(*both laugh*) The Dying Scene Interviews

For those wondering how a band like Slowly Slowly made their way to Dyingscene.com I would like to tell you to sit down and stfu. Let me introduce you to Australia's best-hidden gem and in my opinion worst kept secret. They let us know about their snakes and crazy spiders. But dropped the ball on this band, what a shame. So how do I know about them? Well, for those wondering. I was actually born in Brisbane, QLD. But my family moved to Denmark when I was a child and the rest is history. But between the albums St. Leonards and Race Car Blues, I stumbled upon them during a midnight catch-up with my aunt in Australia and fell head over heels with their sound. But in November of '22, Slowly Slowly released their fourth album Daisy Chain. So, once again, as it's become a daily thing, I decided to annoy to living shit out of Jay and he allowed me to interview the band. So here's Ben and I talking a bunch of things! I'd like to thank Ben for being an amazing friend and vibing with me at 1 am.

Episode 59 of (*both laugh*) brings us another full band episode! This time, we're joined by Drea Doll, Gaby Kaos and Cassie Jalilie, collectively known as the kick-ass Arizona punk rock trio The Venomous Pinks! 2022 marks their tenth year as a band, and it also marks the release of their very first full-length LP. Named "Vita Mors," it's due out on June 3rd via SBAM Records, a label you may remember from their owner's appearance on 36 of this very show a year ago! We talk quite a bit about the new album and all that went in to its recording, a process which was handled by Cameron Webb and Linh Le, each of whom is a powerhouse in their own right. We also talked about the scenes in Mexico and Arizona and the Bay Area, and how the current lineup of the band inspired the push to make "Vita Mors" a reality. The band are also set to come to the East Coast for the first time in June, where they'll be opening up for the iconic Dead Kennedys and Nekromantix! Check out the Venomous Pinks' page here: https://thevenomouspinks.com/ Here's the video for "Apothecary Ailment": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au8nqTRkFwQ&ab_channel=SB%C3%84MRECORDSOfficial Visit SBAM Records here: https://sbam-rocks.us/ Dates for the tour with Dead Kennedys are here: http://www.deadkennedys.com/tours.html Visit Gaby's merch store here: https://www.kaosmerch.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

(*both laugh*) is somehow up to 58 episodes, but we're still having fun and some of y'all seem to still enjoy it, so we'll keep rolling! This episode finds us catching up with the great Brian McTernan again. McTernan was the guest on Episode 15 a couple of years ago, in the lead-up to the debut Be Well album, "The Weight And The Cost." Next Friday (May 20th if you're reading this in the future), Be Well is back with a brand new album! It's a six-song EP called "Hello Sun," and it finds the band expanding the sonic palette that I thought they had perfected on "TW&TC." It's really great and personal and haunting and melodic and everything you want form a post-hardcore record (or whatever, I don't get labels) and more. We talk an awful lot about the new album and the musical directions. In a bit of unexpected synchronicity, May is also Mental Health Awareness Month, and Brian is no stranger to talking about his struggles with depression and alcohol use and more, as is pretty obvious if you listened to the last album. We talk about that, but about how the new album, while "dark," isn't dark for dark's sake; it's written from the perspective of someone who has moved through the darkness and worked towards a newfound light. Thus, "Hello Sun." We also talked a lot about the newest Hot Water Music Record, "Feel The Void." After having worked on "A Flight And A Crash" and "Caution" and "The New What Next" roughly two decades ago, McTernan found himself both reconnected with the now five-piece band during the early days of the Covid lockdown and at the helm of "Feel The Void." It was a fascinating time in that band's history and produced an important album, and McTernan's work (and point of view) are invaluable. And we talk a lot about their upcoming tour dates, and there are a TON of them on both sides of the Atlantic, including a lengthy run with New Found Glory and a UK/EU jaunt with Hot Water Music and Samiam. "Hello Sun" on Bandcamp: https://bewellhardcore.bandcamp.com/album/hello-sun "Hello Sun" US/Canada vinyl on Revelation Records: https://revhq.com/products/be-well-hello-sun "Hello Sun" UK/EU vinyl on End Hits: https://endhitsrecords.com/products/be-well-hello-sun Be Well merch store: https://bewell.merchnow.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021  

At long last (longer than it should have been because...well because time is a social construct really) Dave Hause returns for his second appearance on (*both laugh*)! When last we spoke (Episode 25 if you're keeping score at home), Dave had just self-released a double EP of Patty Griffin and Paddy Costello/Dillinger Four covers. We were still in Pandemic Year One and that project served as a fun and unique way to stay productive and creative and to dip his toes into navigating through the "new normal" waters. Fast-forward eighteen months (yes, really...18 months, almost to the day...remember when I said time was a social construct) and it was time for round two! The centerpiece of this installment was Dave's latest solo album, "Blood Harmony." It was released last October on his own record label, but because the vinyl is still trickling its way out, I don't feel QUITE so bad about catching up at the six month post-release mark. "Blood Harmony" found Dave and his brother Tim working together again, this time in Nashville. The duo and producer Will Hoge (himself not only a brilliant songwriter and masterful producer but a veteran of this show as well - see Episode 12) holed up at Sound Emporium with a slew of heavy-hitting studio musicians (Sadler Vaden, Tom Bukovac, Garry Tallent!!?!?!). "Blood Harmony" finds Hause running headlong down the Americana path that he'd been at least tip-toeing down for the last decade. We talked about the album, and the recording, and Will Hoge's greatness, and the idea of "chasing the song." We also talked about his ongoing partnership with Tim (including work on Tim's own upcoming debut solo album) and about therapy and about touring in a never-ending pandemic and a lot more, as we are want to do. Check out "Blood Harmony" here: https://davehause.bandcamp.com/album/blood-harmony While you're at it, check out the rest of Dave's bandcamp releases - lots of live shows and some newer B-sides and more: https://davehause.bandcamp.com/ Get more Dave goodies and tour dates and whatnot here: http://davehause.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Every now and then you come across an album that becomes a benchmark moment for you; like, life existed before that album and then the world shifted and things weren't the same after that.  My own personal list includes the likes of: Vs. Recipe For Hate. Question The Answers. Badmotorfinger. The '59 Sound. The Low End Theory. Stay Positive. 36 Chambers. Caution. 1372 Overton Park. And now, realistically, The Great American Novel. If you're unfamiliar, Proper. are a three-piece formed in NYC roughly 5/6 years ago (as The Great Wight initially) but hailing really from a variety of locations across the country and bringing with them all of their collective experiences and musical influences and creating something that hasn't really been done before. I remember hearing their last album, I Spent The Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better admittedly a little late and thinking "damn...I've never really heard anything like this before." The new album, The Great American Novel, takes all of the things that were great about the last one and pushes the needles way past 10. It's important music. It's music about alienation and about not fitting in and about being a queer person of color in a land that, despite it being 2022, is at times becoming even less comfortable with people that check those boxes. It's raw and it's powerful and it's somehow still hopeful. Oh, and if fucking shreds. I feel lucky that we were able to catch up not just with Erik Garlington who spearheads the whole thing but with the full band (Natasha Johnson on bass and Elijah Watson on drums and whom you may also know from his "day job" as a journalist for Okay Player). Watch/listen as I outkick my coverage yet again. Watch the video for "Red, White and Blue" here: https://youtu.be/m4rYi2Naobs Watch the video for "Milk And Honey" here: https://youtu.be/P5ux_2eMuFk Check out Elijah's writing for OkayPlayer here: https://www.okayplayer.com/ Pre-order "The Great American Novel" here: https://www.fatherdaughterrecords.com/products/717976-proper-the-great-american-novel Listen to "I Spent The Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better" here: https://bsmrocks.bandcamp.com/album/i-spent-the-winter-writing-songs-about-getting-better (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

I don't think it's overstating things to call Hot Water Music not only one of the most influential and respected bands in the last three decades of this scene, but one of the most genre-defining bands as well. For the second time in this show's history, we got to chat up one of the founding members! This time, the victim was Jason Black, who in my mind is one of the most under-rated bass players in rock music. We talk about whether being an underrated bass player in a genre-defining band is all it's cracked up to be, but more importantly, we chat a lot about the brand new HWM album, "Feel The Void." It's out March 18th on Equal Vision Records, and not only does it mark the first time the band reunited with producer Brian McTernan, it also marks the band's first full-length with Chris Cresswell in the mix as a permanent member...even taking lead vocal duties on a song! We also talk a lot about how the band came together to write the album - no easy task given that they collaborated from their home bases in Florida (Wollard, Black and Rebelo), California (Ragan), Maryland (McTernan) and now Ontario (Cresswell). Hurray for Zoom! You can still pre-order "Feel The Void" here: https://www.hotwatermusic.shop/ Check out the video for "Collect Your Things And Run" here: https://youtu.be/q1d4bvpj-pI Check out Hot Water Music's upcoming tour dates here: http://www.hotwatermusic.com/tour-dates (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

It's March 1st, so that means it's officially the kickoff to Women's History Month. As such, we've teamed up with our friends at Mable Syndrome for a pretty fun feature. If you check out our Instagram pages (@mable.syndrome and @dyingscene obviously), we'll be posting every single day of March a picture of a women band/ artist/ musician and featuring the woman who took the picture. We have many amazing and talented women in the punk rock scene and we are excited to give them an entire month to shine! For Episode 54 of (*both laugh*), we caught up with Mable Syndrome co-founder Kristen to talk about building their site - and their community - from the ground up over the last half-decade. Yours truly has guested on the Mable Syndrom podcast twice, so returning the favor was probably long overdue! Thanks Kristen! Check out Mable Syndrome here: https://www.mablesyndrome.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Well, I guess this is growing up. On Marmite and Boudica and Red Dwarf and The Van Pelt and the best punk rock album of the year. Earlier this month, Frank Turner released his ninth studio album. Entitled FTHC, it is by far his most "punk rock" album to date (I suppose one could argue that his previous album, 2019's No Man's Land, which was primarily a historical folk album with each song telling a different tale about a woman from history, ranging from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Christa McAuliffe, was his most "punk rock" album to date for entirely different reasons, but that's more of a semantic argument than we need right now). FTHC is his most personal album to date - no easy feat for someone who's made a career of wearing his tape deck heart on his sleeve. It may indeed be his best album to date. It is, most certainly and perhaps not surprisingly given the above factors, his first album to debut at #1 on the charts in his native UK. We caught up with Turner the day after learning that FTHC was, in fact, named the number one selling album in the land. We talked about the importance of that distinction, particularly as it came fifteen years and nine albums into his solo career. We talked about the influences behind the album and about how getting married and turning 40 and still being alive has provided a different sort of perspective that wasn't afforded to his younger self. We talked about the making of the album (the image of Ilan Rubin recording drums in a Los Angeles studio over Zoom while Frank watched from London and producer Rich Costey watched from Vermont is still one I find endlessly amusing). We talked about the stories behind some of the album's more personal tracks, although I did leave out the songs about his struggles with anxiety and cocaine addiction and how his relationship with his father changed after the latter came out as a trans woman several years ago; those have been covered at length in other outlets. And perhaps most importantly, we talked about the legion of Turner fans, aptly known as the Frank Turner Army, that has been steadily building for the better part of the last decade and who, frankly, rightly share in a lot of the success behind FTHC. They even pitched in for a few questions that certainly ran a stylistic gamut. If you haven't bought FTHC yet, get it at your local indie record store or here: https://store.frank-turner.com/ If you want to go back in time and read our chat with Frank from the steps of Boston's City Hall before his 2014 appearance at Boston Calling, go here: https://dyingscene.com/ds-interview-and-photo-gallery-frank-turner-in-boston-on-his-1567-show-rise-to-fame/ If you want to watch my then-four-year-old daughter sing "English Curse," go here. She said it was okay, I promise. https://youtu.be/VgBHrbP0kRU Listen to The Van Pelt here: https://thevanpelt.bandcamp.com/album/sultans-of-sentiment To read more about Boudica, go here: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Boudica/ If you want to buy Marmite, go here: https://www.marmite.co.uk/ Watch Red Dwarf here: https://www.reddwarf.co.uk/tv/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

If you've read any of the press that came out surrounding LA hardcore band Sweat's debut LP, "Gotta Give It Up," you've probably noticed that the common theme throughout is that Sweat aren't a typical hardcore band. They've got a sound and a style and a swagger that are unique; hardcore, for sure, but with riffs and rhythms that range from thrashy to chunky to 70s rock (think Think Lizzy). At the center of the activity is the firebrand that is Tuna Tardugno. It's abrasive and confrontational and a whole lot of fun.  We caught up for a super fun conversation with Tuna about the band's history (they've only got nine gigs under their collective championship belts, a byproduct of the band's formation less than a year prior to the world shutting down) and recording with Grammy-nominated producer Jack Shirley and their upcoming plans (tour? new album?). We also talked a lot about Tuna's introduction to the world of punk and hardcore in upstate New York and the parallels between the DIY punk and wrestling communities, both of which are near and dear to Tuna's heart. Oh, did we mention Tuna's a wrestler as well? Admittedly, my knowledge of modern wrestling is actually more limited than my knowledge of hardcore, which is pretty effing limited in its own right. Still, I am from the same hometown as Paul "Triple H" Levesque, so maybe I can hold my own a little. Anyway, this was a super fun conversation. Hope you dig it.   Order "Gotta Give It Up" here: https://shop.piratespressrecords.com/products/sweat-gotta-give-it-up-lp Order Sweat's debut EP here: https://vitriolrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweat-s-t Sweat videos: "Joke's On Me" - https://youtu.be/hBoWvRItbAw "Hit And Run" - https://youtu.be/uoX_OrpDAVU Oh, and here's the video Tuna and I were talking about with Mackie on drums. turns out the song was Charles and Eddie's "Would I Lie To You," which somehow is from 1992, not 1964. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANL1tk0Qy9Q    

This is an episode that I've been looking forward to since before (*both laugh*) was even an idea for a show. I was introduced to Sarah Shook's music when their debut album, Sidelong, was rereleased by Bloodshot Records back in 2017 (it had initially been self-released by their band, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, several years prior but I was waaaay out of the loop at that point). I found Sidelong to be an interesting listen; it felt like it ran a real throwback country-and-western vibe through a little bit of a modern roadhouse filter. It certainly wasn't like much else I listened to at the time, and Sidelong and its follow-up, 2018's Years, even stood out amongst the large quantity of Bloodshot artists I'd been listening to for a long time (Cory Branan, Scott H. Biram, Murder By Death, Lydia Loveless, etc).  The Disarmers went into the studio in California to record their third album in early 2020, just as the world was on the cusp of shutting down for the foreseeable future. Label issues and supply chain issues and inability to tour issues got in the way got in the way, as they're wont to do. Fast forward to 2022 and Sarah Shook is on the cusp of releasing their third album. It's called Nightroamer and it's on a new label (Thirty Tigers) and it's really, REALLY good. Fans of Sarah Shook and the Disarmers will certainly find plenty of recognizable sounds, but there are left turns and even-further-left turns and some new and different subject matter. All of that results in an immensely compelling listen, easily their best output to date. We caught up with Sarah to talk at length about the new album; from finishing the recording roughly a week before the pandemic became "a thing" in the States, to the obvious label issues, to the choice of when to actually release it to the world. We also talked about some of the subject matter; parts of the album were written after Shook got sober, and obviously created a very different writing process for them this time around. Perhaps most compellingly, we talked about their increasing involvement as a vocal force to be reckoned with, advocating for the elevating of queer and non-white voices in the country music world. Oh, and we talked about their growing up in strictly religious household and teaching themselves to play guitar and write songs in spite of having no popular music frame of reference, a concept that is truly mind-boggling to me. Nightroamer is due out February 18th. Pre-orders are still available here: https://www.disarmers.com/store/Music-c23349544 You can also check out the Disarmers' videos and live performances and more on their YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/c/SarahShooktheDisarmers/videos (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Back in early 2020, Hushdrops, the long-running Chicago-based power trio (John San Juan on guitar and vocals, Joe Camarillo on drums, Jim Shapiro on bass) were slated to go into the studio to finish work on what would become their third full-length record. Then in what's become a recurring theme on this show, plans were put on hold due to the onset of Year One of the pandemic.  While that part of the story is certainly not unique, the story took a sharp and unexpected and tragic turn a year ago. As Year Two of the pandemic kicked off, Camarillo was hospitalized for a stroke and a heart attack. While in the hospital, he suffered and ultimately succumbed to a brain stem stroke. At only 52, the literal backbone of the band was taken much, much too soon. After some time, San Juan and Shapiro decided the best way to honor their longtime friend and collaborator was to pull together the album that they'd been working on prior to the pandemic. The problem, obviously, is that it wasn't done yet. As fate would have it, there was a soundboard recording of one of the band's last pre-lockdown shows, a set that included a few new tracks that were intended for the new release but that hadn't made their respective ways to the recording studio yet. What followed was the fascinating (to me, anyway) challenge of recording studio guitar, bass and vocals over the isolated live performance drum tracks for two songs that ended up on the album, creating what is a very unique feel to both those tracks and the album in general. We were lucky enough to catch up with John San Juan to talk about all of this and more. It was the first time we talked, although we've talked about him on a few episodes of (*both laugh*) to date, as he plays bass in the trio that Smoking Popes' Josh Caterer put together for the pair of live albums that he released as bookends in 2021. We talked a lot about Josh, and about Joe, and about mellotrons, and all things in between. Order "The Static" the latest - and last?! - Hushdrops release from Pravda Records here: https://pravdamusic.com/album/2067945/the-static Find "The Static" and all the other Hushdrops releases on Bandcamp here: https://hushdrops.bandcamp.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

This particular episode was a long time coming, for a variety of reasons. Josh Freese has had the type of career - and has the type of personality - that has made me want to interview him for a lot longer than I've had the capacity to actually conduct interviews. He might have played with everyone from Sting to Guns 'N' Roses to Nine Inch Nails to The Offspring to Dweezil Zappa to Juliana Hatfield to Kelly Clarkson, but if you've been involved in the punk rock scene at all for the last three decades, he's still Josh from The Vandals. Or, for a small number of us, Josh from Viva Death. Anyway, Josh just put out a new solo album, "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" - it was written and recorded from his home studio during quarantine. It's twenty songs in, you guessed it, twenty minutes, and it was released on Loosegroove Records, a label owned by Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Brad's Regan Hagar. It's wild: some of the songs are expertly crafted and fully thought-out punk rock songs and some of them sound almost like the descent into madness that a lot of us experienced when locked in our houses for an indeterminate amount of time. We cover a lot of ground over the course of 75 or so minutes: Danny Elfman, The Vandals, Stone Gossard and Pearl Jam, living in Long Beach, playing with Sting, Queens Of The Stone Age, setting up a home recording studio a decade ago and actually finding the time to use it during a pandemic, and a lot more. We also talked, obviously, about "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" and probably spent more time talking about "Just A Minute: Vol. 2," which should hopefully be out during the spring of '22. Buy "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" on vinyl: https://shop.thehardtimes.net/products/josh-freese-just-a-minute-vol-1-neon-coralvinyl?_pos=1&_sid=8d3887eea&_ss=r Buy other Josh Freese merch, like stickers and pins and t-shirts and plaid shorts and a guitar: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JoshFreeseGoods "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" Videos: "Heavy Metal Car Collection" - https://youtu.be/GpaSvkwDTrU "The Dwarves And The Queens" - https://youtu.be/ShnXbZDetyw Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshfreese/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

The good ship (*both laugh*) keeps sailing along with our 48th episode, and it features one of our only repeat guests to date. He's the owner of one of my favorite voices in the pantheon of punk rock, and he's also one of my favorite songwriters and one of, in my opinion, the most underrated guitar players in the scene. A triple threat! Anyway, he's the inimitable Josh Caterer, and if you remember back at the beginning of 2021, we chatted about what was to be his first solo release, The Hideout Sessions. It was an album recorded in front of a live stream online audience at an otherwise empty club in Chicago, and it marked the first real appearance of any sort by this particular project, which featured Caterer on guitar and vocals, John Perrin on drums and John San Juan on bass. To mark the release of that album this spring, the band played an album release show, but because all of the clubs were still closed to the public, they did it via live stream and recorded it as an album...AGAIN! If you're keeping score at home, that makes not one but TWO live albums recorded before actually playing a show in front of an in-person, human audience. The result of that latter show is The SPACE Sessions, due out next week (December 17th) on Pravda Records. It was recorded at - you guessed it - at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois, and like The Hideout Sessions, it features an interesting mix of songs from Caterer's catalog (via Smoking Popes and, yes, Duvall!!!) and some standards that you might otherwise think of as from the big band era, because they were popularized by the likes of Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis Presley and, in the case of "At Last," which happens to be my wedding song...Etta James. The set also closes with Caterer being joined on vocals by his daughter, Phoebe, for an updated take on "Somethin' Stupid," popularized by Frank Sinatra and his own daughter, Nancy. If been even tangentially aware of the punk scene over the course of the last three decades, you're of course aware of a legion of bands that have covered songs from outside the typical punk rock milieu, but they've done them with a fair amount of tongue planted firmly in cheek, as in "oh, isn't it funny/ironic that we're playing this song this way!" Sometimes it works great and sometimes it's a gag that tires after the first few listens, much like a comedy album. What's different about the old standards that Caterer et al., take on is the appreciation that the band has for the source material, paying considerable homage in their modern retellings. Anyway, I'm rambling (I know, right?)...if you liked The Hideout Sessions, you'll love the SPACE Sessions. I'll add pre-order links when they're available (it'll be available digitally and on CD next weekend but the vinyl will have to wait until...who knows, honestly. Friggin' Adele...). Catch the Josh Caterer Trio (along with the Sunshine Boys) live and in person: December 16th at SPACE in Evanston, IL December 17th at The Lyric Room in Green Bay, WI December 18th at the Back Room at Colectivo in Milwaukee, WI https://joshcaterer.bandcamp.com/music https://sunshineboys.net/ https://www.pravdamusic.com/ (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Boston-area Americana-punk troubadour Jesse Ahern has shared stages with everyone from Dropkick Murphys to Rancid to Frank Turner to Lenny Lashley and countless others both across the US and across Europe. At long last, he finally sits down with us for a chat about his new album, "Heartache and Love." The album grew out of sessions that popped up during the pandemic when what had been some pretty expansive 2020 tour plans ground to a halt. The album both refines and expands upon the sort of roots-rock-meets-folk-punk thing that Ahern has been doing so well for years now. It helped earn Ahern a Boston Music Award nomination for Americana Artist Of The Year, where he's up against some local heavy hitters like Mark Erelli and Lila Wiles and Lashley himself. At first glance, it might seem that Ahern would fit into a handful of other categories, from Singer-Songwriter of the Year to Punk/Hardcore or Rock or Folk or even Blues Artist of the Year...but maybe that's what makes Ahern so perfect for the Americana label, because his sound is an amalgam of all of the above, all of which make him an artist rooted in classic American working-class music. As you might imagine based on the almost 90-minute length of our chat, we cover a lot of ground, from parenting three children during a pandemic, to touring Europe with Dropkick Murphys and Frank Turner, to his upcoming overseas run with Chuck Ragan and Chris Cresswell, to growing up in the Boston area music scene, to the struggles with addiction and the depths of the recovery community in the punk scene. We also talk quite a bit about Lenny Lashley, because he's a one-of-a-kind. Check out Ahern's website here: https://www.jesseahern.com/ Order "Heartache & Love" here: https://www.jesseahern.com/store Watch the video for "Just A Moment" here: https://youtu.be/CJFlBaypUME Watch the video for "Lost In This World" here: https://youtu.be/4ebNhULQ3E4 (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Despite having a career that has consisted of more than three decades of writing and recording and playing music professionally in bands like Rancid and the Old Firm Casuals and Stomper 98 and Last Resort and Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards and Oxley's Midnight Runners and probably more that I'm forgetting, next Friday (November 26th if you're keeping track) marks the release date for the inimitable Frederiksen's debut release as a solo artist. The album is called "To Victory" and it'll be released on Pirates Press Records (and yes, physical copies of the vinyl version do exist!) and it features reworked versions of a half-dozen tracks that span Frederiksen's entire career arc as both a music fan and a music maker. Fear not, fans off Frederiksen's particular style of aggressive songwriting; this solo release doesn't see him abandoning his street punk roots for a beard and a flannel and a campfire acoustic guitar. It's still raw and aggressive, yet the stripped down version of a song like "Motherland" or "Skunx" finds the lyrics resonating on a much more personal level. We were lucky enough to have a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation with Frederiksen about all things "To Victory," from the initial batch of several dozen songs that were proposed, to playing his first show as a true solo artist, to the sort of shifts in perspective and priorities that come from going through a divorce and the death of his mother and finding a new partner and turning 50 all in the span of a couple of years...a span that included a global pandemic that forced the shutdown of the entire music industry for the foreseeable future. Lars Frederiksen "To Victory" music videos: "Skunx" - https://youtu.be/vJ-JHDHQD9Q "God And Guns" - https://youtu.be/B7UvBZE_RS4 "Army Of Zombies" - https://youtu.be/qsO0ANtKpjM Order "To Victory" here: https://shop.piratespressrecords.com/products/lars-frederiksen-to-victory-12-ep-cd-cassette More Lars merch: https://kingsroadmerch.com/lars-frederiksen/ Follow "Lahz's Lockah" on Instagram to catch when he sells some of his personal memorabilia...could be old records, could be wrestling action figures, could be old pants...you never know: https://www.instagram.com/lahzs_lockah/ Check out the Wrestling Perspective Podcast that features Lars, two former MLB All Stars Jason Kendall and Dmitri Young, 4x Stanley Cup champ Darren McCarty, Impact Wrestling's Petey Williams and Dennis Farrell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJXIX4REmMnNkqVTIaohL6Q/featured (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Welcome back, (*both laugh*) fans! We took a little hiatus there for a few but we're back in action. For episode 45, we caught up with Sonia Sturino of the kick ass trio known as Weakened Friends. They're due to put out their sophomore full-length, "Quitter," on November 19th and let me tell you...it's a great one! We talked an awful lot about the band pushing themselves on this record (which was produced by the band's bass player, Annie Hoffman, and engineered by Hoffman and their drummer, Adam Hand) in ways that they hadn't quite before. We also talked about being on tour in March 2020 as the world was shutting down, and getting back out on the road last month in the, I guess we're calling it, "new normal." Oh, and we definitely talked about The Tragically Hip (a band I've quite honestly never knowingly heard) and Our Lady Peace (a band that I've definitely heard and enjoyed for years) and about how cool a record label Don Giovanni is and lots more stuff as well (like our mutual pal Adam Parshall, who is an amazing concert photographer...hi Adam!). This was a lot of fun and everyone should check out "Quitter" ASAP and go catch Weakened Friends on the road with The Beths early next year! -Pre-order "Quitter" from Don Giovanni Records here: https://www.dongiovannirecords.com/store -...or find it on their Bandcamp page here: https://weakenedfriends.bandcamp.com/ -Visit Weakened Friends' website here: https://www.weakenedfriends.com/ -Theme song as always is "Hurts To Laugh" by the lovely and talented Kali Masi. from their 2021 release [laughs].

Franz Nicolay has had a long and winding and frankly vaudevillian journey through the music industry over the two-plus decades since he left our shared home state of New Hampshire. Dying Scene readers from the days of yore no doubt are familiar with the #1 accordion player in punk rock (it's true, Connor checked: https://dyingscene.com/heroes-of-the-punk-accordion-a-tribute-to-squeezebox-rockers/) through solo work or his stints in The Hold Steady and The World/Inferno Friendship Society and Against Me! and perhaps Anti-Social Music and maybe Guignol and probably from collaborations with countless beloved acts like Jeff Rosenstock and The Loved Ones and Frank Turner and Junior Battles and more. A few years ago, he published a fascinating nonfiction book, "The Humourless Laties of Border Control: Touring The Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar." It's an incredibly detailed and dense look at DIY touring through large chucks of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia and the like. At long last, Nicolay is set to release his debut novel. It's called "Someone Should Pay For Your Pain," and it's finally due out next week (August 24th) through Gibson Press, and let me tell you: it's wonderful. It centers around a character named Rudy Pauver. Originally from Wisconsin, Pauver finds his way to the DIY punk mecca that was late 90s Gainesville and joins a band and, when they goes belly up for a variety of reasons, he continues to ply his wares as a solo artist/troubadour for the better part of the next two decades. There is a cast of characters that includes former bandmates and former proteges-turned-megastars and crotchedy bartenders and condescending soundguys and a next-generation punk rock niece. If you've been in a band or been even loosely tied to a scene, you know these people and these places and these roads and these dive bar floor tiles and these mattresses in the corner at the local flophouse. It's real and it's relatable and it's a sort of book about what happens after the "coming of age" stuff gets old. For a musician who dabbles in writing - Franz can craft a hell of a novel. Purchase "Someone Should Pay For Your Pain" here: https://bookshop.org/books/someone-should-pay-for-your-pain/9781948721134 Visit Franz' website here: https://franznicolay.com/  

Suzi Moon has been an active member of the punk rock scene for well more than half her life, so you might expect that she would have used the free time provided by unplanned COVID-related shutdowns over the last 18 months to pause and catch her breath. You'd be sorely mistaken, however. After years of playing in a band with her sister (Civet, obviously) and taking filmmaking classes and starting a new band, Turbulent Hearts, and playing bass in a new band that flamed out rather unceremoniously last year (L.A. Machina), Moon stepped out on her own for real. She put out an EP, "Call The Shots," earlier this year under her own name with the help of Pirates PRess Records. She self-produced and directed music videos for each of the three songs on "Call The Shots." She's also got another ten songs already recorded for a full-length, and is going back in to the studio in the coming days to record another brand new EP. She's got a full backing band of fellow scene vets (Drew Champion and Sean Peterson of The Split Second on guitar and drums respectively, Patti Bo from River City Rebels on bass) that are slated to play their first shows, including Camp Punksylvania, in a couple of weeks - delta variant be damed. We caught up with Moon to talk about all of that and more. Stay tuned for updates on new material and new videos soon! Suzi Moon Videos: "Special Place In Hell" - https://youtu.be/g7ReC6k16UI "I'm Not A Man" - https://youtu.be/K9NyEBVO6lw "Nuthin' To Me" - https://youtu.be/5-rwDjyPU94 "Call The Shots" is sold out on vinyl and you can't have mine, but you can get it digitally here: https://suzimoon.bandcamp.com Intro Music as always: "Hurts To Laugh" by Kali Masi. Find us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts if you prefer not watching my ugly mug yakking away on screen!

If you've watched previous episodes of (*both laugh*) or if you've heard me guest on other podcasts or if you know me personally, you know that Pearl Jam has been a huge part of my musical journey. "Ten," which turns thirty years old this time next month, struck at exactly the right time in my formative years. The shockwave is still being felt, to say the least. Pearl Jam were very honestly the band that really ushered in my love of punk rock, in part through their very public love of bands like Dead Kennedys and Bad Religion and Social D and Dead Boys and obviously The Clash and Ramones. As I one-time aspiring bass player, it was Jeff Ament whose style got me to buy my first bass when I was a teenager (an Alvarez Dana bass, if you're interested). I've not only followed Pearl Jam far and wide over the last three decades, but I've followed Jeff's solo career and side projects (Three Fish, Tres Mts., RNDM, etc) along the way. His songs are always intricate and textured and unique and pull from a variety of influences. Next month, Ament will release a new solo full length. Entitled "I Should Be Outside," it was written and recorded entirely during COVID-related quarantine. But it's also not the only material he's put out during this time, as it follows last year's blistering "American Death Squad" EP and a new project called Deaf Charlie that features Fitz and the Tantrums' John Wicks on drums. This was immensely entertaining and meaningful for me, and I hope that came across. I was lucky enough to meet Jeff once in passing at an RNDM show on a snowy November night in Boston (there's a picture of that meeting in the intro and over my right shoulder during our chat here) and I thought that was one of the coolest things that had ever happened to me that didn't involve marriage or the birth of my kid. This was cooler. Thanks Jeff. And yes, don't worry Pearl Jam fans...we talked a lot about PJ and songwriting history and all the "how the sausage is made" stuff! Jeff Ament - "I Hear Ya" video: https://youtu.be/8g0YYt13Ir8 Jeff Ament new solo album pre-order: https://shop.pearljam.com/collections/music/products/2021-ament-i-hear-ya-b-w-bandwidth-7 Montana Pool Service info: https://montanapoolservice.com/ Deaf Charlie (Jeff Ament and John Wick): - "Something Real" video: https://youtu.be/BrKlmL4gNeA Jeff Ament as American Death Squad: https://youtu.be/jWfzwf2dDyg Deranged Diction (Jeff's early hardcore band): https://youtu.be/IHmwk3f6n0E Intro Music as always: "Hurts To Laugh" by Kali Masi.

For Episode 41 of (*both laugh*), we caught up with Nate Cook from The Yawpers for a quick hitter about his upcoming bike ride from New York to Los Angeles. Yes, you read that right...beginning on the 4th of July, Nate Cook from The Yawpers (whose 2019 Bloodshot Records release Human Question is still in heavy rotation in this house) is cycling from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Cook took up cycling early in the pandemic, and last summer he embarked on a 700-mile ride from Denver to Tulsa as a fundraiser for the Sweet Relief Musician's Fund. For this year's ride, dubbed Go West, Aging Man (or GxAx for short), Cook decided to go bigger, since he figures he'll be on tour every summer going forward. Two months. NY to LA. A few shows along the way. All on a bicycle, and all for Sweet Relief again. As an added bonus, GxAx has added another rider this year. Badass singer/drummer Liliana Urbain is going west to east via a more northern route; she left Washington State a couple weeks ago and is presently in Montana with her sights set on Portland, Maine! As a semi-avid road cyclist, I cannot even comprehend how hard that is (particularly given the all-time high temps lately). Find out more about Nate's ride here: https://gxaxride.com/ Help fund the ride here: https://gxaxride.com/gxax-store Follow along with Liliana Urbain here: https://www.instagram.com/lilurbain/ Follow along with Nate here: https://www.instagram.com/theyawpers/ Find out more about Sweet Relief here: https://www.sweetrelief.org/ New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

For episode 40 of (*both laugh*), we went international again, this time catching up with Chachy Englund from Shanghai-based freak punk band Round Eye. The present incarnation of the band features ex-pats from three different countries (the US, Italy and Ireland), and are slated to officially release the physical version of their latest album, Culture Shock Treatment, via Sudden Death Records post haste (the digital release was handled last year by Paper + Plastick). And if you order the album (check the link below), there's a very realistic chance that it'll be in your grubby little paws WAY before anyone from the band actually sees it themselves. Such is the way of the world when you're doing the punk rock thing under the watchful eye of the CCP. We covered a lot of ground with Chachy - literally and figuratively, and he's got a fascinating first-hand perspective on the COVID outbreak (and subsequent mismanagement), making a record with the iconic Mike Watt (and having it mixed by the equally iconic Bill Stevenson), the state of international touring, and the rigors of touring mainland China as a band of outsiders...and trying to return once you've toured outside the motherland. It's a fascinating chat if I do say so myself. Wonder if Chachy and his bandmates will actually get to watch it! Listen to "Culture Shock Treatment" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAUJEO_cvLImm5GjmVH_BJg View the videos: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJlHXa8Bi8 Smokestack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l945vbCN64 Red Crimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZEoffVO0w New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021  

tl/dr: we asked Max Collins from Eve 6 if he wanted to chat and he said sure! This episode is going live on May 27, which coincidentally marks the 21st anniversary of the first time I saw Eve 6. It was the 2000 WBCN (r.i.p.) River Rave and it took place at the old Foxboro Stadium and it featured bands like Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Everclear and Godsmack (lol) and Stone Temple Pilots and Static-X and Powerman 5000 and Cypress Hill. The turn of the century was a time, man... ANYWAY, Eve 6, in my opinion, got a little unfairly lumped in with a couple of scenes that, stylistically, they weren't really a part of. Their self-titled debut album, written while the band's members (Max Collins, Jon Siebel, Tony Fagenson) were essentially still in high school, debuted at a time in music that was probably just a bit too late for the punk revival of the mid-90s and just before the nu-metal/butt rock wave of the early 2000s. Stylistically, the band probably had more in common with Alkaline Trio (whose own debut full-length came out six months after "Eve 6) than with the likes of either Third Eye Blind or Sugar Ray or Staind or whoever they got paired with along the way. The lead single, "Inside Out," (aka "The Heart In A Blender Song") blew up and the album sold almost two million copies and so school buses turned into tour buses before very long and, well, here's the 25-cent version of what happened next: sophomore album, Horrorscope, spawned an unlikely hit ("Here's To The Night") which was probably your prom and/or graduation song if you're of a certain age, touring with Bon Jovi, third album didn't spawn a likely/unlikely "hit", band got dropped by RCA and essentially broke up, Max got sober, band reconnected, new album in 2012, bunch of 90s-band style tours, pandemic. The last year or so have found Collins and Siebel and new drummer Ben Hilzinger started working on new material, the result of which is a five-song EP, "grim value," which is due out next month (see links to the first couple videos below). It's also seen Collins reach a new level of sorta-fame via Twitter, where he's maintained the band's official feed as a mix of 90s-band shit-posting and progressive realist light-in-the-darkness (Much of it is aligned with the dance-pop self-help spiritual guru Chevy Mustang that Collins created that is, if you haven't checked it out yet, completely brilliant.) We talked about all of this and more (Jawbreaker, sobriety, touring with Bon Jovi, etc) over the course of this chat and it was super fun and I still find it amazing that he agreed to do it. Pre-order "grim value" here: http://grimvalue.com/ New video "black nova" here: https://youtu.be/9nLJ4Y9t98c Newer Juggalo-rific video "Can We Combine" here: https://youtu.be/9nLJ4Y9t98c Chevy Mustang - "I Don't Care" video here: https://youtu.be/cu0x8_kN81I Intro song, as always: "Hurts To Laugh" by Kali Masi

In case you weren't aware by now, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. That's a cause that's pretty near and dear to my heart, and for Episode 38, I finally got a chance to promote it! If you've been to Warped Tour or the Flogging Molly Salty Dog Cruise or any number of other punk shows/festivals over the last decade, you've probably run into Rob "Rover" Rushing. For many years, he was the on-the-ground face of the Love Hope Strength Foundation, a non-profit that was co-founded by The Alarm's Mike Peters and that aimed to sign people up for the International Bone Marrow Registry. When LHS moved on from their street team a couple of years ago, Rushing and his wife Tina took the opportunity to create a non-profit of their own, and thus Punk Rock Saves Lives was born! Though it's still in a stage of relative infancy, PRSL has hit the ground running. Focusing on equal rights, human rights and health campaigns, PRSL has shown itself to be a versatile organization, helping to raise money and awareness for mental health campaigns, women's health and reproductive rights campaigns, and much more. The charity was founded in November 2019 and had some big plans for its first full year, but then COVID happened and, like most of us, they were forced to pivot. Now that things are opening up ever-so-suddenly, it seems, more good things are on the horizon. Check out the list of links below to get involved! PRSL Homepage: https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/ PRSL Mental Health Resources (blogs and PMA Sessions and virtual groups, etc): https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/prsl-s-mental-health PRSL Compilation: https://www.imrecordsstore.com/product/punk-rock-saves-lives-the-album-volume-one-vinyl-only-preorder-expected-late-may-early-june-/ PRSL Fundraising Campaign: https://www.classy.org/campaign/punk-rock-saves-lives/c337992 Punk Rover Saves Lives children's book pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/Punk-Rover-Saves-Lives-Fulsty/dp/B094VR4P4X/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=punk+rock+saves+lives&qid=1621785638&sr=8-6 Amazon Smile: https://m.facebook.com/pg/PRSLUSA/photos/photos_by_others/ PRSL "I Am A Badass" Campaign: https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/i-am-a-badass  

To say that I've been looking forward to finally catching up with Scott Radinsky for a long time is an understatement. Radinsky has spent more than three decades carving out a career in not one, but two of my lifelong passions: baseball and punk rock. If you're watching this as a long-time Dying Scene follower, you no doubt know Radinsky as the trademark voice behind a couple supremely influential - if underrated - California punk rock bands: Scared Straight, who were vital in getting the "nardcore" scene on the map before reconfiguring as Ten Foot Pole, and, for the last quarter-century, Pulley. At this point, you're also no doubt aware of Radinsky's successful career as a quality left-handed relief pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, LA Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and, finally, Cleveland Indians (you can Google his stats if you want, but he finished with a solid career record of 42-25 with 52 saves and a 3.45 ERA over the course of 11 years. Trust me: that's rock solid.) His career was also interrupted by a bout with Hodgkins Disease, and his comeback won him the 1995 Tony Conigliaro Award. As a lifelong Boston-area guy, also trust me...that's a big deal. We finally caught up with Radinsky recently to talk about how the COVID shutdown has impacted both of his beloved professions, and how they both had to pivot in different ways. Pulley, obviously, had to cancel some overseas tour plans, but the lockdown allowed them the opportunity to work on some brand new material in different and more focused ways than they have in years. It also found them playing a handful of acoustic sessions , which spawned a series of releases containing stripped down renditions of a few songs from each of the band's revved up studio albums to date. The first of those releases, Different Strings, is due out this month on SBAM Records - a label that should sound familiar as its founder, Stefan Beham, was our guest for Episode 36. Find Pulley on Bandcamp here: https://pulley.bandcamp.com/ Pre-order "Different Strings" here: https://shop.sbam.rocks/blogs/news/pulley-different-strings Watch the Pulley "Monsters Of Rock" Livestream we were referencing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQgl11nTNJg&ab_channel=PulleyTV

If you've been a fan of punk rock over the last decade especially, you probably know Stefan Beham...only, you probably don't realize that you know Stefan Beham. The Austria-based graphic artist has designed tour posters and album covers and the like for a Fat Wreck Chords-heavy laundry list of artists that includes acts like NOFX and Frank Turner and Lagwagon and Get Dead and the Bombpops and Bad Cop Bad Cop and myriad more.  We caught up with Stefan recently to chat about his journey from being a kid growing up in Austria to finding punk rock to eventually working for - and with - some of the biggest names in the scene. We also talked quite a bit about his growth from visual artist to festival producer to record label head honcho, and how he's had to constantly pivot in those roles over the course of the COVID pandemic.  For more on Stefan, check out his site here: https://art.sbam.rocks/ You can also find out more about SBAM Fest 2021 (or maybe 2022) and all of the SBAM Records releases here: https://shop.sbam.rocks/  New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

Just before the world shut down last year, Chicago's Kali Masi drove to suburban Massachusetts to hole up at Jay Maas's Getaway Recording Studio to get to work on the full-length follow-up to their 2017 debut, Wind Instrument (Take This To Heart Records). Fast forward a year (March 26th, to be precise) and the band unleashed the final product, [laughs], to the masses, also via Take That To Heart Records. It is, in your humble host's opinion, is one of the best albums in recent memory. We managed to convince the quartet to forgo their regularly-scheduled band practice and, instead, to chat with us for an hour or so. We of course talked about the writing and recording processes, and the decision to embrace some of the weird directions that they scratched the surface of on Wind Instrument. We also dug into some of the different ways the band not only kept busy but kept productive in the run-up to the album release, included a handful of brilliantly self-produced videos (see links below, especially "Trophy Deer" and "Guilt Like A Gun"). Much thanks to Sam and Wes And Anthony and John! Make sure you pick up [laughs] here: https://kalimasi.bandcamp.com/ [laughs] Videos: The Stray: https://youtu.be/Ek1PANfbVNs Freer: https://youtu.be/UX4pmCm1dNg Trophy Deer: https://youtu.be/SU6Q6DQa3n4 Guilt Like A Gun: https://youtu.be/bvHq2NmE5rQ New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021

When we started doing this "show" (is it okay to call it a show? It feels weird...), the initial point was to talk to bands and people in the music scene who had their plans for 2020 put on indefinite hold and who, somehow, used the time of uncertainty to remain connected and creative and to put their previously unforeseen downtime to good use. To paraphrase guitarist Max Beckman, for Orange County ska punks Half Past Two, 2020 ended up having a much more productive silver lining than they had initially planned. The nine-piece band have stayed busy, putting out a series of covers (with corresponding music videos) of artists as diverse as Madonna and Ludo and Fountains of Wayne and Save Ferris and, my personal favorite, Dance Hall Crashers. The videos are all up on YouTube - check them out. But more importantly, the band have remained hard at work on their upcoming full-length release. They've put out a handful of singles from said album thus-far: a heart-warming, full band version of the previously acoustic "Shine," followed by "All About You" and, most recently, the absolutely killer "Mean Green." We caught up with Beckman for a chat about how the band has used their quarantine wisely, their plans for their upcoming release (hint hint: while Half Past Two's 2017 Kickstarter was 400% successful, they have a different avenue planned this time out), what it's like to work - and get Covid vaccinated - at Disneyland, and when they may, finally, get their first chance to make it to the East Coast as a band.

Blacklist Royals were one of the very first bands I got turned on to when I first started with Dying Scene more than a decade ago. Their debut full-length, Semper Liberi, was released back in 2010 on Paper + Plastick Records, and was filled with straight-forward, rock-and-roll-inspired punk rock songs. It was fun and no-frills and workman-like, and hell, it even included a cover of a Springsteen song. I first met Nat in 2012, when he made an solo acoustic appearance in Boston opening up for the acoustic Ignorance Is Bliss run that Face To Face's Trever Keith and Scott Shiflett were doing. I met his twin brother, Rob, for the first time the following year, when, alongside Teenage Bottlerocket and Joshua Black Wilkins, the full-band Blacklist Royals opened up for a plugged-in Face To Face on a lengthy nationwide tour. We've stayed in touch over the years and I've interviewed them both for various projects -- 2014's Blacklist Royals sophomore full-length Die Young With Me, Rob's 2016 debut book of the same title, and most recently on (*both laugh*) Episode 2 for Rob's first novel, Vinyl Underground. Somehow, despite having kept in touch for close to a decade, (*both laugh*) Episode 33 marks the first time I've ever talked to both Nat and Rob together! On April 2nd, the world will be graced with new Blacklist Royals music for the first time in a hot minute. The three-song Doomsday Girl EP (also released on Paper + Plastick) features a sound that's raw and reminiscent of Semper Liberi, but with lyrics that are a little more personal, a la Die Young With Me. We talked about the new music - and also Nat's recent debut solo EP, an instrumental, Dick Dale-inspired surf guitar heavy release, as well as all of the goings-on in the world of Bad Signs, the Rufus' brothers' goth-punk honky tonk side project with Nashville singer-songwriter Samantha Harlow. Now that we're a year into quarantine, we also talked about how it'll feel once we're all vaccinated and we can get back to enjoying live music together again. Maybe for Fest this year, for the Semper Liberi 11th anniversary (Fest in 2020 was supposed to be feature a Semper Liberi 10th anniversary show with original BLR members, but we all know how that turned out)... Visit Blacklist Royals on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blacklistroyalsfb/ Visit the Bad Signs here: http://www.thebadsignsband.com/ Check out Rob's home page too: http://www.robrufus.net/home  

tl/dr: Ship Thieves have a new album out on Chunksaah and it rules and we talked to Chris Wollard and Chad Darby for a couple hours and it was super fun and important and memorable. To say that I'm a big fan of both of these guests is to vastly understate things. Not only do Chris Wollard and Chad Darby separately occupy important roles in a couple of my favorite bands of all time (obviously Hot Water Music and Samiam if you're keeping score at home), together they've been half of the grossly-underrated Gainesville band Ship Thieves for just over a decade. If you're not familiar with the history, here's a brief retelling: back around 2008/2009, Hot Water Music's Chris Wollard put together a side project that was never intended to be a "real band." He got together with Addison Burns and a few other buddies and recorded a handful of songs at a handful of locations and put out an album known as Chris Wollard + The Ship Thieves back in 2009 on No Idea Records. Fast forward a couple years, and a lineup that included Wollard, Burns, Chad Darby on bass and Bobby Brown on drums had solidified, and collectively they put out the second Chris Wollard + The Ship Thieves album, "Canyons," in 2012. It was a little more riff-rock oriented than the occasionally-acoustic debut album that came before it. By 2016's "No Anchor," the lineup remained not only intact but had developed its own identity and direction, thus Wollard's decision to drop his name from the title and have the project carry on as Ship Thieves. 2021 brings with it the release of "Irruption." The band has found a home on a new label, Chunksaah Records, a label run by the inimitable Kate Hilts and the Bouncing Souls camp. It continues down the musical road that the band was headed down on "No Anchor," and in many ways it does all of the things that "No Anchor" did, only it does them better. The rhythm section of Darby and Brown is as tight as ever, and Darby's bass grooves move in ways we hadn't heard from this outfit before. Burns also moves to the front to take on co-vocal duties on a few tracks, his smoother delivery a noted contrast from Wollard's trademark gravel-throated tones. The band had a lot of fun making the album, and that is evident in spades throughout the duration of the couple hours that we were lucky enough to chat with Wollard and Darby. This was one for the baby book (we still have that, right mom?). "Irruption" is out March 12th and you can theoretically pre-order it on vinyl, except that all the options are presently sold out. There's other new Ship Thieves merch here though: https://www.coldcutsmerch.com/collections/chunksaahrecords

Chances are, if you're familiar with Tobias Nathaniel, it's through the decades he spent primarily behind the keyboard as one-half of the duo at the core of San Diego's Black Heart Procession. (Okay, so maybe you know him from Three Mile Pilot. Or, sure, maybe you know him from playing keys on that Blonde Redhead song that got used as Evil Morty's theme on Rick & Morty.) Anyway, about a half-dozen years ago, Tobias moved from the West Coast to Belgrade, Serbia, where he lives with his now-wife. He started a new project called The Red Step, which finds him not only playing guitar but assuming lead vocal duties for the first time as well. The Red Step put out their long-awaited, self-titled, debut full-length last week on Pravda Records, and it's a really great piece of sometimes haunting, sometimes thrashing, sometimes punishing piece of post-punk. This was a fun conversation, covering a lot of ground that started with Tobias' musical upbringing and his decision to step out in front of a band for the first time, and with special importance played to the unique guitar that's been along with him for the duration (an Ibanez AM300, of course). Make sure you pick up The Red Step here: https://pravdamusic.com/album/1860124/the-red-step

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, I know the audio says it's Episode 29, but I recorded a couple out of order, so it's technically Episode 30. Glad we cleared that up. What do you do if you're stuck in pandemic-related shutdown and your band has to put plans on hold indefinitely? If you're Smoking Popes frontman Josh Caterer, you record a live album at an empty bar in Chicago with a few guys you've never played with before! For the project, Caterer teamed up with John San Juan of the Hushdrops and John Perrin of NRBQ, and the trio took over the Hideout in Chicago for a night in late October. The resulting album is due out later this month on Pravda Records!

Dave Walsh & Matt Hock from The Explosion have a new project, Space Cadet. Their debut album, Lion On A Leash, is out March 26th on Wiretap Records. It shows heavy Brit-pop and post-rock influences. We spoke at length about the new project, the impact of COVID on their process, and the host of special guests on the album. Also lots about their super fun videos and their personal punk rock journeys. It's technically two Zoom calls stitched together, so pardon the hiccup in the middle!