251. Al Barile (SS Decontrol)

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
185milesouth.com Smash that Patreon button.

(00:27):
185 miles south.
a hardcore punk rock podcast.

(01:02):
All right, it is an honor to bejoined by Al Burrill of SSD.
What's up, dude?
How you doing?
What is going on?
Okay, Al, you're an originalfirst wave hardcore dude.
And so I'm always curious, howdo you get into punk in the
first place?
And really, what is the firstrecord or band that you connect
with the most?

SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
It started by exploring music and really
getting my license.
When I got my license to drive,it opened a big...
big door to, you know, explorelive music and I'd say college
radio, you know, like myexploration of college radio.
That's how I found it, you know,and then just kept on, you know,

(01:44):
you find stores.
We have stores called NewberyComics out here.
There was like maybe two storesthat sold kind of alternative
music that, you know, not yourtypical stuff that, you know,
was...
You know, on big radio, smallradio stuff.
And so taking a ride in my carto go to those stores and then,

(02:08):
you know, checking out singlesand then, you know, album
albums.
And that was my way I found it.

SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
And what was like the first band that like you
really connected with?
Like, oh, this is like a punkband.
This is different.
And I love this.
And like, I'm into it now.
I

SPEAKER_00 (02:23):
think I was into like, you know, a lot of UK subs
records, maybe.
And Buzzcocks.
Trying to think of the first...
bunch of music uh i'd say likeenglish stuff definitely
discharge discharge buzzcocksramones definitely uh americans
you know american clash uh thoseare the first and then that led

(02:47):
to you know when i when when uhwhen i when i uh found the first
dc record you know the whole thewhole uh discord records and
Black Flag on the West Coast,Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys.
Those are the bands that I foundin those record store visits

(03:08):
that were inspirational orwhatever.

SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
That Discord stuff in 81, that's very quick for you
to get it and then want to pickup a guitar and start a hardcore
band.
Is that really how it broke

SPEAKER_00 (03:21):
down?
It wasn't Discord first.
Maybe I just like saying to youthat you put it first.
I meant I've just kind of givenyou the whole thing.
I'd say, I'd say it was, it waslike the West coast stuff.
Black flag was the first band totour and dead Kennedy.
So I actually went to like, Ithink I went to a black flag
show and that's when I, I, I metRollins and he was selling like

(03:49):
teen idols.
I was back.
I think teen idols was out andSOA, he was selling it like out
front.
And, uh, so that's how I, Ifound those, those discord
records.
So it was, it wasn't likesequentially that, that order,
but you know, that's how, that'swhen I found those records.

SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
Yeah.
And then how immediately do youwant to pick up a guitar and
like do your own

SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
band?
I already picked up the guitarbefore that.
Okay.
I picked up the guitar maybe acouple of years before that, uh,
maybe right around graduatinghigh school or right around
maybe the last, last, uh, mylast year in high school.
I'd say the Ramones made me pickup a guitar, you know.

(04:31):
And, you know, we were looking,I was looking to join a band
relatively quick, actually.
And I'd only taken maybe acouple lessons.
And I realized, you know, Ididn't know how far the lessons
were going to take me.
I just realized, okay, it's timefor me to just learn how to
create my own style and move on,you know.

(04:54):
And then, Then shortlythereafter, somewhere after
that, maybe I found thoseDiscord records.
But yeah, I don't think theDiscord records made me pick up
a guitar.
It was definitely the Ramones.

SPEAKER_01 (05:04):
What do you remember about SSD Control coming
together, like forming as aband?

SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
Well, I met the bass player at a Dead Kennedy show.
I met his sister, actually.
And then his sister told me,hey, my brother plays bass.
So it was a good connectionright there.
I mean, just at this one showwhere the Dead Kennedys played.
And then I think I had alsotaken an ad out in the...

(05:29):
We had a local weekly newspaper,like alternative weekly
newspaper.
And, you know, they took ads forbands and stuff like that.
So I had taken an ad in the bandfor, you know, looking for a
band.
And that's how I found thedrummer, Chris Foley.
And so...

(05:51):
That's kind of how it took off,that one connection with Jamie,
the bass player, and then thedrummer, Chris.
And then I think we originallyhad another singer, but only for
maybe even in theory.
I don't think we actuallypracticed with him ever.
He just was kind of around us atthe time, but he never really

(06:12):
materialized to be our singer.
And then I think Jamie had metSpringer a few times.
in shows in Boston and he's,someone suggested Springer
somehow.
And that's how Springer foundour way.
So that, that's, that'sbasically it right there.

SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
And what do you remember about like those early
practices?
Like I, I, I love when guestscan like, kind of like paint
the, the scene, right?
Like what was your practicespace?
Like where

SPEAKER_00 (06:35):
were you practicing?
The very first practice was, uh,I remember at Jamie's like in
his garage and it was pretty,uh, it's pretty crude.
Like, uh, I think Chris camewith his drum set, which just in
itself was kind of freaky, isthat he lugged his drums just
for this one practice.
And like I said, it was verycrude.

(06:58):
Jamie's garage was not set upfor practicing.
But I think we wrote a song orsomething, maybe one or two
songs, pretty bad.
And yeah, Springer was there forthat.
So that's in my recollection isthe real official first
practice.
and then realized that wasn'tgonna be, I realized that wasn't

(07:21):
gonna be proactive.
So then we started working onfinding a practice space and
then we had found a place in myhometown that had, there was
rumors of a building there thathad bands practice.
So I kind of made some inquiriesand we got a place there I don't

(07:44):
think we actually had too– Idon't even know if we officially
even had a practice there andfound that not to be too
productive because there was alot of local kids and bands that
were just using it as kind oflike a party spot almost.
I think we got jumped the firstweekend.
I don't even remember pluggingthe amps in.

(08:07):
Maybe we had them plugged in oneday.
We got jumped out front.
And I realized that wasn't goingto work.
So at that time, I made anappeal to my mother asking if,
you know, hey, could we use ourcellar to practice?
And that's when things getserious, you know.
So the whole first month, wemust have messed around and got

(08:28):
nowhere.
And then finally, when we gotthat practice space in my
mother's basement, that's when,you know, we became serious.
And Chris...
took his drums and kept them inmy cello, which in itself is a
big commitment because I alwaysat the time was thinking, geez,

(08:49):
he's not going to be able tohave his drums at home.
It's one thing when you takeyour guitar to practice, come to
practice with your bass or yourguitar, but his drums are going
to have to stay there.
It's a huge commitment.
I'd say that's why I give him aton of credit because he came
from a long ways away from likealmost an hour, he got on the

(09:11):
train, took him probably an hourand a half to get here.
And, uh, and he had to leave hisdrums, my parents at my
basement.
And, uh, yeah.
So I almost give him credit.
Like if he, if he had, uh, likepulled out early on, I don't
know what we would have done.
I mean, we would have kept onlooking for another drummer,
but, uh, I'd say his, his, uh,ability to kind of stick with it

(09:38):
is what kept the band together,you know, like, I mean, in
theory, because if he, if hedecides that, you know, he's not
going to, this isn't working forhim, it's too far away or he's
not going to leave his drumsthere, then, then it's not going
to work out, you know?
And he was, he was the, by farthe best player in the band.
And I think, you know, if youstarted a band, you know, you

(09:59):
need a good drummer.
Like if you don't have a gooddrummer, you're, you're swimming
up the Creek, you know, likeyou're going against the, you
know, you need a good drummer.
In him, we had a good drummer,so we had really the first step
in being halfway decent.
The next step is trying to writesongs.

(10:21):
We were trying to make a record.
From the very beginning, my goalwas to make a record.
It's kind of crazy because wehaven't done anything, but I was
dead set on making a record fromprobably that first practice on.
I don't know how to write songs,you know?
So I had to try to learn how towrite songs or do, I don't even

(10:42):
call them songs, but I had tolearn to do something, you know?
And I took that responsibility,you know, because, I mean, I
don't think drummers, he wasn'twriting the song.
And, you know, the bass playercould write songs, but, you
know, I think it's the guitarplayer's responsibility.
So that's pretty much a quick...

(11:04):
Quick summary of how we got toget going.

SPEAKER_01 (11:09):
What was pushing Chris to drum so fast?
Because if you think about 82,SSD is basically the fastest
band.
Maybe the negative effects demoat the same time.

SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
Well, we started off, yeah, I don't know.
I think when you can't play thatwell, playing fast isn't that
bad.
I don't know, it's a blur, youknow?
So I think that directive camefrom me, the songwriter, the
guitar player.
Like, you know, I'd play, okay,here's where you're going to go,

(11:41):
you know, whatever like that.
And he'd just, you know, whenyou're working with a drummer to
come up with the speed orwhatever, a tempo of a song, you
know, he can either say, okay,no, play it this slow, you know,
because later on I formed onemore band after that.
And I learned, you know, similartechnique working with a
drummer, but I would like, youknow, give him the tempo that I

(12:05):
kind of felt the song needed,you know.
So it was like justexperimenting with tempos.
And, you know, he could playfast.
But I'll tell you, we didn'tstay fast very long because I,
you know, when we startedplaying out with Gang Green and
Jerry's Kids, I rememberthinking to myself, man, they

(12:25):
play fast a lot better than wedo, you know.
And I immediately pulled backthe throttle.
And I said, this isn't what wedo best.
Maybe it's my guitar playing orwhatever.
But I didn't think we were thatgreat.
But I know what you're saying.
We definitely started off prettyfast.
But it wasn't that.

(12:46):
As soon as we got exposed tothose other local bands, I
pulled back the throttle.
I remember consciously seeingthem at this place, the Media
Workshop, and saying, This isn'tgoing to work.
You know, like I can't I can'tcompete with these guys.
These guys play much better fastthan I do.
You know, and later on now, Ilearned 40 something years later

(13:07):
that they were practicing likeevery day, you know, like four
hours a day or something, youknow, like we were.
We would practice maybe I thinktwo or three times a week, maybe
two would be the goal.
I'm not sure if it was threetimes a week.
Somewhere in my head I think itwas three, but I don't think
that would have worked becausethe day came so far away.
I know Sunday was a big day forus to get a lot done, and then I

(13:30):
think we had one day and oneweekday that we practiced.
And we were pretty good aboutmaking those.
We didn't blow off.
I'd say spring might not show upfor some of the practices, but
the three of us, the guitar,bass, and drums, we were pretty
good about making all thepractices.
That's why I give Chris the bigcredit.

(13:51):
And then Jamie gets a ton ofcredit because he had to pick
him up.
He would meet him at thisstation.
I mean, it's like our trainstation is called MBTA.
And he would meet him at thisstation called Wellington.
And so Jamie would have to waitthere probably for an hour
sometimes because the trainwasn't always reliable and Chris
had to commute so long.

(14:12):
So he had to wait there to waitto pick him up.
I just had to wait at my house,waiting for those guys to
finally get here.
My job was to sit there and waitfor them, which wasn't a big
deal.
I used that time to try towrite, but they had to get there
to get there.
I think any band, that's a bigthing.

(14:33):
It's like how you make sureeveryone gets there.
You got to have people that arecommitted to making it there.

SPEAKER_01 (14:40):
Do you do demos before the first 12-inch show?

SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
You might call it a demo.
We go to record at this place,Oak Grove Studio.
That was to make a radio tape,let's say.
That was kind of a disaster.
The equipment was speeding upand slowing down.
They had bad equipment.
That was like a throwaway.

(15:06):
We maybe recorded like threesongs.
I think How Much Op might havebeen one of them.
I'm not sure.
I think for some reason thatsticks in my head, and a couple
other ones or whatever that Idon't think ever made it to the
record.
You could call that a demo, Iguess.
Because I remember, I think fromthat, radio stations, they had

(15:29):
these things called carts, whichI was always trying to outthink
everything.
So instead of like...
I didn't know what to hand them,but I asked people, what do
radio stations get?
And they said, oh, they takecarts.
So I remember going, and I wentto some store and I bought these
carts.
They were like big 8-track tapesalmost.

(15:51):
And so I remember recordingthose carts.
That's actually the first demosI would say that we had on these
carts.

SPEAKER_01 (16:01):
Do you still have those?

SPEAKER_00 (16:03):
I don't think so.
I think I gave those to Curtiswhen he was making...
Power.
Power was a compilation of a lotof recordings.
I think I gave them to him.
Someone got them.
I remember where they were forthe longest period of time.
I know they weren't there.
My mother died a few years ago.

(16:23):
I know they weren't thereanymore.
I assume I gave them to someone.

SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
What do you remember about recording The Kids Will
Have Their Say?

SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
The Kids Will Have Their Say was interesting.
Pretty much, like I said, wewere We were trying to make that
record from the very, you know,that was our goal.
We didn't like, you know, justgo and screw around.
I mean, we were always trying tomake this first record.
I mean, it didn't have a titlethen.
So we recorded maybe one, two,maybe three times at the studio

(16:55):
called Radio Beat.
And I didn't hear like what Iwas thinking we should sound,
you know, what I thought wesounded like wasn't coming out
on tape, you know.
So I was like, geez, I don'tknow about this.
This isn't really, you know, Icould have said, oh, yeah, put
this on the record.
But I was like, I don't thinkthis is good enough to go on the

(17:16):
record.
So we kept on trying.
That's why the first time atRadio Beat and the second time
at Radio Beat, finally, I waskind of almost giving up on it.
But I don't mean giving up,really, for real.
I just meant I gave up on RadioBeat and I said, let's go to
another studio.
We picked this other studio.
I think it's called ActiveSound.

(17:37):
It was really in the guy'sfather's house.
We have a lot of house thingsrunning through our background.
So we recorded at this guy'shouse, and that's the recording
on Kids Love to Say.

SPEAKER_01 (17:53):
Yeah, and it's recorded over kind of a few
months, right?
How are your feelings throughoutit?
No?

SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
No, I don't think so.
I think it was recorded over acouple, maybe...
I think it was pretty quickbecause his father was yelling
at him, I remember, when we wererecording.
So that wasn't going to keep up.
I remember we're downstairs.
He's upstairs.
This guy's name is Larrysomething.

(18:23):
I can't think of his last nameright now.
And he was upstairs with themachine.
Actually, I don't even rememberseeing the tape machines.
I've stayed downstairs, which iskind of messed up, thinking I
didn't even go upstairs.
when I think about it now.
And he's fighting with hisfather about, you know, what's
all this noise being made andstuff like that.

(18:43):
And we're just trying to getthis record made, you know.
And we plugged away and, youknow, it sounded better.
So that ended up being the kidswill have to say.
It was a tough thing.
It was a tough thing to do.
You know, we took us, like Isaid, three or four recording
sessions to get it done.

SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Yeah, you do it as a split release with Discord.
How does that come about?

SPEAKER_00 (19:07):
Well, that just comes about...
I figured I was going to do iton my own record label.
That was never in doubt.
But I just asked Ian.
I said, hey, for some reason Igot this idea.
I don't even know if people weredoing split records at the time.
Maybe I got the idea from...
If he had done it, maybe...
I don't know.
Did Discord Records do a splitrecord at that point?
I don't know.

(19:27):
I just asked him to kind of lendhis name to us to...
to give, would give us likeinstant credibility.
I felt, you know, he had alreadyput out a couple of singles and
he didn't put any albums outyet.
I don't think at the time, Idon't even know what, did it
have a number?
Like, was it discord somethingand a half?
I think it's like

SPEAKER_01 (19:44):
seven and a half.

SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
Is it?
I

SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
think so.

SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
Yeah.
So whatever he had up to thatpoint, whatever, I just thought
it was going to lendcredibility.
So I, and I figured when I wentto go sell them to distributors
and stuff that, you know, havingthat imprint, next to us would
be helpful.
That was really the only, youknow, there was no financial
deal and there was no, I think Ijust gave him a box of records

(20:11):
in trade for that.
You know, like I think I senthim a pretty much, pretty sure I
just sent him a box of the kidswho have the says in return for
using that.
And I don't think that was evennegotiated.
Just, you know, when the recordfinally came out, I sent him a
box of records, you know.
I wonder if I did because maybehe's got the whole box still.
I don't even know.

(20:32):
He probably does.

SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
How did you feel when that record was out and it
was in your hands?
Because this is something yousaid you've been working to make
happen since the very firstpractice.
So now you have it in yourhands.
How do you feel?

SPEAKER_00 (20:43):
Yeah, I felt relieved, I guess, would be the
best description.
I mean, it certainly wasn't– wedidn't think it was the best.
I don't know.
I didn't go around the room andask everyone, hey, what do you
think about it?
What do you think about it?
I just know what I felt aboutit.
And I didn't think it was, youknow, it wasn't my proudest
moment.
You know, I just felt like itwas, I was, I was proud to put

(21:07):
it out, you know, like I washappy to put it out, happy that
we finally, you know, you know,you hold it in your hand and,
you know, and I remember goingto pick the records up.
We went and picked them up atthe record plant, which was in
New Jersey and definitely get asense of accomplishment, you
know, huge sense ofaccomplishment.
But as far as like what was onthe record, you know, I wasn't

(21:28):
so thrilled with the recordingand the way it turned out, but I
was thrilled that we had arecord out because that's what
our goal was.
And we did it pretty muchwithin, I think, six months of
the band being together or maybea year.
I have to look at the dates.
I don't know.

(21:49):
I just know that that was ourgoal and we accomplished our
goal.
And we didn't have much help.
Definitely a little bit of helpas far as our producer, Mike
Basterash, gave us the names ofthe record plant and things like
that.
It was a do-it-yourself project.

(22:12):
You're

SPEAKER_01 (22:13):
saying you're not thrilled without Sounded at the
time.
Has that shifted in the last 40years now that so many people
have affirmed to you that it's aclassic American hardcore
record?

SPEAKER_00 (22:24):
No.
No, just like, cause it didn'tsound like I, I, you know, I,
what I hear and this isprobably, I would think other
bands feel the same way here.
You know, when you practice,when you play together or when
you play live, but you know, youjust practicing, you hear
something, right.
And it's, it's usually veryloud, you know, it's a turn it

(22:45):
off pretty loud, but it didn't,it didn't translate to the tape,
you know, or the vinyl, uh, It'snot what I heard.
That's the best way I canexplain it.
I think people in bands wouldknow what I'm saying.
Some people might have had morehelp in making the record and

(23:08):
maybe it sounded better for themor something.
Put it this way.
Albums that sounded great to mewere like the Adolescence record
or something like that.
I don't know.
Black Flag might be I don't knowif they were happy with their
records or not.
But I'm sure the adolescentsmust have been very happy with
their first record.
Maybe not.

(23:30):
I don't know.
So it's really sounding what youhear with your ears.
And I didn't hear with my earswhat was on that record.
So that will never change.
It doesn't sound like what weplayed live.

SPEAKER_01 (23:49):
Is that just a feeling you have, or is that
something that you can...
If I was the greatest engineerin the world right now, and we
were still working on thatrecord, could you say, it's
missing this.
Can we figure out how to dothis, or no?

SPEAKER_00 (24:03):
It's a good question.
I don't know.
I've learned a lot more aboutrecording.
The people I produced for anengineer at the time, I don't
think they...
This is no reflection on them,but I don't think they knew...
that much about what they weredoing.
I was concentrating on playing.

(24:24):
I wasn't concentrating onrecording.
When I walked in that studiodoor where the tape machine was,
that was so far over my head.
I wasn't even ready to take thaton.
I had to just take on playingthe music, and that was a big
challenge in itself.

(24:45):
I wish I had, you know, if wewere maybe taking a little bit
slower and I learned, you know,and I had taken time to learn
the recording process, maybe itwould have been different.
Because I think the use ofcompressors and things like
that, there's things that, youknow, I would have done
differently, you know, knowingwhat I know now about recording.

(25:10):
You know, because I think in myrecords I made with the band
Gage, I recorded those and Ilearned a lot about recording.
So I'm not sure that we knewwhat we were doing or the guys
that had helped me knew whatthey were doing.
There was a studio engineerthere, but he wasn't really
familiar with our musicnecessarily.

(25:31):
So I think if you're dealingwith an engineer who's not
really familiar with the music,then he can kind of steer it in
the wrong direction.
I think those West Coast bandshad...
good engineers and goodproducers and a lot of good
sounds came out of them.
You know,

SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
I think the difference is none of those
bands are playing as fastthough.
So like literally if you thinkabout when you go in to record
this record, no one knows how torecord something that sounds
like that because it's neverbeen recorded before.
Right?
Like you literally are theblueprint that people are going
to base off how to record fastmusic on.

SPEAKER_00 (26:08):
maybe I never look at it as a fast, slow thing, you
know, because I mean, we hadslow, slower songs on that first
record.
How Much Odd, Please Be, youknow, we had a lot of, you know,
we didn't, you know, we wrotesome songs that was all fast,
but there was, you know, therewas some other songs that had
slow parts to them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
That's true.

SPEAKER_00 (26:26):
I always, I always thought we were a powerful band,
you know, like that's, that'show I describe this.
That's why the record on Tangwas called Power, because if you
would ask me how to, how I woulddescribe us, you know, And what
I was looking to get from thoserecording session was to capture
the power.
OK, so it wasn't speed.

(26:47):
It was to capture the power.
So if you want to say, you know,you want to link power and speed
together, but it was to capturethe power, you know, and I don't
think I did that in that firstrecord.
You know, I think the secondrecord captures it a lot better.
You know, that's my opinion, youknow.
Second record definitelycaptures it better.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
we'll get there.
I have that almost exactly wordfor word written down like that.
But I want to stay in 82.
So what's your take on the thisis Boston, not LA comp that
comes out

SPEAKER_00 (27:20):
in 82?
I don't even own it, to betruthful.
So I can't really speak for itthat much.
I don't own it.
And we were asked to be on it,you know.
And I chose not, I chose just toconcentrate on what we were
doing.
And, you know, at the same time,I wasn't happy with what was

(27:42):
coming out of our, like I justsaid about what was coming up,
other tape reels from ourrecording session.
So I certainly wasn't preparedto give them a bunch of songs
that didn't sound right.
You know, you know, onhindsight, maybe, maybe I should
have taken some of their moneyto kind of go into a bigger

(28:04):
studio or whatever, give it ashot with their money.
You know, I could have played itdifferent.
And I'm not saying I wouldn'thave, on hindsight, I wouldn't
have played it differently.
But I mean, just early on, Idecided, you know, we're going
to concentrate on our record.
I mean, I'm sure we were thefirst band they asked to be on
that record, you know.

(28:24):
Later on, you know, when it tookshape with that name, you know,
I would have never been on thatrecord if that was the name of
the record, you know.
No way.
I would never have been on thatrecord with that name.
But just initial discussions.

SPEAKER_01 (28:40):
Why is that, Al?
I

SPEAKER_00 (28:41):
don't like the name.
It's stupid.
It's a stupid name.
Why are we trying to compareourselves with LA?
It's just so stupid.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (28:52):
I feel you.

SPEAKER_00 (28:52):
It's like, we're who we are.
We're not...
You know, we're not comparingourselves with anyone.
It's the stupidest name I everheard of, you know?
So there's no way we would ever,the name of that was, if we had
decided to be on it, that wouldnot have been the title of the
album.
So, you know, it would have hada different title, I guarantee
you that, you know?

(29:12):
And I probably would have hadsome saying picking it, you
know?

SPEAKER_01 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah.
What was a regular, like, SSDshow like in Boston in 1982?
Like, how many kids were showingup?
What was the crowd like?
What was the vibe?

SPEAKER_00 (29:26):
Uh, some of the, you know, these are really DIY
shows, you know, we're talkinglike, uh, in places that didn't
have sound systems or anything,you know, we had set out, like
we weren't going to play anyclubs, you know, we were going
to do strictly all ages shows.
So it was only like two placesthat we started out playing.
We played this place called thegallery East, which was, uh, an

(29:47):
art gallery, but it was in aspace that really wasn't even
set up for an art gallery.
It was like just, uh, allconcrete.
It was a warehouse really, youknow, way too much concrete.
And if you know anything aboutwhat concrete does to music, it
just, the waveforms just bounceall over the place.
So it was a terrible soundingroom, you know, uh, just the

(30:09):
reflections of the wavesbouncing off the walls.
So sounded terrible.
I knew early on, it was kind ofa sacrifice we had to make, you
know, uh, to have that freedomand that great feeling of our
own space, but it just didn'thave the acoustics, you know.
But it made up for it in feelingwhat it lacked in acoustics, you

(30:33):
know.
And then there was another placecalled Media Workshop, which was
like on the like 12th floor of akind of like a, I don't know
what you'd call it, like maybeanother art gallery maybe, kind
of warehouse type deal.
And that had better acoustics.

(30:54):
This was so hard to get to.
It was like up so many flightsof stairs.
I don't think they even had anelevator to carry everything up.
So those were the two DIYspaces.
And then trying to think, theycarried us through the first
bunch of years.

(31:15):
We played the Rat.
There's a couple of clubs.
We played the Rat once.
One time, I don't even know whywe did it, and it didn't work
out well.
I think we played the channel afew times.
They started doing all-agesshows.
We kind of got that worked outthere.

(31:36):
Once they started doing all-agesshows, we played a few clubs,
you know.

SPEAKER_01 (31:42):
There was also a spot called Streets in Austin.

SPEAKER_00 (31:45):
Yeah, I was going to do that while I was uttering
those last few words.
I was thinking of Streets.
Streets, we played there.
There were some successfulshows.
It wasn't an all-ages space.
So, you know, we had to makesome compromises because I think
Black Flag had played there.
And...
either we were on the bill.

(32:05):
Like I can't even remember if wehave a headline in place,

SPEAKER_01 (32:08):
but you played with bad brains on, uh,

SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
yeah.
So I wasn't going to give upplaying those kinds of shows,
you know, like when a black flagplayed in bad brains, when they
asked us to play, I was going toplay them, even though they
weren't all ages shows.
So, you know, I definitely madesome compromises that other, I
guess other people weren't,didn't make compromises, but we
made them.
If there was show was a greatshow, you know, and I do it

(32:32):
again today, you know, uh, Itwasn't going to, you know, I
thought, you know, who are we tomake a stance and just say, oh,
we're only going to play allages shows?
It was like a process to getthese club owners, the bookers
at the clubs to kind of open upto that concept, you know,

(32:52):
because there was none of itbefore us, you know.
There was no all ages shows, youknow.
Like, I know before I was in theband, when I wanted to go, you
know, I wasn't even old enoughto get in the club.
I would have to go to, like, oneof these arts programs, art
gallery spaces to see you knowuh call it alternative music you
know so um you know certainly ii knew it was going to take a

(33:15):
take a while to get them to openup to all age shows you know

SPEAKER_01 (33:19):
yes so in in september that year it's with
bad brains and the undead andthen in december it's two shows
like a matinee show and a nightshow black flag and bad brains
so that's insane

SPEAKER_00 (33:29):
okay

SPEAKER_01 (33:30):
yeah yeah um

SPEAKER_00 (33:31):
I'm not sure if we made every one of those shows.
I might have been sick one ofthose.
I'm not sure.
I know I remember for somereason I look back on it.
I think there was like a coupleof shows that I got sick on and
I couldn't play, you know, likein our whole career, I would
call it career or whatever, awhole thing.
I think there might have beenone or two shows that I couldn't

(33:51):
make it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (33:55):
You start playing out of town really early.
Even in 81, you played A7 in NewYork.
What was that like playing outof town at that time?
It

SPEAKER_00 (34:03):
was great.
It was great.
We loved getting out of townbecause it just expanded our
reach.
That first show at A7 wasawesome.
It was kind of wild loading up avan and heading to New York and
stuff.

(34:24):
But it was fun.
It was exciting.
We were always looking to expandwhere we played.
So anytime we got the chance toplay outside of Boston, if it
made sense, we played it.
We didn't take every offer, butif it made sense, we took it.

SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
Yeah, you played New York a bunch in 82.
How much truth is there to theBoston-New York rivalry at that
time?

SPEAKER_00 (34:54):
I don't think there was any rivalry, you know, like
if, um, you know, if there wasany rivalry, it was like, uh,
you know, to me it was always asports thing really, you know,
like, uh, Boston and New York,you know, you're coming off of
like some, some tough, uh, RedSox, Yankees series and stuff.
So I don't even know if theother people were into that, you

(35:14):
know, other people in my crewwere into that, but it, you
know, I have lasting images of,uh, of Greg Nettles punching
Bill Lee and ruining him andstuff like that.
When I think of the rivalry,that's the rivalry I think of.
It wasn't a rivalry with us inNew York, hardcore scenes or

(35:38):
something.
If I caused any of that bytalking about the rivalry, but
to me it was a sports thing.

SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
The SSD control sound shifts kind of from a more
speed approach to a more powerapproach in 1983 with your 12
inch get it away.
Like out of those seven songs,only one has like that fast
blazer, you know, speed on it.
Was this a conscious effort orwas it a natural evolution?
And then now with you speakingabout the kids will have their

(36:10):
say that way, like wanting it tocome off more powerful was like
the moving away from speed, likea reaction to that.
You're getting more power in themore mid-tempo songs?

SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
Well, I told you that I had those moments at this
media workshop shows where I sawGangrene and Jerry's Kids
playing really fast.
And I said, I'm going to slow itdown.
So that's when it happened.
I don't know if that was thepoint where I started writing

(36:41):
the Get It Away album.
Probably right around thatperiod.
So that's why...
We slowed down because of thatconscious effort that I didn't
feel like...
A bunch of other bands startedplaying really fast and doing it
well.
So that's when that changehappened.
It wasn't when we had the secondguitar player.
He had nothing to do with it.
He would have played fast if Ihad said, hey, we're going to

(37:03):
write...
And if I had said, hey, we'regoing to write an album and play
faster than Jerry's Kids andGang Green, they would have all
went along with it.
It just...
I felt...
it wasn't what we did best, youknow, like the, the goal was
always to do what we did bet.
Well, you know, to maximize whatwe did, you know, the best,

(37:24):
right.
You don't want to, you don'twant to stick with something.
You don't think you're doingthat great, you know?
So that was really when thatthought happened.
So, you know, I'd say, I mean,if I'm trying to look back on
that record, um, trying to thinkwhich song in order I wrote
first or something, I can'treally remember, but, uh, That
batch of songs, they still, whenI look back on them, they're not

(37:46):
slow.
They're still pretty fast.
But they're more controlled, Iwould say.
They're not out of control.
And they just feel in control.
They're

SPEAKER_01 (38:00):
rhythmic.
You're moving into thisrhythmic, powerful, almost like
a tribal feeling on them, as faras just being blazers.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (38:09):
That's a good description then.
I mean, that's, that's what wewere after.
You know, we're after a powerfulsound, you know, not, not just
going to go in there.
Other bands are still thinkinglike those bands.
I don't think they thought aboutthis, you know, but I did, you
know, I said, I just don't thinkI can play, you know, gang green
was still ripping it as fast asthey could.
You know, that their goal is tokeep on playing fast and fast

(38:30):
and fast.
I was pulling it back at thattime, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (38:34):
Yeah.
What do you remember about therecording sessions for get it
away?

SPEAKER_00 (38:38):
We had moved up to 16 tracks, 16-track studio.
I look back on it.
It's not that I didn't think Ineeded the extra tracks, but now
you probably put eight or ninetracks of drums on there.
Before, when you're aneight-track, you're probably

(39:00):
putting four tracks of drums.
The drums were probably recordedbetter.
And at that point we had asecond guitar player.
So there was more layeredguitars.
Now we had him and me and, youknow, much more laid guitars.

(39:22):
So we got, we got to kind ofcreate more of a wall of sound
with the, with the guitars.
And then, you know, vocalsprobably just one, we didn't
have any backup vocals.
So probably just one track ofvocals.
So that's what 16 tracks allowedus, you know, you know, would
have been nice to get moreambitious and try, you know, now

(39:43):
that I had 16 tracks, you know,I still wasn't like feeling
comfortable in the studio.
So it wasn't like I went inthere and said, wow, now I get
it.
I got 16 tracks.
Let me explore because thewhole, here's the other thing,
the whole time that thisrecording is going on, I'm
thinking about the clock.
And I think the studio is nowlike probably like, Probably

(40:06):
like 30 bucks an hour or maybe40 bucks an hour or something
like that.
I don't know.
Not 50, but somewhere between 25and 40 a bit an hour.
And I'm paying for it.
It's coming out of my money.
I'm working my ass in a machineshop.
So that's what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking I can't waste moneyhere.

(40:29):
We got to be somewhat efficienthere.
Of course, if the band made anymoney playing out, which we
didn't, that would go into thisrecording fund, you know.
But in general, I think I used alot of my money, my own personal
money to record, you know.
And so I was thinking that, youknow, that was in the back of my

(40:52):
mind that I didn't want to, youknow, it's hard to use your own
money to record when you knowhow blood and sweat you're
working for, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (41:01):
That first yell that Springer does on the song Get It
Away is so iconic.
Do you remember?
Is that first take?
Did you do a bunch of takes?

SPEAKER_00 (41:11):
I don't remember.
Yeah, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 (41:15):
How does it come together with having Pusshead do
the art for the LP, the 12-inch?

SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
Good question.
I believe I made that connectionfrom Glenn Friedman to Pusshead.
I came into contact with GlennFriedman from we played I mean,
I could be wrong on this, butthis is what I believe, from
playing some live shows.
And then I think Glenn put me intouch with him, and I asked him

(41:44):
if he could draw the cover.
I kind of came up with theconcept of that first album
cover, but I didn't really haveanything for the second one,
although Get It Away was ananti-smoking song.
So I wanted the title to be GetIt Away.
So I knew that.
So I needed something that wasfitting for an anti-smoking

(42:06):
song, you know, or like kind ofthat kind of grimy feeling, you
know.
So I said to him, hey, can youdraw something?
Now, he was mainly known for hislike monsters and things like
that.
So I wanted to kind of put himin a different place, you know.
So I said, hey, can you draw astreet in New York with all a

(42:26):
bunch of grime and, you know,empty beer cans and trash and
just like, you know, cause itwas funny.
I used to get this of all ourtrips to New York.
I used to get this impressionthat like the streets would
never change.
They'd always be dirty.
You know, like I never, I wouldcome back like six months later
in the street, same street wouldbe the same trash would be in

(42:49):
the same exact spot.
You know, it never moved.
And I used to think that wasfunny, you know, that, uh, how,
uh, It was such a big city thatthey couldn't ever clean up a
street.
They had so much to concentrateon, they never could clean up a
street.
I got that impression.
I said I wanted to draw thisstreet in New York.

(43:10):
That's what the street is.

SPEAKER_01 (43:13):
Do you think you captured it well?

SPEAKER_00 (43:16):
I love it.
I love the cover.
I remember seeing it.
I thought a lot of people mightnot like it or might not
understand it.
how else am I going to capturesomething that's get it, you
know, like around the concept ofget it away, you know, it had to
be grit, grimy, trashy.

(43:37):
And that I couldn't take aphotograph of that really, you
know, I mean, you could have, Idon't think it would have come
out that right.
I mean, we could have went tothat street in New York and just
take a photo, but I don't thinkit would have really translated
that well.
So, you know, it's somewhatcartoonish, you know, and I
liked it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
In 1983, you play your first show outside of the
East Coast.
It's August 6th, 2024, SantaMonica Civic, opening for GBH.
But before we get to that show,what are your memories of your
trek out to California?

SPEAKER_00 (44:10):
Well, it's like other bands do tours.
My idea was just to drivestraight to California.
I don't know.
I'm a weird guy or something.
I get a lot of crazy ideas, butI just was thinking like, if we
play a couple shows on the wayout there, something will happen

(44:31):
and we'll break something orI'll break my hand or something.
Because every time I played, Ialways thought that might be the
last time we played.
I always had that mentality thatthis might be our last show.
I just felt like it was sochaotic that it might be the
end.
And something might happen.

(44:54):
I had that same mentality goingto the West Coast.
I was really hell-bent on makingit to the West Coast.
And I didn't think playing tothe West Coast was a good bet.
So we were just going to drivethere straight.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (45:10):
what are your memories of that first show,
Santa Monica Civic?
It's a legendary venue.
When the English bands came out,those shows were huge.

SPEAKER_00 (45:17):
Yeah, we made it there in, I think, two days from
Boston.
Maybe three the most, but Ithink it was two days.
And, you know, just, you know,first time I had been to
California, just seeingCalifornia and like palm trees
and everything.
We, when we showed, you know, wegot there at nighttime, I

(45:38):
remember.
And we pulled up on Santa MonicaBeach because we didn't know
where else to go.
You know, we just went from EastCoast to West Coast.
So we went coast to coast.
You know, we pulled up on thatbeach.
And then I remember, you know,the morning came up.
And I'm just like, wow, we madeit here.
This is amazing.
Then we went over to the venuethat next morning or whatever

(46:01):
and just saw this big hall.
We're like, wow, man, this isincredible.
We're going to play this bigplace.
So it was just very awestruck byit that we were going to play
this big show in California.

SPEAKER_01 (46:15):
And then what was the show like?

SPEAKER_00 (46:17):
It was a great show.
We played really well.
I just know we played well.
I was happy with theperformance.
We held our own against GBH.
We played with

SPEAKER_01 (46:30):
GBH, I think.

SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
We held our own and did pretty good, I thought.
That's what I remember from it.
Big crowd.
They liked us.
I felt a lot of love.
I didn't feel like they weremad.
I don't know.
Has Boston not come out by thattime?

SPEAKER_01 (46:49):
Yeah.
It came out in 82.
This is 83.

SPEAKER_00 (46:52):
Okay, so I didn't feel any negative feedback from
that.
Yeah, I felt a lot of goodfeelings from it.
It was a good show.

SPEAKER_01 (47:03):
You play a bunch of shows in that run in Southern
California and NorthernCalifornia, and you're out here
for a couple weeks.
What are your memories of thattime?

SPEAKER_00 (47:13):
Well, we drive off the coast.
That was the whole deal.
So I think we went to SantaBarbara next.
And then, you know, these wereall like kind of do, you know,
after the Golden Boy show at theat the Santa Monica Civic.
These were all more do ityourself shows like in in halls,

(47:33):
you know.
And then we finally got to SanFrancisco.
I think we played a club, acouple of clubs at Ruthie's Inn
and maybe some other club orsomething.
So it was just a run up the upthe coast.
You know, it was great.
You know, all the shows aregreat, you know.
I don't remember any realstinkers.

(47:55):
So it was a very successful waywe did it.
If I was to do it over again, Ishould have done more
investigation on the West Coast.
Maybe there would have been someother places to play.
It was very do-it-yourself.

(48:18):
But maybe I should have playedsome of those clubs that were
there or something.
to get a better feel for theL.A.
kind of thing.
That big place was great.
I'm saying I think there was alot of– I hear that club like
the cuckoo's nest.
I don't know about it now.
I didn't know about it then, butI hear about it now.

(48:40):
Just clubs like that, let's say,the cuckoo's nest.
Maybe I should have exploredtrying to play places like that.
I don't know.
That's my only regret.
is I didn't try some of thoseplaces.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (48:51):
the smaller clubs, like the Cathay de Grand and
Hollywood, stuff like that.
The Cuckoo's Nest might alreadybe done by 83.
Is it?
Okay.
I don't know.
I don't have it in front of me,but I get your, what you're
going for is you could haveplayed some clubs, like smaller
shows.

SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
Yeah, like, well, these were all kind of, I guess
this was all set up by me justgetting phone numbers from
people, you know?
Maybe I could have done morehomework.
I didn't know what was going onin the West Coast, really.
You know, like I didn't know.
You know, I think we got theoffer from Golden Voice, you
know, based on a phone call orsomething.

(49:27):
I don't even remember.
Maybe Glenn Friedman helped me.
I think Glenn Friedman helped meget that show.
You know, but people werehelping us get the shows, you
know.
And then I think we got some ofthose, you know, from like
Maximum Rock and Roll, we mighthave got some connections in the
Northern shows, you know.
And the Santa Barbara show, wemight have got from a band, you

(49:48):
know, one of the bands.
uh, I can't really remember, youknow?
So I'm just saying maybe Ishould have done more homework
and really understood, you know,what, you know, only because
that we drove all the way outthere.
Maybe I should have, uh, gotmore of a feel for like, um,
some more of those shows, but Ikind of think I'm trying to
think maybe I was on a deadline.

(50:08):
Like maybe I think I had to getback to work.
It wasn't like we had forever todo it, you know, but looking
back on it, maybe I could havetaken another week out there.
Um, and play some more shows,you know, because we drove such
a long ways, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (50:23):
Hey, Al, this question is kind of like an
arrogant one, so we can skip itif you want.
But what hardcore bands do youpersonally think were as good as
SSD in like that 1982, 83 era?

SPEAKER_00 (50:37):
Well, you know, we can never judge ourselves
because, you know, it's just theway, like even to this day, we
all look at each other like, youknow, we don't know.
how good we are or what we were.
We don't know.
We really don't.
I'm saying that with sincerity.
We don't know.
We put these records out andstuff.

(50:59):
I don't know.
I'm flattered that people likethem and put us and place us in
some high regards maybe.
But in all sincerity, I don'tknow how good we were.
The one thing I can say I doknow, when we get off stage,

(51:20):
many times I thought that wewere good enough to hold our
own, you know, that, thatfeeling, I definitely know, you
know, so that's the only thing Ido know.
Uh, like, you know, a couple oftimes we played with, um, like,
like say play with a black flagor play with minor threat, you
know, some of these humongousbands.
I want to say that, you know,the bad brains, like, I don't

(51:40):
think we ever held our own onstage when we play with the bad
brains, but we, we weren't flat.
We weren't, we weren'tembarrassed off the stage, put
it that way, you know?
Whether we held our own whenthey were there, I don't know.
But we weren't completelyembarrassed off the stage.
So I do know that when we cameoff stage that we did pretty
good sometimes.
That's the only feeling I cansay.

(52:02):
As far as the record goes, wewere always trying to do our
best.
And I'm glad 40 years laterpeople look at the records and
say nice things about them.
But we were always trying tocapture that live sound, that

(52:23):
feeling that I just told youabout coming off stage and
saying, all looking at eachother like, wow, we did really
good.
That's the feeling that we weretrying to get from the record.
And I can't say we ever, aftermaking a record, all sat around
and said, wow, we did reallygood.
I don't know if we ever had thatkind of feeling.

(52:45):
But But we did get it from a fewlive shows.
That Civic show, we know we didpretty good.
And we played with the DeadKennedys a few shows.
And they were a very good band.
And I think we held our own withthe Dead Kennedys.
That's a good one, I guess, touse as a measuring stick.
We played a couple big shows inBoston.

(53:06):
We played a show with them outin New York, in Long Island.
And I thought we...
we didn't get blown off thestage.
When you're in a hardcore band,these bands, they could blow you
off the stage easy.
If you weren't on top of yourgame, you could easily get wiped

(53:29):
off the stage where you lookedembarrassing.
I can say that we didn't havethat feeling often.
I can think of maybe a coupletimes where I didn't think we
did that good.

SPEAKER_01 (53:42):
Can you remember specifically what were they?

SPEAKER_00 (53:45):
Yeah, I remember one, and other people might
think it was okay, but we playedCBGBs with the Bad Brains, and I
remember breaking my guitar andjust a lot of technical
difficulties.
I jumped and came down, smashedthe guitar, smashed my body, and
I remember leaving the stagethinking, oh, man, we didn't do

(54:07):
so hot.
That's one of the only ones thatreally strikes me that I can
think of that I'll always thinkof.
But I don't know, maybe otherpeople saw that show, liked it.
But it was around Christmastime.
I remember after the show layingout in the van and just had a

(54:29):
bad feeling like, ah, we didn'tpull it off.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (54:33):
your mind kind of went right to comparing yourself
to the Bad Brains when thatquestion was asked.
Do you think that the Bad Brainswere the best hardcore band?

SPEAKER_00 (54:44):
Absolutely.
And I don't compare myself tothem.
I'm just using them as ameasuring stick.
It's like the greatest liveband.
I think they struggled to make agreat record.
I think some of their earlyrecordings, that raw cassette
probably got them the best.

(55:05):
But it wasn't perfect.
If you saw them live back thenand then listened to the
recordings, I don't think theycaptured them as well as they
could have, you know?
And then, then they went torecord in the big studios with
Rick Ocasek.
And I don't think he did.
I don't think he captured themas well.
I mean, I remember when theywent in with him, I remember

(55:26):
thinking like, well, he's goingto, he's going to get them, you
know, he's going to, he's goingto nail it.
You know, they're going into 24track recording studio.
I'm like, he'll get it done.
You know?
And then I remember listening tohim when they came out and
thinking, nah, he didn't getthem, you know?
So, I'm interested in what theywould say.
I talked to them a lot aroundthat period, but I never sat

(55:47):
down with them and analyzedtheir recordings.
I wonder if they thought thatthey were happy with all the
recordings.

SPEAKER_01 (55:54):
What do you think about that?
Such a storied engineer wasn'table to capture the sound of
hardcore like how people thoughthe might have been able to.

SPEAKER_00 (56:08):
Looking back on it, I remember when All of a sudden,
he showed up.
They played this club, and allof a sudden, he showed up.
I remember we're all going, oh,that's Rick O'Kazick.
Oh, that's Rick O'Kazick.
I don't know if he had madecontact with him or he was just
surprising him at this club.
I don't know.
But it was a day show, Iremember.
It wasn't even a night show.

(56:29):
He just showed up and went inthe side door, and everyone's
whispering, oh, that's RickO'Kazick.
Something's going on.
Something's going on here.
And then I remember they wererecording with him.
maybe he didn't, you know, likethere was part of me that always
wondered if he was going to beable to connect with the music,
you know, like, I didn't evenknow how much of a recording
engineer he was, you know, likehow, how he was a dedicated, you

(56:51):
know, he was more of a producerrecord, you know, recordist
than, than I'd known at thatpoint, you know, I just knew him
from the cars and, you know, thecars made great records, you
know, like, I mean, as far as,as far as getting the cars,
capturing the cars, I think theydid a great job.
But that really wasn't him.
I think that was anotherproducer, that Roy Thomas Baker,

(57:13):
I think, might have been the guythat recorded him.
I don't know.
But anyways, yeah, it just wasdisappointing.
It didn't capture the ferocityof them.
I thought it was like it wastamed down somehow.

SPEAKER_01 (57:29):
You came out to California again in 1984.
You played one show at theOlympic Auditorium with Suicidal
Tendencies.
Yeah.
What were your memories of thattrip?
And did you have any impressionslike before and after about punk
shows at the Olympic?
It's kind of like a legendaryvenue.

SPEAKER_00 (57:47):
So we got that.
There was a new, a new promoter,uh, popping up on the scene at
that time.
And Glenn Friedman goes to thatshow.
I look back on, I'm not sure Ishould have, you know, I'm not
going to like, uh, ever say Ishouldn't have done something,
but I mean like golden voice wasnice to us and maybe I should
have, uh, I should have waitedfor another show from them.

(58:08):
Every opportunity that came up,I was going to take it.
We were going to fly for thisshow.
This promoter was going to flyus out.
That was a special opportunity.
Golden Voice never had mentioneddoing that.
I'm like, fly us out?
That's going to be pretty cool.
We had to do it on a budget.

(58:29):
Don't get me wrong.
We weren't just going to spendcrazy money, but Uh, we flew on
a budget airplane.
I remember it was like people'sexpress at the time.
So it was, they were like a lowcost carrier.
And, um, but we flew out therefor it.
And so that's what I remember.
That was like, uh, uh, you know,we flew out, brought our guitars

(58:51):
on the, on the plane andeverything.
And we rented a drum set and,um, yeah, it was pretty cool,
you know, to do it that way.
I remember the show is chaoticon stage.
Uh, A lot of people on stage.
I didn't remember that from thefirst time around.

(59:11):
All of a sudden, the stage hadbecome like a playground for
everyone.
And I remember I found it alittle bit difficult to play
with so many people on stage.
It just seemed kind of chaotic.

SPEAKER_01 (59:26):
Do you feel that there's a shift there then, like
between...
You know, between 83 and 84,like, is L.A.
turning?
Is there, like, a differentvibe?

SPEAKER_00 (59:35):
I can't say because definitely there was more– I
won't call it another wave, but,you know, definitely the
suicidal wave was coming, youknow?
So would you call that anotherwave?
Maybe.
Maybe that was another wave, butdefinitely there was a suicidal
thing on the move here, youknow?

(59:55):
I mean, they came out of the–you know, came– really out of
nowhere to, it had, it had a bigfollowing to play that.
That's a big, no, that's a bigarena too, you know?
And, um, yeah, so that was abig, a big sign that they were,
they also, and they were a bigband on the, on the scene.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:14):
I read an interview in MRR that, uh, was done at
that show.
I don't think it was with you.
Um, cause it didn't seem like itwas you answering.
It just put SSD as the, the, theperson answering.
But, uh, that person who did theinterview was saying that, uh,
like someone had asked you,like, why don't you play any
songs off the kids will havetheir say, um, at that time.

(01:00:35):
And so I want to ask you, like,what was your mentality like to
not play like the original songsin like 84?
I'd

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:42):
say it probably was me, uh, because I, I made those
decisions, unfortunately, youknow, one of my faults I made
was, um, so I never, I neverthought really about the people
in the audience, you know, butwe were always one album ahead,
you know, like, like, so we hadalready say, we already had

(01:01:02):
written, get it away.
And that's maybe when, you know,I don't know the timeframe, I'm
just saying, but I'm using anexample here.
So by the time we had the songfrom get it away, written and
ready, we had already started togive up on right.
Not playing the songs from kids.
And it wasn't because, uh, we'retrying to like stiff the fans or

(01:01:25):
anything.
It was just that we're all readyto make the next leap, you know,
as far as like, you know, ourmusical journey, let's say,
okay?
So rather than play, gobackwards, I was already
thinking like, these songs areclearly better.
You know, we recorded thembetter or whatever.
It's time for these songs.

(01:01:46):
So that was the mentality, butit was wrong, you know?
I know I made a mistake, youknow, because the people are
there, you know, as a fan, thepeople there to hear the songs
that they get the record on, youknow?
And, um, I can't even take that.
I can't even go back to, to thefact that I, I become less of a
fan when I, when I, um, when Ireally was getting into this

(01:02:10):
band thing, you know, I stoppedbuying records, um, because I, I
thought I found a tendency thatbands would like, um, hear a
record by another band and allof a sudden they would change
their sound and it would soundlike that.
You know, like I really wasafter the purity of like the
organic purity of like what oursound would be, you know?

(01:02:32):
So I had to like stop being afan, you know?
So those great days of me buyingthe Discord records and, you
know, buying the Black Flagrecords ended like somewhere
like in 82 or whatever, youknow?
And, you know, it kind of sucksbecause I was, I really enjoyed
those days of going huntingvinyl, and discovering new bands

(01:02:53):
and new music.
But I had given up on thatalready because I had to, in
order to kind of write therecords for SSD, I did not want
to fall into the trap oflistening to the new Black Flag
record and having that affect mywriting.
So because I made thatsacrifice, and it was a
sacrifice, I was also soentrenched in what we were

(01:03:17):
trying to do that I didn't wantto go backwards and play the
songs that I thought we'dalready kind of like, we kind of
already obsolete, you know,we're already writing better
songs, you know, like, you know,we started off not knowing what
the fuck we're doing.
And we started to figure out alittle bit of what the fuck
we're doing.
And it made more sense to kindof play the songs that we knew

(01:03:39):
what the fuck we're doing on andgo backwards.
But, you know, looking back onit, because I lost in touch with
like that fan mentality, That'swhere I was trying to go with
this thing.
Because I lost touch with thefan in me, you know, like I'm
saying, where I was like buyingrecords and stuff.
I kind of lost that.

(01:04:01):
I lost that thing that I shouldhave kept, you know, that these
people, you know, only know youfrom the records that you have
out.
And that should be aconcentration, you know.
But unfortunately, the way itworked with us, we were always
one ahead, you know, which...
you know, like regular bandsdon't do that.
You know, like big commercialbands, I'd always not want to

(01:04:24):
head there one behind, you know,like they, they, uh, they, they
don't outpace themselves, youknow, like they, there are no
rush to release a record, right?
Most bands like on a commercialentity or whatever, there are no
rush to kind of get the next oneout.
Sometimes it's like two or threeyears, you know, before, like,
you know, before a record comesout.
And I was, we're in a rush to,you know, we recorded it, boom,

(01:04:47):
it was coming out, you know?
Uh, so it just was the wholewrong way, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:53):
It's pretty insightful, Al, right?
Like, you know, you saying youkind of, you stopped being a
fan.
So you kind of lost empathy forlike the

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:59):
fans.
Like what the, what it meant tobe a fan and how I should have
been, uh, thinking more on theline on lines of that.
Like I was thinking, here's whatI was thinking.
I was thinking like, I knowwhat's better than they know for
what we're doing here.
I'm going to give them the beststuff they got.
I do believe that.
I do believe the next album wasbetter, the material was better.

(01:05:24):
I used to think, I know what'sbest for them.
I'm going to give them the bestwe got.
It was the best we got.
I wasn't wrong, but they justweren't ready for it.
They didn't know it.
That was the mistake.
You can't be like that.
Even though it's right, I'm sureevery other band in the world
thought the same thing, youknow.

(01:05:45):
I'm not unique to this.
I'm sure Guns N' Roses probablythought their, whatever, record
was better, you know.
And I'm sure every band, whetherit be like independent or a big
band, always thinks their nextrecord is better, you know.
I know that trap you can fallinto because on my next band,
Gage, in the 90s, I watched theother members of my band try to

(01:06:07):
take me in that trap.
The same trap that I came from,I watched them try to take me in
that same trap where the newmaterial is better.
And I used to sit back andlaugh, kind of like, wow,
they're trying to drag me backinto that same trap.
And I think it's an easy trap tofall into.
Unless you really remember whatthis thing is all about.

(01:06:30):
It's about the fans, really.
You're playing for them.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:34):
How We Rock and Break It Up kind of get lumped
unfairly together, I think.
And How We Rock definitely hassome big moments.
If you had a chance to redo thatrecord, would you change
anything?

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:46):
Oh, yeah.
I think How We Rock's got a lotof flaws in it.
I was messing around with myguitar sound on How We Rock, and
I had this effects rack that Iwas playing around with, and I
think I screwed my guitar soundup.
When I think about that, that'sthe biggest thing that comes to

(01:07:08):
my ears.
That record was definitely areally good example of being one
record ahead.
That record, when you think therecord On the Road, that was
from our experience driving toCalifornia.
That's really what capturedthat.

(01:07:28):
That song was written On theRoad pretty much right after
coming off that 83 or 82,whenever you're saying we took
the road trip, you know, out toWest coast.
That's so, I mean, I, I, I justknow, uh, kind of the pitfalls
that I, I felt, I felt it wasjust mistakes made, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:49):
Yeah.
Do you feel like maybe if youwould have trimmed the record a
bit, like it would have beenthought of like on the level of
the first two records?

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:58):
Uh, No, I just think it was always going to be
flawed, you know?
Like, just the timing ofeverything and what I was
thinking and stuff.
Yeah, it just was a bad time toput a record out.
I think it was just a flawedtime, you know?
I don't know if it ever had achance, really.
I mean, I'm not going to say...

(01:08:20):
I mean, I respect people thatsay they like it, you know,
whatever.
I'm just saying that I look backon it at a time that...
I was messing around with myguitar sound.
So I can't help but think aboutthat.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:36):
I mean, 84 is kind of a strange year, right?
Because I look at it as the yearthat hardcore is kind of totally
blown out.
There's finally a milliongeneric bands that are just
playing fast.
And so it kind of is a weirdyear for an original great band
to put out a record that doesn'tsound like straight hardcore.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:56):
I mean, it's a good description.
I mean, there was a ton of bandscoming, you know.
They were coming quick, youknow.
You look at the Max MoroccanRoll and stuff, you know.
A lot of bands coming out.
And there was, you know, I'lltell you, a lot of thoughts were
like, I don't want to be ageneric band, you know.

(01:09:16):
I want to make sure that we havesome type of original sound.
And I don't want to be part ofthe generic, like...
fall into the trap of being ageneric band.
You know, I remember that.
So you're right.
There was a lot of bands comingout around that time.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:33):
Yeah.
Cause it seems like 83,everything is still like pretty
notable.
And then 84 is just, you know,there's, there's a lot of bad
stuff.
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:41):
Absolutely.
You've got it nailed rightthere.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:44):
Yeah.
Ian, I saw a show listing thatyou played two shows of the
Olympic auditorium in 1985 andthey are two weeks apart.
Is this accurate?
Do you, do you remember that atall?
No, that's not accurate.
Played one show out there.
Yeah, so one must have beencanceled.
Let me tell you what they areand maybe you remember.
So it's listed as March 15th,1985.

(01:10:05):
That's Angelic Upstarts andWasted Youth and You.
And the other one is SocialDistortion, Red Cross.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:13):
So Angelic Upstarts couldn't get into the country.
So that show was supposed to be,they were supposed to, you know,
that was supposed to be theshow.
It ends up, it ends up gettingrescheduled to be social D, you
know?
So that's, that's that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:28):
Yeah.
And do you get a fly out forthat one?

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:31):
We did get, we did fly out on that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got lazy, I guess after that,we didn't want to take, you
know, yeah, you know, we'vebecome positive and that was a
golden voice show.
So they were, they bought ourplane tickets then.
And, um, I don't remember thatcarrier.
Yeah.
Probably another cheap carrier.
Um, but, um, Airplanes weren'tthat, I mean, I think those

(01:10:52):
flights weren't that expensiveback then.
They were like maybe a couplehundred bucks round trip to go
to California.
I don't even know what it costsnow.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:00):
What do you remember about that show compared to the
84 show?

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:06):
People thought we were metal.
People weren't digging it, youknow, I guess.
Yeah, we weren't feeling thelove that we felt in the
previous shows, you know.
Like the one or two styletendencies, we started to kind
of get a little bit of, youknow, not great.

(01:11:29):
It certainly wasn't the feelingof that first Santa Monica Civic
show.
So it was like slowly goingdownhill, you know, as far as
the love goes.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:40):
But it was still people that came out to see us,
I think, you know.
I mean, I definitely rememberpeople coming out to see us, you
know, but we might havedisappointed them, you know.
And we had already decided tobreak up at that point pretty
much.
So it was like a swan songalmost.
We just wanted to kind of go outthere one more time.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:00):
Your last show is in Boston after those two shows.
It's April 6th, 1985 withExecutioner and Spike Raven.
Why did you decide to break upand what are your memories of
that final show?

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:15):
I just remember being down in our basement.
I mean, if I do it over again, Idon't think we should have
broken up like that.
But it just was a feeling.
At this point, that West Coast,we didn't get a good vibe from
it.
People weren't taking the samejourney that we were musically

(01:12:39):
at that point.
The music didn't seem like itwasn't super well-received.
I just felt we weren't embraced,you know?
And I also thought the guysmight have been kind of
wandering with, I think maybethey were questioning things,
you know?
So I thought it was like almostlike a freedom, like if we broke

(01:13:02):
up or something, like it wouldgive us freedom.
And my plan was to kind of keepon going, you know?
Just like retool a little bit,you know?
And keep on going.
I never planned to stop playingmusic, really.
And unfortunately that's what itbecame for me.
So that's why I say I look backon it and I wouldn't have done
that because I, I didn't want tostop playing music really, you

(01:13:24):
know?
I mean, I did feel the need tokind of quote, take a break or
recharge my batteries because,you know, uh, we weren't well,
you know, we weren't super wellreceived, uh, at that point.
And, you know, maybe I needed toreflect back on and, and, uh,
you know, figure out what we'redoing right and wrong or
something.

(01:13:44):
But, uh, But I, you know,instead we chose to kind of
break it up, you know.
And, yeah, kind of a low point,you know, breaking it up.
I mean, it's too bad, you know,because I missed– there's a lot
of things I missed, you know.
And I think a lot of things Icould have– if I could have done

(01:14:06):
– you know, I shouldn't havejust walked away from it so
easy.
You know, I should have tried tofight for it harder, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:12):
That night, like how did you write the set list?
Do you remember that at all?
Like did you– was it just– Thelast night?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was it like a normal SSD showfrom 85 or did you kind of write
like this is our final show.
Let's like take everyone throughlike the history of the catalog.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:29):
You know, I didn't– I don't remember that detail.
But I used to write the set listquite a bit.
I'm not even sure if I wrote theset list that night, you know,
like maybe I let Springer writeit, you know, whatever.
I didn't put as much thought,even though I knew it was our
last show, I didn't put as muchthought into like, wow, this is
our last show.
Like we pretty much were in thisrut of where we were, you know,

(01:14:58):
of where we were kind of like,you know, like what songs we
were playing.
Like we're probably playing, Itold you how we were always one
album ahead.
We probably were playing all ofBreak It Up, you know, like a
majority of...
What, do you have the set list?
Was there a lot of...
No, I

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:09):
don't.
I wish I had it.
That's why I'm asking.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:11):
Yeah.
I don't know.
But I mean, it probably was alarge concentration of the last
songs we were working on, youknow, which was a mistake again,
you know?
And, like, you know, we alwaysplayed songs from Kids With A
Say, but it was probably, youknow, it probably just was the
same song, you know?
Like, I mean, we never wentdeep...
going back you know so anywaysuh yeah i i think i should have

(01:15:37):
worked if i go back on it iwould have went back and kind of
worked harder on making this theset list set list more fan based
you know uh audience based youknow

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:49):
you you did advertise that as the last show
though so like what was it anemotional night for you or and
and was it an emotional nightfor the people in the room

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:59):
I don't think so.
I don't remember it wasemotional.
It was like a, I felt it waslike a relief almost, you know,
like, and I don't know why, butI, I just remember the feelings
that, you know, maybe, maybe itjust, we needed a break, you
know, cause people weren'treally, you know, people weren't

(01:16:19):
really digging us, you know,like it was like a low point for
like, you know, that record hadcome out and no one really loved
the record and, I think therecord came out before that,
right?
Did it?
I think it came out by then.
I mean, I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:33):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:34):
okay.
Anyways, people weren't diggingthe song, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:39):
What were the last hardcore records that you
listened to, like, kind ofbefore you lost interest and
withdrew from the scene?

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:45):
That's early on.
Like, you know, like, itwasn't...
Like I said, I had toconsciously make that decision.
Now, I think other...
You know, I'm not going to saythey're right and I'm wrong,
but...
I know that there's other bandsthat never stop listening to
music because they use the otherbands for inspiration for their

(01:17:05):
band.
Like I said, I wasn't going togo down that road.
I mean, I can definitely hearother bands and I say, oh, wow,
they must have been listening tothe last Circle Jerks record or
whatever.
Or I can hear the Circle Jerksor whatever and say, wow, they
were listening to this record,whatever.
So I wasn't going down thatroad.
So I can't, I'm trying to thinklike really my last band really

(01:17:28):
great time of being a fan.
I mean, I can tell, I can skipover some periods.
Like I, I know from hardcore,like, you know, loving hardcore,
uh, definitely checking outthose bad brains records, you
know, the okay.
Okay.
I said records, right.
There was probably like 85, 86,maybe rock for light, I think is
83.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:48):
You know, and

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:48):
then, so definitely was checking out all the bad
brain stuff, you know, I, I, Ichecked out all their stuff, but
then, um, you know, my next bigleap of like what I thought was
like, wow, I was like guns androses, that type of destruction.
I thought it was like an amazingrecord, you know, like that was
the next musical point in mylife where I was like, wow, this

(01:18:08):
is really special, you know?
Um, and then the next bigmusical jump was that was
Nirvana, you know?
Uh, I didn't hear many hardcorerecords that, and maybe I should
have like looked out more causeyou know, I'm, I, at that point
when we broke up, I wasconcentrating on, on my

(01:18:29):
engineering degree, you know,and it was getting really,
really intense, you know, atthat point, a lot of, quite a
lot of time on my part, a lot ofright, like just a big
concentration.
So it wasn't really, I had agood, good excuse to not be like
listening to music a lot, youknow?

(01:18:50):
Um, but, but, uh, whenever thedate was mixing in those points,
I remember when the Nirvanarecord came out, I started
really listening to what washappening up in Seattle.
And I, you know, I really,really liked what I heard.
I was like, wow, this is exactlywhat I was kind of shooting for.
You know, like I, you know, youcould really see that we were

(01:19:12):
trying to, we were trying towork on the vocals, you know,
during our musical journey, youknow, and that's pretty much it.
I'm trying to work on it on thevocal evolution kind of, you
know, like if you listen to thefirst record to the last record,
you can see how we tried to workon Springer

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:33):
really, you know?
Yeah.
As an original dude from likethe first wave, what is your
opinion on hardcore, likebecoming a legitimate genre of
music that like never went away?
Um,

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:47):
It's pretty cool.
You know, like, I mean, I, I'mnot saying I, I didn't think it
would be, or I did think itwould be, I'm glad, you know,
maybe I'd credit New York forthat because like, I don't
consider New York really beingpart of that first wave as much,
you know, uh, like New Yorkhardcore started maybe, maybe in

(01:20:08):
that 80.
I don't know.
You guys would know, like, youknow, there's, uh, those, uh,
85, 86 kind of period.
It became more metal-y.
People used to think we weremetal.
I think the New York Hardcorewas the metal kind of period.
Which is strange.
We got sacked with the tag.

(01:20:28):
I think they were doing it morethan us.

SPEAKER_01 (01:20:33):
You're merging different types of metal, right?
You're a little more on the hardrock side and they're a little
bit more on the speed metalside.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:38):
I definitely think we were hot.
We were tagged with metal.
Yeah.
I would have accepted the hotrock tag, but people weren't
seeing it that way.
I remember people going, metal,man, saying those words to me.

SPEAKER_01 (01:20:53):
In 1992, you released the Power CD, which is
basically the SSD anthology.
But instead of putting the songsin chronological order or
together as records, you mixthem up.
What was your thinking with thesequencing of Power?

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:09):
So the thinking was, I mean, I picked the songs that
were going to be on.
It was just supposed to, youknow, pretty much get what I
consider the best songs that wehad, you know, like almost the
greatest hits, if you want.
I would never call it thatbecause we're not a hit band or
whatever.
But take the best songs.
As far as the sequencing goes,I'm not sure if I had a hand in

(01:21:31):
the order.
I don't think I really caredabout the order.
I cared about what songs, youknow.
work on it, but I don't think Ihad too much of an interest as
the, uh, as the order.
So there was no, I don't thinkthere was any reason to kind of,
you know, make them in a certainorder.
We weren't trying to like doingthe anthology or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:52):
It's, it's a, It can be kind of an abrasive listen,
right?
Because it jumps all over thecatalog.
Ah,

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:58):
I get you.
Now I see where you're goingwith

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:01):
it.
Yeah, well, you're well aware ofthe different eras of SSD.
You wrote them and you werethere, right?
I

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:07):
never thought of that, to be honest.
Now you're putting me back inthat fan seat where the jump
might be too rough.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:18):
it's like you're listening to something on
shuffle almost, you

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:21):
know?

UNKNOWN (01:22:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:22):
Yeah, that was a mistake then.
Now you're calling out amistake.
I didn't think of that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:29):
I'm not trying to put you on the spot, Al.
No,

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:31):
no, that's a mistake.
That's a big mistake.
Blame Curtis for that one.

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:37):
Okay, we'll put it all on Curtis and his layouts
too.
Although, we've got to give himcredit.
This is one of the greatestalbum covers.
You know what I mean?
What's the

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:45):
greatest album cover?

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:46):
No, I said it's one of that power thing.
like that photo on the front,like it's a great cover.
Like if you're a kid goingthrough CDs and you pull up that
SSD power CD, you're like, yes,I am interested in this.
You

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:00):
know what I mean?
Great.
I'm glad.
I don't know if I had a hand inpicking that one out, but I
mean, yeah, we tried to, yeah.
I don't remember the coverselection process at that point.
I was kind of, I should havebeen more involved in that
record.
And that's another little bit ofregret I have, you know, like, I
mean, I definitely, I, Idefinitely picked the songs, and

(01:23:20):
I definitely picked the title,and there were certain things I
took an interest in, but therewere things that I should have
taken interest in that I didn't.
I regret about that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:31):
Al, before we get out of here, I wanted to ask you
about the SSD book that cameout, How Much Art Can You Take?
Everyone can find it on theinternet.
It came out, Radio Rahim put itout, and it rules.
So what went into putting outthis book, and what else do you
have going on now?

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:47):
One of the biggest things that I took serious from
the day that the band ended wasto try to keep the band alive as
best as possible.
That's why we put out the Powerrecord.
I noticed that albums hadvanished from the shelves and it

(01:24:08):
was important that we remainalive in a sense.
We put out power.
That's how power came about.
And then to continue, you know,to keep that, uh, to continue,
you know, uh, we, we weretrying, had the ideas about this
book for a long time, you know,and it took a, took quite a ways

(01:24:30):
to find for it finally come tofruition.
But, uh, um, you know, wethought we were always, you
know, had a lot of greatphotographs, certainly Phil and
Flash, who Springer's brotherwas in, was kind of an embedded
photographer with us.
And, You know, I really hadhoped that at some point we
could get these photos to seelight.
And it took like probably 30years for it to happen.

(01:24:52):
But, you know, it finallyhappened.
And Nancy did a great jobinterviewing the band and trying
to piece together, you know,some key moments in the history
of the band.
I think she did a fabulous job.
And that's about it.
You know, we also havexclam.com, which is our website.
We sell everything.
some merch, you know, in thelast few years.

(01:25:15):
And then we recently did thereissues on trust and there's
actually going to be someinteresting stuff in the next
few years.
I'm not sure if I'll be aroundfor it.
Hopefully I will be because Idon't know if I said, but I
mean, I have cancer andhopefully these things come out,
but there'll be like some typeof a further look into all the

(01:25:39):
records of SSD, you know, and,um, some type of a box set kind
of thing coming out maybe.
And, uh, so it should beinteresting, interesting time,
you know, and trust records, uh,just going to keep on keeping
SSD alive, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:56):
Yeah.
And Al, Al, how can the peoplefollow you?
Uh, you're on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:01):
I'm on Instagram.
Uh, you know, we have ourofficial band, uh, sites, uh,
SSD control official.
I'm, uh, Al Baril, uh, on IG andFacebook.
Certainly people can join me orjoin the official pages.
Nancy usually keeps runninghistory in the life of SSD.

(01:26:29):
On this date, this happened,this happened.
We've tried to do a good job ofkeeping the band alive.
That's definitely an importantthing.
for what we're

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:41):
doing.
Al, I appreciate your time.
Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:45):
Thank you.

UNKNOWN (01:27:08):
If I embarrass you, I'm sorry! If you're ashamed of me,
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!Oh, my God.

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