Interview with The Forgotten - Podcast 43

fucking cocksuckers and scumbags, listen up, because you are listening to the Sound Scene Revolution. This is Gordy from The Forgotten telling you to fuck off.

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maybe one more week before we go into holiday break, so we can pretty much drink into the new year and through Christmas, which is how I get through all my family holidays. But before we do that, we got a great interview this week with a local band who is also pretty well known throughout the country. They were on BYRO Records, they are back on TKO Records, they are called The Forgotten, and they're a pretty good group of guys. And we have a great interview with them and some songs, and it's pretty informative. I think you'll like it. But before we get into that, we have like a shit heap of contests that we have to cover, and I hesitate swearing because my mom just found out actually that we do this podcast, and so my mom's probably listening and she's ashamed. That's how it goes.

So we have a bunch of contests that we need to finish, wrap up, announce winners for, mail crap out to. And so here it goes. The ones that we still have running, we have the St. Catherine's contest. Justin R. of Cranston RI, which is Rhode Island there. Way out on the other side of the country, he gets, I think he gets a CD. Maybe he gets a shirt too, I don't really remember.

Trevor D. won the Strike Anywhere contest, which was for a poster and a CD, and Trevor didn't send us an address, so he's also going to get a Pepsi can filled with shit. And you know, that may not come, that may come separate. We may wrap it, make it look like you got a Christmas gift, and we'll see where it goes. But that's coming for sure. And the Leftover Crack Contest, which was for a copy of their album Fuck World Trade. Nicholas, I don't even want to go with your last name, I can't even pronounce it, but from Mount Pleasant, Michigan, I think. M.I. You won, or Mission Impossible. Either way, that'd be way fucking cooler. But you won the Leftover Crack Contest. So that's all of our contests out of the way until this week, and then that'll take another decade and a half for us to finish. But, like I said, we have an interview with San Jose. Actually, they're from all around. They're from like Campbell, San Jose, Santa Clara. But we'll say San Jose. The Forgotten, got an interview with them right here. The first half you guys want to listen to, we talk about, you know, what it's like being local. We make fun of all the crap that happens in San Jose. We talk about, they're in the movie called Punk's Not Dead, and all the interesting crap that that entails. So check it out. We're going to play some music from them first, before we get into the interview.

We're going to play off of their album Control Me, which is their first new, or their last new material, rather, came out in 2002. The track is called Respect and Lies, and check

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The Blue Lagoon with The Forgotten. If you guys want to go around and introduce yourselves, what you do in the band and all that stuff. Hi, my name's Gordy. I sing. Johnny, guitar. D-Cash, I play drums. My name's Nick, I play bass. All right, awesome. So if we could just start off, I guess the easiest place is, could you give us a brief history of the band? And I guess you guys have had probably a few different members at this point. Just kind of a quick summary, I guess. I used to be in a band called Slip in San Jose years ago, years and years, almost 10 years ago. I was in this band, Slip, and we were good friends with this band from Santa Cruz called Vintage 46. Both Slip and Vintage 46 broke up around the same time, so the members of each band got together and formed The Forgotten. And that was in 1997. And from there, in four months, we recorded an EP of six songs. And we took that and got signed to a label, TKO Records from San Francisco. Went on tour with Peter and the Test Tube Babies in 98, and just kept pushing all the way through until, I guess about two years ago, we stopped the touring, the hardcore touring, because I play for another band, and I was out there doing that. But there you go. There's the quick. There's the synopsis, the cliff notes, if you will, the Reader's Digest.

All right, that works pretty well. I want to ask about, I don't remember what month it was. It was earlier this year. You guys played like a month of shows solid at Johnny V's in San Jose. Is that right? Was that April? Yeah, it was every month in April. Every week in April, we played for a month at Johnny V's. It's kind of like a residency, our gift back to the town that's fucking been so rad to us, you know. Awesome, awesome. Now, is that just, you know, something to do locally, or was there a reason to do that, or just for fun? Yeah, it was just something, giving back to the town, you know, like playing a bunch of shows, working out some new stuff, you know, just having fun. Covers, playing some covers.

Those shows were all about fun. Exactly. Dave hit the nail on the head, too, that there are some things that, like, we don't get to do in The Forgotten. We're a punk rock band, and there's, like, a lot of covers we'd like to do that have been done by lots of other people over and over, and we couldn't really record them or anything like that, but we did, I mean, we covered everything from, like, Rose Tattoo to a nice William Joel cover. What else did we have out there? Johnny Cash. Well, that was actually a Neil Diamond tune, but Johnny Cash covered it as well. Yeah, we did the Eddie and the Cruisers song by Beaver Brown Band. Yeah, John Caffrey and the Beaver Brown Band on the dark side. I mean, it was our chance to fuck off, and we actually got, like, we knew that, like, if The Forgotten was playing for a fucking month, I mean, who the fuck is really going to care and come out every night sort of thing is, you know, we don't have that high of an opinion of ourselves sort of thing, you know, but it was, I mean, the place was sold out, and that was nice.

Like, every night it was fucking packed out, but we got San Jose Musicians to come up and join us as well, and that was what was really cool. We got, like, Dave Beisel from The Odd Numbers, Sean Packer from The Shit Kickers, Mike Belardis from The Kingpins and everything, and that was just like, it was, it was really cool to have all these different, like, either a second guitar, a slide guitar, or a saxophone backing us up each show, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I was going to ask you guys, there aren't, I don't know, I wouldn't say on a national level, a lot of people recognize the South Bay and, like, San Jose area in particular. Then fuck them. Fair enough. It's true, though. It sucks. Right.

I was going to ask, do you guys feel like you, especially being, you know, more of a nationally known band, that you represent that, you know? We represent what? Not being known? Well, no, not being known, being from the South Bay, more so than that. I hope so. We got great pride in where we're all from, you know what I mean? Everybody comes from someplace different around here, you know? Johnny's from Fresno, I'm from, you know, Campbell, you know, Dave's Campbell, and Nick, God, what, Chicago, New Mexico? Yeah, Mountain View. Mountain View. Santa Clara, San Jose. We just, it's more pride in who we are, you know what I mean? And yeah, that's where we're at, and so we got no problem. But, I mean, you're right, we've always been the armpit of the Bay Area. You know, it's like us and Gilroy, no one really respects. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, in San Jose, we don't have an all-ages club.

Yeah. You know? You're not going to see an all-ages, you know, venue going off that, like, you know, seats more than a hundred, you know? They kind of frown on it. Exactly, they kind of frown on it. We don't have a place big enough to bring social distortion in, to bring Rancid in. There's no House of Blues where we're at, and so it does kind of suck in that aspect, you know? That if there's a big show coming to town, you can count on it being in Santa Cruz or in San Francisco, and that's where you get to drive to, you know? And so that kind of bites, you know? But, I don't know. Hoping to change that someday. No, you got anything to add there? No, we're just trying to, you know, represent this town as best we can and, you know, stay true and a little bit of that.

In these towns, too. I mean, we've been here for a while, and it's all about the streets, the bars, and everything like that. And so, it's, I don't know, we work back and forth with it, you know what I mean? Everything we write about, we write about the streets we live on, you know what I mean? And everything, and that's where the sound comes from, that's where the lyrics come from, and all that shit. San Jose may not have the best all-ages scene, but they certainly do have a great bar scene at least. Well, that's all there is to do. You can go to a movie, you can go to a bar, or you can go to the comedy club. That's it. That's all you can do. Christmas in the park. And Christmas in the park. Christmas in the park.

Or you stay home. It's one of those five things. Well, they wheel out the same fucking displays year after year that have now become... Yes, they just keep getting dirtier and dirtier, and falling apart more and more, you know? Oh, dude. And all these, if you go to Christmas in the park, right, you guys have been down there? Yeah, I've been this year. And fucking, okay, down there, it's all done by, like, Boy Scout troops and schools and everything like this. Right. God, you'd swear that everybody in San Jose was like a water brain, you know what I mean? Because, like, all this shit, like, it doesn't even look good, you know what I mean? I mean, give the kids a goddamn budget, you know what I mean? But that ice skating rink, it makes it all worth it.

Oh, dude. Or else do you ice skate with, like, palm trees around you? Yeah. Everybody want to break your ankle. The Boy Scout troop won this year wasn't even decorated. Really? I swear to God. It was just a blank tree. I get to go out there once a year and pretend I'm fucking a Detroit Red Wing and go skate on the ice, you know? That's gay. But they don't Zamboni enough in that shit either, man. Yeah, it's just swash, man. You're losing water like that. Exactly. I, like, twisted my ankle there last year. I swore I was never going to go back. No, I went out there for, like, 15 fucking minutes. I paid for whatever. I went out there for 15 fucking minutes and then I went to the OJ's and went to the bar. I waited for my wife to fucking finish up, you know?

Dude, it took me, like, three hours just to get around that fucking ring once. Yeah, it's packed on the side of my feet. I'm 6'2 and 220, you know what I mean? And so my center of gravity isn't necessarily sick and I'm just fucking looking like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz or some shit, you know? Word. That's a good way to put it. Back to music. Downtown Ice is good and all, but yeah. No, it's all right. It's all good. I was going to talk to you guys. Was it this year that it came out, the documentary Punk's Not Dead? Yep. And you guys were featured in that, right? We haven't seen it, so we don't know where we're actually at in it and stuff like that. You've been told that you're in it? Yeah, but Susan filmed, like, I think, did we send her shit or?

We sent her a lot of live footage and, you know. And then she hit us up at Punk Rock Bowling out in Vegas. It's something we do every year out there. And she hit us there and filmed some other stuff there. Filmed me getting an IV in a hotel room from my buddy. I was a little dehydrated, you know? And he's like, I'm a paramedic, I got IVs. And I was like, well, fuck it, Holmes, let's go. You know what I mean? He took a few from the ambulance. He thought we might get dehydrated. That's foresight. Yeah, yeah. It worked. I mean, I guess I could have drank some water. But, you know, it just seemed like fun at the time. There's nothing better than a good IV. Yeah, I mean, how many times did you say you're laid up in a hotel room in Vegas with an IV in your arm?

It's Sam's Town getting a fucking IV. It's everybody sitting around smoking cigarettes, talking shit. It was great. That's the treatment right there. That's the life. Now that's the life.

And Susan Diner, the person who put it out with Aborition Films, is an amazing fucking human being. You can check out her website for Aborition and Punk's Not Dead, the movie. She's a really cool person that single-handedly put this all together. And her concept was really rad because she included bands like The Forgotten, who have been around for a while, have a name, but don't necessarily have the money. Right? And didn't get that. And so she got everybody from Plus 44 to Rancid to The Exploited and didn't focus on The Clash, The Ramones, or The Pistols because they got enough press. And so it was a really interesting idea for a fucking documentary, I thought. So we can't wait to see it. That's cool, man.

Excellent. Well, hopefully I haven't had a chance to see it either, or I can tell you where you are. She's trying to find a distributor right now. Hopefully sometime soon. I was going to ask how it felt to be in that, but you don't. I don't fucking know. It feels great. No, no. Honestly, I was honored just to be asked just for anything to contribute to that. But I took that, you know, I like to think it wasn't just the whole IV thing. I like to think it was a little bit of our music. A little bit. No, I'm sure she cut us out. Absolutely. I did an interview for it, too. I was in Pomona and sat down. I was out on tour with the Bastards at that point, but I sat down with her and did an interview for The Forgotten for it.

And so hopefully that made it in. And we explained where we were coming from and how we do feel about the punk scene. And what we feel the word punk means. And so it was, as Johnny said, it was a big blessing to even be included in such a thing. You know what I mean? Because it's what we've dedicated our lives to. None of us are young men. And we've dedicated our lives to this shit. I am. And it's cool to be included. That's cool. Cool. How does it feel, I mean, going from kind of a movie to your guys' lives? You guys have gotten a tour with some of the, you know, long-time established acts that are more or less considered a legend. Like GBH, Circle Jerks, Anti-Nowhere League. How does it feel to be able to, like, these bands that you listened to growing up, to be able to, like, share the stage with those kind of bands?

Dave, you're the big music. It's pretty good. I mean, I remember the first time we played with the Circle Jerks, me and Gordy were like, dude, this is pretty killer. We were like little kids. It was cool. We were snapping photos with Keith and his hair. And going on tour with GBH was like, I can't even express how rad that was. And those guys are super cool, man. That was a great fucking tour. You get set up for a fall almost because when you do get to meet your idols, it can go one of two ways. And why should it always be great? But we've been very lucky. Our first tour out in Europe, one-third of it was with Agnostic Front, one-third with The Business. Who was the last third? U.S. Bombs. I just joined the band.

I was 18 touring with all these bands, you know. Dream come true. Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that. No, no. And so it's really cool to be able to meet all these people, you know what I mean? To do all that, it's just fucking, it makes it worth it, you know what I mean? Because we don't have the fucking paycheck, you know what I mean? Within this band, we probably spent more than we've made, you know what I mean? But that right there makes fucking everything worth it, you know? It's got to be nerve-wracking because these are bands that you love. Like, you're getting up there, are you ever worried they're just going to be like, oh, you're good. No, we're good. Yeah? No, fuck no, we don't worry about a damn thing.

We don't care. Even if Colin can stay out there and do it at his age, we'll be doing it just a little bit too. Absolutely. Every time Jock would laugh, his teeth would come out of his face, you know what I mean? And so, hey, if they're doing it, we're doing it, you know what I mean? We're going to have to pick it up. You drop this. It's your front row of teeth. No offense there, Colin, I hope you're not listening. Or I hope you are, but I don't think too much offense to that. Don't worry, no one listens. Maybe. It's all good. I was reading up, trying to get some research done for the interview, so it didn't suck. Good deal. I think maybe it'll suck, I don't know. It's with us, it'll suck. One of the quotes I came up on was, I think it was Gordy who said it, that says, a lot of musicians decided to play punk music, and we're punk rockers who decided to play music instead.

And how do you feel that comes across as opposed to, what bands would you say, or musicians who decided to play punk, and what makes you guys different from that? I'm not out here to talk shit on anybody. No, I'm not. You know what I mean? And so, we're not going there, and I definitely don't want that quote to be misconstrued to say, to make it look like I don't think that our band are musicians. No. You know what I mean? Everybody in this band is a musician, they become musicians, but for us it wasn't like, you know, we're a glam rock band one day, and then we decide to change our name and do something else. You know what I mean? And go a different direction, or make our songs more punky, or produce it.

It all came straight from the heart and our love of punk rock, which is why everybody started playing. I mean, Johnny, what, at the age of 12, you started playing bass and guitar? Yeah. You know? Wow. Yeah. And so, that was just like straight love. You know what I mean? So, that's where it comes from. It's heart, more than anything else. You know?

How should we write it just straight across what comes out, you know, what comes out of your heart? It's what goes on tape, you know? It's do what you know. Yeah. And you can see it. You can see the people that are the musicians who decide to play punk rock. Some of them have made tremendous fucking fame for themselves doing it and stuff like that, but any fucking lifer in the scene is going to be able to see right through that shit. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's not going to be in their record collection, you know? Fair enough. All right. So, we're going to take a break right there in the middle of the interview. Let you catch your breath and enjoy some more music. Be sure to stay tuned. We'll tell you the entry rules for the contest we got this week.

We don't even know what the prize is yet, but we have confirmed with Gordy that he's going to be giving us some promotional stuff to give away. And I trust Gordy because he is big and scary and is friends with Lars Fredrickson, who has a tattoo on his fucking face. A fucking face tattoo. It's fucking horrifying. Like, the only people who have face tattoos are Mike Tyson, Lars Fredrickson, and, uh, what's his name from 30 Rock? Tracy Morgan. And his name, real. So, you've got to be messed up. I mean, that's street cred right there. You get a face tattoo. But, uh, stay tuned for the second half of the interview. We talk about what they're going to be doing. They have a new album planned for 2007. What the Forgotten are going to be doing for all that.

So, you want to check it out. It's, it's really informative. And if you're a fan of the band, you're definitely going to want to know what's going on. Uh, before we go to that, we're going to play another track off of Control Me. That is the last new material they released. They did release an album in 2003 called Out of Print, but it was all B-sides and rare stuff and old demos. So, not really new material. So, we're going to play the last track off the album, which is called Our Response. And then we're going to jump into the second half of the interview. Be sure to stay tuned for the end of the show, where we'll tell you how to enter the contest to get free stuff. Check it out.

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Uh, you guys rejoined TKO Records. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and in the short month that we've been on TKO Records, we've had, uh, more interviews. Uh, and more attention coming at us than, uh, gosh, than the last three years. Really. You know? And so, uh, they're good friends. We're all on the same page. Uh-huh. And, uh, we both believe in each other. Cool. You know? We had Forgotten started with TKO. You know, it was their second record. Uh-huh. Um, we're family with those guys. You know, we go way back with those guys. Excellent. Exactly. And, you know, you want to, the bigger the label, the bigger the distribution usually. Yeah. You know what I mean? But then there's a certain thing about, you know, caring and artist relations and, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Now, those are the technical terms for it and whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. But basically, they're bros who will, uh, are willing to take the chance. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because we're, we're, like, we're fucking punk rockers. And punk rock ain't selling today. You know what I mean? And we ain't gonna fucking change and this label's not gonna fucking change and that's what's nice. There's a lot of so-called punk labels out there that aren't taking a chance these days. They're only gonna go after the guys who sound scan in the, like, the hundreds of thousands. You know what I mean? And that's a bunch of bullshit. But punk rock's for the fucking kids. It's always gonna sell. As long as there's a fucking Republican, you know, in the White House.

With punk rock, she's gonna be fucking selling. You know? Yeah. Unfortunately, it looks like that may be for a long time to come. So, that's good news for you guys at least. Yeah, you're fucking A. Fucking A. So, um, with the, with the switching labels and all that, uh, are you guys working on a new album or any plans on a new album? Yeah, we're writing a new record right now. Yeah. We have been for the past year, I'd say, and demoing it. We're just about ready to record here after the, after the turn of the year. I feel like talking, David. I wrote all the songs. Oh, yeah? Dave, what, what, what, so the guy who wrote all the songs doesn't want to comment on it? Dave, what do you, what do you think these songs sound like?

How do you feel about these songs? Can you, can you give them an insight a little bit? No, it's top secret. All right, Nick, how do you feel about these songs? Can you give them any insight? I mean, you know, I haven't been playing with the Forgotten That Long, but I love it, man. Oh, yeah, you're fired. I think it's killer. Apparently, I just got fired today. In that case, no. But, no, it's killer. It's rad. It's kind of a new direction from, you know, older records, but it's fucking still in the same vein. Exactly. Some things are new, and some things are kind of like returning back to the same vein that we've done before. Every one of the Forgotten's albums has sounded dramatically different than the last one.

The first one was, I don't know, kind of mid-tempo and stuff, and then you had like the hardcore album that came after that. And, you know, and everything just kind of has changed every album, and everything we've done, like of the European releases and everything like that, everything's got a different feel to it, a different recording, a different songwriting vibe, and this one, I think, is an amalgamation of all of that, and I think that really makes us happy, you know what I mean? And hopefully, it's going to make other people happy, and we'll move a couple units, you know? That'd be nice. Yeah, I mean, there's just like some straight punk rock and roll songs that are like mid-tempo, just fucking rocking, and then there's some shit that's the old, in-your-face, kick-your-ass, you know, exactly, and Johnny and I were talking one night after practice, and he brought up a really good point, you know, he was saying that he's always enjoyed the punk rock that has rock and roll in it, you know, and I thought that was just, it kind of sums us up in a big way, you know what I mean?

You're going to get a couple GBH or Discharge-y or something like that songs, but everything's got a rock and roll swing to it that we do, you know what I mean? This guy's writing it, and that's what he likes, you know? Definitely helps if, you know, he's the one writing them. Exactly. Gets a little say in the matter there. I was going to ask, it's been almost... What, five years now since your last album of All New Material came out? Three years. Three years? No. Control Me came out in 2002, right? Okay. Four years, yeah. Control Me came out when? It came out September. It came out September 2002. Yeah. Right? Holy shit. The Forgotten Singer is like a total loser, and he keeps on leaving and going and playing with this other fucking band, you know?

Well, we've had other setbacks, too. It was that line-up changes, and yeah. Do you feel like, with that amount of time, do you guys feel any pressure about it, or is it just kind of, eh? We're still having fun, and as long as we're having fun, we're going to be doing it, you know? Yeah, we kind of, I don't know, in a certain respect, we don't give a fuck. We're going to be doing, yeah, it would have been great if we would have had albums coming out all through this, but for whatever reasons, and for all the reasons, we couldn't. You know what I mean? And so, we are charged. So, this next album, and what's going to happen afterwards, you know, the live shows, the touring, everything that's going to be going on off of this album, it's just going to be fucking, they're going to be events.

They're not going to be just things going on, albums being released, you know? We are so wound up right now, and we have so much shit to fucking get out. You know, it's, everyone's going to see, you know? By April of next year, people are going to see this, you know? That's cool, man. It just seems like every time we put out an update, too, everybody's super supportive. Exactly. To this day, I mean. No, Nick's absolutely right. We've been, you know, the whole MySpace thing, we add at least 12 people daily. Yeah, at least. And we haven't been working. You know what I mean? And so, it's really cool that people are willing to believe in us that much, and we're going to believe in them in turn, and get fucking back to every city that they want us to come back to.

We're going to fucking be there. We get crazy emails from all over the country daily. Exactly, all over the world. Come back to Houston, come back to Germany. Come back to Nagoya, come back to, you know, it's great, you know? That's cool.

Yeah, it was two weeks in Japan, and that ended a good solid year of supporting on Control Me, but that was in, what was it, 03? That was in October of 03, and right before that was a month in a, about over a month in Canada with the Bouncing Souls and Hot Water music, and then right before that, it was either Casualties or Unseen. It was with the F-minus, we did two weeks in the F-minus. Yeah, F-minus and a global threat. F-minus global threat, right? Right, that's right. It was just non-stop touring, yeah. So is that what you guys did? The time off, it was a little nice, but we're ready to get back to work. That's cool. So you're expecting to get, like, non-stop touring after this album? We love it just as much as we did back then, and as long as we're having fun, and we're still going to be doing it.

That's cool. This is my first time out, so I'm fucking psyched. Yeah, exactly. Nick Ugly over here is our new addition to the band. And we had a guitar player from the Forgotten Leave go on to do some other stuff, and Johnny, who was playing bass at the time, stepped right up to the plate. We actually embarrassed ourselves by trying to try out a guitar player or two, and I can't stop apologizing to him for that, because he stepped in as soon as we let this guy put a guitar on. In an E.M. Yeah, as soon as we let this guy put a guitar on and get rid of that fucking bass, I mean, he just really blew us away, and he's playing things cleaner and better than the original guy did. You know what I mean? It was just fucking amazing.

And then Nick has just been the absolute blessing that came in after that. You know, it's hard to find musicians that get it, that are on your same mind, especially when you're punk rock. There's so many sides to punk rock. You know what I mean? And we all fucking work now. You know? And so it's a really cool thing. The vibe is just really good. You know, practicing and doing recording stuff. It's like, everybody gets it. Yes, exactly. Cool. So coming up on his first tour, you guys got any initiations for him, or are you just going to let him get by easy on this? Well, you know, he's taking a couple shots in the mouth from all of us here. I'm sure I'll get my rights attached. Wait until we hit the Warfield here, Nicky boy.

Yeah, no shit, huh? I've heard things. We'll see. That's going to be trial by fire, huh? You've got the show at the Warfield coming up. And that'll be his third show. That'll be my third show. He'll be playing the Warfield with Rancid. You know? I lucked out, man. I don't know. Must have done something, right? Good luck on that one. Oh. Yeah. It'll be a good show, though. It's going to be a great time. You're a fucking douche. Turn your microphone on. There's a switch on it. Come on, buddy. What? I know you're a drummer, but Jesus. I'm watching TV. I swear, the only reason you have a job is because they can't teach hammers to pick up nails. One of the last questions I want to get on, which just came to me, and I've read it.

Like I said, I was doing research. I had to read it about five or six different times. Do you guys ever get tired of the forgotten being used in puns or jokes during interviews or reviews where they're like, oh, the band didn't live up to their name, and I remember that shit. Well, we never heard the band in the... I don't know. No, the whole... Oh, I forgot your name. I forgot already. Yeah. And that's fucking... It's just... It's rough. And it's really rough when it's someone that you want to like. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like when you do meet one of those idols we talked about before, and they come off with that gay ass, you know, oh, wow, I never heard that before. You're so fucking witty. This is our fucking 10-year anniversary in 07.

I never fucking heard that. You're amazing. You know, it's just... God, it gets frustrating, man. Everyone thinks they're the first one to fucking meet. You know what I mean? That's a little rough. Like I said, I read it about five times, and everyone seemed to think like no one had ever thought of it before. Yeah, no, they think they're so fucking witty. No, but Gordy, who was it that said the Forgotten was the best punk band name he's ever heard? That would be Joe Strummer. Really? Yeah. Joe Strummer said he thought that the Forgotten was the most amazing name for a punk band in this day and age. And especially with the music, well, I don't think he ever heard us. You know what I mean? But what the music we're doing reflects that, too.

You know what I mean? We do play. That's why the name's there. We do a Forgotten style of punk rock. We're not going to jump on the fucking Dropkick Murphys bandwagon and start doing Irish songs. You know what I mean? We're not going to jump on anybody else's thing. It's what we listen to, that old English and American sound that was happening way back then. That whole punk without a spin, without a dedicated direction, just playing big punk rock and not trying to force it down the road and sell a certain market. No one's ever going to say, oh, that song doesn't sound like the Forgotten or that album doesn't sound like the Forgotten because we shoot from the hip. We do what the fuck we want because punk rock is about individuality.

And so that's where it's going to go. And when you do it like that, I mean, that's the thing. No one can ever say, well, they shouldn't have done that. And it's like, well... If they do, they're just being ignorant or whatever, you know what I mean? Everybody's got opinions on shit, you know what I mean? But I kind of care less about any of them, you know? Unless it's from any of the three guys that are sitting right next to me here. As long as we're having a good fucking time, I think that's the most important thing, you know? Exactly. And if Joe Strummer likes your band name, I mean, that kind of trumps everything. There's nothing else that can be said after that. It's a big compliment. Exactly. We actually got a really big blessing with Joe Strummer.

If we could do a little story time here. Yeah, go for it. We were on tour. Just talking about this. Yeah, we were just talking about this on the way here. We were out on tour, and I think the last day we played was Arizona. Yeah, Phoenix, yeah. In Phoenix, and we were driving home from there, and we found out that Joe Strummer was playing. He just played in San Francisco, and we missed him. And he was playing at the Troubadour in L.A. Five nights. Five nights, you know? So we made a call, and we managed to get tickets in. Oh, wow. The tickets ended up being VIP tickets, and the Troubadour has a VIP bar upstairs to one side of it. And so from our VIP bar, we're looking at, like, what's that guy? Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall, and all these other celebs in there and stuff.

And we can look out the window and look across from us, and we can see Strummer's dressing room. And we see him pacing back and forth. We're like, wow. And we hit the show, and the show was fucking amazing. He played just about every cover of the Clash ever played. It was fucking awesome. And afterwards, he came to our bar. And so we all went down there and stood on the floor to watch him, of course, because we're not going to fucking watch it from behind glass or whatever. It's fucking Strummer, man. But we actually got to hang out with this guy after the show, and that for us was just fucking amazing, you know? Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, I mean, there can't be much to top that. I mean, he's... Yeah, and the only thing even in that range would be maybe meeting Cash before he died.

Yeah. Yes. That's about it. For me personally, at least. And that's how we found out about the whole forgotten thing. Because I had in my mind, I knew I wanted to meet Joe Strummer. I knew I wanted to shake his hand, but I was shithouse. And so when I first tried to walk over to him, I tripped over an end table and ended up on my ass. So I got up and acted like I wasn't heading over there, you know what I mean? Tried to fucking play it off, which I'm sure I didn't, you know? No, you didn't. So I couldn't take it. When they threw us out of there at like, you know, four o'clock in the morning or whatever, I had to meet him. So in front of the stage, he just rocked. I went down, I shook his hand, and I said, you know, I'm not going to tell him that I'm in a band, because I'm sure everybody does that.

So I just said, you know, hey, man, my name's Gordy, and thanks for being you. Otherwise, I wouldn't be me. And I was stoked I shook his hand. Well, we get in the van, and we drive the rest of the eight hours, you know, back home. I hit play on my answer machine, and it's my buddy Lars saying, I was just hanging out with Joe Strummer last night when he was in San Francisco. I told him about your band, and he said that The Forgotten was hands down the best name for a band. And I was just like, so if I would have said, I'm Gordy from The Forgotten, he would have said, yeah, well, we were just talking about you last night. You know what I mean? It would have actually been a conversation instead of just me fucking, you know, posthumously sucking his cock, you know what I mean?

And so I was just, I was fucking floored. What are you going to do? That's still awesome, man. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I mean, getting to shake his hand is, you know, that's more than most people would ever get to do. It's the hand that played them fucking songs. It's just a thank you, you know what I mean? Yeah, Dave, you got something signed by him, right? Yeah. Did you get something signed, Johnny? Yeah, I got something signed to Johnny Joe Strummer. I had to do it. I'm not a big autograph guy, but that guy. There's certain people you got to do it. Yeah, so all of us got to talk to him and everything, and it was just, it was a fucking amazing night, and that's fucking, that's why we're fucking in this band still, you know what I mean?

If the music wasn't a big enough reason, things like that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Cool. Well, I think we're going to start wrapping it up. Start wrapping it up. Yeah, we got to ask, first, you guys got anything you want to plug, websites, anything to that effect? Yeah, definitely. www.theforgotten.net. Check that out, and myspace.com slash theforgotten. Check that out. It's got updates on everything we're doing, all the shit that's going to be going on in the new year. Get in touch with us. Tell us what you guys want to, where you want to see us going, you know what I mean? And any information you've got, we fucking want, because, well, we're you. We're not fucking rock stars, you know what I mean? We're the guys that like drinking beer and hanging out with everybody, you know?

Awesome, awesome. Which we're going to do right now. Correct. Yes. Next on the agenda. Things are starting to get going here. I think now's a good time to start drinking beer. Good deal. Hey, thank you guys. Yeah, thank you very much, man. Thank you. And you guys have a good night. You too.

All right, so that wraps up our interview for this week. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. If you get the chance, like I think they said, April, May, they're going to be trying to do a little bit of national touring, so I hope you guys, if the Forgotten come through your area, you should check them out. They're a good live show. And a real good group of guys. And like I said, we've got a contest for this week. I don't know quite what we're giving out. It's going to be some promotional stuff from The Forgotten given to us by Gordy at a later assigned date. So there will be free stuff and there will be prizes as of what we don't know. It may be really awesome or Gordy may give us like, I don't know, an old pair of gym socks or something.

Maybe you'll dig it. I don't know. But the contest for this week, if you guys are up on The Forgotten, we talked about it after the interview, but not during because it wasn't about The Forgotten. It was about Gordy. And it's that Gordy is currently working on a pilot for kind of a punk rock cooking show. And it's just something he's kind of doing in his free time. And I want to know from you, for the contest, what kind of name of famous punk rocker you would like to see in some kind of show, like whether it's a home improvement type show or a talk show or, I don't know, whatever you'd like to see somebody talk about. So we need a name of who you'd like to see and the type of show. And what you're going to do is you're going to take that and you're going to put it on your computer, on the internet, and send us an email.

You've got to make sure it's in the computer. You can't write on the screen with crayon. And send us an email at soundscenerevolution at gmail.com. Put The Forgotten Contest in the subject line. Send your answer, which is a famous punk rock icon you would like to see in some type of show, the name of the person and the show, and fucking put your address in there. Because we are sick and tired of like, alright, this guy won. Where does he live? Oh, apparently he doesn't live anywhere. He lives on the internet. Yet, we cannot email you a CD. We cannot email you a t-shirt. One day we'll be able to do that. And I will also email you a piece of shit. But until that day, send us your address, your actual physical address, or a P.O. box, for God's sakes.

If you're embarrassed because you're 45 and you listen to our podcast and you still live with your mom, then send us a P.O. box. But send us a physical address. Because otherwise we're going to sign you up for like, all sorts of fucking weird donkey porn. And you don't want that. Maybe you do. I don't know. Alright, so that's the contest. Enter it and get free shit from Gordy. This will probably be our last show before we go off for the holiday break. We'll probably have one more show, actually. We're not quite sure. We're kind of kicking around who it's going to be. We have a couple of choices. Which is kind of nice to have options. Because usually we're like, calling our friends and bands like the day before the show.

And we're like, so you guys want to be on? So it's nice to have some options. But, we'll have that. And then we'll probably be back the first Tuesday after New Year's. Which isn't entirely true because I think New Year's falls on a Tuesday. So we'll be back. Oh no, it falls on a Monday. So we won't be back the same. We'll probably be back like January 9th or the 16th. Whenever we can get our shit together. So check that out. And we're going to play one last track from The Forgotten before we tune off for this week. Hope you guys like it. We're going to be playing the track Listen off of their album Control Me. And be sure to tune next week. Send all your email requests. SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com via the internet connection.

So enjoy and we'll see you guys all next week.

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