[SPEAKER_03]: Hello and welcome to another edition.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello and welcome to another edition of Turn Out of Pong.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host, Demian Abraham.
[SPEAKER_03]: And today on the show, a legend for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what I wanted to talk to you for...
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess decades at this point, Preston Woodward from the band State AKA The State is on the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, they're a very obscure band, I think, to a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've surprised actually telling people about this episode, how many people I ran into that weren't familiar with the state.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you are among that group of people, you need to check out...
[SPEAKER_03]: everything they've done, but in particular, the first EP, no illusions, which is of course produced by the late Great, Ron Ashton, there are deep stewardes in Destroyel Mosser connections with the state, as you'll hear about in this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: But my god, this record is one of the greatest American hardcore seven inches in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the guitar sound on this thing is
[SPEAKER_03]: is devastating.
[SPEAKER_03]: You'll hear me wax on and on and on about this record in a bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think this band the whole way through is a very underrated band.
[SPEAKER_03]: They put out an LP at the later part of the 80s which is not quite the equal of the 7-inch but they put out a bunch of records since then which are awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a CD that's hard to track down.
[SPEAKER_03]: You'll hear why in a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... that is also worth tracking down for all the demos and other stuff but this band goes deeper than that first seven inches a year in a second and pressed it is is great for stories there's a lot of really awesome parts for this episode and i'm very excited for you to hear it
[SPEAKER_03]: state has or the state has some shows coming up in particular one on May 14th with crosses friends of the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, anyway, I'm not going to wax on and on before you hear this episode because there is a lot to get to in this one, but shed it to Dan from the state for making this thing happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I should say that the touching go bootlegging allegations are allegations and
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no further knowledge than what you'll hear in a second, but you'll do hear it in this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have anything more to tell you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have any more notes for me to get to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sit back, relax, enjoy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Preston Woodward on Turned Out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Upunk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Preston, thank you so much for coming on this show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, thanks for having me, Tristan.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm Damian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, got you guys confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can see on the screen, it says your name.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I apologize, Damian.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, my brother's the guest booker.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm the, I guess the face of the operation.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's, he's the, the brains, and I'm, I'm the face.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I got a little bit of the brains too, but anyway, we'll get into that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll test that by the end of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see if we'll see if that's the case as I just tell you off air is a thrill to finally get to talk to you because I was supposed to play with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a couple times in my band in different bands, actually.
[SPEAKER_03]: But both times, I think you guys had to cancel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this feels like to me a conversation that's been years in the making.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was one question I was floating around on my mind as I was thinking about about the interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you based, Toronto?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think in a bank on fucked up and our drummer Jonah was supposed to do a state show here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was looking for the flyer and before the show when I couldn't grab it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it was like
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we basically got stopped at the borders.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it was?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that was the what happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was funny, the club held our drummer up and made him go to the bank machine at threat of violence and cover the bar minimum that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it, well, we actually could have played because my drummer and I and our bass player, we were all there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just did our guitar player wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also had a band called The Better Pills with me on guitar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we could have performed as The Better Pills at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my drummer decided to put his phone on doing that to stir or something and it didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I feel like I've got a lot more knowledge now since that time that I can kind of punish you with.
[SPEAKER_03]: So believe me, it's been for my benefit that we didn't have that conversation that night.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, but I got to start it off the way they all start off, which is pressing.
[SPEAKER_03]: How'd you get in punk from the first time you ever came across the genre?
[SPEAKER_03]: How did I get into punk?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like, how do you define it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what do you think was your first encounter?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, I want to say that is an excellent question to me, and hopefully to your audience, because first and foremost, I want to say that state or what locally it's more known more as the state,
[SPEAKER_00]: that's what we really aspire to be as a punk band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe me more than art.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say that art tender.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and I are probably the biggest influences in terms of the band.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone, all the different personnel we've had have made great contributions, especially
[SPEAKER_00]: We had to span the better pills that I just mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he was in the state in the 2000s as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, those guys made huge contributions, but Art and I mostly drove it and, you know, like, you know, maybe I'm more like aspirationally punk and he's just more died in the will.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the dude is just, he's quite a character.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, when, so when you asked like, how did I get into punk?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I should say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and when I was in junior high school, down on his middle school, right, um, actually went to the same middle school or it was called junior high school and that Iggy Pop went to,
[SPEAKER_00]: because he lived in the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like 10 years younger than him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I ran away from home when I was 13 and I went and stayed with white panthers.
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't know who the white panthers were.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd want to recap that they were an organization out of Detroit.
[SPEAKER_00]: that was sympathetic to the Black Panthers and had basically the same politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had their own 10 point program.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Black Panthers would come and speak at White Panther events and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was, and I sold the Ann Arbor Argus, which was kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I ran away from home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed at their house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I was pretty close to a pun plamandan and Juni plamandan, um, hung out with Lennyson Claire.
[SPEAKER_00]: John was in jail at the
[SPEAKER_00]: That was before punk, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was in the 1960s and I saw the MC5 play.
[SPEAKER_00]: The White Benters would put on free concerts every Sunday and originally they were in West Park in Ann Arbor, which is kind of like Ann Arbor's Central Park.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a band shell there and the MC5 played and they just blew my head off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was kind of stage struck from that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and knew a lot about them because the white Panther house and the MC5 house right next to each other is like he's two huge houses like, um, right near the campus in Ann Arbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was really influenced by what Johnson Claire and the White Panther's called high energy rock and roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: The operative word being high energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I actually both words are important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because the MC five bit, there's really just a high level energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just put it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even when they played slow songs, like I want you or motor cities burning, the, um, Johnny Hooker cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was still really intense, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I want to say that even though it's kind of like common wisdom around Detroit,
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the MC-5 weren't punk, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And even like a tar player, so sad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's kind of like, everyone says that, but really that high energy aspect of it more carried over into like hardcore punk of the 80s, you know, because I really think that hardcore punk, what we used to call hardcore punk, and now they're starting to use that word again.
[SPEAKER_00]: was like about intensity, you know, about eye high energy thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like not being laid back, you know, and so I was already influenced that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the studios, which we used to call the psychedelic studios before they put out their first record in 1969.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were already infamous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say in Ann Arbor and I never saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: back in those days, but heard a lot about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, lots about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and later got to know Ron Scott Ashton, like really well, and we, you know, they collaborated, you know, played with a state and stuff later.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um, I got the students first record and I just blew my head off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone else hated it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I, I fucking loved it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I just, it just,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it Iggy was, you know, barely out of his teens.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that whole, like, youth teenage loss kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just it really, it really spoke to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I loved the stages along with Jimiandericks and the Rolling Stones, what is kind of that stages influence that we hadn't even heard a punk yet, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then,
[SPEAKER_00]: like I saw the New York Dolls at this rock club that I worked at.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right when I got out high school in 74, I started working at this rock and roll club that I just started in Ann Arbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was originally called Chances R. And then there was a season to sister and they changed their name to second chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they had live mostly rock music seven nights a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the drinking age was 18 at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was 17 when I started there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was, I mean, I cannot describe to you what the bar scene was like because of the drinking age and it was like late 70s, rock and roll, you know rock and roll every night.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw the New York alls, I was a little too fucked up on angel dust really appreciate them and didn't really quite get what they were doing, but.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, so I was kind of prepped, I would say, by like Stooges MC5, into that kind of vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, like the Ramones broke out, and just kind of blew the roof off of everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was working at the club in the kitchen, and there was this dude from England, was my mom is English and his dad is Irish, and he was like English punk rock dude, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: in the late 70s.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he introduced me to like the MC5 guys of the stages guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked it from the Call of Heroes, Scottie Morgan from Sonic's Rondibu.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just kind of met all those kind of and our rock stars at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he also, like I'd seen the near dolls, but he's like, listen to this, you know, because we had music playing, like it's like, listen to this, that's like, you know, that sounds kind of rough, you know, like compared to like kind of slick rock and roll,
[SPEAKER_00]: But then my ears adjusted to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this is some shit, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when the fucking, and then he was like, and listen to this, and it was like the sex pistols.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, I heard the sex pistols were the worst rock and roll band that ever existed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that's what they were called, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was part of their hype also.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, as soon as I got my ears adjusted to it, I was like, this is some shit, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what happened is like in the 1960s there was a station called WABXM Detroit and they played velvet underground studios, MC5, they played all the underground shit, you know, and they were very underground and then they shuddered and they had a new kind of rival on the scene, the new kid in the block was WRIF, which is still running and it was like rock
[SPEAKER_00]: They never played any of that shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Valued Underground Studios MC5, nothing, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: They barely even played what's this name at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, the music got really fucking bad in the 70s.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had to hear all that shit because I worked in the kitchen and the other cooks would play the RWRF.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the music was just so fucking horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Crag Rock, you know, bands like Boston, REO Speedwagon, it's just like horrible fucking music.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just stopped listening to the radio.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was all in about Rock and Roll, but I did like that was, that sucks so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when Sean Carroll, the English dude, played Sex Bessels and Miracles from, you know, it's like, this is Rock and Roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rock and Roll is back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if people these days
[SPEAKER_00]: punk rock brought rock and roll back, you know, it brought it back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, and it's been back ever since, I mean, in, in the guys of punk rock, you know, I mean, what other, I mean, metal is kind of rock and roll, but, um, the spirit of rock and roll, the music of rock and roll that's starting in the 1950s.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's really punk that is kept that alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of fell in love with the whole new pump phenomenon, you know, with sex pills, hormones, near gals and shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, Lou, I grow front of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to go dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I mean, at the club where I worked, and we would go and our favorite band was destroy all my answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if people don't know this, destroy all my answers, it was kind
[SPEAKER_00]: MC five and students morphed into after those two bands broke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ron Action was the guitar player for stages for the first two records.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Mike Davis was a bass player from MC five.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got together.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a great drummer named Rob King who's kind of from Ann Arbor kind of rock Dynastie kind of family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and of course, Niagara who's now like more
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and destroy our marchers is like you could dance to them, you know, and so me and my girlfriend, we go dance to them and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but then what it was really is, um, that my little sister who's also, what she's more in the classical music, um, but she came home one time and she's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I saw this great band called the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a student art.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he's on stage, he's like in the he's weird state.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when it's like you like a hypnotic state or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, that sounds cool, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went and saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say like one thing, a lot of people and I is, I think, have lost track of is that like
[SPEAKER_00]: like Stooges MC5, they were really experimental and like experimental and like into spontaneity and they got that from jazz.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the white panthers are way into jazz.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, and just that like really kind of, I want to say I almost like psychedelic jazz, free jazz, maybe what they call it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that whole thing about jazz is spontaneity, and you don't have every note planned out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not classical music.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're extemporizing when you're playing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was real, I mean, the students were totally like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they were getting fucked up and going on stage, and they didn't even have shit planned.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have music planned.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like what Ron told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they didn't, you know, rehearse beginnings and anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And neither did the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: The state was like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't, they never rehearsed beginnings in any of the songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we always do now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, and, you know, they would go up on, you know, guard would go on stage, I saw him one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was on LSD, and I don't know what else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But other things, it did besides.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like he was jumping up and he was on stage, playing guitar and singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was jumping up and the air and spinning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then landing and then he jumped up and the air and spinning and landing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got the guitar cord like all wrapped around him like a fucking boa constrictor or something and then just like top of over on the stage are right around the stage and like this is all just like not planned you know and he had a singer this homeless dude named Ali spelled ALI.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is a slight cool dude that's like a homeless dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he would just get up there and sing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he like rolling around on the stage, you know, and I was like, oh, man, I noticed, you know, you roll around on the stage, just got a little bit of like, he's like, yeah, I was throwing a roll, man, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was chaotic, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Ryan and I agro really took art under their wing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He worked at Apollo Music, which is a music store on Main Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because he had dropped out of college at at Michigan State University and moved in Arbor because that's where the cool shit was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not anymore, but back then, you know, that's where, I mean, the, the white panthers had moved to Ann Arbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, see, five-ed lived in Ann Arbor, the students were from Ann Arbor, um, you know, that, um, Scotty Morgan, who was a singer for, um, Sonic's Randy Wu's Ann
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was so art was working at the music store and these rock star fuckers would drop in and talk to him and stuff and run and art like really, really connected musically.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of it is like blues based.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like art is especially now just like totally about blues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he was an electric guitar player, you know, when he was in the state, but now he's got like 12 acoustic guitars and he plays like country blues, Delta blues, and like that's all he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's all about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Howl and Wolf and, you know, Robert Johnson and all these great players.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was talking around Ashton in the studio and he was producing their EP and now,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said to him, you know, you guys were kind of a blues band.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, yeah, we were a blues band.
[SPEAKER_00]: He almost pissed him off, you know, because they had gone to Chicago and, you know, listening to fucking muddy waters and junior wells and buddy guy and all those guys and, you know, with this kind of record blues and Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a lot of background, you know, musical background to punk that I was already way into blues and me and art both way into blues.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you don't normally think of that as being a part of punk, but like that's coming back because like I moved to Detroit a few years ago and I'm just increasingly
[SPEAKER_00]: foremost like Detroit City punk band now is Detroit 442 at Lacy Sterling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been in like punk forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this band is just really just at their pinnacle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he just started a blues band called the Motor City Destroyers and they play blues.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like punk guys playing blues.
[UNKNOWN]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all like part of it, and jazz is part of it with that, you know, improvisational element.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so art, to me, was like a rock star, you know, and, but art is a hard time with personal.
[SPEAKER_00]: especially to rhythm and drums.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's really hard to be as drummer because he's just like so intent upon it, which is a good thing, but the downside of that is it creates a lot of friction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had been kicked out of his own band and out of his own house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these homeless dudes had taken over his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: How did that happen?
[SPEAKER_03]: How did the homeless dudes take over his house?
[SPEAKER_00]: They just took over.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whoa.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was looking with our these skin edge took over our house until I've confronted them and kicked them out, I mean, you know, people move in, they encroach, they're like squatters, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to cut you off, but you have touched on so many topics that I want to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate this, believe me.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like I'm grinning ear to ear because you've already brought up so many things I hope you we'll be able to talk about today.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I want to before you get too further into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to go back.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dennis Tech was from Radio Birdman was just on the show the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You guys must have been going to the same shows in Arbor, these outdoor free shows, like he talks but seeing the MC5 and the rationale and like, you know, the white panther speeches in between the bands that were going on and there was in one place and they had to move it to a different field eventually because it got too many noise complaints.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I never, I've never met him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a lot of mutual acquaintances.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was a brilliant motherfucker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I saw him play,
[SPEAKER_03]: at a run, what was it, a run ashen memorial show, there's been a few, where he played brilliantly, I mean he was great, it's, it's wild how much incredible music is happening in that area, like Ann Arbor and Detroit during this period we're talking about, and to me this is where punk is born, and it's, I've always felt like a new touch on it there, like
[SPEAKER_03]: this confluence of street rock and roll, like real gritty, working class kind of music meets like highfaluten intellectual art school kind of pretension.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's when those two things come together to get that perfect mix that is punk and like you're saying, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Iggy was playing in a jazz band, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like prior to going into the studios, I could out studio.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I don't know all of his prehistory.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he was in a band called the iguanas and hence his nickname or stage name Iggy.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I actually saw the iguanas, they played at the fraternity house next door to the house that my family had just moved into that summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, of course, didn't realize that the drummer of that band was going to become a super star later on, but yeah, he was a drummer for the iguanas, which was, you know, like one of this kind of like a high school cover band, you know, like the kind of band that would play at at a high school sock hop, you know, I mean, they were like a cover band.
[SPEAKER_00]: They must have had some originals, I mean, they were good, I didn't really appreciate
[SPEAKER_03]: That's wild.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dennis' guitar teacher was the guitar player from the iguanas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he saw him one time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I guess they were a little more jazzy when he saw him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I imagine that you're playing a frat house.
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to adapt to the gig a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I didn't realize they were jazzy, but that's good to learn.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like you're saying, there's like this sort of, that's the other thing about punk.
[SPEAKER_03]: people like oh it's garbage music is terrible music but everyone that was involved in it is like a deep music head like it is the return to rock and roll like you said and because that people were familiar with the roots music of this stuff people knew about sun raw people knew about free jazz they knew about you know Delta blues they knew about Chicago blues they knew about oh for sure like even the sexist was recovering the studios like that was a deep cut for some kidning when to pick up on and knowing up to cover it back then right like
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's deceptive like you touched on there like punk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Punk is dumb garbage music until you're looking inside and realize like no there's like Mike Mike Kelly was in destroy all monsters like Niagara's in destroy all monsters there's like high art within these rock and roll bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and it's kind of it's punk has a sad story I mean you know in 77 I was actually in France
[SPEAKER_00]: when then, you know, the sex business style punk that was like born and that word, you know, um, and punk was always accepted in Europe, you know, parents would, they would have their kids dressed in bondage gear and, you know, it was fine, you know, um, I mean, Queen Elizabeth, you know, they played, God saves a queen, save the queen that are jubilee on me, you know, I mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: Punk was a pariah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I mentioned, W-R-A-F, they never played, they didn't play dead boys, they didn't play.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything remotely, Punk was like, out, it's kind of like stations for a while where we don't play a rap, like no rap, you can listen to us safely.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not gonna be any punk rock, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, you know, like this thing about the studios,
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know how to play their instruments.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were fucking brilliant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And way, I had other fucking time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we've even caught up to them yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not the only person that says that, because you know, other talk to the musicians that agree with me, it's like, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this idea that punk rockers, or this is like some kind of idiots.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always thought to be the opposite that people that are truly and punk are ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: usually pretty fucking intelligent, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not, it's not some kind of caveman music at all, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like I think find a guitar player in sort of broadly termed alternative music that doesn't think that Ron Ashton is the greatest guitar player of all time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like James Ashton certainly does.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's some more certainly does.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like there's a lot of people that would make that argument that he brought a style to this that no one, people like you're saying,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I absolutely, I mean, I, I feel that increasingly like I've been trying to teach myself to play lead guitar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say, and you know, Ron really really is my mentor in that, you know, it's like, because it's so easy to just like play.
[SPEAKER_00]: riffs, you know, um, but he was like really spontaneous like singing through his guitar and like guitar players that do that are pretty fucking rare, you know, um, but I mean, what other guitar player plays the melodies that he plays on his guitar?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, nobody that I know of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even though Dennis Tech does channel that really fucking well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's one of the best people
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, though I want to say the absolute best person to channel that style is art tender.
[SPEAKER_00]: My former guitar player.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody could could play studios like he could and he's just so intent upon getting things correct and and so in tune to rhythm and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, there's just nobody could play that could play Ron like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ron love the fuck out of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he took him under his wing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember one night at the club.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there's Ron Ashen leading art over to talk to Chuck Barry, you know, and they were over there talking for, you know, 20, 30 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, aren't you fucker, you know, but, you know, Ron's not something in art, you know, and it's just they really connected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also on a personal level because they're both just really fucking nice guys and arts kind of a jerks sometimes, but I guess Ryan could be a little bit of a jerk, but both of them are just really genuine sweet human beings But yeah, it's it's not caveman music, you know, but you know, I feel like that stigma that misunderstanding is
[SPEAKER_03]: maybe more in the past you know it's interesting you bring up the idea of Ron singing through the guitar and that being like a style thing because I think you hear that also in like Kevin Shields and my bloody Valentine certainly Jay mask is and I think Jay mask is probably admit that that's where he's getting it from and I feel like that approach to guitar playing
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of even transcends the style of music that Ron was playing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I only got to meet him one time and we remember the studios when they played in Toronto was the day after they had all their gear stolen and Montreal and they were unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like like I couldn't believe how good this band was.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we got to hang it with Ron afterwards and I brought a copy of my destroyel monsters for seven inch to get signed just in case
[SPEAKER_03]: and gotten to sign it and just talk to him about that seven inch.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I feel like that being so underrated, like fuck they're amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stroke monsters?
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm glad you're saying that because I say this to people and they kind of give me a blank stare.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel that even more than the students and the empty five
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I hear bands that sound like distraught monsters and they may not even be aware that that's where that sound came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a lot to do with the rhythm of the music.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I would say Ron Ash's most influential miscon musician of all time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Bob Seger's great, tetanus, and whatever, you know, I mean, Jack White is super influential, but when it comes to the ground down the trenches and Ryan is there, you know, I mean, I, you know, every time I hear a punk band, especially Detroit punk band, it's like you can hear it, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like it's crazy when you break down the membership of just royal monsters and like you're talking about earlier that the history in art that it kind of comes out of like it's an art collective almost before it's a band right well it was actually an art band before it was a rock band.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I actually did a help do a light show for them when they had a reunion show and Detroit, the fucking 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And got to hear what they sounded like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't like, you know, and a lot of people were saying at the time, oh, you know, Ron ruined the band because he, you know, he started dating Niagara, and then he, you know, he got in the band and it turned it to more of a rock band.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the straw munchers, the rock band was way fucking better than the straw munchers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The art band, you know, my girlfriend, and I, we used to go see the straw munchers whenever we fucking could.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my second wife, we would go see dark carnival, like whenever we fucking could.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've seen those bands probably 20 times, you know, and I'll just always love that every moment of it, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't put together that the Miller twins that were in, sort of the, I guess, the punk line up of the band were the brothers of Roger Miller from Mission of Burma, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: That there's that connection between those two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know all those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I was collaborating with Ben Miller.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was playing keyboards for me and the side project I had a couple years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, they were, um, they did saxophone and keyboards and destroy all my answers for a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's such a wild, incredible band.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then GGL and Rips off one of their songs wholesale.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't really.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you're going to die.
[SPEAKER_03]: GG doesn't doesn't credit it at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: And a way shouldn't your version with GG.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, he was kind of connected into that scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I live with Mike Davis's ex-wife Joanne for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was really good friends with GGL and so I don't know, I don't know much about GGL and I know he was connected into that scene for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, here's the wording more, but we called it underground music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was, I mean, it was, you know, that I mean, things were so different now, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But back then, if you were on the radio,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and um, that whole, you know, the whole punk thing was underground, you know, um, I don't even think blondie ever got in the fucking radio, you know, until recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, and yeah, first I think is the right word.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just, you know, it's almost like,
[SPEAKER_00]: When you don't really have hope of commercial success it kind of gives you more freedom because it's like, you know, yeah, nothing to lose, you know, but we were really idealistic as a man to stay, we were just like crazy idealistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, we didn't know fucking we, you know, we've spat on like commercialism, you know, like I'm an hardcore punk, I mean hardcore punk did do, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some of those bands went for commercial success and became, you know, semi-successful commercially, um, it's kind of disappointing, um,
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the state's so underrated.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love your vocals.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you're one of the great vocalists in hardcore.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the guitar sound on that fucking seven inch.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it sounds to me like almost like, you know, the closest would be like Japanese hardcore, or like poison idea, because it's just so shredding.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like I love all manifestations of early American hardcore, but I've always felt like there's just like,
[SPEAKER_00]: a low rent to what you guys were doing that a lot of bans didn't necessarily have well it was it was a weird and sudden combination of things because like I was describing before before I'm so the bans started in 1979 and was really I mean like I said they didn't rehearse beginnings and endings with songs I know because I auditioned as a base player
[SPEAKER_00]: Then when like, so our drummer here, Murray was his Canadian, and he was like a new kid at the school at the high school, and which is like a totally alternative high school, community high school and Ann Arbor's like off the hook fucking alternative, especially when I was there in the 70s.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he knew about all these bands,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, bands like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had never heard that shit, you know, and when we heard bands like that, it just blew up, you know, and so this band state that was just kind of experimental, you know, psychedelic punk band, you know, we were suddenly like almost like regimented and became like a hardcore punk band.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were really influenced by negative approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the net grows, you know, we did shows with them once, you know, we got up and running.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just it happened like really suddenly like so that record, you know, our EP that came out in 83, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: It don't happen really suddenly we wrote those songs like really suddenly and it was just all just, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the guitar sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Seeker weapon there was that art recorded as started track and a clean track and mixed them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he regrets to some extent not having pursued that on subsequent records.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because what you get is like a real heavy distortion, but like a sharp edge at the same time, 100% yeah, because it's started, you know, you lose a tack or that kind of edge with it's started sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you combine that with a clean guitar that's really, you know, got a jagged edge on it and you end up with something that's just like really cutting, but also really.
[SPEAKER_03]: So prior to that kind of discovery of hardcore was the band kind of more in line with like tremor records, stuff and that kind of era of Michigan punk?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, I don't know about that label, but I want to back it up and say that, because this is something I think about a lot, we didn't call it hardcore.
[SPEAKER_00]: We called it hardcore punk, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and our idea of that, you know, and that's like a really offensive term like what people would be like, oh, so kind of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your band play like Part of core punk people that when because it's like that sounds like hardcore pornography or it sounds like hardcore criminal You know, like what other Nouns does hardcore get applied to as an adjective, you know, but for us what it meant was like
[SPEAKER_00]: ultimate punk, like ultra punk, like distilled, like pure punk, like, you know, and that's the way we understood that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when we got back together, no three, you know, we naturally were playing with hardcore bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: People didn't call it hardcore punk anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it was called a hardcore, but it wasn't hardcore punk.
[SPEAKER_00]: around Detroit like I finally figured out these bands that are called hardcore are not punk bands at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that we at hardcore bands getting us on their bills to attract punks to come to the show to try to get them to come in the door because hardcore was not at all what you know what we knew
[SPEAKER_00]: minor threat, we fucking worship minor threat and all those bands that were on flex your head.
[SPEAKER_00]: All those DC bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm hearing people use the term arc or punk again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really gratified bad because we
[SPEAKER_00]: We do a lot better when we identify as like a punk band.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we appeal to like mainly like crusty punks, frankly, and Detroit, like our main fan base, and Detroit is more crusty punk now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it was in the 2000s when we got back together.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we had a lot of baldness, you know, in the audience.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're very testosterone-driven kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we kind of move the way from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like played a collapse fast and stop and just got a different crowd that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot more punk, you know, when you talk about what's punk, you know, I mean, to me, you know, being a tough guy with, you know, a bald tough guy is just someone that punk to me, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like the history of punk in Michigan as a whole, but in particular Detroit is really fascinating.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like there's very distinct eras, and you can kind of see as hardcore punk goes on and shifts or splinters maybe because they're still a punk scene obviously at the same time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, there he is.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are then totally ears.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you can hear bands that at one point sounded much more in line with punk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're sound going kind of further and further towards what would be.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess taking up is just pure hardcore versus hardcore punk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've always felt it's like you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel it's best when they're together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think that's what we've had.
[SPEAKER_00]: We combine those things, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, tremor records though was the label that put out the Ivory's, genocide, the cubes.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of like very rock punk.
[SPEAKER_03]: 27 was another band I think on the label as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot more, I don't want to say mainstream leaning, but certainly more like barrock, kind of adjacent stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I guess cold cock and hammer damage would also kind of get lumped into words that stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that stuff, but I know John Branden when he was on the show talked about how that was the opposite of what he liked.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like he liked the stuff that came before it, and then obviously hardcore.
[SPEAKER_03]: And after that, but he hated that kind of music.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I can't speak for John, but I know that he used to love and still does love Alice Cooper and I think he told me when we were hanging out a couple of years ago that he that he hangs out with Alice Cooper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like you fucker, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: one of the early vocalists for my band, that's awesome, weirdly, which I'd heard about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when we did a show together a couple of years ago, and I was like, did you really do these?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hang out with Alice Cooper all the time, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's up there, you know, hanging out with with M&M and Jack White and, you know, fucker.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he deserves it, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's fucking deserves this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think they're amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fucking amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you know him at all during the Ann Arbor laughing I use here as well?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even want to go there, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our social circles were almost identical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you know, we were right in the neighborhood, you know, um, yeah, a lot of mutual acquaintances, you know, I knew Larissa, you know, yeah, Resson piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, um, Joanne Davis, the lady who, you know, was Mike Davis's ex wife, she was like almost like best friends with Larissa, so and she was my
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I heard a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know the lyrics of that well, but I heard a lot about her from Joe and, you know, and John loves the fuck out of art.
[SPEAKER_00]: Art must be the most level motherfucker, you know, because John loves the fuck out of art.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they used to hang out a lot back in those days.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you re, were you in the
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think that was just before so states for in 79 I joined in 81.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that must have been in that time frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, gang war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was that New Year's Eve show at the BFW Hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was that I was thinking gang green gang war with Johnny Thunders and Queen Cramer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Queen Cramer.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I, and I didn't go, I wasn't at the show either, but that was, that was, um, I've heard a lot about that show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, that was, that was quite something that stayed open for those motherfuckers, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's why I've always been fascinated by the state because I feel like you guys were a bridge between that era and
[SPEAKER_00]: and in the park where they came after that and not only not only chronologically but stylistically so you know what I want to say is that thing I was talking about spontaneity and rock and roll we still do that you know in fact you know we get called a guitar band because unlike a lot of punk bands still we we have lead guitar I mean Scott does lead guitar
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, we just rehearsed last night and, you know, he was sounding like bones from discharge and I fucking that's what I want to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what I want to fucking hear, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear something just like that, you know, and, you know, we just, you know, art, total guitar guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: No way he was going to be like Johnny Ramone and never play a pick.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you know, I mean, no offense to Johnny, but
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we just way too much deterred people to not have like lead soloes and stuff, you know, even though in the hardcore punk era that was like pissed on, you know, it was like the only lead solos that you ever heard were just like satirical, you know, and they weren't that they were like intentionally really bad and everyone would be going like this, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we just, you know, that's, so that's an element of rock and roll.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just, we keep intact.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, I love fucking league guitar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear it, you know, especially like Detroit, rock and roll, style league guitar.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like heavy metal league guitars.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the guitar player, we have now Scott Cowskin and who joined like maybe five, six years ago and replaced art, we kind of punked out on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like the best replacement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just totally Detroit, rock and roll guitar.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not heavy metal or, you know, it's just very fucking cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very, very punk, like I said, is he sounds like bombs, you know, which is just like the best fucking guitar player in my book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like also like that LP to guitar the 87 LP false power, like the guitars on that are shredding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm suggesting something positive about that record that it's kind of our albatross.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it had a lot of flaws and we talk a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We kick ourselves on the ass about it a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ben, then people end up saying nice things about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our drummer, our new drummer, Dan Luberto, who got me on the year show, he says all sorts of positive shit about that record, but yeah, he used to play great electric guitar, doesn't even play electric guitar anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he plays acoustic blues.
[SPEAKER_00]: You sitting up in my house right now, playing the guitar.
[SPEAKER_03]: Actually, I think that's also, like, it's so interesting about state is that you guys never go away.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you guys never really, like it's like 87.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then obviously in the 90s, you guys are in a round, but then you guys came back and it wasn't like just a band doing a reunion run.
[SPEAKER_03]: You guys were back in the early 2000s and obviously back again, like, it's, well, I would say two things, two things about the band, I guess I'm a little proud of.
[SPEAKER_00]: number one, the only Ann Arbor band that I know of that gave a fuck about Detroit, but we always did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, number one, artists from the Detroit area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and number two, I said to myself, Ann Arbor is this little college child and right next door to us is a big fucking metropolitan city.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't we want to get well known in this big city that's right there in our way?
[SPEAKER_00]: But these Annumber bands are like, we're great, we're rock stars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Ann Ann Arbor, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, you know, so I just like, we need to go to Detroit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to play in Detroit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So really from the very beginning of the band, before I was even in it, you know, they were playing at bookies, graystone, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we always gave a fuck about Detroit, which I'm very happy with because,
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there isn't no scene in Ann Arbor at all, except for maybe some kind of collegiate bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Detroit is happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Detroit's scene is very, very alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing, what was the other thing I was going to say?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, it'll come to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: What were you saying?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who would you guys play with going into the 80s, like as sort of like the scene is changing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, would you play with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your other thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's a dark man memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that we also said, and this is, I'm gonna credit myself with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, we have to keep writing songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we got back together, we split up in 87, got back together in O3.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we really skipped the 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was in a band called the Better Pills
[SPEAKER_00]: with Keer Murray from the state, the drummer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we played punk rock, just like pure punk rock.
[SPEAKER_03]: And destruction right, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was also in the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, well, I was in destruction right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a band I was in from 1988, early, 89, feel like maybe 92.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that band broke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hear a knocking on my door one day and Keer's standing on my doorstep saying, do you want to start a band?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yeah, it's like, but it has to be a punk band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, totally fine, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we had the bitter pills.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, you know, we just, nobody else is playing punk, it seemed like in the 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like people would come up to us after our sentence, say, you guys play punk rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, we do, you know, and they're, oh, that's weird and great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, when we got back in O3,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know we can just redo rehash and redo the songs that we are known for from the 80s which we had a lot more songs than we had released or we can keep writing songs and be like any other band you know we're in keep writing songs so last night at our rehearsal we just worked two absolutely brand new songs into our set that we're going to play on May 16th when we play in Kalamazoo with the
[SPEAKER_00]: who also you know just put out an album and say they're going to place a new song to the show and I don't I don't know those guys hardly at all even though they played at her house once in 85 I think but why not keep writing songs you know and those and the songs we write kind of course upon them adequately to the times and stylistically to the times you know because Detroit punk rock has changed like I said it's kind of veering up more to rock and roll
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and people are dancing at fucking punk shows, like not just slam dancing, but actually, you know, dancing, couples dancing and shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the scene is really fucking cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, our music is kind of, you know, changing along with that, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, you know, I mean, they say in business grow or die, and I think that's really true of a band.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're just stuck in what you played back in the 80s, I mean, that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fucking great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we want to be relevant, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like what is the band at the end of the day?
[SPEAKER_03]: If it's like an nostalgia act or is it like an art project that you're kind of continuing with them and something organically living?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so like Detroit, 442, that I've, that are really inspiring us these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just talking to Lacey last night actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they just put out a record about Minneapolis, you know, and it's like totally, in the times, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they've been playing since 80s.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's been at different bands since the 80s.
[SPEAKER_00]: The original band was son of Sam.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I just got there for some of Sam's have an inch in England the other day in Brighton really.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which really came in on a lot's Vegas label of all places
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't have to talk to Lisa about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should get him on it, sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I love that band.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that period of Detroit too, where you have like, you son of Sam and then depression records stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I find it all that stuff so weird and so interesting bands like Slotterhouse, Boom of the Legion of Doom and Plasma Lions and like Plainfield and like, there's like a lot of really interesting weirder stuff as the 80s go on.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would those bands come and play your guys house at all?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what kind of bands would play at your guys place?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, bands who would play their house would normally local bands, ground zero were really close to their guitar player Craig Clonch was in destruction ride.
[SPEAKER_00]: The band you mentioned, their drummer,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, Craig Clonch is a brilliant fucking guitar player.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's kind of, states second guitar, like he was in the band for a quite a while often on kind of an him and art really mash well on guitar and Craig is a brilliant lead player and great fucking guitar player.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so ground zero with they were kind of like our buddies, you know, and they would open for us a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a bank of 3D Jesus, I remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: But mostly like mostly in our Rpunk bands would play at our house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say the wherever art lived was what would be called the State House.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually rented a space for a while that was called the State House.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Gun Club played there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night that it was shut down by the fire department.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we, you know, we played with a lot of different bands at the time, you know, I don't know, Iron Cross is one of my favorite bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: We played with Jody Fosters Army and, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you guys ever want to maybe sign to like touch and go or another label because I noticed you guys pretty much the statement record until the reissue on havoc.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's statement records putting out the state records.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so statement records kind of still exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we we have put
[SPEAKER_00]: vinyl EP's and it's probably more like eight different ones and about half of those run statement records, which is like me putting about, you know, pan for everything we're calling it statement records.
[SPEAKER_00]: Touch and go, you know, um, the necro's crowd and that state
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but we were like oil and water, I'm just going to put it that way to you without going into details.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, we, we messed a lot better with N.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: with John and his people, you know, but um, touching go, um, they did, they bootlegged, um, our no illusions EP and just put it out without telling us, um, which I don't really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's like, oh, it's not like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is, you know, we didn't want to be on to.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, you know, we thought about being on touching go.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um, I don't know, maybe it would have been good for us if we had been on touching go.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't express an interest, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you guys know what?
[SPEAKER_03]: How much out of state touring was, were you guys able to do on the first time touring?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, that extent, if so, we back in the 80s we played, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: We play like on the west side of Michigan.
[SPEAKER_00]: We played in our Lincoln Virginia New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably a bunch of other places I don't remember, but mostly just like New England, Midwest, never made it to California.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually had a tour planned in O6 all planned out.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we were going to go to her California.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the promoter do backed out at the last minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the guy who runs grand theft audio who had put out
[SPEAKER_00]: like a compilation, a non-accomplishment, an archive kind of record of CD, of like our old hardcore stuff, basement tapes, and all sorts of shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to go on the tour, and I said, sure, and then I told the promoter, he's like, are you serious?
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing I know, the tour is canceled.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, now, never made it out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a shame because I do feel like as I said, you know, a lot of times I'm, you know, you're like, oh, bands underrated, bands underrated, bands underrated.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the state is so fucking underrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't think I don't know about underrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're under under, I think we're just not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've had people tell me, like, especially when we got back together and no three after that, it's like, I can't believe I never heard of you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you guys are great, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, like people tend to think we're really good, but then they're like, how come you're not better known, you know, and it's like, the answer to that question is, I mean, if you want to answer that question, it's like number one, we've never been good at this social thing like a lot of bands succeed because it really social, you know, um, and.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really focused on having dynamics in our set, so it's not like just the same shit every song sounds the same kind of thing we really focused on the music and I want to say like me and art, you know, especially.
[SPEAKER_00]: But neither one of us is like really a social butterfly, you know, and Like negative approach, I think they're fucking great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, and they're way better now, actually, and John will tell you that, you know, they're way fucking better now than they were in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you will definitely tell that to me, I'm like, I agree with you, you know, you guys are fucking insanely good, you know, and I'm because I saw them, you know, several times, been the day, but, you know, John is a very, very social guy, and I think that really worked for
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, he did something we didn't do, and that is tour tour tour tour tour tour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Work a shit job, you know, record stores, something, and fucking tour tour tour tour.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and he was doing that with Lafayne Lafayne, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, and I wanted to say, I think they were the most influential band in the fucking 90s, like in an underground way.
[SPEAKER_00]: because they really I think they really because they were around going around the country touring like I said and I think they really influenced like the Northwest you know I think they really fucking were probably the main influence by probably man might be totally wrong but my impression is that laughing in us were like the real driving force behind that whole
[SPEAKER_00]: to their credit, you know, to John's credit, meaning he's fucking keep working, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And anybody who does that, a lot, I mean, like Iggy did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just never fucking stopped working.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did he stop working?
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was all fucked up on drugs for a minute, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: But even when people, he was like a laughing stock and he wasn't making any money, I remember talking to people about, and how much money did he have?
[SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, 20 years ago, and people were like, not much, you know, but now it's a millionaire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he kept fucking work, work, work, work, work.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our case, part of my problem was I have this kind of dual life where I'm also going to school, teaching school,
[SPEAKER_00]: And that really was a distraction from my musical life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I had put all my eggs in one basket and been like, OK, we're going to, we'd probably be better known now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we had just done what John did, which I'm not saying was good as NA, but if we had followed his example and been out there, always, there's never just nonstop.
[SPEAKER_00]: get known.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's our white zombie got known.
[SPEAKER_00]: White zombie isn't, you know, not in kind of band that I'm that I really vibe with, but I remember when they because I used to keep track of, you know, bands, what they were doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to read all the newspapers and Chicago reader and L.A. times and, you know, village voice and just keep track of what all the bands are doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those motherfuckers weren't very well-known, but they worked and worked and toured and toured until they finally got, you know, a song and a movie and they blew up for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what you got to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you got to work, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And also I feel like...
[SPEAKER_03]: like the branding of touching go, like whether or not you should have signed to touch and go, like that's obviously a separate conversation, because I think that I think the record no illusion is perfect, like everything about it aesthetically, the statement records logo on the back, like I think it's a perfect record.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I look, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it benefits necessarily from being on touch and go.
[SPEAKER_03]: in an isolated way, but I think the ban would benefit from having that association because it almost becomes like suppol-like, any ban that was also- What were you talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: They bootlegged us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well they had that real satirical kind of attitude, and they had that satirical magazine was called motorboody or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was later on, yeah, that was, but they also had touch-and-go fans and even before kind
[SPEAKER_00]: We never really Vived with that that's a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's a big part of hardcore punk But it just that just didn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just didn't really feel like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're always like a serious band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: I like bands like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this charge is not a satirical band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they blow me away, but they're not up there making crack and jokes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying, they don't have satirical songs about satirical subjects.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're singing about nuclear wars, shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a little bit of humor in some of our songs, but we actually fired a base player
[SPEAKER_00]: that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was a it went beyond that because he was like just it was kind of like a shitting grin and he would like stare at the girls and it was just like dude this you know, this isn't working.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I had to fire him because I don't know
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I said, the state that my sister said it was like the state of mind kind of psychedelic hypnotic state, but it's also like a political term, you know, and we're a very political band, you know, most of our songs are essentially protests songs, you know, and we're anti fascist very overtly, you know, explicitly anti racist, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's working so you know, but touch and go I always felt like it was more kind of this kind of prankster kind of attitude, you know, I've always thought there was an aesthetic to the band right going back to the very beginning, which is very much in line with what you're talking about, like even on the 87 LP.
[SPEAKER_03]: that is set to maintain obviously everything post 2006 that is set to maintain the one outlier in that to me has always been the cruising and arbor to compilation that desires on you guys will stick out on that compilation a little bit too yeah it's funny because there's this
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our, that's our like hidden rock rock and roll face, you know, because that's like a rock song.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nothing but a rock song.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may be with some like punk, you know, inflection or whatever to it, but, you know, we have a whole bunch of songs like that, you know, that are just kind of like bluesy rock songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have,
[SPEAKER_00]: well over a hundred songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know of any band, other band that's got as many songs as we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But art really constantly was pulling the band in that direction of like blues rock kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to the point where it's like, are we even a punk band anymore?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I mean, hence he's not in the band anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: Have you, have you guys ever thought because I don't think Grand Theft Auto's audio is around anymore?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so disgusted with that motherfucker.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, very, I had a very bizarre run-ins with them when we were on tour in California as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I, maybe off the record, we can, yeah, we can talk about that over a beer sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, but as I do want to get out there, what the reason my main beef with him is that when he released that, I'm like, this is not the original seven inch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: It would they were all outtakes, you know, all the vocals on there are fucking outtakes that in other words, you know, that belong in the editing room floors.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say that was they were not intended to be released.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what the motherfucker told me Ryan.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me, oh, well, you can't you can't go from vinyl to digital.
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore, we couldn't just lift it off the seven inch, because I'd send them on a regular seven inch.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Art thinks that those are the stolen tapes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we sent our tape to be put on vinyl.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are they called?
[SPEAKER_00]: This mask is something in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: to take when missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we actually had to sue UPS to get reimbursed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we ever get art in the show, you can ask in the details.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in any case, Brian did not release
[SPEAKER_00]: the original seven inches, and it's a big difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that what was released by grand theft audio and havoc records was where the versions not produced by Ron Ashton, guy, Ron Ashton was in the studio helping mix and basically producing the record, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now recently Dan Lubertdo, I guess you know him,
[SPEAKER_00]: um uh released the original 7 inch online.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now you can actually hear it on like Spotify and all this streaming services.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's out there now online, but those uh but that that CD and
[SPEAKER_03]: Have you ever thought about maybe putting out like some of the like the the pre lp demo from 83 is fucking monstrous like there's so much great stuff on that lost in found or grandfather dotto so i'm getting my bootleg like it's already on it's already on that CD CD's a possible get now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it looks hideous, obviously as well, because it's a grand theft audio in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Design was always never what the band's intended.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've come to realize.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm very happy with the artwork that they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they also did a booklet where it's me going on and on about the history of the band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very happy with a CD, our work, and everything it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a few dozen copies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess maybe I should sell them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we do it to all of that shows.
[SPEAKER_03]: It goes for like a close 100 bucks for the CD now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, good, because I'm broke.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so Nick's life, you know, next I'm going to show put a little premium on that one.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's on the merch table because I feel like you're SA in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the tracks in it, it's such a fucking cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like the bridge between the seven inch and the LP is there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it tells the story of the band in a way that like, it's hard for people to get because obviously the recorded output is pretty sparse during that period.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like you guys are like a killer band, the whole way through the 80s.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, there's only the book ended by these releases.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, would you ask if I ever thought of, I've there a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like to release, like, especially on vinyl.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I find in my life that I have, like, decreasing amounts of money, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I remember, you know, going to archer records in Detroit and plunking down a thousand dollars for a record, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can't do that right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would be I'd be putting out vinyl, um, we, you know, we're working out an album now and I will by hooker by crook put it out on vinyl, um, you know, we're we're working on, um, putting out a 10 song album.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got a few songs in the, um, already ready.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, would you ever work with like another label like radio Raheem who did like the agnostic front demos and stuff like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: We would totally work with another label, especially if they're going to put it out and then and send us a box of records like that's, that's ideal.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you don't, all you got to do is pay for recording costs, which is not very high for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We work with rock city studios and I've been working with them for like over 30 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy runs a peep anchor just like, well, I actually placed base for me in another project.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that we're close friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he cuts me a huge deal in the studio.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, when we we had punks before profits putting out records, that was fucking cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they pay for the records send us a bunch of records and you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope this stuff comes out on vinyl like I would love to get that especially that pre LP 83 demo tracks I've been a long time to serve the CD, but I remember those being fucking awesome and uh...
[SPEAKER_00]: the demo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to keep that in mind because I'm a little fuzzy on which songs those would be.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like it's like next life.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like we let you think enemy don't tread on me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm dead in chains from ashes, looms, state, all wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: Going back and listening to
[SPEAKER_03]: of some lucky enough to when I had a little more money that I don't have these days.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no G of the seven inch and going back and listening to it, I'm like, fuck man, this band is, and I always felt this, but like this band is one of the great American hardcore bands ever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I say that when you're not around, too, so it's not like I'm just telling you that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just telling you that, because you're on the blockaxe with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I think very highly of, I mean, I've been
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you really should have art on the show at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he had been, if it had been him and me, you wouldn't have heard one peep out of me, because we did an interview with, I don't know if you know, Al Quint from maximum rock and roll.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we were supposed to force fans into, huh?
[SPEAKER_03]: Superb and voice fans, yeah, he interviewed us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went out in the in the in our band and he had a recording, you know, device and interviewed us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Art did not let me get one, I literally, one were in edge wise, I didn't get one sentence in that entire interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do this kind of oblivious and just, you know, but you should talk to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a whole, you know, another.
[SPEAKER_00]: perspective on things even though I mean we really we really have a lot in common.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean we, you know, but um, especially when it comes to music.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, well, I've, I could talk to you forever and why don't we have you, once you come back with him one time and I'd love to talk to you both.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in the heaven by himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I would just be sitting there like an idiot and that's, you know, he won't let me talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when we're he and I are talking, it's like he will not let me talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would love to have one because I'm like, yeah, like this is an era of music like all this period like Detroit that you guys in an hour where that you guys going to occupy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fascinated by because like this is the the primordial ooze that gave us punk rock and like what you could ask about the gang the gang where gang wars go and things like that plan of bookies and you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a lot of good stories, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell you what Chuck Berry said to him, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, I can't really your point.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not going to do that for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to me, to me what you're saying is really resonates with me is that the early early early early shit, I think is really important.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can talk about, oh yeah, you know, these different funny stories and stuff, but like what goes into, because we take the fucking music really fucking seriously.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in the state anymore, you know, like you, he's working on some songs for the album, but, you know, it's that I don't think it's hard as in it as much as a minus, you know, and, and, you know, we're pretty fucking serious about what we do, you know, and what we're doing musically, um, you can do anything, right, you could just throw off some crap and do some crap.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, if you really put your mind to it, you know, you can do something that is worthwhile and means something to people, you know, like that's like the greatest compliment you can get after you get off stage is like, wow, that was meaningful, you know, like that meant something to me like that was a valuable experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's no better compliment than that, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Given that you have this value that you place on the sort of the earnestness of punk and hardcore, what did you make of a band like the Misfits that is sort of silly, super hero comic bookie?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I want to say that they're one of my favorite bands, and I hear them almost every day, because my wife streams on Pandora like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so I hear stuages and misfits and sex pists a lot of the everyday, like literally every fucking day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and you never get tired of the fucking misfits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Glenn, I don't know the other guys as well, but you know, Glenn's a brilliant dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I think it's fucking great, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, my perception of them is that they're serious, but it's like theatrical, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: They create such a vibe, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, obviously, they understood something about punk, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like how they kind of came out of left field with that shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just like, you know, I did bluish it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: fucking miss if it's blew it up, you know, you know, I mean, one thing I worry about is being too serious, you know, like cause it's like the people really want to hear this serious shit about death and fascism and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, so not every single song we do is like,
[SPEAKER_00]: about death and fascism, you know, some songs are less deep and profound and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, you got to give in to a little bit of lightheartedness and, you know, just the atricality and vibe, you know, I'm just going to want that, you know, they don't
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, they go to a show to like your great music, you know, and so it's tricky, you know, it's tricky to be serious and be anti-fascist and anti-racist.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it's shit without it being just like overbearing, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I only bring it up because, like, I know Ian, for example, never like the misfits because he thought it was kind of silly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll really, I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he liked our band.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even didn't hang out for quite a while when we went to DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I feel like...
[SPEAKER_03]: there and I say this on the show and I've said it before like there the misfits are simultaneously the ultimate punk band and at the same time not at all a punk band because they're interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well they're they're making some of the greatest punk music of all time but like when you start dissecting those songs if they're about anything they're about heinous shit that probably is anti a lot of the punk rock stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well it's interesting you know that that I didn't realize just until recently that
[SPEAKER_00]: is about a different horror movie, or maybe uses a title from a horror movie or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is interesting, and it reminds me of distraught monsters, which is a monster movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Japanese monster movie where God Zilla and, I don't know, whoever else battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of the other set of elements.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, the thing is, you know, it's like, when I talk about like, all we were trying to be ultra punk, a pure punk,
[SPEAKER_00]: There really is no such thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it is such a massive cultural phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like trying to put like Romanism in like encapsulate Romanism, Romanism was this massive movement that we're still, that's still going on, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is coming from like literary scholar kind of persona.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't really encapsulate it, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever anyone's like, oh, that's that punk, you know, you guys are punk, like, you know, it's like fuck you, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, nobody's got, you know, nobody's got a monopoly on that, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a multi-fairious thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a,
[SPEAKER_00]: big cultural thing, I mean, it's fashion as well, you know, as music and attitude and a certain kind of anarchist political attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so many things, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, you obviously know of a lot more bands than I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've even seen like college bands that were really punk without even knowing that, you know, I saw this, this totally like kind of swr almost like fraternity sorority kind of collegiate and arbor band.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they all wore suits.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guys wore suits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the singer was this chick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first song they hit into is hit that bitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like, what, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just like, that's punk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why or how, but it's a certain vein.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like punk is a mine, a gold mine, and there's different veins, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's like you were saying earlier, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, I guess contrary to what we're saying earlier, like there's much of there's punk as a place with all this great talent and all these people that are our proficient at their instruments and really serious with their craft.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's also a place where anyone can do it and your technical ability doesn't make what you're doing necessarily more valid than someone with no technical ability.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's more like
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess the intention and the way the audience is going to receive that intention, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like so, I think that's the great gift that punk kind of gave the world and not necessarily even just for this kind of music, like just do it, like someone's going to connect with what you're doing, like you're saying, someone's going to come up to you after you get off stage, maybe not your first show, but eventually and say, wow, what you just did was really meaningful and it helped me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's
[SPEAKER_03]: like you said, that's a greatest gift to any artist could hope for that you like that something you made connected with someone that you didn't know that's fucking crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you want, you know, but there's also people that you have to call them punk that don't give a fuck about music.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we used to have punk week and an arbor before the police shut it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like once it started getting really good, the police score shut it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but there'd be like traveler punks from all over the country that come to an hour, they had given that at the first several years of it, they didn't give a fuck about music.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would come to the, because we'd always have concerts, you know, they didn't give a fuck about the music, you know, if they were a pun, I mean, you can't get more punk than traveler punks, you know, as far as I'm concerned, um, but they didn't give a fuck about music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, the last year, a punk week, they thought a bunch of them were musicians, and it was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had a fucking amazing show, but I mean, the point, like I'm saying, it's like it's also fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there are people like Jordan, I don't know, I guess you step here on stage, but it's like, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... vignan westward and she's not really about music but she's definitely about punk you know so yeah maybe maybe it's not just for music it's permission to do whatever you want to do and that's like and that could be art it could be film like so many great filmmakers came out upon click Derek Jarman or for sure you know like there's just like a whole wave of it changed everything it was a cultural shift but because
[SPEAKER_03]: It allowed everyone to kind of do their own thing and create their own expression and it kind of me goes back to like an arbor and you've got like the politics of the white Panthers mixing with the music of the studios mixing with like this weird already stuff that's also kind of happening at the same time mixing with.
[SPEAKER_03]: the sunrod jazz show that's happening or like, you know, it's just like it's all there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then that's kind of eventually distilled into what we call punk rock to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's what I was filming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I want to say it's just gonna go's beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like I'm saying it's a style, it's a artistic movement, but it's also a tribe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Ann Arbor, I happen to be in Ann Arbor right now, but you might don't live here at all anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: But those of us from that old Ann Arbor scene, we refer to it as our tribe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes I have in the past, like use that terminology from the stage,
[SPEAKER_00]: it like resonates with people, it's like it's a community.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, literally a community, I mean, and some of those people might be drug addicts and some of them might be great guitar players and some of them might be fashion plates, and some of them might be visual artists, but it's like, it goes beyond the connective tissue of the style because it's really,
[SPEAKER_00]: community, you know, like the destroyer monsters were really good friends with a dead boys, you know, and, and Johnny Thunders used to live in Ann Arbor, you know, and, and hang out
[SPEAKER_03]: Mr. Michigan originally in Arbor, Mr. then moved to Australia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK. OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: In any case, it is a community of actual community of actual people that know each other and are all interconnected somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I fucking love about the punk rock community
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not exclusive, you know, it's like a warm, welcoming community, it's not like, oh, we're cool and you're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, some people like act like that, but I mean, like I said, I was a runaway from home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran away and stayed with the white Panthers and I'm still with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that they became my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I consider that tribe to be my real family, you know, and I still know some of those people a lot of them died, you know, but um, um.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, uh, it's a big tent, you know, let's just put it that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, pressing this has been awesome and lived up to all my dreams and expectations and you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, then what that's great to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.