36

always got close right but I don't think they ever I

10:38

don't think they ever like got over that hump and

10:40

then I believe they broke up somewhere in

10:42

the mid-2000s let's see if I can find

10:45

that 2012 there you go

10:48

anyway fun band if you ever get a chance give

10:50

them a listen just real poppy and and dancey and

10:52

a little buzzy Jawbreaker second

10:54

way the candy boy

10:57

have I learned a lot about the

10:59

candy Jawbreakers in the last 24 hours

11:01

I guess right off the bat in

11:04

the UK they're called gobstoppers in

11:06

the US and Canada they're called

11:08

Jawbreakers no idea what they're called

11:10

around the rest of the world

11:12

obviously they reached like massive popularity

11:14

in the around the world but from the

11:17

UK from from the Willy Wonka movie in

11:19

the 1960s and I think

11:21

that's where they kind of like hit the cultural

11:24

zeitgeist but they've existed

11:26

for a very long time before that they

11:29

were actually invented I learned in America of

11:31

all places I would have picked the UK

11:34

hands down the UK invented everything

11:36

that Americans enjoy it seems like

11:38

but yeah they were invented in

11:41

well you know it depends on

11:43

how far you want to go back right like

11:45

they were making candy in Italy where they

11:47

would put a this called confetti right and

11:49

they would put almond at the center and

11:52

then build a candy kind of shell around

11:54

it usually like a Jordan almond and they

11:56

would do this process

11:58

called panning which is how they make Jawbreakers

12:01

as well. And I can

12:03

explain that in a minute. But they would

12:05

just kind of build the candy up around a Jordan almond. It

12:07

was actually an Italian born confectioner

12:09

who moved to the states. I

12:12

guess his name is Ferrerepan. He moved to the states

12:14

in 1908 and created the first one in

12:20

the states using the name Jawbreaker

12:22

in like 1919. So

12:25

the official Jawbreaker as

12:27

its name, candy was

12:29

invented in 1919 by this Ferrerepan dude

12:32

who by the way, that

12:34

company Ferrerepan is still around

12:37

and they still make Jawbreakers. They make what's

12:39

called the original JawBusters is what they call

12:41

them now. I don't know why they call

12:43

them JawBusters. I don't know that

12:45

it's important. But if you see the box,

12:48

they look like the cheap Jawbreakers you get

12:50

like in the

12:52

discount Halloween candy bags. They're pretty

12:54

good. I like them. You'll recognize them immediately.

12:56

So I guess they've been making those are

12:58

the originals and they've been being made since

13:00

1919, which is kind of fucking wild. I

13:02

also really thought that they

13:05

were invented in England and probably originally

13:07

called JawBusters because of I

13:09

guess just because of the influence of Cholian

13:12

chocolate factory, but that's not correct.

13:14

Although JawBusters did go into

13:16

production, obviously after

13:19

the popularity of the movie, I think like five

13:21

or six years after the movie, they decided to

13:23

start making those and obviously those are still going

13:25

strong. The term Jawbreaker is

13:27

interesting because that actually dates back to I

13:29

think 1839 where

13:32

it was entered into the

13:34

into dictionaries as a hard to pronounce

13:36

word, which is also really weird because

13:39

Jawbreaker is not a hard to pronounce word, but

13:42

nobody seems to know why. Like it wasn't like

13:45

nobody understands to my knowledge the etymology

13:47

of how the term Jawbreaker was created

13:49

just that it ended up in dictionaries

13:52

in 1839 as a hard to pronounce

13:54

word and then 80

13:58

something years later was a attached to

14:01

a very popular candy

14:03

by Salvatore Ferraro. I

14:06

said it was Ferraro Pan was his name. That's

14:08

the name of the candy company. My apologies to

14:10

Salvatore Ferraro. I didn't mean to, I didn't

14:14

mean to miscredit him. He was the

14:16

one who founded the Ferraro Pan Candy

14:18

Company, which is still, as

14:21

I said earlier, still in existence to this

14:23

day. So I was telling you, I learned

14:25

how they make them. And I think it's

14:27

actually kind of fascinating. They start with a

14:29

single grain of sugar, they say, and they

14:31

use this process called panning, where they put

14:33

it in large copper pots that

14:35

are spherical, and then they're just constantly

14:38

rotated over gas flames so that the

14:40

grains of sugar tumble around and they

14:42

keep adding them in. And then with

14:44

constant rotation, and then eventually they start

14:46

adding liquid sugar. I think it takes

14:49

like two weeks. Eventually they are formed

14:51

into this hard,

14:53

delicious shell. And as it grows, I

14:55

guess they put on food coloring and

14:58

artificial flavors as well, until

15:00

you get this giant, gorgeous

15:03

candy bowling ball that,

15:06

oh man, this is getting me excited about Jawbreakers.

15:08

You ever get one of the giant, big

15:10

ass Jawbreakers that's the size of a baseball

15:13

or a softball and just see how long it

15:15

takes you to eat it? I bought one one

15:17

time when I was in my 30s, and

15:20

I just kept it in the fridge. And I would lick it

15:22

a little bit and keep it in the fridge. And I think

15:25

I got maybe a third

15:27

of the way down on that thing before I

15:29

gave up and just threw it away. And that

15:31

was weeks into it. And I think what finally

15:34

wore me off was just, at some point it's

15:36

like sandpaper on your tongue. If

15:38

you lick a Jawbreaker for too much, it

15:41

just like rips your fucking tongue up. Wonder

15:43

what the largest Jawbreaker ever is, let's see.

15:47

Nick Calderaro from

15:50

Scarborough, Canada in 2003, he

15:53

is an employee of the Oak Leaf Confections Company, or

15:55

at least he was at that time in

15:58

Ontario. He... created a

16:00

27.8 pound jawbreaker that

16:02

is recognized by the Guinness Book

16:04

of World Records as the largest

16:06

jawbreaker of all time. 27.8 pounds.

16:09

I wonder what happened

16:11

to that because that was 20 years ago

16:13

now. Is a job, can it sit?

16:15

Does the job have a shelf life? Does it have a

16:17

half-life? Can it sit for 20 years

16:19

and then be eaten because it's just crystallized

16:22

or cooked sugar, hardened sugar,

16:25

right? And artificial flavorings or

16:27

I wonder if they already

16:29

ate it. How long does

16:31

it take to eat a regular jawbreaker? Let's

16:33

see. Oh, okay.

16:35

It says there have been some scientific studies

16:39

and it takes approximately 1,000 licks

16:44

to completely devour a

16:46

jawbreaker. I guess that's just

16:48

like a normal small-sized jawbreaker, like a gumball

16:50

sized jawbreaker. Oh, I missed

16:53

a little fact about this thing. The

16:55

world's... Sorry, Nick. Let me give

16:57

you full credit here, Nick Calderaro.

16:59

When he made this...

17:01

Sorry, talking about Nick, the guy that made the

17:03

world's largest jawbreaker again, not the guy that edits

17:05

this podcast. When he created that

17:08

27 pound jawbreaker, it took him

17:10

476 hours to

17:13

make it. Jesus Christ! I

17:17

wonder if it's worth it. Okay, last

17:19

thing about the candy jawbreaker. I

17:22

don't know if you remember this, but there

17:25

were... At least when I was growing

17:27

up, there were all these myths that

17:29

jawbreakers could explode if you heated them

17:31

up like in a microwave. I guess

17:34

MythBusters did an episode where they tried

17:36

to confirm or bust whether jawbreakers could

17:38

explode and they confirmed it. I'll

17:40

read the results right here. Microwave heating

17:42

of a jawbreaker can cause different layers

17:45

inside to heat at different rates, yielding

17:47

an explosive spray of very hot candy

17:49

when compressed. During one

17:51

test, the jawbreaker did indeed explode, catching Christine

17:53

on part of her face and neck and

17:55

Adam on part of an arm as

17:57

the jaw rig that they had set up

17:59

didn't have safe screens. Both suffered light burns. And

18:02

here's one I do remember reading. A young

18:04

girl in Florida suffered severe burns to her face when

18:06

one exploded. I think it was like left out in

18:09

the sun and then put in the freezer and then

18:11

left out in the sun again. And I think she

18:13

had to have like plastic surgery. It burned

18:15

her so bad. Okay, well there you go.

18:18

Enjoy Jawbreakers. Know that if

18:21

you're going to try to tackle a normal sized

18:23

one, it's going to take you about a thousand

18:25

tongue licks and keep them away from extreme

18:28

heat or they may explode and cause incredible

18:30

damage to you. Also, they are not good

18:32

for you. It is pure. It is a

18:34

big hard ball of sugar. But damn, is

18:37

it a fun ball of sugar to eat?

18:39

Okay, Jawbreaker third

18:41

way, the band

18:44

Jawbreaker. And this

18:47

is going to be a little... This part will be a little different for

18:49

me. Jawbreaker is one of

18:51

my all-time favorite bands. They

18:53

have meant a tremendous amount

18:55

to me throughout my life.

18:58

Anybody who is my age and

19:00

was in a similar scene

19:03

probably feels similarly to

19:05

Jawbreaker. It was one

19:07

of the greatest rises and then saddest

19:10

falls I've seen of a... And

19:12

quickest falls I've seen of

19:14

a talented band in my lifetime. And

19:17

I wanted to

19:19

do them justice for this

19:21

third part. And I remembered reading that

19:23

there was a documentary about them a

19:25

while back. So in preparation for this,

19:27

right after I watched the Jawbreaker comedy

19:30

movie with Rose McGowan, I immediately

19:32

watched the Jawbreaker documentary,

19:34

Jawbreaker Don't Break Down, which was

19:36

I think created

19:39

by the same team that made We Jam

19:41

O'Connell, which is the Minuteman

19:43

documentary, which I have to say

19:46

if you get a chance to see, you

19:48

absolutely should. It's a phenomenal documentary. Also, you

19:50

should see this documentary. Even if

19:52

you don't know who the band Jawbreaker is,

19:54

if you do, it's gonna provide an insane

19:56

amount of insight into what happened in

19:59

that band. and how they fell apart

20:01

and it's gonna break your heart really because

20:03

it is a really beautiful and sad and

20:07

very naked and honest story that they tell I

20:09

think throughout the course of this documentary. If

20:12

you've never heard of them, I think you should probably

20:14

watch it because it is a

20:16

great hour and 17

20:19

minute explanation of how

20:21

something truly special

20:23

can be born and then die in

20:26

the span of

20:28

time in a

20:30

span of time just because of

20:34

how difficult it was to manage and control. I

20:36

just I thought it was fascinating but if you're

20:38

not familiar with the band Jobrecker, they were a

20:40

punk rock band from the late

20:42

80s. I think they probably formed in like 87-88

20:44

and they went until

20:47

maybe they formed in like 89 and they went

20:49

to like 99. They were they were

20:51

only around for 10 years and that 10 years

20:54

they released four studio albums that were

20:56

all very different from each other. I

20:58

don't even really know where to start.

21:00

There's so much I want to

21:02

talk about with this band. I don't really know how to

21:05

navigate this in the common sense

21:07

fashion but I'll do my best. They

21:10

start these two kids are

21:12

best friends in high school often

21:14

Santa Monica. They decide to start

21:17

playing in bands together. They're punk rock kids. They

21:19

end up going to NYU together.

21:21

This is Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam

21:24

Fowler. They go to NYU together.

21:26

While they're going to school, they

21:29

decide they answer a flyer for

21:31

someone who wants to start a band, a guy named

21:33

Chris Bauermeister and the three of

21:36

them end up starting Jobrecker

21:38

together. It's interesting because there's

21:40

some clear tension between Blake

21:42

and Chris even early on. I don't think

21:44

that they're necessarily creatively aligned. They talk a

21:46

little bit about how they had to spend

21:48

hours and hours in a practice

21:51

space together just trying to understand each other and

21:53

get to know each other and just playing back

21:55

and forth. I think there was a real tug,

21:57

creative tug, maybe not a tug, but I think

21:59

that they do. just they had there were

22:01

different people clearly very different people and so

22:04

this band was born out of two friends

22:06

and then one person whose ad they answered

22:08

you know and

22:10

that created and I

22:13

think a tension between them

22:15

that persisted it's

22:18

what drove the band apart part of what

22:20

drove the band apart obviously a big part of what drove

22:22

the band apart but I think it's

22:24

also what made them kind of special is because

22:26

they weren't necessarily even from the start always aligned

22:28

and they even talk about this and I think

22:31

you can really feel it in the early albums

22:33

their first album unfun is this right kind of

22:35

just like punk hardcore

22:37

album very very of

22:40

its time and a really good solid album but there's

22:42

like this I don't know

22:44

you can almost feel this tension but in the music

22:47

and I think it's what elevates it a little bit

22:49

the next album bivouac that they released which is

22:51

a very

22:53

different album from the last one and and

22:55

it's starting to show their their musical ability

22:58

a little bit more it is definitely like

23:01

whereas unfun was kind of like straight

23:03

punky hardcore this is sort

23:06

of hardcore inspired emo

23:08

very reminds me very much of

23:10

like early sunny day real estate

23:12

but different I

23:14

think you'll understand what I mean if you if you know

23:16

both bands anyway

23:19

and and I think that this tension between the band

23:22

members kind of helped elevate and create and

23:24

create this like I don't know you

23:26

have this quality to the music that you can feel in

23:28

it and I think it really helped I

23:31

mean don't get me wrong Blake is an

23:33

amazing singer he's got a

23:35

really unique voice Adam is a

23:37

phenomenal drummer I think he's

23:39

actually a lot better than he gets credit for they

23:42

were all really talented in their

23:44

own way but something

23:46

about the way they came together but

23:49

couldn't quite come together or ever see

23:51

eye to eye I think

23:53

made the music better so

23:56

they they formed this band in

23:58

New York City I'm getting all I'm jumping all over the They're

24:00

from the span of New York City. They realize they have something

24:02

a little special They decide to drop out of school for a

24:04

while or put it on hold they moved to LA Which

24:07

is like I said where where so it's like

24:09

it's one East Coast dude in two West Coast

24:11

dudes Which is also kind of interesting they moved

24:13

to LA Back

24:16

to where you know Blake and Adam are from to

24:18

try to gain some traction there and LA

24:20

is not happening for him There really isn't much of a

24:23

scene in LA at this time in the late 80s And

24:26

so they're doing a lot of like up and down

24:28

the coast road small tours road

24:30

gigs They end up playing at Gilman

24:32

Street in Berkeley, which I've

24:34

never been to It

24:37

is where op ivy and Green Day

24:39

and Jawbreaker and I

24:42

don't know a con of Christ and

24:44

and like a million bands got their

24:46

start or got their foothold in the

24:49

punk community It's this punk collective To

24:52

me growing up a kid who was

24:54

in Bumfuck

24:57

middle of nowhere, Alabama

24:59

and at times, Louisiana Reading

25:02

about the punk world through zines

25:05

in the late 80s early 90s Gilman

25:08

Street seemed like the center

25:10

of the universe. It

25:12

really did It was where all of the

25:14

best music was happening. It was you would

25:16

read about it It was this amazing punk

25:18

collective and it just it sounded it sounded

25:21

like this Mecca of everything that I

25:23

was involved with or

25:26

wanted to be involved with rather that was tangentially

25:28

involved with by being a fan of and Man

25:33

I would have killed to go there back in the time I found out

25:35

recently my friend burned dog when he lived up there He would go there

25:37

all the time and he man I need

25:39

to ask him Maybe I'll bring him on an interview him about

25:41

that sometime. I'd love to know more about his time at

25:43

Gilman anyway This like it was

25:45

like the center of the punk universe at for a time

25:48

and they they felt really welcome there

25:50

And so they ended up deciding you

25:52

fuck LA. Let's move the band up

25:55

to San Francisco That's that's a

25:57

much Livelier scene a lot more

25:59

going on up And so they move up to San

26:01

Francisco. I think that They move

26:03

into an apartment complex and across the hall

26:05

I think Adam and and Blake end up

26:07

in one apartment and Chris moves across the

26:10

hall with a roommate the roommates Lance Hahn

26:12

the lead singer of J Church who is

26:14

another seminally important band

26:16

from that time, but one of my favorite bands of

26:18

all time and Lance Hahn

26:20

is was a bit of a hero

26:23

to me. I'll probably talk about that at some point

26:25

I'll talk about how embarrassed I I

26:27

made myself every time I had the pleasure of meeting

26:29

him He ended up living in Austin

26:31

for the last 10 years of his life

26:33

or whatever. He died a while back Anyway,

26:36

so they start to find success

26:38

Gilman loves him. They're they're really

26:40

good. They're really different they're

26:44

You can tell pretty early on that they're

26:46

special. They have something this three-piece Blake is

26:50

Incredibly charismatic as a lead singer and

26:52

he's got this raspy

26:54

voice this unique raspy

26:57

voice like Unlike

26:59

anything you've ever heard and

27:02

they they're just really good

27:05

Around this time. I'm gonna get the time lens

27:08

fucked up a little bit So I apologize around

27:11

this time they they're they're creating

27:13

their next album. It was called 24-hour

27:15

revenge therapy if you are a Jawbreaker

27:17

fan You know this

27:19

album because it is considered one

27:22

of the best albums one of the best punk albums

27:24

ever made and Definitely their

27:27

best album. Although as I've

27:29

grown older, I've learned to appreciate dear you which is something

27:31

we'll get into Anyway,

27:33

so at this point they're they're living in San Francisco. I I'm

27:36

jumping around a little bit but at one

27:38

point they broke up because They

27:41

were just having a tough time and they weren't

27:43

seeing eye to eye and you know, it's Working

27:46

at this time in punk rock. This is

27:48

before Green Day broke big This

27:50

is before there was blink 22 and money everywhere.

27:52

It was such a labor of love to be

27:55

a part of this I talked about the you

27:57

know, the the my love and

27:59

obsession with the DIY movement and

28:01

what pulled me into punk rock and they were in

28:03

the middle of that and it's such

28:05

a romantic and wonderful thing when you're 19 and 20 and

28:08

21 but when you're starting to approach your you know you're

28:10

starting to get a little bit older and a little bit

28:12

longer in the tooth and you start to think about your

28:14

future and you've been you know

28:17

driving a van across the country

28:20

for four or five or six years two or

28:23

three you know two hundred and fifty days a

28:25

year whatever it may be and

28:27

you're kind of living hand-to-mouth and

28:29

sleeping on in squats and

28:31

at on people's floors and in

28:33

college universities which is something that Catch-22 used

28:35

to do when I was with them and

28:38

and just e can buy you

28:40

know it's awesome because you're

28:42

living for your art and it's amazing but

28:44

it's also exhausting and it's hard

28:47

and it wears you down and it

28:49

strains relationships and I think that they're

28:51

going through that through the entirety of

28:53

this band if I had one overall

28:58

impression over their ten years from

29:00

watching the documentary it's

29:02

that that band was largely

29:04

painful for all of them the entire time even

29:07

through the good moments and and that makes

29:10

me really sad for them because they they

29:12

found something special and they just didn't know

29:14

how to keep it together and the more

29:16

people liked it the more it hurt them

29:19

and so it was really it's very complicated

29:21

and I'm here I am just a fan

29:23

who watched the documentary and heard some interviews

29:25

and is extrapolating all this meaning it

29:29

may have more to do with me than them who knows but

29:31

at some point they break up and Blake goes back

29:33

and he finishes his college degree I think I

29:35

think actually I think Adam stays

29:38

in California and in San Francisco and Blake and

29:40

Chris go back to New York independently

29:42

of each other not friends then they

29:44

I think they both finish their degrees

29:46

maybe and at some point reconcile Blake

29:49

becomes a librarian they move back to San

29:51

Francisco they kick the band back up again

29:53

this is around the time they start making

29:55

24-hour revenge therapy I I mentioned that because

29:57

in the documentary Blake Blake

30:00

mentions that he at this time is a

30:02

librarian and at the library that he works

30:04

at he's found these tapes of Jack Kerouac

30:06

doing these spoken words from the 60s to

30:09

the 70s and he takes him

30:13

and he starts listening to him every morning when

30:15

he's making his coffee and getting his breakfast together

30:17

and getting ready for work and

30:19

it just becomes this routine and he

30:21

kind of gets like lulled into the

30:24

world of Jack Kerouac and the beat

30:26

seen in general I think and it

30:29

makes so much sense because if you now listen to

30:31

25-inch therapy you can I mean the

30:35

references to Kerouac are overt in

30:37

the album but you can also

30:40

feel how different this album

30:42

is from the previous two because it is really

30:44

the dude is a poet he doesn't acknowledge it

30:46

but he really is and

30:48

his poetry is becoming refined and

30:50

the music is becoming refined and

30:53

he's gotten to be

30:56

much better at conveying a

30:58

point lyrically and so really

31:00

24-inch therapy whereas the first album was

31:02

just like hardcore punk album the second

31:04

album was this hardcore emo album this

31:06

album is like beat punk

31:09

would be the only way I could describe it it

31:11

is it is feels like Allen

31:13

Ginsburg it feels like William S Burroughs

31:15

it feels like Jack Kerouac all rolled

31:17

up into one writing songs about disenfranchisement

31:19

and disillusion and fear and

31:21

it's there there's a song

31:23

called outpatient that talks about

31:26

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33:11

They were on tour in

33:14

Europe. I think that they they talk about this in

33:16

documentary. They wanted to go to Europe. They didn't have

33:18

the money. They did a tour

33:20

from California all the way to New York

33:22

to collect enough money along the way to

33:24

basically buy their flights to go on this

33:26

European tour. So they do this and then

33:28

they're really relying on their friends in this

33:30

European tour. A lot of people put up

33:33

money and support to help them go across

33:35

the Europe to play these shows

33:37

and so they're really indebted to a lot

33:39

of people over there. They feel Blake

33:41

starts having this pain in his throat and

33:43

he starts having this difficulty singing and he's

33:45

losing his voice a lot. It's a crapshooter

33:48

whether he'll be able to sing. They actually

33:50

play some clips from some of

33:52

the shows where he's like, I can't sing this song

33:54

but if somebody from the audience wants to come up

33:56

and sing it, I'll play guitar and you can see

33:58

it. He eventually starts coughing blood and

34:00

so he eventually has to go see a

34:02

doctor, I think an Ireland or somewhere, and

34:05

they discover he's got these polyps on his throat

34:07

and they have to perform emergency surgery to remove

34:09

them. And this is in the middle of the

34:11

tour, which they then have

34:13

to cancel an entire leg of, which they feel

34:15

terrible about because it's going to screw over a

34:18

lot of friends who invested

34:20

some money and effort and time into getting this tour off the

34:22

ground. There's a

34:24

period of time where Blake doesn't know

34:26

if he'll ever be able to sing

34:29

again or what he will even sound

34:31

like. And it's like this crazy period

34:33

where he's convalescing in Europe somewhere, not

34:36

knowing if he'll have the

34:38

strength to even sing, if he'll be able

34:41

to. And then, because he's got this very

34:43

unique raspy voice and I

34:45

think his voice is a little different post surgery. I

34:47

think he can hear it. And he even has the

34:49

song outpatient on 24 hour revenge therapy that is, I'll

34:51

talk about how like, what a

34:53

poet he'd become. I'll read some of these lists. The

34:56

song starts out, a little voice that's not

34:58

quite your own. Count backwards from 10. He's

35:00

recounting when they're putting him under yellow

35:02

jelly shot, hard in vain. I want

35:05

to talk to you again. This is

35:07

Jennings, your anesthetist. We think we'll

35:09

go through the mouth when the lights go

35:11

from head to toe, doped up and coasting

35:13

down the hall. It's just him

35:15

talking about this experience. The chorus is like now

35:17

I'm talking to my pen because he doesn't have

35:19

a voice anymore. Do you read me? Am I

35:21

bleeding? Am I bleeding again? And it's just like,

35:23

he's like, and the song goes on, but he's

35:25

just, he's talking about the fear of

35:29

being so far from home and going

35:31

through surgery and not knowing what's going

35:33

to happen. The only way this

35:35

dude has to express himself or make

35:38

a living is his voice, right? And so

35:40

not knowing what's going to be on the

35:42

other side of the surgery. And it's just

35:44

fascinating. And there's a lot of really intensely personal

35:46

songs on that album. As a matter of fact,

35:48

there's a song called box car on that album

35:50

that I think is one of the best songs

35:52

ever written. And if

35:55

Millie had been Millie is very lucky she was

35:57

born a girl because if Millie was born a

35:59

girl. And a boy her mother and I

36:01

were going to name him box car after that

36:04

song It was very important song to us and

36:07

I'm really really glad I didn't birth

36:09

a box car into the world because I my

36:14

My idea of a cool name in my

36:16

late 20s would have been some poor kids

36:18

miserable existence and I would have done I

36:21

would have Jeffrey G I would have G Jeffery

36:23

that kid and that's not I shouldn't have done

36:25

Can't imagine what it would be like to be

36:27

a poor kid going through public school as a

36:30

box car so In

36:33

retrospect probably good good that that didn't happen.

36:36

So going through this documentary They

36:39

break up in 98 99 the documentary I

36:41

think starts filming in no,

36:43

maybe they break up in 97

36:45

98 because the document it the documentary starts

36:47

filming I'm getting it today something matter All

36:49

right They start filming the documentary in 2007

36:52

Which is I think 11 years after

36:54

the band broke up and 11 years

36:56

after they'd all seen each other and

36:59

that's wild They literally put them in

37:01

a recording studio together and

37:03

they haven't seen each other in 11 years I

37:05

think Blake and Adam probably have

37:07

because they're you know, they were childhood friends

37:10

but Certainly the

37:12

three of them haven't been together in that

37:15

much time and it is so uncomfortable and

37:17

so sad because you

37:20

can see so much

37:22

pain and so many

37:24

hurt feelings and such a Such

37:27

a love like you can really tell There

37:31

is an intense amount of love between the

37:33

three of them But they're all so different

37:35

and you've got this one guy who just

37:37

feels like a third wheel and feels like

37:39

an outsider Who brought so much to the

37:41

band and just wants to feel acknowledged and

37:43

appreciated? And he just wants to he just

37:45

wants that the others to say hey you

37:47

mattered and you are it's just as much

37:50

a part Of this band as we are

37:52

and then you've got this creative

37:54

genius who is a lead

37:57

singer in every sense of the way he

38:00

is immensely talented and unique

38:02

and too talented for

38:04

the, I think in

38:06

some ways, as part of this

38:08

problem and who is so emotionally

38:11

closed off, he can't even acknowledge

38:13

the problem exists. You can just, he's just

38:16

a stone wall and that's so sad. And

38:18

then you've got this other entity in between

38:20

them, this guy who I

38:22

think understood from day one that

38:24

they had something truly unique and

38:27

special between the three of them

38:29

and was doing everything in his

38:31

power just to keep the train

38:33

on the tracks and to keep it going. And

38:35

when they eventually break up and we'll get into

38:38

that, you can tell that he was desperate to

38:40

keep the band together and knew

38:43

what they were losing. Right? And

38:46

I think it must have been so sad to

38:48

be him and to see it all fall apart

38:50

around them and to be powerless to really do

38:52

anything to stop it. And

38:54

I realized that I am injecting

38:57

a lot of my

38:59

own opinions into this. This is

39:01

what I'm choosing to

39:03

glean from these conversations that they're

39:05

having in this recording studio. And

39:09

it's entirely possible as a lot of these

39:11

themes are hit pretty close to home to

39:13

me and are very familiar. And

39:16

it's probably through

39:18

that lens that I'm seeing this. And so I

39:21

may be reading more into some of this than I

39:23

should, but I'm just repeating

39:25

what I'm personally seeing, understanding

39:28

that some of that may be colored by

39:30

my own experiences and for

39:33

what it's worth. It's really interesting throughout

39:35

this documentary too, because they're in this recording studio and I

39:37

think the goal is to get them to play together. And

39:40

they are so one of them

39:42

clearly wants to one

39:45

of them clearly does not want to.

39:47

And one of them doesn't is

39:49

just kind of once again in between that you can't

39:51

really can't really figure out how to navigate it. And

39:54

it's really you can tell how it's really sad

39:56

because you can tell how painful it is for

39:58

all of them and how unresolved the issues are

40:00

for all of them and there's such an intense amount of

40:02

hurt and it's

40:07

like the tension is so thick, the

40:10

sadness is so thick, you can almost

40:12

see it, you know, and as

40:15

the story unfolds and they're talking about their

40:17

successes and what eventually happened to them, I

40:20

mentioned that they're... well let me just tell

40:22

their story. So they have now three albums

40:25

out, they're becoming the

40:29

darlings of that world. Like everybody loves them. Green

40:31

Day has now broken big and they're a major

40:33

label band and bands are

40:35

starting to follow, bands like Face to Face. Every

40:37

time you turn around Jawbox, Sam I am, all

40:39

these bands are threatening to blow up or in

40:41

the process of signing to majors and blowing up

40:44

and Jawbreaker is this band that is now

40:46

has a lot of eyes on them

40:49

because everybody knows they're better

40:51

than everyone else. Like everybody knows they

40:53

are the special band. We can all

40:55

feel it, we can all hear it,

40:58

the music is amazing and

41:00

they have this quality and so

41:02

everybody's paranoid that they're gonna

41:05

become, that they're gonna sign to a major

41:07

label and sell out, which is this huge

41:09

deal in the 80s and the 90s in

41:11

my scene in the punk

41:13

world selling out, which was seen as,

41:15

you know, the whole point

41:17

of this punk movement at the time

41:19

was to create this counterculture

41:22

structure that we could all build

41:24

our businesses in and live in

41:26

and create our creative

41:29

outlets and endeavors via bands or magazines or

41:31

independent novels or whatever, spoken words. We

41:34

can all do it through this this punk rock

41:36

ecosystem and we don't need the major labels,

41:38

we don't need the corporations which kind of

41:40

come in and inject money and suck the

41:42

soul out of everything and kind of leave

41:45

it an empty shell of

41:47

what it was. This is very much

41:49

what my friends and the people around

41:51

me felt at this time and what

41:53

the, you know, you read Maximum

41:55

Rock and Roll and Punk Planet and all these

41:57

zines and there would just be article after article.

42:00

It was such a it was the major focal

42:02

point of all this because for the first time really

42:04

money was was coming in and it was coming in

42:06

hard and it was Really

42:09

shaking things up the Green Day Green Day

42:11

signing to a major label and becoming huge

42:13

really flipped everything around at

42:15

that time for a lot of the a lot

42:17

of the fans and We got

42:19

obsessed with this idea of bands staying true to

42:21

their roots and not selling out Which looking back

42:24

at it now is I get the

42:26

sentiment and as somebody who's lived on both sides of

42:28

it now and has the perspective of both sides it's

42:30

it was such It

42:33

is such a silly so it was such

42:35

a silly time in a lot of ways but

42:39

And I feel bad for a lot of the hot takes

42:41

I had when I was 19 years old I I really

42:43

wish I could go back and explain explain

42:45

a lot of the Complexed I wish I could go

42:48

back to my 19 year old self and show them

42:50

this Documentary and show them the pain and the heartbreak

42:52

and the effort and the work and how fucking hard

42:54

every day it was to be a member of Jawbreaker

42:56

and to make a living in that band and how

42:58

difficult it was to Keep

43:00

that thing going and the amount of

43:02

pressure that they were under now that

43:04

they are this like the band in

43:06

the independent punk scene Because everybody else

43:08

is fleeing to major labels then

43:10

this crazy thing happens to them They

43:13

get invited to go on tour with

43:15

Nirvana of all bands like

43:17

the true big Major

43:19

label like that's the fear right the fear

43:21

is the bands will turn into Green Day

43:23

and Nirvana, right? And so Nirvana invites him

43:25

to go out on this this short tour

43:27

and they did that because I guess Kurt

43:30

and Courtney had a nanny This dude who would watch Francis

43:32

beam who was like he said like he's in the he's

43:34

in the documentary He's like five or six years younger than

43:36

Kurt He said the Kurt would always ask him what music

43:38

he was listening to Because Kurt was

43:40

trying to like, you know Keep a breath to what

43:43

the the young kids are are into and so he

43:45

let him borrow it I think 24-hour revenge therapy let

43:47

him borrow the Jawbreaker tape and Kurt

43:49

really really liked it and got super into it resonated

43:51

with him And so he invited them out on like

43:53

a short six date tour. They

43:55

jumped at the chance to play, you

43:58

know, they're playing front of

44:00

75 to 100 people on

44:03

a beer and puke stained hall

44:05

in some fucking basement college show in

44:07

South Carolina or wherever have you you

44:09

know and now they have this opportunity

44:11

to play in front of thousands of

44:13

people. So they jump at the chance. It

44:16

gets out that they're going on tour with

44:18

Nirvana and that's when the backlash starts. Gilman

44:21

Street I guess

44:23

tells them the collective

44:26

they're no longer welcome to play at

44:28

Gilman. So this venue

44:30

that they essentially all

44:32

but moved up to San Francisco to make

44:35

it their home base because they felt

44:37

so welcome there in Berkeley now

44:40

tells them essentially they've turned their backs on them and

44:42

says like we're not interested in you anymore you're betraying

44:45

our ideals or whatever. So they've

44:47

kind of like now there are these

44:49

rumblings that they're gonna sell out. There

44:51

are these rumblings that like here they've

44:53

now been you know basically shunned by

44:55

Gilman and those people rumors start to

44:57

fly around that they're gonna sign to

44:59

a major label and what's really happening

45:01

is they're miserable. They've been going hitting

45:04

it hard and strong for many years.

45:06

They don't particularly like each other at

45:08

this point. It's very difficult for them to

45:11

coexist and they're not making a ton of

45:13

money at all. So they're all still working

45:15

their day jobs. They're still struggling you know.

45:17

It was this point in time I have

45:19

no idea what the scene is like today

45:21

and it might be exactly like this. It

45:23

might always be exactly like this but it

45:25

can also be incredibly different and I

45:27

just I'm just trying to acknowledge that

45:30

I have no purview into the way things work today.

45:32

I only know my little window in time when this

45:34

shit was important to me. It

45:37

was really fucking hard to be a band

45:39

and make a living and you could be

45:41

famous. You could be a famous

45:43

independent punk band that hundreds of

45:45

thousands of kids around the country

45:48

loved and would look up to and

45:51

idolize and still be broke as

45:53

a fucking joke and working at

45:55

a toy store when you're

45:57

not on tour or working at a hagen dazs. Because

46:00

there just isn't any money in it. They're

46:02

doing it for the love. They're doing it

46:04

for uh, the I

46:06

don't know the the the create the desire

46:08

to create and and and to to connect

46:11

with an audience in some way and

46:14

that Is hard on

46:16

the best of times, you know, I watched I

46:18

was I had the Fortune of being a roadie

46:20

for a pretty successful ska punk band in the

46:22

90s. I got to go on tour with them

46:25

I got to see what it was like I

46:27

got to see kids come to town and and

46:29

treat them like the Beatles Because to those kids

46:31

they were the Beatles in the same way that

46:33

bands were In the same way that a

46:35

band like Jawbreaker was the Beatles to me uh

46:38

And then I got to see these guys like

46:40

scrounging around the fucking in the van Trying to

46:42

put enough money together to buy an

46:44

extra value meal because they were so fucking broke and

46:47

I got to watch these And it is it's it's

46:49

something to do that in your in your early 20s

46:51

when you start getting older and you You

46:54

start to realize how much life you have

46:56

ahead of you and how much you've invested

46:58

into this thing and and the return on

47:00

it Might be emotionally great, but it's a

47:02

very difficult way I think to

47:05

continue is At

47:07

the best of times but especially if there

47:09

is dysfunction within the band members and as

47:11

a three piece It's even worse

47:14

the nice thing about catch 22 when I was

47:16

with those guys. There was like fucking seven of

47:18

them So there's seven people to drive. There's seven

47:20

people To you know,

47:22

you rotate through there's seven people to do this

47:24

you take breaks You have it easier if you're

47:27

pissed off at one of the band members There's

47:29

five other people between you to help you soften

47:31

the fight or keep you guys apart There's you

47:33

know There's room to breathe and move away from

47:35

each other When there are more people in the

47:37

band when there are three people in the band It

47:39

is pretty intense and the way these things tend to

47:42

work when when you're a threesome Is

47:44

that two people tend to be on one side and one

47:46

person tends to be on the other and sometimes those? That

47:49

triangle flips around and it's a different two people

47:51

for a different situation But it always

47:53

ends up with one person feeling left out right

47:56

in a larger band five six seven people No

47:59

matter what your view is there's probably one other person,

48:01

at least on your side, so you don't

48:03

feel completely and totally alone in certain situations.

48:05

And I think that just the dysfunction was

48:07

really taking a toll on them and the

48:09

years and years of just grinding and

48:12

suffering. And there's

48:15

all these songs about these squats in

48:17

San Francisco that they're living in with

48:19

lice on the floors and sharpened

48:22

screwdrivers in the hallways. And

48:24

I think that they

48:26

were just at the end of being able to

48:28

live that way. And

48:31

so what's really happening when all these

48:34

rumors are swirling around about them signing to a major

48:36

label is they're really close to

48:38

breaking up. And Blake is one of

48:40

these guys who's very idealistic, you can tell. He

48:43

says in the documentary in 2007, there will never be ever, there

48:45

will never be a job

48:48

breaker reunion. And then in

48:51

2017, that said, spoiler, documentary ends

48:53

in 2017, they have a reunion. I saw them play in 2018

48:55

or 2019 with Emily. It

49:00

was a bit of a weird show. I'd love to see them

49:02

again. It was like

49:04

a weird outdoor show. The vibe was strange, but it was

49:06

really exciting to get to see them. I saw them a

49:08

few times when I was younger. I'll actually talk about that

49:10

in a little bit. So they are back together. And so

49:12

you have to learn to take some of the things that

49:14

Blake says with a grain of salt because he

49:17

starts getting up on stage. This is like, I don't know,

49:19

94, 95. He starts getting up

49:21

on stage, they're on a tour and addressing

49:23

these rumors of them signing to a major

49:25

label to the audience. And

49:27

he's doing it night after night and saying, job

49:30

breaker will never sign to a major label. It

49:32

is never going to happen. We

49:34

are never... Meanwhile, by the way, they've

49:36

done another full tour with Nirvana at

49:38

this point. And I

49:40

think that the fear is that like some major

49:42

label exec is going to see them when they're

49:45

on tour with Nirvana and sign them. Which

49:47

they even joke about is exactly what happened. But

49:50

so he's going up every night and just saying

49:52

over and hammering. He's doing interviews with punk scenes

49:54

and saying like, job breaker will never be on

49:56

a major label. It's never going to happen. And

49:59

then six weeks... After all, he said all that

50:01

shit, they signed to a major label. So

50:03

what happened is, and I

50:06

think why Blake is getting up there and he's addressing these

50:08

rumors and talking about it, he's so angry about it, is

50:10

because they're about to break up and

50:12

I think that they're all feeling it and then they're

50:14

faced with a point where they're like, we could break

50:17

up. Or because

50:19

what really does happen after going on tour with Nirvana

50:21

is labels start to court them.

50:24

Everybody knows they're the special band

50:26

and so people are throwing money at them and they're

50:29

getting all these offers from major labels and they're at

50:31

this point where they're like, we're going to break up

50:34

and I guess figure out what the fuck to

50:36

do with our lives. The

50:38

only thing we know how to do is play music and here

50:40

we are now in our 30s trying

50:43

to figure out who

50:45

we are and who we're going to be once this band

50:47

is over or we could

50:49

take a million dollars and make one

50:51

more album and just fucking see what

50:53

happens. And I think at

50:56

this point, they already feel kind of bitter

50:58

towards their audience. They don't say this. They don't

51:00

convey this at all. Maybe this is me

51:04

putting my own shit in there but they

51:06

do mention that they've now been in

51:09

a lot of ways ostracized by the same audience that

51:11

supported them and helped them grow and I think that

51:13

they're kind of pissed off about that because really all

51:15

they've done at this point is go on tour with

51:17

a big band and make a little bit of money.

51:22

So they say fuck it. Instead of breaking up, let's

51:24

sign to a major label. What

51:26

happens is they get a ton of money,

51:29

they go in and they make an album.

51:31

They make an album called Dear You. It

51:33

is very different from anything else they've ever

51:35

made. It's kind of like an indie rock

51:37

album. I won't even really call it punk.

51:40

There's a lot of dysfunction in the band

51:42

at this point. I think Blake has a

51:44

very different idea about what he wants out

51:46

of the band than the other members. It's

51:49

a very different recording process than they've

51:52

previously done. I think Adam and Chris

51:54

come in and record the drum and

51:57

bass parts in like a week and then

51:59

Blake and The producer spent three

52:01

months doing guitar and vocals and

52:03

finishing up the album. It's

52:06

way more guitar and vocal

52:08

heavy than any of the other albums,

52:10

I think to the dismay a little bit of the

52:13

other two members who feel kind of shoved

52:16

to the back. Once again, that's me. That's

52:18

my conjecture, although it's pretty clear, I think,

52:20

watching the documentary, that's the case.

52:23

And this album comes out there.

52:25

I think it's Geffen. They have

52:27

a lot of expectations. They're

52:29

calling them the thinking man's green day. This

52:31

is supposed to be the next big thing.

52:33

It's hitting at the right time. The

52:37

punk community is kind of holding its

52:39

breath. I remember very clearly at this

52:42

point, waiting for DRU to come

52:44

out to see what it's going to be like and to find

52:46

out if they did, in fact, quote unquote sell out. The

52:48

album comes out. They're expecting it to

52:50

sell a million copies in the first week. It

52:54

bombs hard. It's

52:56

such a different sound. The

52:59

punk rock community hates it. And

53:01

it's not catchy enough to

53:03

appeal to a mass audience, I

53:05

guess. And so it's in this

53:08

weird no man's land where their audience doesn't

53:10

want it. And it's not appealing

53:12

enough in whatever way, because I think

53:14

it's a very accessible album now, to

53:16

a mass audience. It sells 40,000 copies

53:20

when they were expecting a million. The

53:22

label, I think a week after

53:25

the album comes out, the label is done with

53:27

them. That's how this industry

53:29

works, unfortunately. Suddenly they

53:31

can't. Nobody's returning their phone calls. The label

53:33

lets the album go out of print immediately.

53:35

And so 40,000 copies are sold. And

53:38

then it goes out of print. They

53:40

tour in support of it. They go on tour with the Foo

53:42

Fighters, I think. And what happens

53:44

is, and I went to a show in Houston

53:47

on this tour, on the DRU tour. And I

53:49

didn't see this personally,

53:51

but it's documented and apparently

53:54

it happens a bunch. It

53:56

becomes this thing where when people go to pay

53:58

to see them play, if they're... play songs

54:00

from Dear You like Fire Man or Bad

54:02

Scene, Everybody's Fault or whatever, the

54:05

audience literally sits down and faces

54:07

away from them and just shows

54:09

their backstone, which is the most

54:11

childish and obnoxious thing

54:13

I can think of to do.

54:16

I'm so embarrassed that people did that

54:18

to them. I can't imagine being in

54:20

this band where the only thing

54:22

you have is each other and that is hanging on by

54:24

a thread. You have

54:27

dramatically changed your sound from album to

54:29

album, you've evolved from album to album

54:31

and the audience has come along with

54:33

you every way and they've liked each

54:35

iteration better than the last

54:37

and then they take this next big

54:39

step and it is a big step

54:42

and nobody even gives it a chance and they don't give

54:44

it a chance because it costs money and because they got

54:46

paid to make it at the end of the day. So

54:50

fucking seems so unfair and ridiculous.

54:53

This puts such a tremendous amount of pressure on

54:55

the band that at some point they're on a

54:57

tour and Blake and Chris get

54:59

into a fist fight. They call a band

55:02

meeting and they end the fucking band and

55:04

Jawbreaker is done. Ten years

55:06

after they launch four

55:09

phenomenal albums, although one that nobody

55:12

likes and they're just done.

55:17

It's really interesting because you're

55:19

learning this through them. They're

55:21

telling these stories in

55:24

this recording space in 2007 and then

55:26

there'll be breakaway interviews of

55:28

them individually at I guess

55:30

wherever they live adding a little

55:32

bit more context and you can

55:35

just feel how painful it was

55:37

even at the best of times for them to

55:40

be in this band and to know that they

55:42

made something so special and so

55:44

good and it was hurting

55:47

them. They couldn't figure out how to enjoy

55:49

it, I don't think. I don't

55:51

think they could get out of each other's

55:53

way and they could just never let each other

55:55

really truly breathe and love and enjoy this thing

55:57

that they were making that they were all. obsessed

56:01

with, you know, except

56:03

for maybe Adam. I do get the impression

56:05

that the entire time that the drummer Adam

56:08

really understood what was going on and really

56:11

would have kept Jawbreaker going

56:13

forever if he could, you know. He's the one that like

56:15

in the interview, he goes down to his basement and he

56:18

shows all the mail. He

56:20

still has all of the mail that

56:22

people mailed them over the many, many

56:25

years. Like this dude is clearly sentimental,

56:27

he's clearly a collector, these

56:29

are clearly special times to him. He's definitely like,

56:31

I don't know if you ever remember, if

56:34

you ever read the book It, but in the book

56:36

It, the Steve King book It, or you saw the

56:38

movie maybe, they, you know, they kill it or they

56:40

think they kill it and they all move on and

56:42

all forget about it as they become

56:45

adults, except for that one dude Ben who stays

56:47

in town in Derry and is

56:50

like the historian, I guess for lack of a

56:52

better word. He's the one who remembers it all

56:54

and keeps it all straight and pays attention and

56:56

I definitely get the idea that Adam kind of

56:59

fills that role in Jawbreaker. He was the one

57:01

who it meant the most to who understood it

57:03

at the time, who had the least amount of

57:05

issues and just really appreciated it and has has

57:07

definitely held on to it the longest. He is

57:09

the one that actually started a

57:12

record label after Jawbreaker broke up and

57:14

started re-releasing better versions of all the

57:16

albums. He, it took him many years,

57:18

but he at some point

57:20

gets a hold of the masters, is

57:22

able to re-license the masters of that

57:24

Dear You album that that did so

57:26

poorly and re-releases it. But before he

57:28

does that, here's something that happens. About

57:30

five years after Jawbreaker calls it quits,

57:33

the world discovers Dear You is a

57:35

phenomenal album. It was just

57:38

a little ahead of its time. However,

57:40

there's only 40,000 copies of it and so

57:42

it becomes a collector's item. Like the audience

57:44

literally forces this band to break up because

57:46

they hate this fucking album so much because

57:49

they don't give it a chance. Five years

57:51

later, it becomes so sought-after, people are buying

57:53

copies of this CD for 150 bucks

57:56

online. It's worth, it's going

57:58

for like 10 times. what

58:00

it uh what its retail cost was because

58:02

it's so sought after eventually

58:04

i think it's called blackball records like i was

58:07

saying adam uh re-releases all the albums but he gets

58:09

the the masters

58:11

of deer u and he re-releases that so it's

58:13

it's readily and fully available now and it has

58:15

become very popular post

58:18

band and i think a lot

58:20

of people understand and appreciate what

58:22

they did they i should

58:25

mention continue to go on and do other bands as

58:27

well uh adam was in uh j church

58:29

actually for a little bit um one of

58:32

my favorite bands blake went on to do a

58:34

band that was really

58:36

really good called jetster brazil i i really liked

58:38

jetster brazil i think it was very similar to

58:40

deer u it was definitely an evolution of what

58:43

he was doing there it was

58:45

kind of routinely panned for not

58:47

being jawbreaker and i i think unfairly

58:50

panned throughout the course of that the history of

58:52

that band and i i feel really bad about

58:54

that because i don't think it was fair because

58:57

it was something completely and totally different but

58:59

was constantly being compared to jawbreaker uh

59:02

actually i think chris was in another band they all

59:04

had like different bands here and there they talk about

59:06

that a little bit in the documentary but what

59:08

really happens is uh adam

59:10

opens up of uh he opens up

59:12

a video lending library like a video

59:15

store in san francisco and blake i

59:17

don't know what blake does he moves

59:19

up to new york and is a

59:21

librarian or something and chris becomes i

59:23

think a stay-at-home dad up in washington

59:25

and they just kind of put it all

59:27

behind him at the end of this

59:29

documentary in 2007

59:31

they finally get them independently

59:33

they're all saying no throughout to play music together

59:35

they finally get them into the studio together they

59:37

all pick up their instruments and then

59:40

uh they start to jam a little bit

59:42

you see it and then it cuts off i guess

59:44

that the band does play three songs that day they agree

59:46

to play three songs that day but they don't want

59:48

it to be recorded and uh

59:51

they think it's it's i don't

59:53

know they want to be they want to be respectful

59:55

to the to the memory of the band and they don't

59:57

want to be a worse version of what they were And

1:00:00

so they just don't want there to be a record

1:00:02

of it I think it's just a really personal private

1:00:04

moment between the three people that haven't spoken in 11

1:00:06

years and they want to keep it Between

1:00:09

themselves and I think that that's completely

1:00:11

and totally fair However, that must have

1:00:13

healed something because 10 years later They

1:00:16

they reform and that's kind of how the documentary ends

1:00:19

it ends with them saying like, you know We're

1:00:21

you know, they're gonna do this reunion tour. They

1:00:24

are still together. They did a tour last fall I'm

1:00:27

hoping that they'll do another tour in 2024 And

1:00:29

if they do I'm definitely gonna go see them and

1:00:32

I I recommend you see them if you ever

1:00:34

get a chance and they Play in your area.

1:00:36

I'm hopeful that they will record a new album

1:00:38

at some point. They have talked about it for

1:00:41

years and they

1:00:44

There you go. That's Jawbreaker the third way.

1:00:46

Oh my god. One thing I

1:00:48

got to say though is in that documentary I was

1:00:50

not I was not expecting this at all Maybe

1:00:53

five or six minutes into the documentary.

1:00:55

They play footage. They play footage throughout

1:00:58

the documentary of Austin They

1:01:00

played at emos. It was a big punk club

1:01:02

here many times and I saw

1:01:04

them played emos Twice I think

1:01:06

maybe once or twice. I wasn't expecting

1:01:08

it and they played footage from a show

1:01:10

I was at in like maybe

1:01:13

94 93

1:01:15

94. I don't know. I didn't see me

1:01:18

in it or anything I just recognized them in

1:01:20

the clothes They're in in the setting at emos

1:01:22

and realized I was there in the crowd that

1:01:24

night and it just like I'll be honest I

1:01:28

burst out into tears and I

1:01:30

I was so overcome with like Nostalgia

1:01:33

and melancholy and it just like it hit

1:01:35

me so hard I wasn't expecting to be

1:01:37

emotionally invested in the documentary at all I

1:01:39

just was expecting to fill in some some

1:01:41

gaps in their knowledge so I could talk

1:01:44

about it here and That

1:01:46

set a tone like I literally had to stop

1:01:48

the movie and just kind of sob for a

1:01:50

minute and didn't understand why I was And it

1:01:53

was just something about seeing Seeing

1:01:55

that space again. It doesn't exist there anymore.

1:01:57

It's moved and it's been gone for years

1:02:00

And even in the new place it

1:02:02

is, it's a different place, it's a

1:02:04

different vibe. It's not... That spot, Emos

1:02:06

in Austin, Texas in the late 80s

1:02:08

and the early 90s was similar,

1:02:10

I think, to a lot of people to what

1:02:12

I thought Gilman Street was. It was this little

1:02:15

mecca. It was my punk rock mecca. It was

1:02:17

the closest I was ever going to get to

1:02:19

Gilman Street. It was a really special place and

1:02:21

a really special place in time for

1:02:23

me. And getting to see it

1:02:25

again after 20 years,

1:02:28

I guess, it

1:02:31

just hit me in the gut so

1:02:33

hard. Anyway, and then I

1:02:36

cried every time I saw Emos in that

1:02:38

documentary. But I also cried pretty much throughout the rest

1:02:40

of the documentary because you could just... That

1:02:43

primed me, that opened me up as

1:02:45

Frank says it always sunny. It unzipped

1:02:47

me and then I was kind of

1:02:49

raw. And then

1:02:52

you're watching this group of really talented

1:02:54

people who caught lightning in a bottle

1:02:56

try to hold onto it as the

1:02:58

lightning in the bottle destroys

1:03:00

them while they're also destroying

1:03:02

themselves. And let's

1:03:05

just say there were a

1:03:07

lot of parallels and a lot of familiar moments

1:03:10

and themes that I

1:03:12

guess just got me. And

1:03:15

so I was kind of a

1:03:17

puddly mess of tears throughout the entire

1:03:19

documentary. But maybe it means a little...

1:03:22

Maybe it means something different to me because I

1:03:24

read so much into it from my own personal

1:03:26

life than you will. But I really do recommend

1:03:29

it. I really do recommend that band. I recommend

1:03:31

the Candy Jawbreaker. I

1:03:34

don't recommend the movie Jawbreaker. But

1:03:36

if you're going to do the other two, you might as well throw

1:03:38

that one in just so you have the full triangle. Listen

1:03:41

to Jawbreaker. Eat a Jawbreaker.

1:03:45

Maybe watch Jawbreaker, the movie. But

1:03:47

you can't go wrong with two of those three. I promise you

1:03:49

that. All right. your

1:04:00

favorite D&D podcast with Puppets. All throughout January,

1:04:02

we're celebrating Stinkuary to raise awareness and drive

1:04:04

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1:04:06

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1:04:26

Stinkuary, check us out at stinkydragonpod.com. Stay

1:04:29

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