Features / One Question Interviews

Rick Jimenez (Extinction A.D./This Is Hell – guitar/vocals)

SPB: After music, what other arts interest you?

Jimenez: Although music has been the focus of my life for as long as I can remember, it hasn't been the only "art" I've been interested and even consumed by. Art is such a fluid term, but to me, the only thing …

Adrian Tenney (Badlands, ex-Spokenest)

SPB: How did you get started in Badlands?

Tenney: Badlands (as a solo project) started when playing my music with other people ended.

I had been writing music in numerous other bands with my friends, and although it was super fun, it was always very hard to coordinate! Gradually it became more difficult, …

Just Friends

SPB: What’s the secret to a successful tour?

Sam, Brandon and Avi: Cut the dead weight. Chillers only. You gotta be down for the cause, 100% without doubt. You have to believe in the people around you and they got believe in you. Have their back. Embody the spirit of the road dawg. 

Known Cowboy

SPB: What is your favorite 1970s artist?

Known Cowboy: My favourite 1970s artist without question has to be no other than David Bowie!

God, I love Hunky Dory.

The fun fact is that I didn’t discover Bowie´s work until last year after he died. When I found out about him it was a …

Dan Gardner (Four Lights)

SPB: What is your favorite 1980s artist?

Gardner: The Replacements. Westerberg is one of the greatest American songwriters. My parents were big fans of theirs and I grew with Let It Be and Tim playing in the house, in the car, everywhere. Those records were a big part of my growing up and continue …

Bong Mountain

SPB: What’s your favorite protest song?

Bong Mountain: The serious, educational, and inspirational protest songs that have helped me through tough times just aren't enough right now -- they don't perfectly convey my anger towards the current state of things.

There isn't one song, but a full album”

Galactic Cannibal's "We're Fucked" …

Magana

SPB: Do you get nervous before you play a show?

Magana: Yep! There are 2 distinct phase of nervousness. The first one is my self-manager side. Did I do a good enough job with promotion? Should I be outside handing out flyers to the people passing by? Will anybody show up, or will I be playing to …

Andy (Magnetic Ghost)

SPB: What is the weirdest venue you’ve played a show at (or attended)?

Magnetic Ghost: Seattle house show that wasn't in a house, but was in a yard, complete with a tarp covered in dumpstered mashed fruit which everyone was encouraged to wrestle in / on after imbibing copious amounts of Carlo Rossi jug wine. …

Curran Reynolds (Body Stuff)

SPB: Do you make a conscious decision to reference or deviate from past material when working on Body Stuff?

Reynolds: The Body Stuff approach is to make music from the gut, without consciously thinking about any other music at all. After it's made, then I can reflect and say, "Hey, this sounds like it's …

Tobias Sinclair (Soft Kill)

SPB: How did you meet the new members and how did they get on the Soft Kill ship?

Sinclair: Owen & Conrad have been with the band since the Heresy LP. I met Owen when I was nineteen and playing in grind core / noise bands. We spent our initial time together …

Brian (Entropy)

SPB: What do you think the internet has done for the word of mouth punk scene? 

Brian: As far as how it effects underground punk rock, the internet is both a blessing and a curse.

It's obviously made it way easier to spread news, learn about shows and, most importantly, discover new music. But it's …

Kevin McCaughey (Ion Dissonance – vocals)

SPB: What song would you want played at your funeral? 

McCaughey: The only song that comes to mind when asked this question is ''Highway to Hell'' from AC/DC. Simply put, I can only imagine how totally awkward it would be to have relatives and friends mourning my passage and hearing ''Highway to …

Adam Gnade & the Hot Earth All-Stars

SPB: Do you approach writing lyrics differently than you approach fiction?

Gnade: With fiction I have this big well of a story I draw from. A lot of it is planned out already--how my characters interact, where their lives go, their deaths, births, marriages, their struggles, their ambitions and their failures. …

Flagpolers

SPB:What is a flagpoler?

A Flagpoler is a nickname/kind of slur to that border guards give to people renewing their immigration status in Canada. At the point of starting this band 3/4 of us we're flagpolers and from Ireland. Now half the band is still Flagpolers and from Ireland. I hope that helps!

Ryan Fleming (Black Table) 

SPB: What is the most tiresome stereotype about black metal?

Fleming: We don't consider ourselves Black Metal, but I'll speak about how I view scenes in general. It's similar to Animal Farm. It begins as an exciting rebellion against the confinement and closed thinking of a situation, but it eventually becomes the …

Juan Hernandez (Colombian Necktie – guitar)

SPB: What band has been your favorite to tour with? 

Hernandez: We actually don't have a favorite but we definitely have a most memorable. Last year we went out on tour with friends Black Sheep Wall and we were playing in SLC. We went to this wing spot that had a spicy …

Daniel Albaugh (Die Young)

SPB: What is the longest (in terms of time) tour you’ve been on? Would you be out for that long again?

Albaugh: In Die Young's touring hey-day, mainly 2004-2008, we did quite a few tours that were roughly two months long. Sometimes the tours that included international dates in Asia or Europe felt the …

Jake Smith (Knife Hits)

SPB: Who is your favorite flyer/gigposter artist?

Smith: I narrowed my answer to a tie between two amazing artists and they happen to be two of my best friends. From my earliest days of playing shows in Florida (about 15 years ago), Vivek Vasudeva made the coolest flyers for our bands, I remember one …

Luke (Somni)

SPB: What is the best movie you’ve seen this year?

Luke: I've seen a lot of great films this year, so this is tricky. I'm going to go with The Witch (dir: Robert Eggers), a great little horror film set in yee olde times featuring a goat called Black Philip. It was brilliant! I'm a big …

Eddie Gobbo (Something Is Waiting)

SPB: What is your favorite album cover of all time?

Gobbo: Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ