Interview with Descendents' Bill Stevenson

Drummer turned record producer talks about the new EP with Milo, and the wave of bands turning out records at his Ft. Collins, Colorado studio.

By Mark Prindle
www.markprindle.com

Mr. Bill Stevenson is the legendary drummer of Black Flag, Descendents and All. He also owns his own studio, produces other bands and has two children. In addition, he's an extremely friendly man! We spoke on the telephone in November 2003, and here's how the "jiggy" went "booyaa." There was a bit of telephone tag at first, but eventually it was all sorted (sordid) out.

My questions are in bold; his answers are in plain text.

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This is Bill.

Hey! This is Mark calling from --

Oh hey!

Hey, how ya doin'?

Hold on a second.

Sure.

(pause)

Oh yeah, did you get my message?

Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

You know, it's my bad. I thought she was listing my interview -- this is the first interview I've done with her, and I thought she was listing them in terms of my time zone, but I notice it says 3:00 New York time.

That's alright. What are you up to? Do you have time now, or should I call back?

I do. Yeah, I do. I'm sorry. I usually don't flake, but sometimes I flake.

That's alright. Where are you right now?

Huh?

Where are you right now?

Oh, I'm just at my studio. The Blasting Room.

Oh okay.

You hear me okay?

Yeah! Why? Are you having trouble hearing me?

No, but my cell phone's not great here at the studio. But let's try, because I noticed the studio phone battery's really low.

Okay! So what's going on with the Descendents? A new album coming out?

Yeah! We're on our "once every 7 years whether we need it or not" schedule.

Ha!

That's about the same as my bathing schedule.

Eeeeeww. Are you already working on material? What's the situation?

Oh no, we're done. We're just mixing.

Does it sound at all similar to Everything Sucks? The same sort of pop-punk feel?

Well, there's some material on there that's similar to Everything Sucks. Like say, "I'm The One" or "Thank You." Or "Rotting Out." But then there's some stuff that sounds a lot more to me like Milo Goes To College, like say "Suburban Home" or maybe -- well, "Suburban Home," I think. Or "I'm Not A Loser." And then there's a few kinda slower ones like "When I Get Old" or whatever. "Clean Sheets."

Any trudgey "Iceman"-kinda stuff?

There isn't really anything way, way off the map like that, no. Not too much.

What was going on in that period of the band? All of a sudden, you took kind of a weird change there. A lot of that album is like that.

It wasn't really a quirky thing. We followed it through over the next decade with our band All.

Yeah, that's true.

So it wasn't like a whim, but it was maybe a little bit out of character for us. Now when you look back on the catalog, some of that stuff does stick out a little bit. But it's just always been our agenda to just do whatever we think is interesting to us at the time and not really worry about what the stylistic constraints might be according to whatever given listeners.

And it's okay with the All singer to take a year off or whatever so you guys can do the Descendents?

Well, our little musical world is pretty interesting right now. Because, for example, Karl has his band The Presidents' Wives, and he also has this band The Vultures. Then Chad has his band Drag The River -- Chad is All's singer. He has his band Drag The River. And I now have my thing I'm doing with Russ too. I'm doing a band with Russ from Good Riddance and also Zach from Hagfish, and Aaron and Pete from Bane.

Wow! What's the name of that band?

It's called Only Crime. And so we have a kind of a broad musical -- oh, oh! And then the other thing is Karl is also playing with the Doughboy and the Drill Car guys -- All Systems Go. So our little musical community that we've always had for so long is becoming more and more incestuous. And so we tend to operate in a little bit more of a seasonal manner than we used to, say when we were all living in one room together sleeping on a floor.

I'm actually reading a book right now about Keith Moon. Are you a fan of his style, just off-chance?

Yeah, I suppose you couldn't be a rock drummer and not find some good in Keith Moon. I'm not like fanatical, but I do love his drumming, sure.

Okay. I was just wondering if -- you know, people are always talking about how he brought his unique style to his work or whatever. I was wondering if you yourself are able to describe your sound - describe what makes you different than some other rock or punk rock drummers out there. Do you feel like you have a distinct style that you can pin down and point out to people like me who don't really know that much about drumming?

In layman's terms, I would probably fail at it. But in semi-musical terms, I would say that my style relates to punk and pop-punk kinda like how Bill Ward's style relates to what became of metal. And what I mean is that Bill Ward plays little orchestrated phrases which are more, let's say, circular than linear. Whereas John Bonham, as much as he did rock and everything, he basically was keeping a beat. Bill Ward was playing these phrases.

And so the pop-punk that we've all heard so much of and gotten so sick of -- I mean it's linear-based so it's got more in common with, say, Poison or Motley Crue. And it's not circular-based, having something in common with Sabbath or with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. And so I think that my drumming -- that I added a kind of "push me-pull you" to what otherwise was a strictly linear drumming style. Yeah, I guess that's really the only thing I can think of.

Okay. Because I've been doing this web site for a while where I talk about records and people write in, and I've just had several people remark to me that they think that you're one of the greatest drummers. And, you know, I play the guitar! I don't really know much about drums, you know?

Yeah! Yeah. It's like I try to play with the singing as much as I do play with say the bass player. That's another way to look at it -- like I try to play the feelings of the song, rather than keeping a beat so that the other guys can play the feelings of the song. I try to play the song -- feel the song. And of course that's not unique, but I'm saying that's something that has always been important to me - that the drums have a passion and fluidity unto themselves, and not just that they're this backdrop for the other guys to play.

Oh alright. That's cool! How often are you on the road, with all these different projects going on?

Last year, All spent the better part of the year on tour. We toured the whole world pretty much, which isn't bad for a bunch of guys that have kids and stuff! But this year, we haven't done any touring.

Oh really? 2003?

Not this year, no. So we just do it when it's right for us, I guess.

And you have one daughter?

I have a five-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. And Milo's got a one-and-a-half-year-old son and a daughter on the way, Stephen has a daughter and another one on the way, and Karl doesn't have any kids.

How is it for you being away from home for that long? I mean, it must be kind of tough! But then I guess you had this whole year at home, so --

Well, I try to just focus on being with my kids when I'm home, and then try to plan strategic visits. So if we're playing in a nearby town, then the wife and kids will drive up. Or maybe they'll fly out for a weekend and we'll rent a car, if it's a really long tour. I try not to go more than three weeks without seeing them if there's any way possible to do it, but of course touring doesn't always lay itself out that way.

Do they know your music?

But you know, it's common. I mean there's a lot of occupations in the world where, you know, "Oh, Dad's gone away on work for a month." I mean, it's not just music that's that way. But I think somehow with the touring, there's almost a stigma to it because it's like, "Oh he's gone away, and who knows, he's out there doing drugs or whatever." But I've never tried a drug before, so I don't have to worry about that!

Just the caffeine to keep you going?

Well yeah, that's a drug too. You got your people that say that everything's a drug -- a candy bar's a drug and … And if a candy bar's a drug, then I'm a drug addict! But I love coffee, yeah.

Do your kids know your music? Have they heard your records?

They don't know it specifically because I don't sit around and play my albums. But they know the other bands. Usually they know stuff that I'm producing -- they know Rise Against and they know Element 101 and they know Good Riddance.

Do bands come to you to be produced? Or do you hunt them down? Do you just like hear a band and go, "Oh wow, I'd really like to work with these guys," or do they come --

I don't do much hunting. I haven't had any luck hunting! The bands come to me, yeah. We don't even have a proper web site or anything for the studio, but they hunt me down. When I go after them, I never get to do it. I wanted to record that band Snapcase, but I didn't get to.

Around when did you learn how to use all that equipment? Recording equipment?

Well, it's a famous story. We were recording I Don't Wanna Grow Up, which was '84 or '85. '85. And the engineer at the time was having some kind of problems or something, and he was drinking a lot. And he got so drunk while we were recording that he passed out. And so I basically kinda rolled his chair out of the way and rolled my chair in place of it, and then lo and behold, Bill Stevenson is an engineer!

Aaaay!

And of course that record sounds terrible! I fucked it up good and well, but that's how I started learning. So it was basically a DIY kinda thing.

It doesn't sound terrible! Maybe to your perfectionist ears, but that's a classic! Everyone loves that album. It's a classic. Absolute classic.

Yeah, but some of these billion-dollar Def Leppard Pyromania-style punk records that you're hearing nowadays, you know - they make our little meager effort sound pretty weird. Of course, a lot of those things have a weird sound to me too, those bigger records. They sound kinda … kinda …

Fake.

Yeah! Like I can't get any sense of who's playing. It just sounds really anonymous.

It sounds like a big machine that they just push the buttons.

Yeah! That's a really good way of saying it. I've always tried to figure out how to say it, but that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, you can't hear any personality behind the guitar or the drums.

You can't get intimate with it. You can't go, "Oh, well that's Jim playing the guitar!" It's like no, that's like a wall of guitar.

Yep. Absolutely.

If you listen to Greg Ginn or Jimi Hendrix or somebody, or Pete Townshend, you go, "Oh! That's Pete Townshend playing! That's Jimi Hendrix playing! That's BB King playing!" But stuff, I just, yeah yeah, I totally hear what you're saying.

It could be anybody. It could be anyone in the studio playing those four chords.

It could be anyone that just picks up the guitar - "YUN-CHUN-CHUN-CHUN-CHUN." Yeah.

I guess you already named a bunch of bands you've worked with and stuff, but what other newer bands are you listening to these days?

Oh man! I recorded this band -- they're called The Wilhelm Scream. And they are fucking amazing!

What are they like?

They're like Shades Apart meets Nomeansno, but with Slayer in there too.

Hah?

They've got these crazy arrangements, but they're these brilliant pop songs too. It's just the craziest thing I've ever heard.

Are they signed and everything?

Apparently Nitro's been sniffing around on 'em. I don't know how that's all gonna work out.

Okay. Let's see, what else. Did you have any interest at all in that Black Flag reunion that Greg pulled together?

I talked to the guys during the months preceding it and stuff, and during it. But when Greg originally outlaid his plans, it was that it was gonna be like The First Four Years, you know? Which, to me, that would mean Robo. And so all I did basically was encourage them to get Robo into the country, which they ended up doing, so that's good. But at the same time, I did offer to, you know, "If Robo can't come, I'd be glad to help out, but it's really Robo's gig."

Have you heard anything about it? Do you know if they ended up playing any newer material? I heard they were doing My War, but I don't know if they ended up doing anything newer than that.

What Dezo told me is that they had this thing that opened up that was like they played the whole My War album. Then they did this sort of Black Flag stuff - I don't know all the details because I didn't go to it. I was working when it happened. Since I don't live in L.A. anymore - I mean, if I would have lived in L.A., of course I would have went and everything.

Do you still keep up with Dez? Or was that just for this thing?

I keep up pretty good with Dez. Dezo and I have always been very, very good buddies. I keep up good with -- probably best with Dez, but I also keep up with Greg pretty well, and Chuck. And Henry and I email. So I don't have any real enemies in that camp. A lot of them don't get along with one another as well, but I was just the dumb little kid that was happy to be there, so none of them really hate me.

I was reading, I guess, an interview with you -- I don't remember where it was from -- where you were talking about basically the same, you know, I read that Get In The Van book. Just this year, I finally got around to reading it. And I read an interview with you, where you were describing the same thing, where people were just beating you guys up. You know, trying to beat up the band.

Yeah, I don't know what it was about Black Flag that made everyone want to beat us up, but --

So you're probably, I would imagine, glad to be out of that particular scene of it. Is that why you ended up leaving Black Flag, or was that around the time when the Descendents --

No, I left Black Flag because it just wasn't working at the time. Greg and I were very, very close as friends and musically, and we had grown apart. And so I kinda wanted to leave, and he wanted me to leave at the same time.

Growing apart musically? Because he wanted to do the instrumental stuff?

No no, I loved that stuff. No. It's just -- I don't know exactly. I mean, if you would've been through -- You know, it's a wonder any of us are even alive and even speak to each other, to be honest. You know what I mean? Just to have gone through what we went through, and then still be friends on the back end of it, is a pretty tall order. They used to fuckin' burn -- Fuck, one time these guys were whipping us with these belts! It's just like -- it was a very tough period, and I was too young to be able to sort of assimilate it all in a way that made sense to me. But I learned so much from those guys about music and just about life and everything, so I respect them all greatly. And for me, it was a real honor to have even shared the same space with any of them.

Did you know them from -- well I guess obviously you knew them from the Descendents because you were signed to Greg's label, right?

At that point, we were actually with New Alliance Records, which was Mike Watt's label.

Oh okay. I have -- just to let you know where I am on this -- I have all the Descendents albums, all the Black Flag albums and I had just started getting into All. I have two All CDs.

Oh. Uh huh?

Yeah. I need to -- I really like the two I have. I have Problematic and … fhooo … I'm blanking on the other one. I think it's a newer one. I do like both of them though. I saw you guys play with Bad Religion -- it must have been ten, maybe even more than that years ago in Atlanta. A long time ago.

Uh huh?

So I'm trying to get -- See, for me, the All that I'd heard was really sort of power-poppy-punky kinda stuff, so when you said earlier that you kinda took the -- not the "Iceman" feel, but that kind of weird thing on into All --

You haven't found it, okay. Yeah, the main album would be Allroy Saves.

Oh okay! Because I do really like the album All that you did with the Descendents, so --

Yeah, Allroy Saves would be another record where we kinda picked that stuff up again.

Cool. So the order here was -- you were in the Descendents and then Black Flag and then the Descendents again? Or… At what point did All come in?

At what point did All come in? All came in basically when Milo's science career kinda obstructed the Descendents' ability to be a full-time band. Descendents was always like more of a hobby, I guess you could say. So we started All, obviously with a different singer, so that we could be like working and functioning, and not kinda being bummed out that Milo didn't want to go on tour.

Oh there's the other one I have -- Pummel. That's the other one I have.

Oh, but that's got a little bit of dark stuff on it. Like there's a song on there called "Stalker" that's kinda dark.

Oh yeah! Yeah, that's a good one.

And like "This World" and "Broken."

I do like the two albums. The problem I have is that I just about four months ago got laid off, and now I can't buy much of anything. So I just got into All and I just got into Johnny Cash, and I'm sitting here thinking, "Well, I can't really buy any more right now." But I like the ones I have! What kind of audience does All have at this point? As far as, are you able to make a good living on that? Or is it more the production side that you're able to make a living with? Or a combination of all of them -- the touring, the album sales…

I guess I manage somehow by culminating all of the fruits of all of the 30, 40-some-odd albums I've played on -- culminating that with doing all these producing gigs, because I've been doing a lot of stuff. Like recently I've done Rise Against, the Suicide Machines, the Casualties, Good Riddance. I mixed the new Anti-Flag.

Oh, you did that? Oh! Okay.

Yeah I mixed it. So I've been going pretty hard on that. If I throw all of that together, it seems like it assimilates itself into some kind of half-assed career.

Ha! Well, that's cool. It's not really that often that a person gets to do what they want to do for a living.

Yeah, and that's a point that I need to remember each day when I wake up, because I should be happy. Yeah.

Why? Do you do a lot of worrying about money?

Well, with kids. Before, I was just, "Oh well, I'm gonna sleep on the floor this month, 'cuz I don't have anywhere to leave? Okay. Who cares? No big deal." But now I've got kids, it's like I don't want THEM to sleep on the floor!

Does your wife work as well?

She works with us. She does all the Descendents mail order. It's not called mail order now. What's it called -- Internet sales?

Oh! Yeah. Alright, yeah. I guess the old Descendents records must still be selling catalog-wise pretty well too, right?

Yeah, they do really well. But our royalty rate on those is pretty low, so it takes like two for one compared to a Fat or an Epitaph thing.

Oh, okay. What about the early Cruz records with All?

Same kinda thing.

Oh really? Oh, that's unfortunate. Does Greg Ginn own Cruz? Is Cruz still around?

I don't know if Cruz is around in an active sense, but you can still get those records to the extent that you ever could. The distribution there isn't as strong as some of your newer labels with your more palatable versions of punk bands. Because SST released a lot of very adventurous stuff at the time. And when I say SST, I'm including Cruz. So I don't know -- I think Greg's distribution seems to be okay, given that he paved the way for so much of what punk rock is now.

Do you think that -- another thing that they keep saying in this Keith Moon book I'm reading is that drummers are like a different sort of person. It takes a different sort of person to want to beat on things for a living. Was there something in you growing up that made you gravitate towards the drums more so than any other instrument?

I know that yeah, I used to just be a "tapper." My mom says I was a tapper. And so these tappers of the world -- they're destined to become drummers, or so it's said. But I think that all musicians are tappers. Because when you play guitar and bass, you're doing the same thing that you're doing on drums. Because I play many, many different instruments, and it's all the same to me! It's all rhythm and pitch. I don't think that drummers are particularly unique among musicians, but musicians are the tappers, the fidgeters and the whistlers of the world, yeah.

Are there any DVD-type things coming out that you're involved with? All or Descendents?

Yeah, I wish. We're too retarded to have ever done anything like that, like taped anything. And we're too retarded to have even taken any photos for this album! We don't even have any photos?

Really!?

I mean NONE! I can't find ANY photos, because we never took any! I mean, that's how clueless we are in respect to the real world and like marketing a band. We're totally fucking clueless.

Well, how did the Descendents get so many fans then?

Just because of our music. We're not clueless on the music, but we get so wrapped up in the music. I mean literally, I forgot to snap ONE picture the whole time we were recording, and we've been recording for like a year!

HA! That's nice.

We don't focus on the fanfare or whatever. That's just not our thing. "Well, here's us in the studio, you know --" I can't think of a more pompous, retarded thing than that, but at the same time, I suppose the fans would really enjoy it, so maybe I'm being negligent, you know?

Yeah. So I'm looking up your stuff on All-Music Guide now. Your birthday is September 10th?

Yeah?

I guess that's become kind of an unfortunate date.

Why?

Or right around an unfortunate date.

Oh oh oh. I see.

Yeah. Has that changed your birthday cheer? I ask because I have a friend whose birthday is September 11th, and so it's kind of ruined for him.

You know, it hasn't at all. You're actually -- in fact, I'm gonna tell you something. You're the second person whose brought it up ever, and the first person who brought it up was about ninety minutes ago, an insurance lady I was talking to.

Really!?

So it's very strange that no one's ever brought it up until in the last two hours.

Ahhh! It looks like you have the same birthday as Mr. Joe Perry. Did you know that?

Oh, I do?

Yeah! Joe Perry. He's a lot older than you, but yeah. Good old All-Music Guide. Also Big Daddy Kane. Oh yeah. So what's on your agenda today? What are you doing today?

I'm mixing. I delivered the EP that's coming out. The EP's called 'Merican. Like it's not American, but 'Merican, like with an apostrophe before the M. Like how a hick would say it, you know?

'Merican. Okay.

Yeah. I just delivered that yesterday -- the art and the music and everything. And now I gotta mix the album, or I guess revise the mixes. When you own your own studio, you just keep revising the mixes until Mark at Fat calls you up and goes, "SEND ME THE F-TAPE!" So I've got about another two weeks to go on that. So I'm mixing right now as we speak, although I'm not doing it right this second, but I mean --

Do you play other instruments on the records? Or just for fun?

I haven't ever played on one of our albums or anything except for drums, but like for instance, we once recorded "Rebel Yell" for one of those, like --

Tribute-type things?

One of those comps like Before You Were Punk or something like that? We recorded "Rebel Yell," and I actually did the guitar solo and a bunch of guitars on that, just because I was more familiar with that kind of a style of thing.

Makes sense. The songs on the EP -- are they different ones than the songs on the album? Completely different songs?

There's a couple different and then a couple that are going on the album.

And then do you have a schedule for what All is doing next? Or is that on hiatus for a while?

Well, what All has been trying to do is to record this kind of -- back to what we were talking about before, the kind of off-color stuff. Trying to record a whole album which would be kinda largely instrumental or more "Iceman Cometh"-y, but maybe more like"Uranus"-y. You know "Uranus"?

Yeah, umm-hmm.

Like that. We have a body of material that's like that, but it's a … What we're trying to do, if you could cross "Uranus" with, say, the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie original recordings.

Whoa!

So using that, let's call it like a "be-bop" format, where you establish a riff and then improvise on it, but it's been slower going than we would have thought. But mainly because this Descendents record kinda eclipsed our attention.

Are the guys in All good improvisers?

Well, that's the other problem. We're still trying to get better at improvising.

I can't do it. It's not easy. I definitely can't do it myself.

I am a Charlie Parker freak and an Ornette Coleman freak and a Don Cherry freak and a, fuck, Thelonius Monk… So I don't know, I've been trying to do something that aspires clearly beyond whatever we've inherited or whatever we've innovated thus far. Trying to bring something new to the table, I guess you could say. I thought if I could fuse the punk energy and aesthetic with be-bop's adventurousness and coolness, maybe something would be interesting that way. But it's proven to be a little more than we can handle, to be honest, so we need to get a little bit better.

Is that just a matter of practicing more?

Yeah, or practicing the right way. The only way I've ever gotten good at improvising is by improvising. It's hard to rehearse something like that in terms of chops. You just have to stretch, stretch, stretch. Because it's more a mental thing, I think.

I agree with that. How often do you play the drums? Does it differ depending on what's going on?

It's like every day sporadically. In other words, I'm not like a two-day-a-week guy. I'm a five-hour-a-day every day guy, but then maybe go a month without playing because I have to produce some band. But when I'm doing it, I'm doing it.

Wow. You mean whether there's a band there or not, you're playing? Like you'll just be in there by yourself playing the drums?

No, I always have -- Well, I have been this week playing by myself, yeah. I always have people to play with though. Karl and I play together a lot, even if Chad and Stephen are nowhere to be found. Or Milo.

Have you noticed any hearing loss at all? Or do you always keep your ears plugged up?

I'm pretty good. I have a teeny bit, but don't we all?

Yeah. Ha!

I'm okay though, yeah.

Anything else I should put in here about the Descendents coming back again with Milo? Are you guys gonna tour? Or do any live shows?

I'm not sure what our touring plans are yet. We're still trying to figure it out. But no, I think you covered things pretty well. Better than most.

Okay, I don't want to leave anything out though, so if there's something else going on …. Okay, I've got the production, got the studio -- How much does the studio get used by other people? How much luck are you having with that in terms of --

Oh, I do more and more of it. At this point, I'm doing a big percentage of the Fat stuff.

Oh wow! That's great!

And also I did two records for Side One in the last six months, and also I'm doing stuff for Kung Fu now. We did all those Ataris records here. That was more Jason doing them though -- my partner here -- Jason doing them, with Jape -- Joey Cape. But now I'm doing other records for Kung Fu too. I'm doing this band Audio Karate, and another band called Useless I.D.

Oh, they're from Israel or something, right?

Israel! Yeah! So I'm doing a lot of stuff these days. And I mixed that Less Than Jake album. Not this one, but the one before this one -- Borders and Boundaries. And I mixed the new Anti-Flag. I don't know -- I guess we end up doing eight or ten albums a year by national groups.

And you're not getting tired, right?

Nope! No, I was a little tired a couple of years ago, but I'm actually experiencing a rejuvenation here in the last three or four months. And I've started a really intense study of African music.

Really!?

Like from the ground up too! So that's been fun to be -- maybe throw a little of that into that Charlie Parker thing we were talking about.

Yeah! That could bring some interesting new rhythms into your work.

I'm wanting to, you know, but it's easier said than done. I mean, it's easy for us to just make another album and say, "Oh okay, well it sounds like us. Okay, fine." But it's hard for us to -- it seems like the longer a band is together, the shittier their records get? I mean, I don't know why that is. And so we struggle with that, because we don't want to suck.

Are you happy with all of the All records so far?

No. No, there's ones I like more than others. I think we're about two for three, it seems like. Trying to look back on it honestly and fairly, Descendents and all, we do about two good ones and one lame one. That seems to be our deal.

Oh! Huh. Is it something you can tell when you're recording?

I wish! "Aww, this is a lame one. Let's put it out anyway!" I wish.

But the new Descendents stuff. At this point, are you pretty happy with it?

Yeah, I'm really happy with it. Karl's songwriting on it is really strong on it in the way that like, when I mentioned "I'm The One" or "Thank You," he's got some real strong songs in that area. Milo's stuff is strong, like some of it comes off more like Milo Goes To College -- older, more simplistic but tons of energy kinda thing, and that's really cool. And my stuff is more like some of the more harmonically intricate stuff that All was doing in the late '80s.

Where do you find the time to write, among all this other stuff?

Less and less.

Oh.

Less and less. For me, I've never been like a song craftsman, so - okay, like my father died and so there was a song. Something's gotta really happen or else there's not gonna be a song. Even if it's a joke song - I mean, I wrote that song "She Broke My Dick" or whatever, but it really happened!

OHHHHH! I don't need to know that!

Yeah!

Eww! Really!?

Yeah.

Did you have to go to the hospital?

Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah.

Aww man!

So something's gotta actually happen, you know?

Jesus! I'm assuming they fixed it all back up though. I hope?

More or less! More or less. I get by!

Oh man. Jeez. How old was your father?

He was 84.

Oh! Well, that's at least -- at least he lived a full, long life.

Yeah! Totally. Totally.

Alrighty, so -- sorry, I just clicked on Tonyall. I remember when that came out. At the time, I didn't know who Tony was.

Oh right, right.

Do you still keep up with him?

Yeah, yeah. I keep up very close with Tony.

Is he playing with a band?

No, no. He and I try to pitch around and work on little demos and things though.

Alright. What does Milo do? I know it's something science-related, but I don't know what it is he does for a living.

He's a bio-chemist. His mission is to try to make better corn -- like corn that will grow in more and more adverse conditions.

Ohhh! So he's fooling around with the DNA or whatever?

Yeah.

Whatever the heck it is in corn.

Yeah exactly.

Okay. Alrighty. Well, thank you very much and I'm really looking forward to hearing the new EP. And once I get a job, I'm gonna pick up some more of this All stuff.

Oh yeah! Thank you so much for doing an interview, and thank you so much for being real prepared and everything too. It's always fun to do an interview when someone has done even a little bit of homework, you know?

Well, I'm a huge Descendents and Black Flag fan, so I feel a little guilty that I only have a couple All CDs, but I can't be spending money!

Well, you shouldn't though. Because All is always gonna be the band that's guilty of not being Descendents, you know? We'll never be able to get out from under that shadow. But that's okay! That's fine.

What are your favorite All CDs? Which should I get for sure?

Allroy's Revenge is cool. Problematic is cool. Breaking Things is cool. The only one I don't like is Allroy Sez. That's the one I don't like.

That's your first one, isn't it?

That's the first one. I pretty much like the rest of them. With maybe Pummel being one of my lesser favorites.

Oh! Well, that's one of the ones I have. I like that one!

Yeah, but maybe -- I don't think any of our records are horrible; maybe it's a matter of taste. Yeah, I'm sure it is. You know how it is -- you show ten people a painting and they're gonna give you ten different opinions.

Yeah. Alright, well it was great talking to you and I'll make sure you get some copies of this thing when it comes out.

Okay, thank you so much!

Thank you!

I'll see you later.

Alright, bye.

Bye.

November 13, 2003.

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