Transcript (auto-generated, may contain errors; songs left out)
Here's to Val Kilmer, the best, best Batman of all time.
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Of the future. Yes, the show of tomorrow. And just because it's topical, we will officially have been on the air longer than Conan O'Brien has hosted The Tonight Show. Longer than he will get the opportunity to host The Tonight Show. Not more episodes. Yeah, probably? No, not more episodes. I guess in seven months, if they do, what, four or five a week, he'd probably still beat us. But, eh. Whatever, dude. We never got preempted for Jay Leno. Suckers. Anyhow, so this year, we're going to start with a show. Right? How exciting is that? Featuring Touche Amore. There we go. I couldn't think of the name. They're a band out of the L.A. area. They recently released their first full-length called To the Beat of a Dead Horse.
Which is available on, oh shit, I can't remember the name of the label. It's like 613. I'm going to fuck it up, but whatever. It's a record label. And collect records. And they were really pretty good dudes. We're going to play some stuff by them. And we will have a contest as well. The contest is for a copy of their full-length To the Beat of a Dead Horse. From the first pressing on Brown Vinyl. Thanks, Sound Guy and Aaron. Sound Guy and Aaron brought up. It's 6131 Records. And collect records. Which is partially owned, or at least maybe fully owned, by G. Hoff Rickley. That's Jeff, if you speak English. The guy from Thursday. Which is another band a lot of people like. But they're too popular for us. Anyhow.
So we're going to be giving away a copy of their album To the Beat of a Dead Horse on Brown Vinyl. We'll give you the details on that. We're going to play some tracks off of that album. Not from their 7-inch. Because the 7-inch, to my knowledge, not available on a digital format. And if it is, I don't own it. And so, to save you the agony of sitting here and listening to me play it on a record player. And record it through the microphone. We're just going to play their full-length. Because we have that on digital format. Alright? Alright. We'll be back in just a minute. Enjoy. We'll see you guys after the... Or halfway through the interview.
Which I didn't know existed. With members of Touche Amore. So, if you guys... I guess the easiest way to start is if you guys want to introduce yourselves. What you do. Just so everyone can differentiate.
Alright. Well, my name is Tyson. And I play guitar. Fair enough. Nick, art director.
Tyler, fill-in bass player. Elliot, little boho babbin. I play the drums. Clayton, I play guitar. Jeremy, I sing. Alright. Thank you guys. So, I guess the easiest place to start, which is the standard first question, is where did you guys get started? Brief history of the band, if you got it. As soon as the last band I was in was ending, I really just wanted to get this band started. It's something I've always wanted to do. And I just recently met Tyson and... Good friends. And basically, everything he used to play me on guitar sounded really awesome, so I wanted him to kind of start being in the band, and then I'd known Clayton for a few years, and our original drummer I'd also known for a few years, and just kind of came together, and then Nick was the last person to join.
Yeah, originally. And, uh, yeah, uh, I mean, it all just was a bunch of friends hanging out, and then it ended up actually becoming something. Turning into a band. Exactly. Nice, nice. So, this is, uh, you guys have been together for officially about, what, two years now? Just about two years, yeah. Just about two years? And this is by far the most serious full-time band that you guys have done? Yes. Yeah. How has it been since you guys have started? I mean, there were a pretty good amount of people here tonight just to see you guys, it seemed like, so. Are you guys surprised by that when you get anywhere? It was really flattering. We haven't played the Bay Area that many times, and the show tonight felt like a hometown show.
Yeah. Which is always awesome. This being the last night of tour was perfect. Nice. Not a bad way to end it all. Not at all. Not bad. But the few times we have been to the Bay, it's always been real good to us. I mean, yeah, like, uh, as much as it's in the same state as us, I mean, it's five hours away from where we actually live, so, for most places in the country, that's a whole nother state away, so, for, it's really flattering that anyone up here would, you know, care at all, so it's been really fun. Cool, cool. Yeah, definitely, uh, from the Bay Area, whenever you're here, and whenever you go to another state, everyone's always like, oh, do you guys see many movie stars out there? How far are you guys from L.A.?
And you're like, really fucking far. I know it's the same state, but... That might be the most asked question of our entire tour. Yeah, easily. How many famous people do you guys see? In L.A.? Yeah. What's your story? Do you guys see a ton of famous people all the time? Not all the time, but we do. I mean... I've seen them. Yeah, it happens, but not on the daily. Is it Kenan or Kel that you have beef with? People expect, being from Los Angeles, that you will see a famous person every day. Not necessarily the case. I've had a few celebrity run-ins. A few run-ins? Not to toot my own horn. Tom Cruise shook my hand, told me I had cool hair. No way. Yeah. Is that serious? I swear to God, dude. Where did you run into Tom Cruise?
Like, outside of the Scientology temple? Outside of the Scientology temple? Well, it was in a volcano. We were worshipping rocks alongside aliens. And he looked over and he's like, dude, you have really cool hair. And I was like, dude, I love the Mission Impossible series. And just for the record, Jeremy has a lot of beef with Kenan Thompson. Kenan Thompson. But not Kel. No, Kel's been cleared. I squashed my beef with Kel. I think that's acceptable. I appreciate that. And I got my braces on sitting next to Kirsten Dunst just after Bring It On. So that just, you know, that was like peak. Really? Yeah, that was her peak. That was her peak. That was post-Jumanji. I was sitting right next to her. It was great. And embarrassing at the same time.
Was she getting her snaggletooth fix? I don't know. Do orthodontists fix snaggletooths? Or is that like some cosmetic surgery? Did she really have a snaggletooth? It depends. It depends. I don't remember. I back it. I don't know. Does she look like a saber-toothed tiger? She looks like a cute mess. Yeah, come on. She's alright in Spider-Man. But I'm a big fan of Spider-Man. I actually, one time I was eating at California Express. She was getting gas with Tobey Maguire. She was such a wreck. Honestly, man, I've seen bags of trash that looked better. I don't feel we should talk about music at all. I think we should just talk about weird, famous celebrities. I met Bill Murray. Really? A few months ago. No kidding. Azuray?
Nick and I were seeing Azuray. Oh, my God. And he can back me in how starstruck and embarrassing I was. He's Bill Murray. You were contemplating whether or not you were actually going to go say hi. You're like, I have to do it. I have to do it. Honestly, because two months ago, I had the chance to meet Morrissey and I completely messed up and ended up waiting too long. And all my friends met him but me. So I was standing there with him going, I'm not going to let this be another Morrissey situation. So I walked over and I thanked him for giving me a sense of humor. And he said, you're welcome. Wait, wasn't he with Jenny Lewis? He was with Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley. No shit. And she shot me a dirty look. And then I was like, and your new album rules.
And she was like, oh, well, thank you. Not to leave you, you know, you're included in this. Yeah, I'm kind of famous. All right, fine. Your album's okay. And she was in The Wizard. The Wizard? Whoa. The movie with the kid with the glove? The power glove? She was the girl in it. Really? Whoa. With Fred Savage? With Fred Savage. Wow. I saw Fred Savage at a Winbeck show once. What? Who's the better Savage? Fred or Randy? I'm team Ben because Boy Meets World is live show. Oh, Ben Savage. I thought you were Randy Savage. I just saw the South Park. I'm a huge Randy Savage fan. The Macho Man with actually a bunch of different people. I'd like to go on record. Goldust is the best wrestler of all time.
Did you just say Goldust is the best wrestler of all time? Do you know what he looks like? Goldust? The guy with the gold face and the giant latex bodysuit? I was exposed to Goldust probably 48 hours ago and it blew my mind. Oh, yeah. Goldust tattoo coming very soon for Lil Bajo. Lil Bajo, where are you? Right here. I cannot wait. I'm eagerly anticipating it. Fantastic. Goldust. I grew up on 1990s WWF. So, that was like, he never made any sense. All right. Yeah, I don't know what that meant. Yeah, well, he was what? Dusty Rhodes' kid? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Legendary. Yeah, yeah. Legendary. Something people care about. Let's get back to the music. So, Tyson, you were one of the original members. I've read before you started with this band, you never played with an electric guitar.
Is that true? That is very true. How have you come since then? Well, you know, my very first time playing through an amp was actually the very first band practice, which was a week after my little sister's birthday. I did not know what to do. I did not know why I was so loud. I did not know why all of my fuck-ups were so audible. And I've come a little bit of the way. I'm almost a good guitar player. Almost. You're less terrible. It'll happen. But the awesome thing is that he wrote so much of all of our music. So, I mean, it's really cool that someone who, you know, came from not ever playing through an amp, you know, has such a big impact. Yeah. I was going to say, you're one of the original. You guys wrote a couple of songs before the rest of the guys joined.
Is that correct? Very true. And so, without ever even playing on electric guitar before, you kind of figured all these parts out. Yeah. What's your background in that? My background was, I always liked to play music. I'd try to figure out songs, just random punk songs that I liked. And I had an acoustic guitar, decided to write an album. It happens. I had a video camera. And then I would just press record and film myself playing so I would see what I am playing and remember it. So, I'd sit there for like 20 minutes a day, just play something. If I liked it, I'd show the dudes. If I didn't, no one saw it. Yeah, I was going to say, those videos aren't on YouTube, are they? Because we will link those. They are not.
No. No, no. I'm pretty sure I destroyed the tape. It's buried in a sweater sleeve somewhere. That's how, whenever we're writing songs, though, since we don't have a 4-track or anything like that, we just bring a digital camera and record it. And then a lot of those videos are under really weird names on YouTube. Really? Yeah. Yeah, some still exist. I had a YouTube account that I forgot the password of. And I put up some videos for band purposes, and they still exist. I'm pretty sure you could do the forgot password, right? You could find it. No? Old email address? Yeah, like it's just some old email address, like a Hotmail account you don't use anymore. Exactly. Deactivate it. Or like T-mail. I don't have a sidekick.
T-mail. Is that the sidekick email? Yes, it is. Oh, wow. I had no idea. SBC. I don't have a SBC. What's that? Now that's all. After this, everyone's going to be looking for like Touche Amore practice tapes online of songs you never released. You won't be the ninth viewer.
Three viewers before it, five comments. They're like, that's unusual. So you guys are from the LA area, correct? Well, we established that. Correctamundo. With the Hollywood connection. With the Hollywood connects. So you guys definitely, you seem very influenced by where you guys live, even that's in some of the lyrics. How do you feel it's impacted you guys in that respect? I think that's for you, dude. Yeah, this is Jeremy. Yeah, you're the one who writes the lyrics about it. Wait, wait, wait. Like, okay, how do you mean it? Well, I mean, you sing about it, you talk about it, you have a love-hate-love. Yeah. Like, how do you feel that that area, I mean, impacts your music and just even your daily life? I mean, a lot of us have a lot of talks about the whole situation where it's like, I feel like Los Angeles, if you're from there, which all of us are originally from LA, is a place that, you know, when people come from, like, when people move there, they get a really bad attitude.
Like, they feel like they're, they feel like they have, now that they live there, they have an inability to have a bad attitude. And then there's the people who are originally from there who are bitter about those people. And it's like, everyone just gets really bad attitudes. But then, and I would say that's about 90% of the people there, where everyone's just like, it's jaded and bitter and just like, no one likes each other. But then there's the 10% of people who you meet who are from there, who are the best people you ever meet in your entire life. And that's what kind of has always, you know, kept my head up about things. And, you know, like, I can definitely say those people are standing with me right now that, you know, have made me feel okay about there.
But then also you realize that when you're, what I've definitely learned on this tour is being away from LA and going to so many great places, you can spend an entire day in a city and think like, oh man, I would love to live here for a little while. But, but there's always home, you know, and as much, as much as I have my issues with Los Angeles and things about it, it's always going to be home. So there's nothing I can really do about it except sing about what I don't like about it. But it's always going to be home, you know. Yeah, definitely. That's cool. How's the, so you guys, you just wrapped up, this is the last day of a 68 tour. Which is, is that the longest that you guys have done? By far, yeah.
Yeah, we've always, we've done a couple kind of West Coast runs, a lot of the West, you know, West States, and they've always been between two and like three weeks or so. Yeah. But, yeah, this was, this was a long one. Yeah.
60 days, do you, are you at each other's throats yet? Or are you guys, no, I mean, honestly, I mean, I, I didn't, I didn't know what to expect at all, but it's, it's been really good. Like, there hasn't been any, you know, the worst fight we got in was over whether you should flush the toilet after you pee. And, that got, that got a little heated in the van for a second. Wait, I will say that that was the first bad one. There's been three, there's been the, the flush in the toilet in a public restroom. There's been weather saves the day as a pop punk band. Oh, that was heated. Heated. You guys got heated over that? Heated. And, what would you rather listen to, the Aquabats or Sublime? That one would be tough.
That'd be difficult to, you know my opinion on the matter. Hey, you and I are in this floating, the same dimension. I've deleted Sublime off of six separate people's iTunes libraries without them knowing. Literally, literally the worst man. So. Like, what am I going to listen to when I get high? There was also a recent debate. Which was the recent? 3-11. The recent debate was whether or not breastfeeding in public is acceptable. Oh, yeah. That was another one. I feel it's okay. I mean, a baby has to eat, but you could also squeeze, you could lactate into a bottle, and feed the baby whenever you want. It is not necessary. What's that? I think we've got to clear out. All right. Take that inside. Time to go? Take it inside.
Move it inside. Let's take a pause. Okay. Pause. Two seconds. All right. We're going to take a break from the interview. I guess we'll probably break it. I don't know, because Soundgain Airman edits all of the actual content. But we'll probably break it, I guess, where we move. For those of you who don't know, we conducted the interview originally in kind of like this back area behind Submission Artspace in San Francisco. And halfway through, all the bands were loading out, and so one of the guys who worked there was like, you guys got to go. Not like me. He was just like, you got to go inside, because we're loading things out. And I was like, you guys suck. You're half of a Mexican restaurant. How official are you?
And he was like, you have to get outside. So we moved. To be fair, they're an entire Mexican restaurant. Well, Submission is half of the Mexican restaurant. However, apparently you could sell beer in Submission, but not in the Mexican restaurant, which is adjoined to Submission Artspace. But the Mexican restaurant fully says it's okay for you to buy beer at Submission Artspace, and then bring it back into the Mexican restaurant, which is how they lost their liquor license. Funny story. Anyhow, so yeah, we moved, and the guys, we lost literally half of Touche Amore during the move. Like, a couple of the guys were like, yeah, we'll finish up. And a couple of other guys were like, fuck this. And they left, and I don't know where they went.
Like, they were really nice, but they just, I don't know, they went to have sex with groupies, or I don't know, whatever those guys do. Anyhow, second half of the interview, we're going to play another track off their album. Be sure to stay tuned to listen to find out how to win a first pressing of To the Beat of a Dead Horse, their debut LP. It's a brown copy from the first pressing. First pressing is totally sold out. People are already looking for it and shit on eBay. And so this is your chance to get free money, son. Get money, get paid. So we'll be back after this.
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All right, were we talking about breastfeeding? Yes, yes. Yes. I'm going to go on the record and say fully for it. I mean, there are different ways, you know, as Tyson said, but baby's got to eat when a baby's got to eat. It's a debate that has no ending to it, so we can move on. We can move on. I will say the only embarrassing aspect of it is if you're a male and you sit next to a woman who's breastfeeding your child and you don't realize it until you, like, sit down, then you're nailed with the kind of, like, do I get up and make it really awkward? That's the kind of situation you and I are talking about. That's what happened two days ago, which led to this debate. Yeah, exactly. Some 20 – Yes, yes, yes. We played a show in a house in Reno, Nevada.
House show breastfeeding. House show breastfeeding. That's DIY. DIY baby right there. I like it.
Let's settle it out. We're divided. We're divided. The baby had a leather jacket with some patches on it. DIY since day one. Next. Everyone does things differently. So I want to touch on it really quickly without getting too deep into it. You guys have been supported or been at least – I want to say you've been given the support of a member of Thursday who has kind of – you're on – your record was co-released by their label, right? Or his label. Yeah. He recently started a label just to kind of put out a couple bands that he really likes. And, yeah, I mean, though 6131 was like the full force behind it. We're sorry. There's a guy. He's doing his job. He's moving basically pallets through the back here. It's what he's supposed to do, so I can't hold it against him.
Yeah. But just in case anyone listening wonders. It's not an earthquake. It is an earthquake. We're in California. Where we are in San Francisco. They happen here every hour on the hour. Sorry. No. Yeah. So he – his role is more like, you know, helping us out with, like, putting it in the hands of people who 6131 maybe can't because they're still a pretty new hardcore label. And they do a great job, but, you know, there's certain things that Jeff could do that, you know, the dudes at 6131 possibly can't. Yeah, definitely. Have you guys found, like, have you gotten more support because of that that you're kind of surprised to get at this point? Or have people showed up who have been in your band that you wouldn't have expected?
I mean, I won't say that – I wouldn't say that him – I mean, I think, you know, if he writes about it in a blog, you know, I'm like, they're MySpace. Like, obviously, that's going to get a bunch of kids who normally wouldn't ever hear about our band to listen to it. And so for that, we're totally thankful, and it's really awesome. Definitely. But, yeah, I mean, definitely, certainly doesn't hurt. You know what I'm saying? No complaints on that. No complaints at all. For sure. But, I mean, at the same time, though, I don't think that our fans come from Thursday by any means. Yeah. You know, I mean, all of our fans at least. I mean, I give credit to the different scenes in different states and people, you know, coming together.
And, like, that's been the best part to me is, you know, going to a place like Alabama and playing in a barn in the middle of the forest. And there was actually a few kids who knew the words. Yeah. And, like, you know, I mean, I can't credit that to Thursday as much as I would like to. Yeah. But, certainly, Jeff has helped us, you know, reach an audience that we couldn't have reached otherwise. Yeah. It may not be the reason for everything, but it certainly does not hurt to have. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It does not hurt. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you guys have the 7-inch, right? And the full length? Correct. All right. Do you guys have any plans to do anything else in the meantime, or are you guys just busy out there right now promoting full length?
We haven't written a song in a very long time. So, we've, you know, we put out the record and we've been touring a lot since. So, we're hoping now that we're going to be home for a little while, we can attempt writing. And the next thing we're going to try to put out is a split with our good friends in a band called La Dispute from Michigan. Oh, nice. I had them. And another great band from Connecticut called Make Do and Mend. And that'll be on 613 on Records. Nice. But, yeah, other than that, you know, maybe just writing for other things. Hey, no worries. Sounds good. Sounds good. All right. So, we got people who wrote in questions because some people, we post it and some people actually do write in. Someone wanted to know what happened to your old drummer.
What the occurrence was. Was there a reason for them leaving or were they just the old, what was it, directional differences or creative differences? Yeah. Well, I think that, well, I would say I've probably known him the longest and he's always been a really good friend of mine. In the end, just decided that he didn't really want to do it anymore and that maybe his heart wasn't in the right place anymore. And, I mean, I don't think any of us have any hard feelings in terms of, you know, like, dude, that dude left the band. Like, I don't like that dude anymore. You know, it's just, like, I more have a problem with someone being in a band that doesn't have their heart fully dedicated into it. And when he expressed interest in maybe leaving or reducing his role in the band, I think it was obvious that, you know, maybe his place wasn't there anymore.
So, but he, even after he had told us that, he recorded the full length of this. He wrote the last song that we had written with us and played a couple shows even after he had decided that he didn't want to do the band anymore. So, yeah, he's always going to be a friend, but not a part of the band anymore. Yeah. So, it was fairly amicable. It wasn't like you guys threw him out and lit his house on fire or anything? No, nothing like that at all. Fair enough. Yeah. In fact, I'll take this moment to say that he's in a really good band called Good Friday and they're a great indie rock band. Nice. So, are they, they have anything out right now? Uh, nothing.
Dave, you're in, uh, you're in L.A. Oh, they're in L.A.? Oh, right, right, L.A. You're in L.A. You're in L.A., Chuck. Sorry, sorry. I get confused. All right. Uh, so I think we're going to wrap it up here before they kick us out of here entirely. Uh, is there anything else you guys want to plug before we wrap it up? Uh, anything coming out? Any other bands? We have, uh, we got a string of shows in January with, uh, the Hope Conspiracy in California that we're very, very, very excited about. We're all nerds for that band. Yeah, so much. Um, let me think. Stage dives will occur. Check out, check out every band on 6131 Records. Uh, they're all good. Um, cool. We want to plug Cool Dudes. Uh, we already said a lot of Spute, Make Do and Mend.
Um, let me think, what else? All the Bay Area, Loma Prieta Punch. Loma Prieta Punch, Kamadre. Um, yeah. I want to rep our other band, Deadhead, because that sucks. Gorlock. Uh, we're going to be, once we're home, I'm going to be, I'm going to put up a big cartel site and try to do all of our merch out of there. And we're going to be selling all of our other band's product, uh, products, projects out of there as well. So, uh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. Sounds good. Well, thank you guys so much for taking the time. Um, especially at the end of a long night, I appreciate it. And as we get kicked out, um, I wish you guys the best of luck. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to the ramblings.
Thank you. Take care. All right. Um, we are going to wrap it up. Uh, after this, we're going to play a track, uh, by Touche Amore, and that will end our first interview of 2010. The big O-10.
I just told SoundGuy Nariman to type in, to Google Disregard Females Acquire Currency, and he got it as far as, like, dis-writ, and then that was the first thing that came up, which is pretty amazing. Anyhow, so, first interview of 2010 wrapped up. I hope you guys enjoyed it, and be sure to enter the contest. Contest for a copy of Touche Amore's debut LP on brown vinyl from the first pressing. It's called To the Beat of a Dead Horse. It was put out on 6131 Records and Collector Records. It is, uh, it's pretty good. It got a lot of really good reviews, and it got these guys quite a bit of notoriety, so you should check it out. To enter the contest, send us an email at toucheamorecontest at soundscenerevolution.
Wait, that's not it. Send it with the subject line toucheamore to soundscenerevolution at gmail.com. That's what happens when I go on autopilot. Uh, and the subject, put your name, contact information, so we can be sure where to mail it. And I'm not even looking at what you're looking up right now, SoundGuyNairman.
SoundGuyNairman. Just, uh, put in, he was Googling why does, and, uh, you know, Google does the recommendations like the predict for what you might type. And if you type in why does, uh, without a space, the first Google recommendation is why does my vag smell? Whatcha? It, uh, it must come up a lot more. Oops, there's a poppy. Sorry. It must come up a lot more than I would have imagined. Hold on. SoundGuyNairman's gonna hold the mic while I finish up. So, anyhow, um, thanks for listening. We're going, oh yeah, end of the contest. Send your name, address, fucking, you interrupted me with your smelly vag. I know, I know I did. I know, but it was really important. I felt, yeah, just, yeah, yeah. So, uh, name, address, all that to SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com to Shamori Contest.
And just to prove you were listening, drop the information. Their album was put out in part by Collect Records, which is run by one of the members of Thursday. Uh, favorite record label owned by a guy in a band. So, think about that, son. And, uh, we'll be back next week. But next week, Conan will not be back. We'll miss you, Coco. But, uh, big rumors right now are that, uh, this upcoming Friday will be his last show on The Tonight Show. And then Jay Leno can return to fucking mediocrity so we can all enjoy headlines and jaywalking and, dude, aww, that would be amazing. So, listen to that. And if you're listening to this 10 years in the future and have no idea what we were talking about, for a short period of time, a comedian by the name of Conan O'Brien hosted The Tonight Show.
And right now, it's big news because he's getting bumped. But probably 10 years in the future, you're more worried about, you know, our highly intelligent ape overlords or Sarah Palin's next presidential campaign. So, sucks. Yeah. Palin 2020. Get excited. So, I'm sorry. Everything sucks for you guys. But it's still pretty cool right now. Unless you're in Haiti. Alright, so we'll be back next week. Uh, enjoy. We're gonna play one last track from Touche Amore. And then we're out of here. Bye. Bye.
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