REVOLUTION MOTHER

An interview with Mike Vallely
by Jason Walsh

New Jersey native Mike V has been one of the most recognized professional skateboarders for the past two decades, always separating himself from the pack through his aggressive, go fast, go big, try anything mantra. He has had a successful career, sponsored by Powell Peralta, World Industries, and in most recent times, Element Skateboards. He has been scattered across the pages of every major skateboarding magazines, finding his way into dozens upon dozens of videos, and filling skate shops across the world with his signature decks, clothes, and even shoes. However, there is a side of the hard-charging thrasher that many of his fans might not know. Mike has always had a deep passion for music.

It all began in 1984, when a young skate rat from Edison, NJ saw Black Flag for the first time at the age of 14. The show drastically changed him and his spirit for hard music never ended. In 2002, he formed Mike V and The Rats, an experimental hardcore project which fulfilled his desire to perform music to live audiences. It was three years later, with the band gaining positive reactions from crowds and Mike enjoying his role as a frontman, that he decided to take the idea to a more serious and focused level. With Rat’s guitarist Jason Hampton in tow, they brought in Orange County hardcore veterans Brendan Murphy on drums and Colin Buis on bass. Revolution Mother was born.

The band has spent the past four years, touring when they can, with the likes of Tiger Army, Bad Religion, Danzig, and Social Distortion, along with a European hitch with Funeral For A Friend. Revolution Mother has just released their second studio full-length, “Rollin’ With A Mutha,” which has a Rollins Band feel with crunchy, overdriven, heavy rock flavor. I had a chance to talk with Mike briefly about the new record and Revolution Mother’s plans for the year.

First off Mike, how are you doing this year? What's been going on with you?

Life is good. Our new CD is out. I'm very excited about it and I can't wait to get on the road and perform these songs. I'm skating and rocking. That's what it's all about.

Tell me about the new record "Rollin With Tha Mutha" It sounds great and harkens back to those glory days of early hardcore.

Thanks. Although, I don't see us as a hardcore band and I'm definitely not trying to harken back to anything, but the early hardcore days definitely had certain energy about them and a spirit that I feel I am and always have been plugged into and a purveyor of. Like I say on the record, I'm an old school motherfucker and I make no apologies for it.

What was the process of putting this one together and how was it different from the band's past endeavors in the studio?

We recorded the majority of the new album in our own warehouse studio in January of this year with Fred Archambault producing. Half of the record was written prior to setting recording dates and having a record deal (Ferret Music) and the other half was written days before entering into the recording process. This record is definitely way more focused than our last one for sure. We had a very clear vision this time of what we wanted to accomplish and we are very happy with the results.

What does the band have going on for the rest of the year?

We hit the road with Clutch in the U.S. in September and October and plan on being busy around the world for the next year or so supporting this thing. Our time is now.


Talk about your early introduction into hardcore as a youth in New Jersey? I read your first show was Black Flag in Trenton in 84. I'm assuming that was at City Gardens? What about that experience changed your outlook and how you perceived music afterwards?

Yep, City Gardens. My life basically began there at the age of fourteen seeing Black Flag. There was something about the intensity of the experience that has remained with me until this moment but also that show just made music accessible to me. Before that show, I dreamed of being in a band. After that show, seeing that band, made me actually do it. Black Flag was about action.

Why now at this stage in your life, is this something you want to do?

I'm not saying music isn't a rather new career choice for me after being a pro skater for over twenty years, but at the same time it was never really far from what I've always been doing in my skating and in how I live my life. I've always been more of an artist than an athlete. Music is a very natural extension of who I am. I don't see this as a stage in my life. This is my life.

More importantly, has this been a fun experience for you? Being older and wiser and a proven professional in skateboarding, has it been rejuvenating for you now at nearly 40 to be taking on this new challenge in life?

I'm young at heart. Always have been. Age isn't an issue, never has been. When I was 16 and skating with the top pros in the world or now at the age of 39 and skating with the top pros in the world , I don't sweat it. Never have. I just do what I do. I love life and I live it, all the way. If I wasn't having fun you wouldn't be taking to me.

Aside from the band, what does Mike V the skateboarder, the husband, the father, have going on this year?

Just living it all. There's no real division. No separate hats. Mike V the singer is Mike V the skater and husband and father and bad ass motherfucker. What you see is what you get.

Any last words?

Get the hell out of my way.

WRECK THE HALLS 2009

Street Dogs/Roger Miret and the Disasters/Stigma
by Jason Walsh
photos by Jez Beasley

As 2009 wound to an end, in a year that was one of the most difficult in recent times with a crippled economy that affected nearly all Americans, some of the underground’s greatest ambassadors came together for a December run of more than a dozen dates to spread seasons greetings to all. Street Dogs, led by Mike McColgan, headlined this jaunt that has become an yearly tradition.

“Usually, it’s an annual thing,” McColgan said. “We do an East Coast tour every December, which culminates with the final shows being in our hometown of Boston. We started it back in 2004 and we’ve tried to make it an annual thing every year. We’re really looking forward to doing the East Coast dates and the 19th and 20th in Boston. It’s just a good way to kind of wind down the year and all that. We always strive to give people their money’s worth, I mean especially nowadays when money is so tight. We never take for granted the hard-earned money that people spend to buy a ticket and when we put a lineup out there, we want to put a rock solid lineup out there.”



The tour kicked off in Houston on December 9, following the Street Dogs 20-date European run with Civet, still in support of their fourth full-length, “State of Grace.” Along for the ride on this ambitious bill will be Roger Miret and the Disasters and Stigma, side projects of Agnostic Front hardcore innovators Roger Miret and Vinnie Stigma.

“The real deal,” McColgan said. “Legends and forefathers and godfathers of punk rock, y’know. They’ve been good to us on the way up and we want to give back a little bit so that’s what that’s about, and we just want to give people a great package, y’know.”

Miret, who has fronted the New York Hardcore outfit Agnostic Front since the early 80s, found time in his always busy schedule to add his Disasters group to the roster after a request from a former collaborator and current Street Dog.

“Well, it’s been a while since the Disasters have done any East Coast dates so we decided we’d go do this tour,” Miret said. “Johnny (Rioux) had called us from Street Dogs, and Johnny used to play with the Disasters, and asked us to join the tour. Then, I suggested that we get Stigma to join too. The whole package came out great and we’re excited.”

Founding A.F. member and Lower East Side statesman Vinnie Stigma, who has played guitar alongside Miret for nearly three decades started a solo project, Stigma, this year with fellow Front bassist, Mike Gallo. This is the first time Stigma has set down the guitar and stepped to the microphone as a lead vocalist.

“First of all, I think I sing better than I play guitar, y’know?” Stigma said. “I love talking to the people and I don’t know, it’s just a different approach to everything. I pace it the way I see it and well, the music is different anyway so every show has got its own little niche to it, but I have no problem with that. I sing, I play guitar, tell a few jokes…I don’t give a shit.”

Stigma released his first full-length solo album in 2009, “New York Blood,” on I Scream Records. The idea came from an old friend while on the road with Agnostic Front and has turned into a beloved endeavor for him.

“One day I was on tour with Hatebreed and Agnostic Front, and Jamey Jasta put the idea in my fucking head and we ran with it from there,” Stigma said. “When we first went into the studio, we didn’t know what kind of record I was going to make. We thought we were going to make like a fun record, a joke record, a hardcore record. We didn’t know what direction we were going to go in. We just wanted to go for ‘shits and giggles,’ but we wound up making, y’know, a pretty decent record. Now we know we have a direction for our next album, you know what I mean? Now we know what we’re going to do.”

Stigma is also currently working on material for a new Agnostic Front record as well, which the band will look to record in the coming year and after all these years, making music is still something that keeps Stigma inspired.

“I’ve got like nine or ten songs of that already that we’re working on and I’ve got about six or seven songs for the next Stigma record. I can’t believe at my age, I’m still producing music. It’s who I am, but you do have to take it serious, like a job also because you want to make it right. You want to do it right. Sure, I love it and have fun with it, of course. That’s the idea, because if you don’t, don’t do it.”

The NYHC representatives joined the Street Dogs following a South American run with dates in Argentina, Chile, and Peru, and ten dates in Europe with Ignite. For Miret and Stigma, this stretch of shows will be the first time the two projects will be traveling alongside one another with their respective incarnations.

“Yeah, it’s actually the first time we’ve toured together,” Miret said. “We’ve played a couple shows together in Brooklyn for the Rumblers show (Miret’s Car and Motorcycle Club), but we’ve never toured together, which is something we’ve talked about doing. We’re going to incorporate a little bit of Agnostic Front to our set, togetherwise. Vinnie will come up and play a song with me and so will Mike, so there’ll be little moments of Agnostic Front which will be fun.”

While on the road, the Disasters were bringing along a sample of new material for fans at the shows to check out. This may be the first preview of the group’s fourth full-length studio release and long-awaited follow up to 2006’s “My Riot.”

“It’s a single, there are actually three new songs,” Miret said. “It’ll be with us on the tour. We’ve been working on a full-length album, which we’re kind of ready to record. We’re just getting everything together and then take it from there.”

Now that the Wreck the Halls tour has wound to an end with the close of 2009, Agnostic Front will be busy in the new year. As part of the 25th anniversary of the releases of their first records, “United Blood” and “Victim in Pain,” not only has the band released a remastered CD of these classics on Bridge 9 records, but they are returning to the original 1984 lineup in celebration of the milestone. Hardcore enthusiasts heading to the venues this year will see Rob Kabula and Dave Jones taking the stage alongside Stigma and Miret.

“We haven’t played together since ‘84,” Miret said. “This is the classic lineup together again doing vintage AF songs and some classics. We couldn’t be more excited to do this. 2010 starts off with Agnostic Front dates in January on the West Coast followed by Agnostic Front dates in all of April in Europe followed by Agnostic Front dates again touring in Europe and in between all that more Agnostic Front dates on different coasts. We’re going to be recording a new album next year too. I’m going to be a pretty busy guy.”

Agnostic Front won’t be the only band hitting the studio this year. Street Dogs will be heading to the Blasting Room in Ft. Collins, Colorado to start work on their fifth studio release. For McColgan, time spent creating and performing their music has been rewarding and exciting, and the ability to do it their own way has always been at the forefront.

“It’s been amazing,” he said. “We’ve always done things on our own terms and played whatever type of music we wanted to play and to be aligned with Hellcat Records has been amazing. We’ve worked on 25 new songs and we’re getting ready to go into the studio to make a new record. It feels really good. We just came off the heels of a successful European headlining tour and we’ve the biggest crowds we’ve ever seen over there. It just feels good to do what we want to do and play what we want to play and really not pay attention to fads or what’s hot and what’s not. We could give less than a fuck about that. We play, say, and do what we want and we take care of those who take care of us. We do it the old-fashioned way. We earn it. We don’t fake it, we take it.”

McColgan said the band has had a chance to try out some of the new material on fans and continued to do so throughout the Wreck the Halls tour. He felt the feedback on the tracks has been positive.

“We’ve been working some of the new songs in with existing songs and we’ve found that the response of the crowd has been really good. I mean, I think we’re returning to our roots with some of our stuff and playing fast and playing more aggressive. It feels good, y’know.”

Lastly, did the most recognizable guitarist ever to emerge from the NYHC scene make any New Year’s resolutions this year?

“I think I’m going to go back to the gym,” Stigma said. “I was supposed to go right now to the gym, but I’m going to go regular to the gym. I’m going to stop drinking and smoking. I’m going to take my vitamins and then I’m going to break it two days later. You know the routine. You’ve been through that before. I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to diet. I’m going to do all that, yo.”

EXODUS

EXODUS
by Jason Walsh

It was 1980 when the trash metal scene was first emerging from the Bay Area and lightning fast riffs, thundering drums, and shredded vocals were becoming the standard in the California community. A group of likeminded guys bonded together to create EXODUS, featuring Tom Hunting, Gary Holt, Paul Baloff, and Kirk Hammett, who would go on to great fame and fortune with METALLICA. EXODUS had a good run throughout the next decade and half, but were overshadowed by their peers in critical acclaim and lucrative contracts. In 1993, they disbanded for several years, reuniting for a brief time in 1997, and attempted a second reunion in 2001, which was shattered by the unfortunate and untimely death of frontman Paul Baloff. The band persevered following the tragedy with some lineup changes, releasing a few more studio records, and continuing to hit the road.

Last year, the band reworked their legendary “Bonded By Blood” album from 1985, which in considered by many to be one of the most important thrash records in metal history. The nod to the classic, “Let There Be Blood,” took songs from a quarter decade ago and gave them a technological and modern upgrade.

The band has currently been on tour with European thrash metal gods, KREATOR, and on a stop in the Lone Star state, I had a chance to talk to guitarist Gary Holt about being on the road after nearly three decades, the new album they will be starting this Fall, and yes…even crawfish, Texas style.

JW: So what’s going on, Gary? How you doing today?

GARY HOLT: We’re doing good, man. Been out here on the road for what seems like an eternity with KREATOR, BELPHEGOR, WARBRINGER, and EPICUREAN and we’re having a good time. Right now we’re in Houston and we’re in the middle of Crawfish Feast.

JW: Well, that’s a good thing. I won’t keep you too long from that. That sounds like a good time.

GARY HOLT: Uh, yeah, I just woke up to it (laughs). Got a little crawfish and watch a little lizard run across. Other than that, it’s a pretty good day, man. It’s beautiful. It’s humid as hell though but really nice.

JW: Where you at right now?

GARY HOLT: Houston.

JW: Oh, so you’re down in Texas. No wonder it’s humid.

GARY HOLT: Yeah, it’s hot and humid but it beats the cold from the early part of the tour. Last few days it’s all been about BBQ and everyone’s just gathering together and have some drinks. I think we got nine more shows with KREATOR and everybody else and then we’re just going to headline our way back home from West Virgini, you know.

JW: So how long have you been on the road with KREATOR now?

GARY HOLT: We’ve been out with KREATOR since April 7 but we started, the tour started in Baltimore, Maryland, and we’re from California, so we worked our way back East. We started like March 26 I think and we finish…May 26 is our last show, so two months…yeah.

JW: You’ve been on the road for a while then.

GARY HOLT: Yeah, yeah. There was a point when I think everybody was hitting the little wall, you know, but the last couple days I think everybody’s been getting a second wind. We had a big BBQ in Dallas and everybody was just drinking beer and just pigging out and it was a really good times. Everybody seemed to get a jolt out of it. Tonight should be really good and we actually have a day off tomorrow.

JW: So, c’mon…29 years later. Is this still fun?

GARY HOLT: Yeah, I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. You know I’ve always said that when this becomes like a “day job,” I won’t do it anymore and that’s exactly what I did in 1993. It had become like a “day job,” wasn’t having any fun whatsoever, and so I quit for a while. Right now, I don’t take anything for granted. We’re all having a good time and we’re all working very hard. It’s a good time. Here in North America, things have gotten a lot better for thrash metal and in Europe it’s always gone strong, but you know, it’s good times playing the kind of stuff we do right now.

JW: Tell me about this record you’re working on. It’s a follow-up to “The Atrocity Exhibition…Exhibit A” in 2007. Is it kind of like part two of that?

GARY HOLT: Well, it’s called part two (The Atrocity Exhibition…Exhibit B). Thematically, there will be some musical intros that tie the albums together and stuff like that, but lyrically it’s going to concentrate on some different things. Yeah, but it’s what we’ve been calling EXHIBIT B and we hope to be in the studio probably about November 1 to start recording.

JW: Have you written anything yet or are you still kind of working it out?

GARY HOLT: No, we’ve got a lot of stuff. We’re just finalizing a lot of riffs, we keep on writing, we have four songs that aren’t even finished from the last session so we have a head start already on it. We’re real excited about getting this one underway.

JW: When do you think that might look to be released? Any idea on that?

GARY HOLT: We’re shooting for Spring next year. We’re tired of touring in the Winter. It always seems to be a Winter release and then we’re out in Europe in the ice and snow. We’re just going to put this one out probably around March of 2010.

JW: Very cool. So tell me about the “Let There Be Blood” album you guys did last year. You redid “Bonded by Blood” which is like a classic. I mean that’s pretty much the staple that everybody remembers Exodus by.

GARY HOLT: Yeah. We just wanted to give those songs a sonic upgrade, you know, with the benefit of modern production and put those songs on display kind of like the way we like to play them now. A number of reasons, to pay homage to the original, pay homage to the guys who did it, and put the fact that we still love playing these songs. The album came out killer, you know. A lot of people don’t think you should mess with a classic. A lot of people didn’t think we should and then loved it when they heard it. We didn’t chickenshit around with it, you know, we went all out on it, made it heavy, and played it with a lot of energy and I’m really happy with how it came out.

JW: And those songs. They stand the test of time and still are relevant today. Why do you think that is?

GARY HOLT: Exactly. Well, the songs are just killer and great songs stand the test of time, and especially when you hear them with the modern recording and modern production. They don’t sound like songs written in the early 80s and released in 1985. They sound current and that’s one of our whole goals, to show how relevant these songs still were…and are.

JW: My last question…after this tour what are you guys going to do before you hit the studio. You got any big plans for the summer?

GARY HOLT: No. All our plans are very minimal for once. We have a weekend “fly-in” show in Puerto Rico, which is basically just a three-day vacation in Puerto Rico, you know. A lot of Pina Coladas and one gig (laughs). Then we fly in the weekend following to play Graspop (Metal Meeting in Belgium) and the Bang Your Head Festival (Balingen, Germany) in Europe and those are our only two European shows of the year. Then, we just end up working on the next record.