Joe "Shithead" Keithly (D.O.A.) Interview (September 2008)

Getting to interview one of your musical heroes is pretty fucking awesome.

Bill: So for your new album Northern Avenger, you recorded with Bob Rock again. You guys are old friends, right?

Joe: Yeah we’ve known each other since the early days of the Vancouver scene, 78 or 79, somewhere around there. Bob was the assistant on the first couple, well not the first one, but the second and third singles that we put out way back when.

Bill: What was it like working with him again?

Joe: Uh, well he’s a fun guy, so it’s easy, right? He doesn’t come in with a bunch of pre-conceptions. He does what a good producer is going to try to do, which is take a good band and make them sound better, right?

Bill: Yeah.

Joe: So it’s just kind of what the band is after before you do a record. So for us, D.O.A. is usually a pretty heavy band and he made us sound heavier than we usually do, so he did a great job. We didn’t really change the approach that we’ve had at all, we just wanted to make a lasting punk rock record and that’s what we came up with.

Bill: Was your 30^th anniversary kind of an impetus to go back and work with him again?

Joe: Yeah, it just made sense. He agreed with us that it was the right time. The timing was perfect with the band on Sudden Death and having a new album. You know, he did a good job with it; it’s all going to work hand in hand for sure.

Bill: Have you been paying attention to the US election cycle at all?

Joe: Oh yeah, of course, we watch it every day up here. How could you not? (chuckle, then stammering) It’d be crazy of John McCain got in there, especially with the vice-presidential candidate he has in there right? (chuckle)

Bill: The worst woman in the world!

Joe: If Canada could vote then Barack Obama would win about 80%, it’d be a landslide bigger than anything. But you know, Canadians can’t vote so we can only have an opinion about it, right? I’m right behind Barack Obama, I think he could be a good man for the time and a good change, right?

Bill: Definitely.

Joe: It’s affecting the whole world you know, with the war in Iraq and now the financial crisis happening or that has been happening you know, with people losing their houses and stuff like that. I don’t really care about the fat cats on Wall Street, if they go bankrupt so be it! But it’s all the little people that are being affected by it that I’m concerned about.

Bill: Well a lot of people were saying this in 2004 and I know a bunch of people who are saying it now, that if McCain wins they’re moving up to Canada.

Joe: (hearty laugh) Yeah we get a lot of that! We were actually down there traveling around in 2004 going between Chicago and New York when the campaign was going on with Kerry and Bush. A lot of people were coming up to me and saying “Hey Joe, how can you help me get into Canada?” Then I went on AirAmerica and they said “So you’re the Canadian guy that can get everybody in!” I run the immigration department up here, right! (chuckle)

Bill: (laughter abound)

Joe: Canada’s a nice place. I think I’d rather have people staying at home and keep fighting. Not that people aren’t welcome to come up here, that’s not where I stand, but you know what I mean?

Bill: Yeah, yeah. I know that a lot of the people have this really idealized version of Canada but then when you actually look at it, Stephen Harper was elected and he’s much more on the conservative edge, right?

Joe: Yeah totally, and he actually stands a pretty good chance of getting a majority up here which would be absolutely horrible. I mean Canada’s a different place so he’s pretty right wing and he has some real crazy people within his party but it’s not as extreme as some of the elements of the Republican Party. It’s not as extreme as elements of the American religious right, fundamentalists that are trying to affect politics and put god into schools. Up here they haven’t completely forgotten about separation of church and state, which is a big thing that’s worth fighting for.

Bill: Yeah every single day it seems like it’s being forgotten more here.

Joe: Absolutely, same thing here.

Bill: Do you have any plans to ever run for office again?

Joe: Well the only thing I’ve thought about is maybe running for mayor of Vancouver and then people could come up and say “Hey, Shithead’s the mayor!” (chuckle) I don’t think I’d run for federal or provincial politics, provincial politics being like you state elections. That’s what I ran for. I figure I can change more with my words and music, playing shows and talking to people and trying to influence people that way. And then the other hand, why would I want to win because then I’d have to spend four or five months away from home. That’d be like a D.O.A. road trip without any of the fun!

Bill: (laughter)

Joe: It’d just be listening to a bunch of windbags talking Parliament, right?!

Bill: Yeah, not worth it. With Sudden Death you’ve been doing a lot of archival stuff.

Joe: Yeah.

Bill: Is there anything left in the vaults that you haven’t released yet?

Joe: Well the one we really wanted to get but we didn’t was this cool band from Vancouver called Slow. They were one of the really cool early bands. For D.O.A. stuff there’s some stuff we haven’t put out yet that people might be interested in would be something like Let’s Wreck The Party or some sort of form of True (North) Strong and Free or Murder. Those are three albums that people seem to have a pretty hard time finding.

Bill: Yeah, True (North) Strong and Free I didn’t even know existed until I read I: Shithead.

Joe: What was that?

Bill: I didn’t even know the True (North) Strong and Free record existed until a couple years ago.

Joe: Yeah, it’s a pretty good record. It’s only ten tracks, we did it in 1987? Yeah, it came out in 1987, yeah, recorded in ’86 and came out in ’87. The guys who put it out are idiots, right? Profile Records. We’ve tried to get it back but they won’t give it back to us, or even sell it back. And you can’t find it, right?

Bill: Yeah I’ve never even seen it.

Joe: It has some cool songs on it.

Bill: Murder I found a used copy of a couple years ago but I’ve only seen it that one time.

Joe: That’s another real hard one to find too! That company has been bought and re-sold about four times. It was Restless Records then Hollywood Records and then some other crap. That was just a nightmare with the accounting and trying to get paid from all that stuff. We got really ripped off on the whole thing. But hey, you know what, that’s part of the music business! I guess that’s why I started my own label.

Bill: Yeah, pretty much everyone I’ve talked to has been ripped off at one point by a label in some way.

Joe: Oh yeah yeah yeah, it’s par for the course.

Bill: Is there any, uh (stammering) your version of The Skulls, is there anything recorded that might come out of that or is it all lost to time?

Joe: Well we did a three song demo in a recording studio. I’m trying to think of what stuff was on that. One was “Fucked Up Baby” which was the predecessor to “Fucked Up Ronnie.” Uh, there’s that and two other songs that I wrote or helped write. Then there’s a basement tape we did in Toronto, when we relocated there in 1977. There are ten songs on that basement tape that are original. We’ve kind of talked about it but we’ve never really bothered doing anything about it yet. It’s kind of wonky because it’s a basement tape off a cassette, so you’d have to really tell people “this is cool, but it’s not a real record where you can hear everything.” But the three songs on the demo are good, they’re pretty cool. So who knows, if I can get everybody to agree that’s something I’d want to do for sure.

Bill: Now with your book I: Shithead, you stopped that after, I forget the exact time frame, but it covered the first half of D.O.A.’s career. Do you have any plans on writing another one?

Joe: Yeah I’ve got a couple ideas. One of them is rather than doing it as a linear history of D.O.A. like I: Shithead is, it would be a funny punk rock guide book. You know I’ve got a lot of ideas and it would get into things with D.O.A. and other things that have gone on in the world since that time. I’ve got kind of a rough framework but I’ve never found the time to sit down and do it, right. I’ve been totally swamped with this record and with the label. You know what, I thought I’d have another book out three or four years ago but that’s the way things go. Time marches on if you’re busy and you don’t have time for much else.

Bill: Yeah, definitely. I mean you’ve been pretty consistently D.O.A. I mean there was that time period in the early 90s where you broke up for awhile.

Joe: Yeah we’ve been playing about 40-50 shows a year for the last six or seven years. The last year where we did a lot was in 2002. We went down into the states, we went across Canada, we went to Europe, and so there were probably 80 or 90 shows that year. That was the last one where we did some longer trips. We’re playing your thing in Chicago obviously and then Texas in November and we’re going to China in January.

Bill: Oh wow, you’re going to China?

Joe: Yeah, we’ve got four shows lined up there and it’ll be interesting, it’ll definitely be an eye opener for sure.

Bill: How’d you end up getting it?

Joe: There’s a guy that got in contact with me. He’s an American guy who lives over there but he’s fluid in Cantonese or Mandarin, one of the main languages over there. He brought over a band here that I know in Vancouver and I asked them “how’d it go?” and they said “well, it was chaotic.” I said “well, I can handle chaotic!” (laughter) Every D.O.A. tour is like that, right. We just kind of came to an agreement and I thought “boy.” That’s kind of like how D.O.A. started, we put out a single, that Disco Sucks single just gives us a passport to travel around the world. The funny thing is that it’s just kept rolling on so long like that, right. So we’ve got that, and then we’re in California, the West Coast like Seattle on down in February; we’re working on that. Then Europe in April I think, we’re trying to book that too. Then maybe the up the East Coast, we have haven’t been to New York in awhile.

Bill: Now this is all promoting the new record, is that out yet?

Joe: Yeah, actually. If you let me grab a piece of paper I can send you a copy, we’re doing a bunch of shipping today. The label, such as we are, the three of us are sitting around doing shipping stuff today. Just let me grab a piece of paper and I’ll take down your address. Actually, this may be easier, why don’t you send us an email with your address?

Bill: Yeah, definitely, I’ll shoot it over. I have the conversation with Bill (Sudden Death press guy) up on my computer; I’ll send it over once I’m done talking to you.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, we’ll send some copies over there so you can have some for the people working on the festival.

Bill: Yeah cool, thanks a lot!

Joe: Yeah, no sweat. It’s just out now, and officially in the States on October 7^th. So I guess it’s not out there but it’s out here in Canada so we’ve been doing some stuff. We did a big 30^th anniversary show here in Vancouver just this past Friday night with the Dayglo Abortions. It was really good, about 1200 people showed up, it was a complete riot.

Bill: Wow, that’s pretty good! Did you have any old band members come up?

Joe: Yeah we did. We had Wimpy come up, you know, the bass player.

Bill: Oh cool.

Joe: We had Pierre who played with us in 95-96. And Thor, you know, the old metal guy? He came up, he’s a buddy of mine. Then we had a whole horn section and keyboards for the encore. It was pretty good actually.

Bill: That sounds awesome; I wish I could’ve seen it.

Joe: Yeah the encore was a riot. Billy from the Black Halos came up, he’s a buddy of mine, he sang a bit.

Bill: As you just mentioned with the 30^th anniversary, you’re still going at it, but has there been any time where you’ve gotten tired of it or uninspired?

Joe: Well that happened in 1990 and 1991, but then we started going again. But no, it’s pretty good, it’s quite a lot of fun. We just did a couple big shows with Rancid, that was a real riot because there were just a TON of kids. And if you get something that’s interesting you know, like a trip to China, going to Europe, or Riot Fest, something where it’s more of an event, that’s what I’m into. Or if it’s something that has some sort of political cause. I’m not really into mindlessly playing every single club for 50 days in a row. I mean we did years and years of that.

Bill: Yeah you’ve done that for a long time, you’ve paid your dues.

Joe: Yeah that’s what I’m kind of thinking, right. So if you find something interesting I love to do it. I’d love to get to South America or other parts of Asia. I think we’ll go to, during the European trip, we’ll end up playing some shows in Russia. That’d also be really extreme and interesting. We’ll try to get out of there still having our guitars and passports! They’ve got a bit of a rep over there; apparently it’s not as bad as it used to be though.

Bill: (sarcastically) Ah, capitalism, improvement!

Joe: (laughter) Ha, well yeah well with capitalism it’s like gangsterism. Not everybody but a certain select part of the population.

Bill: Still running on the old ways.

Joe: Yeah some of them went from the KGB into being gangsters.

Bill: Similar skill sets. Well I’m just about out of questions, do you have any last words or anything you want to say?

Joe: No, just that we’re looking forward to being there. And of course, the D.O.A. motto that talk minus action equals zero. What I always say is be your own boss, think for yourself, try to affect some positive change in this world. Certainly get out there and vote at least, right. Encourage everyone you can, because four more years of Republican rule would be a disaster.

Bill: (dejectedly) It’d be the worst thing that could happen.

Joe: Yeah. Maybe there will be a drove of people that come up and I’ll be that guy to help them get over the border and where to stay.

Bill: You can be the coyote!

Joe: (laughter) Yeah! Well that’s it.

Bill: Cool.

Joe: Yeah, we’ll see you at the shows then.

Bill: Yeah, definitely looking forward to it.

Joe: Take care buddy.

Bill: You too Joe.

Scott Reynolds (All & The Pavers) Interview (September 2008)

Simply saying that Scott Reynolds is a story teller may be the understatement of the year. The man has been at the game of punk rock for longer than I've been alive and does not seem to ever be slowing down. There are a couple of really great nuggets in here, especially when he starts talking about his kids! I'm looking forward to sharing that beer with him next month. Expect a pretty epic piece tracing the lineage of Scott's musical career on the site soon.

Bill: How did you originally end up joining All?

Scott: You mean in the old days?

Bill: Yes.

Scott: Back in the olden days. Well I was living in Western New York and I had gotten done with college and was living at my folks house and I got kicked out for being a bum. So I decided that I wanted to do music since I was an art guy; I painted in college but I was also a big music, college band guy. I decided I liked music a lot better so I thought if I was going to do it, where would be a good place to go for a guy like me? The Descendents were one of the bands that kind of played music that sounded like the music I did. There were other bands too but with the Descendents I saw a picture of them and it was scary, they kind of looked like me too! (chuckle)

Bill: (appreciative chuckle)

Scott: So I drove out in my car and I called them and I didn’t think that I would be in their band, I just thought that if they make that kind of music and they live in the South Bay of Los Angeles, I can go there and find some kind of subculture I could slide right in to. I was living in my car in their parking lot bothering them. I played in a band with Tony Lombardo from the Descendents and I did another band with Frank Navetta, also from the Descendents, and then eventually a job opened up and I moved out of my car and into their office.

Bill: That’s cool. Now you left the band in 1993, correct?

Scott: Something like that, yeah.

Bill: What caused that split?

Scott: Well at the time we were living in this little town in Missouri and the music kind of… you know you make a lot of compromises when you’re doing a band, and it felt like I was doing more compromising than I really wanted to. We had different visions of where we thought the band should go next and it started to cause friction. I think we all kind of mutually decided that my head was in kind of a different game at that point.

Bill: When did The Pavers form? Did you go right into The Pavers after you quit All?

Scott: No, I had met a girl on tour, which also added into it when it came to quitting. Well anyway, I moved out to the Seattle/Tacoma area and started a band called Goodbye Harry. I had two records with that band with two completely different lineups. They were on Cruz Records, which is Greg Ginn’s thing.

Bill: Same as All.

Scott: Yeah, that’s right. That kind of fell through; the first incarnation of that band had two of three people who decided that heroin was more important than the music. So I started another band and I can’t really remember… well now I remember, we weren’t doing real well as far as making lives for ourselves out there so I moved to West New York and bought a duplex. They were supposed to come and take one apartment and my wife, kid and I would take the other. They never showed! So I met some guys in Buffalo who had a band that I liked, and we became The Pavers.

Bill: That’s cool, I didn’t know the story behind that. You said that you were having some musical differences with the guys in All. Did the next couple of bands end up being what you would’ve wanted All to be had you stayed in?

Scott: Well, it kind of doesn’t work like that because I look at bands and musicians as unique entities. When I write a song, I write it on acoustic guitar or piano and it’s a complete thing for me. If you want to hear one of my songs from a record I’ll pick it up and I’ll sing it for you. It’s like that, it’s a complete thing. It’s that the band is another instrument, and it becomes a game of potentiality. The potential that All had to sound a certain way… we had songs… how can I explain it? There were songs that I thought were what I wanted the band to sound like and we weren’t doing enough of them. They were kind of moving more into a straight up, kind of a 4/4 rock sound, and I thought our quirkiness was what was great. So with these other bands it was with a whole other set of musicians. With the songs I write, I don’t think to this day I’ve changed really. I don’t have any pre-conceived notions or methodology or anything where I think “this is how I want it to sound.” I think songs I write now would’ve just as easily gone on All records back then, but it would’ve sounded like All playing it, and that’s a different sound.

Bill: Yeah, when there are different guys playing it they’ll inject their own personality into it.

Scott: Yeah. So to answer your question, the bands that came after that, they didn’t sound like I thought All could. No one can sound like All, I mean, it’s just a different thing. My mark in those bands was more to my liking, you know? The things I got to do and sing, and the things I didn’t have to do and didn’t have to sing were more in line with what I hoped I could accomplish.

Bill: So then what’s the current status of The Pavers beyond the show you’re playing at the Fest this year?

Scott: You know, I don’t know. We’re still really good friends. I’m a Buffalo guy at heart. Tim Patterson does t-shirts for me, if anyone’s looking for a cheap, good t-shirt guy look for Tim Patterson and Steamroller Press. Well anyway, we had kept in touch and Mark and Kevin had been sending me their ideas for songs. When Mike asked me to do the Riot Fest with All, I knew that he’d always liked the Pavers so I said “screw it, I’ll ask him” and he was up for it. So now there’s a little excitement between all of us. We’ll probably end up making another record. Yeah, I think we will.

Bill: I was looking on your website, and 40 Engine, that’s the one with Stephen Eggerton? Then there’s also Steaming Beast?

Scott: Correct. Steaming Beast is kind of where I’m at, musically. It’s just me and whoever wants to play. We did a record called Adventure Boy. Dave Friedman, who records the Flaming Lips and managed Sleater Kinney and Mogwai, he’s an old friend, he recorded it. Steven Drozd from the Flaming Lips played on it. I love it, it’s mellower with pianos and weird noises and different kinds of guitars. There’ll be a lot more of that kind of stuff coming out; we’re going to be doing tours. The idea was that I’ll call it Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast and that way I didn’t really have to keep a solid band lineup together, I could go out with whoever wants to be the Beast that night, even if it’s just myself. That’s going to keep rolling along until I’m a hundred I think.

Bill: Then that’s your main focus right now?

Scott: It’s the thing that I see the longest potential for and it’s a lot more ambitious sonically, if not musically. I’m trying to split my focus evenly across everything right now. As far as All goes, we’re just doing it show by show; I don’t even know what’s going to go on with that. It’s fine now though.

Bill: That was another one of my questions, because you have this Fest lined up, I just saw you were playing Fun Fun Fun Fest?

Scott: Yeah, with the Bad Brains, the Dead Milkmen I guess, the Adolescents! It’s a bunch of old farts! Well I’ve gotta thank Mike for that. It’s funny, he emailed me about the Riot Fest saying “Do you think All would like to play the Riot Fest?” And I was like “With me?” because we had never even thought about playing shows. I was just about to say “No, I don’t think so” and I think I’d even pushed the N key and my wife, who’d been living with me for all these years and who works her ass off while I’m a music bum hoping something will shake loose, said “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Ask him about the money and what the thing is before you say no. Try asking them.” And it’s a really good deal, I’ll be able to pay a couple months rent and a car payment and on top of that it seems like a blast! So I called them and everybody said it sounded great! Because of that we’ve had a couple other offers. They flew us over to Japan for one show.

Bill: Yeah I wanted to ask you about that, how did that end up coming about?

Scott: It’s all from the Riot Fest! It got online that if you want this lineup of All, we’ll play a show, you know? So people in Japan caught wind of it and said “Come play this Fuji Rock Fest” on Mount Fuji. The money isn’t earth shattering but it makes it possible, and doable, and reasonable. It’s all because Mike emailed me.

Bill: So how was Japan? I saw a video online and it looked huge.

Scott: Well the video is a little misleading, there were probably 10,000 people there in front of us. In the video it looks like there’s 50,000; we look like Bon Jovi or something. But it was the biggest crowd I’d played to except for maybe once in my life. It was crazy. If you listen to it I’m singing really sharp; it’s almost hard to listen to. But whenever I hear a video and I’m singing that sharp, it means I’m fired up. (chortle) It was just… I can’t tell you, it was bizarre because it was fifteen years, two practices, and then I’m in Japan. It was the weirdest thing. Then I was back home! I was like “Did I just go to Japan with All?”

Bill: Did you stick around Japan at all?

Scott: Well I’d been there with the Pavers, we did a real good tour there once. It was awesome.

Bill: It always seems like everyone’s real happy and super hospitable to the bands.

Scott: That’s what it is. If you go on my myspace there’s a picture from the Pavers tour where I’m standing in front of the crowd, and if you look you can’t see, literally, not one face that doesn’t have a giant smile on it. Nobody acted like tough guys or assholes. It was really cool, it’s kind of like the punk rock shit used to be here a hundred years ago when everybody was just happy somebody came to their town.

Bill: Well especially with All, you had a reputation of constant, constant touring so you’d have to go to all of the out of the way places so you wouldn’t wear out your welcome in the big cities.

Scott: Well yeah, but you know what, the situation back then was real different too. There were a lot of small promoters, people were interested in playing 200 capacity shows and setting things up in their VFW halls. Now with these giant tours, and not just the price of gas because it’s been years that this is happening. I know a lot of bands who’d do the Warped Tour, where bands that really have no business playing it because no one cares, something like the Pavers, who’ve never done it. For The Pavers to play the Warped Tour it’d be ridiculous; we’d end up playing at three in the afternoon while everyone was buying Pennywise merch. You can do much better if you play at the VFW hall to 200 people, but because of the giant tours that come through with all these little bands who are paying to play, to get on them, those kind of promoters have fallen by the wayside. You just don’t see shows like that any more. All played in a hut in the middle of a cornfield in El Paso and it was packed! I’d like to see that happen again. I had a plan with the Pavers, we were going to do “Pavers In Your Basement.” It was going to be “give us $300 and a place to plug in” and we’d bring the PA and everything else. It was going to be a way to show how easy it was to promote a show and come out a little bit ahead even. It kind of fell through and now with the price of gas it’s almost impossible.

Bill: Well I know it’s at least $4.40 all the time up here. It’s ridiculous.

Scott: Well we’re down to $3.60 down here (Austin, TX) but Texas has an oil well behind everybody’s house, maybe that’s why.

Bill: Ha, you’d get no complaints from me! So the show you played in… well I don’t really know if you can call it a show, but the little mini-set you did Fort Collins earlier in the year, was that planned out in advance?

Scott: Nope. I was up there with Steaming Beast doing a couple shows opening for Drag The River, which is Chad Price’s band he does with John Snodgrass, Chad Price being the All singer after me. We were opening for them and we were in Fort Collins and I was also playing with 40 Engine, which is Stephen’s band. So it was like “Well we’re all here, why don’t we play a couple songs.” And we did four songs, three of which were fine. But the fourth song was a song called “Educated Idiot” and I completely forgot how it went and I just stood there; it was terrible. That didn’t get us thinking about shows; when we got an offer from the Riot Fest it snowballed really quickly. And who knows, we’ve only got two more shows booked and that may be the end of it for all we know. We might make a record, you never know how things go.

Bill: Wait, I’m sorry, what did you just say?

Scott: We’ve got two more shows booked as All and I don’t know if that’ll be the end of it or if we’ll get more offers and end up making a record. You just can’t tell.

Bill: It’s one of those things where if it happens it happens?

Scott: Yeah, and if we think too much about it it’ll take all the fun out of it.

Bill: That was actually the next question I had written down, is what you see your future in All being, so I guess you kind of covered that one.

Scott: I don’t think any of us have even thought about it. We’ve had four practices, you know? We’ve done two shows and we have two more booked. The thing about recording a record is… there are three good reasons for people in our predicament, or whatever you want to call it. The first reason is that there’s this huge demand for it where people are saying “come on, please do it.” And up until now I didn’t think there was any demand for it, but apparently there’s some. Now how much there is, if it’s worth everybody taking a couple weeks off work and going somewhere to make a record, that remains to be seen. Another reason is if there’s musically unfinished business, if we have a Sergeant Pepper’s up our sleeve or something that we never got out. I don’t know how true that is; you know I’ve been making records forever and so has everybody else. But maybe when we start passing songs around, there is a great record. I don’t to make a new record where people will say “oh, it’s good.” I would like, if we’re going to do it, people to say “well that makes perfect sense to put in all that effort, this is a really exceptional record.” So we’ll have to see about that. The last reason would be the “bro” factor, where we’re all such good friends and it hasn’t been the same since and we should make a record. And we haven’t really had any contact over the years; we’re just now getting to know each other again. So if one or two or three of those things turns out to be true I wouldn’t doubt that there’d be a record. But who knows.

Bill: You mentioned that you hadn’t kept in contact, so how did you and Stephen end up starting 40 Engine?

Scott: Well when I was in All, Stephen and I were kind of the odd men out musically. I liked these kind of weird, kind of wacky circus type things, kind of cartoony. And Stephen just wrote shit that was from Mars. I was sitting around thinking “I want to call that guy and see if he’s interested in making some kind of record.” You know, he’s in Tulsa (Oklahoma), I live in Austin; it’s only a $30 train ride. It seemed like a fun idea. When we started to record it, the stuff that he wrote is kind of a little more middle of the road than he used to, a little more accessible. I was kind of surprised. But if we ever finish the thing there will be a good chunk of stuff that’s virtually un-listenable! Ha! It would make me very happy. But it was really just a brainstorm one night, thinking “I think I’ll call Stephen and see if he wants to do some shit.”

Bill: Was he into it right from the start?

Scott: Yeah, he was like “That sounds great!” Then we started sending files back and forth. We’ve got a good chunk of files, we just can’t seem to get our lives piled up, to get our poop in a pile enough to do that. It takes an incredible amount of figuring out, and he’s got a family

(TAPE RUNS OUT. FLIP OVER THE TAPE)

Bill: Ok, the tape’s recording again, sorry about that. You were talking about the time conflict of you and Stephen trying to figure out…

Scott: Yeah, he’s got family issues and things he’s got to deal with and I’ve got family things, and jobs and other bands. It’s one of those things where we’re working without a label or a plan, and it’s real easy to back burner it repeatedly, especially when you’re like me and Stephen. I’m completely right-brained; I have no organizational skills whatsoever. It makes procrastinating one of my main hobbies. If somebody comes along and somehow feeds us a deadline we’ll probably finish it, you know! (chuckle)

Bill: You just need that outside push?

Scott: Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not. (laugh)

Bill: At the All shows have you been singing any songs you weren’t originally on? Were there any Dave or Chad era songs in the set list?

Scott: We haven’t been doing Chad song because the Chad version of the band is…what’s the word… it’s on the tip of my tongue… it conceivably still exists, it’s potentially still there. If people want to hear the Chad songs all they have to do is bring Chad to town. I don’t think a lot of people are there to see me butcher Chad’s songs. We haven’t really done any of those, but I want to do “Original Me,” which is a song that he wrote.

Bill: Yeah, I know that song.

Scott: Yeah I really like it. We haven’t done it yet but that’s the plan, that’s the only one. The Smalley stuff I used to sing, I even did it on a live record so we do a few of those, then we do a couple Decendents songs because you have to if you want to leave the building in one piece, ha ha. So stuff like that.

Bill: Well “Original Me” would be cool because then you’d be the third person to sing it. On that one Descendents live record they do a version of it with Milo singing.

Scott: Did they?

Bill: Yeah.

Scott: Well Chad wrote it, I think that’s cool.

Bill: You’d have yet another interpretation of it, I think it’d be really cool to hear.

Scott: Yeah, I think it’s a real awesome song?

Bill: It definitely is. Do your kids listen to your music at all?

Scott: I’ve got one that’s a senior in high school and she doesn’t at all. (chuckle) She doesn’t even come to the shows! My little one told me that the bigger one put it on her iPod none of her friends have eve heard it so I would say no. The little one, she used to know every word but she’s starting to get into crappy music. I heard her listening to Linkin Park the other day.

Bill: Oh no. I’m sorry.

Scott: (laughter) “Really, do you like this? Really?” She said “Yeah! And I don’t care what you think!” because I always rag on the other one. It’s funny to me that when I was a kid my parents wanted me to listen to real crappy middle of the road country music. I don’t mind country but you know…

Bill: Not that kind.

Scott: Yeah, some of the shitty folk singers or something. And now my kids will listen to something that’s middle of the road and I’ll go “You kids today!” (laugh) It’s just completely backwards. I’m trying to get them to listen to something with a little bit of guts and they just won’t, they like crap! (strong, hearty laughter)

Bill: (laughter in kind) So my last written down question is the most stereotypical question possible, but have you achieved All?

Scott: Uhhh, have I achieved All? I don’t think that’s possible and that was the whole point of it. There’s always more right? I honestly don’t even know what achieving All really means. To me it was something that was part of the band’s credo before I joined. It actually started in the Descendents. I always try to do as much as I can and take things as far as I can unless I’m tired or I’ve lost interest! (chuckle) In answer to my question, probably not, I don’t think it’s possible. How about you, have you?

Bill: Ha, I definitely have not. Definitely not. It’s the constant struggle though, that’s the thing.

Scott: It’s what makes life interesting.

Bill: Exactly.

Scott: It’s funny, as far as music goes, I’ve had very limited success, monetarily very little. When I played in All I’d have some good shows, nothing great but when we did those tours with Bad Religion we’d have 1200 people at the shows occasionally, and we’d have other good shows. Since I left All I’ve had very small shows; The Pavers played to almost no one at the time. Being solidly middle aged at this point I look at it and I go… I said to my wife, “Sometimes I think about my future and I get butterflies in my stomach” because I’m still so excited about the potential for things to blow up or for something really interesting to happen or something. I still have the same weird… because, it’s ironic, because of my limited success I still have a real excitement about the potential, the possibility of my future. And I look at some of my friends that are very successful, and I have some friends that are very successful. People that have studios and labels that are working really well, and I’ll talk to a lot of them, and you know they’ll have a nice house and a pool or whatever, they seem like they’ve hit a ceiling that I haven’t hit yet. And in some ways the fact that I live in this crappy house and haven’t gotten there makes my life better. I sit there going “wow! I’ve still got a lot of shit to try to do!” Does that make any sense?

Bill: Yeah, yeah it makes sense. It’s a motivational thing.

Scott: Yeah, and it’s not even just a motivational thing. You wake up and you go “Something really great could happen.”

Bill: That’s a great attitude to have.

Scott: Once someone’s won the lottery and you think “well I have my jet skis and Winnebago, and ok.” And me, I feel like “Wow, something really cool might happen, I might be on Saturday Night Live!” (chuckle)

Bill: Well hey, I’m out of questions, do you have any last words or thoughts?

Scott: Everybody come to the show! Everybody.

Bill: Everyone in the world.

Scott: Make sure that we have to start turning people away. Let’s fill the place up and have a big party. Let’s have a gas.

Bill: Oh it’ll be a party; I’m looking forward to it.

Scott: Me too.

Bill: Alright, thank you very much Scott.

Scott: You too Bill. I’ll meet you when I get to Chicago, right?

Bill: Yeah, definitely. I’ll be working at all the shows. There’s two of them on Friday night where they kind of conflict time-wise but I can go to the early part of one, stop, then make it to the late one.

Scott: You’re gonna see the Pavers?

Bill: Yeah you’re playing the late one so I’ll definitely be there when you guys are playing.

Scott: Yeah because Big Drill Car is going to be there too and it’s in a smaller venue, it’ll be great.

Bill: Yeah, I actually just talked to Frank Daly and he seemed super excited too.

Scott: How’s he doing?

Bill: He’s doing well, he’s working as an X-Ray Technician in Bloomington, Indiana.

Scott: I knew he was living pretty close to Chicago. He’s one of the nicest guys I know, that I’ve crossed in my travels. He’s a really good guy.

Bill: Yeah he’s a really cool guy, even when we were done with the “interview” we just chatted and bullshitted for ten-fifteen minutes afterwards.

Scott: Ha! Yeah I have nothing sketchy to say about that guy from all the years we toured together. He was always a really funny, happy, nice fellow. It’ll be really good to see him and all those guys again. I haven’t seen them in (pause)… shit, it’s gotta be fifteen years. We’re all going to look old and sad!

Bill: Ha!

Scott: I’ve been running and eating my Wheaties so I’m good.

Bill: Just saving up all the energy.

Scott: I mean I’ve never slowed down; I’ve been musical the whole time. I always have a band.

Bill: Yeah I was looking on your website when I was doing some research and there were a million that I didn’t even know existed!

Scott: Yeah, I just keep going. I don’t feel any older. To me it makes perfect sense.

Bill: Cool. Thanks a ton for your time.

Scott: We’ll have a beer when I get there.

Bill: Definitely! Alright, see ya.

Scott: Bye.

Gordon McAlpin (Multiplex Comic) Interview (June 2008)

How long have you been doing web comics?

The first Stripped Books went up over at Bookslut.com in October, 2004, and did a new installment of that every couple of month, until the following July, when I moved it over to its own site (StrippedBooks.com).

I wanted to update the site more regularly than just once every two months, though, so I started making Multiplex as a weekly "back-up" feature (dusting off an old idea for a Flash animated series I never got anywhere with), but then Multiplex's readership kind of took off. I came out with a couple more Stripped Books over the next few months,
but then kind of retired it to concentrate on Multiplex instead, because that's where the majority of my readers were.

What advantages do you see from putting your comics online as opposed to doing it on paper, photocopying, and then distributing from there?

You can reach a wider audience for less of a financial investment. Of course, you stand to make a bit less money from it, too, I think, unless you have a really huge readership, because ad revenue rates are pretty crap.

For Multipex, I like that I don't need to think about space; if I need eight panels to do an idea, I make it eight panels. I don't need to try to squish down my idea into whatever little tiny box a newspaper has given me. Obviously, I want to keep things concise as much as
possible, but I would rather do a big idea as one long strip than break it up into multiple strips with a bunch of artificial stopping points added in.

Another advantage is that you can take an idea and put it online in far less time than in print; I've watched a movie or read some movie news and posted a strip about it in less than twelve hours before. It allows me to keep the strip more timely. And, because I'm often working pretty fast like that, it's also good that I can revise strips after they've gone up.

Do you think working with computers offers more creative freedom than working with pen and paper?

Oh, I don't know. You can do comics with pen and paper, with photos, paintings, woodcuts, vector illustrations… None of these techniques are really better or worse than another -- they're just different.

Even when I work "traditionally," I still use the computer a lot: for doing layouts, a lot of retouching, lettering (usually), coloring…

I just try to think of an art style that fits the idea best. If I had the time, I would love to do a children's story using photographs of sculpted figurines -- but, of course, I have rent to pay, and nobody's throwing book deals at me.

Did you always plan to do a print collection of Multiplex?

No. At first, I kind of thought of Multiplex as this stupid little thing I did on the side, and it probably shows in those early strips. I really thought that Stripped Books -- a non-fiction comic adaptation author appearances into comics form -- would be more popular than the infantile antics of a bunch of kids working at a movie theater. I am... incredibly naive sometimes...

It wasn't until Multiplex started getting way more readers than Stripped Books that I realized I would probably want to collect it someday.

And... someday... I might actually DO that print collection. I just need to find the time to work on it.

Do you think you would be able to transition into a more traditional, newspaper format type comic?

Not a four-panel strip like Garfield, no. I like swear words way too much. And the other sorts of comics I like to do -- non-fiction stuff like Stripped Books -- simply can't fit in that tiny little format.

I would love to do a longer comic, for an alternative weekly or something, but I've never had any desire to be locked into the regular newspaper style format. There are plenty of people who do great work in that format, of course, but I would not be one of them.

Do you have any advice that you would give to people starting up their own comics?

Make a schedule and stick to it. That's the cardinal rule. If you say your comic is weekly and occasionally come out with more strips than that, your readers will love you, but if you say your comic is twice a week and you blow half your deadlines, your readers will hate you -- even if you're doing the exact same number of comics in either scenario.

Frank Daly (Big Drill Car) Interview (August 2008)

Here's an interview with Frank Daly of the recently reunited Big Drill Car. As you can gather from reading the interview I'm mostly unfamiliar with BDC's work but with the impending re-releases I'm going to try to fix it. Frank was super nice and we ended up chatting for another fifteen minutes about general Chicago and punk rock related things after I turned off the tape recorder. Big Drill Car have just jumped up in the ranks to be one of the bands I'm most excited about seeing. I just finished up a piece using bits and pieces of this for the site, but here's the straight Q & A transcription that has more info and obviously a conversational feel.

Bill: What prompted the reformation of Big Drill Car?

Frank: Well I don’t know if you’re familiar with… you’re calling from the Midwest? Are you in Chicago?

Bill: Yeah I’m in Chicago.

Frank: Do you remember a band called M.I.A.?

Bill: Yeah, yeah! Frank Conley

Frank: Mike Conley.

Bill: Er, yeah, Mike Conley.

Frank: Mike and I, the guitar player in Big Drill Car, we were both in M.I.A. and we were all pretty good friends with Mike, and he passed away last year. Well, this year I guess it is. There were a bunch of benefit shows for his family and we were thinking that it had been long enough and we thought that a reunion would be kind of cool, that maybe we could play one of those. But as it turned out with our scheduling we weren’t able to play at any of those scheduled events. So we weren’t able to those but it left us with a jones, you know? “Oh, we were gonna do it!” you know? We just wanted to do it! And also our back catalogue is on iTunes now and we wanted to let people know that it’s out there again, so it’s sort of promoting that. It’s not for Mike, but because of Mike we had this jones to play, we wanted to do it again.

Bill: Yeah, that’s cool, I was going to ask you if there were any re-issue plans for the stuff. Is it just through iTunes or are you going to do a physical re-release?

Frank: No, I don’t think there’s going to be any physical re-release. It is all out of print though. I don’t know, I’m not ruling it out but what I’d like to do is make a good compilation. Even if that’s just for iTunes.

Bill: That’d be cool. Are any of the singles that you put out digitally available?

Frank: No, no they’re not. That’s the next move is to get all that stuff. Like I was talking about with the compilation, maybe put some of the singles and demo versions of some of the better stuff and maybe some stuff that should’ve been singles, if people did singles back in ’91 or whatever!

Bill: I didn’t know about the iTunes thing, I’ll definitely have to check it out.

Frank: Yeah, please do.

Bill: I’d heard your name thrown around a lot but I could never find anything for the longest time. Then three or four months ago I found Small Block on cassette at a Salvation Army store for $ 0.40!

Frank: No kidding!

Bill: Yeah it was pretty awesome, I made a bunch of scores that day! I found some Down By Law, some Dag Nasty tapes and it was like “Woah, this is the coolest Salvation Army store ever!”

Frank: Hahahah, that’s really cool!

Bill: So how were the first shows? You played two shows in Long Beach?

Frank: Well the first two were in Huntington Beach and then we did two of the dates on the Warped Tour, we did San Diego and Los Angeles.

Bill: How did they go?

Frank: It was a blast, man, totally unreal! I can’t even put it into words it was so much fun again. You know, with these guys and to see all these old people, all the old faithful that used to come to the shows and stuff. It was really fun.

Bill: Did you remain friends with all the guys in the band when you were broken up? Did you stay in contact?

Frank: Yeah, none of us... (pause). Nobody ever left the band on bad terms, you know? It was more like “I think I’m going to do this now” and the rest of us were like “Ok, that’s cool, I guess we’ll see ya around!” It wasn’t a big blow out fight or anything, nobody was sleeping with anybody else’s wife, no one said anything they’d regret. We had remained friends so getting back together was as easy as making phone calls, there were no old fences to mend or anything.

Bill: Was it difficult to get practice time? You’re living in Indiana, correct, and the other guys are still in California?

Frank: Yeah.

Bill: Was it tough?

Frank: I practiced with the guys for probably three hours, maybe four hours total, but the guys would get together when their schedules would allow. Mark is a sound man and a tour manager and he’s always on the go so it’s pretty difficult to nail him down for practice time but he’s always real enthusiastic and real up for it. The other three guys are on pretty regular schedules so Mark was able to get together with them. I would drive around in my car and practice singing because I don’t play music at all any more. Those guys would get together when they could and fortunately it all came together.

Bill: Now there was a tribute CD that just came out; were you involved with that at all?

Frank: You know, other than knowing it was going to happen, not really. I know Bob did the cover art and Glenn, the guy that released it, Itchy Korean Records, he’s been a big fan for a long and he used to follow us around Texas when we came through; he’s from Houston. He came to some of our shows out in LA and he’s a real good guy. He used to say he was going to do it, you know? “I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it!” And he finally did!

Bill: Have you had a chance to hear it?

Frank: Yeah yeah yeah, I’ve gone through the tracks. I like some of the tracks a lot. Caudill? Jeff Cuadill, is that how you say his name? Have you heard it at all?

Bill: No, I’ve been meaning to check it out but I have to scrounge up some more money to get it!

Frank: Well it’s the guy from Gameface, his name is Jeff Caudill is how you pronounce it, he does a version if “Swanson: that’s really good. There’s some other stuff that’s on there that’s pretty good to listen to. There are some re-interpretations. There’s one band on there that’s from Japan or something that does “Green Fields” and it’s an interpretation that I would have never sensed happening but it’s cool to hear what other people do with the stuff.

Bill: So you were saying earlier that no one ever left the band on bad terms, but what caused the initial break up?

Frank: Well let’s see. The first guy to leave was Bob. He was playing in another band at the time and he just decided to follow that, I think he was having more fun with that one because it was a newer experience so he went with that. We got a new bass player, a guy named Darrin Norris. We learned a bunch of new songs and we were getting ready to record the demos for No Worse For The Wear and Danny quit the band, so we got another drummer, a guy named Keith Faliss, played on the No Worse For the Wear record. We went on tour with Keith and then Keith quit! So we got a guy named Jamie Reidling to play drums and we recorded a couple of 7”s that were toward the end; Jamie played on those and we did a bunch of touring with him. Then at the end of that Mark and I kind of felt like we had a chemistry going among the original four guys. We felt like we kind of tinkered with the chemistry and it wasn’t like it was, you know? It was still fun; those guys were great guys to tour and write music with but it just felt different. It didn’t feel like the same old band to continue on. It just didn’t feel right any more. If we were anything, if Big Drill Car was ever anything, we were totally honest, you know? If it wasn’t fun we weren’t going to do it. What we played in was what we slept in the night before, you know! We never put on makeup or put on airs, we just were what we were; if it wasn’t fun and we weren’t going to do it any more.

Bill: You guys were one of the anchors of the old Cruz Records scene and I’ve always kind of wondered if you have any estimates on how many shows with All you’ve played over the years?

Frank: Ha, oh wow, I don’t know man! I’d say it’s gotta be (pause to think) it’s gotta be around a hundred! Ha! It has to be! We toured with them a lot. We did major tours with them, like six weekers three times at least. We did countless shows around LA and Orange County, the Bay Area, we’d go to the desert with them. I’ll bet it’s in the neighborhood of at least a hundred. I’m super looking forward to playing with those guys again; I mean those are some of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.

Bill: Yeah I’m looking forward to seeing how they pull it off.

Frank: Yeah with Scott Reynolds.

Bill: I guess all the reports from the past shows, even the surprise one were that they were really good.

Frank: I’m gonna YouTube that tonight. I’ve been meaning to but I’m really going to do it tonight to see what it’s all about.

Bill: There’s one really good video where the camera work is really shaky but the sound is really good. It’s from the surprise show in Fort Collins and it looked really cool. Like, Scott Reynolds, to be honest, is my least favorite All singer but even I was like “Oh shit, it’s All again!”

Frank: No kidding?

Bill: Yeah, I’m the one person that I know of likes Dave and Chad more. (laughter)

Frank: Really?

Bill: Uh huh.

Frank: Hmm. I really liked Scott’s songwriting, you know?

Bill: Yeah I can definitely see why with the songs but I don’t know, something about it. I’m still pretty excited to see it though. Maybe this will change my mind, that’s what everyone’s been telling me.

Frank: (chuckle)

Bill: So outside of the band, what do you do as a career now?

Frank: I’m an X-ray tech. I work at Bloomington Hospital taking X-rays and in school, started about three years ago and I just graduated in May.

Bill: Congratulations!

Frank: Thank you! I’ve been at Bloomington Hospital for about a year now.

Bill: That’s really cool, that’s not something you hear about every day.

Frank: No, it’s not. And you know what, it’s a pretty fun thing because it’s kind of creative. Sometimes you can’t do things that the book tells you and you have to think on the fly. Some of the views are kind of cool looking; you tend to take a cool picture every now and again. It’s pretty fun. You’re not going to get rich doing it but it’s kind of cheap to live here in Bloomington.

Bill: Well that’s about it, I’m out of questions. Do you have any last words or thoughts?

Frank: Just that I’m really looking forward to coming up and playing a show up in Chicago. We played Chicago twice if I remember right, well actually I don’t know, maybe more than twice. They weren’t all that we’d hoped they’d be, but hopefully these next shows will be pretty good.