HardLore - Mike Dijan (Crown of Thornz & Breakdown)

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

HardLore proudly presents the first part of our three-part series shot in a single day all about New York Hardcore, all three of which feature special guest co-host: King Nine vocalist Dan Seely. Part one features Mike Dijan, an absolutely all-time great hardcore guitar player and song writer. We visited his hometown neighborhood in Astoria Queens and learned the origin of how hardcore music made it's way to their neighborhood., Leeway's impact on him personally, and how he went from fan to landmark hardcore musician. We also received a special surprise visit by Jojo from Outburst, who shares his story of growing up and discovering hardcore in Astoria. It all starts with a bench in the park... HardLore is now on Patreon! Join now to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes: https://patreon.com/hardlorepod HardLore Official Website/HardLore Records store: https://hardlorepod.com Join the HARDLORE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jA9rppggef This episode is brought to you by ATHLETIC GREENS! Try AG1 at athleticgreens.com/HARDLORE to receive a free 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 travel packs of AG1. Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code HARDLORE at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod FOLLOW MIKE DIJAN: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/mikedijan/ FOLLOW DAN SEELY: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/freedomsteely/ TWITTER | https://x.com/FreedomSteely FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/hardlorepod/ TWITTER | https://twitter.com/hardlorepod SPOTIFY | https://spoti.fi/3J1GIrp APPLE | https://apple.co/3IKBss2 FOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/colinyovng/ TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/ColinYovng FOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/bosxe/ TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/bosxe Check out our merch at https://knotfest.com/store/?view=hardlore Find all of our videos at https://knot1.co/3vWXsbx TIMESTAMPS: ASTORIA PARK - 0:00 THE BENCH - 2:25 CBGBs - 7:33 LEEWAY/KRAUT - 9:40 METS BANDS / YANKEES BANDS - 16:03 STARTING GUITAR - 22:55 STREET FIGHT - 27:27 STEALING BENCH RIFFS - 31:00 STARTING CROWN OF THORNZ - 35:30 WHO DO YOU DO? - 43:20 JOJO FROM OUTBURST - 46:03 PIZZA PALACE - 50:09 THE OTHER ASTORIA - 55:13 PARDON THIS INTERRUPTION... 57:58 PITA HOT - 1:00:44 MIKE TOURING LATER IN LIFE - 1:02:22 FILLING IN FOR CRO-MAGS - 1:04:22 FAVORITE AGE OF QUARREL TRACK - 1:07:22 BREAKDOWN BLACKLISTED - 1:13:10 THE MANY BREAKDOWN LINEUPS - 1:20:44 JOINING BREAKDOWN - 1:22:00 JOJO'S UNDERDOG JAM - 1:24:45 DON FURY - 1:27:20 CROWN OF THORNZ MENTALLY VEXED - 1:29:18 THE FUTURE OF HARDCORE - 1:32:05 JOJO'S DESPERATE MEASURES SONGS - 1:36:44 MENTALLY VEXED CONT. - 1:38:25 CLOSING THOUGHTS - 1:44:05   HardLore: A Knotfest Series, Fueled by Monster Energy Edited by Steven Grise • Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf Join the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes. Join the HARDLORE DISCORD for community discussions and to participate in our future Q&A episodes. FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, SPOTIFY, APPLE FOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAM FOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER   For sponsorship opportunities, email us! [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, welcome. It's Hardlord Time. How are you, Bo? I'm so good. Where are we, Colin? We are at Astoria Park in the great state of New York. We're in for something very special. We wanted to do a whole kind of full New York, New York hardcore history documentary of sorts. We want to take you around the whole city with some special people. We heard this is the place. This is the place. We've got to find some guys first. So we're just going to walk around until we find some. You always run into somebody here.

You never know. We'll see. Look at this. Is that? It's Mike Dejean from Breakdown, Crown of Thorns, and more. King Nye. And Dan Sili from King Nine together. Just hanging out.

Hiked up, ready to go. It's funny you run into you guys. I can't believe it. So Astoria Park, very significant to Mike DeJon, but before we get to that, I want to know how you guys know each other. Yeah. Well, we're, uh, we're a. Coffee friends. Me and Mike love to frequent an establishment over here called kinship coffee. Delicious. Obviously, we know each other through Arcore and everything, but more importantly, we're...

But deeper than that, a bag of brown beans, eat it up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's where it's really... Our Corps's all well and good. You're good, brother. That's... I'm going to have to report that. That's... New York, baby. It's not a road, but yeah. That's our coffee shop. We get coffee there all the time. It's beautiful. Dan's going to join us for this whole kind of operation today.

He's our liaison. Mike is the first stop, a very important first stop for me. This is my favorite hardcore riff writer of all time. Right here. I've heard him say that in private. He have. He has. He said it on the show many times on the record.

I'm sorry to embarrass you on the spot like this. Tell me about the significance of Astoria Park. Well, where we're seeing? sitting right here, basically birthed at least six or seven hardcore bands that you know of. Which ones? Please. So, first and foremost would be leeway. Wow. This spot? This exact spot.

So to give some background, I was born in this neighborhood, raised this neighborhood, went to school in the neighborhood. I lived on that side of the bridge. So this bridge was sort of like a separation between a really nice neighborhood and a rough neighborhood. So this side was rough. I moved here when I was about 10 years old. I had a different set of friends over there. When I moved over here, I see. Enter a wild bunch of kids that are into all sorts of different kinds of music, into sports they had their own football team

they had like pick up games or we would play right here in this park and they were listening to completely different music than I had been brought up listening than just there than just there

wow just there so like I listened to whatever vinyl was in my parents you know milk crate and that would be like

all the classic rock stuff and whatnot but when I came here, this is around like 82, 83, there's a group of kids just from a three-block radius over here that would just gather at this bench. Wow. Because back then, you couldn't just veg out at home.

Yeah, yeah. Your parents would just throw you out of the house, especially if you were listening to loud music or whatever, go do it outside. They didn't want the kids in the house. dinner time was over, we'd all end up at this bench. This bench was the group chat, basically. Group chat.

Watering hole. We were still too young to get into bars. So, like, AJ of leeway. Like, he grew a beard when he was like 17, and we would send him to go buy beer in the store. So we would do everything here. So basically AJ was the leader of our group

because he had started going to the Lower East side he was the first one to just break off and go to punk rock shows and he would go to record shops you know like you know down on you know St. Marks Bleaker Bob's all that and he'd bring music back

to this spot for us to listen to and we would listen to everything on a boombox or a ghetto blaster or whatever whatever you want to call it would it be would it be cassette tapes would it be cassettes wow it broke out the the record yeah i was going to say yeah the phonograph yeah and being like there was a lot of a lot of hip-hop yeah going on in this area and we have the historic projects like a few blocks away from here and there was hip-hop artists there and then you got gnaz like from like a half a mile down

that way really well yes in the queen's bridge project This was only like five minutes from here. You pointed them out, right? Yeah, yeah. The Prodigy as well. So we saw boom boxes from them because they'd be walking down the street like that, you know, blasting it in their ear. So he'd bring back like, you know, all the punk rock stuff as it was forming into hardcore.

So I heard like fast as a shark for the first time here. Wow. I was like, what the fuck is that? What's what you know, it's just picking like fast music. It was like Judas Priest on steroids. Were you playing guitar already at this time? No. Okay.

No. So you were, was, was AJ developmental in your guitar playing at all? Absolutely. Yeah, he sold me my first guitar. There it is.

Wow. That is what we call. That's hard fucking old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he sold me to my first guitar. So, you know, as the new music was coming in, uh,

you know, the Chromeags demo came out and we listened to it first time here. Wow. Then, like, Asia Quarral would come out and we want to hear the difference. Right, yeah. And it would happen right here. And then, you know, I'd hear ludicrous for the first time.

I'd hear the crumb suckers for the first time. Then, you know, people, the group started getting bigger and big and bigger and bigger. And breakdown demo was not long after that now. If we're at age of quarrel. No, we're at age of quarrel. Everything is happening. In time, like in real time. So we all get together and we go to leeway's, like, their first or second show at CBGB.

Everybody at this bench. And they played with COC on the animosity tour. And like when we walked into the club, it was like we were walking into like a movie. Yeah. That was the first time you ever been there That yes that was March of 86 Did that feel like a moment Was that like a thing where even at that time you were like

I'm gonna remember this? No I was like this is just some wild shit Yeah I was like yeah this is crazy But it was cool It was there was crazy shit happening around here It was just different Yeah

So I remember vividly Like there were skinheads hanging out across the street at the deli and they could get like they would drink there they would get 40s or 64s and they were shirtless with the suspenders and they just looked hard like I ain't fuck with those dudes and then you know walk into a club

where like the smell is just dingy and like the air's thick the air's thick it's it felt like a movie basically and then the band start playing and then just people start jumping around all over the place.

And like a week before that happened, I saw Iron Maiden at Radio City Music Hall. And I was like, this is way fucking cool. I've come to the conclusion now that, like, live music that I can't participate in physically in some way is not for me. So in 1986, I would have that same exact realization. I think everybody has that. Yeah.

She's like, what's the point of this? But I think everybody involved in hardcore has that realization at some point where you're like, you see something else you're like oh that's cool and then you see a hardcore show and you're like holy shit I don't know what this is but this is what I want and even as an adult I've gone did

arena shows and stuff and sat and it is a little weird yeah yeah what am I supposed to do I can't fucking mosh to the cure man what am I supposed to do so let me give me a chance so a lot of the we asked a bunch of people

questions over the weekend and leeway was like a top answer with born to expire? I'll have to kind of cheat and say desperate measures and born to expire leeway. Desper measures leeway? Desper measures? Leeway.

We're going to desperate measures. For the older generation in particular. And now I kind of understand why. Yeah. They were kind of the they broke the ice. They were the innovators for us. But before leeway. Yeah.

our heroes were crowd that's right because crowd's from this neighborhood story is on crowd there's a crowd cover on mentally vex I always wonder like I would have never known crowd if not for that probably

they were our hometown heroes wow when I first heard it I thought they were from the UK right and then that's the idea right yeah

I didn't think a band like that would exist in my own neighborhood and the lyrics were very strong. Yeah. They resonated with me. And then by the time I had heard crowd for the first time, Doug Holland had already left the band and joined the Chrome Angus. So I was like, wow.

And then next thing you know, like, he would come around and hang out with us here. He'd his friends with AJ and whatnot. So that's like you hanging out with me right now? Oh shit, he's here So There is that feeling that people get Sometimes when you see some I remember the first time I ever saw Eddie

Eddie Leeway I was I was like That's got to be it, man That's that's him That's him like a Dude I'm 35 saw Paris for the first time The other night at the show I've never seen him before

Yeah, and I was like oh shit Same thing with minus First time I saw minus I was like, he's real? So if Leroy was the first of a few bands, Six or however many he said, who would have been next? They came out of this bench.

So out of this bench, basically like A.J. not only sold me, my first guitar, he sold George Dorico from Outburst, his first guitar. So A.J. would be selling guitars off because he needed money to go on tour. Sure. Wow. And then he, you know, when he came into me, he sold me money, he's like, hey, you want to play, right?

I was like, yeah. And he's like, here, by this, I need money. And he'll end up selling me my Red Kramer, whoa. The music man had that he would play and his cabinet. Wow. That's amazing. So Outburst was first at this bench.

and then when it came time that I would start playing in bands which happened by accident because the garage is down in the block some of our parents

would let us like jam in the garage so Jojo from Outburst his father let him jam in the garage and Jojo wrote a lot of Born to Expire with AJ oh wow interesting

damn I didn't know that In the garage. It's so funny how, as we talk to people and we meet people by doing this show, it's always that. Yeah. It's always a group of guys who have crossover and it's very incestuous. It's wild. And it's wild that AJ had made an impact on us in a way that we gravitated towards it because it was so much fun. Wow.

And there would be this garage. There was a guy named Amelio around the block. had a garage so we would bounce around and go to these garages in the winter and the freezing cold so like it would be better than hanging out here we used to have a garbage can and we used to throw like logs in it and we would like stand by the we would stand by the fire how you doing brother the mayor the other mayor i'm sorry getting his steps in so we would we would burn wood here and stand there and warm my hands like hobos yeah over here.

And then... Right in riffs? Just listening to music. Like, you know, like, literally, you got the, the Salky force going, I heard into Cryptive Rays for the first time here.

Like, it was... And there were dudes that were into Maiden, there were dudes into Mega Death, dudes into, you know, like, we listened to early Metallica here. It wasn't like, it's gotta be hardcore. We listened to everything.

Love that. And still listen to classic rock and, you know, still would blast fucking unleashed in the East. Yeah. fucking hear where you could hear it on the other side of the park. I found a cabinet in the garbage.

A guitar cabinet? It's a guitar cabinet, but it was weird. It was powered. Oh, strange. It was like a powered cabinet. It was four speakers, but it had, like, a little amp in it. And I figured out a way to Jerry Rig that it would play off of my radio. Wow.

So I would drag it out of my house on a dolly. And I'd bring it here. and we'd be blasting Aguquarral where you could hear it past the coffee shop where we just came from. That's like a half mile out.

Very far. I mean, but from far away it would just sound like some demonic shit from like over there. We'd just be like locking out to it

and then or like, oh, what are we going to do about the electric you know, to plug this thing in? So we would like,

you know, bust open that pole, the lamp pole over there and figure out how to like plug the electricity. Wow. And, you know, so we could just play this, you know, we'd have loud music, so we'd feel like we were at a concert here.

It's amazing. Just listening to music. And then that same summer that we were going to these, you know, going to hardcore shows for the first time, the Mets were, like, on their run to win the World Series. So you guys, you guys were Mets guys. Some Mets, some Yankees. I found it fascinating. fans rooted for which team? Like I know Leeway was always Mets. Mets. Mets. Out versus O had to be Mets. I know Jojo's a huge Mets fan. So you know there's a

fine, there's a line between New York. King Nye is Mets by the way. King Nye's Islanders. That's Islanders. Your Rangers guy? It was an Islanders guy. That's right. Born to expire. Interestingly, I know was recorded years before it came out. So amongst your friend group was that like a secret society of people that had heard it before it was out? Because wasn't it like recorded 86, released 89 or something crazy?

No, I think it was released in 87. Late 87, 88. Late 87, 88. There was like a year delay on it. You might know the timeline better than me, but I know it was a long wait. I had heard it before it came out. Yeah. So you were like, wait till you hear this shit to everybody in town.

But AJ was very like top secret about it Like only like four or five of us heard it Wow And uh He knew what he had I wouldn't say I think it was very new to everybody

Yeah All I knew is that like when The Enforcer demo Came out It was a completely different band By the time Born and Expire came out Right

That makes sense Wow So they they got signed Chris Williamson put them in the rehearsal studio and they rehearsed every day, four or five hours a day for months. Wow. Oh, my God. And you can hear the contrast in the playing,

in the production, in all the innuendos of the songs. Yeah, the little nuances are unbelievable. From the demo to Born to Expire. So that was another thing where, like, AJ's work ethic really rubbed off on us. Of course. They're like, yo, you know, you're going to start a band, you better bring it because like that's what this guy's doing.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm learning that AJ is very, AJ in this bench are very responsible for what people know as New York Hard for. Like the cross, kind of the cross over. As a sect of it. Yeah. Just from this, we didn't really think much of it at the time.

But I was like, all right, it's just like these group of dudes I hang out here and like, this is our little thing. because Astoria is a big place and there were other areas going on in hardcore like Murphy's Law is born in Astoria. Wow. Jimmy G. grew up eight blocks that way. But like you said, there's kind of two Astorias, right?

There's two Astorias. Yeah, there's this side and that side. And like you'll see later how the other side is. You know, I just think if you asked a general hardcore enthusiasts, who are some New York hardcore bands? They're going to say Cromag's an A.F. And then they're going to say Alperst Breakdown. It feels like the groove that hardcore got into was born here. That's exactly what I'm saying.

What became, like, that's what bands are doing now. Yeah. Everything that they're trying to do now is this bench. This bench. I mean, I have, I have. Thank you. I feel powered by this bench. I have four tattoos that are specific to this bench, basically.

I think a lot of that groove has to do with the cultural diversity. Has to be. Yeah. Because it wasn't just like the guys that played in bands that hung out at this bench. There were other dudes that were just friends that weren't in bands that would bring their own music. They'd be listening to hip-hop. You know, like we'd be listening to Public Enemy, E-P-M-D, you know, the L-L-Cool. Jay, like we, we didn't, like, exclude that.

Yeah. We liked it. And we just, like, hang out. We fucking pop around to that shit. And we loved it. Yeah. So there was dance music. There was freestyle going on.

Wow. Carboard on the floor dancing and stuff. Yeah. That still goes on in this part of the park. I swear I still see people break dancing in the park over here. I'm not kidding. That brings me to the next, like, chapter in the story of this bench. Of the bench.

So when the guys, be jamming in the garages, they would take breaks and I would just grab a guitar just to see, oh, what's this all about? And I just like start, like, noodling around while they're taking a break. And then I had a little, like, mini keyboard that was, like, battery operated, some, some, like, knockoff Chinese shit. Yeah. And I had, like, little, like, weird beats, you know, like, very generic beats on it. And I used to walk around the neighborhood with it in my hand. And I would just try to figure out notes the Black Sabbath on the... No kidding.

On this little keyboard. And my friends... Yeah. Wow. My friends thought we were weirdo. I was a weirdo. It's like, who's this motherfucker walking around with like little keyboard? I would have thought the same thing, honestly.

You know, no... This is like Atari is like just coming out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? There's like nothing else to do. Yeah. This technological guy walking around here. So, uh, from the future.

And then, um, those summers I used to go to, my mother used to ship me off to Europe, uh, to stay with my family. And, uh, I was getting into too much trouble here. I was getting, I was getting jumped a lot. You know, like, uh, it was, it was just very rough. And my mother just wanted me out of here. So, uh, it turned out that the kids that I hung out in Europe would listen to heavy music as well. Okay. Where in Europe was that? It's an island called Malta in the Mediterranean. So there's a small tribe of Maltese people that migrated here in the 60s.

And my mother married here. And me and my brothers were born here. Yeah. And I've never felt an urge to leave. Yeah. You know, like, it's a lot of my other friends that live in the city, like, they got to stay born in a story or dying a story. Everyone else for me, because everyone else moved away except me. So we're just, you know, hanging out, jamming over there, this, there.

And then when I was in Europe, this one kid that was like into metal had like a real-to-reel recorder and like a guitar. And we'd sit there and just try to figure out like, you know, again, like Sabbath stuff, you know, anything that sounded dark. Yeah. And when I came back, that someone was like, I want to play. Yeah. And that's where it sort of took. off and the neighborhood guys helped me. So Outburst was already a band. Right. When I decided I wanted to start a band. So the Outburst guys helped me start my first band.

And George DeRico and Jay Refino joined my band. What was it called? It was called Show of Force. Oh, wow. And we were only around for like two years and I could barely play. I tried to get a few lessons, you know, from some friends to teach you some scales, and I got really frustrated doing that. Who needs it, you know? We just need to go, da-d-d-d-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-. What age were you when that? I was 16.

Amazing. Wow. Yeah, I was 16. And it became more natural to me just. to write a riff than to figure out a scale. I mean, that's been the last 20 years for me. Absolutely, of course. Believe me, I wish I could shred.

I honestly could. I'm in awe of anyone that could shred. Same. This guy's pretending like he could. I saw you play yesterday. I'm talking about the, like, the guys that were way more progressive than us. Like, you know, you got guitar players like Woody Weatherman, Glenn Cummings from Ludacrist, Chuck Lennonhead.

from the crumb circus, like, these guys, they're shredding like Steve Vye. And like, man, I can't, I can't do that. So being that, we listened to different kind of music, when we were forming, say, the style that would be the trademark from this neighborhood, we knew we couldn't play like those guys. And once we developed the riffs and the songs and saw that kids, like, gravitated to us, We didn't give a shit. I've always said this. More technical does not mean more interesting.

No. And the fact that breakdown played tomorrow, you could play just a demo. I was a fan of the first lineup. So the breakdown would ultimately become raw deal killing times. Right, yeah. So the original breakdown lineup was only together for about six months. Wow. And then they broke off.

And then they broke off. So there's history with Anthony Commonali in this neighborhood. Oh, really? Commonali's from Jackson Heights, which is only like a half a mile from here. And Commonali went to high school with AJ and the Outper's guys. Half a mile from here. Wow.

So that's another sect altogether. There's Jackson Heights guys that all hung out down here as well that would form more of the bands that you hear of, Gorilla Biscuits, Killing Time, Crown of Thorns. Wow. So the guitar aspect of Crown of Thorns is born here. Right. Amazing.

The aura that is Isaac is from Jackson Heights. He grew up on the same block as Common Alley. Really? In Jackson Heights. How did you two meet? Me and Danny? Yeah. We met around the way.

I would see him at shows. but there was a rehearsal studio called Underground that was in Woodside, which is not far from here. And we'd be in passing. There'd be a bunch of bands. Like Show Force, the band I was in would be rehearsing there. Demise would be rehearsing. Another queen's story, Poya, in itself.

Lord is it. He's from Corona, which is not far from here either. But it was a world away. Yeah, right, of course. Back then. Back then, yeah. Man, demise. There were...

Unbelievable. Yeah. So... Some of those riffs, like, what were you guys doing? How did you know? Where did this come from? How did you do this? I don't know.

Like, we'd just be toying around. Sometimes we play right here. Yeah, really? You bring your guitar here. Yeah, play right here, or I played down by the river. Do you remember writing anything specifically right here? Or an inspiration for anything? Not, not particularly right here.

Not particularly right yet. I saw you guys talking about, like, like, street fight the song and, like, how it came about, like, with the lyrics and all. So, Jeff and I were eating at a place called Paul's Burger. Not McDonald's. Not McDonald's. Okay.

It's not a Big Mac. The Big Mac might be a little exact. No, no, because, like, I just totally, like, wrecked the song for you. I'm sorry. Walking down the street with my Paul's handbook. It's lyrical. Don't fall insane. Lyrical.

It's hyperbole. It's fine. It's more interesting than that. So like we, we, uh, so we're hanging out eating and something popped off right in front of the burger place. Like, like, like a brawl. And, you know, so we're just like, oh, all right, whatever. And Jeff starts just writing words on a napkin. It was a weeknight, wasn't it?

It was. And he was just like, man. Yeah. I love this. You know what? What? We'll write this down. Wow.

Pretty much, yeah. So, yeah, he wrote these words on a napkin and just left it there. It's just whatever. So I saw the napkin. I looked at it and I just grabbed it. I put it in my pocket. And when I got home, I, like, took, you know, empty my pockets out. And I'm like, what the fuck?

I was like, yo, this is cool. So I wrote the music around the lyrics. Wow. only time I've ever written a song around later. It's super rare. Super rare. Usually like you write the riffs and then here's the song. So then I had I had my friend

Nick Benettos. By the way, that's another completely different story because the Benetos brothers are from this bench and Cold Front started at this bench. Everybody gets hurt started at this bench. Oh my God, there you go. And Nick

Benetos started Coldfront. Chris Benettos was in fit of anger. We started at this bench and everybody gets hurt. For those who don't know, you've probably seen Chris Benetto's designs and drawings eight billion times on different shirts and demos and records. How did you delegate who was joining which band when a huge group of people were here? It's just like, I got guitar. I got bass.

It wasn't anything like that. It was just like whoever was hanging. out like yo you want to go jam we're a band now yeah yeah we're leeway now I guess yeah we're gonna create a thing that's still gone 30 years later I guess it's it's similar to like how the the younger cats are like really together now that's how we were we were really tight-knit here and we were very supportive of each other and like just to keep bands going you know like this guy can't do it I want to keep doing all right cool I'll help I'll keep it going And I really got to thank those guys because without them, there's no music in my life.

I mean, that's a beautiful thing. It sounds like selflessness. It's all about the music, the band, keeping it going. It doesn't sound like any kind of ego or anything, which is, you know, can be tricky. Yeah, I don't know. I guess, like, our parents used to be nonchalant about everything. So everything we did, we just like, all right, whatever, we're just doing this. Did you guys ever speak just because you're talking about like everybody's very together like did anybody ever write it would you ever write a riff and then be like you know what this isn't really this isn't a crown of thorns riff this is you take this one yeah you know you mean I think I think the first one of the first riffs I ever wrote like George Dorico heard it and put it in an opera song and he's like yo I took your riff so was a gift that I'm stolen yeah yeah

Yeah, they were like, I wouldn't be like, nah, that shit's mine. I was like, all right, cool, I'm not in a band anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what Albert's riff it was? It was in that song, true, like the fast, the fast part. The verse in it. The verse, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's sick.

So tell me about early days of crown of thorns. And I just want to preface. Colin has been wanting to ask you about crown of thorns and riffs and stuff for, since I've known him, I would say. All right. Tell me about crown of thorns coming together. Tell me what you can about train yard blues. I'm dying for it.

All right, here we go. That's church. This is church. It's wild. So, like I said, I had seen Danny around. You know, at Stewart's always say what's up to him. He was already rolling with Hoyer. They already had, like, you know, started the crew.

thing that was already like up and going and uh the first band i played in in show of force uh our bass player franklin re he went on to playing 108 awesome and in shelter fuck yeah what luck yeah my the bass player no not the base player is my bass player in show of force the the guitar player of applerce at the time jay uh pretty much brought around Franklin and

you know he went to high school the same high school we went to but he was much younger he was like three or four years younger he was Danny's age and metalhead Asian

with Voivot hair cut like he had like the one side shave with the long hair and he was friends with Danny because he went to high school with Danny and Chaka from Byrne. Yeah. So Chaka's from this from this area as well.

He's in the Woodside Projects, this is a block from the high school. Okay. Chaka allegedly invented the spin kick. That's actually true. I asked, I asked Chaka this one time and he had told me it was Is he the first guy you saw spin kick? Nah. Nah, come on. Saab. That's not some reason to the last fine. I mean sob, I'm perfected. But I can't, you can't fact-check that because, you know, I wasn't at every show, you know what I'm saying? The first person I saw do a spin kick was saw him. There you go. And he made, and he connected very well.

Oh, yeah. Some more hard lower. Wow. Yeah. The bench spawned spin kiss. So, anyhow, so like Franklin, after our first band had broken up, so like 91, 92, we still stayed friends and, like, uh, our whole life revolved around seeing where the cromags were going after best wishes. Yeah, right.

Because in Franklin's circle in Jackson Heights, so Franklin knows Danny from Jackson Heights. Franklin knows Rob Buckley, who wrote most of Alpha Omega. Those roofs are. In Jackson Heights. So, you know, we would go and watch. Rob Buckley played Alfa mega shit before it came out. Whoa. And like...

What was your reaction to Alfa? I'm at the time. Loving it. Good. That's what I like to hear. I was loving it. I'm not happy with the album version of it, but just like hearing rehearsals of it. Yeah, yeah.

And the direction. The music is insane. Yeah. As it was coming together, it was Paris and Rob Buckley and Harley. and Harley was actually playing drums, you know, writing these songs. So I heard that going on. You heard the unrefined, like raw.

The raw shit of it. So like, I wasn't playing in a band at a time. So I was just like super fixated on this, like, record coming out. And one day Franklin calls me up. He's like, yo, what are you doing right now? I was like, no, there's nothing chilling. He was like, yo, I'm at a rehearsal. He was like, Isaac wants to start a band, and he's auditioning five guitar players at the same time in the same room.

And I'm like, what? For anyone who doesn't know, is Danny who he was talking about, same person. And I was like, all right, that's weird. He's like, he's like, dude, these guys suck. He's like, I'm having a rough time here. Like, can you just come down and jam with me? Like, you know, just so I could salvage what's going on here. So I didn't go there with any intention of starting a band.

I'm going there because Franklin asked me to come down. Coming to save the day, basically. Just help out a friend. Just help out a friend and whatever. So I go. I say what's up to everybody. And I plug in. And all right, let's go.

You know, I just started noodling around. And by the end of the rehearsal, the five guys, that he had to audition, sat there, and watched me, Franklin, and the drummer of demise at the time write the first Crown of Thorn song. Wow. Do you remember what it was? The song was it? Mental masquerade. Mental masquerade. How do you start out? How do you know to do that? All, because Crown of Thorns riffs, like, you're saying Alpha Omega was your thing at the time before it came out. They're very unique the way that you did all the like kind of higher string ringouts yeah ring out twinkly type stuff

i i wouldn't have thought to do that you didn't have like a roadmap not because i i wasn't really doing anything at the time there was no game plan oh i had already done my first stint in breakdown at the time and i used to write songs for breakdown tailored to just not break the mold but just like add my touch to it. So it was just like, all right, just don't have to sound like nothing. Like I'm just here having fun. So, you know, just noodling around.

You know, I was listening to everything and anything at that time. On top of the Cromax thing, you know, that'd be listening to a lot of Slayer. I'd be listening to, you know, a lot of dark wave, a lot of, you know, a lot of punk. So just whatever. It just felt really loose. The melody in Crown of Thorns never left.

It's in every single song. It sounds like he was driven to write emotional lyrics because the music really lended to. It set a mood. I think that was pretty much accidentally stumbling onto a specific style. Yeah. In that room that day. Creating a style.

Did you finish that jam, whatever, finish the song or whatever, and think like, oh, we got something. No. We are called Crown of Thorns. Well, I just thought of it. Cool jam. I used to do it a lot.

I used to sit in with a bunch of my friends, you know. I just thought it was something. All right, cool, we got a song done. Yeah. All right, peace, I'll see you. And but Danny was just like, I'll see you next week. So he was very, he heard it. He was the catalyst to actually make it a band.

Wow. So it ended up being myself. Franklin and Danny was like the original original thing. And like jeer from Demise had just sat in for that. So we were on a mission just to recruit a drummer. And Franklin went to high school as well with Jimmy. Kings. Like half mile down that way.

The man. So Isaac said, I'll see you next week. He said I'll see you next week. And then also 30 years from now. Sporatically. Yes. Yes. And there was a lot going on in Danny's world at the time.

He was a notorious graffiti artist. Yeah, I was going to ask if you were involved in that and all, because all of Train Yard Blues is like, that's kind of in the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, everything was a reflection of what was going on in his life at the time. And it was very turbulent. Like, we lend up.

recruiting Dimmie because Franklin knew Dimmie and then Dimmie's mom would let us jam in her basement and we wrote the EP in Dimmie's mom's base. Wow.

And we were a band for I don't know, two months or something and we only have like two songs and then Danny's like, yeah, we got a show. All right. So like, oh shit, I got to write more songs. How long's the set?

So, you know, All right, we got to go to Jimmy's basement every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, the first EP came together quickly. Because it had to. Because it had to, because we were opening for killing time on our first show at a club called The Grant. Awesome.

This is, like, early 94, something like that. So prior to this show happening, Isaac gets into an altercation with someone, breaking into his girlfriend's car, and the guy stabbed him with a screwdriver in his liver. And he had to go to ER. They opened them up and had to fix him. So Danny got stabbed.

He had a screwdriver handle hanging out out of his side. Jesus. You know, out of his side. I think he talks about that in the New York hardcore. Yeah, he does. Yeah. And he had a tragedy, and his brother lost his life. This all happened, like, right when we were doing our,

our first gig. And he has beef with like half in New York. And deep down, he's like just in a really emotional dude. Yeah. You know, whatever his reputation holds, he's really a romantic. And, you know, there's a lot of that

that he keeps pent up inside. I think, like, writing lyrics was an outlet. The outlet. Yeah. You know, for him to express himself. properly because everything is hyperbole. You only hear shit about it.

Yeah. So, yeah, man, that's how the band. I carry that with me to this day. Like I said it last night, but, like, Chronothorns specifically taught me to kick ass and sing about my feelings. And that's the hardest thing a man can do.

You can do both. You can absolutely do both. They lend to each other. They're complimentary. They compliment. Yeah, absolutely. They aren't. I mean, you think about even other records that were, you think about them as like the, like, like, death threat, like last days.

Emotional. Super emotional record when you really read the lyrics, but it's also the hardest hardcore record maybe ever. Eyes of the Lord. Eyes of the Lord. Very emotional. Very hard. And it's all there. It's all about being sad.

Yeah. It's all about being real, isn't it? Who needs to smile? There's no reason. It's true. There's no reason. I've heard that. Mike, I have a question for you.

you. When you're on stage, when you were a young man playing guitar, your first time's on stage, maybe whatever, today, yesterday, when you're on stage. We got a question that we ask everybody about who they do on stage. So, for example, when I play in my band, I like to do, I imagine I'm, I love Hetfield and Porcel from Euthan today. Those are my two, like, those are my guys in my brain who I'm trying to, like, do on stage. I would love to know. Even if you've never thought about it, who do you think when you... Who you subconsciously, I really, when you're playing guitar. Who do you do?

I subconsciously do Doug Holland. Beautiful. On stage, because he was swanky. He did, like, you know, because he's an older cat. Yeah. And he would do, like, like, 70s rock shit. Yeah. On stage.

And, like, you know, he'd, like, raise his guitar like this. Yeah. And, like, you know, he'd spread his legs apart. You know, like, like, like, like, like, Sort of like some Joey Strummer shit. Yeah. In that clip from the movie where they play, It's the Limit and Hard Times,

he just looks cool. I don't know how else to describe it. He's just, he's in a chrome egg shirt. He's wearing the tightest, like, necklace ever, and he's just doing his thing. He was a bona fide rock star, man. Yeah, it's awesome.

Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols helped write a tune or two on one of the first crowd record. Is that true? Yes. Wow. More. And they, they, they, they're,

crowd's first show ever, they opened up for the clash. If anything, Doug Holland, just because he looks so fucking cool, playing that, like, Les Paul. Always Les Paul, and I'm a big Les Paul guy. And yeah, I totally get that. Then, like, like later, uh, when I started picking a bass and playing bass in, in bands, there was a guy that I tried to emulate

on stage because he looks so cool and it would be Eric Thrice from H2O Oh okay The first bass player Eric thrice is a tattoo artist now in Atlanta Yeah But he would Yo this dude would split his legs

Like this Power And fucking Raw power And just strong And they called him smoky On stage I was like

That looks so fucking cool So you was doing Smokey on the base. I do Smoky on base. And it helped, too, because I'm kind of tall. And, like, you know, if the front man's got, like, like, shorter or whatever, like, it sort of, like, levels the playing field. But that's not the way. It's because it looked cool.

Speaking of the devil. Oh, my God. We're just talking about hardcore and Astoria, and we're just hanging out. A friend from Outburst just happens to walk by. Jeez. Wait, yeah, we got it. Come on in. You got to come in.

No, please. You got to come in. We're talking about the bench. You're part of the story. Talking about the bench. Hey, I'm Bo. Hey, Bo, Joe. What's up?

Hey, how you see you again, man? Good to see you. Colin. Colin. Hey, how you doing, man? Wonderful. We're talking about... You know what a story now?

I live down the block. Hell yeah. And we're talking about the bench and all the many bands connected to the bench. How long have you guys been talking? Probably an hour at this point. Quite a quite a while. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All that. All that. What are you got for us?

You helped write some of Born to Expire. No, desperate measures. Desper measures. It doesn't even crazy. It would even crazier. Wow. An opus. So my house is on 14th.

So this is 18th Street. I'm going to have to let you talk into my mic a little bit. Oh, yeah. So this is 18th Street right here, right behind us directly. And I'm sure Mike was telling you all about the radius where we all grew up. So he grew up, his house is right off the, what was your street again? I'm on 26 Road. 26 Road.

Yeah. which is right off 18th Street. Then 14th place is the next block over. And that's where you had Saso, original Leeway drummer. He lived on 14th place. Then you walk one block over, and that was 14th Street was me,

George from Amperst, AJ from Leway. Benetto's Brothers. And then that was 12th Street. So the next block over there is 12th Street, right? It's 18, 14, 12. Was, yeah, Nick,

bananas, Nicolefront. and Chris B from everybody gets heard for the anger, wait, we should mention Mike DeJohn's first band, Show of Force. Show of Force. So my best friends of this day, best man at my wedding, Nick Kastanos, his brother, Tony Costanos, aka Tony the Greek,

the Greek on the demo, also on 14th Street. Didn't want to leave him out, because he's, for all you Show of Force fans out there, the drummer. All five of you. And I know two of us. them. I do you feel about Outburst Seven-inch being one of the most influential EPs to modern hardcore?

That's wild. I heard you guys talking about that, like, recently. It's a fact. I just bought one for 40 bucks in Chicago. It was in like a secret bin. Yeah. I think you should just bought the Blackout re-release. The old one.

What the OG? What the OG? How do I feel about it? Yeah. I don't know. We're just stupid kids writing songs. That's what we like. That's what we like.

We all grew up. So, yeah, and Mike tried out for the band when our first bassist. Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you. Went by the wayside. Did you know that? I used to just rehearse me. You briefly outbursted him. Yeah.

He's outbursted Jason for the longest. You know, he rodee. He fixed my car at the anthrax in Connecticut with like a safety pin or something, my alternator. Yeah, and we were all, and it was us and leeway really getting the start on the block. Yeah, that's kind of what Mike. showed me was that leeway was kind of AJ specific as kind of the forerunner The godfather of story. I'm sure he mentioned this and if you didn't he would bring all

the music to our block. Yeah he would you know he was a little ahead of us we went to high school together but he was uh when we were freshmen he was a junior so he was two years ahead of us but he was already down in village and hanging out with like guys proud and yeah you know he met Eddie and this has this open covered? Oh yeah, yeah, Oh yeah, but this is good. Perfect reaffirmation. All right, now that we're all here, why don't we take this party? I'm starving.

You guys hungry? Yeah. I can eat. Where should we eat? Well, we can eat at a place that doesn't exist anymore called Pizza Palace. Perfect. That's what I've always wanted. Let's go to Pizza Palace.

Okay, that sounds good. Here we are at Pizza Palace. Turns out it's closed. I'm starving, but we were, We were... It's a busy street. It's a very busy corner. Now I'm even hungry here after that.

But it turns out we were brought here for a reason. Mike, what can you tell us about Pizza Palace? Well, this place was a gathering spot for the other faction of Astoria in hardcore. So kids that lived in this direct area then went to school at St. John's Prep, Joe Joe went to school in St. John's prep basically gather here after school. The pizza sucked here.

It's fucking terrible. But their marketing plan was they had an arcade in the back of the... See, there we go. So, kids would come out of school. School empty out. The bus stops right here. Everybody comes in, grabs a shitty slice, and then blows like $5 on video games.

Genius. So this area birthed token entry oh another one added to the list added to the list so you know

Ernie Perada basically he was like like the musical mastermind of token entry and common Ali will end up joining token entry and doing you know

infronting token entry before Road Deal happened Previously, also, the original name was Gilligan's Revenge. Yeah. Right? For Token Enchi, they were called Gilligan's Revenge. Token Hens are a much better name. I think so.

And there were other bands that were relevant back then that don't exist now, that their names don't come up much, would be the New York Hudes. Oh, yeah. Of course. Right? A band called Abomination that were active in played shows with all of us. Yeah. And Ernie Perada's brother Ray Parada fronted that band

and a really good guitar player named Matt O'Brien from this neighborhood. So they would hang out here and hang out down the block at a place called The Pyramids. So the Pyramids was just this like bench area that had like these like angled brick structures on them that look like pyramids and kids go skate there. Yeah. And try to like do tricks. off these, like, you know, little embankments and whatnot.

And that's where, like, the token entries hung out. That's where the gorilla biscuits hung out. I see. So, Walter would come to this neighborhood hang out here because Arthur Smilos is from this neighborhood. Live right down the block. So I was telling the guys that this is right in the middle of two neighborhoods in Queens.

So a story is that way. Jacksonites is this way. So Walter and his family lived on one side of a story apart. We lived on the other, but he went to LIC, which is the other high school in this area. So there were four high schools that had hardcore kids go to them. St. John's Prep, as Mike mentioned before, that was where AJ and Avello and Anthony Kamenali, and we all went, the guys in Outburst. Then there was LIC where Walter went, Long Island City.

And then McClancy is in Jackson Heights, which if you could see, See this poster right here behind Bo. Oh, yeah. There's a Montaian McClancy poster. That was the other high school, and that's where Arthur from Girl of Biscuits, underdog, sieve, they're all,

we're all, just one big family of Queens people. Wow. Would converge here. Yeah. And Brian High School. That was the fourth one. Went briefly. I got far back.

Brian's the fourth one. And you guys say the other faction. Yeah. Were you guys cool? Yeah. Yeah. There was a pause there. Yeah.

We were cool. It's just like they were just local to here. We were local over there. For everybody, just so you're aware, we're about 10 blocks away from the park. That's how local hyphenol. We drove here and took about three and a half minutes. Was there ever a time where it was like, did you guys, when you were starting hanging out and starting on stuff, did you know that the other kids were here?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There wasn't like some moment where you were like, who the fuck? This pizza balance. I think outburst was the bridge of social harmony between that area and this area. There were certain people who would be the semi-circle to bring circles together. So Antony Cominale and his younger sister, Barbara Ann, shout-outs of bubs, went to St. John's Prep.

But they lived in Jackson Heights. And that's where they knew Arthur and, you know, like the Radovich sisters and Gus and Siv from this area. We would meet here. They would hang out here. We'd be over there. We'd sometimes meet here. So we knew of each other's presence. But this is like when everyone was still starting out as bands.

I think, like, Leeway was the only band that was still like. Leway and Token Entry were the only bands were fully formed. Gorillivis was still doing demos. We hadn't even done a demo yet. And you guys all seeing each other at shows as well? Yeah, yeah, we knew each other. Moshing on each other. So everybody would end up taking a train back together then from shows,

if you guys went to shows in the city or whatever. I'm sure everybody was on the end coming back up this way, right? You know what's funny is you'd see them at C-Bs or Pyramid, but it's like you saw them more here. Yeah, right. Because it's just a hangout, this is the neighborhood. Yeah, I want to say this is about 86, 87. When we graduated in high school, and 87 for us, when we did the day,

demo. I think Biscus had done their demo and you could, but still doing demos. Where was the Miles to go picture take? Oh, that was on a pier in Brooklyn. That was like BG Pappas's idea to shoot like a skyline of the city in the background. But it sort of hate that day was sort of hazy. Yeah. So if you look at the like the layout, even in the negatives, you couldn't really see it too well. So, so Bill Wilson started to just make it like world blue. Oh, oh, it looks great. I mean, it's like iconic in itself. Motorhead did the same thing on Ace of Spades.

It's a gray sky behind them. They had it made blue on the cover just to make it look back. Shout out to Pappas. Awesome. Legendary. This is good stuff. Legendary. Oh, yeah.

No choice intro, Phil. Top 10 all time. That's like a rock with you. That's like Quincy Jones. Yeah. Phil. That's the Queens version of We Got an L.

Dude, got you. Yeah, it's the queen's like, we're going to put some, we're going to do more. A little bit more on that. I learned, I like ripped that off of Saso, who was the original leeway drummer who grew up with us, I mentioned him earlier, but he was big into triplets. Yeah. Big into triplets. So like, you know, if you listen to the leeway enforcer demo, not born to expire, he's doing triplets everywhere.

And so I'm like, I love that. That's awesome. So I just kind of like ripped him off. He's Saso. Shout out Sasa. We listen to the triplet at the top of Over the Mountain on the Aussie record. Like just played over and over. There's a dog.

They're doing three. This is the dope as fill I've ever heard. Well, we got to get something to eat. Yeah, I'm starving. We know a little joint not too far from here. It's also of historical significance or just delicious. Both. Perfect.

That's all we want. Let's go. Part of this interruption, We've got to talk to you about some important things. Possibly the most important thing. That's right. And that's the human body, your body, how it functions, how it operates, how it works. You've got to put the right stuff in the tank.

Lord knows we don't always do that. But the thing that we are doing right is AG1. Yep. Every single day. I witnessed you do it recently. I was very proud of you. I drink it every morning. It's the first thing I do on an empty stomach, 12, 16 ounces of ice cold water.

this one tiny little scoop of greens, and then it allows me to dump my multivitamin in the trash. People have reported they feel more energy. It improves your gut biome health. It does all the things that you're probably not already doing. Research studies shows that 97% of people that drink it feel more energized, Beau. That is a lot. Exactly. That's most people. Listen, I've recommended this to every single person I know on and off the record at this point. We get asked all the time. Do you have it on you?

Like when we go to Fest and stuff? And the answer is literally yes every time. Yeah, I have a travel pack right here. Give it a shot. It has done wonders for us, for our energy, for our psyche, for our bodies. Please go to athletic greens.com slash hardlore. And you're going to get five free travel packs. This hardcore genre that we live in, we're always traveling.

You're always traveling. You're going to need this on the road. You're also going to get a year supply of vitamin D. Vitamin D, something you're not getting enough of. We beg of you. Protect your body. Do you get one life, do it right? Damn.

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Yeah, of course. Every day in my life, there's a, there's a manscape product in one of my back pockets. I guarantee you. It may be ruining my back. equilibrium and softening the pocket of my jeans. But who cares? Because I don't stink. That's right. You don't stink. And neither should you. And if you use code hardlore, you're getting 20% off and free shipping. What are your favorites? Boy, I love the preserver. I love the silicone scrubber in the shower with the body wash. That's probably my favorite thing. My skin feels so good when I use that. I use it every day.

They've thought of everything, man. It's out of control. The crop reviver post, post, point. a show, the crop preserver before playing a show. And if you've ever staying right in front of me, you'll know, my gloves may stink, but my balls are wonderful. Code Hardlord, 20% off and free shipping. Back to this amazing episode with Mike DeJohn. We're at a place called Peter Hot, a Middle Eastern restaurant run by a Syrian family,

who are good friends of mine. I feel they have the most authentic, best tasting Middle Eastern food in this area. And you know, we're half a food show, basically. So this is what we're all about. I know you guys are like all into like the fast food thing and the chains and and trying slow food too. Trying out like, you know, chain stores in like different towns.

This area is, I don't know, this is like fast for us. So there's a large Arab community here and a few blocks up that way. There's an area called Little Morocco. And it's a whole strip of like, you know, Egyptian, Syrian, Algerian restaurants up there. Hookabars. It's wild. It's wild at night. And Satan, Muay.

That's the best Muay gym in New York City. So the thing is, we focus on fast food a lot because we toured so much. Yeah. Right. And you take what you can get. You don't have time to find little places like this most of the time. And you're touring a lot now, Mike. Yeah.

You've done more touring in your life in the past five or six. six years you said. Then in my entire life. Wow. Yeah. Tell me about that. Well, around 2016 had been working for like a high-end construction management company on salary, doing really high-end shit, like working for designers and just that, like, circle.

Family man, working man, gigging in your free time, basically, right? Pretty much, yeah. Keep on gigging in your free time. So that job burned me out to the point where like it put me in the ER for a day. Oh shit. You know, just from sleep deprivation. I was, you know, I was like flying back and forth to L.A. to like, you know, to do work for clients and like coming back on the red eye going straight to work. So, you know, I needed, you know, ultimately I wasn't feeling well at all and I had to get looked at.

And then it was just a point where I was like, fuck this. I quit just to take some time. time off to recuperate. Of course. And then AJ again, always coming through, always being like, sort of like a good ear to listen to a good voice of reason. He was just like, you know, pro mags are out on a, you know, on a two-week run.

You just want to come out, just hang out, drive. He was like, yeah, I'll do that. He was like, we'll pay you. So I had so much fun doing that. that it would come around again. They would go out with, I had God for like a month straight. Wow. Cool.

And I'd do the same thing, you know, to drive, then, you know, start settling at the end, just start getting into the whole inner workings of doing like back end work. And I really enjoyed it. Craig Satari had been like the main bass player. You know, those don't know Craig Satari. you know, like he's a whole story in himself. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, you know, from as early as like, I don't know. Crug ahead. Yeah. Yeah. He was straight ahead. Yeah. And like, you know, his whole, his whole story is amazing.

And he's an amazing bass player. Started the two straps. Dude. First person I saw for sure. To do two straps. He's got to be the first person ever to do two straps. Yeah. Function.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not going anywhere. Not fashion. No, no. Function. So he had to leave the tour that we were on to do a gig with Sigavital in the middle of the tour and had asked me if I could learn the Cromack set on bass for that one show. And I was just like, oh shit, all right.

Yeah. Yeah. And Craig like vouched for me with the rest of the band, you know, saying, yo, this guy, he's the man. He should, he should be doing it. because they had just thought of me as a guitar player. Which if you're a good guitar player, you're a great bass player. And you're a great guitar player. So you're less grateful. I had big shoes to fill. Victor Wooten.

You know, so like getting into the mindset of players like Harley and like Craig, I just like wrote a bass with me on tour and I would practice every night in the hotel room, It was my time just to fill in for that one show. Wow. It was in St. Louis. Did that? Sorry. Go ahead.

I was just going to ask, did you get the bug then? You played? I was nervous because I didn't get a rehearsal. I didn't get a sound check. I didn't get a line check. They blew me up on stage to do Asia Quarral like cold. Yeah. So they were like, yo, just do your best.

It doesn't matter. It's just one show. And those bass lines are so dry. diving. You gotta do that. And I killed it. And like Mac, like, who's very conservative with the compliments, just like fucking after like the second song

and like jumped out of his off the seat and fucking high five me. And like, all right, we're having a good time. And that really reassured me that I could. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

This is no white sauce. This is for you. So they. Full circle for Mike doing that because back, if you rewinded to our garage days on the block, AJ used to have his half stack in my garage. And we would play Agent Quarrel from front to back. How many times we jammed to Agent Quarrel from being in and,

might be on guitar. We knew it like we knew how to say the alphabet, right? Wow. And as a kid in high school, that really helped me to, you know, get my chops together. Yeah. And that's a brand new. album at the time. Yeah. Yeah, 86, right? So we're trying to study it and learn it. So crazy. It's like me being learning King Nine songs and playing them all the way to.

A lot of people, which I can do. I'll tell you what. We played Asia Quarles so much that you had to know it. Right. Because whoever you would jamming with at the time, it would come up during breaks just to have fun, just like, you know. You got to get our fucking come in with a guy. You guys got each of you got a favorite track on the record, a particular particular one? To play or to anything? I guess, yeah, either. To play? Like, what do you think is the strongest song on that record? Well, obviously, the click, click, click, you know, for we got to know, it's fun to play. Yeah. But I think like, um, to get to a good groove is, uh, I would say seekers of the truth. Dude. Because it slows everything down. You get into like a nice, the part where it opens up before the bridge with the path of right just nest. Yes.

The open up part. And he gets all funky with it, you know, Mackey. That part is. You know, he's just sitting, basically standing above the stair. It's the limit might be mine. It's the limit is mine. That's, I think that's mine too. I don't want to say the build.

Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. It's just a, you know, it's hard. It's a bad bird song. But it's, you know. Whatever. Whatever. For a little while, we covered, I first could cover life of my own.

Really? Yeah. That seemed to be a pretty new. So wild. Yeah. But it just was a good single along because once you, you come in two of this and then everybody was done. Everybody wants to do that.

And what year were you doing that? 89 maybe. So that's right out of the year. That's so cool. That's awesome. I remember when I was younger, there was a time where like if you were to cover a band, honestly, still now, if you were to cover a band that was current that just put out of right. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be like, people be like,

Fopah, right? Yeah. Like, what do you do? But at that time, it's like there, there's, there's none of that, like, attitude about anything. It's just like, no, the song's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you going to do? You're going to cover Motorhead or something? Yeah, right. There's nothing else. There's nothing before that. Yeah, right. Come on. So we covered, uh, you know, in our CDs in the club days, we cover bad brains band in D. Yeah. Whenever we went down to D. Yeah. Crowd, all twisted, it was our first cover. Wow.

That's that, there's a live version of you guys doing that. Yeah, like an 88. Yeah, yeah. That's, that is, so I never knew that unemployed on the Crown Thorns record was a Crout. But listening to the Outburst cover of it, I was like, oh, this is this band Crout. And then I saw that it was unemployed as a cover too. And then I became a fan of Crout. Gotcha.

For us, they were like the O-G Astoria. like even aging from leeway when he's starting leeway it used to be the unruled right not a lot of people like you know ever mentioned that but they were still looking up to bands like crowd Murphy's Law because they were already on their way you know when we were whatever 18 17 yeah they were already major conflict we did or like like mentioned earlier yeah so to sorry guys no crowd it was like we have to cover homage to like our idols

that's awesome you got a favorite age of world It's the limit. We just said that. That was our answer. The bills? Yeah. It's unreal. And it's my favorite to play.

Ah. Well, the, that guitar part is interesting. That whole scale, that's everything. It's bizarre. Yeah, you're right. It is, it's 0143. It's specifically in the set, later in the set, because it just re-energize.

is the set and you got to be warmed up to play it because it's really busy the right-hand right-hand killer yeah love that everybody so crushing demoniac too i love playing that i mean dude best wishes what do you land on best wishes a lot of people are torn love it love it tearing here i see people who say that's no that that's better than oh better is tough to say i don't know if i can do that sophie's just night and day it's i mean it's completely different Literally apples and oranges. It is, yeah. The one I'm going to put on is alpha omega.

The one I'm going to put on a list as one of the best of all times, age of poor. So it's just kind of de facto. Depends on the day. Yeah, right, sure. We just, I mean, Harley just played Chicago a couple months ago and played like all the best wishes. And then a few others, you know. and Apocalypse Now.

It was awesome. Bangor. It was awesome. I say we take a bite. Are they all here? We review a little bit, and then we cut, enjoy a meal. Side note about this place, when they would have black and blue ball.

Up to about 12 years ago, people would come to my house. I would host people in Germany because people would fly in from all over the place in Black and Blue because it was big at the time. So I would do a barbecue at my place every Black and Blue weekend. And so people would come, eat, go to Black and Blue,

come back, hang out. I'd have like a spread out. And a few times I catered Black and Blue Party from this place. That's awesome. Beautiful. That's amazing. Nice shot of this.

Look at that. Enjoy. What don't you want? Oh. Very colorful. The pickled beats, dude. Forget it. Sean?

Mm. Get all up in there. I'm great. What do you think? That'll do. I'll do. Breakdown blacklisted. Let's talk about it.

Okay. Hard lords, my personal, not hardlores. My pick for the greatest hardcore EP of all time. You told me of the... the car on the way over here. I said, I thought this was produced in a million-billion-dollar studio the way this thing sounds. The toms are raging.

Guitar is perfect. Everything's locked in. We put it on last night. Couldn't believe it. You said otherwise. Tell me about the making of breakdown blacklist. So, Jimmy Williams from Maximum Penalty, another fucking fucking band. that also brought melody big time and feeling.

Could you love me? One of the greatest hardcore songs is all time. All times. You got balls when you go for it like that. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So Jimmy had this hookup at a studio called Mother West.

Okay. In Manhattan on the west side. And he was like, go check this place out. Because we needed to do the first scarhead EP. and we think of somewhere to go that limited budget and I was like all right check this place out

so I really hit it off with the owner and engineer of Mother West his name's Charles Newman he's at in LA now studios out there now but we still keep in such

amazing guy knows nothing about hardcore he's just doing like indie rock a band he played in was on the Empire Records soundtrack. Oh, amazing. Yeah, like a platinum record, like, on the wall

to just have a song in a soundtrack. That one play. Yeah. But, you know, so the opposite of what Colin thinks this place is, it was a tiny railroad apartment converted into like a small makeship studio. Wow.

And the console was something you'd use at a live venue, like a Mackey console, and very limited outboard gear. And it was digital. They were ADAT. Oh, wow. ADAT recordings.

ADAT, yeah. And ADDATs were notorious for, like, eating the tape and, like, not calibrating the right way. But the budget was there. This guy, Charles, was very receptive in absorbing everything that was,

in my mind of how I wanted this record to sound, like post-production. Right. Got it recorded really quick. We went to Baltimore to do Jeff's vocals. His vocals were done in a dingy bathroom in a basement in someone's house in Baltimore. And we brought the ADATs with us in the shopping bags. We took a bus down there and brought the recorders with us to record. Jeff Donham Baltimore.

The mics were the same that you would use in a live show, just regular 57s. I think it was mainly the people involved playing. We just tried to get the best sounds that we could write onto tape. I had been helped out immensely prior to this happening by producers like Tom Sores, because I had done mentally vexed already at Normandy. So that was a learning experience.

Which, again, sounds perfect. Yeah, I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot about disciplining, tracking, make sure I'm in tune all the time, make sure I got fresh strings on all the time, changing my picks out all the time. Do you remember what amps were used by any chance? Dual rectifier and Marshall, J.C.M. 800.

Like, what I played. Classic. What I used on stage last night. That's a classic stack, yeah. Wow. Kramer Pacer series Stratocaster That AJ sold me

The original one The original one Yeah About 10 years later All right It got stolen At a At a at a

Like not even a horror show It was like a pop gig That I was doing And I was heartbroken Because like I would always come into my house And see I had it in a spot where I could just see it

where I walk in, like this red guitar, so I could just gravitate and go and play it. And all the writing comes from that guitar. I don't really write much on my last ball. I always used that one. Wow. So my girlfriend at the time knew how upset I was. We played in a band together and like,

tracked down an identical guitar. Really? That was made the same week, the same run, same like, serial numbers and- One number off? I literally picked it up thought I was playing the same guitar and his same color, same finish.

Kramer Quality Control is awesome And this is what they were still making Kramer's in New Jersey when like Eddie Van Halen would go to the shop and fuck around with the engineers there like designing these guitars. So cool.

So it was that setup. And mainly I think what really sets that record apart is it's Lou Medina like the drummer he made the drums sing

where you could just make the point with the room mic hanging in the room it was a good drum kit it was the drum kit belonged to Erica Badu and each drum was a different color it was like it was like the

African colors that's awesome you know but it was like some custom drum shop like brands okay I mean like you hit these sounds unbelievable amazing so there's your breakdown to neo soul connection yeah that's it one one connection yeah one degree one degree break down straight to badu yeah then the the mix was just um mainly me and and charles in a room I was just like you know with headphones on just he just he just he just he just hearing what I thought it would sound like.

And he nailed it, man. He just nailed everything. Just EQing. Yeah. EQing on a... On a live console. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah.

Don't matter what you got. You got a lot. So what? They got there. And together, we'll be... I knew it's where he was going. It takes different truth. Yeah.

I'm sitting here watching... What about writing for Blacklist? who was most involved in that it was mostly me there's two songs on blacklisted that were written by someone else these these were songs that like rob de frosia

there was a jersey bank a lethal aggression and he was in breakdown before I joined so breakdown was only a band for three years before I joined and there were three different lineups complete different lineups

before I joined every guy that's Every guy was switched out. So the first incarnation of breakdown is all the raw deal killing time guys and Jeff. They went and did their own thing with Common Ali. That's raw deal. That's killing time. The rest is like epic history.

Then there were lineups. One was called the way it is compilation lineup where they had like some session drummer, do sick people. and then there was a lineup called where the wild things are a lineup where they just had a lineup together just to do songs on that comp. Wow. And then they were inactive for six months.

Then AJ, they hired AJ to do a couple shows with them. Hired. Because he's the guy, you know? At that time, Leeway is like here. So that had happened. I would say like 1990.

And enter Franklin Rhee, again, who's, again, a part of the reason why I'm here. The bench provides. The bench provides. Oh, Lord does it. He's on a record shop in St. Mark's Place, and there would be bulletin boards where people would put ads, you know, need bass player, need drummer, need this,

so there was an ad that Breakdown was looking for a guitar player. and it had like the information and then the guy's phone number like this. Yeah, and the tab. Where you could just tear it on. So Franklin tore the whole flyer off the wall so no one else would see it and then calls me up. He's like, yo, you like this band. He's like, why don't you just go try out? It wasn't a thought in my head.

It was just like Franklin made it possibly to know that this was happening. So AJ let me the seven inch. learned it. I had my first audition. It was myself, Rob DeFrosia. The drummer at the time was a guy from South Jersey named Joe Farley, who's no longer with us, the fucking awesome guy. And Larry Susie from Sub-Zero on bass. Underrated, Sub-Zero. Underrated and really like somebody that sets the precedent for stage presence. Ah, very important. You know what I mean?

Like, he would go eight shit. Yeah. Like on stage. His shirt would last for the first song and then be cut off. And he's going off. So that first rehearsal went very well. It was a place called Boo Studios in Midtown. And the Chrome eggs were rehearsing next door doing Alphibu.

Omega shit. Fuck yeah. Like while I was like auditioning for breakdown at the first time. Wow. More. Yeah. So my first show with them was in late 1990 at a place called Monkey Bar in Norwalk, Connecticut. Fuck, yeah.

It was leeway breakdown. Oh, awesome. A really, really good show. Has anybody ever told you that you have one of the most impressive memories of ever, like they've ever encountered? That's really making this work is how well. Really? You got a Rolodex up there.

Most people are, I don't know. You know what it is? It's, it's just like a plethora of things that changed my life, and there's just so much of it. Moments. There's way more shit. If you asked me to remember that, like, I couldn't tell you, but. Yeah, it's these important things. These were, like, redefining moments for me, and they kind of just happened a lot.

I mean, Jesus Christ, if you went and tried out for breakdown next to Kromag's rehearsing, rehearsing their alpha omega. I think you remember it too. I don't remember who was next story. They were good, though. Can I tell you a story? Because you had an underdog shirt when I mentioned it.

But this is the kind of stuff that I'll never It's for stuff like this for a podcast, you know? Yeah. But it must have been 88. There's a place called Roxy Studios, which is no longer, it's called Audit House Studios in Long Island City. Yeah.

And Roxy was where you would go back then to to rehearse. and so all the bands would go there because there was really only one band in queen one studio in queens okay and so at any given Friday night or Saturday night you'd see like Gorilla Biscuits there you know we were there and the musicids all the bands that we had mentioned previously and so one night I got a couple of good Roxy stories actually but we were finishing up and Gorilla Biscuits were in another studio but they started to break up and go like they were done

So what was left was like me, George, Jay from Outburst, Arthur and Walter in Studio A. Arthur had just joined Underdog on guitar. I don't think he played on Managing Point, but he was playing the show was up to that point. So he was big into Underdog. He was moonlighting because he took an entry to Biscuits to Underdog. Yeah, yeah.

So he was really in his big Underdog phase. And so I was like, do you know any Underdog songs? Of course, everybody knew. Like, everybody knew each other songs. Yeah. So we did the whole seven-inch, Underdog 7-inch, me on drums,

Jay on bass, Walter and George on guitar, and then I just sang, he did Richie's Ponce. Yeah. And I had that on a fucking tape. No. No.

So only orange 90-minute tape that I used to listen to driving to St. John's and back. I'm like, this is so pretty cool. We fucking did that shit, I mean. Because, not because of a underdog,

because you're, yeah, with my friends. Of course, right? And I'm like, oh, I messed up that part. You know, I've rewanted so many times. It went to my basement. I don't know what happened at that tape.

I moved out of a story in 2009. I spent all, like, all week looking for that tape. It was an orange Sony 90 minute. And I know it was at the end of that. And so, but that jam did take place. There was an album first, Burl Biscuits mashup doing underdogs. That's so wild.

Yeah. I've been so insane to hear now. You got to find it. You got to find it. You're Arthur do. Singing. Anybody doing Richie is crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. That's awesome. Wow. There were a bunch of spots where things would just happen. Like Don Fury, for instance, if you just booked a week in advance, you could go down in that basement and have a demo for 50 bucks. Right. Wow. 50 bucks.

What he would do is he would, he would, he, he, You'd have to... You recorded there? We were Don Fury. Yeah. First demo I ever recorded was at Don Fury. Wow. Where was his spot?

It was on Spring Street between Mont and Mulberry. Right by Vitties. You opened up one of these on the floor. That's how you went in. You went into the hatch doors. And Don lived upstairs. Is that the place that D. Because D. Snyder has always said he lived with Don Fury.

So we're about to have him on pretty soon. Well, Dee. So we're going to have that story out here. Yeah. Yeah. He has told the story. before that he lived with Don Fury at that studio when they first both moved

to New York. I think Don Fury played in Twisted Sister before they blew up. They were best button. Yeah. That's more. You got to tune in. You're going to hear it so soon.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah. I'll let in tell you. Shout out to Phoebe's Big Adventure. That's right. I saw Twisted Sister Flyer. He didn't know we've all wants you sandow like an old one. Like one he probably

played on. That's crazy. That part of that movie is like amazing you gotta burn foundational to me like in guitar yeah dude straight up let's talk about mentally vexed a bit whenever you take that big old bite and then we'll talk about it right

yes physically vexed you don't fucking starving there good no good me too I'm done I'm all because they're one of them by end that show last and I was hangary us too I swore I wouldn't get McDonald's and then we got McDonald's straight to McDonald's he literally we were at an

intersection looking up food and he was like anything about McDonald's fuck McDonald's hey look at that any important storm yeah and it's good and it's storm it was great mentally vexed landmark for me for sure was that a you or was that a tailor to you it was probably a same time type discovery for us so you felt oh yeah that was one of those a few records where most things i've heard Taylor my older brother who also plays in twitching tongues was like you have to listen of this. Chronothorns was probably a thing where at the same time we were both like

Ooh. Is he older than you? He is older than you. Did he turn you on to a lot of shit? Oh yeah. All right. He's his guy. He's my old head.

The old head. What can you tell me about making mentally vexed? A record that is incredibly ahead of its song. I can explain it in one word was chaotic. Beautiful.

Very chaotic. Our first our first release was very laxed because it came out on Equal Vision, right. Which was, that was not a normal thing. Right. Prior to that, they were just released, like, religious content and like, the Christian bands and like straight-ed stuff. And enter Franklin again, because he was connected to the Christian movement.

When we did the demos for Train Yard Blues, we did those demos for blackout records for Bill Wilson because he intended on putting it out when we brought we've got the recordings of it Franklin brought it over to Steve Reddy is like listen to this

he loved it and like I don't care what our format is I got to put this out and we thought it was it was cool that someone was like embracing our music that would otherwise not look at it.

Right. And knowing Steve forever, Steve was, like, one of my first shows ever. He was upstate. Like, my first band played together with Wolf Pack. Always there sometimes. Just remember him there for me, like, so long ago. And that's how that album came about.

Then, like, the band, like, really got popular fast. I gotta thank like the older G's in Shia Terra, in Murphy's Law, in killing time, in biohazard that like just embraced us. Not because we were friends or whatever. They were just like, wow, this band has something going on. Guys were good. And like kids are showing, like, we want them on board. And that was such a competence boost for us that like guys that we looked up to would wing us

that way. That is kind of the one of the main purposes of what we're doing with our show is to get newer kids into older music and older people into newer music. You know what I mean? It is so vital and important to embrace new music and that's like proof of concept.

Absolutely. I think things go in cycles where there's a cycle where everyone's kind of on the same page helping each other. Yeah. And then we go through cycles where people get bigger than the bridges and then people have convoluted ideas of what they think this is all about and things get very clicking and non-inclusive.

And then you'll see show attendants go down because people don't feel welcome. I feel now that it's so united, so broad. It's never been more inclusive. It's never been so what I love about it in so many years. And it's really refreshing. And I think you guys have a lot to do with that because you're a main outlet for like spreading the word. Let's go.

Well, thanks. Like, speaking of that past, present kind of thing, like younger and older, like, do you guys know Higher Power from England? Of course. They were just on the show last week. Oh, shut out for the F-R. What up, boys. There was a screening of the New Breed documentary

that Freddie Alba did in, like, 2016. So Higher Power, I got out to see them because somebody told me that they covered. killing time like telltale and outbursts misunderstood so I went to go visit them and introduced myself and like check them out. Yeah. And so we fast friends

said hey you know are you guys in town next week? They were like going up down the coast because Freddy's got this documentary in the newbie tape and so I got them all to I got them all passes to the show

and I introduced him to Mike who was there and they're like Mike DeJon. from Crown of Thorpe, remember that? And they were like, Bajon from Cron of Thrones. I can't believe it. They were like, I can't believe it.

We came out of a see documentary and hang out with Abelette and there's Mike Dejean. That's a good impression. That's a little more Australian because I've been talking about speed a couple of months ago. There's another thing. Higher power guys agreed.

But that's another funny story. They're like, I can't believe they took pictures of him like around him. I think I still have those. They're like because of Crown of Thorns. Yeah. obvious but that was like the big influence on their writing you can see that you can see that

there's also something that like i have never had this experience before in my 20 years of going the hardcore shows where like somebody like mike i'll see mike at the coffee shop and it will literally be like oh yeah there's a tsunami vein show later you're going to go like the fact that that's happening yeah yeah is fucking awesome yeah and it's never happened like that ever no and that's like that's important to all this. You know, I think that's like, I just think that that is like here to stay. I don't think that it's going to be something that we lose.

Just to tie it up or to add into it, like, you know, Power Trip used to cover jail of depression. Yeah, right. My old band used to cover jail of depression. My old band used to cover. If you haven't covered jail of depression, kiss my eye. So I remember telling Mike, I'm like, hey man, This is this band Cold Power Trip that's going to be playing in Brooklyn,

and they cover our songs. Like, we should go out and check these guys out. Like, a lot of that. That was 2015, I think. Yeah. And we made friends with them, too. And then, you know, obviously, look what happened with, you know. Yeah.

It's a, it's the only, you say this all the time. It's the only genre where your hero will become your friend. Just become your pal. But you're excited to see it every once in a while, you know. Whereas if you stick around long enough, you're going to bump elbows with somebody you listen to your holder. Well, it's not. Heroes more that's like maybe an inspiration or influence.

Sure. Because there's no hero. No hero. No hero. Sorry. I love going to shows. Yes. I fucking love going to shows.

Good. That's literally the end. I mean, like, I fuck with everybody. That's the, that's the starting end of it. I fucking love going to shows. I don't care. Like family meetings, family dinners, you know? Especially if someone tells me, yo, you got to check these dudes out.

Whether I like it or not, I want to go. Did you ever check it out? Did you ever check it out? Did you ever go to the crazy country? Crumb crazy country It's hard to say. They had chicken wire. Yeah.

Chicken wire fence, like there's a barricade. Yeah, like in Roadhouse. Wow. Well, speaking to No Heroes, I know he mentioned this to you guys on the benches, but do you want to know the names of the Desper Measure songs that I wrote my basement with AJ?

Absolutely. Please. Because No Heroes is not one of them. I love that song. So you got the intro to make me an offer. Some a... One of my living room underwear, nobody home warm-up songs.

Pretty much all of softway out. Yeah, all softway out was me and him, was me and AJ. This is awesome. The Rockabody Baby part to the future. Oh, dude. Da-dan-da-da-da-da-da-dun-da-dha-dha-gag-gat-a-gha-gha-gha-gha-gha-gha-d. It was kind of beat. Yeah, Fokki-perfected it, of course.

And then everything in Standfor, except for the bridge, the Mosh Point. Dude, that fucking Mosh part. Stand for, but, you know, and I remember George was there, he was like, he was like, that's kind of different for E.J., you know, because it's very melodic, happy, you know. Yeah. Do it again, I can do this all day. But, unfortunately, I think we do have to wrap up. We got a whole day.

What else? what I say and then the bridge and all about dope these are all these are all AJ can breathe riffs just like Dejan can breathe riffs

back then These were These were nothing No names No no you know concepts Just riffs Right And then months later

They turn into like death Provenants You know This is incredible We didn't finish The Melly Vex team You just start talking about that. Oh, God.

Hit me, dude. Ice pick. Love sick. God, government. Give it to me. So about that time, ideas were flowing pretty quick. And that going by what I had talked to you about before, with, like, sort of stumbling onto playing hard riffs and having them sort of wave in and out of melodic stuff.

The way. I was like, well, this works. I like it. I'll just keep doing it. So I always made sure that the choruses had some sort of like, say, like pop melody element to them. The structures are all very pop. Structures are all very much. The chords coming out of the verses were pleasant in transition.

So the ideas flowed quick. We had the songs written fairly quickly because we went from just being a band. for six months and going on tour with Madball in Europe when they were huge. Lord. And like everything

is happening so fast you gotta get up to speed you got to be a better player you got like all this shit is happening we get signed by profile and now we're on like the same album

I mean the same label that you know Egypt quarrel and all these records that you love so like all right then we're gonna follow suit we're gonna go to Normandy Sound and we're gonna like fucking

you know shit's gonna sound like bright side and blah blah and they were all fucking psyched and that's when we got smack with reality like when we show up to the recording studio enter tom sores who's very militant in execution and all you know he's there to make you perform outside of your ability he i won't mention bands but he sent band home oh yeah before So my brother on the record will be like sent them home, some them home.

Oh, they had the fuck. They never came back. He was more, he was more brash about it than your brother, but like, you know, so going into that, I knew it already because A.J. had told me about it, because, you know, he had his experience, and AJ came in with us to produce that record.

Nice. So luckily we had him there. And my biggest fear was disappointing a legend producer. So he really worked us hard. And instead of getting flustered about it, I just, I accepted it for what it is and like...

It was a turbulent recording, and it went late, and then it was just time to do guitars, which was like the last thing for that weekend. And Tom and I were up all night till 11 in the morning the next day and tracking guitars, and we were both falling asleep,

And he was like, yo, all right, listen, change your strings. I'm going to take a catnap. Break them in. Let's do it. We do another couple of songs. He'd be like, all right, we got to change strings again. You take a catnap. I'll change your strings.

And we'll just keep going. Wow. Wow. Just some motor through it. And he, like, really worked me and made me do things that I think I couldn't do. Wow. I can't believe how often you change the strings. That's insane. That's the secret.

Change strings and nap. But that guy pretty much set the standard for me of every recording I've ever done afterwards. So you took that all with you always? Absolutely. I can't thank him enough. I can't thank enough people enough

who got me to that spot. And that record truly sounds like literally perfect. We went back to Mix, and it was just Tom and I for the Mix. And, you know, we took a couple days doing it, and we talked a lot about life, and he told me a shit lot of stories. Okay. You know, that could be an episode in itself.

But, yeah, and then the record came out, and we broke up, like three months later. But here you are. You're back. Yeah, it took a long time. Like, uh... They were playing without you For a while. Yeah, I definitely saw them without you. Yeah.

You know what is? We, we, we, we, Danny and I have a common understanding of each other's lifestyles now. And we don't want to infringe on each other's lifestyle. And, and they are polar opposite to each other. And we, we sort of just joke around about it, even on stage.

Yeah. You know, so like, now like, you know, uh, with the addition of Paul Delaney on bass, this is probably the best tides lineup we've, we've never had. Yeah, solid. You know, he's got a tone.

He's very, like, very loose playing like myself. So Danny. Kill your idols. Yeah. Yeah. And Black Anvil. Black Anvil. Brooklyn Black Metal.

Phenomenal bass player. He'd been like a utility guy filling in for everybody, you know, aside from doing all these great bands. And, you know, he comes into the fall. We sound better than ever. Yeah. And Danny sometimes introduces us as Christian and Saint. It's good. Yeah.

So, does it feel good? Yeah, it feels good. Good. It feels good. Especially like, you know, you can tell that there's a chemistry between me and Danny on stage. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a musical chemistry between you both.

Yeah. Always kind of turn. And Jimmy. Oh, and Jimmy. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, Jimmy is like our sort of like positive energy and voice of reason. Always since day one.

He's always been so solid. And he plays better now than ever. Wow. And we're having fun. Like we step on stage. We feel like we were when we were kids. That's awesome. And how we, like, you know, how we feed off each other on stage.

This is the founding of youth. Yeah. Hardcore. That's the secret. We can't let it out. So you edit that out. Yeah. But I mean, we're going to be young forever right here

because of the music. If you asked me 30 years ago, I'd still be doing this. I'd like, yeah? I don't know. You know, but you go with what works for you on a social level and on a, even now a spiritual level for me because I need it in my life. Well, I think that's it for Astoria. I think that's it for Astoria. This was so awesome.

We're all like fucking queens out. What's going to happen is we're part ways. And I'm like, man, I forgot to tell that story. Why don't we have you back on? Yeah, we'll get. Yeah. Well, then we do the full Outburst episode. We do a full breakdown episode.

We do the full Crown of Thorns episode. We'll get you again. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys thinking about something. Are you kidding? This is the coolest thing ever. He sent me the schedule and I couldn't believe. Thank you all for watching.

Mike Dejan. The fucking king right here, dude. Stop it. Get it, get it, get it. And Dan Sealy. Miles to go. Somewhere. There he is.

New Outburst. Stay by, Dan. Coming soon, right? Bye, guys. TBD. Bye, guys.