Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Good evening podcast fans, Greg here on another cold, dark
Speaker 2: Thursday night, bringing you a new episode of Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me wherever you're listening to this, and
Speaker 2: cheers to Stewart who brought you the last two episodes
Speaker 2: back to back. That was Backs to Jewelry and Charlie XX.
Speaker 2: Dig those out if you haven't already. We definitely bring
Speaker 2: you a variety of stories and guests on this podcast
Speaker 2: of ours. Tonight's guest may not have spent twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: touring stadiums around the world with Taylor Swift like Charlie
Speaker 2: XX had, but I hope that you're going to enjoy
Speaker 2: this conversation all the same. On the podcast this evening
Speaker 2: is Damian Abraham, best known as frontman with Toronto hardcore
Speaker 2: punk band Fucked Up. If you're listening to this thinking
Speaker 2: I don't know who that is, you are in retreat.
Speaker 2: They are the kind of band that you could spend
Speaker 2: hours not only googling, but more importantly days listening to,
Speaker 2: such as the amount of material that they've released over
Speaker 2: the years. But if I was going to give you
Speaker 2: one tip, maybe start by youtubing their performance of Baiting
Speaker 2: the Public on MTV Live in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: or Twice Born a year later, also for MTV. That
Speaker 2: will put you firmly in the picture about who Fucked
Speaker 2: Up are personally. I met Damien and the band for
Speaker 2: the first time a decade ago. I was just starting
Speaker 2: out as a music writer, and the weekend that I
Speaker 2: spent with them involved lots of blood and pepsi and
Speaker 2: a giant cardboard Trojan Horse. And it's still one of
Speaker 2: the most memorable commissions that I've ever done all these
Speaker 2: years later. But a lot has happened since then, not
Speaker 2: least that Fucked Up became kind of a big deal,
Speaker 2: as unlikely as it seemed. They went on to share
Speaker 2: stages with the likes of Foo Fighters and Arcade Fire,
Speaker 2: and toured the world multiple times. I should probably say
Speaker 2: that they released their latest album, Dose You Dreams in
Speaker 2: October of this year. Do check it out. It's extraordinary stuff.
Speaker 2: That's not Damien's only pursuit though. The last few years,
Speaker 2: from the office in his house back home in Canada,
Speaker 2: he's been making his very successful podcast series Turned Out
Speaker 2: a Punk. Just today, in fact, I finished listening to
Speaker 2: the recent one he did with Cedric Bixler from at
Speaker 2: the I should probably be telling you to subscribe to
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats at this point in my introduction, but do
Speaker 2: go and check out Turned Out a Punk because it's
Speaker 2: an excellent series and you don't have to be a
Speaker 2: punk fan in fact to appreciate the guests and the
Speaker 2: connections that explores on that Damiens have won off though,
Speaker 2: a real self confessed nerd and one of the few
Speaker 2: people I've met who, if he went on Mastermind, could
Speaker 2: basically take his pick when it came to specialist subjects,
Speaker 2: be it punk music, wrestling, or the current international political
Speaker 2: debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana, all of which you're
Speaker 2: about to hear us go into on this podcast.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 2: Back in August, Fucked Up had a fleeting trip to
Speaker 2: London to play at Visions Festival. Damien was due to
Speaker 2: come to Loud and Quiet's offices to record this, but
Speaker 2: very graciously offered to relocate to his hotel room nearby
Speaker 2: when a guy with a pneumatic drill started digging up
Speaker 2: the crete car park outside our window. Poor Damien had
Speaker 2: literally just stepped off an overnight flight. He hadn't even
Speaker 2: had a moment to unpack his suitcase. But he is
Speaker 2: a pro, and he is a gentleman, even offering me
Speaker 2: some of his pot noodle, which, incidentally, and I do
Speaker 2: feel bad about this, went cold by the time we'd
Speaker 2: finished this podcast, so I probably owe him lunch at
Speaker 2: some point before I leave you with that. Though this
Speaker 2: is the penultimate episode of this series of Midnight Chats,
Speaker 2: I'll leave Stuart with you next week to wrap it up.
Speaker 2: After that, will disappear for a little while, but we
Speaker 2: will bring you some more episodes for me personally, though,
Speaker 2: I've loved chatting to everyone from Interpol to Anna Kelvi
Speaker 2: to John Grant for this series. I hope you've enjoyed listening.
Speaker 2: Like we always say, if you do want to do
Speaker 2: us a favor, it's subscribe, comment, share, and more. Basically,
Speaker 2: just tell your mates if you do like Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: But let's crack on. This is episode sixty two. This
Speaker 2: one is Damien from Fucked Up Enjoy Damien, Welcome to
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me in Monday Chats in my
Speaker 4: hotel room.
Speaker 2: I know we had planned full disclosure. Normally, regular listeners
Speaker 2: will know that we record this podcast either in our
Speaker 2: office in East London or sometimes we take it out
Speaker 2: and about depending on who we're speaking to, is you
Speaker 2: know where they are at that time. But rather inconveniently,
Speaker 2: they decided to dig up the car park next door
Speaker 2: to the office, and at the moment there's a giant
Speaker 2: drill that's like basically taking out a whole chunk of concrete.
Speaker 2: So we had we had to come here. Thanks for
Speaker 2: accommodating us.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm very happy. I like, you know, I love
Speaker 4: having people over. I wish I could have prepared something
Speaker 4: a little bit more substantial than one order of pot noodle,
Speaker 4: but you know, we can share.
Speaker 2: I got two spoons, th mate, Yeah what flavor if
Speaker 2: you got one?
Speaker 4: Bombay bad boy two spoons?
Speaker 2: But it's not your favorite part.
Speaker 4: No, I'm a beef and tomato. I'm definitely a beef
Speaker 4: and tomato fan. I also love one. I don't know
Speaker 4: if they're still doing it because I haven't seen it
Speaker 4: in a while. But when we used to come here
Speaker 4: and they'd have like the surprise flavors, like kebab flavor
Speaker 4: or like Southern fried chicken flavor, and it never really
Speaker 4: tasted like any of those things, but it was always delicious.
Speaker 2: And they always do yeah, limited runs. They do it
Speaker 2: with Walkers Crisps as well. They'll do like they'll be like,
Speaker 2: these three flavors are available for the next six months.
Speaker 2: The one that sells the best we will keep. But
Speaker 2: they're all sorts of yeh, bizarre things like English breakfast flavor,
Speaker 2: crisps and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like Branston pickle flavor.
Speaker 3: That's a good flavor when you have that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I ever got round to those,
Speaker 2: but does sound good.
Speaker 3: They're delicious.
Speaker 2: A lot of people we have on our podcast when
Speaker 2: they come on, it might be like the first time,
Speaker 2: certainly amongst the first times that they've done a podcast.
Speaker 2: But you are a very experienced handed. You've got not
Speaker 2: just one, but a couple of podcasts, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do. But I'm actually not as experienced in
Speaker 4: this side of the podcast. Like I keep waiting for
Speaker 4: me to ask a question of you, like that's what
Speaker 4: I'm so used to doing. Like, yeah, I think I've
Speaker 4: only been as a guest on a podcast. Well, my
Speaker 4: friend Danko Jones's podcast, I've been on that a few times.
Speaker 4: But I'm also like I'm like a co host on
Speaker 4: that one too. I think I've only been a guest
Speaker 4: on like two or three podcasts.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is a little bit of a new experience.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to hold my hand and guide me
Speaker 4: into this, because I might screw this all up.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start swearing.
Speaker 4: And saying things I wouldn't need you to edit, like
Speaker 4: all the things you hate when you're interviewing on a podcast.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite thing about making your own podcasts?
Speaker 4: I think it was, you know, I just before I
Speaker 4: did my own podcast, I was the host of The
Speaker 4: Wedge on Much Music, which is like for It's like
Speaker 4: the music program that all of us of a certain
Speaker 4: age grew up with in Canada that got wound up
Speaker 4: getting into alternative for punk music. And I was doing
Speaker 4: that show, and I love doing that show. But the
Speaker 4: thing that bothered me was the fact that I always
Speaker 4: had to incorporate stuff that I wasn't necessarily interested in
Speaker 4: or you know, I'd be in these interviews and I'd
Speaker 4: be asking the person like, oh, like you played in
Speaker 4: this band before you did the band you're in now,
Speaker 4: let's talk about that for a while. And then my
Speaker 4: producer would be like kind of got to keep it
Speaker 4: on what's happening now? So when I lost that job,
Speaker 4: I was like, well, I'm going to just do my
Speaker 4: own thing, and I'm going to make it exactly like
Speaker 4: I want it to be. And it's just an excuse
Speaker 4: to punish people, Like there's very few socially acceptable situations
Speaker 4: that allow you to grill someone, like just grill them
Speaker 4: with questions and pepper them with all sorts of things.
Speaker 4: But a podcast is one of those places. So I
Speaker 4: can have these kind of conversations with people that I'm
Speaker 4: a lot of times friends with that I've toured with
Speaker 4: before or played in other bands with, but never had
Speaker 4: the opportunity to find out, like what was your demo band?
Speaker 3: Like what do they sound like?
Speaker 2: So your podcast will turn out punk? Yes, And so
Speaker 2: basically give it to people. If anybody hasn't heard this yet,
Speaker 2: because I've kind of been gorging on your podcast recently,
Speaker 2: as I've already told you, I've been kind of making
Speaker 2: my way back through your substantial archive almost two hundred
Speaker 2: episodes now, I think. Yeah, So in a nutshell, it's
Speaker 2: called turned out punk. Tell people what you do with it.
Speaker 4: It's me sitting down and having a conversation with for
Speaker 4: the most part, one person who was involved in punk
Speaker 4: may or may not still be involved in punk, but
Speaker 4: had their life changed by it in a major way.
Speaker 3: And so it's amazing. I've always kind of felt this,
Speaker 3: like there is this weird.
Speaker 4: Commonality between a lot of the people that I find
Speaker 4: interesting in pop culture, and that's the fact that they
Speaker 4: were always somehow into punk music, you know.
Speaker 3: And I just revel in the opportunity to kind of
Speaker 3: sit down with.
Speaker 4: Someone when I know this stuff about him and just
Speaker 4: have this conversation. I think Jack Black's like the perfect example.
Speaker 4: He was a guest recently. He's someone that I went
Speaker 4: on tour with five six years ago with Tenacious Ty
Speaker 4: and Fucked Up and the Foo Fighters, And on that tour,
Speaker 4: I was asking him like, were you in a punk
Speaker 4: Like were you a punk rocker guy? Because it seems
Speaker 4: like you might have been. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: not at all, not at all. And then over the
Speaker 4: years the evidence began to emerge and I realized my
Speaker 4: instincts were correct. Jack was the liar in this situation,
Speaker 4: and so I had him on the show and exposed
Speaker 4: his lie for the world to see he was indeed
Speaker 4: a punk rocker.
Speaker 2: The Jack Black episode is definitely one of the highlights.
Speaker 2: So I went back and I listened to that one
Speaker 2: the other day, and it did unveil this whole kind
Speaker 2: of punk rock history with him that people would probably
Speaker 2: not be familiar with at all. But amongst that you've had, well,
Speaker 2: the series itself forms if people have like a passing
Speaker 2: interest in punk, or even if you're a real punk head,
Speaker 2: it's beginning to create a real ata z history of
Speaker 2: punk rock because of the people that you've had on
Speaker 2: it that are from various different places around the world,
Speaker 2: but also different scenes, different cities, different sounds, and so
Speaker 2: it's like creating this whole universe where the dots are
Speaker 2: like joining it's. It's it's a really immersive listen because
Speaker 2: what you're what you're doing is basically creating this sort
Speaker 2: of yeah, of all the stars of punk that are
Speaker 2: out there that you're kind of putting them in one place.
Speaker 2: So you know, there must be some pride in basically
Speaker 2: putting together this this kind of compendium of the history
Speaker 2: of punkin away.
Speaker 3: I thank you for that. I think that is just
Speaker 3: a happy accident.
Speaker 4: If that's happening because I think, you know it definitely,
Speaker 4: it fills my bucket, as my children like to say
Speaker 4: when they're happy. When I do find like a weird
Speaker 4: connection between two people. Like two weeks ago, I had
Speaker 4: Dwid leasing of the band Integrity, one of my it's
Speaker 4: like my Frank Sinatra as far as vocalists go, like
Speaker 4: someone I.
Speaker 3: Have been heavily influenced by.
Speaker 4: And then I had Dave Paho from Slint, you know,
Speaker 4: like one of them, you know Swan like Papa Am
Speaker 4: like a legendary indie rock guitarist, and both of them
Speaker 4: from different cities, have the same starting point in Louisville,
Speaker 4: Kentucky at this band that Dave played in Maurice's shows,
Speaker 4: and Dwyd was a fan of this band, Maurice, And
Speaker 4: so in that room.
Speaker 3: You also have Will Oldham.
Speaker 4: So you've got Will Oldham, Slint, all the people that
Speaker 4: would be Slint and Dwid from Integrity in this like
Speaker 4: little tiny club in Louisville, Kentucky. Like these three people
Speaker 4: that would have massive impacts on kind of different sounding genres,
Speaker 4: but like yet they all have the same starting point.
Speaker 2: You've had people like Nate Mendel from Food Fighters, who's
Speaker 2: in Brotherhood and.
Speaker 4: We might be in this band of the food Fighters too,
Speaker 4: But he's really in Brotherhood, even though he was never
Speaker 4: allowed to be an official member because he wasn't straight
Speaker 4: edge and he wore no effect shirt.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly, and then he went on being sunny Tale.
Speaker 3: In Real Estate. He's also in Galleon's Lap. He's got like.
Speaker 2: He's got the quiet member of Food Fighters with serious history,
Speaker 2: isn't he.
Speaker 4: The food Fighters to me are one of the great
Speaker 4: They are the greatest punk rock supergroup of all time.
Speaker 4: And no diss on Taylor, because I haven't talked to
Speaker 4: Taylor about it. I'm sure he does have a punk
Speaker 4: pass that I haven't discovered yet. But when you have
Speaker 4: the original drummer in that band, you've got members of
Speaker 4: the Germs, You've got members of Dane Bramage and Scream
Speaker 4: in Mission Impossible. You've got like members of Brotherhood and
Speaker 4: Didley Squad in there. You've got members of all these
Speaker 4: other Seattle cool straight edge bands, like the pre other
Speaker 4: sunny of the Real Estate band that the drummer was in.
Speaker 4: It's like, Wow, they put together like the greatest punk
Speaker 4: band ever without even realizing it and unfortunately, well not unfortunately,
Speaker 4: They've done incredibly well for themselves. I don't think they
Speaker 4: have any regrets they decided to play a different genre
Speaker 4: of music. But I would long for the day where
Speaker 4: they're like, Okay, let's do it, let's write a hardcore
Speaker 4: record and it's like Brotherhood meets the Germs meets Dane Bramage.
Speaker 2: Would I wouldn't put it again since to be honest,
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I guess you know, Dave Girl has
Speaker 2: been involved with all sorts of projects that are on
Speaker 2: the Foo Fighters over the years. Who knows he might
Speaker 2: might be yearning to return to that sound.
Speaker 4: I've tried to get him to do, Like when we
Speaker 4: were on that tour, I was like, you know, you
Speaker 4: did that probo record, what about doing one for punk
Speaker 4: and hardcore? But I don't know if it really lens
Speaker 4: itself to punkin hardcore, like it seems like, you know,
Speaker 4: punk is almost about thumbing your nose at someone doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whereas that I think more embraces it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there anybody that you've yet to have on
Speaker 2: the podcast that you are dying to have? Do you
Speaker 2: have like an almost like a bucket list of people
Speaker 2: that you really want on who's on it?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, it's a huge list. Rick Rubin, you know,
Speaker 4: I'd love to talk to him about Hose the pre
Speaker 4: his like and def Cham was a punk label and
Speaker 4: it started.
Speaker 3: The first two records are punk records.
Speaker 2: This is it. So people will be familiar with Rick
Speaker 2: Rubin's production work now in this era, because you know,
Speaker 2: he's out in his Shangri Las studios in Los Angeles, Malibu.
Speaker 2: He's not wearing any shoes on his feet, and he's
Speaker 2: producing all of these huge records. You know, he's working
Speaker 2: with Kanye West, you know, and he's working with Smashing Pumpkins,
Speaker 2: and he works like a kind of across the board.
Speaker 2: But as you just alluded to that, the guy's got
Speaker 2: his roots are in punk rock.
Speaker 4: At one point he was taking a rubber stamp and
Speaker 4: stamping Hose onto a brown paper bag and sliding his
Speaker 4: seven inch in and calling that packaging that is it's
Speaker 4: a oh no, sorry, I think it's it's a glue
Speaker 4: piece of paper. I should he was not rubber stamping.
Speaker 4: He was gluing a piece of paper on it. But
Speaker 4: still it is a brown paper bag. That is the
Speaker 4: sleeve for that and that is that record right there
Speaker 4: in that brown paper bag is the jumping off point
Speaker 4: for one of the most important record labels to emerge
Speaker 4: in the eighties. Like everything from Run DMC to Slayer
Speaker 4: you know had at a place on there.
Speaker 2: So so Rick Rubin's one that you.
Speaker 3: Right there.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Hurley, she's talked a lot about growing up loving
Speaker 4: the Clash and other punk bands and stuff. I would
Speaker 4: love to talk to her about what she saw because
Speaker 4: I think, like also, she'd be too young to have
Speaker 4: caught a lot of that first wave going to show
Speaker 4: its Like, no doubt she was a fan of that stuff,
Speaker 4: but I imagine most of those bands were kind of
Speaker 4: done by the time she was in there, So I'm like, what.
Speaker 3: Bands was she seeing?
Speaker 4: Like did she see Leather Fait, did she see like
Speaker 4: Napalm Death? Like what are the bands like in that
Speaker 4: in middle period? That's the stuff that I'm really fascinated by, like,
Speaker 4: you know, And another great one would be Gillian Anderson too,
Speaker 4: who was a punk model for a time, a New
Speaker 4: Way punk model, and so I'd love to find out
Speaker 4: what kind of band she liked. And then my, my,
Speaker 4: my ultimate white whale I think is Josh Brolin, the
Speaker 4: actor who was the original drummer in rich kinson Elski
Speaker 4: before they became rich Canzonelski.
Speaker 2: Right were you Are you aware that Ben Stiller was
Speaker 2: in a post yes that captured tracks right now, you're
Speaker 2: chasing that one.
Speaker 4: That's uh, the Capital Punishment his name of his band,
Speaker 4: not to be confused with the German Capital Punishment once again.
Speaker 4: Like that's another example. Like that was someone that I
Speaker 4: didn't know untill they announced that record, I think.
Speaker 3: Four years ago, three years ago they were trying to
Speaker 3: do it, and all.
Speaker 4: Of a sudden, it was like, oh shit, yeah, the
Speaker 4: guy was flirting with disaster. Of course he was in
Speaker 4: a punk band. That's why I liked him, That's why identify.
Speaker 3: With that dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like you'll you'll pocast kind of uncovering
Speaker 2: all these people that have a punk pass. So we
Speaker 2: weren't even necessarily aware, did you know.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes they're not even aware they did.
Speaker 4: I remember David Cross I called them up because there's
Speaker 4: this video online of a show in Atlanta. It's Rupe
Speaker 4: Paul's band we we Poll playing a very early show
Speaker 4: of them playing, and they're being interviewed by like a
Speaker 4: college TV station in the basement and at one point
Speaker 4: the interviewer turns to the guitar player and he pulls
Speaker 4: out a cigarette and he's like, oh, are you nervous, and.
Speaker 3: He goes, of course I'm nervous.
Speaker 4: I'm nervous every time before I play, and he puts
Speaker 4: a cigaret in his mouth and then someone comes and
Speaker 4: leans in and lights it and it's David fucking Cross.
Speaker 4: It's when I saw that video, I was like, my
Speaker 4: jaw hit the floor. And so I'd seen the video
Speaker 4: a few years ago and then finally one day I just,
Speaker 4: you know, texted David Cross and I'm like, you got
Speaker 4: to come on my podcast about punk and he's like,
Speaker 4: I wasn't really in a punk and I'm like send
Speaker 4: them the link to the video. It's like, then explain
Speaker 4: this to me and he's like, okay, I'll come here,
Speaker 4: pot look on me. It came on the podcast and
Speaker 4: it was like by the end of it, he's like,
Speaker 4: you're right, you know, I was totally in a punk rock.
Speaker 4: It did change my life. It did define a huge
Speaker 4: part of me. But I think there's like an insecurity
Speaker 4: because punk has been so codified and like what punk
Speaker 4: is is very much defined in the media as a
Speaker 4: very specific thing. But when you actually get into it,
Speaker 4: especially with people that were there at the jump off,
Speaker 4: like you know, when when punk coalesced in, like the
Speaker 4: late seventies early eighties, it was not one style and
Speaker 4: it was like not one type of dress, like that
Speaker 4: was something that was put onto it after the fact.
Speaker 4: Like it was all types of bands. And if you
Speaker 4: listen to the first wave of punk, even the stuff
Speaker 4: coming out of New York, or the stuff coming out
Speaker 4: of London, or the stuff coming out or all of England.
Speaker 4: Actually at that time, all those bands sound different. The
Speaker 4: Buzzcocks saynd nothing like Susie in the band Shees just said,
Speaker 4: nothing like the Clash she said, nothing.
Speaker 3: Like the sex Pistols.
Speaker 4: Like all those bands yet were punk, you know, And
Speaker 4: then it got even more interesting when the DIY explosion happened.
Speaker 2: So basically, the longest short of it is that I
Speaker 2: aged people go and listen to your podcast because it's
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just a mere taster of kind
Speaker 2: of the depth and the stories that get revealed as
Speaker 2: part of it, Like these days I should probably fill
Speaker 2: people in as well. You and I met, we worked
Speaker 2: out or rather I worked out today that you and
Speaker 2: I met for the first time almost ten years ago
Speaker 2: to the day. You were part of Fucked Up at
Speaker 2: that point, and we met up to do a piece,
Speaker 2: a cover feature for Enemy magazine.
Speaker 4: I would say it's still one of the most exciting
Speaker 4: things that ever happened to me in my music career.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's absolutely I'm glad to hear it.
Speaker 4: Beyond the cover of the Enemy was, you know, and
Speaker 4: obviously now it's print format is gone for it, but
Speaker 4: like that was a huge deal, Like even in Canada,
Speaker 4: I knew that was a big deal, you know, and
Speaker 4: I would pick up The Enemy as an import, you know,
Speaker 4: because there was better bands covered than a lot of
Speaker 4: the times in the Canadian music press.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you about my recollections of that day.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: So it was a bank holiday Monday in the UK,
Speaker 2: which means people were kind of off work and the
Speaker 2: place was quiet. I traveled up to brad because you
Speaker 2: were playing a kind of infamous club in brad legendary
Speaker 2: twelve club, that's it. I was sent off to meet
Speaker 2: this this mysterious band called Fucked Up because at this point,
Speaker 2: you know, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, really,
Speaker 2: you know, a decade ago, it was all whispers and
Speaker 2: and rumors and all this kind of stuff was the
Speaker 2: information that we were getting about the band. So I
Speaker 2: was really excited to meet you all. And I met
Speaker 2: with you guys, and each member of the band told
Speaker 2: me a completely different story about how the band formed.
Speaker 2: Told me that you all hated each other and you
Speaker 2: didn't know why you were there, and it was like this.
Speaker 2: It was a journalist's absolute dream, because I can remember
Speaker 2: coming away with sort of hours worth of interviews and
Speaker 2: also just this sort of jig saw of a story
Speaker 2: to tell and for the photos of it. Part of
Speaker 2: the photos, we were with a photographer called Danny North
Speaker 2: that day, an amazing photographer, amazing photographer but also one
Speaker 2: of an incredibly nice guy, and we'd had an idea
Speaker 2: for what we were going to do for the photos,
Speaker 2: and we went to a supermarket and an independent supermarket
Speaker 2: in Bradford and we were going to take photos of
Speaker 2: you in the like fizzy pop aisle. Basically I'm not
Speaker 2: sure why where that idea came from.
Speaker 4: But was I drank so much soda back then? That's right,
Speaker 4: that would take like six liters of soda day.
Speaker 2: You had like a bottle of a bottle of fanta.
Speaker 3: I think pepsi.
Speaker 4: Pepsi was my go to as I'm drinking one right now,
Speaker 4: but that's because I'm exhausted right now.
Speaker 3: Just medicinal reasons only.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll come back to the fizzy pop. In a
Speaker 2: sect we were in Bradford. We we'd ask this this
Speaker 2: kind man who ran this shop whether we could take
Speaker 2: some photos in his shop, and he sort of looked
Speaker 2: a bit bewildered, but was like, okay, sure, And we
Speaker 2: went back to the back of the shop into the aisle.
Speaker 2: There's nobody there, and Danny took your photo and and
Speaker 2: and you kind of took a razor blade and cut
Speaker 2: your head open. And so we're bleeding in this independent
Speaker 2: supermarket on the outskirts of Bradford on a blank holiday Monday,
Speaker 2: and the guy behind it till looks over to see
Speaker 2: what we're up to, and suddenly it's like, what the.
Speaker 3: Hell you're forgetting it?
Speaker 4: Also, I had a bloody hunk of meat in my
Speaker 4: hand too, that's right, because we couldn't get a heart.
Speaker 3: But it's just like this, it looks like a heart.
Speaker 3: It's like some organ me it might be liver.
Speaker 2: Did we have some fake blood that we must have
Speaker 2: had some fake.
Speaker 3: I think it's all the real blood.
Speaker 2: Your blood, No, my blood.
Speaker 3: I couldn't bleed. I was so nervous.
Speaker 4: I barely bled because remember you guys were like, maybe
Speaker 4: shoul just go the bathroom and pull the blade jobs
Speaker 4: you're not doing in the middle of the thing. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, good call. So one of the bathroom, I
Speaker 4: was like, I can use your bathroom.
Speaker 3: They're like, okay.
Speaker 4: They showed me where the staff bathroom is. They're waiting
Speaker 4: for me outside. I come out covered in blood.
Speaker 2: And so Danny took maybe ten frames before we were
Speaker 2: like we need to get out of here. I just
Speaker 2: remember it's rushing out, getting in the car and driving
Speaker 2: back towards the venue, and we were all laughing like
Speaker 2: I like little kids. You know. It was such a
Speaker 2: thrill and went back there and that show is like
Speaker 2: forever imprinted on my mind because you know, I think
Speaker 2: just the energy of the occasion and everything else. And
Speaker 2: had the the Trojan horan.
Speaker 3: Cardboard tropan aboard trojan horse.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, And it was just this It
Speaker 2: was maybe there were maybe a one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: two hundred people there that night and it was just incredible.
Speaker 2: But that's the first time we met, and that I
Speaker 2: can't believe it's almost well, yeah, almost a decade ago.
Speaker 2: What do you remember from those very kind of early
Speaker 2: days of taking Fucked Up abroad and kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, the sort of spreading the word about that
Speaker 2: band because or actually, rather put it in another way,
Speaker 2: when people ask you what Fucked Up is or what
Speaker 2: Fucked Up were when you got together, just explain that
Speaker 2: a bit, you know, because some people won't be entirely
Speaker 2: familiar with the early days. You know, you were a
Speaker 2: bunch of punk kids from Toronto, all played in different bands,
Speaker 2: came together formed Fucked Up. But like, what what was
Speaker 2: the Damien version of events?
Speaker 4: Like we were we were we were all friendly, you know.
Speaker 4: I think Mike and I were the closest friends at
Speaker 4: that point. I wasn't in the band though, when they
Speaker 4: originally started. I remember Mike coming to me and he said,
Speaker 4: I want to form the most fucked up band part possible,
Speaker 4: and I'm gonna call it Fucked Up And he was
Speaker 4: naming it after the NTA song and he actually had
Speaker 4: written on the wall in our bathroom because we shared
Speaker 4: an apartment.
Speaker 3: Fucked up.
Speaker 4: Also, Sandy lived in that apartment too because her apartment
Speaker 4: was being renovated, and she's like, I need to move
Speaker 4: into your apartment for like a couple of weeks. I'll
Speaker 4: pay you guys rent, and we're like, sure, you can
Speaker 4: live in the living room. About six months later, we're like,
Speaker 4: you got to get out of this place. Campe still
Speaker 4: being worked on. We need a living room in our
Speaker 4: apartment eventually, because there was like five other people living there.
Speaker 4: But so Mike Kid decided to put together the most
Speaker 4: fucked up band possible and just put together.
Speaker 3: Josh was gonna be on vocals.
Speaker 4: They were super influenced by this band from Virginia Beach
Speaker 4: nine years insure its Virginia Beach. Someone's gonna crect me
Speaker 4: and say it's w wasthing DC or something, but that
Speaker 4: general area called No Justice, and the singer of that band, Timmy,
Speaker 4: one of the greatest front people I've ever seen, does
Speaker 4: stuff that I would never be able to do because
Speaker 4: I don't like to necessarily hurt people in the crowd.
Speaker 4: But like when you were at those shows and you
Speaker 4: see him like walking on people's heads all around the venue,
Speaker 4: like running on people's heads, like throwing the drummer's drum
Speaker 4: stuff into the audience, like you know, just like going
Speaker 4: crazy on stage. And so that was Mike and Josh's inspiration.
Speaker 4: They're like, we want to form a band like that.
Speaker 4: So Josh was on vocals, Mike was on guitar, Sandy
Speaker 4: was on bass, Chris Callahan was on drums. Chris Collahan
Speaker 4: is the singer in.
Speaker 3: Cursed.
Speaker 4: He's saying and left for dead, he's been in He's
Speaker 4: kind of our legendary local punk guy. And so he
Speaker 4: was playing drums in the band. Of course he had
Speaker 4: other bands, so he couldn't do it. So Jonah was
Speaker 4: brought in as the replacement drummer.
Speaker 3: They played I.
Speaker 4: Think three shows, and it was just like a not
Speaker 4: very tight punk band put nicely. I remember the very
Speaker 4: first show Josh came over. It's in this bar in
Speaker 4: Toronto called Playing in Kensington. That's no longer there now,
Speaker 4: it's called Thirsty and Miserable. Where I'm watching them. I'm
Speaker 4: in the front row. Josh comes over and just kicks
Speaker 4: me in the nuts and apropos of nothing, and so
Speaker 4: I picked him up and I choke slammed him like
Speaker 4: the Undertaker, like just like full On slammed him down.
Speaker 4: At that time, Josh had a bunch of friends that
Speaker 4: didn't really like me, and they really didn't like me.
Speaker 4: After I choked slammed it in the middle of the show.
Speaker 5: He started it. He totally started completely. I was just
Speaker 5: like rocking out, supporting my friends. Come over, kicks me
Speaker 5: in the nuts. You want to get crazy, I'll show
Speaker 5: you crazy. So then Josh had to go. Josh went
Speaker 5: away to go around. He was traveling doing some stuff.
Speaker 5: There were two cool shows coming up in Toronto. And
Speaker 5: that's the thing when you start a band. You don't
Speaker 5: start a band because you're like, I want to make
Speaker 5: great art. You start a band because you're like, I
Speaker 5: want to play on cool shows with these other cool
Speaker 5: bands that I like. And so Mike was like, would
Speaker 5: you like to come and sing.
Speaker 3: For these two shows?
Speaker 4: And I was sure. We did a demo, and the
Speaker 4: demo was preferred over Josh's vocals, and so Josh was
Speaker 4: asked to move to second guitar when he came back
Speaker 4: from the trip, and he had to learn how to
Speaker 4: play guitar, and I became the vocalist.
Speaker 3: At that point.
Speaker 2: An enormous amount has happened in that time two years.
Speaker 3: It's fucking like seventeen years now or.
Speaker 2: Something, right, right, did you ever imagine that? I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I'm sure you never did imagine. But
Speaker 2: like the years later you would go on to play
Speaker 2: arena tours. I saw you on arena tour with Arcade Fire.
Speaker 2: You already mentioned it in this podcast. Playing with like
Speaker 2: the likes of Foo Fires. You started a band called
Speaker 2: Fucked Up in Toronto to be the most fucked up
Speaker 2: band you could imagine, and you end up sharing a
Speaker 2: stage with huge megabands like that and doing so much
Speaker 2: stuff in your kind of own right, So, how did
Speaker 2: it did you? I'm just interested in your kind of
Speaker 2: thoughts somewhere it all went and how it went, you know, I.
Speaker 4: Think I think now looking back on it, it kind
Speaker 4: of it kind of broke me mentally, I think a
Speaker 4: little bit, because I knew very it was very defined
Speaker 4: what fucked Up was. Maybe not in the very very beginning,
Speaker 4: but like once you started getting going and once started
Speaker 4: putting out the seven inches, it's like, okay, we know
Speaker 4: what we are and we had this plan that was
Speaker 4: gonna end. We're gonna put this the first LP. It
Speaker 4: was gonna be called Crusades, and there was gonna be
Speaker 4: one called Cascades, and they're gonna be built around the
Speaker 4: same riff.
Speaker 3: This is Mike's idea. I'm not taking credit for these ideas.
Speaker 3: And it was gonna be built around the same riff.
Speaker 4: And then we're gonna put it a seven inch called
Speaker 4: Back to the Womb, and that was gonna be the
Speaker 4: end of the band.
Speaker 3: And we were.
Speaker 4: Kind of going towards this plan, you know, and it
Speaker 4: was going really well, Like people liked the band, which
Speaker 4: was amazing. Like having someone sing along to words that
Speaker 4: you wrote is the most gratifying feeling you can have
Speaker 4: as a fan. I think of punk and hardcore music
Speaker 4: because so much of the live experience is based on
Speaker 4: sort of the sharing of the mic, and so to
Speaker 4: have someone kind of yell your words back in your face,
Speaker 4: it's just incredible. So I was like, mission accomplished. This
Speaker 4: is what I wanted to do. We got it. We
Speaker 4: got strangers that I don't know singing along to our songs.
Speaker 3: We're good.
Speaker 4: And then we met the guys from Jade Tree opening
Speaker 4: for Hertskin in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: The guys from Jtree came.
Speaker 4: Over and started talking to Darren and he was like,
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I like your band. Would you
Speaker 4: guys want to sign to JD Tree? And all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, it was, well, that's not according to the plan,
Speaker 4: so what are you gonna do? So we kind of
Speaker 4: sat down and came up with a new plan, which
Speaker 4: is like, let's just do whatever makes our lives more
Speaker 4: interesting for a while.
Speaker 2: And that theme has just continued. You managed to I
Speaker 2: mean you mentioned that that that success that kind of
Speaker 2: had an impact, you know, on your kind of mental health.
Speaker 2: Is that just because you never imagined your life being
Speaker 2: taken in that direction or like it was it dealing
Speaker 2: with the the scale of it, the intensity of it,
Speaker 2: the lifestyle of it, all of those things makes together.
Speaker 4: I think it's all those things. I have an anxiety disorder.
Speaker 4: You know, I've had it my whole life. I recognize
Speaker 4: that now, you know, And I really started getting treated
Speaker 4: for it in my early twenties, which is kind of
Speaker 4: around the time Fucked Up started getting going.
Speaker 3: So I think I didn't really come to terms.
Speaker 4: With how my life was impacted by my thought process
Speaker 4: my anxiety until fairly recently. So a lot of times
Speaker 4: the situations that you're thrust in are the worst possible
Speaker 4: situations to deal with when you have an anxiety disorder,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: And it's so I think it.
Speaker 4: Was the travel was getting got to me, just like
Speaker 4: the loss of control, you know. Like I we went
Speaker 4: from being in a band where every city we went to,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, here's my group of friends. I'm going
Speaker 4: to stay at this friend's house tonight and We're gonna
Speaker 4: all hang out and have fun. And I'm just going
Speaker 4: to like travel around the world basically having slumber parties
Speaker 4: at friend's houses. And then all of a sudden it
Speaker 4: became like, no, no, that's.
Speaker 2: Kind of a job and it needs to be at
Speaker 2: the arena three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we never showed up for one of those arcade
Speaker 4: fire shows on time. We were late for every single
Speaker 4: night of the tour.
Speaker 2: I just imagining Wins just like tapping is tapping his watch,
Speaker 2: being that West. We brought these guys on twity and
Speaker 2: even sign up on side. Well.
Speaker 4: The thing was it was routed for a bus and
Speaker 4: weren't a van like trying to catch up to go
Speaker 4: keep out around your Yeah, and it's also like one
Speaker 4: of the coldest winters on record in Europe too, and
Speaker 4: we're like, yeah, we were late. We were load onto
Speaker 4: the stage in front of the full pack stadium. We're
Speaker 4: like wheeling our amps out.
Speaker 3: To the guys. I guess because one second we start playing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's still like playing a you know, a
Speaker 4: basement show, but in front of twenty thousand people, thirty
Speaker 4: thousand people.
Speaker 3: But it's yeah, I think it was that. It was the.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of stuff. It was like not
Speaker 4: you know, not being the cool punk band. All I
Speaker 4: wanted to do was be in the cool punk band,
Speaker 4: Like that was the dream. And then when I was
Speaker 4: in the cool punk band, it's like, all right, let's
Speaker 4: do it. And I have really enjoyed every experience that's
Speaker 4: come to my band since, you know, and I and
Speaker 4: I still enjoy them. But at the same time, it
Speaker 4: wasn't what I had prepared for. So when it stopped
Speaker 4: being what I had prepared for, what I had envisioned,
Speaker 4: that's when it was became like, well what is it?
Speaker 3: Like where are we at?
Speaker 4: And I think that that Enemy cover day was a
Speaker 4: very interesting day, you know, because that was like the
Speaker 4: two was like the fucked up that we were becoming
Speaker 4: kind of colliding head on with the fucked up that
Speaker 4: we were. It was a uh, just once again like
Speaker 4: it's all in my head. You know, I realize that
Speaker 4: now how much of that was in my head? But yeah,
Speaker 4: I think and it changed at the last record, Like
Speaker 4: the last record is what really broke me, like Glass Boys.
Speaker 4: I think after Glass Boys, I was just like, you
Speaker 4: know what we gotta you gotta sit down and rethink.
Speaker 2: This was not just you wanted to take a break,
Speaker 2: or you just you needed some time away from it,
Speaker 2: or you needed to be thinking about other things. You
Speaker 2: needed to organize your your your mind a bit different new.
Speaker 4: Or I wrote Glass Boys to be the last fucked
Speaker 4: up record that I write, you know, like I wrote
Speaker 4: the songs that I wrote on There were all these
Speaker 4: things that I've been kind of like wrestling with for
Speaker 4: like the last or the proceeding sort of ten years,
Speaker 4: and I just kind of laid them out there on
Speaker 4: that record, and I was like, well, I've said it,
Speaker 4: I'm done now. And then so after that record, when
Speaker 4: Mike came to me and he's like, let's do a
Speaker 4: new record, I went down. I tried to write and
Speaker 4: I just couldn't write, you know, I just was not
Speaker 4: in that space, like I really do feel like Class
Speaker 4: Boys was my like that's where I've said what I
Speaker 4: wanted to say, you know. And I wrote some songs
Speaker 4: for it, and there's a couple of songs on B
Speaker 4: sides that I ended up writing after the fact, but
Speaker 4: the stuff that I was writing I wasn't happy with.
Speaker 4: So I was like, I'm sorry, Mike, I don't think
Speaker 4: I can do this right now. I was also working
Speaker 4: on a TV show, so I was away a lot
Speaker 4: at the time. So I came back one day from
Speaker 4: one of these shoots and Mike's like, I finished the record,
Speaker 4: like I've written all the songs, all the lyrics, and
Speaker 4: I was like.
Speaker 3: Well, how's this gonna go?
Speaker 4: And I went in there and it was a completely
Speaker 4: different experience than any other fucked up recording I'd ever had, where,
Speaker 4: you know, once again, i'd be in my anxiety, I'd
Speaker 4: be arguing with Mike over song placements, over who gets
Speaker 4: to write which song, like all sorts of things, and
Speaker 4: this time I kind of just went in and I'm like,
Speaker 4: let's just ride this wave and see how it turns out.
Speaker 4: And so I didn't argue with Mike on it just
Speaker 4: about anything.
Speaker 2: That is unique for Fucked Up, but unique. Even in
Speaker 2: the times that we've seen each other over the years,
Speaker 2: the band has always been very refreshingly honest in the
Speaker 2: sense that you would always admit that there are certainly
Speaker 2: times where you basically can't stand the side of each other,
Speaker 2: you know, where things that tension does build when cause
Speaker 2: you are always living in each other's pockets when you're
Speaker 2: on the road, for example, and when you did that
Speaker 2: for such an intense period of time, things get difficult,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, but you always admitted to that. It was
Speaker 2: never like you kind of tried to cover up those cracks,
Speaker 2: if you like. It was an admission that they were
Speaker 2: sort of part of what it was that you did.
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, and I think we you know, and
Speaker 4: like it. Then it became almost like a marketing thing.
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, they don't get along as a band.
Speaker 4: I know they're just saying that, but it's true, Like
Speaker 4: I think we are five six very different people, you know,
Speaker 4: like we all wait then Josh, Mike, Sandy Damien, then
Speaker 4: Josh Mike, Sandy Damon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, five five but but Jonah.
Speaker 4: I forgot Jonah six. I always forget Jonah, the nicest member.
Speaker 2: Hang on, we're here in the UK's play a show
Speaker 2: and it's five of us. Where's the drummer?
Speaker 4: Well, that's why they got those drum machines, you know,
Speaker 4: big Black.
Speaker 2: I feel like that should be part of a kind
Speaker 2: of like a punk you know, satire documentary where he
Speaker 2: left the drummer at the service station and driven onto
Speaker 2: the gig. You know, we're missing somebody here. Who is
Speaker 2: it the drummer?
Speaker 4: They left me at a truck spop. One time in
Speaker 4: Germany we did that. I watched them drive off. I
Speaker 4: was so pissed, like you motherfuckers. I was chasing them
Speaker 4: down the street and then I just gave up, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 3: Before no cell phones existed, obviously, but it's before I.
Speaker 4: Had a cell phone, so I'm like, well, I'm trapped
Speaker 4: in this random German town with nothing.
Speaker 2: So what happened?
Speaker 4: Then they eventually realized that I wasn't in the van
Speaker 4: and turned back. But it was a good five minutes.
Speaker 2: Guys, how did you not notice that I was in
Speaker 2: the van?
Speaker 4: Come on, yeah, they're like, Man, it's so quiet, Oz.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about a couple of your other
Speaker 2: great loves. Because we've already talked about the podcast that
Speaker 2: you make. We talked about the band obviously, you and
Speaker 2: I we have spoken before. I've been fortunate enough to
Speaker 2: have to kind of have an insight into your every
Speaker 2: day at home. You live in a family home in
Speaker 2: Toronto with your wife and your three children. You've collected
Speaker 2: an absolutely enormous amount of memorabilia and records and incredibly
Speaker 2: cool stuff over the years. But you've got a vinyl
Speaker 2: record collection of almost ten thousand. You're telling me so,
Speaker 2: like all of your passions exist there at home, But
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things now that, alongside the music,
Speaker 2: you're really passionate about, one of which is wrestling. Yes,
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about that, Like, you've got
Speaker 2: to treat me as a complete wrestling novice, Like I
Speaker 2: know very little about it. So what was it that
Speaker 2: first attracted you to the theater of wrestling and what
Speaker 2: brought you into your interest in that?
Speaker 3: I think, like, and I.
Speaker 4: Would say, this is just about like almost everyone else
Speaker 4: in the world, because this is truly something that happens
Speaker 4: globally with professional wrestling. As a young person, I was
Speaker 4: taken to and I think it's a lot of young
Speaker 4: people see it, you know, like whatever type of wrestling
Speaker 4: you're exposed to, and it's exciting. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: people fighting, but they're not fighting like when people really fight,
Speaker 4: where it's just sort of upsetting and violent, Like they're
Speaker 4: fighting in a spectacular, entertaining way, and they're doing these
Speaker 4: amazing moves, and there's bright costumes and these sort of eccentric,
Speaker 4: larger than life characters. Like you're seeing real life superheroes.
Speaker 4: And as a young person, you know, you want to
Speaker 4: believe in superheroes, so you're seeing like physical, real people
Speaker 4: are that perform like superheroes.
Speaker 3: Like you see Ray Maisterio in the ring. He looks
Speaker 3: like a superhero.
Speaker 2: Obviously, we've both got experience of speaking to working with
Speaker 2: getting familiar with musicians and artis people that work in
Speaker 2: that area. Is it similar? How different is it that
Speaker 2: when you meet you know, sometimes I meet with them
Speaker 2: in bands, they've ever quite clearly defined persona one that's
Speaker 2: on stage and one that's off stage. Is that the
Speaker 2: same for wrestling or is it different?
Speaker 4: It's different it's different, like it's wrestling is like it's
Speaker 4: very similar, like the lifestyle and the world like. And
Speaker 4: that's the thing is, I got more as I got
Speaker 4: more and more into punk and more and more into music.
Speaker 4: As I got older, I started leaving wrestling behind, being like, well,
Speaker 4: it's not conducive with what I'm into now. But as
Speaker 4: I kind of got, you know, more aware of it,
Speaker 4: I realized, no, all these guys.
Speaker 3: Are punk rockers too.
Speaker 4: All these people kind of come from the same sort
Speaker 4: of backgrounds, not all of them, but a lot of them,
Speaker 4: especially the newer generation of people. And I started seeing
Speaker 4: like how similar their world of traveling, especially on the
Speaker 4: indie circuit, is to the world of an indie band,
Speaker 4: Like you know, you're traveling from city to city, staying
Speaker 4: at people's houses, you know, really connecting with your fans,
Speaker 4: Like your fans are not a huge number of them,
Speaker 4: but the people that are coming you connect to it
Speaker 4: in a very direct way. But I think pro wrestling
Speaker 4: is like punk rock is all about no, you can
Speaker 4: do it too. Yeah, you and the crowd get a guitar,
Speaker 4: be like us, come on stage, do it, do it.
Speaker 4: And wrestling it's like it's it's a secret world, you know,
Speaker 4: and they don't want you to come behind the curtain,
Speaker 4: you know, so it'll be they're friendly, you know, they're
Speaker 4: but like at the same time, like you're a fan
Speaker 4: and they're a wrestler, you know, and there's there's even
Speaker 4: like old wrestling lingo like that you're a mark and
Speaker 4: they're a worker, and you know, marks don't hang out
Speaker 4: with workers and stuff like that has changed because everything's
Speaker 4: kind of changed, but like you still meet wrestlers that
Speaker 4: don't have time for fans, like in a way that
Speaker 4: you know that's different than a musician, you know, like
Speaker 4: everyone has bad days and stuff like that. But there's
Speaker 4: certainly wrestlers that are, you know, very willing to keep
Speaker 4: you out of arm's length. And I think that's because
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of like magicians, you know, with their secrets,
Speaker 4: and it's also still kind of an outlawt sport, like
Speaker 4: they're still trying to trick the audience into thinking what's
Speaker 4: happening in the ring is different than what is actually
Speaker 4: happening in the ring.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's still it's never I would never use the word
Speaker 4: fake to describe it, because it's very real. No matter
Speaker 4: what they do to each other, they are getting hurt.
Speaker 4: Like having now taken a couple of these bumps, even
Speaker 4: the most minor thing in the ring can really fucking hurt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean you mentioned already you've made TV
Speaker 2: series about wrestling. Yeah, you know, you make You've been
Speaker 2: involved with podcasts and stuff before and in wrestling.
Speaker 5: Is that right?
Speaker 4: I've wrestling podcast and then I did, like you're I
Speaker 4: started making cannabis documentaries for Vice about five years ago,
Speaker 4: and the whole time I was like, there's this deathmatch
Speaker 4: wrestling tournament that happens in Delaware, and deathmatch wrestling is
Speaker 4: the most maligned, misunderstood sub genre of wrestling. Like, you know,
Speaker 4: I guess you could liken it to like rock music,
Speaker 4: classic rock, and then over here you've got like grindcore
Speaker 4: or something that like the classic rock guys would be
Speaker 4: like why would you ever want to hear that noise?
Speaker 4: You know, and a lot of the you know, mainstream
Speaker 4: pro wrestlers like why would you ever want to be
Speaker 4: involved in that garbage wrestling? But what it is, it's
Speaker 4: pro wrestling, so it's still people working together in the
Speaker 4: ring to kind of trick the audience into thinking what
Speaker 4: they're seeing is different than what they're actually seeing. But
Speaker 4: they actually use weapons on each other, and you can't,
Speaker 4: you know, trick.
Speaker 3: The audience with a weapon.
Speaker 4: You have to kind of use the weapon, like so
Speaker 4: you're not going to kill the person with the weapon,
Speaker 4: like I'm sure you could, but you are going to
Speaker 4: make them bleed and probably need stitches. So it's weapons
Speaker 4: like barbed wire, light bulb tubes, fire, thumb tacks, a
Speaker 4: lot of thumb tacks, kenzon, which is used for flower arrangements.
Speaker 4: In this wrestler Jeff Cannonball, straightedged vegan, hardcore kid, had
Speaker 4: one hammered into his head and it.
Speaker 3: Took like eight people to take it out afterwards.
Speaker 4: So I knew I wanted to make a documentary about
Speaker 4: this thing, and VICE was like, I don't think anyone's
Speaker 4: gonna care about wrestling. So I tried for four years
Speaker 4: and then finally they were like, Okay, here's a little
Speaker 4: bit of money, go make your show.
Speaker 3: Go go make this movie.
Speaker 4: So I made the movie with this director, Shannie Cohen,
Speaker 4: amazing director. Came back and it did really well, and
Speaker 4: then they were like, okay, what would a.
Speaker 3: TV show look like?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Right? So we started working on the TV.
Speaker 2: Show, So of the way you just described it there
Speaker 2: makes me understand it a bit more now. It isn't
Speaker 2: hugely miles away from comparisons to rock musical, punk rock
Speaker 2: music in the sense that there's like this kind of
Speaker 2: one overriding name that it's given wrestling, punk rock, whatever.
Speaker 2: But then you have all your kind of like sub
Speaker 2: genres and your different communities that exist in different places,
Speaker 2: and they're all a different twist, a different spin on it.
Speaker 2: And obviously you've got your characters that have been involved
Speaker 2: in it from over the years, so you've got your legends,
Speaker 2: and you've got your emerging newcomers and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. The storylines aren't all that different, are they
Speaker 2: from anything else?
Speaker 4: No, And I think it's actually the storylines that happen
Speaker 4: outside of wrestling are are probably more relevant now than.
Speaker 3: They've ever been. Like you look at America. The President
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 4: United States is in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I saw today that Cain, who might be
Speaker 2: a name people recognize from from Wrestling of Wrestling Fame.
Speaker 4: If you don't remember Kane, just think of him as
Speaker 4: the Undertaker's brother.
Speaker 2: That's right. He's just become mayor of Tennessee, is.
Speaker 4: That right, A mayor of Knoxville, Mayor of Knoxville.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, and that's.
Speaker 4: Happened before Oneita in Japan, he was in the diet
Speaker 4: Antonio Noki was in politics over there. There's certainly in
Speaker 4: all over the world there's been wrestlers that have kind
Speaker 4: of crossed over.
Speaker 3: And I think it's because in wrestling, there's this term called.
Speaker 4: K fabe, and it's the idea of what wrestling is,
Speaker 4: you know, and it's the idea that like it's hard
Speaker 4: to explain, but I guess it's like to simplify.
Speaker 3: It's the idea.
Speaker 4: That the wrestling world might not be reality, but it's
Speaker 4: presented to the audience as reality, and you're not going
Speaker 4: to admit that it's not not reality. And that's kind
Speaker 4: of the exact same thing that happens in politics, you know,
Speaker 4: like we all know, like even his supporters must know
Speaker 4: deep down that he's lying and he's fake, but at
Speaker 4: the same time, you just make yourself back leave. And
Speaker 4: there's also this whole line of thought that Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: if you look at Donald Trump prior to his run
Speaker 4: in WrestleMania, a few years ago, he was really a
Speaker 4: star and a celebrity of a very different population than
Speaker 4: makes up his base. You know, if you look at
Speaker 4: the demographics that watched The Apprentice, it was incredibly diverse,
Speaker 4: generally progressive audience was watching The Apprentice. He was you know,
Speaker 4: mocked but written up in Spy Magazine, which certainly wasn't
Speaker 4: a magazine that was read by a lot of people
Speaker 4: in more red.
Speaker 3: States at the time.
Speaker 4: But then when he went on WrestleMania, that's when he
Speaker 4: met his bass And that's also when he learned how
Speaker 4: to cut a promo, It's when he learned how to
Speaker 4: deal with the hostile crowd.
Speaker 3: It's when he he learned and.
Speaker 4: You know, I talked to friends that were writing for
Speaker 4: ww back then and working with him when he was there,
Speaker 4: and they were saying he was quiet, very respectful and
Speaker 4: just listening interesting.
Speaker 2: So he kind of schooled himself in some of those
Speaker 2: skills that he's gone on to use to become president.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And it's and it's amazing how with wrestling, like
Speaker 4: it goes further too. Like if you think about the WWE,
Speaker 4: which is WWF, which is where we all kind of
Speaker 4: in you know.
Speaker 3: America, it's the thing. It's the McDonald's, you know.
Speaker 4: But like McDonald's, they make one style of food. However,
Speaker 4: wrestling is you know, not always McDonald's. There's all different
Speaker 4: types of hamburgers out there. There's burgers that are made
Speaker 4: with tofu, there's burgers that are made with chicken. There's
Speaker 4: all different types of hamburgers out there. And I think
Speaker 4: that's the thing, is like when you go out there
Speaker 4: and you realize, oh, there's all these different types of hamburgers,
Speaker 4: and like kind of just corporations do they take over,
Speaker 4: you know, Like so like Starbucks does this with coffee,
Speaker 4: ww has done it with wrestling. So it's not coffee anymore.
Speaker 4: It's Starbucks, you know, and it's not wrestling anymore.
Speaker 3: It's WWE. And of one of the.
Speaker 4: Side effects of doing that are probably actually not even
Speaker 4: a side effect, when one of the sort of main
Speaker 4: components in making that happen is to wipe out traditional
Speaker 4: forms of wrestling that exists. Like you see it in
Speaker 4: the UK in the eighties when the WWE came over
Speaker 4: and they ran Wembley and they had that huge show
Speaker 4: and wrestling became very popular here. It annihilated world of sport.
Speaker 4: It annihilated British wrestling, which had been something that had
Speaker 4: a huge tradition that goes back centuries decades at least,
Speaker 4: and now it's finally coming back again. But like once again,
Speaker 4: it's amazing to kind of much it.
Speaker 3: It kind of, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Mirrors the reality of the real world when you look
Speaker 4: at wrestling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly does when you kind of think of it,
Speaker 2: like yeah, in those terms now, and just the very
Speaker 2: real consequences of Donald Trump going from that to being
Speaker 2: in the Whitehouse. The final thing I kind of wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to you a little bit about was you
Speaker 2: mentioned that along with wrestling, you've also made documentaries about cannabis.
Speaker 3: Because and you guys just got medical cannabis here.
Speaker 2: Well, this is the thing. So this is quite a
Speaker 2: timely thing to ask you about. So you've been talking
Speaker 2: about this subject for what kind of five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight years or a long time.
Speaker 3: It's been eight years now.
Speaker 2: Cool, because Canada has very much been one of those
Speaker 2: countries where the debate has been going for quite a while.
Speaker 2: There's been some you know, recent movement in that. So
Speaker 2: there was the medicinal use of cannabis was brought in
Speaker 2: and then recently followed by the recreational legalization.
Speaker 3: Coming October seventeenth.
Speaker 2: October seventeenth, Okay, so talk to me a little bit
Speaker 2: about the journey that and the debate that's been had
Speaker 2: around that in Canada, and then I'm interested to know
Speaker 2: what you think, Yeah, what you think the positive consequences
Speaker 2: of that has been so far, and what why presumably
Speaker 2: you're kind of all for it and you know why
Speaker 2: you think it would be a good thing for the
Speaker 2: UK to do.
Speaker 4: It's a long This is definitely an area that I'm
Speaker 4: obsessed with as well, so I can ramble forever for it. Well,
Speaker 4: I think I'm not in favor of legalization as it's
Speaker 4: being presented right now.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: If you look at some of the regulations that are
Speaker 4: coming out about how cannabis is going to be handled
Speaker 4: under regulation under legalization, I mean there's some really frightening
Speaker 4: things in there. You can't be stoned in public, like
Speaker 4: public drug kenness is a crime. Public high intoxication is
Speaker 4: going to be a crime, even though being high on
Speaker 4: cannabis is nothing like being drunk an alcohol. But they
Speaker 4: have now made this sort of equivalency, so they also
Speaker 4: have made it illegal and punishable up to fourteen years
Speaker 4: in prison if you're caught with cannabis. That's not government
Speaker 4: approve cannabis which they're making money on. Also, like let's
Speaker 4: say if you gave a child a drink. If you
Speaker 4: gave your own child a beer, your teenage child in Canada,
Speaker 4: that's not a crime. If I gave my child's friend
Speaker 4: a beer, that would be a five hundred dollars fine.
Speaker 4: If I gave my child cannabis, which I would never
Speaker 4: ever do, But if someone did give a child cannabis,
Speaker 4: it's fourteen years in prison. The police are going to
Speaker 4: still have all the same tools that they have under
Speaker 4: prohibition criminalization, but they're also going to be able to
Speaker 4: generate a little bit of revenue off of this cannabis. Now,
Speaker 4: they're still going to be able to bust people at nauseam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it is the most kind of simplified
Speaker 2: way of looking at it. That like the medicinal ways
Speaker 2: that cannabase has been introduced in Canada, there have been
Speaker 2: positive consequences from that. Do we obviously getting to point
Speaker 2: where they're about to legalize it, But as you say,
Speaker 2: there's a whole nother huge more around that to kind
Speaker 2: of unravel to see if it's actually gonna work. What's
Speaker 2: your kind of view generally on.
Speaker 4: Our medical program actually was never that great in Canada.
Speaker 4: Like America, because of the state sort of freedoms that
Speaker 4: they're given, they've developed a lot more evolved medical programs,
Speaker 4: especially Colorado, California, Washington State prior to legalization, so they
Speaker 4: already had like little industries set up. In Canada, the
Speaker 4: government has always been like, we don't really want to
Speaker 4: have to deal with this problem. There's been a lot
Speaker 4: of efforts to legalize cannabis in Canada over the years.
Speaker 4: It's always kind of stalled out. Just before it happened,
Speaker 4: the medical program kind of just developed on its own,
Speaker 4: you know. There was the government made provisions to allow
Speaker 4: people to have access to medical cannabis. People then decided
Speaker 4: to start setting up dispensaries to sell medical cannabis because
Speaker 4: it was really hard to get into the government medical program,
Speaker 4: and they would sell to people that weren't in the program.
Speaker 4: They would sell to people that were referred to them.
Speaker 4: These dispensaries begat another wave of dispensaries.
Speaker 3: Mainly in British Columbia and Vancouver that were.
Speaker 4: A little more lenient with how much checks they were
Speaker 4: doing into whether or not someone you know had doctor
Speaker 4: approval for medical cannabis. And then there was another wave
Speaker 4: of dispensaries that kind of came after that was just
Speaker 4: which was just giving cannabis to anyone over the age
Speaker 4: of nineteen that brought an idea and was able to
Speaker 4: buy it. Those were all illegal and the government has
Speaker 4: shut down all of them, or tried to shut down
Speaker 4: all of them, I should say, over the years, but
Speaker 4: they keep popping up, you know, even right now, they
Speaker 4: keep popping up. Medical cannabis changed my life. Like I'm
Speaker 4: a huge proponent for medical cannabis, you know, people having
Speaker 4: access to cannabis.
Speaker 3: Period.
Speaker 4: I didn't get it through the medical program. Originally, my
Speaker 4: doctor actually refused to sign a medical form. It was
Speaker 4: only when I started losing weight when I she agreed
Speaker 4: to sign me in to the program. I lost one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty pounds since I are smoking weed. And
Speaker 4: you know, I don't think it's going to work like
Speaker 4: that for everybody. I don't think it's necessarily going to
Speaker 4: cure everyone's anxiety. It hasn't even cured my anxiety. It
Speaker 4: helps me treat it, But the fact that it is
Speaker 4: going to have that impact on some people I think
Speaker 4: is reason enough to kind of investigate it and to
Speaker 4: allow greater access to it. And also the fact is
Speaker 4: it's no one's ever died on it, Like, no one
Speaker 4: has ever died from cannabis, but like there are probably
Speaker 4: gonna be a few deaths tonight involving alcohol, and definitely
Speaker 4: gonna be a lot of death involving prescription drugs, you know,
Speaker 4: And so if we can get people to kind of
Speaker 4: choose cannabis over those other things, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2: Like you pointed out, the UK is it's a debate
Speaker 2: that's been having, you know, being how it kind of
Speaker 2: right now happened before the summer recess of Parliament around
Speaker 2: the introduction of medical cannabis the usage of it. So
Speaker 2: as far as you're concerned, you've seen it work, you've
Speaker 2: experienced the benefits of that anything, that's something that should
Speaker 2: definitely be encouraged.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so, Like, once again, it's not can
Speaker 4: have the same effect on everybody, but once again, like
Speaker 4: there's tons of things that we have access to that
Speaker 4: I think are far more deadly, you know, I think
Speaker 4: there's certainly, you know, weapons, you know, not so much
Speaker 4: obviously in Canada and in the UK, but in America
Speaker 4: you can get access to weapons fairly easily. Prescription drugs,
Speaker 4: you know, and the amount of time that have got
Speaker 4: my doctor to signed me over to medical cannabis. I
Speaker 4: was offered maybe five other prescriptions that I could have
Speaker 4: gone on instead. There you know, soda, The amount of
Speaker 4: sugar that I'm consuming in the soda pop right now,
Speaker 4: I'm sure is doing way less good for me than
Speaker 4: a joint would be doing right now. So it's yeah,
Speaker 4: I definitely see there's I see cannabis is having a
Speaker 4: lot of benefits. I just think that one of the
Speaker 4: scary thing that scary things that is kind of happening
Speaker 4: under legalization is, you know, there's a group of people
Speaker 4: that want to take cannabis away and take the revenue
Speaker 4: away from this other group of people. And like, certainly
Speaker 4: there are criminals in this other group of people, but
Speaker 4: there are also just people that love cannabis and have
Speaker 4: sacrificed their freedom to to you know, be an advocate
Speaker 4: for this plant, or have sacrificed their lives. In some cases,
Speaker 4: people have died for the fact that this plan is
Speaker 4: illegal and to have this industry ripped away from them
Speaker 4: and then just given to the same rich white guys
Speaker 4: that own everything else in Canada, that I kind of
Speaker 4: find a bum out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my final question because I'm going to let
Speaker 2: you play a show with Fucked.
Speaker 4: Up and this is the first time in like, oh,
Speaker 4: I guess we played the subway not too long we
Speaker 4: played a subway show, but I was gonna say, it's
Speaker 4: the first time in like like over a year.
Speaker 2: Really, so this is the this is like getting back
Speaker 2: into the saddle.
Speaker 3: Then.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, we played We've played a show on the
Speaker 4: like a subway platform a few months ago, but yeah,
Speaker 4: like as far as a real show, this is our
Speaker 4: first reel show and over a year.
Speaker 2: How you feeling about it?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's definitely not. Actually it's a little nervous,
Speaker 4: you know. It's it's weird to be doing something so
Speaker 4: much for so long and then to take an extended
Speaker 4: break from it and then to kind of get back
Speaker 4: into it. So yeah, it's really different. I also, like
Speaker 4: I find live shows in general, like I've I kind of.
Speaker 3: I kind of you know, as.
Speaker 4: I get older, you know, you treat them differently, you know,
Speaker 4: Like before I'd go out there and I'd just be like,
Speaker 4: whatever the fuck happens, happens, and you know, that's the show.
Speaker 4: And now I kind of want to go out there
Speaker 4: and make sure that there's there's a show too, right,
Speaker 4: Like I don't want to be just throwing that microphone
Speaker 4: around till I break it and then I won't be
Speaker 4: able to sing into a microphone for less for the
Speaker 4: rest of the evening. Yeah, So there's like I find
Speaker 4: changes in the pressures that you experience as a lead
Speaker 4: singer too as time goes on.
Speaker 3: Also, I got beaten up on stage a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago. It at Sound.
Speaker 4: Liverpool, Sound Sound Safe, Sound City in Liverpool.
Speaker 3: Okay, what happen that we're playing?
Speaker 4: We're playing on stage and I saw this group of
Speaker 4: guys that I would describe as being somewhat chavvy from
Speaker 4: what I've been told what a chavel looks like, and
Speaker 4: they were picking on this couple in the crowd, and
Speaker 4: I could see the other people in the audience kind
Speaker 4: of getting you know, involved and trying to get rid
Speaker 4: of these guys.
Speaker 3: So I just jumped off the stage and.
Speaker 4: It was you know, quite a number of people and
Speaker 4: was like, I don't want to play for you guys,
Speaker 4: get the fuck out, and we just.
Speaker 3: Human walled these dudes out of the show.
Speaker 4: But one of them broke around our phalanx and smacked
Speaker 4: the guy and the girl in the face, like this
Speaker 4: couple in the face. I don't I'm not a fighter.
Speaker 4: I'm not a tough guy. I don't know a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff about like that sort of world, but I
Speaker 4: do know a lot about pro wrestling. So when I
Speaker 4: saw him do that, I just went to, you know,
Speaker 4: my best Kurt Angle impression and just attack this dude.
Speaker 4: And then his friends came over and attacked me, and
Speaker 4: then more people than more people, and then security was
Speaker 4: stopping people, trying to break up the fight. And I'm
Speaker 4: just covered up and they're just stomping, stomping and stomping,
Speaker 4: and I got up and we you know, it was over.
Speaker 4: I was covered in blood. I'm like, holy shit, and
Speaker 4: they're like, what do you want to do. I'm like,
Speaker 4: let's finish the set, and so we went up in
Speaker 4: finish the set.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I think that was a real.
Speaker 4: Turning point for me playing live, because I think up
Speaker 4: until that point, I felt like I was invincible, and
Speaker 4: I realized after that point that I'm I'm a person.
Speaker 4: It didn't change the fact that I'm going to go
Speaker 4: on the crowd, I'm going to interact with people. But
Speaker 4: what it did is, I think change the way I
Speaker 4: go into a live show.
Speaker 2: Were you injured, were you were afterwards? Effect? You know,
Speaker 2: does it does it make you not want to you know, psychologically?
Speaker 2: That's quite the shocking things to do with, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 4: It was definitely, uh, I think I had a concussion
Speaker 4: in retrospect, I know I had a concussion, especially because
Speaker 4: of all this stuff I know about pro wrestling. But
Speaker 4: there's no days off in music, so we played shows
Speaker 4: immediately after. My jaw was pretty fucked up. I couldn't
Speaker 4: close my jaw until I got back to Canada. I
Speaker 4: got a chiropractor to kind of put it back into
Speaker 4: place for me. Yeah, it was it like, I don't
Speaker 4: want to make it seem like you know, that made
Speaker 4: me stage? You know, Yeah, I gave me stage right
Speaker 4: after that because it wasn't like that. But I think
Speaker 4: what it did do is give me a chance to
Speaker 4: kind of pause and reflect on.
Speaker 3: The role of musician and the role of.
Speaker 4: Audience and how you know, as the musician in front
Speaker 4: of this audience, you can feel like you're a superhuman,
Speaker 4: but the reality is you're just the same as anyone
Speaker 4: else in that crowd, you know.
Speaker 2: And just finally, then we talked about making a podcast
Speaker 2: about punk history and talking to punk legends.
Speaker 4: Well as to cannabis thing, because we have to bring
Speaker 4: it back to punk again. Yeah, you know, Canadian cannabis
Speaker 4: legalization only happens because of punk, right, okay. Jel Biafra
Speaker 4: on his third spoken word record, did a song or
Speaker 4: did a spoken word track I guess, uh called I
Speaker 4: Believe It's everyone should grow more marijuana. And in that
Speaker 4: spoken word piece he mentions this book The Emperor Has
Speaker 4: No Clothes, which is written by this cannabis activist named
Speaker 4: Jack Harro and that's like the original text for cannabis legalization,
Speaker 4: cannabis advocacy type thing. So he mentioned this book and
Speaker 4: at the time there was this anarchist not anarchists, I guess,
Speaker 4: more like libertarian bookstore owner in London, Ontario that owned
Speaker 4: this bookstore called City Lights named Mark Emery. Mark, you know,
Speaker 4: became like a big fan of this jel By Afra
Speaker 4: spoken word piece. It wasn't a cannabis guy. It was
Speaker 4: just like, you know, just fucking with the government. Like
Speaker 4: he would do things like refill expired parking meters dressed
Speaker 4: as a faery, or he would open up on Sundays,
Speaker 4: or he'd sell the Two Life Crew record after it
Speaker 4: was deemed offensive material and couldn't be sold right, So
Speaker 4: he'd just do anything to kind of agitate the government.
Speaker 4: He was like a libertarian guy. So then he heard
Speaker 4: this track by jel By Afric because at the time
Speaker 4: by Affra was embroiled in the PERMRCI censorship lawsuit where
Speaker 4: the PMRC was coming after him for the Geiger artwork
Speaker 4: in one of their records. So he became a huge
Speaker 4: fan of Jael by Afra and actually brought him up
Speaker 4: to London, Ontario do a spoken word thing and really
Speaker 4: took to this track Everyone should grow more marijuana. And
Speaker 4: so he tried order in that book The Empire Has
Speaker 4: No Clothes and was informed by a supplier that that
Speaker 4: book was actually on the banned booklist in Canada. So
Speaker 4: he was like, well, here's my new cause. So he
Speaker 4: smuggled in that book and also smuggled in High Times magazine,
Speaker 4: which was also illegal in Canada at the time, and
Speaker 4: was selling those and they sold like hotcakes. So then
Speaker 4: he started bringing in all these advocates and activists and
Speaker 4: got them to start doing lectures and basically radicalized himself.
Speaker 4: And then he ultimately moves to BC and opens the
Speaker 4: first seed bank in British Columbia, selling seeds to America.
Speaker 4: Eventually got arrested by the American government for selling a
Speaker 4: million seeds. They charged them for a pound of marijuana
Speaker 4: for every seed he sold, so they charged him with
Speaker 4: one million pounds of marijuana. He did five years in prison,
Speaker 4: came back to Canada. But he's really there's a lot
Speaker 4: of baggage with him as a person, so I'm not
Speaker 4: you know, but when it comes to cannabis, he's really
Speaker 4: the guy that spearheaded the legalization effort in a big way.
Speaker 4: And once again, it all comes back to Jello Biafra
Speaker 4: and punk rock.
Speaker 2: It's a cyclical thing, isn't it traces back?
Speaker 4: No, And also you didn't we didn't even get into
Speaker 4: it with wrestling. My god, the punk wrestling connection is strong.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, that's that's for podcasts. Exactly exactly where do
Speaker 2: you see all of these interests like converging in the
Speaker 2: next kind of five years, Because you've got to make
Speaker 2: TV shows about wrestling, you know, you make the podcasts
Speaker 2: about punk rock, you get to be the front man
Speaker 2: in a punk band tour in the world. Like, where
Speaker 2: where do all these interests collide in the next five years.
Speaker 2: You're a great front man, you're a great broadcast you're
Speaker 2: a great journalist, So like, where where do things go next?
Speaker 4: Well, I definitely appreciate that journalists compliment, but I'm just
Speaker 4: a fan. As a fan who likes to be a nerd,
Speaker 4: I think they have, you know, coalesced in a certain
Speaker 4: exec Like it almost feels like they're once again kind
Speaker 4: of all feeding off each other, you know. Like recently,
Speaker 4: a bunch of wrestlers came to town to do a
Speaker 4: TV taping and I took them to dispensary or a
Speaker 4: cannabis lounge to smoke cannabis.
Speaker 3: Afterwards.
Speaker 4: There was another wrestler that I ran into when I
Speaker 4: was in Montreal, that wrestler from the UK, Jimmy Havoc.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Jimmy Havock, death Match King of the
Speaker 4: UK and Jimmy Havock named himself after Davy Havock from AFI.
Speaker 4: Davy's someone that I've been friends with for a super
Speaker 4: long time. So I got to introduce the two of them,
Speaker 4: which was a huge thrill to me. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: that made my summer getting to do that. Jimmy was
Speaker 4: pretty stoked too. Davy was a little indifferent, but Jimmy
Speaker 4: was super stoked and I was super stoked, which is
Speaker 4: good enough. So I kind of see them always kind
Speaker 4: of interacting and like dancing with each other in a
Speaker 4: real way. You know, MVP who's been on my podcast
Speaker 4: a bunch, who's a pro wrestler, traveled all over the
Speaker 4: world wrestling. Also, like you know this punk rock guy
Speaker 4: who by his own in middle is a fan of
Speaker 4: cannabis as well. So you know, I find that all
Speaker 4: these things kind of are constantly, you know, revolving around
Speaker 4: each other, and like, I couldn't imagine my life without
Speaker 4: one of them.
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