[JO] My name is Joey Haze, I play guitar in the band ROMP and I am 34 years old 
 
[C] I’m Chris, I’m 32. Vocals and Synth. 
 
[T] My name is Tommy, they/them. I’m 29 and I play bass and do vocals for ROMP. 

[JA] I’m Jake. I’m 33, Jesus age. I play the drums. 
 
[R] Hi I’m Ren, she/her or they/them. I am 39 and I play my voice. 
 
How long has ROMP been around?
 
[C] Like a year now, we started getting together last winter. 
 
[JO] After New Years Eve. 
 
[C] Yeah that’s right, and it’s just been slowly growing. Should we talk about how we know each other? So me and Tommy and Jake used to work together, and we’ve all known Ren for a long time and then Joey was a friend of mine for a few years now and Joey came to a New Years party here and at the end of the night was like hey if you’re ever trying to put together a punk project and I was like yeah let’s do it. So it just all came together really naturally and then Frida is our super fan. 

[JO] She’s protective of us.
 
Have you guys been in any previous projects before this one?
 
[T] I wasn’t in any projects before but I did art for one of Chris’ previous projects. 
 
[JO] Random like hardcore bands in high school but most previously I did a side project with a friend from work called Jan Hates Marsha which was kind of like indie/acoustic stuff we just played a lot of open mics and stuff like that around Kalamazoo. I’d say it’s still going but we haven’t really met in a year or two. 
 
[C] Jan still hates Marsha. 
 
[JO] Yeah Jan still definitely hates Marsha. It stemmed from my jealousness of the singer, she’s a very talented musician. 
 
[C] Right before I started this group, I had Disco Wannabe. That was kind of like punk I guess, some pop punk, some pushing hardcore and some scah stuff. Then I had Deadpan before that was midwest, emoish, indie type stuff. 
 
[JA] That’s not true Tommy was in Dark in Their Hearts. 
 
[T] Oh that’s right. I was in a band in high school. 
 
[JA] Jan and Marsha is very good, Disco Wannabe is very good as well. Before this I was in this group called Pariah with Sasha Battle and we were like a prog RnB group we were around for a few years and recorded some stuff, played Pride one year. That was a shit ton of fun. 
 
[R] I have never done any previous project. ROMP originally asked me to read some poetry during their breaks and then just kind of started doing back-up vocals after that. I guess I have experience in musical theater and that kind of stuff but never been in a band or anything like that.
 
So most of your met from work?
 
[JA] From The Alamo. 
 
[C] I was a server there and I would come through and just hear these two listening to ridiculous music and screaming about French fries. 
 
[T] I also kicked a shit load of boxes. 
 
[C] You did kick a lot of boxes. There was a lot of anger in that kitchen. 
 
[T]  It was a very angry kitchen. 
 
[JA] It was a good place to work everybody got along a lot so everybody just kind of stayed in touch over time. 
 
[T] Yeah because after The Alamo closed, I had moved out to Massachusetts for a year and then when I came back, I actually- like Chris and I hung out maybe twice when we were working at the Alamo together and then when I came back I think you invited me to a show.
 
[C] I think there was a Halloween party too. 
 
[T] And then we did the show, and after that Chris was starting up the punk project and that’s like when I learned bass.
 
[JA] The Alamo was full of artists it was pretty awesome. 
 
[C] Bunch of miscreants. 
 
[C] I played at my house with like 6 people from the Alamo. That’s where I met Ren’s brother was at the Alamo as well and we used to play music together, and Tommy and Reid used to play music together as well. Yeah I met Tommy there which is pretty awesome because we’re like artistic partners right?
 
[T] We’ve known each other for like ten years. 
 
[C] Yeah but we kind of like do everything together now, artistically. We’re doing a comic together, we’re shooting and editing a music video together. Tommy got me into the band as well. 
 
Nice, what is your comic about?
 
[JA] It’s like a Nat Turner in a fantasy world. It’s a big world building kind of epic fantasy set in like a lisbethan era. Tommy’s a great artist. 
 
How are you getting it out there? 
 
[T] We’ll probably try to put it on Patreon like digitally distribute it because getting printing cost covered is going to be bullshit, but yeah, that’s been going on. 
 
[JA] That’s like the last place that you can do anything artistically and not have any regulations on what you’re doing at all it’s just the people who are fans of it will pay you if they like it, or you won’t get money if they don’t like it. 
 
[T] That’s why I like band camp. 
 
[C]Yeah it is a lot like band camp for art stuff. 
 
[JA] A lot of the people that I like on Patreon make a lot of money from it. 
 
T] We could probably make a Patreon for the band. 
 
How would you guys describe your sound?
 
[C] That’s a tough question. 
 
[JO] Cosmic Gumbo. 
 
[T] What the hell did you just say?
 
[C] Joey you take this one. 
 
[JO] I’d say it’s a cosmic gumbo of parts of hardcore mixed with a little bit of punk rock roots with some kind of indie-ish parts here and there. 
 
[T] The most succinct description we had was That’s Good Enough For Me, because they revealed the album and they said punk adjacent or punk advantgard and I was like yeah sure. It’s a bunch of different stuff because all of us have very different influences musically and the projects that we’ve been in. 
 
[C] My friend Dan always says it’s lite power violence. Power violence lite. 
 
[T] We’re like the Miller Lite of hardcore. 
 
[C] It’s like the format where you just can’t possibly find a groove with it. You get in a groove with it for like ten seconds and then a new part starts and you’re never going back to the other part so we try to just keep ourselves and everyone else on their toes as much as possible. 
 
Never looking back. 
 
[C] Our set is like 20 minutes of being on the edge of a cliff. 
 
[JO] And we’ll play like 15 songs during that time. 
 
So what was your guys’ first release?
 
[C] That would have been Frog Prom, when did we release that last June? May? At least so far we’re sticking to four track releases, because who cares anymore no ones fucking buying shit so it’s just nice to be able to put something out every four to six months and just move onto the next thing. But I think we’re going to do an album next and take our time with it. 
 
[JA] We have a lot of material that’s not recorded. 
 
[C] Yeah we got to pump some stuff out.
 
Do you remember anything about making that first release together? If anything stood out, or any stories from creating it?
 
[C] I think it was an experiment that we were trying to figure out what we were going to be doing as a group and it came together really well, we worked with Jake’s cousin to mix it, we worked with our friend Brendon for recording it so it was really just like, we really like these songs and let’s just get iemt our there so other people can listen to em and see if other people like it too and my mom fucking hates punk rock and she liked it so we got something right. 
 
[T] My dad didn’t talk shit about it. 
 
[C] Yeah Tommy’s dad talks a lot of shit and didn’t talk shit about it. 
 
And you said it was called Frog Prom?
 
[C] Frog Prom was the first one. 
 
How’d you come up with that?
 
[C] We were just shooting the shit one day. 
 
[T] That was one of the original ideas for the band name actually because then when we settled on ROMP we were like what will we use that for because we loved saying frog prom at that point, so we just made it the album.
 
[C] And it’s just fun to imagine a bunch of frogs at prom.  
 
[JA] Yeah, so the frog has become an essential part of our iconography. 
 
[JA] I had a shit ton of fun doing that, it was the first time that Tommy had recorded so it was like a huge deal for you
 
[T] Yeah that was the first time I recorded in a studio ever, get hooked up to a DI and like alright we’re going to have to run your amp from another  room and I was like okay what’s going on, you just tell me what to do. There’s a lot of fucking cables in this room. It was really shocking, but it was really exciting
 
[JA] Being able to see you achieve your dream and being right there with you was really special. That was awesome. 
 
[T] Really the dream was being able to scream at people on stage. So I’m living the dream. 
 
[R] I wasn’t part of the group yet. 
 
[JA] So the first one is less for not having Ren on it for sure. 
 
[C] We added synth on the second one too. So that’s a newer thing, and we just had synth in a show for the first time a couple weeks ago, and that was pretty cool  just to like have that and try to like fit it in in already chaotic stuff. 
 
[JA] It was nice working with my cousin as well because I love him and we’ve always wanted to collaborate on a project and he’s been professionally writing and playing and recording music for like 20 years and he’s the only one in my family to have like quote, unquote made it and have been able to make a living off of not just making music but being an artist so it was pretty seminal to work with someone I trust that much, but he wouldn’t have worked with us if he thought we were garbage. 
 
[C] He also lives, where is he living in Austin?
 
[JA] Yeah he lives in Austin now but he did live in LA. 
 
[C] So we did all of the conversations with him were just over zoom and stuff and he would play stuff over zoom and we would talk to him about how we wanted stuff changed, and he just always knew. Like we would just say a bunch of nonsense to him and he’d be like okay, ill have it to you in a couple days and I was like yup, this is what we wanted. 
 
[JO] Our probably non-musical way of describing how we wanted the sound changed. 
 
[C] Do-do-chi-do-do-do-do.
 
[T] We need it to be like crunchier. 
 
[JO] We need it to sound more liquid. 
 
Put it underwater. 
 
[JA] It was a really important learning process. It was nerve-wracking because I’m very ignorant of the technical recording terms, so it was a huge learning curve.
 
[JO] I think the engineers just kind of learn to interpret what we say, we’re the cavemen,
 
[C] They’ve got to speak every band that they talk to, they learn to speak ROMP. 
 
So how did you guys end up settling on ROMP then, over Frog Prom?
 
[C] It’s just a fun name and that’s like our goal in a live show is have people move around, even just a little bit, even if they shrug their shoulders to the beat that’s fine, but yeah just getting people moving so they have a good time.  
 
For the unreleased music that you guys are making right now, how does that differ from the earlier releases?
 
[T] It’s music that a lot of it we’ve been working on the entire time we’ve been together and then just really anytime we put a set together for what like five shows we were like what ones do we know really well? Then that was also part of the deciding process for recording, so we can go to the recording studio and record it really fast so we don’t spend a bunch of money on recording time. There’s more genres being crossed. 
 
[JO] We’ve had a lot more people involved in the songwriting too, the first demo was all of Chris’ stuff, and now we got your stuff and some of my stuff and Ren and also Jake writing different parts and kind of coaching us through it and helping everyone put songs together because typically one of us will bring a couple parts in and then Jake will be like no that’s not any good Joey. Go back home and try again, or like maybe we should have this part over here, I think it’s pretty collaborative. I think everybody contributes in the whole composition and how we put the parts of everything. 
 
[C] Yeah the newer songs are like little pieces of everybody. 
 
[JA] We’re writing at an incredible rate, in the winter we were writing like three songs a month. And it was fun because Ren is writing, like for quick attack, definitely one of my favorites.

[JO] Ren you should talk about quick attack. 
 
[R] Yeah that’s my first one that I wrote most of the lyrics for like to music that they all created, with a lot of help from Chris too because I have never really done that before and I do lead on that song vocally so that was a big first for me. It was a personal thing I was thinking or going through so I just put it down, it was pretty cathartic, and got to scream it out, get my demon voice out so it was fun. 
 
[JA] That was a lot of fun because Joey came up with some really awesome heavy riffs. It’s just so much fun. You play music that I want to write music for and I’m always nervous that it’s not going to match up to how good your riffs are and shit.
 
[JO] You see, me and Jake have some internal issues that we both need to work through.
 
[JA] That’s not true! Why are you lying? The three of us kind of laid that down because I think it was a time where people were having various sicknesses so it was like we’d lose one person at practice at a time so then the three of us wrote that and then Ren came in with the lyrics and all the vocals and then Chris was like the sugar on top, the transitions. 
 
[C] That one I feel like I was sick for a lot of it and I just showed up one day and there was this new song and I was like alright cool. 
 
[JO] It’s so punchy too, I wasn’t thinking of that when we named it quick attack, I was thinking about Pokemon. 
 
[JA] I distinctly remember the transitions you put on there that gave it that punch and gave it that uniqueness. 
 
[C] That song definitely has the coolest intro it’s very unique and you just don’t really see it coming but you can tell it builds up so fast. I don’t know when we’ll ever record it…
 
I wouldn’t mind hearing about your guys’ personal influences for creating your music?
 
[JO] I think everyone knows what band I’m going to say, No Effects. I really like No Effects. I like Every Time I Die a lot too so I could mix those two together. 
 
[T] Joey's the one that says we need to get on Fat records or he’s going to quit the band.
 
[JO] Fat records, we need to send our EPs to Fat Mike and maybe he’ll here this.
 
[C] We’re going to send him this interview. 
 
[JO] Every Time I Die and No Effects and that’s probably my main influences at least in this band. 
 
[C] I have wanted to have a punk band like this since I was in high school, listening to The Descendants, and Adolescence and even Modest Mouse, lots of influence from them and then a couple years ago I started listening to more hardcore screaming type stuff and I just went down the rabbit hole so fast. There’s so much hardcore music I feel like every other week I’m listening to a new band and then I’m trying to do something with it. 
 
[T] I definitely draw like a lot of influence from like early 2000s pop punk because that’s when I started to play guitar when I was a teenager like 13, so that was a lot of stuff that I learned, I learned a bunch of Fall Out Boy. I still really like Fall Out Boy, I don’t give a shit. Not the new stuff though, I still only listen to Dead on Arrival or whatever that album is the blue one, I can’t remember the name of the fucking album. I really like Deftness and Mars Volta is a  really big one too. I think probably the biggest influence like Jake just pointed out to me, I’m even wearing the Gerard Way shirt. He’s my boy, you got to do it the Gerard Way. 
 
[JA] I am not a punk fan at all so it was a huge learning curve for me to learn some beats, you literally had to be like- and I just had to like copy it so that whole world is pretty unfamiliar to me, I used to listen to a little bit of stuff when I was a kid I really liked the Stooges, I don’t know if you consider The Stooges punk but, The Stooges and The Damned but the closest I get to punk theses days is like Gang of Four. 
 
[T] I fucking love Gang of Four. 
 
[JA] Mars Volta was the cipher that cracked the code for me that taught me what music could be and you never forget your first love that will always be Mars Volta. Deftness is probably number two, they’re huge for me. I can’t get enough of the Deftones, I’ve seen them a bunch of times, yeah just the combination of the heaviness and the melodic is something that I think we do as well. The heavy parts hit harder when you get the tension let up, and then TOOL. TOOL is pretty huge for me as well. 
 
[R] I guess musically, I’ve probably been also influenced a lot by the Mars Volta, really love them, on their previous project At the Drive-in, is a big one for me. I don’t know punk-wise, if I listen to a lot of punk historically. Garbage, TOOL also, I don’t know. Biff Naked, a lot of stuff I like all kinds of music so
 
It doesn’t have to be punk at all. 
 
[R] Okay yeah, Madonna, anything really. Anything 80s pop, like Duran Duran, George Michael. 
 
[JA] I’m gonna say Mike Patton as well. For Joey if he doesn’t get on Fat Records he’s going to quit the band, if I don’t get on Ippicack I’m going to quit the band. 
 
[JO] I remember when you said Ippicack before and I thought you were just messing up Epitaph. 
 
[C] Me too, I let it go I didn’t say anything. 
 
[JO] I think that’s Bad Religion they were on Epitaph. 
 
[C] Yeah that’s a big one yeah. 
 
From your influences is there stuff that shines through in the music you make now? What do you pull from your influences in your instrumentation?
 
[T] 100 percent I play the bass like a rhythm guitar like I used to in high school. For punk stuff, I hadn’t learned a lot of that, I learned a lot of the pop punk stuff so like my baselines involve a lot of that, I use power chords and stuff like that, so that’s been an interesting mix because I mean I fill a slot for that as a rhythm guitarist. 

[R] I guess I do a lot of different ways of singing, there’s like my regular singing voice, there’s like a yelling in my voice and there’s like this deep demon guttural screaming that I do.
 
[T] Ren does all the deep screams on the record, I’m always high. The dynamics funny because you would think it would be opposite, but I can’t do low screams, but Ren has done some of the best low screams I ever heard. 
 
[R] Aw thanks. I used to be really shy like even in choir and musical theater I would just lip sync and then I don’t know when I joined them for some reason this demon voice came out and it was really nice to feel that. 
 
[C] I remember when that first started, because I don’t think you were doing it right first, then one day you just like tried it and we were like do that. Keep doing that. 
 
[T] Do that more, do that all the time. 
 
[JA] And that’s on the second record, and that’s where that’s represented and more to come. 
 
[C] For the songs that I write the guitar parts for, because usually when I’m writing a song I’ll start with the guitar parts and then I’ll arrange it and then I’ll try and put lyrics to it after that and so it all kind of starts with guitar and definitely I take some of the old punk more melodic like riff type stuff, like the adolescents really is my go to, and the snarky tone of singing too I definitely push for some of that along with the screaming. Like Insindeary, I don’t know if you guys listen to Insindeary but they have like the heaviest fucking hardcore riffs that just make you scowl when you listen to it and I just wanna channel that so bad. I don’t think I’ve gotten there yet but we’ll see maybe one day. 
 
[JO] I think most of the stuff I typically write, I usually end up writing it on my acoustic first so I think it does typically take more of a poppy, happy feel, more major-y but then I try to apply that to my electric with more palm muting and distortion and I make it more angry sounding because that’s kind of what I do. I guess, Say Anything influences that, I like the Say Anything guitarist, but kind of doing stuff like that but I try and force myself to make it sound a bit more minor but fast like that. A mixture of Iron Maiden and No Effects. 
 
[JA] I’m always trying to sneak jazz into it because I love jazz, I love Miles Davis and shit like that. 
 
[T] Yeah because how long have you been a jazz drummer?
 
[JA] Well I don’t know what kind of drummer I would consider myself but there were several times where I had to be de-jazzed. Where I was like playing accents in the wrong place and had to play it in a more punk sort of way. I try and put a lot of world music like Latin stuff and Bossenova. I try and sneak a lot of stuff into there because I just get bored easily and I want to work hard for my money. 
 
[C] I remember when we first started playing and you were always doing jazz stuff back then, always, and I would always say, your hands need to be heavier, heavier hands, heavier hands and at some point he’s just like blasting now all the time 
 
[JA] That Deftones has really come in handy, because I do absolutely love that shit. The newest song were doing that doesn’t even have a name right now that’s definitely a super Deftones-ish song. You came to the table with a bunch of Deftones-esque riffs and then I’m playing like Abe Cunningham for sure. 
 
[T] Another thing for my influences, with the screaming, I try and scream as hard as Chino from the Deftones. Since also I just got into that this year, because of Jake. Jake keeps showing me stuff that I’m like na I should skip it and he’s like no just listen to it, I’m like oh okay. 
 
I wouldn’t mind hearing about your song writing process, who tends to start it and who adds what when. 
 
[C] We’ve done it multiple ways really, which is cool, like people will show up with parts and most of the time once we all get parts together then I’ll record it because I have some basic recording equipment, like to a click, and then basically like puzzle pieces, move things around and just see what it sounds like. Sometimes I’ll cut parts in half and will chop two parts into each other, and that’s super fun the arrangement part of it. Really strange transitions that I didn’t think would work but then you try it and it’s like yeah like that’s unexpected but fun and then we bring it to the band and then it’s still not usually done, once we start playing it all together it’s like okay this needs to change a little bit somethings not working one parts needs to be a little longer, one part a little shorter that kind of thing. Even some of the songs we’ve been playing since the very beginning we still make small changes to every once in a while.  
 
[JA] I’d say Chris is probably the primary songwriter, you’ve generated most of the material. You’re a fucking amazing guitar player so it’s fun to play your riffs but Joey, Ren and Tommy have all come to the table with almost fully done songs and then we kind of run them through the filter of everyone else and everybody really has a say in how the song gets written so that’s pretty satisfying to be able to contribute. 
 
How big of a part do lyrics play in your songs?
 
[C] It’s always music first especially because we’re screaming so much, you’d have to read them to catch a lot of em, but while we’re playing it I think the lyrics kind of make it in the end. It would be a good song but then the lyrics, we really do try to be saying something worthwhile that they could apply to their lives. If they ever do read the lyrics, hopefully they’ll vibe with it on another level beyond just like feeling the music. 
 
[T] Yeah if someone is ever interested enough to like we make a CD with an insert and we have the lyrics sheet. 
 
[C] Yeah if we get our shit together. 
 
[JA] The first record we released without any lyrics but I think we should go back and do a lyric insert because the lyrics on the first one are, I don’t know it’s stupid for me to keep saying that things are so good but I really like em. When I read your shit I really enjoy it and I feel like Ren’s stuff comes from a very real place. 
 
[T] Our singer is chasing a cat right now, his cat is in the backyard on a harness. She got tangled up in the harness. 
 
[JO] We really like cats in the band too. I have a cat as well. 

[T] This is Maybelline. 
 
[C] Maybelline’s been struggling for a minute I was feeling bad. 
 
Do you guys have an ideal space, physically/mentally to write music?
 
[T] For me I do all my best writing, it’s true for a lot of people but I write alone in my room really well, like when I’m writing I need to be, I have to have the physical and mental space away from everybody for myself. 
 
[C] Like 3/4 o’clock in the morning, very high. Or like with the band, also very high.
 
[JO] Most of the time when I write something I’m not really trying to specifically write something. It’s usually I’m just probably very, very stoned in my little game room that  I’ve got set up and I’m just playing guitar usually watching TV really stoned and I’m kind of just fucking around with new things or whatever and then I’ll be like oh I like this part and I’ll explore it a lot more. I feel like when I come to band practices, I usually just have a collage of parts that I try to have everyone help me put it together to form the frame of it. I think that’s how I usually do it. 
 
[JA] When you brought the demo of Orange Waves in I swear to god I listened to just the demo 100 times in one day, because I was just enjoying your demo so much.
 
[R] Usually if I write anything, I’m in my bed drinking coffee very early in the morning, just something comes up that is an inspiration or something I feel like I need to get out or an idea that I want to talk about or something like that. 
 
[JA] I can just hit anything anywhere, which is what’s nice about the drums so-
 
[T] As long as you got the sticks-
 
[C] You work with kids though you can’t be doing that.
 
[JA] They watch me. They watch me- 
 
[C] They love it?
 
[JA] Yeah, then they do it. No but, Obscure I was really struggling to write the end part, like the outro, and I finished it in Walmart and I was super proud. I was like oh I did it!

So you just thought it up?
 
[JA] Yeah I was like okay that’s how it’s gonna go.
 
[T] I thought you were walking around beating things in Walmart. 
 
[JA] I definitely was. 
 
[T] Walmart is the most important factor in our sound. 

[E] Super Center or standard center?
 
[JA] Definitely Super Center. 
 
[T] They don’t have SuperCenters on the East Coast. That’s why I moved back, no fucking SuperCenters. I was like this is bullshit. Can’t pump my own gas either. 
 
What was the first show that you guys played together?
 
[T] That was the Runoff. The Runoff was the first one that was April 3rd?
 
[JA] I think it was in May, it was actually after we finished our first record. We finished recording our first record before playing our first show. 
 
[C] I think the first one we did was at Dreamland, with the poetry stuff. 
 
[R] I feel like it was the Runoff first. 
 
[C] Was it?
 
I think I saw you guys at the Runoff. 
 
[T] Because Dreamland was the second one, then the Runoff again, then the Abyss and then Mulligans and that’s been it so far. 
 
What was memorable about the first show?
 
[C] Just playing these songs. We came together so quickly with the music that there was just all this energy and I feel like it went well. 
 
[T] Yeah I feel like we all had a lot of built up energy and had invested at that point so much emotional energy and time and effort into making the songs sound really good that when we finally got to go up on stage and do them we were like yeah this is great. We were just losing it. 
 
[C] That’s the thing about these songs because we will have I don’t know like five parts usually per song and we’re just racing through in like a minute, minute and a half. So like you go and this is every show but defiantly for the first one, you’re like waiting there’s all this pent up anxious energy but then every song you’re just like running through, it’s a marathon for twenty minutes and there’s no chance to stop and say oh I’m still nervous like you just try and get all of that out as much as you can. 
 
[T] That was a lot for me, because I had maybe taken one too many shots because that was the first time I ever actually gotten up on stage and sang anything in my 28 years of existence up to that point. That was a great show, it was such an amazing experience it was like wow this is what I wanna do like I wanna do more of this all the time, forever. 
 
[JA] It is like, it’s probably got something to do with my weight more but my heart is racing like more than it should but once we get past that first break I’m like okay. It’s difficult because the feel of each part switches so drastically and the feel of every song is so different that if you just blast through all of them and rush everything then you ruin the song, so we need those breaks. 
 
[JO] Memorable stories from the shows. Last show we played I accidentally hit Chris in the head with my guitar, I wasn’t doing anything crazy or anything like that I was just moving it and hit him in the head and also it looked like I had toilet paper stuck on my shoe but I didn’t it was some kind of doily thing another band brought, so I just wanted to make that clear. It was not toilet paper, because I know people have been talking about it behind my back and I just don’t appreciate it. 
 
[C] That was super fun, that show. 
 
From what you’ve released so far what has been your favorite thing to work on? If you have one. 
 
[T] Orange waves was my favorite song to work on like in the recording studio. That was like the first song you contributed, because that one it was so different from what we’d been doing because it was written by a totally different person. It was such a change that is was like, oh wow like we need to incorporate this so we can branch out even further we can do way more stuff. It was super exciting I got to try a bunch of different stuff I’d be like I wonder if this would sound good on bass and I’d try it and I was like oh I can make that work. 
 
[C] I think that one was mine too. The songs that I didn’t make the guitar parts for, like the songs where I can just kind of think about the lyrics and focus on that I feel like they get really theatrical and dark and doom and that’s really fun for me like because it’s just more theatrical I don’t feel like I’m trying to say anything really I just get to have fun on those ones. 
 
[JO] When you are making the lyrics for the songs where-
 
[C] You don’t ask the questions here
 
[JO] I was curious with the other songs were you writing them in a way where you thought you were going to play guitar and sing them at the same time
 
[C] At first I was. There was a couple of the songs that I can play and sing but it was quickly getting out of control and incredibly frustrating because there’s jus too much hand movement on the guitar parts. 
 
[JO] I think my favorite song to record was Obscure when we’re switching through when it starts going it just sounds so angry and in your face the entire time and I think it’s one of my favorite recorded songs that we have. 
 
[R] Both those, Orange Waves and obscure, that was my first time ever recording anything and it was kind of weird just like being there and everyones’ silent and you’re just like screaming by yourself in a room. It’s weird, it was pretty fun though. 
 
[JA] I really do love the process as nerve-racking as it is, and I ruin it for myself sometimes because I get too nervous but when you pitched that baseline up for the middle section of Orange Waves it totally unlocked it and then the lyrics you have right before that middle section the breakdown part that is some of the best shit you’ve done for sure. I think I enjoyed recording the whole second record more. Orange waves was cool because I got to do some hand percussion and then Chris and Brendon hit it with a tape delay that made it really pop, sound good. Obscure was cool because I feel like I said what I wanted say, but I enjoyed the mixing process of that record because when it came out it was like we really have something here, and doing the album art. 
 
[T] I’m no Michelangelo, but that album was like the best work of graphic design up to this point, because I got to do it for class which was also cool so I had to do it for two reasons.
 
[C] Did you get an A?

[T] I did. 
 
[C] Fuck yeah
 
[JA] Tommy is the resident artist. Sometimes you let me help…
 
[T] You’re usually the first person I bounce a design off of because I need the constructive criticism. I need you to be like that doesn’t work but this maybe would and I’ll try it. 
 
[JA] But you are a great artist and you pretty much are solely responsible for the visual aesthetic and that was an interesting part of planning. We do want to alternate, like Frog Prom was a funny one and to look at the album cover and listen to the music on Spotify is kind of like a humorous experience and then this one was kind of darker, and so will the next one probably be as well, it just depends what goes on it, but alternating that imagery and the iconography was something else that was really exciting about being the band. 
 
[T] I also want to make sure that the next one is not going to be me because I want some other artist I actually like if they’re willing to collaborate with us that would be amazing, because they’re are so many amazing artists in the Kalamazoo area. You want to use all these public domain old ass paintings. 
 
[JA] What’s wrong with that?
 
[T] I love old ass paintings I took art history. 
 
How did you guys stumble on the Kalamazoo music scene in the first place?
 
[T] I’ve been going to shows since I was 16 years old in the Vine neighborhood back when there was Ray Mystereos and I think the first show I saw was at the free clinic that was over by circle K. I don’t even think that house is active anymore. It’s been great that everything is opening up again because there was like a drought that happened with house shows and house venues. I lived in the Vine neighborhood and I walked around in the middle of the night a lot and I would see people on porches that I know and they’d be like hey whats up, and I’d be like yo what’s up and they’d be like there’s a show and I’d be like alright cool and I would just walk inside. As long as you’re cool, just be respectful you know what I mean?
 
[C] I smash stuff. 

[T] Chris walks in and smashes your TV immediately he brings a hammer in his back pocket. 

[JA] It’s punk.When I was playing in Pariah, we started out with open mics at Louis and then we met people in the VNA, which is kind of controversial because we’re not friends anymore. We could play lower level of Shakespeare whenever we wanted, that’s where we recorded our EP as well. We played at Bells a few times so we just kind of had connections in the community that just helped us book shows that way. 
 
[C] When I started Deadpan ,which was probably like three of four years ago now, I didn’t really know anything about the Vine scene and the people in the band with me had lived here for a long time and we started playing shows and I started going to shows and it’s so crazy to me that this basement music stuff is so big here like every week there’s a show and like good shows.
 
[T] It’s because it’s a decades long tradition. 
 
[C] I know and this is a thing in Kalamazoo and when I learned about it and met some of these people, I met like a music family and they’ve just been around here forever playing music and it’s so wild to me. When I was in high school I was in the middle of cornfields. There was nothing like this, nothing like this. It’s been fun trying to be a part of it and everybody is really supportive of each other too. Kalamazoo seems to have a healthy scene where people are really trying to lift each other up. 
 
[JO] My real introduction into the Kalamazoo punk rock scene is basically Chris. Before that I was just playing open mics and whatnot and the acoustic stuff and before that it was just hardcore shows in South Bend Indiana like when I was a young lad. I lived in the Vine neighborhood for a few years now so I’d kind of stumble upon some basement shows and whatnot but I never thought I’d be involved with playing those types of shows because I just didn’t think I could find anybody to play this type of music with anymore. 
 
[C] Never grow up, never surrender. 
 
What drives you guys to create music in the first place?
 
[C] It’s just cathartic, it’s like a journal. 
 
[T] I’m super angry. I’m super angry all the time. I’m always shouting at traffic and flipping people off in traffic so if you see me in traffic I’m pissed off. 
 
[J] Really?
 
[T] Hahaha really? Yeah. 
 
[JA] You should have seen the box kicking days. 
 
[JO] I never thought of you as being an angry person. 
 
[T] I got to get it out. That’s why you don’t know Joey because I get it out in traffic and in the music. 
 
[R] Yeah I guess what Chris said, it’s cathartic. It’s a good emotional outlet and release like to just put that out into something creative and collaborate with other people who are very talented so I feel really lucky that they wanted me in the band. 
 
[JA] It’s nice to be in a band with a bunch of people who are artists in all kinds of different ways as well. It’s the same way with me too, I have shit inside of me that I need to get out. A lot of it I channel into other mediums. I’m a writer and a poet and Ren is a poet, a sculpture 
 
[R] Everything. 
 
[JA] An artist, an illustrator, a painter, a videographer.
 
[R] Professional theater, professional choreography dance. 
 
[JA] Great at making dead bodies. 
 
[R] Dead bodies. Like heavy ones. 90 pound dead bodies. 
 
[JA] We have a dead body in a music video. That’s kind of a funny story actually, we had to make a dead body for the music video so we had to make a dummy. Ren made it because Ren is the production designer. Ren is probably the best artist out of everyone here.
 
[T] Wow. 
 
[R] That’s not true. 
 
[JA] Suck it! The most experienced. When I say best I’m joking, I don’t compare people. The most experienced.
 
[T] She is better than me though. 
 
[JA] She’s the production designer and the lead actress in the music video as well. She made the dummy up in her apartment. It was in an unspecified apartment building, but we went out and bought, we filled it with gerbal bedding and all kinds of stuff, what is all the shit that you made out of it. 
 
[R] I don’t even know, recycled like, I’m like a Mexican grandma I just keep all the plastic containers you know and like rocks whatever, it’s heavy. Panty hose, remember? 

[JA] We had to stuff the panty hose, stuff them with soda bottles.
 
[R] Filled with water, dialysis, recycled dialysis bags. 
 
[JA] And it even had a nose made out of the handle of a jug. It looked so creepy. We could send you pictures of it if you want. 
 
I would love a picture. 
 
[R] I hand sewed it all together, my hands were like so torn up from sewing that together. 
 
[JA] It like wasn’t a thing and then like Christ, three days later, I went into your apartment and it was terrifying, it was like a dead person. It was terrifying. 
 
[R] You tell me you need a dead person I’ll made you a dead person. It will happen.

[JA] So we had to take the dead body, get a shopping cart from downstairs, prop the dead body up in a shopping cart and then wheel it to the elevator, take the elevator down.

[T] Weekend at Bernie’s style. 
 
[JA] Weekend at Bernie’s style. Which the lobby usually does not have that many people in it. There were at least 30 people in that lobby and there is usually like 4. And so we had to wheel it in front of them, hey how’s it going, hey and this lady goes oh I thought it was real! I was like I wouldn’t be a very good criminal now would I if I was just doing it in front of your face. So that was all kinds of hijinx we had for the shooting of that, Tommy shaved their beard so it wasn’t going to match continuity wise so we had to get a fake beard. So when we brought the body to your house we had to wrap it up in plastic. It looked so, it’s so grim. We’’re carrying a dead body wrapped in plastic through your parents backyard. 
 
[T] I was like what do you think they’re going to think is weirder the fake dead body or the fact that I have a fake goatee on?
 
And that was for what music video?
 
[T] We’re doing one for Fester/Salt which was the first song, no the middle two because it really just two mashed together for one track, but music video for Fester/Salt on Entropy. On Entropy available on band camp and on Spotify. 
 
[JO] And Walmart. 
 
[T] Not at Walmart. Not sponsored. 
 
Well you guys mentioned that you’re pumping stuff now, it’s getting easier to write. Is it just from getting more familiar with each other or is there some other piece or part of that?
 
[T] I think so. 
 
[C] That’s definitely part of that and at the beginning I was writing the lyrics, doing the arranging, and the guitar parts and now that everyones just bringing their own stuff it just comes together so much faster. 
 
[JA] When the last band I was in was over, it was just me and another lady we were best friends as well, and not anymore, so we were so connected and in an unhealthy wrapped up in each others lives and I thought I’ll never be that musically connected with anyone ever again and then I met Joey. Guilty feet have got no rhythm. Tommy and I have such a strong connection so it’s very easy for us to improvise music together and I feel like that’s about 50% of the new material has come from improvisation. But yeah, when you came in, because originally Chris was going to play guitar but when Joey came in it was just, we were so fucking locked in together. 
 
[T] Really I’ve been watching your drumming for so long, and playing with you for so long that the way you do accents I know when you’re about to change to something else, so I’ll just wait two beats and then I can start again.

[JA] You said that too Joey, I don’t know if I can quote you exactly the same but it was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me. 
 
[JO] Jake is a unique drummer, I think that the fact that you were not already playing hardcore music makes you a cooler drummer for the stuff that we play because you follow the guitar parts so closely that it almost feels like it’s like a melody to each other, like instead of having a guitar part playing another part to make the melody you’re doing it with the drums and I really like that. 

[JA] You’re making me blush. 
 
[T] So they made me play rhythm. 
 
[C] Hardcore music has such iconic drumming, like it’s so drum forward. It’s just always right in your face on recordings and live they’ve got the right things mic’ed up and that I think is one of the things that makes us not as much hardcore, because you don’t really play like a hardcore drummer but it works, it always works. You never do anything I think you’re going to do, I’m like yeah do the-, you never do the- 
 
[JO] Even when we ask for it!
 
[T] Caption that as drum noises. 
 
[C] So yeah Jake is a very unique drummer, very unique, very talented. 
 
[JA] Get the fuck out of here. Chris has a very distinctive oeuvre, now I sound fucking pretentious. Your eggs are awesome, and it was a huge adjustment because the last band I played were writing 30 minute songs and now we have two songs that are over two minutes, so the way that Chris writes, you converted us to your style. In that, we very rarely if ever repeat a part, and we just plow ahead forward so it was fun to learn how to write a song like that, to say everything that you need to say in a minute and thirty seconds. 
 
What do you want people to know about the music that you guys make?
 
[T] I really like it, so people should give it a shot. You should give it a shot, at least I’m not asking you to love it, but 
Just don’t hate it. Please don’t tell us we suck just don’t say mean things. 
 
[JO] We are very sensitive individuals. 
 
[JA] That’s true. 
 
[JO] If you say mean things it will affect us. Please don’t.
 
[JA] Don’t make Joey sad then it makes me angry. It’s anti-capitalist. 
 
[JO] But buy our stuff! 
 
[C] We’re on Spotify. 
 
[JA] Hey I’m poor I got to go to Walmart I don’t have a choice. 
 
[T] A lot of us are locked into that. It’s like how you can’t buy anything except on Amazon. Rent strike!
 
[JA] What do you do for a living? Tell us what you do for a living. I know what you do for a living, but tell them what you do for a living Joey. 
 
[JO] I’m a BCPA I write behavior plans for children that engage in severe aggression and self-injurious behaviors. 
 
[C] He fights kids. He tries to not get to get beat the shit of by kids.
 
[JO] It goes into the music.

[C] Joey always looks like he just came out of a mosh pit. I think what you said is pretty much the simplest way, like anti-capitalist. 
 
[JA] I thought you were going to say fighting kids. 
 
[C] Yeah fighting kids, 99% of lyrics are about fighting children.
 
[T] But 5 and up. We’re not monsters. 
 
[JA] Chris is a therapist as well.

[C] We don’t need to talk about what we do for a living.
 
[JO] Yeah Chris let’s talk about your job now. 
 
[T] I thought we were talking about the band and what people want to know about the band. 
 
[JA] I think that’s interesting too because you’re good people and do good shit. Just like the music it’s an interesting contrast, you know what I mean, you’re playing this angry hardcore heavy music and what you do for a living is help people. It’s pretty awesome. 
 
[JO] And the rest of the band robs banks. 
 
[C]That’s true.

[T] Thanks for outing me Joey. 
 
Do you have any questions?
 
[E] Usually my questions are silly.
 
[T] Go. 
 
[E] Do you have a favorite vegetable as of late?
 
[R] Oh yes! Parsnips. 
 
[JO] Kale. Kale.
 
[T] Joey is shouting Kale from across the porch. 
 
[C] He’s so excited. 
 
[E] One more time please.

[JO] Kale! 
 
[T] I really like, I’ve been putting a lot of different seasonings on cucumber spears. 
 
[C] I fucking hate vegetables y’all. 
 
[T] Yeah Chris only eats pizza. 
 
[C] On the pizza diet. 
 
[T] Exclusively pizza keto diet.
 
[JA] Grilled squash, been grilling some squash and zucchini. 
 
[R] Any vegetable. 
 
[JO] Kale! I like Kale. 
 
[E] That’s it from me. 
 
Any final thoughts, anything you wanna throw out there?

[C] Thank you for doing this with us. Really nice of you guys. 
 
[T] Thank the voidkalamazoo for doing the interview.
 
[C] Super fucking cool that you’re doing this. 
 
[T] I just like the peer to peer format and give us a shot. Love you guys, love everybody.