Interviews with Jose Scandal and Dirty Harry
By: Forrest Cook
The night of December 14, 2018, there was a slight chill in the air – as close of a nip as Texas was going to get, anyway. Not that it mattered. The leathers would have been out, full-force, had the temperature been 100. The Christmas wreath was hung over the Three Links stage, and mountains of tamales were being served up gratuitously on the back porch for all-comers. The Scandals – Garland, TX natives – were celebrating their 15-year anniversary, and the party was set to be a rager.
For the show, The Scandals brought along their California friends Dead 77, as well as Austin street punks, Sniper 66 (who have been making quite a name for themselves, of late) to close out the night. They brought up-and-coming acts, American Minority and Blot Out to get the party going, and just thinking of Juan’s sexy scream sends shivers up my spine.
Also, in tow was old-time Dallas local-legends, Unit 21, instilling a small personal irony for me, in that, here are The Scandal’s celebrating their quinceanera, while it had to have been at least that long since I’d seen Unit 21 – a band who were once top dogs in the TX street punk game, and now resurface every so often for a reunion show. I remember coming up as a young punker and all my friend’s bands wanted to be Unit 21. I had fallen out of following them as they progressed beyond street punk and I got into other things, but was enamored to have the opportunity to catch their live show again. Of course, they didn’t play “Working Class Riot” though. Oh well. Boo!!
The Scandals came up opening for Unit, so for them, they’ve come full-circle. The party was a smash and even included a Donald Trump piñata which got the FULL presidential treatment, if you can believe that. I followed up the quince show with a phone call to Jose Valencia, The Scandal’s lead singer, and Dirty Harry Rockenbach, their guitarist, for a couple interviews. We talked about 15-years, Motörhead, fashion-tips, and how their bass player finally earned his stripes. I’m so proud of this band. They are finally becoming a full-grown woman.
Chatting with Jose Scandal (The Scandals)
Interview By: Forrest Cook
ELC: How’s it going?
Jose: Good. Life is pretty good right now. I mean, so-so.
ELC: Hell yeah. Well, you look good, man. You’re in shape and stuff, and so… how are you 40, dude? You’re 40, right?
Jose: Yup, I turned 40 August 27, born in 1979 in Garland TX.
ELC: Cool. So, you’re from DFW?
Jose: Yup. My parents are immigrants from Mexico.
ELC: Ok, cool. Well, what’s your secret? You look good dude. You look like you’re 25, you know?
Jose: The secret? I mean, there’s no secret. It just happened on its own. I’m not a hard drinker. I eat very healthy, I guess… as much as I can. I do like to eat a lot of tacos though, but I do exercise a lot. I’ll tell you that. I’ve been exercising since I was a teenager. I used to be a boxer when I was a teenager. I guess, I stopped competing but I kept up with the workouts. The reason I do it is because it helps me breathe on stage a lot better and helps me sing a lot better, I guess.
ELC: Yeah, for sure. Ya’ll get pretty rowdy. So, congratulations on 15 years. That’s a big achievement for a punk band, you know? What’s that like? How do you feel about it? Is it a big deal to you?
Jose: It is a big deal. 15 years ago, when I made this band, my intention was not to be like ‘ah we’re gonna last forever,” you know? It was just like, ‘alright we’re gonna play music until we can’t… until we physically can’t play music.’ Like, however long that takes, and the years flew by so quick and here we are 15 years later and we’re still doing it.
ELC: How have you been able to make it last that long? Punk bands normally break up and, you guys are all original members, right?
Jose: Yes. Well, Harry the guitar player is original. Brian AKA Cuban – the drummer – he’s original, and, of course, me. The bass player – for the last fifteen years, we’ve been switching up bass players – Oscar. He’s the longest lasting bass player that we’ve had so far. He got in in ’09. So, that’s what? Almost, what? 9 years, he’s been in The Scandals.
ELC: Well, that’s like 10 years now.
Jose: Yeah, so he’s definitely one of us now, I guess.
ELC: Yeah, it took him long enough, right?
Jose: lolol
ELC: Yeah, cool man. So, are you guys like best buds and stuff?
Jose: Yeah, but going back to your question, yeah, we’re best buds. We have never got in a fistfight. We disagree on a lot of stuff but in the end, we come to terms, and you know? We agree on stuff, and you know? And we’re happy and, you know? We are pretty much young teenagers and still act goofy and stuff like that, which is like the recipe of making a band last without killing each other.
ELC: Yeah, for sure. I guess it helps that you’re a boxer, too, so you can just check them any time you need to?
Jose: Oh yeah. They know that.
ELC: For sure man!
Jose: But I’m probably like the nicest guy you’ll ever meet so it would take a lot for me to knock you down.
ELC: Good to know, man. Good to know. (Glad to have you on our side!) So, what’s it like being a young punk from Garland who gets to play with all your favorite bands?
Jose: Well, it’s kind of like unreal, I guess, and at times, it doesn’t really sink in until I’m at home and the tours over, and I’m back to my “normal” life, and I’m like, “Holy crap! I just toured with Conflict.” You know? I’m like, “wow!” You go see the pictures online, or on social media, and that’s fucking badass, you know? It hits you every now and then, but while you’re doing it, it really does not sink in at the time.
ELC: That’s cool. What are some of the highlights of that stuff? I know you’ve been around for a long time, so I’m sure there’s a lot. What are some of the biggest moments that you can think of?
Jose: The biggest moments are, like I said, opening up for my heroes. GBH, The Casualties, touring with Conflict, Sham 69. Just being on the side of the stage. And seeing a bunch of young punks looking at the heroes I look up to and I was like, “Hey!”. I was one of them a long time ago, and I still am. I’m still star struck. I don’t consider myself no one. I consider myself a nobody still, and these people are like my hardcore idols and my band members always look at each other, and we’re like, “Dude, that’s awesome.” We’re right here with Conflict or GBH and I guess that’s, like, our highlights that we’re happy to be playing with them, and we never would have ever believed it if we told ourselves 15 years ago that we were going to do this.
ELC: For sure. So, for the anniversary show you guys played with Unit 21, which is a band you came up with. What’s it like to see bands like that come and go, and then you see new bands start up, and then they go? Is that draining for you? Does it help motivate you or does it depress you?
Jose: I guess it goes both ways, you know? When we stated out… Unit 21, they were the shit. I mean, they still are. They were it. There were bands like Unit 21, Damage Case, The Residuals int the early 2000’s, here and there in the Dallas punk scene and those guys were like the top dogs of pretty much the state, I guess, and we were the opening band for the opening band. You know? And we grew up and idolized these people, and so that’s why when we had the 15-year anniversary, we got bands that were just starting out like American Minority and Blot Out, and we thought, “Hey, let’s do the same thing Unit 21 and all these bands did for us. Let’s give everyone a chance to start playing at big shows and big stages and get them going so the Dallas punk scene can keep going. Of course, not all bands are gonna last. You know? Some bands are gonna last forever and some bands are not, and it is what it is, but at least we can still keep it consistent in Dallas, that we have bands coming out all the time.
ELC: You guys have a lot of fans on the road?
Jose: As strange as it seems, we probably have more fans, I think, outside of Dallas, TX than we have in our own city. Because the shows that we have in Mexico City get huge crowds and all that shit. And I don’t know why is it. Is it that we’re the out of town band coming in? I guess that gives a little punk rock points that we’re travelling, but, yeah, I think we have a lot more followers in other cities and other states.
ELC: They treat you pretty good out there?
Jose: Oh yeah, definitely.
ELC: Do you have any juicy tour stories to share with our readers on the street?
Jose: Oh, yes. We have a lot. I could sit here all night and tell you a bunch of stories, embarrassing, scary, fun, you know? You name it.
ELC: Well, come on, man. Give us one. You know what the punkers wanna hear.
Jose: Well, let’s start with the craziest city we ever played in our fifteen years, Mexico City. I don’t know if you saw the documentary that we put out last year about our tour in Mexico, but we had a show in a city called Ecatepec, which is listed, I think, third most dangerous city in the world. So, we played a huge festival, and it was a ska festival, and we were the only hardcore street-punk band to play on that bill. The rest was just ska, oi bands, and I think the whole club was full of skin heads. It was a lot of people. We were co-headliners. The main band was this legendary ska band, I forgot the name, from Spain. They ended up not showing up, because they ended up having vehicle problems a state away from where we were playing at, so they didn’t make it to the show so the whole crowd was starting to suspect that they weren’t going to show up. I guess in different countries they take that seriously. I guess they take that different than us. Here in the United States, they would just go home and be bummed about it or be pissed, and probably write about it on social media about how a band didn’t show up. Over there, they will start a riot. They will beat up. They will demolish. They will destroy the club. They will go out into the streets and, you know? Catch the whole city on fire if they have to, and that’s almost exactly what happened that night, and we got caught right in the middle of it.
ELC: Did ya’ll play?
Jose: Yeah, we played our whole set. Towards the end of the set, I guess, they started noticing that the headliner wasn’t going to show up, so they started launching bottles at us. I got struck in the forehead as I was singing. They started throwing… and they weren’t exactly taking it out on us, they were just taking it out on the whole venue. Everybody that came across, and once one person starts, everybody starts, and just imagine almost like 2000 people just going nuts. So, we had to evacuate from the back, and literally just run for our lives. We had to run through like 3 blocks of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Mexico.
ELC: Wow! That’s nuts! Did you get your gear out okay?
Jose: Well, luckily for us, we learned. When we go out of country, we learned not to take our gear. It’s in our agreement that they have to backline everything for us, so all we have to do is show up, perform, and get the fuck out of there. In case of situations like these.
ELC: Does Slope Records take care of that? How do they treat you?
Jose: Slope Records, at this point, they still don’t have anything to do with our touring. We independently do that on our own. Maybe, in the near future they may help us out with that, but right now we do everything independently. The only thing they helped us out with is putting out our vinyl, this last one we had, This Country’s Gone to Hell, and potentially this year we’ll put out another one through them.
ELC: Awesome! Good to hear. How many tours have you guys gone on?
Jose: I think our very first tour was ’09. So, we have done, maybe, four West Coast tours, one European tour, and two Mexican tours… and for fifteen years we have been traveling, maybe two cities at a time, so around 100 cities, we’ve probably already performed. Maybe seven countries.
ELC: Seven countries! Man, it’s good to see local guys out there in other countries, you know? That makes me happy and proud!
Jose: Yeah, and like I said, we did this independently, all on our own. We bought plane tickets with money out of our own pockets to make this happen. We organized through social media. Our tours, we booked them. Everything was done by us to put our name out there.
ELC: Now for the important part of the conversation… can we talk about the spikes?
Jose: Oh sure.
ELC: How long does it take you to put your hair up?
Jose: It takes me exactly two hours to do my hair and I do it by myself, and I have been doing it for 20 years.
ELC: Do you do it often or is it only when you go to shows?
Jose: Yeah, when I go to shows, when I tour. Of course, when I work, I have my hair down. Very rarely do people see me with my hair down unless you live with me or you work with me.
ELC: What do you use to put it up?
Jose: Aussie Instant Freeze. The orange can. You can buy them at Wal-Mart… no actually I’m telling my secret. Shhh.
ELC: It’s ok, nobody reads this magazine.
Jose: People find out on their own how to do it. I did it by myself.
ELC: Dude, I wish I had hair.
Jose: I’m just enjoying mine while I still have it.
ELC: Yeah, for sure. Do you make your own clothes?
Jose: I buy… I make my own jacket. Of course, I buy my jacket the way it is and then I stud it up myself and design where I want to put patches just like every punk does.
ELC: What are some of the pros and cons to doing that?
Jose: The bad thing about it, I mean, and of course it’s our style, you know? We own it, the punks. I just hate giving ideas to other people that have nothing to do with punk, don’t know punk, don’t appreciate punk, and like steal our style. That’s the bad thing about it. Walking around with a nice studded, badass leather jacket and other people are like, “Hey, I wanna wear one too.”
ELC: Or buy one from Nieman Marcus for like $3000 or whatever.
Jose: Exactly. You’ll see the hip hop artists now and they wear studded jackets. Here’s a really funny story. I was walking in the mall one day with my daughter, and I was wearing my studded jacket, right? And I had my hair spiked up and everything and a group of young teenagers… I guess I caught their attention because of my jacket, and I could hear them talking about me. I overheard one of them say, “Look he’s wearing the same jacket as…” I forgot what that rappers name was. One of those guys. He goes, “He’s trying to be like them.” And I go, “Are you kidding me?” I was like, “Oh my god, these people need a history lesson.”
ELC: Which brings me to my next question. Do you ever want to load up that bandolier and shoot somebody with it?
Jose: Do I ever do what?
ELC: hah! The bullet belt you wear. Do you ever wanna load it up and shoot somebody with it?
Jose: In today’s world, I think a lot of people need to be shot. You know? Especially in our country and our society, how sad it has gotten. Yeah, I guess my answer’s yes.
ELC: I actually missed a question I wanted to ask you, about the sombrero. Is there a story behind your sombrero? What’s up with that?
Jose: I used to do it a lot when I first started in the early 2000’s. It’s not necessarily throwing it out there that, “Hey, I’m Mexican.” It’s just like, more of like a Motörhead thing that I saw on their album. They were wearing these cool cowboy hats and sombreros, and I just thought it was really cool to like, to show a sign of rebellion, like, “I have a bandido sombrero!” You know? I went with it. People loved it, and for a couple years I wore it as my trademark, and it got to the point that on tour, I kept losing them, so it got pretty expensive to have sombreros on tour a lot. All through America and Europe I left a lot of sombreros as souvenirs for people.”
ELC: Yeah! That’s whatsup! Who knows where they are now?
Jose: Yeah, maybe in somebody’s garage sale. Who knows?
ELC: Ok, now for the really important part of the interview. What do you write lyrics about? What influences you?
Jose: I mean, the same shit as like… you know? We’re really, I guess we can call ourselves political. You know? We write what is going wrong in today’s society. Well, we think it’s wrong. When we first started the band back in 2003 Bush was in office and at that time, it wasn’t as bad as it is now, with the whole country divided. There was division but it was not as bad as it is right now where people want to kill each other. We oversaw that and we were like, “Hey! This is bullshit!” We are kind of like conspiracy theorists with instruments. We believe in the conspiracies. We are like, “Hey, this country is controlled by the corporate elites. They poison our food. They are dumbing down our music. We’re literally slaves to the freaking Illuminati, I guess.” Shit like that, and myself, I write all the time about that shit.
ELC: What kind of positive causes would you say you want to get behind?
Jose: I want everyone to stop hating each other. I want to unite everybody as one and see who is their enemy, and that is our government, which like I said, is controlled by these corporate elite bankers. I want everyone to see that it’s all part of their plan that we are divided right now.
ELC: So, unity is your goal? What do you think the future is going to hold for our country and the world, and what do you think we can do about it to bring about that goal of unity?
Jose: I think that our future, with the way we are going, that we are going to destroy each other. We are going to destroy this country, the way it is right now. You know? What I want is for people to get more into art and positive stuff. Less negative. Less hatred. If people start looking up to positive stuff, music, art, and see the beautiful side of the world, and of life, then I think that could change a lot. We are so sucked into this hole that we have too much pride, and that’s what it comes down to is everyone has too much pride to admit certain stuff and to accept.
ELC: For sure man. That’s beautiful. I have to ask about the tamales, because you guys fed the bar at the last show. Where’d you get those. Those were great!
Jose: Oh, the tamales? Ahh thanks! I felt really bad and I hope you write this. It came from Marcos at Sinners Records. He provided the tamales. I got Sinner Records on board with the show, and I was like, “Hey, we have to do something for the 15-year anniversary. You know? We have to throw in something for the people other than just us performing. You know? Something cool.” And he was like, “Let’s feed the crowd.” And I was like, “With what?” And he goes, “What else? What else do people make in December? Tamales!” I was like, “Perfect! Bring as many tamales as you can. Make sure you have enough so that everyone can get some.” And, of course, he brought piñatas and, you know everyone had a great time. And that’s what its about. Having a great time. It doesn’t matter who’s side you’re on. We put the bullshit aside and had a great time.
ELC: We’re getting to the end here. What does the UK 82 style of playing mean to you and why do you keep that torch burning?
Jose: The UK 82, to me, was probably the root to thrash, to everything, because I used to be into thrash when I was a teenager, before I ever discovered street punk. I was into Megadeth and Slayer back in the early 90’s. I came across a cassette a friend of mine let me borrow, and it was The Exploited. I guess it was a recorded live show back in ’83 or ’82, and I saw them and I was like, “Wow! These guys sound hard! They sound like the bands I listen to. THRASH!” And of course, it was the other way around. Thrash sounded like them. So, I started doing a lot more investigation and research, and back then we didn’t have internet. We literally had to go to old record stores and buy records and all that fun stuff. So, I discovered Discharge. I discovered GBH, The Varukers, and of course the topic of UK 82 came upon, and I just fell in love with that style. To me it was just superior, and I was obsessed with it. I wanted everyone to love it like I love it, and that became the journey of why I made The Scandals.
ELC: Perfect! You mentioned new music. Do we have a date on that yet?
Jose: Hopefully late spring, early summer. It’s called The Taste of Destruction. I know every band says that about every album they put out but it’s going to be our best one ever. I can’t wait to put it out.
ELC: Well, hit me up for the exclusive. That was great.
Jose: For sure! Hey, thank you for doing this and like I said, it touches my heart knowing that there are people out there writing articles and interviewing bands, you know? Because that goes a long way for kids in the punk scene, and I really appreciate that. Have a good one!
ELC: Peace.
The Scandals
Chatting with The Scandal’s Dirty Harry From a gig in Shreveport
Interview By: Forrest Cook
…Harry: Harry’s Meat Market, bet ya’ can’t beat my meat!
ELC: Hey, whatsup, man? How ya’ doing?
Harry: I’m doing well man, I’m in Shreveport right now getting ready to play a gig.
ELC: Oh yeah? With who?
Harry: I play in a top 40 cover band for a living. Big Daddy Band, when I’m not doing this and I’m not with The Scandals.
ELC: Oh, that’s whatsup. You have some time right now?
Harry: Yeah.
ELC: Well, congrats on 15-years with The Scandals.
Harry: Yeah, man. Thank you very much.
ELC: What’s it like being in a punk band that long?
Harry: I don’t know, man, we just kind of do our thing, you know? We’ve played a lot of shows over the years and we’ve also had a lot of times off and times on and shit but it’s a good feeling though. Its an accomplishment. We are kind of one of the longer running punk bands in Dallas.
ELC: Do all your other friends have real jobs?
Harry: Yeah. For sure. Especially old punk rockers we used to know, you know? They like have kids or whatever and have to go get real jobs and shit.
ELC: Well, what enables you to do it, to be in a band for so long?
Harry: Well, I just love to do it. I’ve got a good support system, you know? My family and other friends and stuff that are totally on board with me being in a punk band for as long as I have and the travelling that I do. My surroundings allow me to do it. I’m very lucky in that way.
ELC: I guess your job helps too. You play music for a living.
Harry: Yeah, for sure. You become a better player. You write better songs. You learn lots of stuff. We play, in this cover band 4 nights a week, or 5 nights a week sometimes. It’s a full-time gig. You’re only gonna get better, and you’re only gonna learn. You know? Song structure, and you’re gonna learn how to deal with promoters and club managers and shit like that, so it’s definitely got its perks and I’m trying to apply some of the things I’ve learned in the cover band to The Scandals, you know?
ELC: Dope, man. Would you mind giving me an equipment breakdown of what you like to play with?
Harry: Sure! Currently I use a Fender Strat with a humbucker in it. That’s what I have been using for the last ten years. I got that guitar because, honestly, I had seen a picture of this band called The Havoc. They used to be band and I was obsessed with them at the time, and their guitar player had a white Strat with a maple neck and a humbucker in it. It’s kind of an 80’s kind of thing. It’s a good, solid, rock guitar. That’s why I use that. I’ve just gotten to love it. Before that, I was a Gibson SG guy. You know? Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath is my fuckin’ idol. So, I’ve got a couple SGs, and I’ve been known to play those, but mostly I play the Strat. The amps I use, I use two vintage Marshalls. I’ve got a ’77 and a ’78. Both of them are 100-watt. Each one runs through a 4 12’ cab in stereo. I had an opportunity to get a vintage Marshall many years ago and fell in love with it, so I’ve collected a couple more over the years. I do a stereo setup most of the time when I can do it. A lot of the times when we go on the road it’s not very logistical to bring two amps, but I do that because the dude that owns our jam room, named Chuck Frizzell, who’s like kind of the classic rock god of Garland, as far as I’m concerned. He’s been a big mentor to me. That’s how he runs his setup. He’s got a bunch of old Marshalls, but he runs his with stereo, so I kind of adapted that system, but yeah, I’ve got a Strat through Marshalls and that’s basically my setup. I’ve got a wah pedal and some chorus, a little bit of delay for solos, but other than that it’s just straight through the Marshall for that old school rock and roll tone. Kind of an AC/DC kind of sound.
ELC: You already mentioned Toni Iommi and the guy from The Havok. That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about was your guitar influences, because you’re a pretty ripping guitarist if I say so myself.
Harry: I appreciate it man. Well, basically the influences go back to blues and heavy, blues-based rock. Sabbath, Purple, ZZ Top is obviously the Texas influence there, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and things like that. I love all that stuff and then the more technical kind of players like Jeff Beck, but mostly the older cats that I dig have had a big influence on it. Obviously Fast Eddy from Motörhead and Phil Campbell. Both those guys are just gods, you know?
ELC: Jose told me he got the sombrero idea from Motörhead.
Harry: Oh really? I didn’t know that. Hell yeah.
ELC: Yeah, I can hear that.
Harry: Yeah, Motörhead and then like Bones from Discharge and Broken Bones. That dude is way up there on my list.
ELC: Surely after 15-years, you guys have got each other’s backs. Have there been any times where that’s been tested? Hard times where you didn’t know if the band was going to make it out or not?
Harry: Honestly, never. Its always Jose, and Cuban and I are the three originals, and we’ve always had a really strong bond. You know? I’m not saying we never fought or anything like that but, you know, its nothing that we can’t get over real quick. Bass players have come and gone but Oscar has been a solid bass player for seven years or something like that.
ELC: I think it’s ten years with Oscar. 2009, I was told.
Harry: Ten years? Oh, Damn. Yeah that’s right. Damn, time flies. We’ve been very lucky, really, that we haven’t had any major disputes where we’re gonna break up the band or anything like that. We’ve always said, you know, that we’ll keep this thing going for as long as the three of us are together, you know? Cuban, Jose and me. Obviously, Oscar’s been with us ten years, you know? But yeah, there’s been no issues with the threat of imploding or anything.
ELC: What are some of your most memorable moments? This is the last one I have for ya, but just give me some awesome times, you know?
Harry: It was pretty cool, like, our third or fourth show ever was at Red Blood Club, and we opened up for The Addicts. That was really, really cool, because quite honestly, we were really shitty the first two or three years we were in a band, real shitty. And for whatever reason they stuck us on that show so that was like our first big band that we opened up for and all that stuff, so that’s definitely one of the most memorable moments. After that… going on tour. Our first West Coast tour was in ’08 or something like that. I don’t remember a whole lot from it but I just remember being on the road for more than a week with these guys for the first time and we got through that with no problem so it was like, “what else can we do? How long can we go with this?” So that was cool. Obviously, going to Europe was really, really cool. Not all the shows were that great and coordinated and all that stuff, but the fact that we went out there. It cost us a lot of money, you know? We had to buy our own tickets, and we had a driver but we had to pitch in for gas, and all this stuff. So, we weren’t making any money. We were losing money big time, but we did it. You know? We played five countries in Europe and yet again we didn’t break up or get in any major fights, or anything like that, so that worked out well. So that’s another really huge moment for me, you know? Playing in London and all that shit was really, really cool. Other than that, we did Punk Rock Bowling in 2017 which was our first really big festival type thing. No, we did 2015, we went to Mexico City the first time and played El Chopo fest and there was just a sea of people out there which was also a real special moment because we weren’t even supposed to play that show. We had the day off and we just went to this big punk fest to check it out, and someone talked to someone and said, “This band from Texas is here.” And they gave us fifteen minutes to play. So, we knocked out like three or four songs real quick. It was real short and sweet, but man it was killer. So, that was cool. Punk Rock Bowling was cool, and then this last trip to Mexico we had better crowds and stuff. This trip in 2018 – that was real neat too. Let’s see, getting our 7” released by Slope Records was a huge moment for us because we’ve never had any help from any labels. No one ever backed us on anything. We had no financing. Any tour we did, we booked ourselves. We paid for our own vehicle and all that shit.
ELC: It’s rad that ya’ll are on Slope. I didn’t know that until I was researching for this.
Harry: Well, we’re not technically signed to Slope Records to be honest with you. We did a licensing agreement with them a couple years ago and we had the songs already recorded so we gave them the songs and they took care of the rest. We didn’t have a monetary split but it was a split between whatever records he had made, and he kept the rest and all that stuff. Things have really slowed down with Slope, but hopefully, you know, we have another full-length album ready to go. It’s been recorded for over a year. Slope keeps saying, “We’re gonna put it out.” But they’ve got a lot of shit going on with U.S. Bombs, and all their other bands, and then they started getting on Punk Rock Bowling. Anyway, things have really kind of slowed down but we are still working with them and trying to get this record out, but we need them to do it because we just don’t have the resources to do it ourselves. I mean, eventually we’d make it happen. We’d save up or whatever and have some records pressed, but that’s thousands of dollars and it takes a while. But yeah, Slope records putting out our 7” is a huge moment for us, actually having someone with a little bit of money helping us out. Other than that, we’ve been really lucky to do a few dates with Conflict in 2015, just us and them touring, and then we did the same thing with Sham 69. We did 4 or 5 dates with them when they came through Texas. We got a lot of built-in crowds that were there to see the other bands and so they saw us. Its been real neat. I know there’s a lot of people in Mexico and Europe who have been bootlegging our t-shirts and things like that. It’s kind of honor. If there making money on it great, at least they thought about us enough to bootleg our stuff and put our name out there. There’s a lot of memorable moments. I just can’t really remember specifics. Defiance, Lower Class Brats, The Casualties. Being personal Facebook friends with Collin from conflict is pretty cool.
ELC: Sounds like it’s been a lot of fun.
Harry: Yeah, man. When we went to England, we played a show and Disorder played, and Taf from Disorder, like, came back to this house we were staying at and we partied all night with Taf. You know? We got pictures drinking cider with him and shit and I don’t even know if he’d remember us or not but we got to experience those kinds of things. You know? Like, some of our heroes and shit, we actually got to meet them and play with them and in some cases, we toured with them. It’s a cool feeling. Its just a testament that if you keep at it, things will happen eventually. There’s that saying, “It happens overnight.” I think in a punk band after 20 years, it happens overnight. So, we’ve got five more years and then we’re gonna blow up.
ELC: Best of luck!!
