Greg Mental Interview pt. 1 (Mental broke up, U2 did not)

I'm sure at some point I've probably said something stupid like "I'll never post my paper zine interviews online" and "blogs are killing zines" and "everyone younger than me is dumb" etc. etc. Time and experience tend to iron out the craggiest of crags and well...here we are. I still think that zines and blogs aren't interchangeable entities, but I've also loosened up on my stance that blogs have no merit (obviously). They do. They're accessible, and I do this for the working man. The monkeys with computers doing SEO and copywriting and whatnot. Those who spend more time in front of a computer than they do with their children and families. 

I'm going to bleed in some of my old Drug Dogs interviews little by little since they'll likely never be re-printed in their original form (never say never though) and you know what? I'm proud of them. I'd like people to see them. Know your history and whatnot. I've seen a few zines and podcasts go up with Greg in them recently, and maybe I'd just like to throw my hat in that ring.

Drug Dogs zine was my attempt at making a "good zine" (i.e. the kind of zine I'd want to read) and not just reprinted garbage from the internet. I'd made a crappy zine before (In Low Carb) that lasted 10 issues and NO ONE read it because it just wasn't very good, and Drug Dogs was going to change all that. It was all done by hand, illustrated and with photo contributions by a guy I met on B9 named James Campbell and the writing was heavily influenced by Hardware and Bullshit Monthly. It was also released during one of hardcore's "rebuilding" years (2009) when it seemed like all of the good bands from "my" era were disappearing and it was my first real experience dealing with "younger" people and bands now dictating the direction of where things would go. (Predictably: when I was first going to shows, I was constantly told how much better everything was in the 90's, how much "realer" and punker it all was and how me and my group of bafflewit chat-room yahoos were going to ruin it all, so...you know). Personal biases accounted for, I feel like 2007-2010 represented a particularly "dry" era in hardcore when there were very few exciting new bands, few good zines, and a whole lot of derivative shlock. I was a huge fan of Trapped Under Ice's 7"s and full-length, as well as Bad Seed's stuff because to me, moshy hardcore was JUST about to become over-saturated when those hit but that style was still kinda in a sweet spot. Also, not withstanding any cred I may get for saying, TUI just wrote great stand-alone songs...but this is all for another post. It was also where I saw the "fests" starting to become a core staple which was exciting then, but seems kind of silly now, and we see how far it's come already.  I guess I'll call it an "interesting" time to be diplomatic, and one the bebs will probably remember a lot more fondly than me. 

Anyway, this Mental interview was conducted over the course of several weeks. Lockin Out hadn't really done much in a while (as you'll see later on in the interview) and more than anything, I was still kind of mourning the loss of Mental (in a Trumbull Escapades blogpost that's no longer on the internet) Morgado summarized the "Lockin Out Era" as the time period between Mental's first show and the Planet Mental record release in 2005. If that's the case, then by 2008 we were well into post-after-party status and so now, in 2014, where are we? Revival time? Someone ask someone on that giant ass Lockin Out thread on B9. 

I was a nervous little mark talking to Greg. I had the opportunity to interview him on their tour with Justice, but I was a dumb high school senior and didn't have the wherewithal to make it actually happen (but I did get to see this tour in 3 different cities). He was great to interview, and didn't make fun of me when I asked dumb questions.

This is the web-version, so you aren't getting the FULL EXPERIENCE (i.e. the meticulous hand-layouts I did, and the illustrations which I see getting shared [without my credit] all over Tumblr) but oh well. Does anyone really read words anyway? Here's part 1, where we started things out talking about hisx life post-Mental and about working with U2. Enjoy.

The interview was conducted in 2008 and printed in 2009. Some of the content has likely changed in parts. All illustrated content by me. More to come. Enjoy. 

Was the edge break what killed Mental?

No, that's not why the band broke up. Dookie and I broke edge but the other dudes in the band didn't really give a shit. We were all straight edge when we met and started the band, but none of us were really judgmental like that. We were just straight edge. It wasn't what really defined us as people or as a band. We kept it moving once Dooks and I started being wastoids. The band broke up because Dookie didn't wanna do it anymore. I'm not sure the reason, but it wasn't a problem with any one of us. It was just what he wanted to do with his life at the time. I can't speak for him, but that's the gist of it. When I talked to him about it, I was like "fuck it, let's call it a day." We had a good run and didn't wanna wear it out. I think a lot of bands stay around way too long and don't ever realize it. We had also agreed, way back, that we would never do the band with different members. WE defined the band and all had our own things we contributed, so without Dookie there really was no Mental. We just played our last show at the end of our tour with Blacklisted and Iron Age, which was a ton of fun. There was never any moment where we were playing shows that we didn't want to. When we got to Atlanta it was just like "this will be our last show." We played it and never really thought twice about it.

How have your opinions of straight edge "evolved" since Mental?

I just keep it moving man. It's not anything I consciously think about, but I'm sure a lot has changed. I've grown up a lot, I've learned a lot about "real life" you know? I'm 25 now, not 19. I've been around the world a few times, met some inspirational people and been through a lot of shit. Sure that's changed me some, but I've still got the same heart. I still feel like a fucked up 16 year old kid. I think people who know me well will say I am still the same person.

At the time, I heard so much stuff about what happened after that. I heard some rumor that you were in a band that sounded like Black Sabbath (laughs). There was definitely a lull in Lockin Out activity, right when Mental broke up.

I went away for about a year to work on the crew for Robbie Williams and then U2. It was just a good opportunity. I took a job at a small tech company in Massachusetts and they basically taught me all this shit in a month or so, then sent me off on the road. They hired me based on my experience from touring with Mental and shit, not so much my technical experience. I still work with those dudes, I don't plan on doing a tour any time soon, but I have to go to a lot of shows to set things up. I'm finishing this interview from the production office in Miami for the Jay-Z/Mary J. Blige "Heart of the City" tour.

Working on the U2 crew? Damn. Did you like...meet Bono?

I saw the dudes and met them, but I wasn't hanging out with them or anything like that. Bands on giant tours like that have a whole crew of people working to set up their concert all day and the artists usually roll into the venue an hour or so before they hit the stage. The crew is very tight with each other, but the artists are definitely on another level.

I mean, obviously it's a job not like you were trying to work with U2. Did you have many thoughts on them before hand? Perceptions that were changed after working with them?

They killed it on that tour. I don't fuck with them personally, but I respect the hell out of how gigantic they are. Those dudes are PAID.

Yeah, I mean likely THE most globally recognized band ever. Did anyone give you any flack for it? Some punk flag-wavers or anything ridiculous? 

Nah, no one has ever given me shit, but I doubt many people know or care (laughs). I don't really know what working for U2 has to do with my label. I literally could have been working for anyone in the world. It was just a job. A way to make money. I didn't set out to be on tour with U2 per-se, I just had an opportunity and jumped on it. 

It had to be a shock though, going from touring with Mental and then seeing how these, you know...iPod rock business men are peddling their wares.

It was really touring on that level. Indeed, it was a dramatic contrast to touring around in the Mental van, but I got that job from being able to function at that level of shitty touring.

Final U2 question. I'm not a huge fan, but my Dad likes 'em. I listened to Achtung Baby a lot as a kid. My Dad saw them on the ZOO-TV tour and told me they had the most elaborate stage set-up he'd ever seen. Exploding TV's and paper machete statues and stuff like that...anything cool like that?

Yeah man, they had a crazy set up. Lots of political shit going on, but to tell you the truth I don't think I watched the whole show even one time. Like I said, U2 isn't really my shit. They had a lot of typical political footage like your Dad probably saw. The cool thing about their setup was just that they had these huge Marshall cabinets stacked up, like 100 of them. Maybe more. THAT was the shit that impressed me.

Now that Mental's broken up, can you see yourself ever being in a band again?

I'm still hoping to start a new band, I just don't have time to get it going. For now I'd rather just not say anything about that.

Check out Part 2 here. 

VEST-iges of Life on the Wrong Side (Inky Fanzine Nugget #2)

Wake up before dawn, it's already pounding me...

Looking back on the "2000s" era of hardcore, my genesis era, I'm sometimes entirely overtaken by douche-chilling memories of boys in girl pants, man breasts filling out youth medium tees and the ubiquitous "YOU'RE SCUM" Outbreak shirt that at least one kid sported at every show between 2004-2006. Still, like a retarded moth to a raging flame, I perused the B9 board today to find that old sleeping beast, the "trends from 2000's hardcore" thread had been brought out of e-core retirement. The comment? "The bubble vest/hoodie combo."

How could I have forgotten? An excellent vestige of hardcore fashion, that might still be kicking (or may have died out, along with studded belts and Guns Up) but was certainly seared into my immediate sphere of influence via "cooler" bands from the Northeast playing my town and covering Life of Agony. Anyway, I got to thinkin', and poring through the ol' zine collection and stumbled across this gem from the "can't quite keep 'em down" Wrong Side. Since my Drug Dogs interview with Chris Morgado is stuck somewhere in development hell (i.e. a storage locker on the West side of Salt Lake City), I'll throw this 'un up for your reading pleasure...because looka that! Dude rocks a bubble vest/hoodie combo!

Swinginnnn' YOU

Credit for the nugget goes to the excellent, and largely undercelebrated, Final Word fanzine. Active in the mid-later 2000's Final Word was a partnership between Pauly Edge and another guy named King Adross who gets ragged on a lot. I'd done some business with Pauly, designing a few Meltdown shirts (one I'm really proud of, and one I'm not) and found the guy to be super likeable and enthusiastic on the 'core...and his zine shows it. At one point, we spitballed some awesome Meltdown shirts, one of which involved two muscle-bound jarheads raiding a supermarket, copping armfulls of raw eggs and "ANYTHING FOR LEAN GAINS" on the back, and another with a Satanic creature dismembering an Atreyu shirt-clad pantywaist and "HIPSTER HOLOCAUST" emblazoned in some weird script around it. Alas, neither panned out, and it's a crying shame, but in a "business" with no contracts and only "good dude backed hard" recommendations to go on, many great ideas get tossed to the dogs. Anyway, peep this excellent exchange between Pauly and Chris Morgado on the subjects of moshing, Earth Crisis, The Bloodhound Gang and Hatebreed. The zine's gotta be long out of print, but if you're interested in some good readin' seek it out.

From Final Word Fanzine #3:

Pauly: You're known for going completely nuts at shows and doing some crazy shit. What are some of the craziest things you've ever done?
Morgado: (Laughs) Let me think. Down But Not Out shows always brought the craziest shit out of me I think. Their set at that last Proclamation show in particular...punching myself with brass knuckles, throwing chairs, one man wall-of-deathing kids, that was a good show. Q from the A-Team had a video of it. I sang "Life of my Own" and this kid Cappy we're friends with was in the pile on and you just heard THUD THUD THUD instead of the words, 'cuz I was hitting him with the mic. I know that sounds like some asshole shit, but whatever I do to people I have usually done to myself twice as hard in the same time frame. One time during Death Threat, I headbutted the stage so hard I blacked out. Moshing used to make me completely insane and unconscious of everything...now it's singing in the band that does it. I'm a much mellower mosher now, most of the time. Certain songs will still bring it out of me though, as will certain bands. "Why Must They?" and "Life of my Own" are guaranteed mind erasers for me, and Outbreak sets just make me the biggest asshole on the planet. If you were on stage during their set at Posi Numbers, I probably hit you. That goes for the guys in the band too. I fucking whaled on poor Ryan O and Chris a ton (laughs). They fucking love it though. For some reason it gets them really psyched and I think everyone knows it's not a malicious action; they just make me go nuts. I got what was coming to me anyways. I stage dove and bounced ribs first off the PA's at the end of the set, fucked myself up good for like, three months.

Pauly: A lot of people don't really give Earth Crisis the respect they're due. I know you said in another interview that Ten Yard Fight and Earth Crisis was your first 'real' hardcore show. What do you feel ExC did and how are bands influenced by 'em now?
Morgado: I know you're full of Syracuse pride Pauly, so this will bum you out and I'm sorry, but I think Earth Crisis ended up doing more harm than good. They were so over the top, politically, that to an extend it made straight edge a joke. You have to look at it from the mainstream sense, because ExC were the band that took the edge to the mainstream. That's something you can't separate when you talk about the band because that's one of the reasons they're still an important band from a historical perspective, despite how it turned out. I mean, the result was completely unintentional obviously, but for years anytime anyone found out I was straight edge it was like 'oh yeah, I saw that Earth Crisis band on CNN. How come you think you're better than me because of my leather shoes?' It was like you were automatically a little vegan soldier because you were straight edge. Fuck, occasionally it still happens to me. 'Oh yeah, I remember seeingthat on MTV in 1998. I thought that fad was over.' I respect that they were trying to spread a message and promote something good, but I think it bit them in the ass, in part because the media is bullshit, and in part because it was so over the top and deadpan. You know those dudes weren't shooting drug dealers and vivisectionists dead, but they were on TV all solemn and straight-faced...and I LIKE Earth Crisis! I hunted down the '93 demo and I think it's probably some of my favorite material, and the title track from Gommorah's Season Ends is one of those songs that makes me lose it. But as a political movement or whatever, I think they ended up making things worse for straight edge instead of better. For a while there, they made it huge, definitely, but all the kids I personally met who swore by ExC back then? I don't see all that many of them still edge or vegan today. Was it awesome to have a shitload of kids screaming 'A Firestorm to Purify!?', absolutely. Did the message have any lasting impact to the majority of the mass populace? Straight edge is considered a gang to cops all over the place now because of the Earth Crisis disciples in Salt Lake, does that count? Should that count?

Pauly: Who do you hope for the Wrong Side to tour with, since you guys have a lot more exposure on Stillborn records? I remember Stand Accused dropping off a Hatebreed show because they didn't want to play to the type of fans that Hatebreed brings out. How would you feel about touring with Hatebreed if you were given the chance?
Morgado: I don't think was why Stand Accused didn't play those shows, or if it was it wasn't wasn't the deciding factor. Obviously I would tour with Hatebreed in a second. I respect the hell out of Jamey and I'm told he's really into our record, the Blacklisted record too. That is a dude that just loves hardcore and has done so much for it. I went to so many shows in Connecticut when I was coming up, that were shows he booked at the Hanover House and so on. I saw him reaching out to hook up bands like Down But Not Out. Down But Not Out, the band who everyone knew would never reach their potential but wanted to, he was gonna do a record on Stillborn. They dawdled on it like they did everything else, and it never happened, but I've always remembered that he wanted to do that for them. It wasn't because they were huge scenesters like a lot of the bands who started at the same time as them, but because he just thought they were a great band. That has always stuck out for me. I met my wife at a show he booked, ya know? And Hatebreed is still the same band they always were musically. You can't tell me otherwise, they're just better at it now, like a whole 'nother level. That song "Doomsayer?" That's right up there with any Slayer song to me man. They're at that level of mainstream hard music, yet it's totally a hardcore song.

Pauly: What are your favorite Lockin Out bands?
Morgado: Righteous Jams without a doubt. The lineup they have right now has really come together so that their live show is completely tight. Everyone in that band is a great dude and the music they're making is just so awesome. It's so stripped down but it's still a current sound, ya know? It's hard to say Mental because everyone in my band is also in Mental, but they've really picked up their game from the 7" on Bridge 9 and rekindled all those feelings I had when they started with the 7" they just put out. That the best material they've done by far. It amazes me with the song-writing skills they possess to do that and still come up with what they come up with for the Wrong Side. I mean, to me, just on a personal level of being there when it started, that is Lockin Out to me: Mental, Dump Truck and RJ's. That's not trying to slight Rampage or Jaguarz or whoever, it's just that those three are who it started with. Those three and Crunch Time, that was like AJ and Greg's big thing when it started I think, that Crunch Time record. They really took that band under their wing.

Pauly: What bands do you like that no one would guess you'd like?
Morgado: As far as within the core, I like a bunch of what people would call tough-guy style hardcore bands, "thugcore" I guess they call it, like Death Before Dishonor from Boston. They have lots of songs to move to. Fury of Five, and Shattered Realm have stuff I really can get into as well. Nobody thinks I'm genuinely into that stuff but I am a little bit, I think it's cuz that style was so prevalent when I started going to shows at like 121 in Brockton, so it's like I have a soft spot for stuff that's hard as nails and causes spin kicks. I'm not talking like screamo metalcore with artsy lyrics and acoustic parts, I'm talking hard chugga-chugga hardcore about revenge and drugs and whatever. Outside of that, the strangest thing I really dig is this weird band called The Bloodhound Gang. I think they're hilarious, they're like slacker rap/punk stuff. They have this record called Hooray for Boobies and the leadoff track is just a great skank riff. It's called "I Hope You Die" and it's HIGH-larious to me.

LOL, We're gonna headline TIHC 2016