Brendan B. Brown Transcript

Alright. Well, thank you everybody for listening. I’ve got Brendan B brown from Wheatus with me today. How are you doing today brendan?

I’m doing all right. How are you doing?

Doing good. So you got to leave for tour pretty soon huh?

 I know we barely, you have any time off. I’m happy to say. Um, uh, we’ve been getting busier, you know, despite the pandemic and, well, sorry, I should say, uh, you know, uh, the pandemic, not withstanding, we have gotten busier over the last five years in ways that I, that I couldn’t have predicted, I would have thought it was slowing down, but it’s picking up.

So. That’s good. Well, good. It’s good for you guys. I was listening to some of your interviews before this, and I may be the first person to interview you, who has seen the movie, the last dragon

Cool man. I love that movie that, uh, you know, around the time the karate kid came out, it was like really popular, you know, 19 84, 19 85.

Yeah. The last dragon is, it is a Motown movies. That’s a Motown records movie. That’s, that’s Berry Gordy put, put that together. So it was like this totally different, like music, New York city based version of some kind of story like that. And also had a little bit of the supernatural element, which made it, I think, a little bit cooler, you know?

Yeah. It was interesting. My there’s an age gap between myself and my siblings. All my siblings grew up in the eighties and I was born in 94. And so my oldest brother, uh, you know, he’s a tough dude, had a childhood like yours getting into some street fights. Right. And, uh, that movie is one of his favorite movies.

And after I watched it, I texted him and I was like, I don’t really get it, man. And he just texted me back. Leroy green is not a tree that you want to climb.

That’s funny, man. That’s funny. Well, so it’s very, very tiny. It’s very period sensitive movie, you know, like it was like, it spoke to me during that time, um, you know, on a lot of different levels. Um, first of all, I liked the fact that it was a New York city film. There’s a ton of great music in the movie.

Um, third, um, that sort sorta like the, the gangster element and the threat of certain deaths and all that stuff that, that felt simultaneously, it was a little bit more goofy and a little bit more realistic to me, you know? So it was a bit more fun that way, um, and closer to home. So it was like, I don’t know, it was just kinda, it just, it just hit me, uh, in particular also like growing up in the immediate suburbs of New York city, I guess I grew up.

About an hour away from the city. And I, uh, took the train to high school. I commuted to high school back and forth, um, every day. Uh, and it was close closer to New York city than it was to my home, my high school. But, um, I always looked at the city and often the distance as displaced. I wanted to be the energy.

I wanted to be a part of the integration, the mix of cultures and, and ideas, uh, found the place that I grew up kind of boring and violent and stagnant. And I wanted to, I wanted to reach out to it and every chance I got to go in to the city with my mom or my dad, if they were doing it, I would do it. You know, so yeah, it was a spoke to me on that level to, you know,

I could definitely see that. Yeah. I could see how with, with your background and, and coming up in that time period in the area that you’re at. Yeah. That’s a perfect concoction. So, um, well, I wanted to, I wanted to kind of tell a quick story of, uh, you know, what your music means to me. You know, I, I know in a lot of interviews, people focus a lot on, on teenage dirtbag and I’ve listened to all your records.

Uh, 14 is an amazing song. It’s actually one of my favorites, uh, from your last album. Um, but when I heard teenage dirtbag for the first time, I was a freshman in high school and, um, my older sister had showed it to me and I fell in love with it because there was a girl that I had a crush on at the time, uh, whose boyfriend had, uh, had a fast car, kind of like an iroc.

And, um, he threatened to beat my ass and I was, uh, I was a small kid and it scared me. And so I came into high school afraid every day, but his girlfriend was nice to me. And, um, that song just really, really hit home. But I wanted to ask you, I know you went to an all boys high school. And so I wanted to know if you had the most, uh, had you had a story of when you felt the most like a teenage dirtbag with, uh, with a girl, because I kind of have a, a BMX bandits, teenage dirtbag, uh, uh, story that kind of rolls together.

I wanted to share with you. It’s kind of funny. Um, when I was 15, I had my first job and I saved up and I bought a BMX bike, all my friend’s BMX, and I was only one without one.

What kind, what brand?.

 So my first bike, well, I’ll say this, everybody had a BMX bike, but me, I had a mountain bike. And so the first bike I got was a blue DK.

And was, it was the cheapest one on Dan’s comp? He was like 120. Well,

I was just on Dan’s comp before you call looking for titanium forks, I’m looking for a pair of 24 inch titanium forks. I don’t know who makes them, but yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

No, you’re good at that. That’s really funny. So cheapest bike on Danscomp, that looked somewhat cool. I was 15. And, um, there was this girl that I just, I really had a big crush on. She was new to the school and, um, she hung out with some of the more popular, maybe more, uh, richer girls and my friends and I w we weren’t, we weren’t rich, we weren’t poor. We had, you know, more than some and less than others, I guess.

But, um, I always went off for like the, the, these girls that my friends never, uh, I guess that were a tier higher than my level. Right. I was, uh, overshooting my par. And so I, these girls were all hanging out one night and somehow I was, I was messaging one of them and I got invited to go. And so, um, I rode my BMX bike there and, um, I immediately felt out of place.

I go to this house and it’s the biggest house I’ve ever been in, and I’m instantly out of place. And then they invited these guys over and they pull up in a car. And so I instantly just feel like really stupid. They’ve got better clothes than me. They’re in a car I’m on this bike and I’m in it. So. I go at, at the end of the night, it’s just an embarrassing night.

Um, I didn’t get anything out of it that I was hoping. And so, um, I go to leave cause I was the only one with the curfew too. So my parents were making it harder and harder for me to, to be cool. So I’m the only one at the curfew. And when I go to leave, I go to hop on my bike and the tires were flat because I had the stock tires and I had riden through a thorn Bush on the way there.

And so I had to, I was also the only one without a cell phone. So then I had to go back and I’d asked this girl, if I could use her phone. And she told me no. And I had to beg this other girl in front of the girl. I liked, I had to literally beg her to let me use her phone. So I call up my dad, my dad pulls up in this piece of crap, Jimmy, that made this really loud knock noise.

And they’re all like right there. And he starts yelling at me about my tire being flat. Cause he was tired of fixing them and it was so humiliating. And so I was laying in bed that night, just crying and so embarrassed. And it’s funny right now, but I really think, I really think that that stuff is what made me ambitious, because I was like, you know, I don’t ever want to be on the outside again.

You know, it made me want to be somebody, it made me want to be the one, I guess, with the, with the nice stuff that was the most time I ever felt like a teenage dirt bag.

That’s a, that’s a good one, man. You should write your own song about that, you know? Um, yeah. Yeah. That’s tough. That’s tough. That’s a tough lesson. You know, you rolled your dice and you came up, you know? Yeah. With two flats.

Do you ever have any, any stories like that where you struck out with a girl?

Um, you know, that’s like a, kind of a goofy story and I’m sure that you were embarrassed and ashamed, but I can’t say, I didn’t know a lot of girls in high school at all.

Like, you know, it was really like, I, like I said, I, I commuted to, and from school. Uh, the whole round trip commute was three hours and it was, um, it was like, you know, on a train with adults and stuff. Um, so it wasn’t a lot of like socializing that went on during the trip. And then, you know, I was one, I was in that group of kids who live so far away from the school that we got to skip homeroom because there was only the train schedule wouldn’t work out that way.

So I didn’t get to meet anybody in my homeroom ever. So it was like, uh, uh, lunchtime, you know, uh, hung out with some, some dudes at a lunch table for awhile. But, uh, you know, you know, had some, had some sort of like one or two weekend Hangouts that I convinced my mom to drive me to, but that was the other hassle.

All these kids live far away, you know, somewhere else, I’m not driving it on a Saturday to rock hill center, you know, Lido beach, forget it, you know, so it was like, um, it was a, I w my high school experience was rather detached and any kind of a typical social interaction that, that you, that you would have to discuss later in life.

I w I wouldn’t stay in place of that. I have like lots of train rides looking through the window kind of thing. So a lot of, a lot of what I, um, thought of high school experience, or, uh, T teenage adolescent of socialization, you know, all of that was sort of a hypothetical to me. You, it was like, there’s like, oh, well, this is, this is probably happening somewhere, you know?

So it was like, that was a lot of like, that thought process of just like what was going on. Um, the other thing was, is that like kids in my hometown, um, uh, were worse, you know, like the fact that I went to a boys school. For pretty pretty, not, not a good thing as far as they were concerned. And in any number of ways you name it, you know, homophobia, you’re a rich kid, whatever it was.

So the school wasn’t really a rich kid school. It was the majority of people who sent their kids. There were cops and firemen, you know, public servants, teachers and whatnot. So, and, you know, from, from school districts around long island that were like not getting it done. So there was people, people were like scraping some extra money together to send their kids, but it wasn’t that expensive.

And it was like $2,500 a year or something. Um, but, uh, but it was really kind of rigorous, just almost militaristic kind of education. Um, and, uh, you know, three hours of homework at night, I was on the wrestling team a little while, but when you’re talking about the typical like boy girl scenarios, um, there’s, there’s just, there’s only, only two really kind of clumsy ones that I can come up with.

The one of them is a little bit, yeah. Youbit too youknow, I’d rather not talk about that one, but the short story is that somebody dated me as a cover boyfriend. I didn’t really know, like for, for about a month, you know? Um, cause they weren’t allowed to date their real boyfriend. And uh, and then this other time, uh, you know, I think my mom kind of knew that it was like somewhere inside that that maybe wasn’t the best way to grow up.

So she was, uh, like, you know, meaning meaning, well, but sort of trying to, trying to set me up on stuff. So she would talk to somebody’s parents and they would try to have, you know, like that kind of shit. And all I wanted to do was play guitar. I had like by sophomore year I could kind of given up on social life.

I was just like this, just put me in the room with a guitar. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I was like, hang on. I accepted loneliness as like a, you know, like an identity, you know what I mean? So, um, uh, I was supposed to, the idea was that I was supposed to ask this girl to the prom and uh, I wound up at her house, uh, in the next county, over from where I lived.

I didn’t know anybody from her hometown or anything like that. And, um, you know, she went to a Catholic girls school. Um, but anyway, I, uh, I didn’t know her, but some, my mother knew her mother or her, my mother knew her mother’s best friends. You know, some shit I don’t even remember, but I wound up there and they’re all kind of like one at a time, like you should ask, you know, so-and-so to the prom and whatever.

So I’m kinda like building up the courage to do it. And I walk outside and I didn’t know this at the time. And she had a 19 year old boyfriend. Ooh. And I was 15 going on 16. And, um, him and his friends just surrounded me. They knew I was there. And I didn’t know even who, who they were. It was just absolutely terrifying, embarrassing thing where I was like, who, who are these people? You know, there’s dude, it’s basically a man, you know, like step step into me. And, um, he’s in my face and he’s like shouting and cussing, you know, you know, uh, if you knew about me, then I’m going to fucking rip your head off. And if she, and if you didn’t know about me, then she’s a fucking slut that kind of like long island, you know, like yeah, like intense.

And I, you know, I had, I didn’t see any of it coming. And the crazy thing to me was that parents didn’t intervene. It just kind of watching. Whoa. Yeah. So I was like in a stranger’s house, in a stranger’s driveway. I didn’t come with anybody. You know what I’m saying? Like, uh, like, uh, or any, any dudes? Anyway, I was like solo dude.

Um, and it was a total kind of like a weird setup that I was like already nervous about. And then this fucking. You know, sixth year seniors in my face, you know,

and that’s like worst case scenario.

And he was with his boys. He was like, you know, and I was like, oh shit, I’m going to catch it. I showed up here to catch a beat down.

That’s what happens, that’s what’s going on here. So it’s, you know, after that, I became sort of like, even more cynical than I had ever been, you know, I was kinda like, yeah, no, uh, you know,

Yeah man, listening to how you grew up in, in your town. Um, and I wanted to touch base on a couple of things with that later on.

But, um, I, I, you know, I’m sorry about how, the way you were treated when I hear about those ridiculous, you know, bowling stories or the kid that broke your arm. I mean, you didn’t deserve that as a kid. Nobody does. And, and I can tell you, you know, I live in Nebraska. Yeah. There’s something about your hometown.

That’s just kind of strange when I hear the stories about it, because while there’s similar stories everywhere, I think of, you know, the weird kids that go hang out in the woods and do drugs and the fights and stuff like that. It just seemed a lot more intense in your area. And so, um, that was one thing that, uh, you know, in, in researching for this, I just felt, I felt bad about, but it made you who you are. And, uh, you know, you’re obviously a nice guy.

I would go so far as to say it made me who I’m not.

 Yeah. That’s a good way to put it.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I can still fight and I’m not afraid of getting punched and beat up or any of that stuff, but, but I, I, and that’s different, you know, we have a lot of millennials in the band and when I, when I talk about some of this shit, you know, they’re kind of.

Yeah, well, yeah. You know, and I’m like, yeah, yeah. They broke my arm and, you know, they thought it was funny, you know, like made fun of me the next day with the cast. You know what I mean? Like, it was just like, it was a gladiator academy and I didn’t know anything else, you know? So what you do is like, in that kind of circumstance, you, you grow up, uh, unfortunately you learn how to communicate, um, in warnings.

Yeah. You know, and it’s a, it’s a hostile way to be. And it took me a long time to socialize. It’s still something I’m working on, you know? So, um, but, uh, but I think that the upside of it is it’s like, you know, um,

there’s a lot of stuff. I’m not afraid of like a lot of stuff. And there’s a lot of stuff that I’m like acutely afraid of because of more so than other people. So like my, I think my spider senses are a little bit. You know, on, on, on high alert all the time, um, I talked to somebody once a week about it, you know, a therapist and made a lot of progress over the years, but, you know, learning how, uh, learning how not to communicate in warning. So has been a, you know, a project, you know?

Yeah. I wanted to, I want to ask a two part question here. Yeah. Uh, number one, you know, do you have a favorite book, but also number two, do you have a book that helped you with, uh, you know, some of those childhood wounds? Because everybody, I think to some degree has a childhood wound, you know, I have, I’ve had something a couple of months ago where I’m like, oh, why did that hurt so bad?

And I’m like, oh, cause I felt like a boy, you know? And, and, uh, so do you have any books, uh, you know, ma maybe anything that’s helped you with with that?

Um, uh, you know, they’re still trying to write the book about where I grew up. So I don’t like the outsiders is kind of like a thing. You know, um, uh, to kill a Mockingbird, you know, the sort of high school curriculum books, but, um, nothing, nothing that directly that made me.

Oh, you know, what did, uh, yeah, Viktor Frankl man’s search for meaning. Um, that’s, uh, that was a big one. I had to read that in high school and, you know, there’s two types of books that I have experienced with there’s the ones that I, I have a very severe reading disability it’s painful, physically painful to read.

Right. Okay. But that’s a good acid test because if you rip through something with that kind of problem, um, you really know you, you know, you’re into it. Um, yeah. So, like I said, Viktor Frankl man’s search for meaning was high on the list in particular, the scene where the there’s one scene where, um, uh, uh, a Gestapo officer spits into, uh, uh, uh, uh, one of the prisoners, uh, bowls of soup.

Yeah. And he has to drink. Or else, you know, something worse it’s way worse is going to happen. So the sort of like imagination required for survival in that moment was I found that appealing and inspirational. And also, um, I, uh, earlier than that, the first book I read kind of on my own was Jonathan Livingston seagull.

Okay. Which was, um, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. It’s Richard Bach. Um,

 I don’t think I am.

Yeah. Check, check that out. That’s a, it’s a, I would call it a, like a young readers book, but like a kind of semi-serious one. Um, essentially it’s a sort of story about a seagull, uh, learns too escape has sorta like the seagull life, you know, the garbage picking sort of like scrapping seagull life and way, way, way, way, way early on.

I think I might’ve been maybe nine or 10 when I read that book and it, and it was the first serious book that I read cover to cover on my own, you know, volition. So yeah, those are the early ones, I guess.

Um, were you ever a fan of the catcher in the rye?

Uh, well, no, I read, I had to read it, um, oh jeez a couple times I was assigned that a few times and, uh, I found it sort of tedious.

Like when I, when I was younger, I didn’t re I didn’t relate to Holden. I thought he was kind of a brat. Um, and I know that like the baby boomers has kind of taken that book into like the stratosphere of like, this is the political dichotomy of the United States. You know, there are liberals like Holden and there are, you know, right-wingers who think he should shape clean up his act and blah, and I just don’t don’t subscribe to that.

I think baby boomers put way too much, uh, faith in JD Salinger, who, if he asked me it turned out to be quite a big fucking giant asshole. Yeah. So, um, you know, I just, uh, I never really, I never really could, could choke that one down with a smile.

Yeah. I, I, you know what, I’ve never met anybody who liked it, uh, to be honest with you. Um, I, I had a librarian once who I was like, we were, I was, I asked him if they had the catcher in the rye and he made a comment, like “if I read that book, I’d shoot…” And then he stopped what he was saying. I was like, “damn dude!”, I read it. And, uh, I didn’t mind it. I kinda, it was hard to understand like, what the hell is the point of this?

And even after finishing it, I had to watch, like I had to watch a couple of different videos and read some breakdowns of like, trying to understand what his point was that he was trying to get across. Cause I didn’t, I didn’t read it in school, but I finished that. Um, actually what’s weird is I was recording my band, just released our first album earlier this year.

I finished the thank you. I finished that book in the recording studio, uh, ironically enough, but, um, But I also had read Victor Frankel’s book last year as well. Um, so, so yeah, no, those are, those are some good picks. Do you have, uh, just, uh, in general, a favorite book, you know, nothing about it being serious, just a book that,

well, yeah, I guess it would be, um, uh, from my, from my first sort of like early identity book would definitely be Jonathan Livingston seagull, but, um, after that, as a, as a young adult identity book, I would say probably mother night or breakfast of champions to Kurt Vonnegut, uh, okay.

Books, um, uh, Kurt Vonnegut became a sort of fascination of mine, uh, via a friend who had a pen pal with him. Wow. When I was in my late teens, early twenties and, um, I actually met him, uh, one time, which is what the event that started the pen pals. It’s really funny story, but, um, The short version is, is that my, uh, friend from, from senior year of high school, I’d befriended somebody, uh, finally at long last.

And we hung down through college, uh, you know, summertime, uh, buddy during college. And, um, and we, uh, we were out at his parents’ sorta like north side bungalow out in the Hamptons. They had this like little shack that they owned. Uh, they called it Muffy and Buffy and it was on the, on the north side, out of town where the people who worked all year round out there live, you know, not the, not the beach, the big sort of special beach pass town part, but yeah, the working class section.

Yeah. And, uh, his mom, uh, shoot us away one day. Uh, cause you know, there’s a couple of douche bags with Primus shirts and cutoffs. And, uh, and she says here’s 20 bucks go to the Bridgehampton public library is having a sale, you know? So we go down there and it’s like a $10 cover to get into the library. We only have a 20, so, and it’s really fancy.

It was like, look like the Kentucky Derby is like these ladies with these hats and all it’s like regalia, you know? Um, so, uh, the security guard sees that we’re, we’re at the wrong door, if you will. And he’s like, oh, uh, they’re having a used book sale around the corner at the garage. Right. So we go down there.

And, uh, my friend, Chris, who was going to Villanova was after his first year at Villanova, had become obsessed with Vonegurt and had bought a stack of his original books. Right. And he’s kind of tired and really know who Vonnegut was at the time. And he’s kind of introducing him to me now, he’s this dude he’s like survived the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war and he rolls his own cigarettes.

And he’s this weird, like. Post beat, like not quite a hippie guy, but he’s real, real scientific and shit. And I look at it, he’s showing me a picture of Vonnegut on the inside of the breakfast of champions edition. And I look up and the motherfucker is walking right towards us and he takes the book out of our hands and he’s like flipping through it.

And we’re both like “Uhh” and he signs the one of the books and he, Chris gets his address and they, the two of them had a pen pal for a little while. But after that, when I was nine, that happened when I was 19, I started kind of checking out Vonnegut and reading some Vonnegut. And I think mother night’s probably my favorite, um, uh, time quake is really good too.

Uh, I’m going to have to look all those up later because that was when you were saying that I was seeing what I had for Vonnegut. The only one I really have is yeah. Right. So that’s the classic, that’s the. That’s like the big, yeah, the big one with him. Um, no, that’s funny. I wanted to ask you if you had read the book, uh, the asset king, but then I’d heard you say that your friend actually wrote it.

Yeah. Have you read it? And so your friend actually did write that book. My friend, Jesse Pawlik, uh, wrote that book, uh, I would say that’s as close to an accurate telling of, uh, of the story of what happened in my own town, as you can get there. He, uh, uh, Jesse, uh, talked to me all throughout the, the writing and while he was doing his research, not so much for me to help him write it, not at all, really, but for me to just like, as like, when it got frustrating, he would give me a call, you know, and we would bitch about north port or something.

So, um, but, uh, yeah, he was like, uh, I think he got it right. I think he kind of got for the first time, the strangeness of it and the sort of like the sort of wanton violence of the town and like what was going on and what was. You know, you have to, like, if you just take a couple of cues from the police report, first that these kids were, uh, the night of the murder they were doing, what was routine for them is smoking 15 bags, angel dust, and taking 10 hits of acid, you know, like, yeah, you say that and you’re like, this is it.

Somebody’s going to die from that. And it was like, well, that’s what they were used to, you know, that’s in the police report. And the other thing, um, that’s in the police report, that’s important to remember is that two and a half weeks went by where they were the sort of Ricky Casso the, the guy who really kind of, uh, committed the murder, uh, led guided tours of the body.

Yeah. It took people up in the woods and showed them, uh, his classmates, people who knew Gary Lauer’s and. You know, little league teams with him. And so I’ve known them their whole lives and none of them snitched, nobody, nobody from north port open their mouth ever. It was a girl, another girl from another town who overheard something at the movie theater and, and told her parents and her parents called the cops.

And that’s how, that’s how it was revealed. Yeah. So anybody who’s listening who may not know about the story, basically what it was, his name was Ricky CAISO right? Yeah. And so he had killed a kid named Gary that he, he, they grew up together. Right. And, uh, they say that it may have been, cause Gary might’ve stole some drugs from him.

That was the, that was what was, yeah, it seems to be the case, but like that’s a, that’s a hell of a penalty for snatching some drugs from your high school, buddy, you know, And you had an interaction with that kid, I think shortly before, uh, he killed Gary. Um, but yes. So he stabs him to death. Is that a true story that he was making him say, say you love Satan and then the kids, I love my police report too.

Yeah, that’s true. So yeah, he stabs his kid to death. And then what’s crazy is when we were talking earlier about, you know, Brendan’s hometown, Ricky was taking kids from the town and showing him this body that he stabbed the death in the woods for two weeks, doing guided tours. Nobody in town said anything until somebody from out of town overheard it and then reported it to the cops.

So that’s, that’s what, that’s kind of what we’re talking about. When we say that that town was messed up. We’re the cops in your town, like the cops from south park or something. It’s a good question. Um, you know, they were village police departments, they were local. They weren’t even town of Huntington or county police.

They weren’t, they weren’t Suffolk county police. They weren’t state police. They weren’t town police. They were villages. Yes. So a hyperlocalized, uh, police force, very small police force as well. Everybody knows each other kind of thing. Yeah. Um, I know firsthand of, you know, corruption that went on there, uh, you know, I, uh, I’ve heard all kinds of stories about people getting beat up by one guy in particular for nothing.

And then, uh, you know, my dad had an interaction at one point with the same guy and, uh, uh, I watched watched a kid get arrested for standing on the sidewalk one time and he was right next to me. He hadn’t done a thing and we’re just standing there. Um, I think it was cause we had skateboards, but probably, um, but I, uh, it was.

It was a kind of, you didn’t, you know, the cops were felt, uh, a little bit, uh, unpredictable or whimsical, just like all of the violence was there was like, oh, the cops on mine gave you some problems. Do if you’re not, you know, if you’re not watching out. I mean, um, so, you know, if you, uh, David Bruskin did a, uh, a serious report on the whole thing in the, uh, in rolling stone, November 22nd, 1984 is the.

Yes. I found that and I’ll link to that as well. And did you now here’s the funny thing is, so Ricky was not a brilliant young man. Uh, and he was spelling, he was misspelling Satan all over town. Did you, did you actually see the actual like satin girl? Yeah. Yeah. I played, I played on the sort of jungle gym where that was all spray painted and stuff.

Yeah. Um, yeah, the interaction you mentioned that, that my family had within the spring, prior to the murder was, uh, we had, I think it was, I can’t remember exactly. I think it was Easter Sunday. I’m pretty certain that would have been why we were doing what we were doing, but we all jumped in the neighbor’s van and went to church.

And then from church to the ice cream parlor downtown, it’s called the sweet shop. Has it still has the best ice cream in the world? Guy wakes up at two o’clock in the morning and makes his own freaking ice cream. And he’s like 80 years old. She get down to the sweet shop if you can, but we got our ice cream and we’re in this van, uh, pulling, pulling down into the park, um, you know, just, uh, just, uh, just, uh, feet mere feet from the ice cream place.

And, um, that was, we called it at the time we called it the Satan park. That’s what it was called, because that was where they, all those kids dominated that space. Like you couldn’t, I wasn’t allowed in there alone, you know, that was like, yeah, get it. But we were just looking for a parking spot. So we pull in and I’m the oldest kid in the van.

So I’m on what would be the jump seat, like sitting on the floor between the two driver and the passenger and, uh, my brother and sister in the back and the rest of the kids of this other family are in the back. And, uh, suddenly Casso who I had known and seen. Cause he lived on our block in 1986. He’s in the car.

He just jumped, he jumped on the running boards and stuck his whole sort of like his torso into the car was like his feet. And he’s up above me. And he, he hissed, like he gave like a devil’s hist, like you’re kinda like a, you know, kind of thing. And, uh, he was big kid. He had these really big eyes. He’s quite a handsome boy, really.

Um, but he was a larger kid, uh, for, for that age bracket. And, uh, I remember his breath and like, he was like, he was like really in my face and just, it was a really sudden, and then he pops out and, um, The lady we were driving with goes, Jesus loves you. That’s really funny. Yeah. The thing about it is, I don’t know how he got the name, the acid king, but it reminds me, there was a YouTube comment I saw it was like on a Richard Ramirez, uh, uh, video where it had like Richard Ramirez, the night stalker and somebody comment that it was like, maybe people wouldn’t be serial killers if we stopped giving them such cool names, just start calling them the small PP killer.

What’s the Dick weed killer. Yeah. Well, Ramirez isn’t that fucking asshole claims Casso as an influence. Oh, yeah, he did fuck him too. Yeah, no shit. He, uh, and you were kind of at, like you said before, like ground zero of the satanic panic in the eighties, because the west Memphis three, which, uh, that they dealt with a lot of, uh, incompetence, um, it, it appears, uh, you know, that was kind of, uh, where you were at was like ground zero for that.

That was, yeah. North port was like the prototype for that whole shit show. Yeah. Yeah. But that’s why he is three thing that was turned out to, I think that that’s kind of worse that poor kid. Yeah. Damien Echols, man. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t nothing, you know? So like, I don’t know. That’s a Southern Gothic.

No kidding. Yeah, Damien’s got a book. Um, and John Douglas wrote about it in his book, law and disorder. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Douglas, but he was one of the original, uh, behavioral science unit guys for the FBI. And he’s actually gone around and kind of disproven a lot of crap of people who have been, you know, claimed of, of certain things.

Um, but Lon disorders, a good book about some of that, those, uh, kind of injustices, but, um, it kind of reminds me reading about like Ricky. Did, did you ever read about the band mayhem from Norway? Yeah, they have Barb VIG, uh, VAR vividness, or whatever, uh, forget his, uh, yeah. Who’s the other guy, hell hammer or whatever.

I don’t forget. They hate each other or they, the singer ate the guitarist or something. Well, a couple of things. Have you, there’s a movie about it with, uh, McCauley Cockins little brother and then Val Kim or his son. I don’t know if you know. No, I haven’t our drummer, Kevin Garcia, our drummer, uh, two drummers ago.

He’s a good friend of mine still. He, he was really into that whole black metal church. Burning friends. Yeah. Have you ever seen the book Lords of chaos? It’s kind of about that’s the book that he told me to read. Yeah, that’s it? Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s wild and yeah, like with mayhem, like the original singer, I think his name is Def like shot himself.

And then the other guy found him. And then rather than like call the cops, he like closed the body and took a picture and they use that picture. Well, like one of their live album covers or something. And then, yeah, like another, the basis, like stab the, the, that guy who took that picture of that basis ended up stabbing that guy to death.

Um, but yeah, it just listening to the story about Ricky and your hometown. I’m like, that just reminded me of some Norwegian stuff. Um, sort of has that vibe. I, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Maybe something was in the water, but yeah, that, uh, north court has one of the largest, uh, veteran’s hospital.

Okay. Um, in the area. Yes. And, uh, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some of those drugs were winding up in the hands of kids. Like, you know, Dilauded and all that kind of heavy stuff that they save for people who were suffering after a war, you know, that kind of shit. Um, that’s probably a big piece of the puzzle right there.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, what, where does 17 year olds get 15 bags? Angel dust. No shit. Yeah. Like, no shit. I wonder. Do you know why he killed himself to you by the way? No, no, no, that you’ve, that part of the story is pretty hard to parse out. Um, there is a report that the other inmates were chanting for him to hang up, hang up, which is, you know, kill yourself.

Um, but I used 17 year old kid and he was put in, you know, proper jail with adults. So, um, hard to know, it’s all sorts of. You know, something, I think that most people in Suffolk county and, uh, and in particular north port village would probably forget the whole episode. But the sad thing is, is that there’s families attached to it.

Um, many of whom are still around and, and, you know, still carrying this shit. And, um, it was just weird. It was this weird thing that one, one week Tom broke, all was talking about us and then the next week it was gone, you know? Um, so, uh, who knows, who knows that’s wild. Well, so switching gears, uh, when you were a kid, did you like to move here?

Uh, you know, I didn’t see rad for a long time until I got to college and somebody had a VHS, but I did see, I did see BMX bandits. Okay. Yeah. That was the one with Nicole Kidman. Um, that was the one that I wrote the song about, and that was like closer to my heart. Yeah. For for, for BMX movies. Yeah. Have you ever gotten a ride with anybody?

Like, so when we were in high school, my, my best friend and I, we loved Aaron Ross. We love the whole Sunday and Odyssey team a shadow conspiracy was one of my other favorites. Uh, have you ever gotten a ride with any of those guys or have they used a weakest music videos? Unfortunately, no, but I can say that, uh, in a, I think it was 2007 or was it 2006?

I can’t remember which we did the Rockford, Illinois, uh, vintage BMX gathering. That’s cool. Um, yeah. And, uh, we played a show there. We played a set at this gathering and my personal BMX hero. Harry Lee. From the original diamond back protein was okay. Yeah. Um, so I got to talk to him and he signed my guitar.

That’s cool. So that, that was like, you know, it doesn’t get any better than that. I mean, I looked at that I could never afford that bike when I was a kid, the Harry there each diamond back turbo was like the ultimate. It was like 500 bucks, which back then was like, your parents were like, get the fuck outta here.

No way, are you getting a bike for $500? Never going to happen? You know? Um, so I never got, I never got that one. I never had one, but I have one now. Yeah, no that’s yeah. Cause you had said that that was one thing you do throw it with your royalty money, which is funny because. My buddy, when, when, you know, we grew up and we had real jobs as a single dude, he started buying all of these Sunday parts and putting these, these like really cool, I don’t know how familiar with Sunday bikes, but, uh, you know, the colors and like he would do all of these unique with the fluorescent colors.

You’d get these rare parts and, uh, now he’s engaged and you know, those bikes are buried up in his attic and I’m sure he’s probably questioning if he needs to, you know, sell, sell them. Like, like, I think you said that at one point, um, you know, your bike collection is what helped get you through some when the whole economy?

Oh yeah, man. I, uh, yeah, in 2002. 2003, I purchased the proximately 40 or 50 BMX vintage BMX frame sets off E-bay where’d you keep them? I kept them in a basement on shelves, like really carefully placed on shelves. You know, that’s a good idea. And the idea was I didn’t want to collect bikes really, but I wanted to look at all the stuff that I had seen in magazines up close.

When I, when I was a kid, I saw it all in BMX action and I could never have it. So I just wanted to look at the stuff and think about, do I want to build a Skyway TA? And do I want to build a red line? You know, like what about a phase one, like CW phase one with the lightning bolt down to down to like, do I want to do I want to build this stuff and, and buy and buy.

I watched the price on eBay, just tick up and up and up. And I was like, you know what? Maybe don’t build this stuff. I didn’t expect that to start happening. You know? Cause when I started collecting, they were cheap. They were much, much cheaper. Now that stuff is worth thousands and no, you can’t find it, but, but back in 2002, it was like, it wasn’t quite, there was no stuff was only about 15 years old, you know, maybe a little bit older, not technically vintage yet, you know?

So, um, so, but around 2007, 2008 to 2009 was the year that really, I had to start selling stuff because we were very, very broke. Uh, it turned out to be a windfall for us and got us through those, those, uh, those thin years, because that stuff aged well. And when I, when I liquidated it, we got, we got more than the money I spent on it.

So, you know, it was good. It was good that way. We were also like, that was our, where we were back in this phase of like, okay, we’ll buy stuff to tour. And then as soon as we get home, we gotta sell all that stuff because we can’t, we can’t afford it. You know, we were doing a lot of eBay work back then, you know?

Yeah, yeah. That’s funny, dude, uh, selling on eBay can be a pain. My mom’s got an account, so I just have herself for me. So there you go. There you go. I can’t imagine, especially back then, um, you know, w with teenage dirt bag, when I first heard it, it wasn’t until, you know, this past year, honestly, where I had heard the actual unedited version, I knew, I knew that you were saying, you know, her boyfriend brings a gun to school.

Cause I had read that online. I had researched it, which is exactly what you kind of said. You were hoping would happen when the record label said change it, you know, you were like, no, it’d be it’s cooler. Anyway, if they have to edit it out because then people want to know and then they’re going to go research it and stuff.

And that was kind of, because Columbine was around that time. Have you ever, I know I’ve heard you talk about, you know, Columbine a little bit. Um, have you ever read the book, uh, called Columbine by Dave Collins? Have you ever heard of it? No, I have not. I have not. It’s a really good book. It dispels some of the things, uh, It dispels a lot of the stuff and it makes you wonder, you know, well, what the hell are the parents doing?

And it also makes you realize that the personality types there was such a one in a million chance of those two becoming friends in the first place. Um, you know, the, the one kid, they weren’t really bullied the one of the one kid by any stretch of the imagination, I guess, would be, uh, cool, uh, in some high school standards, you know, he had girlfriends and stuff like that, but it’s really interesting.

Um, the, that story about them asking if that girl who had believed in Jesus, um, somewhat may be a fabrication. It also, uh, has been claimed that it was actually somebody else who lived, um, you know, who, who that story was about, but, um, it’s worth, uh, you know, It it’s, it’s worth checking out if anybody’s curious about that.

And I actually think, I think that should be mandatory reading for Evan, any teacher or police officer, so they can kind of recognize some of the warning signs. Cause there’s plenty of warning signs that something wasn’t wasn’t right with those kids. So I think that that was, that was the beginning of the, what was, what would now be our sort of stark political divide, right?

Like, like, um, I felt that the coverage of that horror show was, was sort of groping at the, the what’s the political angle because of gun control because of the clipping, the Clinton era and the assault weapons ban and all that stuff. It just became overtly political very, very quick. And, you know, um, we, uh, we scored a film called April shower.

That was directed by one of the survivors of the Columbine massacre. Um, I think I knew somebody who was in that movie as a BA. Is that one about a school shooting? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Well, it is the, it is the telling, um, of, of the, um, of the massacre in Columbine. It’s, it’s, it’s his story. Um, I’m just gonna look it up for you.

It was 2009. We, we did that, um, and it was directed by a kid named Andrew Robinson. Who’s a, who’s a Columbine survivor. So, um, you know, he was there that day in school, uh, and you know, he called us up, uh, originally wanted to use teenage dirtbag for something, but there was a bit of a hassle with the licensing for it.

So I was like, look, let us give you a couple of new songs and I’ll even score one for the sequence. And, um, and we went to the premiere and all that stuff. It was a really sad movie, just kind of, uh, so just. A literal telling of the event, really I’m thinking I might’ve known somebody who was actually a background, like a, uh, like he was just like somebody in the background, in the movie actually.

Um, cause if it’s the movie I’m thinking of, I’m might have to look that up later on, but I am familiar with definitely familiar with the name of it, but yeah, that was kind of a wild time period, uh, you know, for, for that song to come out and everything. Um, now was your family, did you had an interesting story?

I believe. Did you, was your family from Ireland? Did I, is that right? Grandmother on my father’s side is from Ireland. Yeah, she, she was, uh, she was born in Ireland. Um, she died when my father was very young, but, um, yeah, we didn’t, I didn’t, uh, I, we didn’t know that side of the family. Until we were, you know, in our thirties.

Um, yeah, mostly because my dad was a, essentially an orphan. His father died in an accident at work a few years later. So he didn’t really like have strong family ties. Um, so to, to her side of the family at all, um, and we barely, barely knew, uh, his father’s side of the family, but, um, yeah, that was a, it’s an interesting sort of like mix in my family’s.

Uh, my mother’s Italian side is part, part Austrian Jew, and my father is English and Irish and it’s like just a kind of all mixed up, you know? That’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. The Italian, the Jew. I mean, those are all cool. Cool heritage, man. Uh, um, no, there’s a, there’s a book I read in high school by Frankie McCourt and, um, I believe he’s from like an Irish, I think.

And I was trying to find the book before we got on. I don’t know where the heck it sat in my library, but, um, I think he w it’s it’s like about him growing up in Ireland, I believe. And if I’m wrong, I’m going to look foolish when this comes out. But, um, it’s kind of when you were talking to me, I heard you tell a story about your grandma and, um, it just kinda kind of reminded me about that book, so well, did you have any, uh, you know, I know you’re a big star Trek fan.

You’re a big pro wrestling fan too, right? Oh, well, so that’s a funny story. I, Matthew, our bass player is a much bigger pro-wrestling fan than I am. I’m not going to not going to lie about that. I was really into the ultimate warrior when I was a kid, the great Kamala, uh, you know, obviously, um, uh, you know, Jimmy Superfly snooker and like all of those old school guys.

Um, but it was, you know, it was a little phase, I guess, not quite, I didn’t really follow it all the way up into, um, like modern, rusty. Yeah, that was drawn back into the wrestling world as an adult. When I learned about, uh, our friend spider, Nate Webb, who has been coming out into the ring to teenage dirtbag for 20, 21 years now.

So. Yeah. And that’s what that song’s about. I didn’t know. The spider web song. Yeah. Okay. That’s the theme song to his cooking show. He asked me, he asked me to do them a theme song and he’s from Indiana. So I put on sort of like an Axl rose vibe and I went for it, but yeah, that makes sense to, okay. Yeah, that’s cool.

I wore them. I wore a stink shirt today because I had a I’m like he loves professional wrestling, I think. So I had to bust out a wrestling shirt, but I like it. Did you know that staying and ultimate warrior were like roommates in college, did not know that no, it wasn’t college. It was like when they were starting out, it is what I meant to say.

There’s a, there’s a great documentary. Uh, so, so when I was a kid, I went through this huge wrestling phase and my parents were, uh, their first date was actually at a wrestling match. And so my dad works for co worked for Cox cable, and I think he got the tickets for free. And, um, my dad had two kids from a previous marriage and then my mom had two kids from a previous marriage.

And one of my, my brothers had said that he remembered being really afraid of my mom going to the match because he was afraid that, uh, Rick rude would get, would grab her out of the audience dancing. But you grew up in like a Brady bunch situation. I guess the, the age gap, the closest in age is 12 years.

Wow. That’s that’s, that’s interesting. So you have malt, you have multi-generational perspective in your sibling group. That’s pretty, that’s pretty, yeah. Yeah. Like when I was a kid, um, when I was a kid, you know, my, I would listen to my brothers, tell these crazy stories about fights as kids. And when I was a kid, like nobody got, we didn’t fight.

You know, uh, maybe with your best friend, you might, you know, you might have a back and forth one day playing football or something, but that’s, you know, but like not no crazy street fights. And like, man, my, my brothers are telling me like my, the closest in age is telling a story once. Neighbor was beating him up and he remembers getting thrown around by this kid.

And he’s like, I’ll never forget looking up and seeing our oldest brother riding shirtless with a bandana on this is all like in the eighties, uh, on a BMX bike ghost, ride the BMX bike and grab the neighbor and start beating him up. And I’m like, dude, I didn’t have any of those stories. I went to martial arts.

I was a martial arts as a kid, the guy, I got like a junior black belt in seventh grade. And, and so I appreciate my parents putting me in that because I didn’t have, you know, the brothers to, you know, to toughen you up. But I always wanted to relate to my brother is so bad with that with just their cool stories as kids.

And, and, um, you know, like I said, by the time I was a kid, things were different. You know, kids weren’t really beating each other up like, well, I think that’s a good thing. I mean, you know, I, it is a really narrow set of experiences that I can. Beneficially call on from that period. And it isn’t good for your socialization.

It’s not good for being a functional adult. It’s not good for really anything, you know, and yeah, there are certain situations where I’ll be a better person to be next to, but, but that’s like, that’s like a worst case scenario that almost never happens thankfully. And I just feel like, um, you know, the, the shit that we went on back then has sort of gone away and that’s the best that could have happened, you know, like we’re moving away from.

You know, we were talking to on tour, we were at a restaurant and we were having a conversation about like, what exactly is an abusive boss? You know? Is it somebody who sort of, is willing to embarrass you in front of the rest of your work coworkers? Um, is that a pro, is that problematic? Or, you know, obviously I was like, you know, guys, when I worked at the fish market, when I was 14 years old, if I fucked up, they would threaten to drown me in the lobster tank and they weren’t kidding.

You know, it’s like, it’s like, it’s a different culture now. Totally different set of rules. And I, I, and Matthew, our bass player made the point. He’s like, yeah, but we’re moving away from that. And that’s a good thing. And I was like, you know, I totally agree with you. Um, yeah, but there is something about, you know, like get getting knocked around a little bit to get you a little harder to shake up, I guess.

Like I don’t, I don’t my nerves don’t go into overtime. At the drop of a hat, it has to be something crazy to get my, get my blood pressure going, you know? So, no, it’s just a different, it’s a different experience, life experience. I think for the better, I would say I was on a jog last night kind of thinking about like, there wasn’t a crazy, I saw enough fights in high school to be desensitized to it now.

Yeah. People fought in high school, but like, it was a big deal. If you got into a fight, I mean, like they would file a police reports. It wasn’t like the, you know, sit in the principal’s office and then go home or even just get suspended. Like it was, there was a serious repercussions to getting into a fight at school.

And so you saw a couple of year, um, but not, I don’t know. I was just randomly thinking about that. Uh, thinking about that last night and my first job, uh, well, my, my real first job was I started off as a lifeguard and then after that I was in a restaurant and I was 15 and I worked with like all felons, crazy tough dudes.

And, um, I was lucky. They all had these insane life stories, but they would always tell me, you know, don’t be like me, you know, here’s where I went wrong and don’t be like me. And so, um, you know, your story of like the lobster Harbor, uh, I can kind of relate to have you, do you, by chance, remember the movie boys don’t cry?

Uh, I remember the film being out, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Is that about the Laramie, uh, Wyoming murder? Is that what that is about? So it’s from it’s in Nebraska. There was a, a girl named Brendan Tina, um, and, uh, she, she was, um, uh, transgender and she was, uh, I don’t, I don’t know if that was, if that’s the, uh, you know, his actual name, but, um, he was in Southern Nebraska basically.

And, um, in an area where that was. You know, uh, really heard of in that, in that part of the state. And so these two guys had found out and, and, um, you know, Brendan was raped and then they, they had, uh, killed him and, and, uh, some people at this house that they were at, um, like in cold blood and, uh, there’s a movie about it with Hilary Swank.

And anyway, um, I worked with the guy that shared a cell with one of those, with one of the guys that had, uh, murdered Brendan, um, you know, and so, uh, I, I work with some, with some, you know, real pirates who had been in the hard prisons of, of Nebraska and then to work alongside of them and hear their life stories and hear them talk about prison and then talk about, you know, where they messed up and how to not end up like them was actually a very powerful thing.

Um, but when I read about the Brennan Tina story, man, it makes my stomach hurt. And I actually called up one of my coworkers cause I was like, Yeah, this is just, this whole thing is so messed up and asking him questions about what it was like sharing a cell with him. And, and, um, I don’t know, there there’s he told me some details that, um, I don’t, I don’t know if they’re true or not, so I won’t, I won’t say them about what this guy is really like in real life, but, um, but yeah, man, uh, I, I, I work with some, uh, some hard ass dudes too, and I was aye.

Aye, aye, aye. Aye, aye. Find, find it very hard to have compassion for people who go that distance to hurt somebody else. Of course. Well, what what’s, what’s there in you to save, you know? Yeah. Why don’t you just rot in jail instead? You know, I don’t want to think. Why should any of us have to think about you again, if you can call it vindictive, it certainly isn’t the Christian attitude, you know?

Yeah. Like for forgiveness, turn the other cheek compassion. Second chances on stuff. I know lots of people who deserve second chances, but I don’t think anybody who murders anybody in cold blood because of something like that. Yeah, no, this guy, that guy, the guy, the two guys who did it are in jail. And I think they’re on death row.

I mean, they’re not, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Fuck. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. That was a, that was an awful thing of, uh, in Southern, Southern part of the state, like 30, 40 years ago. But yeah, man, no. Um, what, uh, I’ve heard you say too, so throwing a lobster cages as a kid, did that, did that truly mess your back?

And I’m sitting here, you see me leaning on the console? I, uh, I had, uh, I tweaked my back this morning. Uh, it, you know, on tour, you’re lifting a lot of heavy cases all the time. If you, if you, if you do your exercises every day, sit ups or whatever, which I do, um, it can, you can avoid injuries, but a couple of days in a row, oh, I was stupid and didn’t do my morning exercises.

Didn’t stretch out and still did the heavy lifting. And yeah, it’s funny. None of that did it, but we were in Memphis and playing this great show where we were direct support to Everclear in this little rock club. It was awesome. It was kind of like a CBGBs vibe. And, uh, the stage was a little bit lower than the S uh, the sub war for bins in front of it.

And I went to step out on the subway for Ben, like a fucking rock star, you know, weak to my back. Cause it was just about two inches higher than the state. And just that little like, oops, like, yes, it was like, I’ll always have, I’ll always have like little issues with my, with the center of my back and my lower back because.

You know, like trying to show off lift and lobster crates with these dudes when I was younger. But, um, yeah, you just trying to keep up with the era when you were alive and that happened, what did you do? Were you able to play it off or what’d you do? Well, you know, I immediately starts stretching the other side.

Like it just pretending like on the stage, like, Hey, how’s everybody doing tonight? You know? So like, you know, I’m, I, I’m very Frank about being 47 years old and sort of like, things are starting to break down, not my voice yet gratefully, but, but, uh, you know, parts of my back and my hips, because I, when I I’ve been standing on stage for about 25 years now, operating foot pedals at the same time, you know?

So it’s like always been this sort of like little ballet and it’s, you’re, you’re wearing a guitar and your body’s a little bit like not your posture is not, not great, you know? Um, so that, that, that happens after a while you start to get a little tweaked. But I just, I it’s the only answer you don’t even go to a chiropractor, you can have surgery, but the only answer is the strength in the areas around it’s typically flexibility and strength, uh, training, uh, in some way.

So yoga, swimming, lots of stretching in the morning, first thing in the morning, just start stretching, you know? Um, and that, that all helps quite a bit. I also re BMX BMX uphill BMX, uh, around my neighborhood. I have a lot of Hills here in the Bronx and, um, it, it helps. It certainly helps. What, uh, what BMX bike do you have right now?

So I, uh, I ride, uh, I have a few different cruisers that I, that I rotate. I have, uh, an se racing, uh, Stu Thompson replica 24, which is the most recent, you can actually grab one of those on eBay right now. They’re kind of secondhand after the first wave of being out. But, um, it’s the original, uh, quad angle frame where the down tubes wrap around the bottom bracket, which is super cool.

Um, and then I have two other frames that are a lot like that, that were made by Supercross. You know, the BMX racing company Supercross. They make sort of modern Olympic style racing bikes, you know? Okay. I’d have to look them up. I don’t, I don’t remember. We always did like street stuff. I didn’t do a whole lot of mountain or, or racing stuff.

So some of those companies, I’m not as familiar with. Yeah. Basically single speed BMX racing company, real sleek, really well-made stuff. But they, they did a few tribute bikes back in like 2004, 2005. I people were asking for what never existed, which was a 24 inch quad angle cruiser. And they made it with a really low bottom bracket.

So like extremely sloped. Geometry is very low, uh, center of gravity. And those are my favorite. They’re really fast. They turn really tight. Um, yeah, that’s, that’s the one I ride mostly it’s called a skunk quad angle or a skunkworks quad angle by Supercross. They’re hard to find. There’s only, I think there’s only like 50 of them made, but oh, nice.

Cool. Congratulations on grabbing that. When you were telling your stage story reminded me. Um, a couple of years ago I was on stage and, um, w it was an outside festival thing, and I was wearing these a bright, light, fluorescent, yellow swim trunks that had, um, like bomb pops on them. And I was screaming and I’m, I’ve got a pretty hairy chest and I don’t, I don’t shave it enough.

I don’t have tattoos. I just got a hair. So I was, I was on stage singing and I went to do like the, I did like the Exorcist backwards, you know, handstand kind of like what bright Wyatt doesn’t WWE. So I was singing like that. And then when I got out of it, um, my back, like I was in so much pain, if nobody was around, I might’ve let some tears come out.

I mean, oh no, man, nothing was wrong. So then in my head, I’m thinking. If I slow. Cause I w I jumped around, I move a lot on stage and I’m thinking if I slowed down, now everyone’s going to know that I mess my backup and I’m gonna look stupid. So I was like, the only answer is to just jump higher. And so I was jumping and I just remember being in mid-air like, God, this is going to hurt so bad when I land.

And I just, I kept it up and I don’t know the adrenaline or something carried me through the show and I ended up being fine, but it hurts so bad that I w I literally thought about being like, stop just, oh, man, that sucks. Sorry to hear that dude. That’s, that’s rough. That, that is amazing. It’s amazing what the adrenaline can do to the pain, right?

It’s like, they’re at loggerheads. Like, like you, you must continue. You gotta stop. You must get to, I’ve been in that situation a few times where I’ve been pretty. I’m like, well, how am I doing this? You know? Yeah. I’ve never, ever, um, stopped, like stopped a song like I’ll hear bands will, they’ll start to play a song on the stop and like restart it.

And I’ve never done that. And so even if we’re all off and it’s just shitty, you know, I do this kind of, a lot of times I just kind of smile and like wink to the audience. Like I know this sucks.

I’m into stopping a song. If something’s gone wrong. We did that. And so we, at one time we, uh, on this past run, we were in 40. And I totally fucked up the first chorus of this rush cover a song called time stands still that we did. And I just knew, I was like, oh shit, I’m in the wrong place. And you know, there’s no rush.

If you fuck up a rush song to ain’t no recovery it’s over. So I stopped mid song and I was like, hold on, hold on. I’m fucked up the chorus. Let’s go from that chorus. 1, 2, 3. We just went back in, you know, and, um, my band are, are, you know, tidy enough to pull something like that off. And that’s why I’m lucky.

But, but the fact of matter is I saw Metallica when I was 14 on the justice for all tour. And they started and stopped like three songs and it was so cool because they’d be like it bust into a track and be like, no, fuck that. I don’t want to play that shit. Fuck that. And then walk away from the mic and he’d come back and start a new one.

And it was just like this like chaos. Yeah. It was like so cool. It was a much cool. I’d never seen a, uh, proper. You know, arena band, do some shit like that, where it was like, sort of flying by the seat of their pants. You know, it was awesome. There’s like two ways to do it. Well. So there’s like, if you, I I’ve heard that too.

Like Metallica, even in the earliest days would be like, no stop. We’re redoing it because they were playing it for them. And when you’re restarting for yourself, that’s pretty bad ass. I’ve seen it done out of insecurity and it’s like, it’s like just, you gotta power through. And the last time I saw Motley crew alive, So are my favorite bands.

Um, I actually, I think anytime every time I’ve seen them there, might’ve been like hiccups here or there. And it was cool because you would see them all look at each other and then they get back on, on, on the right track. And I remember last time my brother, my brother looked at me and was like, they fucked up.

It’s awesome. You know, just to, to just like, yeah, this, this truly is live. I mean, even the best, even the best, the best even rush I’ve seen rush fuck up. I saw ACDC fuck up one time, you know, like just little, just tiny little moves, but you’re talking about like human beings, you know, track at the top of their game, executing something really wonderful.

And I, I’m kinda there for the fuck up. It’s fine. Yeah, I th I think so too. It, I always like to know what my heroes downfalls are to see him make a mistake. Cause it’s like when I was a kid, like I love Walter Payton, you know, he’s like my favorite football player. And, um, there was a book that came out called sweetness where they talked about like some of his downfalls and some people didn’t like it.

But as a kid, man, like I looked up to guys like that and I just thought they never made mistakes. They were good instantly and stuff like that. It wasn’t until I was an adult. And I started to read books where I started to realize like, no, that’s not the case. They just had something that they cared enough to power through.

I like to see, uh, I like to see the mistakes. Um, it sucks to have an off night. I mean, obviously if the whole night’s off, um, you know, that’s not cool or if the energy’s not there, but so do you want to, you want to talk a little bit about your tour right now? You’ve got, you’re going out with friends for clear, you’ve got, um, a few great bands that are going to be here.

Uh, it starts in September. Yeah. It’s the second, second leg. We did the first leg in July, uh, of summer land tour, summer land. If you don’t know, is art art Alexakis from Everclear is his sort of like, uh, his invention, you know, um, really eclectic, very interesting, super fun, high value. If I might also say, uh, cause you for the ticket price, you get to see.

You know, ever clear, you know, art being, I think one of the best American songwriters and living color who are basically the, the greatest American rock and roll band currently, you know what I mean? It’s like, they’re like the, the, the sort of led Zepplin of America for my money. And, um, and you’re, you were in a situation where, who was tank is on there and you forget like how many songs from Hubba stank, you actually know, like I was assistant first couple of nights watching the whole set.

Oh yeah. This track, holy shit. They did this. Oh, that’s right. And like, and like, it’s, it’s just like, you got to, you got a deep, a deep bench there of songs and performers and songwriters. And, you know, um, everybody is kind of like super like sober, you know, focused on, on their, on their craft. And, and for us, it was this learning experience of just coming into this, like, just masterclass and like how to pull this off, how to do this for the longterm.

You know, uh, living color has been on the roads and making records for what, 40 years now, or some crazy shit. Um, you know, uh, uh, Everclear has been out for 30 years, um, who was thanks. Banaba about as long as we have, so it’s just like a they’ve they had American success, which alluded us initially. Um, so just watching, getting it, just, just getting a view, uh, of all of that has been really incredible.

And, um, and the vibe is clicking really hard. Everybody’s sort of getting along and it’s like this weird little family, you know, these four bands who come from different places, but are all there to do the same thing. And that is to pull off this, the show for people after this bullshit that everyone’s been through, you know, like really try and bring a show, a proper show.

So, um, yeah. And it’s, uh, um, so it’s us. Who was stank living color and Everclear, and, uh, we’re starting the second leg of the tour, September 7th, um, in, I think it’s Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Um, and then we’re doing sort of like a loop of the upper Midwest and the, and the Midwest, um, all the way as far over to Idaho, I think we’re going.

And then, uh, uh, I think there might be a Denver date on there. Um, I, you can go to summer land, tour.net and get all the, all the info. Um, yeah. And it’s so cool. It has the tour dates posted too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s really, I also say that it’s like this super cool honor, like to be given this chance, because like I said, in the states, we haven’t really done a lot of work.

We, we, we actually moved to England early on and lived in the United Kingdom because that was where everything was happening for us. And, um, sort of lost sight of the American markets for a while. And I don’t know what’s going on with teenage dirtbag, but somehow it’s sort of like bubbling back up into the culture somewhere.

Yeah. And arts calling us up to find out what we’re doing. It’s like, well, man, I’m a really big fan. That’s he’s got some, he’s got not just a cool singing voice. He’s got a cool voice. This is talking voices. I think it’s cool. Um, before I forget this, uh, are you familiar with the rest of their cm punk? Yes.

Yeah. Did you ever notice? Not personally, but yeah. Did you ever notice, like he would come out to, uh, to the living color song? Uh, the cult of personality, Dan didn’t. They just recently license it for, uh, the WWE or maybe, but when he started doing that, I remember being like, whoa, this is like the coolest entrance song.

Like I never, it never clicked in my mind, but I’m like, it’s like a. No, it was like a bad-ass super cool. Like the Greg it’s great for wrestling. Cause like, you know, you hear that and it stops, you know, for a second that the guitar pauses and it’s like, you know, the pop of the crowd of like he’s coming. So yeah, I thought that that was pretty brilliant on whether it’s him or whoever who picked that.

But, but yeah. Uh, could you tell the story real fast too on, um, I think it’s brilliant while you’re doing this, but so, so then maybe the listeners who don’t know the background, why you are recording rerecording, teenage dirtbag and your first album. I think what you’re doing is kind of brilliant. If you could kind of explain how some of that licensing works with, uh, over the years, it was always kind of suspicious to us that anytime we had a license proposal for television or for a video game or for a movie, if they needed separate parts of the song, like the vocal and the instrumental or just the guitar part or just the beat, if that was required, the deal always felt.

It never, it never saw the light of day. And I was kinda suspicious about that because I had given, you know, uh, five sets of those master tapes to, to our record label back in the day. And I was suspicious about where, well, maybe they don’t exist anymore. Maybe they’ve been misplaced or they got destroyed or something like that.

So, um, I inquired over the years and never got a response. So in 2014, I brought, uh, the, the sort of penultimate set of masters to the, um, uh, to a transfer facility called dream hire here in New York city. And I was able to, uh, salvage, um, most of the rhythm tracks of the original first album, uh, bass guitar drums were mostly intact.

Almost all of the vocals were missing. Um, except oddly the girl part from teenage dirtbag, the original girl part. Um, but, uh, um, and a whole bunch of other stuff was just, it just wasn’t there. It was like, uh, Digitally corrupted in during the transfer. So, but we did get all of the tempos and all of the original sort of drum and bass rhythmic information.

And, uh, we replaced everything one at a time. We just like did a new version of it on every instance and eventually wound up with a new set of masters that are faithful to the original, um, you know, on the original template, if you will. And, um, uh, it’s good because now we finally are, are in a rock band, you know, we’re finally, uh, on the, on the DLC for that.

And, um, the, uh, the other stuff to be able to give people instrumentals, a couple of licenses have come in already for that, you know, stuff we could never do in the past. And the other thing is, is that, uh, you, you work so hard at creating this thing, uh, and then suddenly. It doesn’t exist anymore and it has, but it has this value.

It has this inherent value culturally. Uh, and we just felt like, nah, let’s, let’s fix that. Let’s fill that hole and, and, and fill that gap and, and finish this record properly. And it’s kind of a pain in the butt, cause it’s like, there’s no creative energy to it. You’re rehashing something. You’re recreating something that you already know how it goes.

So it’s much more of a forensic exercise than anything else. So you don’t have that when you make a new record, you have that sort of like bubbling, creative, you know, discovery process. And that was none of that was happening here. So it was tedious, but we finished it and I’m halfway through mixing. We have, uh, eight of the songs that we’ve recorded or already on Spotify, teenage dirt bag, uh, mope.

I’d never write a song about you complement, dump them temporary song. Um, SBSM uh, what else? Um, I think there’s another, oh, uh, through a song that, uh, Joe Slater, our backing vocalists wrote. And, um, uh, what is, what is the other one they’re on there somewhere? Let me check this. Yeah, they’re all on the apple music as well.

It’s right. But there’s eight of them. Eight of them from the album, eight out of 20 are already up. Uh, and by Christmas we’re looking to have the other 12 up there repackage the whole thing. So it’s the original 10 songs from album one clueless about maybe I think we have 11 songs in the vault that are finished, that we, uh, just from over the years, they sounded so much like they belonged on album one that we didn’t record them, you know?

So, um, so that extra batch is coming. So it’s going to be a 20 song album, uh, for, for, I think after the pandemic now and all this touring that we’re doing, realistically, it’s going to be probably Christmas 20, 21, that we’re going to finish the whole pack. Okay. I have a, um, a special vinyl edition and the whole nine yards.

So yeah, a year late, but we’re, we’re kind of getting there. Yeah. Nice. Very nice. And Brendan, thank you for, for coming on book. Brilliant. Um, I’m going to, I’m going to have, uh, I’m going to end this recording in a second, but uh, if you could stay on the line for a minute. Um, but yeah, everybody check out the, check out the new recordings.

It’s it’s a brilliant idea what they’re doing. Um, summer land tour. It’s going to be great. Um, I’m hoping to meet all you guys in Omaha when you come through September 25th. So, all right, man. Well, thank you everyone for listening.