HardLore - Jeff Gunnells (Cold As Life)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Want me to be honest, we recorded Born to Land Hard live, right? And where there was a fuck up, we would go back and then do it again live. You know, I think we did three days. Wow. Whole thing? Yeah, I believe so. Oh. Hello, welcome.

Starting point is 00:00:39 It's Hardlore Time. How are you, Bo? I'm lovely. Me too, considering I think we're in for a historic hard lore episode. This is one that when you hear the word hard lore, I would say the first band that probably comes to mind is cold as life. Yeah. Considering there's no harder lore in existence than the lore made by this,

Starting point is 00:01:08 our guests here, Mr. Jeff Garnels. How are you, sir? I'm well, bro. Well, I'm blessed to be alive. Amen. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. the invite man oh absolutely of course i wanted to start this off um on behalf of the goatee

Starting point is 00:01:29 community all right all right i wanted to thank you for you know your loyal servitude throughout these several decades hey hey thank you it's it's a it's a bit tame these days but uh hey you're blazing the trail nonetheless i've always rocked them i i hope that mine is as is snow white as gorgeous as yours down the line. But I'm doing my best here. I feel you're like, you're like Captain America, man, to me. You know?

Starting point is 00:01:58 Oh, bro. You were frozen in time for a while. I was. And now you've come out to find the world you've built completely different. What are your thoughts on kind of where hardcore is now versus where you left?

Starting point is 00:02:14 Well, I look at the Detroit hardcore community now, as opposed to when I was out before prison. It was violent. It was small. You had to have your head on a swivel, be clicked up. But now it's like this healthy, vibrant young crowd that uplifts each other,

Starting point is 00:02:36 that invests into that community and culture. And one thing I noticed right away is that is that and that just the difference and what it was and what it is. is right now. Does that make you happy? It does. It does because there was a lot of years where you really had to fight, like literally fight to have a good show and have a good time because there was all these peckerwoods, all these, you know what I mean? There was just all these fucking different factions that would come and there'd be fist fights and stabbings and there'd be ears on ice waiting for paramedics and it was a ridiculous place to see a show. But now you don't

Starting point is 00:03:17 have to do that. You don't have to have your head on a swivel. You can go and, you know what I mean? Hang out with your friends and have a good time. At Tide Down, Beast from Haydink, we were all talking in the back and we told him we were going to the casino and he was like, what do you mean you're going to the casino? You need a, you need a firearm. You need to borrow something. Like, can I help you? And it's just funny that like that, that's still there based on what you guys all had to go through just to fucking go see some live hardcore music or play a show. Yeah, man. So there's this myth, there is a bit of a revitalization in the city of Detroit, where there's a lot safer areas than what it used to be, but it's in pockets, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:02 in little slivers of the city where it's safe and, you know what I mean, trendy and, you know, it's that whole gentrification thing where, you know what I mean, the rich people came, kicked the poor people out and they made it nice, made it their own. But there's definitely some places in the city you don't, you don't, want to be in. Right. Casino is apparently well. There's a few different casinos. What's the one we went to MGM? We went to

Starting point is 00:04:27 MGM. Okay. All right. Which you know. I mean, it's not horrible over there, but you definitely have to you know what I mean? The ghost of Chris Cornell is haunted. Yeah, we got robbed in a very different way. Speaking of, speaking of ghosts, Jeff, before we get into

Starting point is 00:04:43 the lore of Jeff and Cole's life, at Tidedown, I got to ask you about this. On your way out. I don't know if you knew in the moment that you were like a secret comedic genius in this moment. You leaving Tide Down in the back, I don't know if you remember this moment.

Starting point is 00:05:06 I think I do. We were hanging out back and there was that blood moon. But I do remember us hanging out. And it was just time for me to go, but that's what I remember about it. I don't know about the comedic part. The timing was unreal. You went, man, that moon looks beautiful.

Starting point is 00:05:25 I got to go. That became the saying of the rest of the weekend was like, Jeff's going to turn into a werewolf. He's got to get out of here. Well, that was going to be my punchline, bro. That's what I was going to say. Dude, the punchline wasn't even necessary. You killed it.

Starting point is 00:05:40 I got it. Well, hey, man, those little things in life I've learned really appreciate because you know what I mean? Like I said, I was I was gone for the lion's share of a decade and night sky, sunrises, you know what I mean? Free fresh air, free man, you know what I mean? Yeah. Just the things you don't realize you take for granted every day.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Yeah, those little things in life aren't so little. Those seemingly insignificant moments are insignificant or little. Wow, fucking unbelievable. I guess while we're in prison, while we're in here in this mode, Yeah, yeah. You're a riffer, man. You are like a born, learned, tried, and true songwriter. How difficult was that to not be able to write music for that long?

Starting point is 00:06:28 Well, so to be honest, when I was in prison, I had such a sour taste in my mouth about some of the things that had happened with my camp. I was disgusted with a lot of music. So they were in the lower levels in prison, not the max securities, but the lower minimum security prison. There's music rooms and jam rooms where you can get guitars and plug in and jam. But like I said, I was disgusted with some of the things that happened in my camp and I wanted nothing to do with it. Wow.

Starting point is 00:07:03 Music in general. Music in general. Because we're going to get to it, I imagine, when we talk about like Ramallah and stuff eventually. But I believe I've heard tell you're responsible for one. of my favorite riffs ever written. So to hear that is crazy. But I guess, like you said, the context of which you were, you put it down for a minute, it makes total sense. Did you, but did you still, like in your mind, were you humming stuff? I wrote a lot of, uh, I don't want to say lyrics because they're not composed or nothing like that, but there was a lot of,

Starting point is 00:07:36 a lot of heartbreak, man, a lot of hard times. And I did a lot of writing in prison. I've yet to put them, you know, in a composition form. But I plan to. I plan to put something together here in the next year where there might be a possible new cold-as-life record. I mean, that's huge news. Amazing. And I think you, there's like charted statistical evidence of you just getting better and

Starting point is 00:08:04 better at writing music. So I have to imagine with everything you've been through, you've, A, never had more to say. never and be there's been this hole in hardcore of your songs for so long that i'm just excited to hear your take on hardcore now i think it's healthy i think it's it's bigger than it's ever been i think the musicianship and the composition the lyrical content i think all of it has come light years from what it used to be it used to be four for you know what i mean and now people are actual musicians in the hardcore community and culture and I love seeing it how it's evolving

Starting point is 00:08:46 I would I would hate to see I would hate to see it like commercialized or any kind of pop culture you know what I mean but but I think that it is a grown leaps and bounds that's fucking awesome finding punk and hardcore in 80s Detroit what was that like for you and terms of just discovering the genre and then finding like-minded people to play music with. Oh, man, it was, you know, that gift of discovery, right? So a couple of the first shows I went to, you know, I started out listening to early Slayer, you know what I mean? I started out kind of metal and I saw the Dayglow abortions at this place called the Greystone in southwest Detroit as like 15 year old, 16 year old kid.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Yeah. And I lost my shit. And I knew that there was more out there. And I just started looking and looking and finding and finding. And it was, I was hungry. I was hungry for music. I was hungry for the history. So when you're finding and finding and looking for music,

Starting point is 00:09:59 are you connecting these dots through record stores or t-shirts that people are wearing or word of mouth? Thanks lists. Yeah. All of it. All of it. Yeah. You know, there was a lot of record store back then, hide-ped shops,

Starting point is 00:10:12 and we would just go look through vinyl all day long. And even if you heard nothing about the artist, if the cover looked cool, or if it looked like the genre that I was looking for, I would just buy the shit. But do you think being from Detroit and with the history of like Detroit rock and roll, like, do you think that there's just a higher likelihood

Starting point is 00:10:34 that you were going to find a harder version of stuff? Guitar music. Yeah, guitar music that you grew up hearing. I love the early Detroit fans. I mean, how could you? Look at MC5 and Iggy Pop and, you know what I mean? There's count. So Detroit's isolated.

Starting point is 00:10:51 You know, it's not the East Coast. It's not the West Coast. It's not Atlanta. It's not Miami. Detroit is fucking isolated even from the Midwest. And it had its own sound and it had its own thing. And yeah, it was great. It is great.

Starting point is 00:11:08 It is great and you are such a integral part of that own thing now. And like that's something I wanted to talk about is another chartable growth that you can see is like a direct line between MC5 and Colt's Life. Like you can see chronologically how just Detroit gets there. And it's really cool, man. It's a unique place and, you know, negative approach popping off. All the New York hardcore bands will tell you like we just, we just, we. saw that and then we decided to do that. It's a special place, man.

Starting point is 00:11:43 It's a special place. Negative approach was one of the very, very first influential hardcore bands that I, I mean, there was punk and then there was metal. But I think negative approach was one of those bands that were exactly what I was looking for. Wow. You and every influential New York hardcore band. Right, right?

Starting point is 00:12:07 Yeah. Wow. What were your first bands? So we had this band called the apathetic degenerates. It was more of a punk band. Then we had the mattress rats, which was, right, right? It was also a punk band that turned into Coldest Life. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:30 Yeah, but I've pretty much done Cold His Life, Haydink and Ramallah. That's about my three bands right there. Wow. Wow. Good God, man. And that's, and you, and Colda's life was, were you guys touring pretty extent? Because the break in the law cassette was 89. Yes, sir.

Starting point is 00:12:50 And that's like, it's insane some of the songs that are on that, that you're still playing to this day, or that are on Born to Landhardt and Declination. So to know, to have that identity so early. And like you, like you said, that's your band. Like that's that Ramallah and Hating, they've been with you your entire life. Yes, sir. Did you guys feel that pretty early on of like, all right, this is us. This man is who I am. And we're going to start hitting the road.

Starting point is 00:13:18 Yeah, we didn't start like touring. We would do one-offs and we would trade shows with bands from the East Coast, Midwest bands. But we didn't start like touring, touring until maybe late 90s. I think 99 was the first European. tour called his life did. And then we stayed touring for pretty consistently in the States after that and maybe a little before that. So the first Euro tour you did after Born to Landhardt came out was the first like

Starting point is 00:13:52 touring, legitimate touring you guys did? Yeah, 99 was our first like legit tour in Europe anyway. We would we would do like short runs like a couple weeks in a time in the United States. but like the first, I would say, legit tour where we had agents and shit working for us, was in Europe. Do you remember who that was with?

Starting point is 00:14:13 It was Theo from the noise. And MAD, he worked with MAD. MAD, yeah. Do you remember what bands? Who, yeah, who did you tour with? Oh, God, some European,

Starting point is 00:14:22 actually some that made my playlist that you have, length of time, born from pain. There you go. There was do or die. But, yeah, that was a blast.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Jeff made a playlist just for this episode that he curated, handpicks some songs himself. You can click it in the description for the episode wherever you're listening. Hey, I got a funny story about our first show, right? It's our first show in Europe. First time over there and Marauders playing. Those two bands I just mentioned were playing a handful of great A-gamer hardcore bands from the state side.

Starting point is 00:15:05 And we had this this re-h-h-in our band called Johnny Myers. Johnny hate for short. He's not with us anymore. And I got Johnny's story for days. It's in my notes here. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:18 He was known for Zanak and Jim Bean. And he would drink himself stupid, eat a handful of ladders. Well, this dude, we're on stage, right? There's a bunch of people on stage. First time over there. he can't even get his guitar tune. It's screeching and wailing and he's drunk as hell.

Starting point is 00:15:37 And he can't play nothing. He can't even tune it. So I shot over there and I turned him all the way down. I look over. We're big dogs carrying the guitars. I look over and he's looking at his amp trying to figure it out, half in the bag. And he notices that his volume pots all the way down. So he looks at him.

Starting point is 00:15:58 He catches me looking at him. He looks at me and he turns it like to 11. screeching and wailing so i fucking ran over that i kicked his half stack over i pushed him off the stage and then whipped the mic at him off the stage and i remember looking around and seeing a bunch of mouths open like fucking cold as like it's funny as out so after the show though i shot out to the van we were in a van shout out to van i ripped open his luggage and there was about nine prescription bottles there was about like three-story real tight road alley load alley load indoor yeah so i took all those prescriptions made a basket in my

Starting point is 00:16:37 t-shirt took all his prescriptions and shot out of the van and just started throwing them in every direction on rooftops and he came out and caught me doing it wow yeah the next day we were in a hotel and i hear this commotion in the hallway and i opened the door and he's on a stretcher the paramedics got him and he goes by he's wheeling by and he looks at me and he says hate he shot he shot to the hospital he shot to the hospital to get some more like

Starting point is 00:17:07 codeine or Xanax or whatever the fuck it was he wanted so that was first cold his life European show yeah do you remember what color to me that's perfect

Starting point is 00:17:18 to me that's like that just that just ties it all together I think I read correct me if I'm wrong Jeff was that also a show that ended early and there was an ear on the floor No, that was a Ramallah show in Brockton.

Starting point is 00:17:35 Yeah, that was a, I think Colin of Arabia played and Ramallah and some other, some Boston bands. Speaking of guys like Johnny Hate and Beast, Detroit is a place where, I mean, you had Madball writing songs about how good you were in 1994, you know, about just how cool you guys were. Detroit seems like a place full of like infamous hardcore kind of characters, you know? Yeah. And none seem more infamous than Ron, the former singer of Cold Is Life. Yeah. Well, Ron, if he loved you, he loved you, right? But it could switch on a dime.

Starting point is 00:18:18 He still loved you, but you would be rolling around on the ground with him. Okay. Um, he was, he was bitter. He, uh, he'd been through a lot as a child. Um, there was no boundaries with the dude. He could, he would grab up a cop, pull him off a horse and start pounding the teeth out. He, if you were in his way, you were going to get dealt with. But again, I think it was just from scars from his childhood.

Starting point is 00:18:47 He was very angry. But if he loved you, he loved you. But again, if, you know, you know, He was, I loved him. And I also hated him. Right. You know, he was, he was a monster, but he was a kind soul at the same time. It's hard to describe him because, you know, you can hang out and drink beers and, you know, just chill.

Starting point is 00:19:12 Yeah. And then the next minute, you would, you would be fighting, banging it out. So it's hard to describe him. And it's interesting, too, because he's a pretty prolific lyricist. No? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:19:26 Finding out at, you know, whatever point that there even was a singer before you in cold, you know, as I was like growing up and learning about music and stuff, finding out there was a singer before you and that, you know, you chose to continue using some of his lyrics as like almost a, I don't know, if you want to call it a tribute or whatever, you know. And kind of learning about this kind of mythical person. and then the dichotomy between being, you know, kind of violent and a potential monster, like you said, while also being so poetic and having these lyrics that are like unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:20:05 Sounds like some guys I know today. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, what an interesting character. Well, so, so that potentially violent or potentially a monster, he was both. He was violent and he was a monster. But he was also a father and a son and, you know, a friend. So, yeah, there is a, there's an irony there for sure.

Starting point is 00:20:34 Yeah. But he, he was a fucking monster, man. And I mean, that's why he died the way he died. He died in a bed with three bullet holes in a pattern about this big in his temple. Wow. Because there was people so deftly afraid of him. We used to tell him all the time, somebody's going to kill you, man. somebody's going to kill you and uh he he lived his life that way and when you live your life that

Starting point is 00:20:59 way that's what happens yeah and it's just like an insane thing that further adds to the insanity of cold his life oh man there there there's four of our members that are you know under gravestones marking the places where they lay wow you know it it's been a long hard road for a lot of us a lot of people want to hear the horror stories and the, you know, the shit shows. But there's a lot of heartbreak in there, man. It's not, you know, all fun and games, man. There's a, there's a lot of heartbreak in there.

Starting point is 00:21:34 But Bo and I were talking about this just privately earlier, but like an HBO scripted series about your man, that was 100% true would sound like a fictional tale. It would be a little too far fetched. Right. So Ian McFarland, he's a, he's a director. Roger and filmmaker. He's a good friend of mine. We were talking a few months back and we were talking about possibilities of doing something. You know, there was a documentary that got started and never finished. You and I had a quick conversation about that. I would love to see it finished just to really put this story out there. You know what I mean? Because

Starting point is 00:22:12 there's a lot in there and there's a lot in there and you can never pack it in an hour conversation, a two hour conversation. I don't have a great memory. I smoked a lot of weed as a younger guy. I don't have a great memory, but they're amongst me and my people, the people at my table, collectively, we could tell the story. You could put it together. I mean, I would love to help tell that story in some way, at some point. Hopefully, this is the prologue.

Starting point is 00:22:42 Jeff, I read something. It said that while you guys were at the services, you decided to continue. being a band and to like cold as life like continue being a thing is that accurate so we never wanted to stop um you know losing ron uh on one hand was a tragedy on the other hand uh it was a breath of fresh air sure because any time anytime and every time that we went out or played a show it was fucking straight chaos. Like I said, when I mentioned it didn't matter if you were a cop on a horse, that's a true story.

Starting point is 00:23:26 Ron and I went down to the fireworks in Detroit at Hart Plaza. And he had triple Mohawks, right? Leather, bristle, studs, and actie style. So we're walking around and all these jock boys were making comments, slick comments as we were walking by. It had been a couple months since I hung out with Ron because, like I said, every time you'd go out with him, you'd be banging it out with whoever he decided to start banging it out with. And I was done with him. So all these dudes were saying slick shit to him going by and he's doing nothing. He promised me that he wouldn't. And this cop on a horse with the letter jacket said something slick. And he reached up and pulled this cop off a horse and started pounding his face. so like those aren't like metaphors when I mentioned that earlier that like that shit that's real wow yeah so it was a relief when he died but it was also a tragedy you know

Starting point is 00:24:27 he had a young daughter yeah well I ended up um raising since she was like three years old um but uh yeah man it was tragic for her and his ex and a lot of other people but it was also How old is she now? She is, uh, God, she's, uh, I think 31 now. Wow. Is she coming to the show? Uh, I, so, um, some of the residuals of going to prison doing what I did to go to prison, um, has left real, really strained relations on my kids and I.

Starting point is 00:25:04 Sure. So I don't know. I hope that she does. I hope some, someday soon that we can reconcile because that's my biggest residual, my biggest heartbreak to date is not having contact with her and my other kids. I mean, I hope that this, they can watch this and just see, like, just from our perspective, what a legend their dad is and the mark you've left on this now worldwide phenomenon. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:25:33 More importantly, I think that they're looking at the things that I did as a father. You know what I mean? The things that I didn't do as a father. You know, I think that our decisions matter. And I made choices that took me out of their home. They went very from very well taken care of in a secure home, loving mom and dad to complete uncertainty and poverty. And I had, I've been out of their life since 2012 because of what I did to go to prison.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Right. That's, I think, what they're looking at, more importantly than what I've contributed music lead to anything. Sure. Wow. I mean, totally, totally understandable.

Starting point is 00:26:17 But I hope that there's, you know, light at the end of that tunnel and that everything can work out. Me too, bro. Thank you. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:25 Let's get into Coldo's life here. Yeah. I feel like it's time. So breaking the law is 89. You had another demo in 92? 92 or 93? Yeah. One more.

Starting point is 00:26:40 demo. Yeah, there's a lot. 96. Yeah. Is there more than that? God, you'd have to ask Beast. He's got a better memory than I. We've done so many little recordings and, you know, demos. I looked at the Wikipedia today and there was like six demos. Yeah. All named after you. Holy shit. So it's hard. I imagine, yeah, it's like, you know, you're, you're doing recordings and sessions. But you're ultimately, are you knowingly building up to Born to Landhardt? Not knowingly, but that's how it evolved. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:11 Yeah. Because some of those demo songs are on declination. So it's, oh, wow. It's like a mystery to me how, I mean, obviously a big part of Born to Land Hard is you re-recording all those songs

Starting point is 00:27:25 as the now vocalist of the band. And you were like, you had the foresight to be like, okay, all these songs are really fucking good. We've had them for a while. We've been playing them for 10, 11 years now. let's get them all on one package. Were labels courting you for a long time?

Starting point is 00:27:47 Yeah. But you 100% did you self-release this completely? Absolutely. Yeah, we wanted to be DIY for sure. We didn't want to go any label route. There was a lot of people interested in signing us, but we just didn't want to do it. I have to imagine victory was dying to put this out.

Starting point is 00:28:05 Yeah. Tony wanted us. For sure. Yeah. Born to Land Hard with no hyperbole is an era-defining, genre-defining, like universally renowned classic hardcore album. I'm not blown smoke. To me, it is perfect in every single way that a hardcore record can be.

Starting point is 00:28:30 The first question I have about it. The fucking guitar feedback. Dude, that was my first question, too. how did you do it? I guess it's just them dialing them tones in. Do you remember what head you used? I think I had a solid state crate back then. Holy shit.

Starting point is 00:28:52 So many people are going to be furious. Yeah, I know, I know. But I think that's what I use. And then I can't even remember what guitar player I was using back then. It might have been Johnny. but uh so did johnny play the songs on the album uh fuck

Starting point is 00:29:13 yeah because i assumed you you did i i think it was mostly me playing them uh yeah i think it was mostly me playing them but johnny definitely did some guitar work in the studio but uh i mean dude who who was the primary writer for like the riffs and the song structures and stuff

Starting point is 00:29:36 me me i was right next next next question. He just answered both the questions I wanted, like in a positive, like what I wanted to hear. So a lot of the riffs on this record, to my ear, are kind of, we're going to get a little bit into musical weeds, but they're kind of on an upbeat. They're kind of, you know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:30:01 Was that like a rhythm? And there are bands that kind of have the rhythm. Dying Fetus has a rhythm. Bad ball has a rhythm. You know what I mean? was this like a rhythm a style of writing that you just always liked or was it just it just kind of happened i think it's uh the bands that had influenced us you know we were listening to a lot of uh like english punk like the coxpar and stiff little fingers gbh we were listening to a negative

Starting point is 00:30:30 approach um like i said i was a metal guy before so i i think uh I think that it just happened organically, really. Yeah. And it's insane you saying that, how much it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, right. Because it's really like it's, it's all those things. It is, it is negative approach riffs, Coxbar rifts, played through a fucking crate.

Starting point is 00:30:55 By a metalhead. With it, with just a different drum, like a, like a mid-tempo thing happening instead of a fucking blast beat. And it, dude, it's unreal. Like there's, there's no, this record has never been replicated by anybody. Nobody can do it even down to like the way it sounds. The way it sounds specifically is terrifying. How many people have tried to recreate that sound in the last 2015 years? Many have tried all of your voice Jeff. Oh yeah. Like you're you're the second

Starting point is 00:31:28 singer of the band you took over because you had to and then you had that fucking thing in you the whole time? Where'd you find that voice? Listen, man, I never wanted to be a singer. Honestly, God, I never wanted to be a singer. I just wanted to play guitar. That's why I like playing and hating and Romala so much because I didn't have to sing. I could do some backups and get crazy and kick people in the face, but I never wanted to be a singer. Never wanted to. The best singers are reluctant singers. Right, right. We tried guys out, guy after guy after guy after guy, and none of them worked out. Nobody could get the cadence right.

Starting point is 00:32:06 Nobody could do it. So I just said, fuck it, I'll do it. And did you know you have that tone in you? Which is, again, a pretty iconic, like the voice on that record, you don't hear anywhere else. It's one in a million. You know what's funny is you know how you hear your voice on a recording, voicemail, anything? You're like, that's me. Every time I heard my voice on a demo and anything, we cringe.

Starting point is 00:32:33 I would never a fan of my voice at all. Dude. Wow. That thing, but like, so to somebody trying to get into hardcore, where they, they hear the entry level bands, you know, the safer, more simple things. When they come to me and they're like, how do I level up? Show me something crazy. I show them cold as life. Really?

Starting point is 00:32:55 Because it has all the things they're looking for. But it's like, hey, this is real, this is actual, real scary. So if you want to take this journey, you got to try this. Let me ask the verse riff in Little from the World, the chugging gung-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-k-gink-gunk. Because that song is verse, fast part, verse... Yeah, the structure is strange. Like, it's a very interesting song

Starting point is 00:33:26 that is probably the first song that people hear from Coldest Life when they... It's probably the number one song, I would imagine, on Spotify. I mean, that's a landmark hardcore song in general. I mean, you know, like I said, a lot of our shit just happened organically. It was there was nothing that I was looking to recreate or,

Starting point is 00:33:44 or mimic. It was just, you know, lyrically and musically, it was just something that felt right. Wow. How, how, like, learned are you at just music in general?

Starting point is 00:33:58 Because, like, this record is full of, key changes, tempo changes. I mean, you said we were talking about it earlier, like everything was 4-4. In every single song on this record,

Starting point is 00:34:11 there's something I've never heard a hardcore band do at that point. Was that intentional? Were you like, we got to change the key here, so this hits harder? You just wrote shit you liked. We were way too re-h-h-to-be-that strategic. We were playing checkers, man.

Starting point is 00:34:28 We were playing checkers. There was no chess playing going on. flying by the seat of our pants. Dude, I busted a rib the other night and laughing hurts really bad. Ribs are the worst. I would have bet, Jeff, my life savings, that every single thing you did on this thing was intentional and that you were this musical mastermind, which you are, whether you deny it or not.

Starting point is 00:34:55 But just knowing that it's organic is kind of the proof to why it worked. Yeah. Yeah. well thank thank you I guess but yeah man you know we were derelicts man a lot of times we didn't even know

Starting point is 00:35:11 how to tune our guitars we just uh I mean sit on stage and ram right you know what I mean you gotta know do you know that that again that riff from Little from the World like created a genre

Starting point is 00:35:25 like a subgenre of hardcore subgenre of hardcore no no I mean I've been under a rack for quite a while, but what people would call like beat down hardcore now it's pretty much exclusively

Starting point is 00:35:38 that. Well, I'm flattered. I'm a humble guy, but I'm super flattered when I hear things like that, honestly. But like I said, you know, it just happened. A lot of shit was accidental. The title track, opening track, the record starts with this legendary feedback.

Starting point is 00:35:55 In the studio, are you hearing that feedback and going, fuck, that sounds sick? I've always been a fan of feedback, like that swell feedback. I mean, that's always a topic. Yeah, man, that's always a topic at our rehearsals. If anybody starts screeching, we'll stop it right there and say, no, man, you're not going to screech like that. You got to swell. Adjust your pots, you know.

Starting point is 00:36:20 Wow. So you get it, man. You know what you're doing. Well, now I do. Now I do. When did you start playing guitar? 14 years old. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:30 You remember the first guitar you got? It was a white Yamaha. My dad bought me. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Yeah, I would play that fucker until my fingers would bleed. What were you riffing to early on? Like, were you listening to records and playing along with them, or were you just jamming on your own?

Starting point is 00:36:47 Yeah, I was not talented enough to listen to a record and play along. Yeah. I didn't have that ear. But, I mean, certain parts I could pick out. I would go to this guy. and that would teach me certain songs on tab. But I mean, that's how I got my start going to lessons and reading Tab. Amazing.

Starting point is 00:37:08 Fuck, yeah. That's something I've always wondered, the breakdown section of Born to Landhardt, where the big build with the swelling feedback, that's just the bass playing the riff, then the one guitar playing the riff, where the feedback literally never stops to the end of the song, Was it written that way or was that a studio thing of like this feedback sounds good? What if we just leave it through the end section?

Starting point is 00:37:33 So I think we did it in a couple different tracks, right? Or a couple different takes. And I think it was Johnny just sat there holding that note and that chord and feeding back. And we all kind of looked at each other and was like, yeah, man, just stay doing that. Don't even play the part. And in the same song, there's the rest. the dent was that like

Starting point is 00:38:00 that was always written that way? Yeah, that was written that way. That's awesome. Heavy doesn't always or hard doesn't always equal heavy. What do we say? Hard and heavy are different things. Two different things.

Starting point is 00:38:09 And that's hard. That's hard. And it's primitive. Sequencing this record. This is something that is we talk about all the time is like such a key aspect to making a perfect record.

Starting point is 00:38:24 Was that something? done ahead of time or was that something where it was finished and then you kind of figured out the order? Let me be honest. We recorded Borda Land Hard live, right? And where there was a fuck up, we would go back and then do it again. You know what I mean? But we didn't do drum tracks, then guitar or bass. We did it in a room. There was some glass isolators, but we did it live. That's a live recording. yeah holy shit you're breaking all of the molds you know for like how music is made but that's another piece to why it's so magical and can't ever be replicated because those guys will never be playing those songs again at the same time so no other band can do that so Jeff did you the vocals are are

Starting point is 00:39:10 the vocals doubled 100% on the record I believe so I believe so if not like a ton was that Yeah, it was a ton. Like I said, I hated my voice, and I felt like I needed something, man. Yeah. Yeah, I doubled them up. It works so well. A lot of times that can sound awful. But for some reason, it's just perfect.

Starting point is 00:39:31 It's like perfect. How long did it take you to record the whole record? How long did it take for you to do the vocals? Well, we're talking a long time ago, but I want to say it was Max Tracks in, I think Albany, New York. Albany, yeah. Yep. But I think we did three days. Whole thing? Yeah, I believe so.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Oh, that's magical. That is magical. That simply doesn't, like a record that long doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, 45-minute epic opus, dude. No way. Samples. Oh. How was that done in 98-99?

Starting point is 00:40:13 Like physically, how are you doing that? I mean I think one of them was a sample from that Cape Fear when De Niro Yeah I ain't know why Why Tradesia? Good old boy God's gonna keep me down

Starting point is 00:40:30 Yeah I think that was De Niro and Cape Fear Yeah I think a lot of the sirens and Police chatter was just from We had these police scanners that we would use Because we were always up to no good

Starting point is 00:40:44 Sure And we had one of those little recorders and we were just sitting around drinking beers and we recorded the sirens in that police chatter for terrorism. Right. I mean,

Starting point is 00:40:59 no one today who's using samples is using them from some kind of like practical standpoint. It's like, what would sound cool? Yeah. You guys had a scanner for a practical reason. Holy shit. Unnecessary.

Starting point is 00:41:16 unnecessary. Functional police scanner turned into art. That's fucking badass. Man, the where are we going breakdown transition? I have to tell you,

Starting point is 00:41:27 I think once a day in my life, it goes through my head. Did they get a gag out and get it and done. Was there a song on here, you know, whether it's one from the demos

Starting point is 00:41:40 or one written just for the record, where you finished it and you were like, we're pretty fucking good. Yeah. Damn, we got something. Cold as life might make it. Like, what did you think the hit was? Probably all alone.

Starting point is 00:41:58 Yeah. I mean, that hell of a track three, you know? That one, two, three combo is unreal. Is that track three? We had a fun. We had a good time, man. We had a good time recording it. And I'm kind of, like I said, flattered that it's still relevant, even, that people are listening to it.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Honestly, I never thought that it was going to, you know, be what it is. And we were just hardcore kids doing our thing. We never really thought that it was going to last or, you know, be one of those records that impacted people's lives. Let me ask you a question. That's why it lasted, though. How did you at the time? I would imagine how you define it now is different. But at the time, how did you define what hardcore was, what made someone a hardcore kid?

Starting point is 00:42:48 I mean, I guess being one of those people willing to jump on a table and kick somebody in the face for what you believed in, what you loved, what you cared about. It was definitely underground. It was something that had to be protected and fought for. It was a culture that not a lot of people knew about. It was like on the fringe. Like nobody knew about hardcore or not a lot of people knew about it or punk for that matter. but it was just something that it was a bunch of, you know, outlaws and, you know, those people that were forgotten and unforgiven that lived hard lives that just played music.

Starting point is 00:43:30 You know what I mean? It wasn't that jock rock. It wasn't rap. It wasn't, it was just that underground music community. And it didn't matter back then if it was punk or hardcore. It was underground. There we go. That's exactly why I asked.

Starting point is 00:43:46 That's exactly what I wanted to hear. It's wonderful. Things, things evolved in this clicky-ass shit, right? But back then it was just underground music, man. It could be, I saw Slayer at Blondies. It was like a 200-person room on 7 Mile in Detroit with a foot high stage.

Starting point is 00:44:04 I saw a Celtic Frost there, Voivod creator, and it was all underground music. And the punk kids went to those shows, and the hardcore kids went to those shows, and the metal heads went to those shows. That's what I liked about it. Yeah. that's what I still you know it's it's a little less probably it's a little more uh nerf bald nowadays

Starting point is 00:44:24 but it's still what I like about it I love the the idea of whatever that is we don't want that we want this yeah you know it's it's it's more than the sound of the the way the song sounds and it's more like a code an unwritten code of ethics among people yeah absolutely so okay let's talk about the song police for a second because I think that's my favorite cold his life song all right And I think that's one example of kind of like the literal depth of your songwriting. And where everything you just described like yeah, I love Slayer and negative approach and Coxbar. To me, police is like this completely original take on hardcore music.

Starting point is 00:45:05 Like I don't think anybody else sounded like that or sounds like that. That's an example of people that connect that try to connect the dots and say cold as life is this beat down band. That, like, that belittles the music to me. Because Cold is life on this record show you every single spectrum of what hardcore and punk can be. Wow. Including the, in police, this big fucking beastly bulging opus of a song with the crazy fucking panning vocals. Oh, dude. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:38 How does that song rank in your personal view on your own songs? So, so Ryan wrote those lyrics. So I'm pretty sure that almost every member of Cold His Life has been beaten down by cops. You know what I mean? Cuffed and, you know, thrown around, beat down. Ron wrote those lyrics. I remember Jay Way and I writing the music for it. But I remember writing the music for it and loving it.

Starting point is 00:46:07 And I remember Ron saying, I got something for that. That's how it came together. But I love that song, too. playing that October 7th, but we cut it down a little bit. We just cut down one verse or one lyric, yeah, one verse out of it because it repeats and it's a fucking six-minute song. It's a lot. It's a big boy. I'm a fan of that song. I like it, man. It's a good one. You know, a lot of the Cold is Life songs are experiences that we lived. And, you know, as far as that, you mentioned Coldest Life being a beat down band. We've never been a beat down.

Starting point is 00:46:44 We never wrote a song and said, we got to put a breakdown. We didn't even know what effect of breakdown was. You know what I mean? We just wrote the songs and they were, you know, there was just those parts. But we were, we were never like trying to pigeonhole ourselves into any kind of verse, breakdown, verse, chorus. You know, we just wrote the way we wrote. The proof of that is literally track one and two. So two more questions about Bornland Hard, Jeff.

Starting point is 00:47:11 You write and record and finish. this 45-minute hardcore masterpiece. You and the rest of the band are listening back to the Masters for the first time. Do you know, do you realize what you've done here? We weren't real happy with it, man. I'm to be honest with you. We should have done this. We should have done that.

Starting point is 00:47:35 This could have been better. Anything specifically that you weren't happy with? Me specifically, my vocals. But that's, you know. Yeah, that's, we're our own harshest critic, but let me tell you, on the record, on the stand, on trial here. Right, right. That's a one-of-a-kind vocal performance, never, never topped by anybody. Thank you, Colin.

Starting point is 00:47:58 Of course. So you hear this master, you hear this timeless piece of music, and you go, we fucking suck. What I should have done this? That's unreal. I mean, that's just, I hope that bands listen to that who maybe aren't loving their stuff, look at this and look at the mirror and go, okay, I'm not alone. How do you look back on it now? You know, not like it sucks, but I mean, it was what we were doing and it was just what we did. Are you surprised?

Starting point is 00:48:27 Yes, I am. I'm surprised, flattered, shocked that it's even relevant for, you know, I mean, you know, like I said, we were just hardcore kids and we did work set out to, you know, break them all. or write an iconic rack. I mean, you know. But that's why it's iconic. I feel funny even saying iconic. You know what I mean? I'll say it for you.

Starting point is 00:48:54 All right. All right. Last question about Born and Land Hard. Where is that baby today? Oh, man. We just got sued like Nirvana. No kidding. You did?

Starting point is 00:49:06 No, no. No. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, man. I don't know. I think it was just some, uh, uh,

Starting point is 00:49:13 I don't remember where we got it But I know we wanted to call it born to land hard And I mean how much harder do you You know Than being born a crack baby You know No absolutely Perfect title

Starting point is 00:49:27 Perfect album Perfect artwork It encapsulates that thing that you said When you were out looking at music in stores You didn't give a shit what it's sound like You never heard of it You see an album cover visceral and crazy looking You're like I'm fucking buying this

Starting point is 00:49:41 Absolutely And that all makes sense because that's how I felt as a like nine, 10 year old hearing this for the first time, hearing that feedback, hearing your voice and just knowing like, damn, this is nothing sounds like this that I've ever heard. And to this day as a 30 plus year old man, I could listen to this every day. This is a vitamin for me. Right on. So great job. I can't wait to finally see you guys. Pardon this interruption. It is manscape time. my favorite time.

Starting point is 00:50:15 I have been sweating in this chair all day editing this episode for you lovely people. And thank God my trusty crop revivor is right here to keep me company. Anybody else would be stanking in this position, but I'm clean as a whistle. I tell you what, I use the lawnmower. Hey, maybe this is a little unorthodox. I don't, I use it on my face. I use them to keep them trimmed. Wow.

Starting point is 00:50:41 You go both? Go both? No, I don't go both. He goes. I don't go both. I have two. Sometimes I have to. But I love escaping my man.

Starting point is 00:50:53 Let me tell you. I use it. I literally use it every day. I use either a body wash, the foot spray. I got the cologne. Yeah. It's all rocking. Thank God that anybody who listens to the show can get any of that with Code Hardlorf, 20% off plus free shipping.

Starting point is 00:51:10 We're manscaped. Oh, geez. We're lifers, dude. Yeah, big time. Proud to be. Manscape, thank you so much for sponsoring the show. And we get tagged and, like, just bought my Manscape photos all the time. And we love you for that. And you're welcome. Should we tell them about the recent?

Starting point is 00:51:30 Nah. Okay, okay. But it is also whatnot time. We're big fans of whatnot and the triumphant return is upon us. sometime in the next one to two weeks, we will be back on whatnot. The best place to buy and sell new and used hardcore memorabilia in the world. You got trading cards, you got video game stuff, you got sports stuff, you got music, you got all of it. Everything. It's the coolest place. Lars Fredrickson is on there. Brody King is on there. Danhausen's on there.

Starting point is 00:52:02 Hardlore is on there and we'll be back any minute. We're going to do a really cool live auction. episode type thing where you can get the hard lore shirts that we've made in the past couple months that nobody really has. Posters. Posters. All kinds of cool stuff, man. It's going to be else. It's the closest thing, as you've often said to a live episode

Starting point is 00:52:23 that no one ever gets to see again. Nobody, it's an exclusive event every time we do it. Also, we just wanted to plug real quick. Cold is life is back. October 7th, Detroit, Michigan. You will find the link to tickets below in the description.

Starting point is 00:52:41 I know they're going fast. It's a big room, but it's filling. He told us today. It is like, 80% full. So this lineup is insane. You don't want to miss it. We're going to give away two tickets.

Starting point is 00:52:54 You're going to hear about how we're doing that a little bit later in this episode. So stay tuned to find out how you can win tickets for the Coldest Life comeback show, October 7th, Detroit, Michigan. Back to the episode. We'll get to declination in a second because that's,

Starting point is 00:53:09 To me, that's the fucking maybe the harder record. Real ones, no, declination is probably the harder single piece of music. Something I wanted to ask about is, you know, you guys, Mad Ball is writing CTYC in 94. You guys are shouting out DMS on this one. How does that, how did that relationship between Detroit, Cold is life and the New York Carcrow guys come about. There's a city in Michigan called Flint. Ignatig Front was playing, and they invite us to open the show for them.

Starting point is 00:53:48 And we just all clicked. And so we were doing, we were swapping shows. They'd come out, we'd play with them. We'd go out, we'd play with them. Where the relationship really gelled and we became brothers was Madball set it off release at CVs. You guys played that? Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:10 Wow. We were banned from most places just because of the shit that would happen. I was wondering about that. It was ridiculous, man. So a funny story that set it off record, right? Yeah. We went down to St. Marks, and I forget the record store, but it might have been bleaker, I forget, man.

Starting point is 00:54:32 There's a bunch of record stores right in there. But there's some stairways going down into this, where all this. where all this vinyl is and they had a victim and pain record one of the original uh first presses and rogers there and uh freddie's just a kid i'm talking squeaky voice kid he's young young um i think stigma was there but ron was still alive then uh so maybe it wasn't the the set it off when was set it when did set it off 94 94 was set it off and that has the ctyc track on it right okay so So it had to have been a show before then, because Ron was still alive. There was probably 12 of us that rented a van and shout out to Newark to play this show.

Starting point is 00:55:16 It might have been an AF show. But before the show, right, we go to this record store. Ron's alive. We're up with AF guys. And we go down the stairs and my boy, Dougie Tom's, Carlos Tom's from the Georgia. He's one of those notorious hardcore cats from here. He sees that original press, that first pressing victim in pain. and he wants to buy it for for roger right and there's like a hundred and fifty dollar price tag on it

Starting point is 00:55:42 and he said well this is the singer of that band man that cut me a deal like you know you know give me a little slack and i'll buy it so i want to give it to this guy this guy was you know get fucked i don't care who the fuck this guy is so fucking uh so ron fucking shoots back behind the counter grabs the fucking album off the wall whips it breaks it fucking the guy's trying to grab the phone to call the cops. He rips the phone out of his hands, starts cracking the guy in the head. These AF guys are all looking like, what the fuck is going on? So these guys are shooting up the stairs while Ron's tearing the place up, and then we finally got out of there and then played that show that night. But I think that's another one of those moments that, you know what I mean, we all kind of like really click.

Starting point is 00:56:25 You know, when you go through some crazy shit with somebody, it could be war, it could be prison. It could be, you know, just some kind of hard-ass stretch. that's when those bonds are really made. For sure. And I think that was one of those moments where those guys were like, yeah, Colo's life's cool. No, I mean, absolutely. I feel like you guys have always been looked upon as like the scariest guys in the communities

Starting point is 00:56:47 thought you guys were the scariest guys in the community. So naturally, that's a natural fit. And it was kind of out of necessity. You know, they were from some rough places in New York. We were from rough places here. I was going to ask, do you think that's where the, The kindred. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:57:05 I think light calls the light, you know. I think so. And then Mad Ball's playing October 7th, right? Absolutely. So that's full circle poetry. Yeah, man. Beautiful. I didn't even realize.

Starting point is 00:57:18 That lineup stacked. It's going to be a good time, man. I wish one of your projects were doing it. I know, but we'll be there. Right on. Cool. Yeah, I'll sing police with you. All right.

Starting point is 00:57:28 We'll do something. Cool. Cool. I had one more important. land hard question. How as if you're self-releasing this record? What did distribution look like for a record like that? How do you get that record to California?

Starting point is 00:57:43 How do you get it to New York? So a good friend of mine, Mike Gaten, he did a little stretch in Ramallah with me. He's a Toledo guy and he worked for lumberjack records, distributor. And he helped a lot with that. And there was some of that feel from the noise. helped in Europe. It was

Starting point is 00:58:05 just all friends. Just DIY. It was doing shows and selling it. But it was minimal distro. Wow. Wow. That's that was my last question. It was sought after. It was a mythical thing that everybody had to get their hands on. And now it's on vinyl for the first time.

Starting point is 00:58:22 Absolutely. Yep. 8389. You can pick up a copy. I think pre-orders are there's they shit. I think I mine already came but I saw some people when we announced this episode saying like my record literally gets here this Thursday. This is perfect.

Starting point is 00:58:35 Oh, perfect. Fuck yeah. So that's good. Dom, A389, is getting ready to repress it too because he's out of them. So, woo. It's a good problem to have. Yeah, that's the best problem to have. So talking about declination, can we discuss that aspect of it yet?

Starting point is 00:58:54 Absolutely. It's remix. It's remastered. It's getting ready to pop right now. By none other. By none other than our own Taylor Young. Yeah, man, he's done a great job, man. He did a great job.

Starting point is 00:59:06 So we were never happy with the, so the material we've always liked. They loved them, loved it. But the production on it was horrible, horrible. It was just garbage. So Dom sent it to your brother, and he worked his magic. And I got a couple test presses and gave it a spun and spin. And it sounds good, man. have you know in preparation for this. I asked Taylor if I could hear it. And as a loyal,

Starting point is 00:59:38 loyal, loyal coldest life head, he said, no. I'll be even more honest with you. I've had it for months. And I listen to it every day. And it's, it's beautiful to finally hear your vision. You know, that's what it feels like. It's like this is, this is the record that was always there. I like the original version because it's raw and hard and I love the song so much that like I could I could hear through whatever problems you had with it like it sounds like there's like fucking six guitar tracks at all times it's huge and crazy but that makes the fucking the like big chug pit sections hit like who holds the truth it's crazy hard because of how insane it sounds I like the material like I said, man, but I think what your brother did with it, it felt like our black eye forever.

Starting point is 01:00:38 You know what I mean? Wow. But what your brother did with it, I'm happy with it finally. Wow. I'm proud and glad to hear that. And I'm ecstatic with it. Like I love that he got to do that because he and I are lifelong declination believers. Right.

Starting point is 01:00:58 Right. Cool. But now we're about to make some believers out of. out of thousands of more people, if not millions. Well, that's the thing, too, that's like perfect timing. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:07 Is that this, that the first record's out. It's available on vinyl for the first time. The show's happening. And then, oh, you like that? Yeah, the next thing just got redone and you're going to love it.

Starting point is 01:01:19 So that's amazing. You're playing some of these songs at the gig? Yeah. Yeah. We're doing Who holds the truth and a thousand, thousand yards there and days born amongst enemies.

Starting point is 01:01:30 a couple more I think we're kind of we're doing a lot of I want to say a lot of Born to Landhire we're doing some some of the stuff from the demo days and then some of the declination awesome awesome how did you hold off

Starting point is 01:01:48 on putting because who holds the truth was a demo track the demo version's awesome how did you decide not to put that on Born to Landhard and hold out for the next LP I don't know, you know what I mean? Just kind of held off, I guess. It wasn't nothing strategic.

Starting point is 01:02:07 Just what fit the time and the place? Yeah, yep. I mean, that's a good, that's a good, that's good, that's good ammo to have in your pocket for the next album. I like that song. Oh, yeah. It's a hit, dude. Where did you record declination? Fuck, man.

Starting point is 01:02:23 We flew out to Vegas and started. We were out there for a week, hated it, scrapped it. To be honest with you, I don't even know where it was recorded. Wow. To be honest. I don't know. I know where it was remixed, baby, at the Pitt studio in Van Ice, California. Yes, sir.

Starting point is 01:02:42 Do those Vegas recordings still exist anywhere? Yeah, I think Dom's got a couple of them. Wow. So, yeah. Dom. Dom from A389. Dom, email your boy. He's one of the best decisions I ever made.

Starting point is 01:03:00 He's a good, he's been a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. Solid, solid guy. He's got a great eye for everything, great ear for everything. He's stand up. He's honest. He's more than fair, generous.

Starting point is 01:03:12 Yeah. Best decision cold as life's ever made. We put out those demo years on vinyl first, and then we did the Born to Land Hard. And now this declination is getting ready to be done. And me and the guys that I got right now are probably going to write a new one. and hopefully Dom's still part of it. Awesome. Oh, I mean, I imagine he'd be dying.

Starting point is 01:03:36 I hope so. I hope so. I can't wait to hear what you see as new cold as life. I'm so curious to what that is. Interesting. Me too. With declination, was this intended to be self-released again? Because I know that at some point wasn't stillborn involved?

Starting point is 01:03:54 That was, oh, geez, I don't know if that was earlier or I'm not sure if, if Jamie was interested in that one or Born to Landhardt. I can't remember, honestly. But it still was a 100% C2YC production, right? Yes, sir. Fucking awesome. Okay, an interesting anecdote

Starting point is 01:04:14 about declination of independence. It's a song called What It Was on there, Jeff. The song that got me into ska. Right, right. So, you know, I avoided ska my whole life because it was like, I can't listen to Sky. cold as life will kick my ass i can't disappoint and then and then and then load gold here's this song on there this this this ska masterpiece tell me about what it was what made you put a ska song on this

Starting point is 01:04:43 record so uh love songs for the unlove by sheer terror amazing record we have fucking a one of one of my top three fucking records of all time not just hardcore records records period period uh dude a tale of moran Perfect song. Fuck, bro. From start to finish, that record is the masterpiece. Wow. But they used a lot of horns. Well, maybe not a lot of horns, but there were some songs on there that used horns.

Starting point is 01:05:13 And I was so influenced by that album that I just wanted to do something with some horns on it. That's fucking awesome. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense now in retrospect. The everything's fine cover with the horns on the old new bar and blue EP, dude. those are some fucking horns God, man. Oh man.

Starting point is 01:05:34 Oh, Taylor and I, when I was 15, and he was 19, the very first band he and I started together was called Demon Seed. Really? So thanks for that. All right. We're day one, declination, guys.

Starting point is 01:05:53 I'm telling you. Nice, nice, nice. But yeah, I'm really excited for people to finally. hear that. Me too. Shortly after Declination,

Starting point is 01:06:03 was that when Ramallah started? Yeah, we kind of, there was a lot of stuff going on at this table. So,

Starting point is 01:06:14 Blutford Bud and cold his life from playing a show and we were at this after party. Me and Rob and some of his boys were hanging out.

Starting point is 01:06:21 And Rob pulled me aside and said, hey, brother, God wanted you to hear something. So we shot off and he put

Starting point is 01:06:28 this disc on. and asked me if I wanted to play guitar with them on it. And it was a but a whimper. And from the first note, I said, yep, I'm in. So I think that was in, I want to say, like, 2002. Or maybe, early 2000. Yeah, 2002 is but a whimper. I did that until about 2007.

Starting point is 01:06:55 But that was a dysfunctional band. there was, you know, habits and, you know, whatnot. But so, but Ramallah was one of my favorites. I can't take credit for any of the writing Rob did it all. Oh, really? Everything. Wow. So that was what I was going to ask you is, what song is it, Colin?

Starting point is 01:07:17 Is it, is it Ramallah, the song? Are you thinking of, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, the one with Bannon on it. I thought was... Al Shafah, I think it's called. One of my favorite hardcore songs of all time. It's insane.

Starting point is 01:07:37 No hyperbole. And I thought I had heard that you wrote that guitar part. So you cleared that up. So that's all Rob. Yeah, I didn't write a note of that. I just played guitar. A humble, honest, man.

Starting point is 01:07:48 Very, very honest. Was it, were you excited to play guitar again? Were you like, yeah. Yeah. Especially with Rob's a music. genius, man. He, uh, yeah, he's a real musician and he, it has a way with work kind of like Paulie Bear from Cheraer. There's, there's people vocalists that really can connect with the way they write. Rob Lynn is one of those guys. He can, he can explain something lyrically

Starting point is 01:08:16 in a way that not many people can, just like Pauley Bear could. And he does these callbacks where he just says the thing again and you're like, damn, how the hell did you make that work? Right, right. The only time I got to see Romala with you in the band, I remember being so excited that you had like a cold as life merch table at the show. So as me, 14, 15 year old me was like, this is the best day in my whole life. I get to see the band and get a coldest life shirt. This is unreal.

Starting point is 01:08:51 They were mad at me for setting my merch up. Cold his life merch always did real well. And they would get mad because they felt like I was taking money out of whatever kitty Malta table would have. But I had, you know, responsibilities as a father. And I had to do what I had to do. And I felt bad. But I mean, what are you going to do?

Starting point is 01:09:12 When I, Jeff, when I say the words, most violent show you've ever played, does something, does one specific thing come to mind? Not really. There was a lot, a lot of them. Most of them. I mean, not, maybe not most. of them but there was a lot of them so there's not one specific one i tell you that one romola show in brockton that was that was pretty good that was pretty violent brockton's a rough city yeah it is i mean c oa played so i imagine he was he was having fun right right oh he always has fun

Starting point is 01:09:48 i so i gion plays guitar in a band called king nine a friend of ours he wanted to ask me to ask you on his behalf. There's a live video from a Magic Stick in 97 where you play a song. The title is hard to make out. It sounds like reality is life or something like that. Reality is light. It has like blast beats in it and realities fight maybe. And he's like he wants to know where that song is and if he can ever hear it.

Starting point is 01:10:21 I don't even know what it is. He's asking. I'll send you the video. You tell me if you recognize it. Because it's a hit, dude. It's hard. Do that. Do that.

Starting point is 01:10:41 Do that. I'll let you know. You can let him know. He's a good cat. He's solid dude. I love him. He'll probably, he'll be there. Cool.

Starting point is 01:10:50 At the gig. I'm sure he'll be very scary. I was also asked on behalf of Will from Neverending Game to ask for a few Johnny hate stories. You got any more of those for me? Oh, fuck. So I know I'm not supposed to use the word, but I already have a few times.

Starting point is 01:11:09 but I'll say derelict from here out, but this dude was a derelict. Listen, the state paid him money to stay at home. He got disability checks because of his mentality. So he would always disappear. You know, we'd have shows coming up. He'd be gone. He lived with his mother. Her name was Patty.

Starting point is 01:11:30 She was from, like, down south somewhere. And I would call her, she was like my go-to when Johnny would disappear. I would call, he'd be gone. Patty, where's Johnny? He barricaded in his room. How long have you been there? About a week and a half. I was like, well, can I come over?

Starting point is 01:11:46 She said, yeah, come get him. I go over there, right? And she wasn't kidding. The fucking door was barricaded. This was February one time. We're going somewhere. And I looked at his mom and asked her, can I kick the door in?

Starting point is 01:12:03 She said, yeah, get them. So I fucking make my way into this room. Full dressers. in front of the door and all this. It's like mid-February. It's sub-zero temps out. He's got this window air conditioning unit out full blast, right, in the middle of winter. You could see your breath.

Starting point is 01:12:19 He's got this black light going. And remember the exorcist where she's all demonic? Yeah. Right? That negative approach record. Negative approach. Right. Well, he's got this black light poster with this black light and this air blasting,

Starting point is 01:12:35 freezing cold. And he's standing in the middle of the room. What the, what the fly? fuck are you doing he's like trying to levitate so this motherfucker was locked in this room for who knows how long trying to fucking levitate so this other this other time right so he lived uh not like a few blocks out of the maybe a mile or two outside of southwest detroit off this main thoroughfare called fort street outer drive or southfield freeway fort street you're like a couple streets in a couple blocks in the neighborhood.

Starting point is 01:13:10 Disappeared. He's been gone for weeks again. I shoot down, I make this left on his street, and I'm looking down the street, and I can see, like, two weeks, there are two blocks down. I could see this commotion in front of, about where his house is, but I'm still too far. I can't see what's going on. So as I get closer, man, I see this dog, right, and like a baby stroller, and it looked like this dog was attacking this baby stroller.

Starting point is 01:13:35 And I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. see it's Johnny with this baby stroller. And he's got this fucking dog chained to a tree. And he's ramming this dog with this baby stroller. And it looks like there's a baby in it, right? I jump out of my fucking van. And I, what the fuck is going on?

Starting point is 01:13:51 I'd look, this motherfucker had cooked a turkey. Like a fucking butterball turkey. And dressed it in a fucking onesie, like a baby onesie, and had it strapped in this stroller. And he's fucking smashing this dog with this cooked turkey and a onesie. Just to do it?

Starting point is 01:14:11 So I jumped out. I said, what the fuck are you doing? He's like teaching my dog to kill kids. He was just fucking out there, man. He was out there, bro. Holy hell. Yeah, he was out there. Johnny hate. Let me ask you about the, we're kind of going back now,

Starting point is 01:14:30 back to Born and Landhart, the picture of all of the, the five band members and then all the boys in the back yeah that was those were all the people at our table you know and our camp yeah those were a lot of good friends and still some of them are some you know some of them are shell-shocked and dispersed and but uh but yeah some of them are still hanging tough did you have to get a pit bull to be in the photo or could you be in the photo if you had a pit bull no my boy bird uh red staffordshire terry's pit bull back then. And I had one. He was in the picture. He had his. And then there were some others that

Starting point is 01:15:13 had them. Pit bulls are big in Detroit. They used to be anyway. Yeah. I think that's the best band promo photo ever taken. The Pitbull pick. I like the black and white ones. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. Here it is. I'll have shown it multiple times by now. Right, right. That's my favorite photograph ever taken. Every band should aspire to be that, but know that you never will. I have a question for you, Jeff, that is maybe a little, I don't know,

Starting point is 01:15:41 it's like a meta, Meta Cold is Life question, but it's, do you have any opinions about, maybe not now since you're back, you're playing shows, but 10 years ago, let's say, about bands covering Coldest Life?

Starting point is 01:15:55 I don't have a problem with it. It flatters me, you know what I mean? Okay. So I had heard stories before, and this is, and I'm saying this as, somebody who we, we, Harb's Way did cover Coldest Life one time, where we had heard that people

Starting point is 01:16:14 maybe who were friends with you guys who were around at that time or whatever went up to other bands. Why never, never with me, but heard rumor that someone went up to someone else and was just like, don't cover Coldest Life. Like, don't, don't be doing that. You know, there was times that we would cover songs, right? Yeah. And it was a gesture. Yeah, always. You know what I mean? like a, you know, was somebody that was influential in our camp and we would cover them out of, out of love and respect.

Starting point is 01:16:41 So I never, there was no kind of bullshit like that. Beautiful. That's what I wanted to hear. I was from, that was from some fucking job or beau. That wasn't from the man right here. I know.

Starting point is 01:16:51 I just let him clear it up. Yeah, absolutely. If I do it, if one of my things gets covered, I'll shed a fucking tear right now. Right. That's what I'm saying.

Starting point is 01:17:00 That's beautiful. It is. That's like the ultimate honor. Right. And also do you find as a tattoo? You don't really find that. Like if you go to like a pop concert, you'll hear a fucking Bob Dylan song or something. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:17:11 You're not going to hear like a contemporary cover. That's sick. No. You see a lot of Coldest Life tattoos, Jeff? A ton. That's the coolest shit ever, huh? Yeah, a ton. As a matter of fact, if we end up doing another recording, I'm going to solicit for Coldest Life tattoos, probably for the artwork.

Starting point is 01:17:31 You should. Our friend Dan has... Dan Silly, King Nine singer. He's got Born to Land Hard right on his back there. Across his whole back. I've seen it. Yeah. Love it.

Starting point is 01:17:41 Are there Detroit bands you feel like never got there due or deserve more respect from the modern audience? So early on, there was a band called Pitbull that were good hardcore band, real good hardcore band. Craig Holloway, he played in a band called Rickashay. They were good. But I think that the standouts, I think they got their due. You know, they got their names out there.

Starting point is 01:18:11 And they got theirs down. Love it. Somebody wanted me to ask you about an ICP show that you played? Oh, man. So it was ICP's first show ever. They were just little kids. And they had this manager. He was from Southwest Detroit.

Starting point is 01:18:30 His name was Alice. And it was in a seedy part of town, but they show up. And ICPs got their pants on backwards like Chris Cross used to do. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, they're little kids. They're not doing the face paint yet. Wow. But they come in with this manager and start demanding the headline.

Starting point is 01:18:50 And they're playing with established bands. And I think Ron yoked up their manager and told them they'll play when they play. And I mean, the show went on. It happened. But, yeah, it was this place called Todd's on the East. east side. The same owner that owned Blondies ended up taking this place over and doing shows there. Oh, I see.

Starting point is 01:19:10 Okay. So ICP's first ever show was supporting Coldys life. Yeah. How did that, was that a manager new of you guys or did like, yeah, just kind of. Honestly, I don't know how that happened, you know. Wow. Since, you know, and in the post. prison Jeff G world are there any bands that you've come across that you missed that you

Starting point is 01:19:39 hear now that where you go fuck yeah this is what I'm talking about a lot of the stuff you do it absolutely the world I love that band uh there there's a lot of new great almost all the bands that played that tie down I've listened to a lot of martin stuff yeah the king yeah man yep Yeah. There's a lot of great bands. Like I said earlier, the musicianship and the composition nowadays, it's never been better in the hardcore community. I just look forward to be. So you guys know, I've been gone for a long time.

Starting point is 01:20:13 And I used to run around like this. I liked what I liked. I've had blinders on and I stayed with what I like. Sure. But I like being introduced in the new bands now. I'll give it a listen, like a real listen. And yeah, I'm excited about the direction that this, this genre is going.

Starting point is 01:20:31 Man, that's, like, beautiful to hear. Because as I've said, a million times, like, the, the stamp you've left on it musically is only going to make things better because, like, you're impressed by the composition of music today. That's because the composition of Born on Landharn were so damn good, that they have something to go off of now. You had nothing to go off of. Right, right.

Starting point is 01:20:54 You just did that. I don't know about that. But I'll tell you, One of my favorite records right now is that N-Rain, that new N-Rain record, Dom's band. And Mike's score on vocals. It's fucking sick. Super group. Yeah, man.

Starting point is 01:21:10 Super group. Yeah, right. What's crazy to me, too, is that, I mean, COVID might have had a hand in this, but how these great records can be composed from people in four corners of this country. Big time. Yeah. It blows my mind. That's like what you have to do now.

Starting point is 01:21:30 Yeah. Right. Right. You guys are doing it the real way by practicing as a fucking band three times a week. That's unheard of today. Right. I don't know any other way. Honestly, I couldn't.

Starting point is 01:21:45 I had such a hard time doing this. I'm a digital illiterate. I couldn't imagine trying to record a record with a guy in Texas and a guy in New York and a guy in school. I couldn't do it. we did it like you said we would sit in a basement and rehearse them and then when we were ready we would rent a studio and go in there and hit it but that shows in the quality of the performances and you telling me that's a live recording is insane yeah I never knew that let's talk about the show yeah boy October 7th

Starting point is 01:22:22 gonna be a good one let me pull up how are you feeling about it see it I feel good I feel good I'm excited about it, man. A lot of good friends, a lot of old friends, a lot of good bands. Get the same place that tied down's at. Ramona from Black Iris, Jimmy from Edgeman and Curtis from Crowfoot, all the same people. It's going to be a good one. Was the lineup kind of a collaborative effort between you four? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:22:52 I ended up reaching out to most of these guys, and then I put it in the, their laps, but most of these guys that are on the bill are all pals of mine. So I would call them up and say, hey, man, we're going to do a reunion show you want in. Come do it, please. And they said, yeah. And then these promoter guys would take care of it. That's something that any man would drop everything

Starting point is 01:23:15 to be on. For sure. Blue collar stoppers, poison tongues, D-block from Detroit, M.H. Chaos. New World Man, one of my favorite current bands. Death before dishonor. Realm, Hate, Inc. Death Threat, integrity, terror, coldest life.

Starting point is 01:23:31 That's a crazy show. I think never ending game. I'm sorry. Never ending game. Madball. This is an outdated list I'm even looking at. Yeah, they're crossed off. Never ending game and Madball too. It's going to be a good one.

Starting point is 01:23:44 And tickets are flying. So if you're listening to this, A, buy them. But B, I'm going to give away two right now. And here's how I'm going to do it. You're going to send, you're going to, you're going to, whether it's Instagram or Twitter or something, I want you to send Hardlora a picture of your goatee.

Starting point is 01:24:03 And I'm going to send the top 10 to Jeff. And Jeff is going to pick the best goatee. And if you have the best one, you win two tickets to the show. Nice. And if you're unable, if you're unable, how do we make it, you know, two tickets? Okay, yeah, never mind. Yeah, no. You know, if you're unable to grow a goatee, you draw one on, dope as hell.

Starting point is 01:24:24 Make it look good. If it wins, it wins. You know, if you look good, you'll look good, period. Okay, I like it. But Jeff is as the grand master of the goatee community is going to be the one that decides. Hey, you want to hear a funny story, bro? Yes. So we were in Europe again, and we were with Theo and the noise, and he had this young kid named Jamie that was helping him with merch and driving.

Starting point is 01:24:50 And he was going sick in the pit, right? We're playing. And fucking, these meatheads were beating on them, just being boughed, right? Beating on them, throwing them around. So I jumped off the stage, and I smashed. I didn't smash them, but I, you know, tuned them up a little bit just to help this young kid out. I jumped back on stage and we finished and somebody was on the computer the next day, right? And they said, two pigs and a goat.

Starting point is 01:25:18 Because two, by two guitar players were big, they had this big ass ghost. T's they started calling coldest life farmers. There's two pigs and a goat. That's funny, man. Oh, that's awesome. Have you, have you, any, any image I've seen of you ever, you have not, you've had a gorgeous, shiny, bald head. How long have you, has that been your, your, your, your hairstyle? Oh, uh, as soon as I started having daughters, I started losing hair, man.

Starting point is 01:25:50 So, okay. Thank God, thank God I got a pretty head because I've had to. do, man. That's a good bald head. But let me ask you this. And this may be, this may be a direction, a correlation to something evil going on to Detroit. Have you noticed the correlation between Detroit hardcore showgoers and hair loss? No. Brother, these fuckers are bald. Never in game. They're bald. Gridiron. They're bald. Wow. True love, bald. Wow.

Starting point is 01:26:22 something's going on Hey listen man Most people that are like bald like this It's because they can't grow fucking hair If I could grow hair I'd grow a little hair I don't know if I go I know but I'm saying

Starting point is 01:26:34 Luxurious lax like yours But I would grow some hair I know you wouldn't That's why I'm saying Something's going on in Detroit In the water or the air Well Something's happening

Starting point is 01:26:46 To make these these There's injustice happening in Detroit To the community turning them bald and we got to get to the bottom of it. All right, let's get at it. There's something going on. To the goate community, to the bald community of Michigan, Jeff and Hardlore are on it.

Starting point is 01:27:05 We're on the case. We're going to figure this out. All right. All right. We're on it. We can't wait for the show. We're going to be there. We have this grand idea to go around Detroit with you

Starting point is 01:27:19 to kind of learn the, show people the history of Detroit hardcore and how special and important it is. So we can't wait for that. Jeff, this has been, uh, this has been one of my favorite episodes of all time. Yeah, easy.

Starting point is 01:27:34 I appreciate the invite. Oh, of course. I do. Absolutely. Of course, man. Can't wait to see you in October.

Starting point is 01:27:41 Are there any, uh, final thoughts you would like to leave the listeners with? Decisions matter. You know, they all have outcomes, good or bad. So,

Starting point is 01:27:51 what we do, what we say, how we think it all matters, man. We all impact people. I think that the things that you care about, the communities you live and the people you love, you should invest in them. You know, everybody wants to play hard guy. You know, it's all fun and game. Everybody wants to be a beast until it's time to be a beast. That's not what's important.

Starting point is 01:28:10 What's important is to build and impact people in a positive way. Uplift your brother, uplift your city, invest in your community, the place you live, the place you work. People you care about. You know what I mean? That's what I would like to leave with people. Dude. Greatest closing thoughts in the history of the show.

Starting point is 01:28:30 Wow. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for all for listening. Coldest Life is back October 7th. Born to Landhardt repress is out now on A389. Declaration of Independence Repress is out soon. Keep an eye out. We will see you October 7th.

Starting point is 01:28:45 Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you, Beau.

HardLore - Jeff Gunnells (Cold As Life)

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