Greg Mental Interview Pt. 4 (The fav LOC records)

Winding down at this point. Please note that this was all taking place in a pre Free Spirit world, and Raw Life was just about to be released. 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

What's the deciding factor in whether or not you'll work with a band?

(Laughs) seriously, I'd like to keep working with bands that have a similar sound, but at the end of the day it's not about them sounding like established LOC bands, it's about releasing hardcore records that I'd wanna put on my iPod or turntable.

Do you have a favorite Lockin Out release? I know these questions are tough but there's got to be some you're especially happy with.

One is definitely Stop and Think's Both Demos. They were an inspirational band for me at the time, doing something I thought was really cool when everything else was getting boring. Through that, AJ and Joey C became two of my best friends, and I think back on that shit like nothing else. Also, I legitimately love those demos. People either get it or they don't. 

Another one is Righteous Jams Rage of Discipline. One of the best hardcore records ever made, no doubt. 

Number 3 is Mental's Planet Mental. It's kinda cheesy to pick my own band's record, but whatever. It's my favorite shit that Mental ever put out. I'm glad I got to do it myself and that band and time period was just a great period in my life. 

Runner up would be Rampage Limit of Destruction. I love their sound. A lot of people sleep on them, but I think they are one of the greatest LOC bands I've ever worked with.

I'm definitely stoked they've come together to bless us with a full length. The cover artwork is great too.

Yeah, I think it was either the drummer Ben or the singer Josh who did it. Both are ill at drawing.

Any Lockin Out releases you'd rather forget?

The Terror LP was kind of a dumb move on my part just because of the hoops I had to jump through for Trustkill. I'd love to do something with Terror again but it would have to be 100% me. It had nothing to do with the band, I love those dudes. It had everything to do with their label. I wouldn't say I regret it, I just wish I would've stodd up for myself more in the situation. A similar kind of deal happened with the second Righteous Jams LP. Again, I don't regret them because I learned how that type of situation will pan out and now I'll be sure never to agree unless it's a little more in my favor. As records, I'm perfectly happy with them. It was just the label bullshit I had to deal with that I'd rather forget...label royalties and such. It just wasn't a wise move on my part.

Does it ever bug you when people reference a LOC "sound" or "style" or anything like that?

I think it's cool that my label has become a verb. It means that I did something that wasn't a trend or a fad. A LOT of people called it that when it was just getting off the ground (laughs). They can now line up to suck me off. 

I'm tempted to say that Lockin Out would lose its identity if it started releasing material from lots of different "styles" or bands, but then again...I dunno. Look at Rev. I mean, they hardly do "youth crew" stuff anymore, but they're pretty much synonymous with that just because of their early catalog.

Yeah, I think it would dilute it though. I'd not something I'm trying to do right now. I like the niche I've made for my label and will continue to release bands that I like and really that's just it. If they are a little bit different, I won't be too concerned. I think most of my releases are consistent. At least that's what I'm aiming form. I think the next 3 Lockin Out releases will prove that.

Can you drop any hints? Let's just say I'm out of the internet pipeline...

The New Lows EP is one of my favorite hardcore records I've heard in a long time. This band The Rival Mob has a great demo out and will be doing an EP this summer. Think think both those bands, and RZL DZL have an "older" sound to them, more consistent with like..."older" LOC releases. 

Greg Mental interview pt. 3 ("goofy" band w/ "goofy" image)

If I'm gonna get any flack here (besides the inherent flack of re-packaging old paper-zine content to html plastic), it's likely for running a little too dorky here, potentially assigning too much importance to LOC. Whatever. Hardcore was absolutely the center of my universe then and it reflects in the stupid things I asked. It's all I talked about with my friends and a lot of my friends HATED Lockin Out.  What's hardcore if not for nerding out over it anyway? Plus, this portion of the interview yielded the impetus for the lil character below. Well, that and Onslaught's Power from Hell. (Keen observer will note: my LOC and diet soda splatter replace Power From Hell's pentagram and phantasmic plumes).
(I think he's actually a bad guy from Ninja Turtles in spirit.) My favorite bit of content here was talking about blood splatter tees and the WNYU tapes. 

Power from Diet Soda + Protein Powder

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3:

Tell me about Boston. It seems like it's a big component of Lockin Out's identity.

Boston rules man. There was a tight crew of dudes around me and we had some incredible times. There were a few apartments just packed with crucial dudes who loved nothing but diet soda, protein powder, dead lifting, moshing and listening to Breakdown. A lot of them are still around, and have the same ideas and I guess I'm one of them. At the time, we were super young and didn't have much responsibility so everyone hung out a lot more. I'm not around quite as much because of my job and a lot of the dudes have moved on to becoming adults. It's just how it goes. I'm still tight with a lot of the people I used to roll with, we just don't get to chill much as a crew anymore... 

There was definitely an undercurrent of people who seemed miffed that Lockin Out bands weren't "serious" the way that hardcore was at the time. I can understand people not liking that "style" of hardcore, but looking at it logically, it would seem that you guys took it very seriously. Seriously enough to tour and release records.

Yeah, I can really only speak for Mental here, but we definitely played anywhere we could every weekend. Once we got our shit tight, it was always tight. We always changed up our cover songs, we always practiced. The band was never a joke to us. That's not even a question. We busted our asses. Plus, bands like Righteous Jams are just dope bands. Why wouldn't they do well on tour? I just think the "image" of hardcore was WAY too serious at the time.

That's what made Lockin Out so refreshing for me. It wasn't presented as "tough" or "sincere" like a lot of hardcore at that time. It was lighter and kind of refreshing.

It's like this: how many bands have guns or knives or knuckles on their shirts? No disrespect to the ones who actually use them, but what percentage of those bands ACTUALLY would? I didn't want Mental to have that fake image, so if we were the "goofy" band with a "goofy" image that's fine with me. I'm a light-hearted dude so that fits me more than having some blood splatter or knives on our tees. I really just liked the image of old school hardcore bands. Those bands had the same attitude that I have now. You listen to old tapes, bands were always crackin' wise and having a good time. To me, that's what it was all about. Having fun and letting off some steam.

WNYU tapes come to mind. It sounds like bands are hanging out with each other. I've heard you're like a connoisseur of those WNYU tapes...

When I got into hardcore I used to go to this record store in Hyannis and the dude working there got me heavily into NYHC. I got most of my WNYU tapes from an older head from Connecticut. I started collecting all the rare shit once I started traveling more with Mental and making connections with people who had good collections of stuff to dub for me. I love those WNYU tapes man. Supertouch doin' it live on St. Patty's day! Shit is dope.

Funky fresh

I think the "Live on WERS" tapes are the closest I'll ever get to having my own cache of  WNYU tapes. Can you tell me anything about Mental's session?

It was recorded live and in one take! That's why I couldn't really swear and stuff. That was a lot of fun and we had so many people in that studio. WERS is awesome. 

I've always loved the Sweet Vision comp. It's just one of those great "moment in time" comps. Do you think there will ever be another LOC comp?

I'd LOVE to do another comp, but...Sweet Vision was all recorded at the same studio. If I did it again, I'd follow the same blueprint. I think it makes for a very cool record that way, but It's just nearly impossible to get all those bands to get all their shit together and into a studio. Like super hard.

Plus, Lockin Out's "family" is a lot more spread out now. It must've been so cool when Lockin Out started expanding beyond strictly "Boston" area bands. Were these relationships all built off Mental tours?

Just friends of mine from out of town you know? When Mental would tour, I'd see tons of different bands and meet different people. If I dug it and they were down I'd fuck with them like that. That's what I love about touring. You get the chance to meet a lot of people that you'll be friends with for a long time that you wouldn't normally meet. Iron Age, Justice, Cold World...those guys all blew up which is a great thing. I love helping my friends out. It makes me really happy to be able to do that.

MINI SUMMER SLAM

Since you're not touring now, how are you finding new bands to work with?

I'm not really scouting hard for bands. It's not a priority. Like I said, the label is just a hobby. I'm not out there pounding the pavement trying to find the next new thing.

Do bands send you their stuff much? Wanting to put stuff out on LOC?

Bands get in touch with me all the time, but I usually don't even listen to the demos.

Maybe it was that Nike shirt designs, but what's your take on the "jock hardcore" accusations?There's always that weird thing about sports and punk and all that shit. What's your take?

The first band I sang in back in high school had a song called "white hat trash fuck off!" I didn't write it, but believe me, I fucking hated jocks in high school.

So you didn't play sports in high school?

No I didn't. I played tennis for a year, but fucked up my ankle skateboarding. I'm still dope at tennis but only play when it's nice out with my roommates or whatever chick is hanging out. I haven't had any good competition since high school, but I think I'm a better athlete now than I was then.

Be true to yer school

Righteous Jams: 15 (Biased and Subjective) Thoughts

Pic from Start Today #5

Righteous Jams was the only band with 2 full lengths on Lockin Out. Does that matter? I don't know. Given today's crop of Tumblr Loc-Jock bands, I miss RJ's more and more. Those riffs.

1. The events at Posi Numbers 2005 were messageboard fodder for a minute.

2.  I saw them in Richmond once, and my clearest memory was that at one point, Joey C said something like "We're definitely a straight edge band, but we think some of you should smoke some weed and chill the fuck out." It may or may not have been in reference to a fight that broke out during an Iron Boots set. (Pic of said show below.)

Those who were: that's my knockoff X-Swatch

3. There's really nothing redeeming about the Boston Beatdown DVD, except for the fact that you can see Joey C with a lot of gel in his hair, a little bit of live RJ's footage and Colin of Arabia saying "Death metal is fake. The core is real."  

4. The best RJ's song is "Iron Mind." It just is. All iterations of the song are great, but the Sweet Vision one is definitely the hardest. Per a reliable source, the sample at the beginning is from a Dorian Yates workout VHS in which he's doing leg presses and grunting really hard.

SMOG

5. Despite the stigma of Lockin Out merch and ebay and all that, RJ's really only ever had one aesthetically appealing design, and that was the Def Jam rip (IMHO). Most of their other merch was pretty wack. Look at the cover of Business as Usual for the general idea. That being said, I do own the shirt below because I'm a sucker for clever wordplay. Yeesh though.

Euro Barge

6. Business as Usual is weird. I definitely don't hate it, but I don't think I'd call it "good." There's a lot of great riffs on there, and I enjoy "Thought Vacation." The vocals just sound "off" and the songs just...whatever. Cool riffs though. 

7. The weirdest place I ever know of them playing was at the Elizabethtown Kentucky board of tourism. This is indeed the same Elizabethtown that had a dopey Cameron Crowe film made about it. If you don't know anything about E-town you won't understand the absurdity of it all but...it was definitely a mindblower for a band that "cool" to be playing in a city that wasn't. It's my hometown. 

Come back y'all

8. I saw them in '06 at one of those Gorilla Biscuits reunions (Cue: "Start Today is Age of Quarrel for girls. LOL I know!). I remember very little from their set, but after the show I found an online review of some herb complaining that he didn't like them because they were wearing Nikes and Abercrombie. (Edit: Found the review here). 

9. I've seen them covering DYS "Wolfpack" online, but in the multiple times I saw them, I never witnessed it live. :(

10. In Town of Hardcore Joey talked about the name Rage of Discipline and how it was inspired by Rollins Band and a house that one of them lived in where everyone slept in one bedroom and filled the other bedroom with weights. P cool. 

11. You may not know/care, but if you watched the FSU episode of History Channel's "Gangland" then you heard the song "Scream n' Shout" on cable TV. That means a Lockin Out band/song was on cable. WHAT NEXT?

12. I bought the Boston Straight Edge EP (basically just a vinyl pressing of their demo tape) from Very distribution using a money order, and it seems very archaic to me now. It was the last thing I bought before leaving home for college in 2005. 

13. "Punch your roommate in the face, and get ready to get righteous" is really the best intro to a WERS set.

14. My real introduction to them was from the Mental WERS set in which Greg dedicates a song to them with the couplet "if you haven't heard this band, I feel sorry for you."

15. There's very few HC LP's that are good all the way through, but Rage of Discipline is one I enjoy through and through. 

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