Interview with American Steel - Podcast 69

Hey, this is Roy from American Steel. You're listening to Sound Scene Revolution.

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Thanks for tuning in, Sound Scene Revolution. We are back for a second week in a row. Hopefully we'll be doing this on a pretty regular basis from here on out. If you listen closely, you can hear a small dog barking in the background. That's mine. It's a pain in the ass, but I love it. So, this week we got American Steel. Fat Records Band, former Lookout Band, former Communique, probably beat Communique again at some point. I don't know. But they got a new album out called Destroy Their Future, and we got some music off of that album. And we have some interviews with Rory. And we have a really cool contest where one winner, it's actually a contest I won from Fat Records, that I'm re-contesting to you guys here at home.

So, you have a chance to win a signed copy of Destroy Their Future, the CD, and a signed tour poster from American Steel. So, that's pretty cool, you know, something for somebody, if you're into that kind of thing. So, we're going to do that at the end. We'll tell you how to enter. Right now we have the song Sons of Avarice off of their Fat Records debut, Destroy Their Future. Check it out and enjoy.

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It's not really backstage. It's kind of above, anyhow, with Rory from American Steel, if you'd like to say hello. Hey, how's it going? So, thank you for coming out. Appreciate it. Amidst all of the insanity that appears to be going on this evening. Yeah, it's a little less insane than last night, but the insanity will probably ensue shortly. Well, we actually, we had talked to Vanessa about doing tonight or last night, and I was like, you know, I think Saturday when they're just coming into town, probably a little ridiculous. Right, yeah. A little easier tonight. Definitely, thank you. I guess the first place to start is, you guys, the first real reunion of American Steel was at a house show in Oakland, was it?

Yeah. Like, when was that, the date? I don't... That was, that was in April. Yeah. It was, it was like almost five years to the, five years to the date from our last show. Wow. Now, how impromptu was that? Was that something that you guys had thought about for months in advance, or was it something where they're like, hey, do you guys want to play, and you just kind of... It was, it was, it wasn't entirely impromptu, like we didn't just go, oh, let's go run down there tonight, but like we, we had talked about maybe trying to do a new record or whatever, and I mean, I had a lot of songs already, and so it was sort of like, let's just play and see how we feel, and like, you know, if it feels right, then we'll keep moving forward and just take things as they go.

Yeah. Was it nerve-wracking to get up there after like five years and play some of that stuff again that you hadn't played in so long? No, it was funny, because like when we first had like a rehearsal, we're like, let's, well, we should, we have to practice a little bit, and we got in the studio, and I just looked around at the guys, and I was like, so do you guys, do we need to talk over these songs? You know, like let's start with, you know, some older stuff that, you know, should be fairly well ingrained, and everyone's all, no, let's just try running through one, and I think we played like something off Rogue's March, and it was just like, sounded good right from the start, just like, almost probably sounded better than we'd ever played it before, so it was like, everything sort of just came really easily, yeah.

Well, you guys had been playing, I mean, it's not like you guys hadn't been playing together, you'd been doing communique for a while. Right, yeah. You'd still been practicing, and it's not like you guys have all just been sitting on your ass luckily for the past five years. That's true, yeah, yeah. Although we hadn't played with Scott, the drummer, so that was sort of the thing we were curious about, but Scott, you know, just was right back there, yeah. That's good. Was he, was it all, was it one of those things when you guys were getting back together, was it weird to like call him up and be like, so, because I mean, the rest of you, I imagine, work together on a fairly regular basis as communique, so.

Yeah. Was it one of those things where you're like, well, I guess if we're going to do it, might as well do it right, or? Yeah, I mean, I mean, we'd, I mean, we'd had, you know, contact with Scott, didn't see him every day, he lives in the South Bay, so we didn't, I didn't see him all the time, but we were in pretty good contact, and, you know, I've been friends over the years, so it wasn't really, it was sort of like, yeah, it's obvious, it's Scott, you play, and, you know, he's around, and so, hey, you know. So, I don't think if, I don't think we would have done it if it hadn't been like original, all original people. Yeah, that's cool. So, you guys, shortly after you played the house show and made it official, kind of, you got a, I don't know how they work, I don't want to say record deal with Phat, because it's not really like multi-contract, multi-record contract or anything, but you guys had agreed to put out a record on Phat, now, was that before or after, did they approach you after you guys played?

They approached us after, after we played the show, we're like. Hey, let's, it was a great, it was a really fun house show, and it was like, I mean, it was, calling it a house show is sort of, kind of wrong, because it was like a room, and I can't explain it here, but it was a tiny living room. Yeah, it wasn't like huge. Yeah, and we, it was just like packed with people who couldn't even move, and so you could just sort of see this box of people like swaying back and forth, and like, but it was a, it was a really, really fun show, and we're like, let's play Bomb of the Hill, let's play like a club show, and so we were going to do that, and I was like, you know what, we should make a decision before we do that about whether or not we're going, going to do another record, whether we're going to keep playing shows, because I don't want to like, we didn't want to announce the show and just have like kids fly out from all over the place and then like have them find out that we'd be in their town like, you know, two or three months later.

Yeah, so we made that decision, we were going to, we were going to go with, there's a couple of friends of ours that had, you know, smaller indie labels, and we were just going to do that, we didn't like, we didn't go around asking anyone, we just kind of went to our friends, and they're like, yeah, and then when, we've been friends with Fat for a long time, so when they found out, they're just sort of like, hey, we want to do it, and we're kind of having problems trying to figure out how we're going to be able to record it with some of the smaller labels, because, you know, there wasn't quite enough money, even though, even though we own a recording studio, it was still fairly expensive, even though we don't obviously pay as much, but, so we're just like, yeah, you know, Fat's like old friends of ours, we essentially, we just wanted to find someone we trusted, so.

Yeah, absolutely. Someone's asked me like, did you talk to these other labels, or major labels, or anything like that, and we're like, no, not at all, just like, it was like, finding someone we trusted was like, the crucial element. That's cool. Yeah, so you had mentioned, this was recorded at, got SharkBite, correct? Yeah. Awesome, I got the name right. But, so you guys did this all at SharkBite, it was this, you recorded there before, correct, but this is the first time where it's been, you now own it, correct? Yeah, Ryan, our guitarist, is a part owner of it. The first time we ever recorded there was our third record, Jagged Thoughts, and our producer, Kevin Army, at the time, he was kind of the studio he liked working out of, and so we really liked the studio, and got along with the, he had the owner, at the time the owner was the second engineer, and we got along really well with him, and Kevin stopped doing producing, and when we, and when we started Communique, we kind of wanted to go in a new direction, and we decided to produce it ourselves, and we recorded the Communique LP there, and we had Mark, the owner, engineer it, and develop a good rapport.

Anyways, Ryan started working there as a general manager, because Ryan has a lot of experience as a sound engineer, and when he decided to sell it, he gave Ryan the first pass at it, and Ryan kind of was like, should I do it? I was like, fuck yes, you should do it, man. Just grab it right now, you know, so he did it, and it's been awesome. That's great. So, now, I can't remember, did he produce your guys' album? Or did he mix it? Ryan? Yeah. Ryan, I would say that we all sort of produced it, or didn't produce it, or whatever, you look at it, I don't know if there always needs to be production credits on it, but Ryan essentially oversaw the process, and we had his assistant, who does a lot of engineering there, Adam Myatt, basically, was the engineer, but Ryan was really hands-on with it, but obviously he had to perform, too, so we needed an engineer.

Absolutely, yeah, he probably couldn't do too much when he was in there recording. It'd be a little difficult. We did that with some demos there, we did some demoing there, for Communique, and it drove him crazy, because he'd have to, or I'd have to run the board when he was doing vocals, and it was kind of fun, but I think it was just like, there's too much stress on him. Yeah, understandable. Now, was there a lot of, for you guys recording, was there a lot of stress behind this album? Was it like, you know, we haven't done this in five years, well, longer since you guys had recorded, you know, as American Steel, we really have to pull this together, or was it just like, eh, you know, you've been doing music the entire time, so it's still just part of the process?

I think it, like, I, like I said before, I had, I had a bunch of songs, and, like, we had just finished recording a Communique record, and after I had almost finished doing all the vocals, this was, like, last winter, and I almost finished doing all the vocals, and I took a break from it, because I was, like, too deep in it, and then I came back and listened to it, and I hated half the songs, and I was just like, fuck, I'm kind of confused with what I want to do with Communique, like, songwriting-wise, and, like, I need a total break from this, so, like, we'd already been kind of talking about American Steel at that point, and it was just like, this is a great thing, and the songs I had been writing after those ones were just not, just not, they just felt like American Steel songs to me, so I was just sort of like, maybe this could work, and, but the only thing I sat down was that it has to be really easy, like, and I don't mean that in, like, a lazy way, I just don't want to, I just didn't want to force anything, it's like, it has to make sense, it has to be organic, and if it doesn't, we'll just, we'll cut the rope, I mean, I think that's still our attitude, but things, things really did just come really easily, there was no, there was no nervousness at all, it was just sort of like, we thought the songs were good, we felt pretty self-confident about, like, how to be able to play them and record them, we knew how we wanted to record it, so it wasn't really, I don't know, I've had people ask me, they're like, what, you like, you know, it's kind of this, kind of that, the production's just this and just that, like, you guys really threaded the needle on that one, you know, and I'm just like, no, we didn't, we didn't even think about it at all, honestly, it was just like, that's nice that you think that, but really, we're not that smart, yeah, not that much for it, we're just lucky, I guess, yeah, so, we're gonna take a quick little break right there from the fancy interview section with Rory, remember, if you listen all the way to the end, or even fast forward, and then just listen to the end, you can enter for a chance to win a copy of Destroy Their Future on CD autographed, as well as a poster autographed by the band, so, I imagine you're gonna want that, it's pretty sweet, oh, I just got like a seizure in my neck, nice, neck seizures, so, we're gonna play another track off of the album, we're gonna play the second track, Dead and Gone by American Steel, we'll probably play something else later, but that's what we're playing right now, so enjoy it, and we'll see you later.

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right now, I'm gonna write American Steel songs, it was just you heard them and you're like, you know, no, yeah, it was like the songs came and I was just like, these are American Steel songs, like, you know, and there's no, there's no like, metric for that in my mind, it's just sort of like all gut feeling, I'm just like, these are totally American Steel songs, like, that's cool, were you all, were you at all worried about like, I don't know, I don't want to say backlash, but I mean, you guys had said at one point that it seemed fairly solid, that you were done with American Steel, that you'd moved on, were you at all worried that like, people would get upset, or that they'd say, you know, you're doing it for monetary reasons, which, I mean, it's, yeah, that one's the funny one, I've had, I've had, I've been asked that in interviews before, and all I do is just laugh, but really monetary reasons, yeah, I mean, I'm sure you're making money hand over fist doing this, right, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, we actually, I was, we just got out of debt for American Steel, just, just like, just like half a year ago, so, so yeah, that, that might put it in perspective, yeah, we'd been carrying around a large debt, yeah, wow, so yeah, clearly you're not doing this for the enormous paycheck, no, no, it's, it's for love of the game, that's cool, very cool, now, one of the things that I've noticed is, uh, posthumously, American Steel had gotten, like, I don't want to say big, like, huge, but they had a growing fan base from the five years that you guys were inactive, you know, more people had gotten into them, I mean, with a lot of good bands, that seems to happen, was it at all weird to come back, and there was, you know, people who hadn't had a chance to see you guys play live, or hadn't even had a record when you guys were active, that are now, like, really excited for your shows, and are now, like, was that strange at all?

Um, it was nice, I, I don't, I don't think it was that strange, I don't know if that could ever happen again, because we stopped on the cusp right before things got really digital, and, like, um, we just weren't, we weren't very ambitious, you know, we just sort of did what we did, we hit the road, we did it, and, um, we might have been mismanaged a little bit, but in a label sense, I don't want to, I don't want to, like, talk illy of Lookout, I mean, they did what they did, but, like, it's not like we ever were thrown out there, put out there, people kind of had to find us, and, um, I think that's what happened in that time period, somehow people found us, maybe word of mouth, or whatever, it's sort of the, um, like, I don't know, sort of, like, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's, maybe it's, uh, maybe it's a Lookout thing, or maybe it's just, like, a weird thing with, with, um, punk rock, but, like, it's sort of, like, Crim Shrine effect, or, like, Op Ivy effect, it's sort of, like, bands sometimes just seem to get, get more people listening to them after they break up for some reason, and I don't know what it is, but, uh, I don't think it could ever happen again, but it's been cool, and I've been, it's been, uh, it's been fun, like, like, like, I've been stoked the whole time, stoked to be playing again, and I'm, I'm pretty happy that we've stoked out a handful of people who were just, maybe thought they wouldn't see us again, so.

Very cool, right on. Uh, you're talking about Lookout, there have been a lot of bands who have pulled their old back catalog off of Lookout, is that something you guys would look to do, or are you guys pretty much okay just leaving it there? I don't know if we can, if you can discuss that, we could. That's, uh, that's probably better left unspoken about for the time being. Yeah, fair enough, that's, we can, we, we can get that in both, right? We can actually cut that hole. All right, that's good. Yeah, we don't want to do anything questionable. So, um, all right, so you guys are on tour right now with the Lawrence Arms and their whole Sundowner Falcon deal. You guys are actually on a bus. Yeah. Now, I know from talking to you previously that you guys have had a ton of bad experiences with vans and such.

How has this tour been? Is it just real easy? Just like show up and play? Oh yeah, totally. I mean, um, we, we've done two tours with Lawrence Arms, uh, once in like 2001. And then again, as, as communique with, with them and against me. And, uh, so we're old friends, like, uh, so it's, I don't think the, the bus thing would have, like we were, we were going to rent a van. Yeah. Lawrence Arms, uh, van wouldn't be able to make it and they would have had to have two vans, I guess. So, um, it was actually less expensive, uh, to get the bus. I was sort of like, I guess, uh, a little nervous about like, you know, uh, you know, getting sleep and, uh, you know, things not being too crazy all the time, but, um, but it's been great.

I mean, uh, we're like, we're like, it's like a weird, like, uh, I don't know, group, group think that, like that evolves, you know, it's like, it's not like there's, um, I mean, it's probably included the fact that there's like, they consist of like three bands technically or whatever, but like on the tour, yeah, we all share the same gear because, you know, it's a matter of space in the trailer and it's sort of like, uh, we share the same space all the time. So it's basically like, we're one large amorphous touring group, you know? Yeah. Um, so it, it just feels like, uh, I don't know, I feel like, I feel like a bunch of pirates, just like we all have, we all have the same goal. We have different songs, but like, you know, it's definitely like, uh, I, I joked about it on stage a few times that like, they, they weren't the rambling boys of pleasure until we were all united on the bus, you know, now we're the rambling boys of pleasure.

Yeah. I can definitely understand. You guys share pretty much everything space, you know, the van or the bus equipment stage area. Yeah. Equipment, everything. I mean, just like our, even down to like the, the stuff that people don't see, like the, the backstage, the backstage hospitality, like it's all, it's everyone's, everything's just collectivized and it's just sort of like, you know, yeah, that's cool. Sounds like a pretty good time. Yeah. Now, um, on the tour, I mean, I know I'm, I'm sure you're playing stuff off the new album. Actually, uh, when I caught you guys in the first, you played a good amount of stuff off the new album. Do you guys, is it weird to play any of the older stuff? Like some of the stuff that you guys wrote probably about now, like 10, 10 years ago, I guess.

Some stuff off our first record I wrote when I was like 15 or 16. So that's, that's a long, that's a long time ago. I'm 30 now, but like, uh, um, we, we're trying to find a nice balance of playing since this is our first tour back. And like you were saying, there's a lot of people hadn't seen us before, hadn't seen us in a long time. And we're trying to make sure to play a good, a good amount of old stuff, but on the same hand, you know, um, we would be remiss to our label and to ourselves if we didn't try to like, you know, introduce people to new songs. But one thing that really surprised us was, um, how many people were, um, just from the get-go, our record was just barely out, were singing along with all the new songs and, uh, like with all of them and sort of just sort of like that never used to happen.

Usually it would be not until the next album came out that they were kind of, Oh, okay. I like that record, you know, but like, uh, maybe that's another thing about how much faster things are with like digital downloads and everything like that. Yeah. Everyone had already stolen our record. So, uh, so they knew all the words already. Yeah. We had talked to the weaker thens and they said the same thing. It was weird because their album came out. I mean, it had been leaked technically about a month beforehand and they played a show two to three weeks before the record was really seen. It's like, it's really weird when everyone knows the songs off the new album and it hasn't come out yet, but yeah. But somehow our record really didn't get leaked.

I mean, I think some people got their hands on it, but it wasn't really, I don't think widespread, which not too much, but there were people who definitely were looking for it. Yeah. Something was handled right there and at least distribution manner. It's a, it's a, I guess it's probably a pretty fun game to try to see how early you can get the record, right? There are, there are people I'm sure who are all about that, but I just, I don't have the time.

We'll wrap it up here. Is there anything before we take off you want to throw out, add? I mean, obviously you got, uh, you're going to be doing this tour for a little while longer and you got the album out, anything like that? We have, yeah, we have a new album out. Check it out if you like. Uh, um, no, other than that, stay strong, be good. All right, sounds good. Uh, all right, so that wraps up the whole interview processes thing. Um, all that we have left is we have a contest this week. We did pick a winner for the Bomb the Music Industry contest, actually. We contacted him, but Sound Guy Nairman forgot to tell me what the guy's name was, so dude out there in podcast land, you won the first pressing of Bomb the Music Industry's Get Warmer on colored vinyl and I think a CD, too, something like that.

It's actually a picture disc. And those 500 picture discs sold out. They're actually on the second pressing right now and they're not doing picture discs. So you have a somewhat collector's item if you're that kind of a nerd and you are, you are now. Um, so yeah, I'm married. Yeah, it was his birthday, too, so fucking happy birthday to you. You're a year older and you get a piece of vinyl. It's pretty sweet. All I got on my birthday was my dad was like, yeah, you're another year older. Now go dig some holes in the yard and we'll plant some flowers, some fruity shit like that. It was a weird family. Um, so we got a contest for American Steel. If you want to enter, all you have to do is send a email to soundscenerevolution at gmail.com.

Please put American Steel contest in the subject line so we know what you're doing. And, uh, then answer the following question, uh, that new kid in Heroes Who Can Fly, what's up with that big herpes sore on his lip? He's got like a big fucking, like, it looks like a mole or a herpes. No. It's true. He does. But that's not the question. Um, question is American Steel. They used to be Communique. So what band do you like, which is a byproduct of another band? It doesn't need to be like, like Communique was pretty much everyone from American Steel except for Scott. So it sucks to be you, Scott. But, um, like, yeah, but now they're back together. So Scott has the last laugh. He's like, how'd Communique go, guys?

Oh, oh, not so good, huh? Yeah, too bad. But, um, what band, like, I don't know, Falcon has members of the Lawrence Arms or Sundowner has members of the Lawrence Arms or like, uh, Colossal has members of the Lawrence Arms. So, you know, anything like a band that is a side project of a, of a bigger band or a more popular band, uh, what would you choose? Uh, just put that in there and let us know. Um, and send that to soundscenerevolution at gmail.com, include your name, address, all of that, and good to go. Uh, last song of the show, we're gonna play Old Quarry Road off of Destroy Their Future. Enjoy it and, uh, tune in next week for more podcasts.

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