Where did you grow up when you were younger and what did you do before getting into hardcore and music?
I grew up in Auburn, NY, which is about a 30-minute drive west of Syracuse. It’s funny because the very first thing I ever remember being interested in as a kid before punk/hardcore was skateboarding. I was never into sports, though I went through a period where I tried to convince myself I did by joining a few of the school teams only to quit weeks later. I remember riding my blue toothpick skateboard to my elementary school in 2nd grade and getting picked on like crazy for it. Back then, skateboarding was a very underground thing and as you know, growing up in a very sheltered community that the Syracuse area is, nobody had ever really seen anything like that yet and what they did see or know of it was all just negative connotations. The typical “skateboarders are castaway punk kids”, so I got treated that way for years and ultimately, that’s what I became... shamelessly.
I grew up in Auburn, NY, which is about a 30-minute drive west of Syracuse. It’s funny because the very first thing I ever remember being interested in as a kid before punk/hardcore was skateboarding. I was never into sports, though I went through a period where I tried to convince myself I did by joining a few of the school teams only to quit weeks later. I remember riding my blue toothpick skateboard to my elementary school in 2nd grade and getting picked on like crazy for it. Back then, skateboarding was a very underground thing and as you know, growing up in a very sheltered community that the Syracuse area is, nobody had ever really seen anything like that yet and what they did see or know of it was all just negative connotations. The typical “skateboarders are castaway punk kids”, so I got treated that way for years and ultimately, that’s what I became... shamelessly.
How did you come across hardcore and what made you want to be more involved?
I got into punk/hardcore through skateboarding and my older brother, Brian. Like I said before, skateboarding was a very underground thing at the time and that naturally was a breeding ground for underground music and bands to evolve from. Every skateboarding magazine or video would feature all the punk/hardcore bands of the time and since I was so into skateboarding and there was that direct correlation to punk/hardcore, it sparked my interest. On top of that, my brother was already actively seeking out and accruing demos and tapes of some bands at the time and what I heard made so much more sense to me than the Motley Crue, King Diamond and Scorpions records I was listening to prior, both musically and lyrically. I could relate to Minor Threat’s “Seeing Red” way more than I could Ratt’s “Round And Round”. In that sense, that’s what really drew the line for me. I never really had any emotional ties to the music I listened to before, it was purely entertaining, but hearing 7 Seconds and Minor Threat — those 2 bands, specifically, evoked emotions in me that I got from nothing else and anywhere else. I was infected, for sure.
What made me want to get more involved was just that almost every band I heard after my initial introduction blew my mind. From bands like Crass to Carnivore, 2 completely different bands but they both equally blew me away and I just wanted more. I’d get a new tape, read the thanks list and any band mentioned that I didn’t recognize the name of, I’d go out and try to find their tape. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have any idea of who they were or what they sounded like, I was hungry for more, and from there I started going to local shows and seeing everything being done firsthand. The energy on tape was incredible but seeing it put into action really blew my whole perception of punk/hardcore wide open. There wasn’t a huge stage with insane lighting and a 10 foot barricade separating you from the band. You were there with the band, sweating it out equally — singing along and jumping off the stage. It was tangible and you were one with not only the band, but every sense of emotion within the room.
What was your first show that you ever went to?
I don’t even remember exactly what my first show was because it was all so unfamiliar to me, I had no idea who I was seeing or anything at the time. For all I know, I could have seen Fear and Uniform Choice open for Fishbone, or some crazy shit like that and I wouldn’t have had a clue. I had been going to local shows for a year or so before I saw the first show I walked away from knowing that I found something special and real. That was a Journeyman and Encounter show at The Lost Horizon in Syracuse in/around 1991. From then on it's been all systems go.
Taken from an interview done for New Noise Zine.
