075 Who Woulda Thunk?

I was excited when I was asked to do an interview for Alternative Press about Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. As far as I knew, it was a piece about influential albums and I was honored to be the chosen spokesperson for this particular one. So I met Kyle and the photographer (Sally, his wife, coincidentally) on the roof of Punk Planet for a quick photo shoot. You see, it was my bright idea to take a pic that reminiscent of Bivouac’s back cover. You know the one. Blake is standing on a rooftop with a glass of red wine and there’s a guy (Chris?) in the back leaning against a chimney-like structure. We decided to leave the extra person out of the picture so as not to confuse readers. We also decided to take some other shots in other locations, just in case the editors at AP caught on to our plan and said “uh, no.”

I wanted to be true to that original photo, so on the way there, I purchased a bottle of red wine and brought some wine glasses of various sizes from my house. Crazy Kyle was thinking the same thing. When we arrived at the rooftop, a bottle of red wine was already waiting for us sitting next to some wine glasses of various sizes! Sally snapped a few shots there, then some in a stairwell, and lastly, in an eerie freight elevator.

The interview was to follow, so I suggest we find a restaurant with a BYOB policy so that we could finish up these bottles while we ate and talked. We hit up the noteworthy Noodles In The Pot establishment o’er Halsted. We hit record and start talking. For over an hour we ponder every single song on 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. We talk about how we first heard Jawbreaker, concert experiences, and also the more recent pleasure of doing a tour with Jets To Brazil. I can be quiet and reserved at times but if you get me talking about something that I am passionate about especially when there is wine involved, you won’t shut me up. We had to make ourselves stop so that we could actually take bites of the food.

I just got the magazine (the one with The Transplants on the cover) and the photo was cropped, making our painstaking re-creation a waste and the near 2 hour interview was shredded down to a paragraph for the piece. I don’t think either of us realized that they only really needed a quote or two. Imagine their surprise when they received the full text! So... thanks to Kyle, I’ve managed to get my grubby hands on the FULL interview and the full uncropped photo! Enjoy. I find it reads the best with a side of curried vegetables and a whole lotta wine.

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Interview by Kyle Ryan & Photo by Sally Ryan

How did you come to know Jawbreaker, and then, specifically, 24 Hour?

I came to know Jawbreaker through some friends of mine in high school. they were pretty much one of the 1st punk bands I got into once I got into the punk scene. It was when Unfun was out. I forget how I got into it. I got into all of those kind of East Bay bands at the same time. I got into Jawbreaker and Samiam and most of the Lookout bands, actually. I had always kind of grouped Jawbreaker in with Operation Ivy, Fifteen, all these bands that seemed to play a lot together. and you know Maximum Rocknroll. My friends and I really latched on to that. … hardcore NY scene or the straight-edge scene. we were more into the “pop punk” that was coming out. like Jawbreaker we loved it because it was…I don’t know whether it was…it wasn’t as I don’t know, confrontational as most of like, especially like the hardcore aspect of it and it wasn’t like macho. it was really like. it really just appealed to us just like awkward teens in high school. I don’t know it was really good. I really was into like the top 40 music when I was in like grade school and stuff then I started getting into heavy metal but like right when I got into high school I started getting into punk and I really latched onto that. because it kind of held true to the classic songwriting of the top 40. it was stuff that came out of the new wave scene almost like the British kind of stuff. it was more Smiths than it was Sex Pistols, and that’s what we liked about it the most, I think. that’s what kind of drew us to it. and then so when even when the chesterfield king 12” came out we were in love. when bivouac came out we were in love.

by the time 24 hour came out I knew I was in college. I think I was a freshman. and the day it came out Roy from Braid came over to my dorm room because we were both huge fans. we just listened to it like start to finish, read all the lyrics, whatever. it was just one of those albums…it wasn’t that we instantly loved it, we instantly knew it was really important. so I have a really vivid memory of listening to that album for the first time in my dorm room on the shittiest stereo you’ve ever seen. I remember even being kind of put off by like the cover. it was just weird to me. I liked the Unfun cover. that’s cute.

What’s your favorite track?

I don’t know it’s really tough to pick a favorite track. my first instinct was to say Condition Oakland just because it has so much depth you know? it’s like long and there’s a lot going on. it’s really true to the Jawbreaker formula, and I don’t really have a problem saying that some of their songwriting was a little formulaic in that the end was always the long, droning business which I loved. you know if Jawbreaker didn’t do that I’d feel like well that’s kind of weird. and I really liked the same thing with the samples. that’s why I really liked that song. I want to say there were samples on Unfun. I know that by the time when I heard 24 Hour I knew it, I knew there was going to be some type of samples.

There were a lot on Bivouac.

yeah, you’re right, and there were a lot on some of the comp tracks they put out at that time.

but on the way here I was listening to it. I always kind of liked the song ache as well but both of those songs kind of like epic in a way whereas I listen to do you still hate me in that own kind of quick, short pop song in a way it’s really great as well. I don’t know; I would say condition Oakland.

Is there one you liked the least?

yeah. I’ve always not liked, I mean I like it, but I never liked the last song in sadding around as much as the rest of the album. it was kind of funny because I remember reading a review or it might have been an interview with Jawbreaker at the time where Blake was so proud of that song that he played it for somebody on their answering machine. like he wrote it and was so proud of it that he was like “you gotta hear this.” and I just remember I just thought out of all the songs on the record, I wouldn’t…it’s fine and all, but I would be proud of any other ones except that one. although we marveled today at the lyric “who would have thunk the 13th fell on Friday.” who would have thunk.

OK, let’s take it song by song. “The Boat Dreams From The Hill.”

really really great opening track especially because it opens with that little drumbeat so…you know some albums open with long, drawn out crap but I don’t know it’s one of those albums that when you hear it you know what album it is, you know what song it is, I think that’s kind of how it is with a lot of the Jawbreaker songs. the drumming, it’s really simple but I don’t know and not even really unique but just so, I don’t know telling. it’s hard to say but Jawbreaker wouldn’t be Jawbreaker if they had a drummer that played like I was going to say Ryan Rapsys but that’s really obscure, but someone who was really technical and really good to put it bluntly.

anyway, it really sets up like the album as being one that’s like kind of like wrought with desperation, and in my notes when I was realizing he says desperate in at least 3 or 4 of the songs, about being desperate. and then I always I thought about how all the songs are really mostly all of them are first person, you know, and when I was kind of listening to the album and thinking of it in a real critical, analytical kind of way, well this song isn’t really first person if he’s talking about this boat and giving it feelings and stuff, but then the chorus is “I want to be a boat” so it’s you gotta feel he feels the same way, this old forgotten vessel that can see the water and kind of see all of its friends reveling in whatever, but yet it’s just impossible for him to get there.

And he’s never gonna get there.

yeah, exactly. and I remember they played that song the first time I saw Jawbreaker I don’t even think bivouac was out at the time. I have a video of this show. I’m having a friend of mine put it on a DVD because it’s the best show I’ve ever been to ever. it was august 23, 1992. I even remember. it was in Elmhurst, this place called McGregor’s that had shows every Sunday that we would always go to in high school. And it was just the greatest show ever and it was because a lot of stuff went wrong. but I remember they played it they said it was called “boat” and it’s about a boat and Blake couldn’t even sing it because he had lost his voice. they just got back from Europe or something and the whole show he was having the hardest time trying to sing and it was really moving. I didn’t feel cheated in any way. but it was just this big, moving like experience for me, this show I’m never going to forget. I’m so glad I have it on video.

they opened with chesterfield king which is great because it was really new but I really liked it. it wasn’t my favorite song ever. but in the video you can see right up front is josh caterer, right in the front row, and you can tell he’s just loving it. he loves it. he’s singing every word to chesterfield king. and it’s funny because smoking popes had a song about him going to see Jawbreaker which is called “you spoke to me” and it’s like well the chorus is like “I don’t know if you actually saved my life but you changed it that’s for sure / I drove all the way from Carpentersville to see you here tonight and it was worth it / you didn’t play my favorite song but that’s all right I like the new stuff too / I’m just glad I got to see you” and I read it was in the reader they had this big smoking popes article and he says that the song is about Blake Schwarzenbach. it might have been that show. it was really great.

“Indictment.”

it’s weird because I mean as far as inspiration goes maybe subconsciously I took it as a sign that bands could write about being in bands, you know what I’m saying? because even a lot of the braid stuff obviously form the perspective of somebody who’s in a band and kind of dealing with the bullshit that bands go through, and that songs about being in a band. and I remember being in college and playing the album, giving the insert to like a girl, it wasn’t somebody I was dating, but maybe somebody I wanted to be dating. you gotta read the lyrics while we’re listening to the song. halfway through I realized this is pointless because she’s not going to get it because she’s not in the band. I didn’t realize that you know it wouldn’t…even so I don’t know if she was faking it she was saying they’re such great lyrics. I wanted to just take it away from her and say you just don’t’ understand. you’re not going to understand. [laughs]

anther thing about indictment that I always thought I always thought that he was signing about the song boxcar which was next. I thought it was kind of a conscious effort to be like I just wrote the dumbest song / it’s going to be a sing along and blah blah blah. and the next song, it starts right after it. this is it. because it’s kind of like if we can go right into boxcar, it is kind of a dumb, I guess it’s not happy, it’s really simple. it’s 2 notes that have been used ad nauseum in history, and it’s written kind of like a singalong. I guess I’ll never know. I couldn’t. it wouldn’t be hard to find out. but that’s what I always thought. in fact maybe it’s best I never try to find out now.

it’s great and it’s not only with Jawbreaker you know when you’re younger and you idolize this band and you pick apart every lyric and every song and every drum roll and you pick it apart and then you become kind of friends with them and you get to know them and stuff it’s just really weird and awkward kind of because you want to tell them, you want to say that like my friends and I would spend hours and hours drinking and just picking apart your brain, you know? laughs. it’s just a dude, this guy who’s like ok. the same with j. robbins too. the same thing. you get to know him and I want to tell this.

I don’t get starstruck that much especially over musicians and stuff. like I met Shirley Manson, and actually Shirley Manson knew my name the next time I saw them. they were recording at the same place we were, at smart, which is Butch Vig’s studio. I’ve met a bunch of celebrities here and there and wherever but with j robbins coming in kind of a distant second Blake was the one person that I couldn’t even talk to him. Hey Mercedes toured with Jets To Brazil I had a hard time even talking to him. this sucks, I can’t even like, it’s stupid of me to think, but I’m not on the level to relate to, he’s just a normal person I’m on tour with. it’s crazy. yeah, that’s kind of my story with boxcar I guess.

what I kind of wrote down it’s no secret that Blake was a big fan of Jack Kerouac. in this song he says it and there’s a sample in condition Oakland. but kind of what Kerouac’s deal was he didn’t really ever revise or rewrite stuff or even necessarily proofread stuff. he just would write and write and write and once it was down on the paper, you’re done with it, that’s it, that’s what it’s going to be. I felt like a lot of, there were def Jawbreaker songs where it seems like that was maybe what Blake did, and boxcar was probably one of them. and another one would be do you still hate me. I even wrote down because it’s weird there’s no real even rhyme scheme to some of the verses. “I have a picture of you and me in Brooklyn / on a porch it was raining / hey I remember that day” no rhyme scheme, he probably just wrote it and was like I can’t change it. that’s the way it’s gotta be. in a weird kind of way I felt the same way too. I felt really upset I can’t change this because this is what I want to sing and I have to sing an dif I change it, then it’s going to be whatever. maybe it’s a lazy way of looking at it like I don’t want to work hard at it because I have this image of something that I cannot change whether it’s a vocal melody or like a lyric or some even like syllable. like have to be singing something that has an a at this point. seriously I’ve felt this way, like fuck, this sucks! I’m sure I felt that way because like Jawbreaker songs.

“Outpatient”

the thing with outpatient and this is what makes the album so great and so personal, and like I said all the songs are basically in first person and I guess if nothing interesting is happening in your life or whatever or like you don’t find any inspiration in the little stupid things that happen, then you have to make stuff up. but at this point in his life he was going through all this crazy shit with his throat you know and having surgery and stuff. I don’t know you can’t listen to outpatient especially…the worst line of Outpatient and it’s not really the worst but it’s like the visceral, the most like real is the line, it’s so real, the line “this is Jennings your anesthetist / I think we’ll go in through the mouth” that’s like heavy. you wouldn’t really be able to write that unless you’ve been through it. you realize that when you hear it especially when you know what was going on at that time when you’re just like this is pretty horrible. it’s tough to listen to but at the same time it’s this total realistic level where it’s not like a pretty song at all. it’s about surgery. but in this way where it’s not ugly but it’s just really like I said visceral for lack of a better word, I guess.

I don’t know. you can tell like the frustration you know because he can’t talk. it’s like…I think of him being in this situation obviously you can’t talk so he’s writing a lot and he probably wrote a lot of 24 hour revenge therapy while he couldn’t talk so he has this frustrated, desperate, like I can’t even talk, my voice has been taken away from me kind of feel to it. I can imagine even for outpatient especially him just writing down stuff that he heard, what the doctors would say. get your coat your ride is here just kind of that whole exp.

It has a sort of feeling of drifting in and out of consciousness.

exactly.

“Ashtray Monument”

one of the things I was really surprised about you know when after dear you came out and Jawbreaker ended then before we had gone on tour with Jets To Brazil our friend Sarge toured with Jets To Brazil. I was really really surprised just in talking with this friend of mine, \ sue who was playing with Sarge a the time she was saying blah blah blah I was so excited to bum a cigarette from Blake. and I was like, I can’t believe that he’s smoking! I can’t believe that he still smokes. I was just shocked and really kind of upset. laughs. I guess I don’t know the whole story of what caused the—it was cancer right?

Actually, they were just vocal polyps.

really? I thought it was like throat cancer. but the point is maybe I got some bunk information but I’ll tell you the story about talking to Blake after (?), but I just couldn’t believe that he was smoking. I was under the impression that it was a smoking-related issue that was a problem. obviously it aggravates it if nothing else and so I was just so, not appalled, but in shock that he’s smoking still. and I always thought of songs like ashtray monument where it’d be like this is my little monument to when I was this fucking hardcore smoker and I can’t do that anymore because of how it fucked me up. that’s kind of the impression that I got of the song. it’s probably more of like a you know just kind of an extension of being kind of introspective, where there’s a bottle on the nightstand and there’s this ashtray monument and kind of really being introspective, whatever.

“Condition Oakland”
well I remember I know that condition Oakland it’s one of those songs where he talks about being desperate. this is my condition desperate alone without an excuse. as far as any other Kerouac reference, condition Oakland really kind of brings it home. he even talks about being a poet, climbing onto his roof and being by the tracks where Kerouac was October of the railroad earth which is the sample that’s from there. I’ve read it, I haven’t listened to it or read it in awhile, you know he’s on the railroad tracks and talking about what’s around him in SF and so a lot of the times when we would use samples and stuff it rarely was a conscious effort given the subject of the song, it wasn’t like this song’s about whatever dinosaurs so let’s have this sample from barney. it wasn’t like that; it was more like this is a really cool sounding thing that we could put in the back here and have somebody talking. but with this record he talks about being by the tracks and being by the train and stuff and the sample is from this jack Kerouac poem about the railroad. it seemed like a real conscious effort.

at first listen it was my favorite song because there’s a lot going on in the song tempo-wise especially that whole end part.

And there’s a lot going on with the guitar there, too.

in “Condition Oakland” I always know when he does the scratchy thing, that thing. it’s just so funny how random off the cuff thing that someone does in the studio will become like legends are, the stuff people know immediately, even become a trademark of some sort. or like a hook. the hook.

Like they can’t think of that song without that.

exactly.

“Ache”

one of the things I wrote down was like the first line of ache is I believe in desperate acts, you know? I don’t know what it is but that album maybe it was before like the “emo” thing, people were like getting sick oh yeah you’re so miserable I don’t care why should I care? maybe. but you know I never felt that way. the song’s called “ache” and the song is kind of about I don’t know it’s kind of normal everyday feelings that someone would have in the situation and it seemed kind of like not like a love song but really kind of a defeated kind of thing where it didn’t bother me or anybody at the time. it wasn’t like oh, c’mon, but it just came across as really beautiful, even the backup vocals and stuff, kind of the response.

It’s a super defeated song. “I don’t mind if you’re faking it.” That’s just brutal.

I never felt like this before, I say that every hour. as far as influence goes, it just really drilled home that you can write about that. you can make beautiful songs about being miserable. it almost like kind of is this like…self-fulfilling prophecy. like he’s going to write about being miserable so you become miserable or you make it seem like you’re more miserable than you actually are. it felt like it was coming from such a real place, and from what I knew of the situation and even from talking to people that it was, that it really like hit home that you could like write songs about being vulnerable about being kind of weak or lame even and make it just be something really important, really kind of beautiful. as far as influence goes it really did hit home with me and probably a ton of other bands that thought that…even promise ring, like anyone in TPR could be able to do this interview about Jawbreaker, so it’s a little kind of weird, well whatever. TPR wouldn’t be TPR without Jawbreaker, like alkaline trio, Jawbreaker. even like green day you could hear like Jawbreaker-ish things going on.

That line you mentioned, “I’ve never felt like this before / I say that every hour,” that reminds me of the Hey Mercedes song “Haven’t Been This Happy.”

right right, not on purpose. that makes sense.

We’ve talked about “Do You Still Hate Me?” a little bit.

the firs time I heard do you still hate me was on this live kind of bootleg that my friend had. my friend was a pretty big Jawbreaker fan too and we cherished this bootleg because they played a few new songs on it. and so he thought the lyrics were terrible, really dumb. like we’re getting older, but we’re acting younger we should be smarter, but it seems we’re getting dumber. he was like he’s just running out of ideas. I didn’t even really hear. because I thought it’s a live show, he doesn’t know it’s being recorded, he might not have even written lyrics that are real for the song yet. I’ve done that a few times, where I don’t have the lyrics perfect yet, but I’ll play the song and make it work even if I have to make up words. so I never really thought about it too much. and then it ended up being the lyrics, which were fine. it’s a lot like boxcar I think in that it seems like he wrote them and you just have to go with them, you know? you know it’s kind of catchy and it meant something to him I don’t know you know he’s got a picture with him and somebody on a porch you know it is. and he didn’t try to romanticize it with some rhyming thing, it’s just like I gotta tell it like it is. it seems like we’re overanalyzing but this is what I did when I first got the record. we just sat around for hours and hours and talked about this stuff.

With that song, it seems like the lyrics and the way that’s they’re delivered at the end sort of changes the meaning. On the lyric sheet, it goes, “Hey I remember that day / and I miss you.” In the song, it goes back into the chorus before going “Hey, I miss you!” It really changes the flow of it. It’s affecting in a different sort of way.

I could see that. the I miss you part never really affected me that much. I thought of it more of like he found a photography and knew the person hated him and kind of wrote this song and then thought…I don’t know I don’t want to be like blasphemous or anything, but it almost seems like that end’s tacked on. you know, I miss you. he’s got this picture but like he added, oh I’ll add this end part I’ll give it more of an emotional push and kind of turn it around. anyone will tell you any kind of songwriter will tell you the songs are always based in reality then they’ll thrown a curveball and make it a little more interesting. that’s kind of how I always felt about that last part. it just didn’t seem as genuine.

What you said is exactly what I meant: It seems more seamless in the lyrics as opposed to at the end of the song.

it just seems like a good ending to the song. it kind of breaks down into this half-time thing.

“West Bay Invitational”

see now in the case of WBI as opposed to boxcar it has that end part and it’s kind of diff from the song, and this triumphant for lack of a better word, it’s like a new part than the rest of the song. on this song it seems really really genuine. even the way he sings it, it seems really genuine as opposed to DYSHM doesn’t so much. when I listen to WBI I’m waiting for that part. that’s the part of the song. all the rest it doesn’t really blend it but I can’t identify with people and places in the east bay west bay Oakland Berkeley area. and he mentions people by name. and then he kind of works in this little love tryst which is cool. thank you for letting me in on something I can relate to as opposed to all these people I don’t know.

so as far as that song goes it’s really the end that drives it home. and again the whole love tryst that happens in it I didn’t buy it. like the clothes on the floor and stuff. it kind of doesn’t even fit, I don’t think.

It is kind of like in the 3rd act of the song, we’ve got to have the love interest—it’s like a movie.

but that last little movement is just like gut-wrenching and really great and really heartbreaking, it really makes the song. the song without that part wouldn’t be as special, or it wouldn’t really be special at all. that’s the part that really drives that song home and kind of brings it together in a way that I’ve got something I can latch onto in the song and like personalize it.

“Jinx Removing”

I know this for a fact because mark from HM toured with JTB, again, he was a super-fan. he was on tour with them actually being their guitar tech and roadie and stuff so he was able to ask Blake about a bunch of shit. but he found out about how Blake is really superstitious and this song is kind of you know the penultimate superstition song.

so while the song is all this kind of superstitious talk going on in it and whatever, it has that bridge which is just like something everyone can hug because it’s so amazing and it’s so beautiful. he’s talking a lot about hocus pocus and this and that and all that crap and ten there’s the bridge, which is this like amazing, which is the part I love you more then I ever loved anyone before or anyone to come. I was like this is the best part right here. because then it kind of brings it all home. and again as far as influence goes, it kind of made me feel you could sing about whatever you want but you’ve got to have something in there that people can really relate to. you can talk about cooking food all day long but if I talk a little bit about like a love story or whatever school or something that everyone can relate to then it like makes it special then everyone kind of pieces it all together. that’s really what I got out of that song, you know?

Well, the whole song is about being superstitious.

it doesn’t seem like it fits, that bridge.

Well, if you think about it, it’s this preposterous statement to say when you’re like 24. It’s a damn bold statement.

sure. like I said that’s…even I would be hard-pressed to sing that whole song. I know most of the lyrics to every Jawbreaker song but I’d be hard-pressed to come up with all the lyrics to that song because they’re many and stuff with a few things I don’t’ understand. but anybody, even non-Jawbreaker fans if I put that on a mix for them, that was the part.

They’d be like what’s that song with that part. We sort of talked about “In Sadding Around,” the black sheep.

yeah, interesting choice for a last song. if you’ll notice it ends on a really weird note.

Yeah, it doesn’t resolve. It’s like the “to be continued.”

exactly, which I thought was cool. laughs.

especially "Indictment" into "Boxcar" I’d be surprised if that wasn’t completely intentional.

I always figured “Indictment,” he was talking about the riff he wrote for that song.

I always thought he was talking about boxcar. indictment’s not a singalong. he says I just wrote the dumbest song it’s going to be a singalong. boxcar is the ultimate singalong.

And you even have the bloated major label version on Etc. and the Dear You reissue.

yeah, that was weird to me.

When you talk about this, you’re mostly talking about lyrics, not music, which is really telling.

well sort of when it comes to the music what I really latched onto and thought most about was the drums. because when that album came out I played drums and sang in friction, you know, so I was thinking about the lyrics and the drums. I was thinking about cooler rolls and stuff that he did. I didn’t think at all about the guitars really at all.

whereas the newer stuff when JTB came out I had been playing guitar in a band for x number of years I was like that’s a cool little guitar thing. all of the guitar stuff on this record came way after where I thought oh that’s cool or whatever. it’s not really guitar…

The guitar’s kind of muddy.

that’s another thing I was going to mention, the actual recording. what’s amazing to me is they recorded the first song and the third song and the 6th song in San Francisco at a different place. and then the rest they recorded with Steve Albini. and the first 3rd and 6th song sound I think so much better than the rest of the record. and really as far as like the actual recording I don’t’ think it’s that well recorded. and what happened the deal with SA is he’s so great at capturing the sound of the band and he really doesn’t do much producing, you know? he’s like an amazing engineer getting the right sounds but the sound of your amp, this is what you wanted, this is how your amp sounds it’s going to sound like that exactly on your record. I have the mics to do it and I have the know-how of where to place them and then blah blah blah. but when I spoke very briefly with SA about the Jawbreaker sessions I said how was it. and he said it was really weird. he was kind of not like aloof but he was more like yeah I remember that kind of. he really even didn’t think too much about it. one of the things he mentioned is that they were constantly asking him his opinion how it sounded. like how do you think that sounds? and he was like confounded. why are you asking me? this is your…whereas they seem more like I am begrudgingly where it’s just plug and play. I don’t’ think too much about the actual sound or things that are happening. like I can tell if something’s out of tune or if a drum sounds too ringy but as far as me having a sound or whatever I don’t care I’d rather have someone in the studio to be like to really be hands on and work with how things sound. it seems like maybe that’s how they thought things were gonna be, and it wasn’t. it was more like maybe how they sounded live, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do for recording purposes.

it is kind of muddy. the vocals especially on the Steve Albini ones are a little bit buried. you can tell if you listen to it 1, 3 and 6 which are boat dreams from the hill boxcar and condition Oakland are diff, you can tell.

I’ll tell my quick story about when they were in Chicago recording. they were in Chicago recording with SA and they were playing at this place called Isabelle’s grand finale, this short-lived club on Grand Avenue pretty far west. and friction got asked to the show. it was friction, nuisance and Jawbreaker. it wasn’t like they were on tour. they were recording. and I talked briefly to Blake outside and it was just so brief because I was starstruck. like I can’t believe I’m playing this show with you guys. and it wasn’t even like I was talking to him he was talking to some other drunk asshole who mentioned something about surgery. and he said yeah, it sucks I can’t smoke, I can’t drink while I’m here he kind of seemed really kind of upset. the drunk guy he was talking to, said oh I wanna hear, are you gonna play want and are you going to play fine day? and he really wanted to hear those songs and Blake’s like yeah we play those songs. and the guy’s like awesome dude! and you could tell Blake’s a little annoyed by this guy, as was I, just kind of in the presence of him. anyway, during their set, which I might have on video, they’re done with their set almost, or they said they’re going to have one more song. and people are like, the place was packed, and they’re like play more. and he was really mad. he’s like the only way we’re going to play anymore is if anyone has an valium, and I’m dead serious. and someone was like yeah I got some! and he’s like ok. like he was saying he was having a lot of trouble sleeping and he was serious about it. and he said that. laughs. it didn’t matter to me I wasn’t like what the fuck, I was like oh god! not like he was going to take it there instantly, for afterwards. that’s the only way we’re going to keep playing.

it’s just funny, I know firsthand like this crazy desperation he was going through. he was fucking pissed when he was recording those songs, and you could kind of tell. it’s weird to be somebody so far removed from it and trying to figure out what’s going on, but I saw this stuff happening while he was in Chicago recording the record.

You’ve touched on this, but how does this still affect you? How is it still affecting you?

it really does and it almost affects me more now than it did back then. I’m not really sure why I think it might just be because it brings back so many memories of that time when I was the ultimate fanboy. that kind of isn’t going to happen anytime again, you know, with anybody. I can’t think of any like person I would either admire or really look up to that finally coming face to face with the person being just starstruck so I totally was.

and so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or if it’s the fact the songs have held up so well. he’s talking about stuff that happened, whenever it was, but yet still like you can listen to it and feel like you were right there. I think it’s because the lyrics, the descriptions are so timeless almost especially in certain songs that you know you can see it happening right away. it’s not a dated record at all. I mean obviously it’s become a classic.

When you’re writing lyrics and stuff, do you follow a similar sort of pattern of not wanting to sound dated?

no not at all, it doesn’t really cross my mind at all. what does happens is I’ll write something down for a song and I’ll be like shit, I have to use that for a song, I have to. if the song’s worse because of that, that’s too bad it’s got to happen this way. that’s the way I feel about it. I do really, not really because of the Jawbreaker record, but I really hate songs that are dated that talk about pop culture stuff. in 5 years no one’s going to know what you were talking about or not even care.

if you wrote a really great song about Elian Gonzalez, like why would I care about that now? big deal. laughs.

Sally: It’s like Terri Schaivo.
oh exactly! even now, but think about what it’s going to be like in four years.

I really really hate that and it’s kind of a real pet peeve with me especially in a lot more recent punkish radio songs. it’s kind of like cashing in on some really quick fix. to talk about I don’t know fucking red bull or something. you know it’s something that’s so right now and has no absolutely no staying power.