Interviews

Interview by Jill King

    After the '77 punk invasion, there were not many bands in the scene to verify that punk was not completely dead. But in the late '80s a new wave of punk emerged with the band Toxic Narcotic, who brought with them their charged hair and 'crusty' music. Based out of Boston, Toxic Narcotic still thrive after over 13 years of beer and rock 'n' roll, continuing to produce influential albums that have undoubtedly weighed heavy on the punk and metal sound of today. Toxic Narcotic's new album, WE'RE ALL DOOMED, was released July 9th, 2002, on Go-Kart Records. This album has the same hard, self-assured punk rock of their past work. I met up with Toxic Narcotic at the El Rio in San Diego, CA—and found myself not interviewing the band but hanging out with them. I learned a couple of unusually important things about people from Boston: they all do not have East Coast accents, and they speak mostly sarcastically.

It was not until a few nights later, at their sold-out show at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim,
CA, that I conducted the interview.

Bill—vocals / Seager—bass / Sam—drums / Will—guitar

SKRATCH: There
is one thing that I ask from you: be as obnoxious as you possibly can be! Alright. You have 10 seconds to explain why I should waste my time interviewing you.
BILL: Um...because we're a good band, and you enjoyed the show.

SKRATCH: Yeah, uh-huh. I'm out of here [Laughs]
BILL: Did we lose?

SKRATCH: Yeah! But, now that we've all hung out and everything in San Diego, I had to write my questions all over again. Who do you think would win, Superman or Spiderman?

WILL: Superman would win definitely because he's stronger; and Spiderman can die.

SKRATCH: What about Bill and Bush?
BILL: Bill would kick Bush's ass.

SKRATCH: Thinking back on all of your shows of this past tour, what is the craziest thing that happened?

WILL: Basically, the shows were off the hook. Every year they get bigger and bigger, and they get better and better.
BILL: The [show at the] Intergon was amazing because the sound system was great. That was the only show on the tour where you could actually hear my vocals. We did two shows that day, and I was actually sick, but they were really good shows. It made me really happy, after doing this for years and years. It was really nice to have a show where you play really tightly, and that was really good. Like in San Diego, you couldn't hear anything.

SKRATCH: Sounded great to me....
BILL: Well, thanks. We played an early all-ages show, and I vomited constantly for about half an hour in-between because I drank too much in the afternoon. I said I wasn't going to drink, but I did. Somehow we mustered the energy to play another show later on at a bar. It happened to be the best-sounding, as far as on stage. You know, you tour forever, and once in awhile, when you get a nice sound system, you're really excited.
WILL: And a lot of people from Boston have moved to Oregon. A lot of people that we have known from back home have moved there.
BILL: It's horrible.

SKRATCH: Why Oregon?
BILL: I don't know. Most of the people from the show (there were only like 20 people there) were all people from Boston.
BILL: A lot of our friends moved to the West Coast. SKRATCH: Did you guys sell out a lot of your shows?
BILL: Sell out? No, not really.

SKRATCH: You guys will sell out tonight.
WILL: It is sold out tonight.

SKRATCH: Oh my goodness.
SKRATCH: Why are you guys waiting until after the tour to release your new CD?
BILL: It wasn't planned. The reason we are on tour is because friends of ours from Boston were planning to be here regardless, and we figured it would be really convenient just to come out and use their gear.

SKRATCH: And you are talking about the band The Profits?
BILL: Yeah. So we went from Seattle to basically L.A. and San Diego with them. And this is the only show they couldn't play with us. We just flew out, hoping that we might break even if we were lucky.

SKRATCH: Did you?
BILL: Agh! We might! But in respect to the fact that it is a complete money pit being a DIY band. The tons of money that we've invested in shirts and stuff that we've sold on the road we haven't gotten back. But whatever. We made it...we've eaten.

SKRATCH: You guys sold out of all of your DVDs?
BILL: No, we still have some guys' DVDs, but I don't have a DVD player, so I haven't even been able to
watch it yet.
WILL: They are really cheap to make.
SKRATCH: Really?
WILL: And you can watch them on almost any computer now, because the technology is
so common. To reproduce one is as cheap as [it is to reproduce] a CD.
BILL: To reproduce them costs less than [it does to reproduce] a videocassette. They barely cost more than a CD because that's all they are [basically]: a CD. We just happened to get a good show on tape.

SKRATCH: In Corona, of all places!
BILL: Well...it was a good show. I had a friend who did a digital transfer and hooked us up. We only made 1,000 copies. I don't think we'll continue to press it.

SKRATCH: Are you guys going to get bagpipes again?
BILL: Only in the Boston area.
SEAGER: The bass player that I replaced, he used to play the pipes, and he left the band because he couldn't tour anymore. He is only able to play in Boston, so he'll come to
the shows that we're playing in the Boston area to play the pipes.
BILL: He's studying fine furniture making.

SKRATCH: Shut up! Why?
BILL: Because he's really good at it.
SEAGER: It's what he loves.
BILL: He still plays music. We do an Irish session every Sunday. There are two other pipers that play on-stage.

SKRATCH: Do they wear the skirts and everything?
BILL: I sure hope not!

SKRATCH: So, Sam, you are the famous drummer I keep hearing about.
SAM: How am I so famous?

SKRATCH: You used to be in a metal band.
SAM: Yeah, I used to be in a metal band, Anomanes, for a long time. A lot of the death-metal bands are really intense musically, and there is a lot of hard stuff to play.

SKRATCH: You guys have been together since '89?
BILL: Our first show was in '89.

SKRATCH: So, you have your bands like Rancid who went poppy, and you have The Misfits who went metal...So where are you guys headed?
BILL: Reggae.
SKRATCH: Rockabilly...
BILL: Hip-hop! Actually, we're going for this reggae-type thing. It's kind of a reggae-slash-disco.

SKRATCH: And how do you plan to do that?
BILL: Well, we're thinking of bringing back the '70s with this reggae-crust thing. I think kids are really into this, with the disco on the side. It's kind of like ska music, you know, disco and ska. They're pretty damn close! So you throw in a little bit of roots and a little bit of [Bill demonstrates a disco-reggae-crust!

SKRATCH: Is there a special kind of dance that goes along with that?
BILL: We've got a couple of things in the works, but we actually have to keep them under wraps until we train Seager.

SKRATCH: So do you guys feel like the dads of punk rock—and that Duane Peters is like
gramps?
BILL: No, we're like the older brother [of punk].
SAM: We're like the bad kid who lived next door.
BILL: The one with all the firecrackers.
SAM: And slingshots.
BILL: Honestly, I think we're going more brutal, more aggressive.

SKRATCH: Brutal? Like you're going to kill people?
BILL: No, musically. As punk gets more commercial, the only thing there is to do is be as aggressive as possible, and maybe shocking. And a lot of the song titles people may find shocking in a funny way. We're just doing what we like—you know, with songs like "Five Billion People Must Die" and "Shoot People Not Dope"...you know, that's the direction we're going.

SKRATCH: You're going for the parents, right?
BILL: Yeah. [Laughs] SKRATCH: On your song "Homebrew" you talk about corporationsand how it is wrong to support them—yet you guys drink....
BILL: We don't say we're never going to drink it. Beer is beer, and free beer is free beer. If I had a choice at all, I like to buy underground brewery stuff at home. It's better beer, and it's supporting an independent mom and pop/DIY. When someone gives me free Budweiser, I'm not going to refuse it when I'm on the road. I'm broke. The other night we played this show in Hemet, CA, and there were Budweiser banners on the stage. So, during the song "Homebrew" I ripped them down—and no one seemed to care. The security guys who were working there were like, "Okay," and bundled up the banners and threw them to the
side.

SKRATCH: And having banners up at an all-ages show is sending the message to kids that it's okay to drink if you're underage.
BILL: Yeah—and it was at a roller-skating rink.

SKRATCH: You guys played at a roller-skating rink?
BILL: Yeah. It wasn't a show we would say is the best show we've played on tour.
SEAGER: It had great acoustics!
BILL: It was booked at the last minute, though, so I can't really complain.
SKRATCH: Did you guys wear roller skates when you played?
BILL: Absolutely not!
SAM: There was a roller-skating mosh pit, though.

SKRATCH: Really?
SAM: No. SKRATCH: Is it just Bill who does Rodent Popsicle Records?
BILL: Pretty much. But these guys have helped me a lot over the years.

SKRATCH: What does the name mean?
BILL: Absolutely nothing. It was a joke. It was made up so long ago that it should have never stuck.

SKRATCH: You guys were
telling me about Boston and the hospitality over there, and how if a band has people in it who are nice and who have good personalities they are able to sell out a show based just on that.
BILL: Yeah. It is a definite [part of the] scene that more people come to [a show] if they like the band members than if they [just] like the band—because it is a small enough city where everyone knows everyone.

SKRATCH: Do you guys ever feel obligated to act a certain way or be nice to certain people who usually you would not be nice to to ensure their support?
BILL: Not so much.
TOXIC NARCOTIC: No.
BILL: People that we don't like know that we don't like them.

SKRATCH: If I overheard correctly, a kid asked you guys to play a particular song, and you guys said that you don't play it anymore.
BILL: Was it "Melting Pot"?

SKRATCH: I don't know.
BILL: We have a lot of songs that we have sort of dumped throughout the years [because of line-up changes in the band]. I guess Seager, being brand new to the band, just doesn't know all of our songs yet; he's had to learn a ton of songs in a real short period of time. We are a band that has 40-plus tunes on the last couple records [...]. We don't play them all on stage—we don't even have time to.
SAM: We puke on stage, pass out on stage.... Yeah, we need a medical team to tour with
us.

SKRATCH: Have you guys ever puked on each other?
SAM: I think I caught a little bit of puke last night.
BILL: Can I just say something? Bands that play really hard, aggressive music get sick a lot. Like the night in San Diego: there were people who were sitting right next to Sam smoking cigarettes while he was playing...and when you're playing just really fast-type stuff, it's hard. So after, like, 40 minutes, I'll vomit.

SKRATCH: How do you guy's cope with a younger audience while having your older mentality?
BILL: We just talk to them. Young people are stupid just like old people. The stupidity is not based upon age.
SAM: Sometimes young people are more open-minded than older people.

SKRATCH: Yeah, because they're still in their prime for brainwashing. But do you think that there is a time to just move on?
BILL: We don't hang out with our fans if they're 12 years old. In Boston we don't go up to a 12-year-old and say, "Hey, here's my number. Give me a call, I'll sneak you into a bar sometime."
SAM: But we were those kids once, so it's, like, here's the next generation. This kid is going to get one of our records, then he's going to start playing drums, and then I'm going to be his roadie. It's a cycle.

SKRATCH: For the people who don't have your new album yet, what would you like to say to them?
SAM: It sucks. It's worse than our other albums.
BILL: It's called WE'RE ALL DOOMED, and its on Go-Kart Records. It's not completely filled with filler like most of the other punk-rock [...] records that have been put out in the past few years. We take our time with our records, unlike other bands who just rush it.

SKRATCH: And you're referring to bands such as...?
SAM: Can't say.
BILL: But they know who they are—and they suck!

SKRATCH: What band do you hate the most?
SEAGER: Creed.
BILL: That is only the bass player's opinion. There are other bands that we hate just as much!

SKRATCH: Any new bands signing on to your label that fans can look forward to?
BILL: I just put out a split called ALLERGIC TO WHORES, and it has a couple of good Boston bands on it. A lot of labels want to release stuff that just sells, but that's not my goal. There are a lot of good Boston bands coming out.

SKRATCH: So you release a record, you go broke, and then release again!
BILL: Yeah, pretty much.

SKRATCH: Are you guys going on tour when you come out with your new CD?
BILL: Yeah, we just might come right back out here in a couple months to support the record. Our friends were touring here, and we decided to get dirt cheap tickets, fly out
here, rent a vehicle, and tour with them—because we like coming to the West Coast. No offense to other parts of the country, but maybe if our friends were touring somewhere else, it wouldn't have happened.

SKRATCH: Did you know that in Texas you can drink and drive at the same time?
SAM: No way!
BILL: You can do that in a lot of places.

SKRATCH: Yeah, but in Texas they don't care, because there is nobody anywhere.
BILL: You can drink in public almost everywhere in Europe. While we were on tour, that was wonderful. I was waiting, like, at the bank, and I was drinking a beer.

SKRATCH: Isn't it in Europe that they have the bars where you can order marijuana?
BILL: Uh, we don't do that, because that stuff is for hippies! Shoot people, not dope! No, I like that other places can understand that marijuana is not a problem, that it's not more destructive than alcohol. Hard drugs are completely different, though.

SKRATCH: And that's from experience that you guys have these negative outlooks on drugs?
BILL: Yeah, we've lost a lot of friends, a lot of good musicians.

SKRATCH: What kind of deodorant do you guys prefer when performing ?
SAM: I use Sure.
BILL: Beer!

   Check out Toxic Narcotic's new album on Go-Kart Records; and Toxic's record label, Rodent Popsicle Records, for new and old releases; but, then again, not very many bands have fans as loyal as Flogging Molly's.

   After the band ended their set with the folksy "Salty Dog", my friend staggered from the pit bruised, bloodied, and covered with vomit. Still, it was his favorite set of the day.The surprise of the afternoon was Reel Big Fish. Frankly, the band came out of left field to put on one of the most enjoyable performances of the day—even if you were wondering out loud why the hell they were on the bill.

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