Walter Schreifels: Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Youth of Today & Producing Title Fight

哎哎 I never because there's so few things that are people based like this is. Hello welcome it's hard-lord time how you doing Bo? I'm could not be better in this moment. This is a big day this is someone say it's decades in the making here. This is we've got here one of the most prolific minds to ever make hardcore music right? I dare say. The original heartthrob in our in our in our sport Queens New York Astoria Queens many of your favorite bands many of our favorite bands Bo take it away from you today. All the biscuits quicksand rival schools many others many others to sleep it there Mr. Walter Shryfals. Hey guys thanks to be thanks for inviting me here. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. Yeah, I asked them to two tie downs ago. Okay, been punishing them ever since. Here we are in 2026. Can you believe that? Yeah, it seems. I live in New York and I have noticed there's so many like super futuristic tall buildings. And yeah, but I mean what did I want it to be the same as it was when I was 20 you know what I mean it's kind of futuristic and stuff I guess it's just happening what are you going to do. Um, yeah 2026 here we are. I love that. Let's deal with it. 4040 years of basically everything good ever. Yeah. Yeah. Growing up in Queens, a story of Queens. I lived in a story of Queens when I moved I moved there for high school. You know my mom moved so so I lived there in high school but for the majority of my like elementary junior high and stuff was in Rockway Beach. Rockway Beach. Okay. Like the songs. Yes. How do you find music and how does music evolve to finding punk and hardcore. My first initial music stuff was my parents record collection. What did that look like? My dad had a lot of yacht rock kind of stuff and my mom had more folk kind of stuff like yeah my dad was more Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers and my mom was more Bob Dylan, Donovan, Neil Young. Sure. And so kind of parsed through that stuff and then my I had cousins that were into like just rock and roll like album oriented rock you know so I got living in New York you get Bruce Springsteen and all that kind of stuff. I used to stay up. As I started to get my own taste it was from staying up late to watch Silent Live. The guests. And there were shows and it was very hard to stay up that late when you're like 10, 11 years old. I would you know and there were shows on even after Silent Live like Don Kirschner's rock concert which sounds so ancient. And you know I would just discover a band here or there and once I was old enough to start buying records I would I would even read I started to read Rolling Stone. Anything got like a really good review. I would. No matter what it was. Well you know we would have to the record cover would have to appeal to me you know stuff like that but that's how I got into like REM I forgot their first EP when I was probably like I don't know 11 or 12 because it got a great review or the velvet underground I got into them when they got reissued in that time. And there was a radio station in New York it was actually in my island called WLIR that used to play a lot of imports from the UK. So when all this really cool stuff was happening in the 80s I would hear on this one particular radio station like all the sort of like I heard the Smiths when the first single came out like all the sort of Depeche Mode, Blamage, Joma MD like all of that kind of like electro pop that was coming out of UK in the early 80s, Echo and the Bunnyman like a lot of that kind of like post punk kind of stuff XTC all that kind of stuff when that was all happening I was hearing it on on this radio station. So that came all before punk music for you. Yeah I mean you know I was aware of the Sex Pistols by that time. I had seen the Rock and Roll High School film. Banger. And I actually went with my cousin we were going to go see The Kids Are All Right which was the Who movie but it ended up being a double feature. So we stayed for the second movie which was Rock and Roll High School. Oh cool. And that really. That did it more. I mean Kids Are All Right was fucking amazing too that definitely has had a huge impact on my book. Rock and Roll High School was looking at it was a view into a music scene that was not big you know what I mean. You're right there. It was right there you know you're I mean it looked like it looked like tangible you know what I mean like A I wanted to learn how to play guitar that seemed like these guys didn't really know how to play that good. So chances are the entry would be a quicker entry and they just seemed cool like they were wearing black leather jackets and talking about your neighborhood. It was funny and fun and the lyrics were funny and fun and so I was aware of the Ramones as well as the Sex Pistols. So I think I got into hardcore you know I had gotten a Dead Kennedys album you know so these are sort of the big heavy hitter bands that you I was thinking of it in terms of punk but then there was a radio show like I think was on Sunday nights on L.A. And then there was a show called The Midnight Riot and that was all like a lot more punk from the UK but also New York hardcore so that's one of the first times I listened to one of the first songs I heard was um gosh I remember like hearing Urban Waste on the radio Wow And Beastie Boys for a single and all these like you know alongside GVH alongside you know anti-nowhere league and all this other kind of stuff. Very proto New York hardcore. Yeah let me know the first up the first seven inches I mean Urban Waste seven inch was on um I can't remember what record label that was but the Beastie Boys record was on Rat Cage so that made me more aware of what it that that was a thing. Something that was really happening that wasn't necessarily in a movie. Yeah it was not in a movie. Even more tangible. Yeah that was like where what record store might I have to find to find these records like I'm gonna have to go to Manhattan and just walk around areas that I think are cool there's no way to know where the record store was gonna be you would just go to an area where there was like you know St. Mark's place or something like that and you just walk through and try to find thing and then another one. And then where how do you find the shows from there. That took a little while longer it wasn't really till I moved to Astoria which was in my sophomore no my junior year of high school. I moved in the summer before my junior year and I started working at a grocery store and Arthur the bass player of grill biscuits started working at the grocery store and I trained him and we were both into the same kind of music but he had already been going to Seabees. Oh really. For a while. Was he already dressed in fancy. He already looked he wasn't dressing like how he looks now but he looked cool and punk like he had bleached hair and you know he's wearing vans and you couldn't really get vans at that time and so he and Kraut were from Astoria too. Kraut was another band that I was aware of. When we we spent the day with Mike Dejean and Jojo from Hubburst we went to the bench at the park in Astoria next to the bridge. Kraut was the band. The band. That's that's what they described as oh yeah Kraut and Lee way were like those are the bands that did it all. I mean those got to me Kraut was like I mean listen to the record now it's like as good as any British rock punk rock record at the time like it's got so many hooks it's such a cool vibe their whole thing I think they were just like a little ahead of the curve maybe. But they were from Astoria to me they were rock stars but by the time I got to Astoria they had already kind of crested in a way I think and it was sort of like a weird I think it was 85 time like where there was that first wave of bands have mostly broken up. United Blood is out. Yeah. His report is about to come out. AF yeah cause for alarm had not yet come out so they were still. There was just sort of you know C.O.C. were probably the biggest band and they weren't you know they're from. Caroline is yeah they weren't from New York so New York's I guess Murphy's Law was probably the biggest band in New York. Did were you looking at C.O.C. as a hardcore band at the time. No I thought C.O.C. was. A cool version of crossover. Yeah. At that time like to me I did not was not into metal because metal was like way more defined like and a lot of it was just like just garbage you know what I mean a lot of it was just like you know kids in my high school were into like Cinderella or thinking like you know Dockin was so badass like I can get into Dockin and appreciate it now. But are you hearing Celtic Frost at the time. Yeah Celtic Frost was the thing but Celtic Frost was more like it's it's harder to look at it now like Celtic Frost was underground music. Yeah. So that had my respect it just was not my taste. Sure. Because I think it was more you know I just wasn't I was looking for like I wanted to live in like a suicidal tendencies video I wanted to be like. Don't we all you know being punk you know what I mean I wanted to be in suburbia and stuff like that. And that that that's sort of like Celtic Frost vision of the world was legit and authentic and I had friends in high school they can relate to that we're into Celtic Frost. But that just was not my aesthetic that's not where I was aimed and surely anything that was like technically metal played to me was like anathema and I thought that COC were coming from a punk place and like grabbing that in a way that I thought was like cool. Yeah. Like good. He says all the time death metal made by punks is that's the better kind of it's great. There's not so many examples but like DRI were really kind of doing that at that time. But I thought technocracy by COC was really good. I saw them at CB's blind. That's my number one. Yeah. I can't believe that was a little later. Yeah. I didn't I wasn't following them at that point. But they they were the band. And so New York scene was like to I mean obviously Murphy's law was so great. Yeah. And I would say that they were kind of like in their prime maybe at that time as the biggest band Lee way at that time like those guys are younger maybe Dijon and Joe. Yeah. Not by a lot. But in our core years. Yeah. Like our perspectives might be slightly different. Lee way had a demo out at that time. Right. We're not big. They were they could play CB's maybe do their own matinee maybe. But they were and and Lee way were kind of like way more attuned to that metal crossover. Definitely. Yeah. And so I couldn't help but like Lee way because I knew AJ and I knew Eddie and they were fucking cool. Yeah. And they were like older dudes. And the music was just so good. You didn't have to like metallic music to recognize that they were doing something really special and especially if you saw them live they were fucking way better. I thought and the LP took the born expire took so long to actually come out that it was like the secret amongst your community of like we know these songs. Yeah. I mean it did take a little while that wasn't unusual. You know what I mean because it's bands you know it wasn't a it took a while before there were these record labels to be interested in the stuff. You know like the time like 85 when Lee way they we used to be called unruly. But I think by that time they were probably called Lee way. Um were just sort of early adapters. And I have never really talked to AJ about it. But I guess AJ just really knew how to play fucking metal. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. In a cool way that that made sense with the hardcore but basically a long story short the scene was I felt yeah in a crossover. Period. You know it's like in between things. So how do you go from the double feature and looking for these records to your first having a hard. Oh that's what I'm doing. Hardcore. So anyway so I met Arthur and then so I got invited into like the token entry kind of camp because they were and they were sort of like they had been in a band called Gorillagin's revenge. And they token entry was sort of like there they were sort of in between too they were sort of like hardcore punk but also kind of want to be a rock band. Right. So they were a lot of this music was just in between I think at that time but anyway Anthony was the singer Anthony who was later in killing time was the singer of token entry at that time. One of the great. He is fucking best dude. He was very much a mentor to me and save and and Ernie as well like those token entry guys especially Ernie and Anthony really like turned us on to different music and through what they were doing showed us like you know what it's like to be in a band and all this kind of stuff. So the first shows I would go to when I first when I moved to Astoria. I used to just started I started going to the big shows like you know dead Kennedy's Circle Jerks. Sure. Like the big shows that you could read about in the newspaper. And I would look at CBs and I knew that there was something going on there but I was a little bit scared and I didn't know what day to go. It wasn't until I went until I made friends with Arthur and those guys that I started going to CBs and that just kind of maybe like a year or so of just kind of like this like in between sort of mid period. And then within that year you know sick of it all started playing grill was get started playing youth today came to New York you know just this this scene started to like really started to match. Yeah. So did you have any trouble growing up in this kind of mythically dangerous time and around these mythically dangerous groups of people as an incredibly handsome young man. I wasn't you know I was one of those kind of you know not aware of my effect on people at that time you know it's only now that I give you the podcast world that I get that you learn everybody's wives. I'm kind of like the hall pass. I just don't know that yeah so I'm learning this now. You're doing great. You're doing great. I'm trying to try to remain humble. Yeah good. But yeah this scary time you're like you're a smaller guy amongst giants. Oh yeah I think that's probably the part of the thrill of it not even not not just for me but I think for a lot of people because it's all relative there's always somebody that can beat you up or intimidate you. Yeah I think the fun of going into the pit and going to these dangerous parts of town and all this kind of stuff is that you get that you survive it and you're like I'm kind of a little bit more of a badass today than I was yesterday. You know if you go into the pit and people are running around it looks like a bit violent and people seem to know each other and you don't know them or people know how to do it and you don't know how to do it and you jump into that. And that's a lot of just coming back. Yeah but a lot of people don't make it. A lot of people jump in some punches them in the head and they're like this is not for me or they get beat up because they're the new kid and it's like jail. And they're like I don't want to go back there. You know it's a bad place. I think figuring how to you know make friends build community and being lucky you know what I mean because you could just be there the wrong day. Were you accepted and looked out for right away or are there any like key instances coming to mind of a big bad guy coming to your defense for something. I remember because it happens a lot. We talked to Craig just the other day. Yeah. Oh dude I kind of do a call. Let me think of like where someone came to my aid. Yeah like no Walter's cool. I know he's small and handsome but. Yes. Yes there was once. I was walking down the street with a couple of friends or maybe a few friends and we were walking down Avenue way and this group of skinheads came up to us. Arthur was with me. Arthur and I think Gus and these guys just there's probably four or five of them just attacked us. One of them was hold me behind and was like holding my arms and like hitting me in the head. Whoa. And I was just like I don't know if you guys have ever been beaten up but or got it. But there's an adrenaline rush and I was just thinking like first of all it's moving slow and I was like this doesn't hurt as bad as I thought this experience would hurt. Yeah. You know what I mean. And it's a before I said in my mind is like they're going to realize at a certain point that they're beating up the wrong person. Someone's going to understand it and I'm going to be OK. That's ultimately what happened. They realized that they were beating up the wrong person because I was in war zone. And I think one of my guys just kind of made it clear to them that I was in war zone like he's in war zone. You're beating up the wrong guy and big. No. So yeah but I mean I didn't like weaponize it or anything. Yeah of course. You know there was really I mean it was so long ago I can't really remember how I played. I'm sure it sucked. I remember the next day my head hurting. Yeah. Bad. Like luckily it wasn't like I had bruises on my face but like my eyes like oh my god I have such a headache. This is like so that they hit me hard. OK. But that adrenaline saved you in the moment. But the adrenaline saved me. It was kind of like when you're and I think this is a good metaphor for being in the pit too. It's like growing up in Rockaway you go out when the waves are big and you get knocked down and you're knocked under. So you're spinning and sometimes you don't even know like what which way is up. But if you keep like struggling to get up. You're fucked. It's not it's not going to help you what you have to do. Sounds a lot like quicksand. Or a quicksand is another one. But you're in there. You're in the pit and you're like oh god I might die. And then just kind of let your body just don't fight it and just kind of find your way out of it. Yeah. And then get out of it. And then you're back on the side and you're like oh my god I'm still alive. Exactly. Surfing is just like moshing. And surfing too. Yeah. It's very similar. So you said you're in war zone at the time. Let's go back a little bit. What was the first band you ever played in? First band I ever played in. We didn't really play like shows at venues and stuff but like parties and talent shows and stuff like that. We were called the rodents and we were kind of like being like you know sort of punk songs. We had songs making fun of kids in our class and stuff like that. Yeah. And then we kind of got better at our instruments. We went a little bit more like deeper and then we became not quite. Sick. Sick name. That was pretty sick and the bass player got like a not quite denim jacket painting on the back of his jacket. How long did that band last? How many weeks? In like yeah you know what I mean? In like kid years it was like long. Your career. It was a whole era. Yeah. But in actual time it was probably like three months. Fuck yeah. And then I moved. I had a year of high school in Ohio because my dad lived in Ohio so I lived in Toledo, Ohio for my sophomore year of high school. Then when I came back I moved to Astoria. Fuck yeah. So then you joined Warzone. Well Gorilla Biscuits. I started Gorilla Biscuits and we you know. So Gorilla Biscuits is that your first real band? First hardcore like yeah. Okay. Because when I made friends with like Arthur and this token entry crew and we were all in Astoria. Yeah. And um. Because the timeline is a little weird. It is weird because your first credited appearance on a piece of vinyl is for both Warzone and Youth of Today on the Together Comp. And I'm also on Death Before Disoner. No what are they called? Super Touch. I'm on that record too but I'm not credited. Really? Yeah which is fucked up. The lights is fine. Mark apologized. We're good. But I thought. Did you play a guitar on the whole way? I play bass on it. I saw it on Search for the Light. And I also played on Youth Today. I played on Youth Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Warzone and um. Super Touch. Super Touch. I played on four of the seven songs on that first seven inch. So you know I'm still waiting for my credit for that. So waiting for that 85 bucks. You know what I mean? I really do. So Gorilla Biscuits was the first one? It was the first band that I did that way. And when I moved to Astoria and met my heart. This is like this is going to be a hardcore band. Okay. And then Gorilla Biscuits was like kind of more. I wanted it to be like descendants really. Like that was the initial thing because. You can hear that on Start Today. Yeah there's melody baked in. Yeah. So it kind of evolved as like Straight Edge came in and um. You know Youth of Today and like that whole youth crew thing. Like it definitely spun Gorilla Biscuits from sort of like a humorous. Descendants slash Murphy's Law. AF. Yeah. Influences to something more aligned to seven seconds and stuff like you know in that. That was sure. Did you come up with a name? I didn't come up with it but I had. Civ was just talking about different drugs. Because it was in. Coal Eater. Yeah he was in junior high and he was. Since then. Like when I met him. I think he was straight edge. How long were you straight edge Walter? In those time years forever. Okay. But in regular years probably till I was like probably 20, 21. Okay. And then set probably like three years. You know those are important years to be straight. I'm grateful for those years. It's true. They set the tone for like knowing when you're over your skis and just keeping yourself, surrounding yourself with the right people. Don't put yourself in dangerous situations. Absolutely. I'm always so lost on straight edge lineage between old straight edge bands, the formative straight edge bands. Like how long they were straight edge when it became this kind of lifetime commitment thing. And then Bo tells me the story of you guys at dinner. Oh. What'd I do? Did I make a straight edge show? No, no, no. You and I and our mutual friend, friend of the show Jordan Olds. Yeah, I love Jordan. Got dinner when Harmsway played at the Bowie ballroom. Yeah. Not too long ago. That was a great night. And we were talking about something and you were just like yes, youth crew. I mentioned that I was really into youth crew. You were talking about music. Yes, I love it. I love it. Guys, Margaritas. It was just Jordan and I kind of looked at each other. It was just one of my… Nobody will believe you. Yeah, nobody will believe me. So, okay. So, Sid was talking about it. You heard it and you thought… Yeah, he was just talking about drugs that he dealt in junior high. And it was like yellow sevens, all these drug name things, grill biscuits and blah, blah, blah. It's like what was that one that you just said? And he said grill biscuits. I go there. It's the band name. Let's go. It was the one. And here we are four years later. And he was so cool that he actually went all right. That sounds good, which is amazing because you said that sounds stupid. So, the GBE, I mean the demo and the seven inch. The seven inch is pretty hard. Seven inch and grill biscuits. Yes. Okay, I like to hear that. It's pretty hard, especially compared to start today. It's not as manic and crazy as I can't close my eyes or even break down the walls, which I think are kind of influences. Contemporary. Contemporary. Thank you. Yeah, I guess definitely can't close my eyes would have been a big one. That was such a huge record. I don't know. I can't remember when Break Down the Walls came out, but short. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, that. And also being in youth today informed my songwriting. Because I was in, to me, the youth today at that time were the absolute best band in a musical way. They still are. Yeah, they're amazing. There's other bands at the time that were absolutely great for all different reasons, but in a musical head, I just thought that it just, that's the best shit. So I was playing in the band at that time. So I was just soaking up. Sponging it and then applying it over here. Sponging all the info and then just then using that information to apply. But I think with the seven inch similar, but I'm just drawing off a more broader, like bad brains for sure. And we weren't as good at playing. Not that we ever got that great, but we were, you know, but the songs are sort of always had a silliness to them. I thought for the most part, you know, like, you're called Gorillapis. It's a good call. Gorillapis is. And I always wanted to have like an overly serious point of view that it's almost funny. Yeah. In a way, like it's sort of like there was a band called crucial youth that were like making fun of the genre. And I think Gorillapis gets in a way was like almost right up to the line of that, except that we meant it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think it's really when I think about it, I had like an idea of how we were talking about the scene before, like from youth today and all that kind of stuff and seeing shows like the anthrax and in Connecticut versus shows in New York, I guess, like a vision of a scene where everybody was like cool to each other and supportive and not violent. You know, there's a lyric in Finish What You Started where it goes, I wish I could see a music and scene attitude free and nobody's mean. Yeah. It's really. And it's funny, but is it not true? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I always want to play to that. So it's a little tongue in cheek. Yeah. I mean, but also real. Yeah. But the thing of the New York Car Course, he's like, yo, we don't take no shit. Yeah. Yeah. But that's changing with youth today. Yeah. And youth today, we're kind of putting a righteous, you know, finger pointing, war zone as well, sort of cleaning up the nihilism of the scene that had sort of kind of was done anyway, in a way. Interesting. You know, it's turning the page on all that. The most good stuff was like, you got a big mouth. Yeah. You know, like it's funny. Yeah. I think. And that's why you have rabies doing his part. Yeah, rabies is doing it. So it starts off. Yeah. But dude, people do have big mouths and I wish they would just shut them the fuck up sometimes. You know what I mean? But it's not like, so when you say it's hard. Musically. I didn't think, I wanted people to dance to it. I wanted people to take it seriously in the pit. I didn't want it to be a joke band at all. But I wanted it to be like, have a sense of fun and of joy and of like, you know, earnestness. Interesting. Amen. That song in particular, big mouth, the kind of harmonic. Yeah. Yeah. Do you write that? I wrote all of it. You wrote all of it. I wrote everything. And you were lyricist as well for it? Yeah. For everything? Everything. Good on you, man. I mean, some of that stuff. I don't know how I wrote those songs. Isn't that a good feeling? I'll tell you what, you know, it took me, I was literally in my 30s when I figured out what you guys were saying in like, biscuit power. Like that's like spelling it out. I had no idea. I didn't know what was going on. Yeah. I didn't know, I thought I was hearing Dragon's Lair. Yeah. But you were actually saying Dragon's Lair. Yeah. Call it for the Dragon's Lair. What is the Dragon's Lair? Dragon's Lair is a video game at the time of the, in the 80s where it was like really cheesy but kind of slick at the time where it was sort of a choose your adventure. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Game and it was like with these sort of filmed cartoons and you'd be like, choose room run, choose two. And then you get through that room and then you'd be like, okay, you made it this far, choose this room or that room. It was stupid. I never even really played it, but I just, I think it rhymed with something. Yeah. Better watch out, better be scared. Better watch out, better be scared. Yeah, there you go. Call it for the Dragon's Lair. So then, oh, it's okay. So help my timeline, please. Grilled biscuits was already a thing. How do you get linked up with Yuzo today? You think, because GB were coming up and we were, dude, our dream was to get on Revelation Records and- Such an achievable dream. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the time it was like such a gate, like that was the, that was the ultimate thing. I mean, there wasn't really any other records on it. There was like the comp which we got on. So that was magic. But once we heard that Ray was doing a record label, it was going to be called Revelation, we just wanted to be down because there was really not really any other record labels in New York as many bands as there were. And you know, the bands like Crumb Suckers or Agnostic Front or- This is all the like Combat, Caroline, all that stuff. Yeah, they had all signed to these sort of like more metal labels. Yeah. So they were the sort of like hardcore signing on the metal label and the metal label was like had all the shit contracts and all the music business crap, but they didn't really have the push of like an actual major label. I mean, that's still how it is right now. Yeah. So you get a certain exposure to an audience, but I wasn't really aiming for that. But those bands had joined that thing. So there was no like hardcore independent label at the time. So Revelation came out, we were like, oh my God, I want to be on Revelation. And you know, they, I remember Ray and Jordan came up to me at a show with the Ritz and they were like, hey, do you want to go be on Revelation? Oh my God, yes. And then it was sort of like, you know, you're going to go out with the prettiest girl at school or something like this. You dream about it and then nothing, then like nothing happened. And they just the communication went dead. And then I saw them, oh, we're going to do it. Oh yeah, you know, some other time. Also still happening. We'll see what happens or whatever. And so we were on the radar, I guess. I had been playing with Warzone and Craig quit Youth of Today to join Ignostic Front. And they had a show at the pyramid. They asked me to play bass and I was like, fuck yeah. I mean, that was basically like joining the Rolling Stones. Yeah. You know, to me at the time it's like, and we're going on tour. So this is like end of high school 1987. We're going on tour for Breakdown the Walls. First tour? First tour for me. Yeah. How was that? The first US tour for Youth of Today too. Wow. Any memories? Any fond memories? Oh my God. I think it was absolutely epic. We all shaved our heads. We looked like nutjobs. We were all teenagers. Shaved heads driving this van around. Like every city was, you know, you're just not to be like old about it, but it's like, you know, you're looking at maps, calling people from gas stations. You're talking to kids. You're never talking to adults. You're rarely playing venues. You go drive to a city and there's just no show. Or, you know what I mean? Just all this kind of crap and you're always picking up shows and you're always staying at different people's houses. You know, we were living on a $5 a day PD for a while until that ran out. Then we were just shoplifting. And you know, we played some incredible shows. Like one of the highlights was what we were in Texas, I think. And we got an offer to play a show in LA a few days or a couple days later with the exploited at Fender's Ballroom, which was like a very, was the Epic Hardcore venue in Southern California. Is that still around today? No, no, it's been gone for a long time now. There's one of the craziest flyers ever was at Fender's Ballroom. Fender's Ballroom? It doesn't have a different name now, maybe? No, I don't think so. I don't even know if the bullying is there anymore, to be honest. And it is Fender. It was in like the Fender font, wasn't it? Yeah, hey, for all I know, maybe it was the Fender factory. I have to look into that. But was there a show, I could be mistaking it with another one, but there was like you played some with maybe Uniform Choice on that tour as well as a seven second show. We played with Uniform Choice. I don't think on that tour. But played with them a couple times. GB played with Uniform Choice. Yeah, Uniform Choice and Wishing Well Records, that was a big thing too for GB. I mean, just like that, between Youth Today and Uniform Choice, Wishing Well Records, Revelation Records, these forces were so powerful in hardcore, not only because they were doing something really cool, but they were also, it was only a few years prior, but like they were plugging into the hardcore that I've seen that I wanted to be in. I didn't want to be in a metal scene, I wanted to be in a hardcore scene. So they were referencing minor threat, they're referencing negative approach, they're referencing SSD, like all the bands that like I thought that's the scene that I, and they were doing the most creative scene supporting work. Ray was putting together these matinees at the Pyramid Club, and the scene in New York just had gotten so diverse and awesome. And it just, yeah, so the tour anyway, going back to the tour was fantastic and I met so many, every place that I went, I would meet the most core people of a city that were going to like write the fanzine, form the band, book the show, and I know a lot of those people from that very first tour that are still like, that's what they do as professional people, and that, you know, how the fuck would I know anybody in Salt Lake City? Like that just was not going to happen for me, but now I go pretty deep there. Were you a four piece for that tour? Five piece. And Richie, the singer of Underdog was the guitar player, and Mike, the singer of Judge, was the drummer. The drummer. Seen as kind of the like wow lineup. It was kind of like an all star, although I would have been the scrub at that point. I would have been like, if it was the Super Friends, I would have been like Xan and Jaina or something like that, because those dudes were like, already like the main dudes, like we had Batman Superman and you know. Sure. That's a great picture of the five of you. Yeah. That is just one of my favorite. Is there a secret recording of you singing an underdog set somewhere? I know. That's never happened, that I know that I can remember, although sometimes I'm like, oh that actually didn't happen. I don't think so, no. Are you writing We're Not In This Alone in the band on this tour? No, but we did write some Understand I Remember Writing on that trip, which was on a comp, and together, no, we wrote together before. Also a comp tour. Yeah, that's on the comp too, but we wrote Understand. That's the one I remember, and I can't remember if you wrote anything else, but I remember writing it on our roof with Ray. Sick. Which was pretty cool. Pretty cool. So how involved are you in writing We're Not In This Alone? I wrote the music for, I don't know, a handful of them and contributed to some. I wrote Keep It Up, Choose To Be. Banger. I wrote the beginning part of the baseline of, I have to look at the credits on the album. Yeah, sure. But I wrote a handful on that. But you were very involved in the record overall. Yeah, yeah, and Purcell was writing songs and we would kind of translate Ray's songs. Ray's songs were like more Time Will Remember, Flame Still Burns. I feel like they're more sort of theatrical songs. Anthems. It's like he's writing it as the frontman. It's more, you have writing this frontman and Purcell songs are kind of like, he wrote some more, I guess it's somewhat metallic or kind of. Yeah, I mean, judge is coming. Yeah, so I have to look at the thing to break it down. But basically, me, Sam and Purcell wrote a bunch of the songs. We translated ones that Ray would kind of like, he could play a little bass or he would just articulate it and we would just kind of come up with it for that album. And then for the seven inch that we did afterwards. Disengage. Disengage. I wrote Disengage music. Oh, you know, now you just disproved a folk tale. Yeah. I had always heard that the song Disengage was a judge song that they just didn't use or whatever it was used because it's very different. It's very heavy. That's the heaviest unit in my opinion. Yeah. I wrote that one. Wow. Guys, so we call that hard. We do call that hard. That's hard. Let's think about that. Who is Les pause Davis? Les pause Davis was the guy that. The engineer of one of these. I think he's the engineer. Yeah, but he. I don't want to disparage this man, but we're down this alone recording is just really insane like we recorded it at Chung King, which later. So he was a guy at Chung King. So he was just, I don't even know. Like we would record it off hours there. So we would start recording at like midnight and go to like eight in the morning. So I was delirious. I was a straight edge at that time. So I wasn't like by any ways like I was just tired. So I was just asleep. Little Sam is like fucking 14 years old or something. Just left. Played in. Freak. Recorded all the drums and then the guy Les pause with his little pause. We have little pause recorded over the snare drum. So the snare drum got erased on all of it. He Dr. Midnight. Midnight in the Sammy. Whatever that I don't know what that is. I don't know the reference, but if that's what it is, that's called. Exactly. Dr. Midnight comes in and does surgery on the. Yeah, he erased the entire snare track. And so he called Sam like little kid Sam. Come in. Oh yeah. I just wanted you to work on a little something, you know, whatever. It's coming a little early and had him just overdub. Oh my God. So if you listen to the drums with that in mind, you can hear the ghost of Sam's old snare drum on the other drums mixed in with the snare that the poor little kid just sat going like this. It feels. Oh, it feels. I'd have to ask him. Yeah. Do you hold a tight? We'll have some Sammy's going to be on at some point. This is a little. Yeah. Wow. You remember what it's Sam, you know, we didn't have we had very limited experience, especially in a place where we had recorded Don Furries. That was like an eight track room and we were very familiar with Don and there wasn't really too much going on. Whereas like, you know, not that Chunking was particularly fancy, but they did have like a full, you know, it's probably like an SSL or something. And they can suck it, you know, from what we've heard. They can suck it. Yeah. So that's what we've heard. I would have, if I was in charge of you today, I would have said, hey, let's cut our losses and re-record this album at Don Furries, which is exactly what I did with Gorilla Biscuits, because we'd so desperately wanted to record at Chunking because that's where BC Boys had recorded. That's where Public Enemy had recorded. That's where Slayer had recorded. Danzig. They do Hello, Waits there or something? No, they did. They did South of Heaven there, I think, there too, but they surely did what's the one before South of Heaven. Seasons? Seasons? Rain and Blood. Rain and Blood was Chunking. Pretty sure. I had no idea. But probably for you today, it probably would have been more that, I think we were more about the, like I remember going to Chunking and LL was there one night. Like Chuck D was there. So we were just psyched to be there. Yeah. I read a story once, maybe another folktale. You're unlocking a lot of things in my brain right now. Danzig was recording at the same time. Yes, this is true. There was an elevator that had been painted. Yes. Oh my God. So there was an elevator that had been painted. And who did it first? You guys did it first? I think that Purcell had some like little graffiti war with Danzig. Yeah. So there was like straight edge shit written, right? Yeah. And then the next day it was devil shit. And then finally you guys crossed paths one time. And as you today got in the elevator and somebody said something about straight edge and Danzig turned around and said, Satan, the door is closed. Yeah. Confirmed? I have confirmed that that story happened. I was not there. Okay. But Sam and Purcell, I think, were, that was their thing. I didn't have anything to do with that. Were you a Mrs. guy? Yeah. Not like, you know, having a tattoo or carrying on that level. But, but no, but that's a, that is people, they, the misfits are a band that people obsess on. I would, I just, you know, I liked them. Okay. Pardon this interruption. You know, we hate to interrupt this masterpiece with one of the greatest to ever do it. But we have two very important things to tell you about. That's right. We do. Who do we got first, Colin? First off, this episode is brought to you by Guilty Party. It is our favorite menswear store on God's green earth. It's, they're based out of Atlanta, Georgia, co-owned by the drummer foundation. And it's where we get all of our favorite denim in the world. We got flat head, iron heart, free note. What's the fancy one you love? Full count. I love it so much. The other one, the French one. Oh, studio d'artisan. That's a good one. And then I got a pair of these samurai baker pants this week. God, can't believe them. They got red wings. They got belts. They got bags. They got fragrances now. They got all kinds of stuff. You can really change your life with just a few key things from Guilty Party. And if you use code HARDLORE, you're going to get 10% off and free shipping for anything over $300. And you can pay in installments like we do with every decision we make in our entire life. Every single thing on earth. A firm owns us. HARDLORE is really brought to you by a firm. But mostly it's brought to you by Guilty Party. So go to GuiltyParty.co and put some boots in your cart. Put some denim in your cart. And if you have any questions about anything in the store, A, hit us up and we'd be glad to recommend something for you. B, hit up Guilty Party. They're the most helpful, friendly, independently owned partner that we have on this show and we are so happy to be working with them as it is Independent Partner Month. Colin, who else do we have? That's right. This episode is also brought to you, if you can believe it. Walter is one of the most prolific hardcore guitar players of all time. Sometimes it doesn't even bring guitars to shows. It's unbelievable. What do you got? If only he had this Dunnable Asteroid DE and used Code Hardlord to get 15% off of it. It's available right now. You can go get one right now. Or you can build the guitar of your dreams in the Dunnable US Custom Shop. Wow. What about Dunnable guitars, bro? Dunnable are friends of the show. They have been helping out all kinds of bands, all kinds of musicians. Anthony from God's sake, Colin Young, Taylor Young, you name it. Mike from Yobbs got a guitar coming. They have for the very first time the first ever Dunnable seven string guitars. Now you may see a seven string guitar and think of a very specific genre, but Dunnable seven strings are designed to be a tool for every kind of music. No fanfrets. The headstocks are awesome for the first time in seven string history. You could tune low. You can play slow. You could do all the things you want to do. Listen, you can't take a normal, you can't take a Les Paul standard guitar, six string guitar, tune it down to A standard. What are you insane? You're insane. Put another string on there. And if you're going to do that, do it with Dunnable. Do it with Dunnable. So go to the Dunnable site, Code Hard Lore, 15% off. Site Y. Get a beautiful custom. Get a beautiful factory DE guitar. Either way, you're going to have my favorite guitars in the palms of your mutes. That's good. Thank you. Back to the episode. Let me ask you something. At this time, with the youth root thing, your scene that you guys are all making, style, clothing, and the fashion is very specific, very iconic. Where are you pulling this from? Why is this becoming a thing? Obviously, I think having an identity is important. And we can all understand that. Why that one? Why the sports stuff and the athletic? From my perspective, you had a city like this. New York City was the hardcore mecca at that time if you lived in New York or if you lived even in surrounding places. So that look was leather jackets, combat boots, ripped jeans, shaved head, flannel shirt. You kind of dress like the Circle Jerk Man, maybe. Like the guy? Yeah. And a crossover into a skinhead look, which I think was very inspired by Harley Flanagan, bringing that to New York. Harley had a lot of influence. I think a lot of skinhead look. I wouldn't say, yeah, because there was other guys into it. Obviously, Vinny and Roger. I think a lot of people from that era were taking from Oi. Because Oi has this working class power to it that I think was very relatable. Because the New York scene, well, I had all different walks, but I think there was a real working class element to it. It wasn't art school-y, although that existed in the scene. So it's fashion-wise, I think that was kind of the look. So when Youth Today came, they were coming from the suburbs. They were coming from... Danbury, Connecticut. So I think those guys came with this sort of jock look. And I thought that that was, especially for me personally, having spent a year in Ohio where they had football teams and all this kind of crap. And the jock look was such a thing. And you're an SSD guy, which the Varsity J. SSD, they had that. And they were ripping it from SSD. So I think it's this sort of subversion of that look, where you're... Rather than being the circle jerk man or a crossover guy, you're going to dress like you're a jock from the suburbs in a way. But we were also very attuned to hip hop too. So we were buying fancy shit too. Fancy sportwear, nice sneaker. And that got more and more refined as more of that sneaker mania thing, which was... Because hip hop, hardcore, sneaker, fiends... Streetwear is hardcore and hip hop. ...is happening. That is coming together. It was just happening at that time. So we were just very on that. And it was identifiable within the scene and different looking. And when I went to high school, they didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Because I was throwing this sort of strange pitch at them where I had a shaved head or blonde... I looked weird. Jock is from the beginning of punk, is the antithesis of punk. And now you're making this whole group of guys making one thing. You're taking, you're bringing, you're horse showing it. So that was how I felt about it. Because I was obviously not into the jock mentality at all. And if you listen to the lyrics of Youth Today, they're not... I mean, I think there's things that are... They're definitely not jock mentality in terms of they're about human rights, respect... There was one, but it got changed. Which we just might. Yeah, but that was when they were starting off. And it was cool. It was cool. It's still cool. Like it's still cool. Like I would be hard-bred. We literally just might. Who's hard? It's not even saying we're gonna, but we just might. We might? And you don't know that we will or won't. It's amazing. So I think that was the thread. You know, like that subversion and then also that it took, you know, like Nike, Nike, Adidas. My daughter gets so pissed off when I say Nike. You say Nike? Sometimes. Yeah. I only do that because of the Esosón Revoque or Son Nike video. I don't know if you know that one. Check that one out if you've never seen that. I think it was originally to me Nike and then it became Nike. Whatever, it doesn't matter. My daughter just like pits her off so much when I say Nike. Were you ever disparagingly called a sneaker? A sneaker. No. This was a term that I read was a derogatory term for the youth crew guys. Wow. Maybe they were calling you behind your back. Yeah, I really hurt my feelings. I'm glad it never happened to me. But we were very into like sneaker culture. And what would it have been like? I'm still into it. Like wearing fucking like to warm up. You're swagged at your mom. Yeah, you're pretty swagged at your mom. Yeah. OK, so I think that that aesthetic just fit really well into it. And it's really cool because when you look at, like when I looked at in my eyes, my or threat, I just like saw this dude. I didn't know who Yimakai was, but it's like, this motherfucker looks nuts, dude. He's just wearing a t-shirt and his head shaved. And he looks like he's coming out of a fucking concentration camp. And he's got a microphone. And he just is black and white and just like the look of it. And then like, then you hear it. And then you hear it. And it's like super aggressive, but really sharp and well done. You know what I mean? Like the quality is there. Not that I was like some like a music critic at the time. But I was into fucking cool music. You know what I mean? I was into like, I was in, or I heard Velvet Underground and R.E.M. or stuff like that, the Smiths before I heard Minor Threats. That's right. Which all ended to everything you've done in the latter half of your career. Yeah. And all those influences went into what I was doing with hardcore, even though it was like primitive in what it was. But I think that that's the coolness of it. Well, speaking of, let's get to start today. Yeah. Which is thematically and musically, even compared to Youth of Today and Warzone and the first grillabiscous stuff. A giant leap, in my opinion. Songwriting, lyrical content, record album structure. Cats and Dogs is a song where I know every single word to. I don't know why, but it's just some of it is just written in such a way that that is is very prolific. How old were you when you wrote Start Today? I was probably 19. That's fucked up. 18, 19. Yeah, that's not right. I remember it was finished. We Youth of Today was going on tour in Europe. Was that the soccer team tour? That was the soccer team tour. And we had this thing called Be Loud. Like you just should be loud like Lee Wei. Be Loud. Great song. And yeah, we would talk about bands that were loud and bands that were not loud. And Sam and Purcell were saying like, yeah, grillabiscous is great, but it's not really loud. And I was like, you fucking asshole. Wow. Derogatory. So like we just ended up getting in fights. They were just abused me for that grillabiscous. Not abused me, but just like subtly dig me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. And it worked. But I think, yeah, I just had gotten so much more like putting out and you've probably experienced this. Being in your band and you're doing your songs and our songs fucking dope. And then you play it for the audience and they're into it or they think it's okay or whatever. You know. And then you make a recording and then people hear it and then they come back and they're singing the words to you and they know the song. It's the best thing in the world. Like it's not only a good feeling, but it's educational because you're understanding that work, why it works. So are you telling us that your writing start today's songs based on what you're imagining people? I understood what made people move. You see what I'm getting in here? Yeah, like I was in Youth of Today. So I understood not that I was like, you know, drawing it out on a fucking chalkboard. Yeah. But like I understood why these songs work so well. And also playing the GB7H had come out and we had our own energy going. So just I was just well more well informed. I knew and there was other records that had come out that I thought were fucking cool. Like I really loved and I thought we're pushing the ball forward a little bit. Like Dagnasti, can I say? Dude, one of my all time favorite records. Such a good record. I mean, it's taking all the cool shit about DC. And made it contemporary and a little bit more. Yes, sort of, you know, it had it had hints of whatever was cool about, you know, say, Right to Spring. Yeah, it had touches of that, but it still had a fire to it. Had the edge of Smalley. Yeah, had Brian Baker and like I love it was a it was a it was a perfect timing, you know, and it wasn't. So that record was like, oh, you can do something sort of. There's there's a lot of different things you could do. I can use octaves. Yes, exactly. I can express melody through octaves. Yeah. And so that was very directly from from Dagnasti or government issue. I'd put out a record called you that I got into like like right around the time that we started recording grill biscuits and and that was Jay Robbins played on you. And I think Jay Robbins wrote a lot of the material on that. And again, it was like had the cool things of DC in this kind of like I thought progressive way that still was rocking me. And so I think I soaked up a little bit of that. And but also wanted to lyrically, I wanted to like make like seven seconds sound like pessimistic. I just wanted to be like the most positive album. How was that received by your peers at the time? I don't know that anybody really I guess some people would would if someone were critical of it, I don't have like a certain memory of anyone saying this to me. But I think that's probably why the be loud thing bothers me. That was their way of like taking a dig at me that it's not the Chrome eggs because like the Chrome eggs was like survival the streets. Yeah, like you're writing like it's brutality. Yeah. You know what I mean? Whereas like Gorillawis gets his basically saying, Hey, everybody, let's not be so brutal. You know, what's funny is the song competition, which has whistling. Yeah. Isly is like is a like one of the better messages anyone can be. I probably heard that record when I was like 16 or so. That's a perfect message to hear is like we need to work the the friend the list of friends on top of Iran, the list of friends to drop is like that's an amazing. It's like, yeah, I don't need to be the best around the top. And here's this band who ultimately is their final thing. And it's the it's the like culmination of all this research and work you've been putting. Yeah. That is a crazy thing to then yourself be writing when you're 19 years old. That's unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, I was writing. I think I was writing to like what the scene and I think it definitely. Sort of piggybacking on what I saw as like rays from youth today is like kind of mission of sort of like cleaning up New York City in this sort of like. Clean your room sort of way. You know what I mean? And not that wasn't my way. You know what I mean? But I'm trying to make an a vision of like what the scene would look like if it was how I wanted it. Cool. To be. And I look at the scene tonight and and a lot of the shows that we play and it's way more like that. I mean, 37 or 38 years later, yeah, you did one LP. Yeah. And you're on top still. Oh man, you know, it's it's. I think I'm so lucky, you know what I mean? That this not not only just I'm lucky to be where I am today. Not by myself. This summer's I'm singing the girl is good. But it's that the hardcore scene continues to keep. Just re energizing itself and re. You know, it's just and I think it's like more valuable now than ever because. There's so few things that are people based like this is. I think hardcore is more valuable now than ever. I think so because there's just like so much niche stuff and so many things that are just. It doesn't make them I can't assign a good or bad label to it, but I think that a lot of the stuff is just. I just think hardcore is about community, you know what I mean? And I think people are so isolated now more so, you know, and yeah, and that's just how it is, man. You know, people are like that and and to different people fight to get about it against it in different ways. Or maybe not really at all. But if you're going to be a hardcore, you're dealing with people. Yeah, you know what I mean? You're going to be talking to people. You're going to be meeting physical humans. It's a participative. Yeah, it's a participative and you have any role in it that you want. You want to be in a band to grab a guitar and jump on stage. Yeah. You know, you want to be you want to be a journalist, you know, start a fucking start interviewing people. You want to be, you know, you want shows to come to your town. Book it. Book it. You know what I mean? And the information is the tools are all there to do it. You know what I mean? And like you said, on the first tour you ever did, you met all these people who still do those things they were doing. Yeah. Now at the top of their profession. Yeah. Yeah. And the Harkville kids are silently running the world now. It's in all media. We're all there. We're up top. I think I think it's because the those skills that that people built from this young age and in this very on your own go getter kind of way gave empowered them to have the confidence to I think work effectively in what the world currently is. I'm older than you guys. But like I thought my projection was like I get finished high school. I go to college. I get the job. I do the job for a while. I get the retirement and then I'm retired and then I just kind of like would do whatever those people do. Yeah. Like there is no way that's happening anymore for anyone. Like everybody's just like oh I graduated the college. Okay now I got whatever all this debt and then I get the job. No you don't get the job. You're actually going to do the job that you would have done without college or you do get the job and they're doing the job and you're feeling really cool about yourself and then they have a bad quarter. So now you don't have the job. Yeah. And things are not set up so you have to be able to like hustle and think on your feet and be creative and I think work your your in your communities. You know what I mean to be like hey I I call this person person because I you know I don't I'm not really reading people's resumes but you know what I mean like I trust certain people to do things well and I have a community and if I don't know them then some of my community would know somebody. Very much. And I think that that it helps you. Last question I have for grill biscuits. Uh-huh. Coded messages and slowed down songs. Yeah. I ironically. Nice. Always wondered what coded messages meant. Coded messages like poetry. So just like be direct with what you're saying. Yeah like um yeah I thought it was very much into saying exactly. What the thought was but I'm of course there's. There's like poetry within that. Yeah. I'm saying. Sure. I'm saying it in a way that. It rhymes or it it put some image in your mind that like might help make the point but it wasn't I guess I was like more. Protective. Of. The sort of. Straight forwardness of hardcore. And slow down songs just like metal. Like yeah metal just. Whatever. You too style pop. Just fucking. Couple tracks. I would I would rather stage that. Couple tracks. Yeah like I'm here it is in the voice of something that I even knew about myself like I like coded messages. Yeah. Slow down songs like I'm into that stuff. Sure. But I saw it. As a as a sort of I guess in the one way I think it reads like a fuck you to anybody that ever changes or does something different. But I think if you the subtext is like that's fine it's gonna happen. It is gonna happen and Lord did it happen. Yeah and like you know but but this world this community right here right now is about this. And and you know I could have just as easily said like overly chuggy. Yeah yeah. Of course you know time signature course yeah you know what I mean I could have I could have had a bone to pick with that too because. How do you feel about overly chuggy time signature. Well when they're good they're good. What are you gonna do. I mean leeway leeway would do things that are like you know that that would be something where people like you know friends I have are just still will not like leeway. Yeah sure yeah you know what I mean but it's just like dude what are you gonna do. Yeah it just is moving. It's just good. It's just good. These sorry these records that we just talked about the two youth today records the two grill distance records in the liner notes and the the bands that you think that was like. Finding an actual gold mine right for young me right that was the only way I could find more stuff like this yeah and then find the stuff that you didn't think. Yeah but maybe those other bands think that's how I found turning point wide awake and instead yeah chain and all those all the other youth crew bands and anything that would fit there. And yeah how intentional was that or were you like were you trying to actively put other bands over. Oh yeah yeah. Okay cool. Yeah because that's the I mean. How I found out about other bands was reading the thanks list I mean that was like your best of really really good way to breadcrumb people to your scene and also a good way to shout out the people that you respect and you're truly grateful to. Yeah I would have never found wide yell. You know thanks wide yell. Yeah. Wow. I'm just saying that these are examples of just like of the community aspect. Yeah I mean because we were in the community together like we played shows we were all in the New York scene so like you look at the New York compilation the way it is it's a very wide variety bands and they're all fucking good. I mean every song on it's really cool. I just I thought with wide else like I think we were competitive with wide. Yeah I think it's in the 7th. Yeah. Believe so. I want to cross reference the story real quick. Yeah. You're on tour a young a young man named Dwid gives you a shirt for a band that doesn't exist yet. Uh huh. You wear the shirt. Uh huh. In Chicago. In Chicago. Oh wow. A young Tony Brummel approaches you and says hey I want to sign you. He doesn't I don't think he's put out a single thing yet. You say you can't sign us but you should check out this band integrity. Really. So you're talking to a label that doesn't exist yet about a band that doesn't exist yet. Wow. And that got integrity signed to victory. You're welcome. That's what Dwid told us. That's amazing. So if you still have that shirt it's probably five maybe five figures. I don't. Oh yeah that brings me to a great question. When in your life do you start losing stuff all the time? I mean like t-shirts. No wallets, pedals, passports and guitars. Oh my god I have not let I've never lost I've misplaced passports I've never lost one. For you've forgotten a couple maybe. Yeah. I travel a lot you know what I mean I'm moving a lot. So when you're moving it just increases the odds of you losing shit. Yeah but I think your odds of all the people that you know. I might be a little bit more than average. Yeah. Um I don't sweat the small stuff. Really the short answer. So like the Les Paul from We're Not In This Alone or something you know. Can I ask you about that? All you guys back in the day I actually don't know what you played in Grill Biscuit Sarah guitar wise. Fender Strat for the two albums. That makes sense. But with an EMG so it's like a little hot day like a Metallica guitar. Porcel had a Les Paul custom. All these guys had crazy 70s. It's impossible to acquire guitars. How is that? I think it was more I mean that was a cool guitar then and he had a GACM 800 which I was very impressed by because that was like an over a thousand dollar investment for a teenager and those are like 1980 thousand dollars. Yeah. Right. That's like 600 thousand dollars. That is in today's dollars. Yeah. Yeah he had a nice Les Paul but that would be your only guitar. Like a lot of like the Gene guys had Les Pauls. There's just like rich kids from California. Yeah. Okay. I got you. So it's just a money's kidding. I don't know. Yeah he never. Probably. Probably. Yeah but they um I had got my Stratocaster from Arthur who sold it to me very inexpensively. Got you. So I maybe bought it from him for like 500 or 600 dollars. Okay. Uh. I appreciate it. And um I had that for a long time. I sold it when I was finished on a tour and I was going to go travel around Europe and I just didn't really want to carry a guitar around with me so I sold it which I regret but the guy that I sold it to kept it in the exact same condition. Did you get it back? No. I played it. He brought it to a show and I played it and it was awesome and it was very heavy and I didn't see myself playing it. He wasn't offering it to me anyway. Oh okay. But this is the Gorillibus guitar. This is the Gorillibus guitar. I mean maybe if I busted his chops he would sell it to me. 100% think he would. Uh. What's the name? Uh. And his address? He's in Holland. I forget his name. Hello. Of course. He's a bull. Yeah. Yeah maybe don't tell it because maybe I should I don't want to him to find out that I know his name when I try to sweeten him up. Sure. Butter him up to get the guitar back. Holland guy. I do always guitars and amps. Those I won't sell those. Pedals and stuff whatever. There's another and my amplifier from that time too. Yeah. Yeah. 800. Yeah that's the 100 watt one. That's a good amp. So I'm really happy that it's that it's still rocking. And that someone appreciates it. I have an 800 also 2203. It was the Gin Blossoms. Oh wow. Not bad. Very cool. Look at us. Here we are. So between Gorillibus and QuickSand walk me through that time. How do we get from one to the other? Gorillibus and QuickSand so QuickSand or Gorillibus, we um I think it was like we put out the savages. The album came out a bit late so we did a summer tour and I think the album came out right at the end of our summer tour in 89. So we sort of didn't really like just the time that it was just jointed. And then Arthur left the band which kind of shook us a little bit. Why did he? He was you know we were going to college or we were in college. I just felt he was like into different shit at this point. You know the thing was we were just getting a little growing out of hardcore I think a little bit. Getting earrings. That'll do it. Wearing necklaces you know. Losing guitars. Just not as into you know wanted to go to clubs and meet girls. Really? Things like that. Regular club music clubs. Stuff that was happening. Life. Yeah. Life man. You know so and but and he was also musically wanted to do something different. He wanted to do something more expansive so he was starting a band with Drew and Richie. So it was like a proto into another thing. Tell me your thoughts on into another. In 1990 you hear like creepy epee and the early into another stuff. Well I was very I was living with Drew when they were making into another. So like they would I was amazed by how long they would rehearse and how serious they were. Yeah. And the other two guys were like really good musicians. So Peter Moses Peter Pete yeah and and Tony and they were seemingly on the track to be like guns and roses like they were going major label 100% world domination. Wow. That's what they wanted or that was what seemed like was coming. That's where they were aimed I felt and there was a reason that it wouldn't come. I mean I had no songs or who knows. Yeah. And I felt it was off ultimately for the hardcore scene. For sure. But was that did they care about that was at the point. I think that they wanted to be a really big stadium rock band. But I think that they also didn't want to die on the vine. So I think they just started making records because I don't think they were just like handing out Contrast guns and roses concept. Yeah. I mean and then they were on Rev. You know and they were on Rev. And you know eventually they did get a very big record contract and I think it could have been a very big thing. But you know there's so many different elements to why you know in any sort of field like why something gets as big as it gets. You know what I mean. Time and place. It being good is an important one. Pretty pretty pretty good timing is important. Yes. Who tells you about it. The timing all these things there's probably like five or six pretty important. Powerful things. I think what they were doing was really great onto themselves and didn't have that sort of it just went to some other band for some reason that lane. But yeah they were great. So Arthur Leaves GB you're growing out of hardcore. You're you got necklaces and earrings now. Yeah. Whereas what tell me about the formation of Quick Sand. I think it started what we were doing making the the Start Today album. So I had to go on tour with you today. And we had finished all the music for Start Today but we hadn't finished the vocals. So I had written the lyrics and I said hey try the vocals when I'm gone. Here's my vocal guide. So I sang the whole album and like basically one take. Okay. And does this recording exist somewhere. Yes it's called Wally Saves the Hit. Wally sings the hits. That's right. And actually Steve Ioki was the one that put put it out bootleg day. No kidding. He confessed to me many years later. And so having sung the album and people like oh my god I think this is really great. People that had heard it because the set got out. I was like why don't I just sing rather than sing and then have to show someone one how I want it to be. Totally. Like let me let's just go straight from from from this to this because I'm getting some people think that it's good enough that I'm getting a compliment. Yeah. So then I started doing I did it. I did a couple of rehearsals with Luke and we made a tape called Moondog. And Moondog I think we did one set song that got on a comp and people liked it. It was good. And some of the people heard the music off of you know this bootleg set and got good response from it. So I said okay well I got it. There's something here. There's something here. Yeah. So that led to a Moondog show which kind of ended you know Sam was in the band Sam Siegler. He replaced Luke who went away to college. So Luke wasn't really in the GBA anymore. And and then Alex was out which we I put it up to just I think it would have been like it just wasn't we just weren't that I personally was like not feeling this forward motion anymore. You needed to make the record. But then after that I just didn't I don't know. I maybe I just didn't feel start today too in me. You know and and because so much of this other shit was happening. You know I was these guys like Arthur was feeling these different things like this was not our career. I never thought like Grilbiscus was going to be like career oriented. It was like something I was doing that I was into and excited about but felt you know I'm still going to like go to college and do some other shit. And so in the meanwhile I started to just do other kinds of music that I was interested in. And so that started to when the seven inch of Grilbiscus of quicksand came out. It was just good timing like we were at sort of like doing hardcore related music but like just at the end of it. Yeah. To where hardcore people got it but it was a bit challenging in a way but appealing to a wider group of people who just like rock music. Yeah I think yeah because it's a little heavier. Yeah. Is it down tuned. No but it just was a bit heavier. It was a bit heavier. It was a little bit more yeah more chugging. Yeah and hooks you know. So hooks like more vocal hooks and you know because I was into like Jane's Addiction and Soundguard and stuff that was coming out of some pop. So like that's where I was interested. So I was no longer interested in like SSD and Youth Today and all Youth Today had already broken up. And the scene was getting stupid anyway I thought at the time and the stupid is maybe too strong of a word but like. Were there any bands at the tail end though that you did connect with like the raw deals and the killing time. Yeah I loved that stuff like I love killing time. They're amazing. Talk about heavy riffs man. Yeah. It's just like insane. But the movement the scene movement besides what was going on with me the way I saw it was like it was either like you're into youth crew. So everybody's the same. Everybody's dressing the same like it's a success. But be careful what you wish for. Yeah. Yeah. Because all the bands sound the same. All the kids look the same. And it's no longer subversive because no one else goes to the shows except for the kids that all agree. I got you. The both. And the other side of it is the sort of like I don't know if it would be called the beat down but the sort of like really like aggressive like 100% not that. Yeah. So so I didn't feel really at home there either and there was really like a lot of violence and people were getting like you know when you're like a teen young like an older teenager or young 20 year old something like you'll knife some but I wouldn't ever do it. Right. But you know people that are young are fucking fucking crazy. And so the violence was like at a hand. Yeah. Sure. So that didn't appeal to me. So I didn't really want to write or be a part of either scene too. So the so quicksand's goal is I mean your goal is essentially to play outside of hardcore for the first time in your life. Yeah I think I think or to say something different within it. Aside from not quite. Yeah not quite. It was very pro though a lot of people couldn't handle that. But I guess to kind of like venture out from it. And also there was a lot of also Fagazzi was happening. So it was like another example of like hey you can play cool music that makes sense with where you came from. You can still be that guy. But you can but you can expand it musically. So there was just a lot of things that were pointing to that and that's where I was excited to go. OK. And ultimately GB kind of like you know because we had gotten more popular because the album you know we didn't really feel it in the same way but we're still getting bookings and people wanted to see the band. How do you feel about it now. How does start today connect with you now. Oh it's perfect. It is. Yeah like I don't have I don't have like any there but it's nothing I could possibly change about it. It's like and I think that that's maybe unique for any record that I put out. I always thought oh that could be a little bit that record's absolutely perfect. How do you feel about slip. Love it. But it's not it's not the record that I envisioned. Oh why not. I just didn't have as much control as I would have liked. Did you have a producer. We had a producer we fired him. We got another producer who was more amenable and cool to us. And so I'm very happy with it and how it all came out. But I would have assumed I would have preferred to record it at Don Fury. Which yeah so that was I did we did do some of the tracks at Don Furies because I just dragged my I was paying the ass about it. It does sound very good. But that's my that was my power was really paying the ass power. Whereas opposed to like let me cook power. Yeah sure. So my let me cook power got reduced. And so I had to use start flexing my pain the ass power. And that's how I got the Don Fury songs in there. But yeah it was recorded and there's probably like part of me that was just like not comfortable in in that environment of like OK we're in a big major fancy studio and all that kind of stuff. Who put who put out slip. That was on Polydor. Yeah Lord. That's right. Yeah. Big step up. Big stuff. You ever hear the tool comparisons. I have heard them but I was not really aware of tool when we were making music. You started the year before. Yeah. Yeah. Because you were around before. OK. How about that. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. So you can always say that. Yeah. Yeah. And we started a year before. I would let them start the year before and trade with them for their career. You know. But do you ever hear any of your riffs in other bands and think huh. Like are you getting royalties for Chavelle song. I feel Chavelle. I have I I was wanting to see LCD sound system the last record for the holiday and this is my little fun one that I probably wrong about it. But like I think that Daft Punk is playing my house is a is a grill biscuit rip off. You think so. Oh that's awesome. I'm going to check that out. OK. Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum. OK. OK. I can hear it. Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum. And you got a big mouth. Yeah. Yeah. And he worked out tempo all that he made it more fun and more palatable for most people. But but the lyrics for Big Mouth fucking roll. Yeah. What are you going to do. Do you know I think you are the only person I'll have to ask my friend Mo who works with Riot Fest but Riot Fest 2023 you played every day in a different band. Yes. Love Riot Fest. Only person ever to do that. I think so. Cool. Yeah. Because bands will do every day or something you know. But yeah. He played every single day. Yeah. There's a plaque. Oh. Is there a plaque. Good for you man. There should be a plaque. There should be a plaque. Maybe we'll get you a plaque. We'll see if we can find a plaque. Tell me about touring on slip and the response to the record. Touring was really fun. It was it was the most I'd ever done. And I think it was really nice to be on a tour of us and we had all the money that we needed to do all the stuff that you know I have. And that's just labeled giving you money. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. They had they were flush. I mean you got it like they had the whole. This is the time of CDs. Yeah. So. Music made me. And you could not download anything. So everyone had to buy it. The record labels were so flush from people buying CDs. And CDs was a higher profit margin. Yeah. So cheap. So I used to think like whatever money they're giving us it's like thanks to Elton John. Yeah. For free money. Because they're just you know we're going. Was he a polydome. Yeah. They had the catalog. So we would you know we're just getting car services anywhere that we wanted to go eating out every night. It's nothing that not stacking at all. Yeah. But like in the moment. Existing. Living a cool lifestyle for a person my age. Sure. Sure. Damn. You know and being on a bus having all the shit and we would just hire our friends anyway and get to pay them like a cool salary. Yeah. And have a fun time and and be comfortable. So it was really cool. It was grinding after a while because I think we played like probably 300 something shows in a year. In a year. Jesus Christ. So it was it would get grim. Not grim but like just get tiring. Yeah. In a way. I'm going to ask you a question a little controversial. How do you feel about streaming. Streaming. Well I would say it's saved. I would rather it not exist because then I saw like a little meme clip about this where it was like you know I always thought that the bands that I'm in like grill biscuits getting to make a record or having a record be popular represents the failure of like 10,000 bands. Yeah. That we never have to absolutely. Yeah. That's a fact. And those people those 10,000 people went out and lived their lives and did all kinds of fun cool shit in their own lives and you know their kids are doing great now and all kinds of fun stuff's happening for them. Whereas now you know there's more bands and I think that's really sweet and cool and and all that. But the bands can't make money. The art gets gets treated more as advertising or like it just doesn't have the same meaning. You know what I mean. The good side of it is I feel like more in control of my career you know which is like I can release something or do something whenever I want on the fly. But and I like that I'm not like really you know I didn't grow up with computers. I'm not like savvy. I'm not really like trying to like figure out the fucking algorithm or any. Yeah. Fuck all that. I'm just not that person and there's young people right now that are doing that and are smart to do it and I applaud them. But that's not the fucking that's not the good that's not rock and roll to me. I want to make music. I want to make music. I want it to come out when when on the terms that I want people to anticipate it in a way and they listen to it and they can talk about it and you know invest in it because if you invest in something you're going to you're going to give it to a chain dude. I've liked some shitty albums for economic reasons. That's like I'm going to find that I'm going to find out what's good about this album because I think I might have bought a lemon and some of them are just lemons. But like that is that's a great point is that if you invest in something and you have your $20 whatever it would be now $30 into something you're going to sit there and look at it. Read it and get my money's worth. I'm going to get my money's worth whereas skip skip skip. Yeah. Yeah. Oh dude this has been shoved up your ass online for like the last four months. I've been seeing every aspect of this thing and then you listen to it and you're like either like well I already know it already or or like that one song is good. The one song is good the rest of the album sucks. These guys are fucking suck. You know what I mean and then it's done and who's next. Who's next. That is. You know what I mean and that's not a critique of people. No. Because people are. The entire music library of the world is $10 a month. Yeah. And what how what do you expect. I mean on the upside of it is like there's so much music that has been brought to light in my like even in like hardcore or like 60s music 70s music that's like how was this not the biggest song in the whole world. You know what I mean and it's like I fucking love this song. I'm listening to the song like crazy and I was alive when it came out and I had no idea. You know so streaming is allowing me to hear that. So it's not like I think there's just certain things in the world where there just it is what it is and you got to like figure out your own way to relate to it. But like if it were my choice I would say let's all make a have a big beautiful party get in line and put our computers in a big ditch. Love it. And pat it on the top and no one does it anymore. Love it. We'll press this episode on vinyl only. Vinyl only. Yeah you know what I mean and then let's just see where we go and let's be nice to build communities and have conversations and you know not be so neurotic and self-conscious. Is there a person or group that has come to you telling you hey quick slip was a huge influence on us that really kind of blew your mind. Yeah for tons for years. Def tone. Def tone. Yeah I mean it's not like as I would say to people I mean I don't necessarily consider it glazing but what is if something affected you and you met someone you could play it cool and I think that's fine too maybe you just want to meet someone as a person and not get into what their work is but sometimes you just don't have any time with anybody so you just say hey dude I love your music you rule men to me like got me through a time or it really influenced how I write or whatever people have done that for me so throughout I mean I've been very fortunate that the records you know not all of them but a good grip of them have found audiences that feel strong about them. We should probably hurry up because I know he wants to catch and it actively going to see Hardcore wanted to talk to you about working with title fight and on the record shed. Yeah oh my god so fun. Will Yip the like famous producer recently put up a clip I was producing this record of course Will was working for me at this time and was that in Kanchahakan? In Kanchahakan magical time it was just like it was like I'm meeting these guys and we were talking about someone being influenced by your work like that was a that was a kind of maybe more Myspace era kind of time I think I was living in Germany at the time and so this very young guy reaches out to me at Myspace and he says you know I got this band you're gonna have a we want to make a record and we'd love for you to produce. Was it Ned? Yeah Ned. And I remember meeting them in Brooklyn and going out to this vegetarian restaurant and they were all just cool sweet young guys and that was the time to me that I was like this fucking rules that cool young guys like this are picking up on this kind of part of Hardcore and knew everything about it and they were explaining back to me what it looks like to someone 20 years younger than me or whatever and it was really cool you know and talking about at the time of like streaming and stuff like you know I remember Ned saying like you know we get all this stuff at the same time so it's like you're hearing this band lead to that band and this band and that band doesn't exist like we're getting it all at once. Retrospectively it's all one thing. Yeah so I found that really interesting and I think you know talking about streaming like that makes room for a band I think like Outburst. Yeah like jump up the ranks. Yeah absolutely. And there's other ones but that's one that comes up because Outburst was I thought a great band and I played in Outburst by the way. Did you? Yeah like a couple of shows or a few shows and I thought they were fucking amazing but they kind of came out a summer too late I think. Interesting. So but if everything comes at once you know it's just about the music. 100%. That's why when we make our like tournament brackets and stuff we'll do like Best Band of the 80s, Best Band of the 90s and people will be like this band was not big in the 90s. We go yeah we know but retrospectively is it not better than many other things? Yeah right yeah of course. And I'll look at old bills old flyers and see grill biscuits like low on the bill and remember being so grateful that we were we were on that we even got put on the bill. Of course. And then you know the bands that were way above us are like you know whatever like they're still cool bands whatever but but just like everybody getting something at once it just changes that right that sort of thing. Absolutely. Anyway back to Tatified. It was just an all-star all-star cast they had made some music this was like um I went out to Wilkes-Barre with them and like we played in their you know I think Jamie's basement and uh you know talking about lyrics and song structures and um and then we did the record at Wilkes and Wil was just so fucking cool. He rocks. He rocks. And um we just had such a great uh everyone was funny those guys were just introducing me to like clips you know like it's hard in the D. Oh yeah yeah. And stuff like you know what I mean like things from that era like they were they were they got you on Vine. Yeah they were just they were just up on all those clips and I had never heard of any of them. 19 9 plus 10 you know that one 21 21. I'm not sure if I know that one. There was another one with like um we're gonna know it whatever it is. Oh uh oh my god it's like a funny saying. Anyway there was a whole they just took got me into all these clips. It's gonna come to me. Clips. Okay. That's what they call them so I still call them clips. I know I like it. I guess we gotta get you out of here but it was a lot of fun. Yeah. It was it was awesome to like blend something of and they were very very open to things that I would suggest but I was also very careful to like let them cook. Yeah because they especially at that time they really those are smart motherfuckers. They were white hop. Yeah I mean they were plonk they were touring like non-fucking stopper man and they didn't have an album out. So I think there's like no stopping them but um but we we just had me and Will Yip and all those dudes firing on all cylinders making like a debut record and just being like open to whatever and you just basically you know I don't want to boast but it's like an ocean's leaven kind of thing. I could see it. It's like mad deep bench. Science. Musical science. Yeah. Now is rival schools a big part of why they approach you about producing them? I thought it was more probably more Civ and just me being who I was. Yeah. Your catalog. Yeah I think just that that general thing and I had produced some other stuff too. I'd produce some. I'd also produced the first step. Oh what? That's crazy. Yeah what we know I produced first. I should take more credit for that because that's a sick ass album. Yes it is. And they were flying the youth crew flag at a time where I think it was not the most in fashion thing. It was on its way out. Yeah. I found it interesting whenever the time that it happened was not what I was expecting to someone to be nailing that style so hard. Yeah they were. And I fucking loved with those working with those guys that was super fun so like that's awesome. I don't even know if that's why title fight was in UB but I think I'm sure would have factored in. For sure. I have a feeling it's for everything we just talked about for the last 90 minutes to be honest with you. Yeah. As a final note here could you let us know and let all of them know your four favorite hardcore records of all time. I mean the honorable mention list would be vast. It always is. But I guess I'm gonna go for the ones that first really hit me hard and it would be Suicidal Tendencies first album Fresh Fruit Riding Vegetables. I mean minor threat records are EPs. You could put together. You could lump them as one. It's fine. Okay so those and I don't want to say it but I just got to say Breakdown the Walls. Fuck yeah. It's so good. It's kind of like a blueprint for something. Amen. Yeah so that's a pretty good set up. Pretty good list. Honorable mention so it could go on forever. There's so many fucking good ones. Tie down negative approach. The album is fucking insane. The reason for the season. I against I bad brains album. Yeah. He's a quickness guy. I love it all. Yeah it's true. So many dude. We love hardcore. We love hardcore. What are you gonna do? It's too late. You realize at a certain point it's too late. Exactly. Do you have any final words you'd like to leave the people with? Everybody take care of yourselves. You could be healthy. Try to make good choices and be good to one another. Unbelievable. Walter thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure guys. Had a blast. Me too. Well have a great set and we'll see you all next week. Awesome. Bye. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Mad Vintage.