Interviews

Interviews: Bouncing Souls

Recently, Jay and I had the pleasure to interview Greg Attonito, the singer of the Bouncing Souls. The Souls have been together for over 10 years now and have a slew of releases on BYO Records and Epitaph Records amongst many other independant releases. Their new album, Hopeless Romantic, comes out May 4th on Epitaph Records. The show was at Phantasmagoria in Wheaton, Maryland, which serves not only as a venue, but also as a record store. A real record store that still carries records. The show sold out pretty quickly and some people were denied entrance to see the line-up of Kid Dynamite, Anti-Flag & The Bouncing Souls.

Smother: First off, how's everything going?

Greg: I'm doing all right, everything's fine.

Smother: Not to start this off on a bad note by giving you some huge question, but I was told by that guy (as I point to my friend Jesse) to ask you what you guys think about Sony distributing Epitaph stuff in Japan with you guys and your D.I.Y. values.

Greg: Okay, first I want to say yawn, and then I'm going to say, if I knew how those businesses work, then I'd be educated enough to talk to you about it. And I assume that you're not educated about what Sony does in Japan, so you're not really in a position to ask me my opinion, cause you don't know anything about it and I don't know anything either so I don't know what we'd be talking about. Third is, you call up anyone, you get online and you can find out that Epitaph isn't doing anything with Sony. Maybe in Japan, but you've got to understand that in different countries, everything works differently and sometimes you have no choice, because this is the structure that is created in Japan. So, I'm not sure, I don't know anything about that and number four would be yawn again.

Smother: So you guys are all for having as many people as possible hear the music and not making it an exclusive thing?

Greg: Well yeah, there was a time when everyone was asking us what's the deal with Epitaph and Sony and yadda yadda yadda, so finally, we were like, "what's the fucking deal?" and called up Epitaph and they said "no, we're not. We got a million offers and turned them all down, and we're still what we were." So people started running their mouths and all of this stuff started. Go to the Epitaph website and see, it's on the first page and that would answer your question.

Smother: So you guys were on tour with Lagwagon before this, how was that?

Greg: It was great, lots of fun. Those guys have a good time.

Smother: You guys tour with a lot of hardcore bands and I've seen you with H2O and with Lifetime in Philadelphia, I was curious, what were your favorite bands that you've toured with?

Greg: I don't know, I've enjoyed all the tours I've been on. Recently Lagwagon was really good, Lifetime was the first tour we went on, so that was really special in a way, since we had never been on tour. We toured with 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade, I wouldn't pass any of them up for the other. They're all a different experience, each one, you get to meet those people and see them every day. I just can't pick a favorite one, you can even look at the smaller bands we've toured with and you get to hang out with them everyday. You see a lot of people on tour, for example Lagwagon who I'd met a few times, when you're on tour you get to hang out with a lot of people and with a small band, you get to know people in situations where you normally wouldn't.

Smother: When you were growing up, was there a fairly sizeable scene?

Greg: There was, in Trenton, N.J.. There was a place called City Gardens that was pretty similar to this place, there was always shows there, on and off maybe 2 or 3 a week, that was where I saw lots of bands.

Smother: So was that what made you decide that you wanted to start a band or was it more about getting girls, since that's what most people refer to in the end.

Greg: I would have to say all of those things. All of the aspects of music got me into it. It's busting out of this world that people try to create for you. When I was in high school, I was thinking, what am I going to do? Someone wants me to go to college and then get a job. It's just that 15 whatever years ago, there wasn't all of this shit on TV and you couldn't buy punk records or Cramps records and there was only one place in New Jersey you could find them. Showing up to a place like this when I was young was a huge shock to me, like, "this is fucking cool!" Where have I been? I've been living in a school world but to me it was more extreme. For me it started all at once, like hardcore, Clash, a big discovery when I was 16, so that's agreed. You're here and you've got everything, its the club, its the girls, its the drugs, whatever. Smoking, drinking, the whole spirit of freedom didn't exist at my house, at my school and that's similar to most people. So then you've got friends and you get together and play guitars and there you go.

Smother: Who would you say were your main musical influences?

Greg: In the beginning? So much, it never stops, in the beginning I remember there was a time when I saw The Toasters, The Meatmen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone and Yellowman plus Toots and the Maytals. That was at the Ritz in New York. And I saw them all in a brief amount of time plus a hardcore band, so add those up and that just blew me away. The original Faith No More with Chuck was fucking cool. I just want to say what's up to Chuck Mosely, he rules, he really did. I saw him in Cleveland and he's in another band. And that's just a few.

Smother: Any favorite venues that you like to play?

Greg: The Troc[adero] is great, that has a good balance between a huge place and a small place. This place is good and I can tell already by the way that it's set up that someone gives a shit, whereas you go to some other places and it's a warehouse and it's just blank. Whoever is behind it is just looking for the cheapest busted out hole in the wall with a busted ass P.A. system and they don't really give a shit. So you don't really get a great show out of that. You might be able to make a good show, but that's it. I like playing small shows, but I like playing big shows too.

Smother: So all the bands have been getting along well?

Greg: So far, we've only had two shows, but Anti-Flag has been doing shows with us on and off for the last two weeks.

Smother: So I guess you don't have any drunken party stories that you can tell yet?

Greg: Not recently. I've gotten a lot under my belt. Here's one I can tell you. We used to live in a house in Brunswick, New Jersey and we got really really well known for our parties because we used to have a wall downstairs. This wall had phone numbers on it and we just wrote on the wall. Everyone's phone number that we knew and there were 10 people living in the house already. So we were like, "what's there to do?" And someone would say, "let's call the wall!" So we'd call the wall, every number on it. And usually we'd say, let's just call the girls. So you'd go down and we'd call people and just tell them that we're hanging out and they can come on over. And we'd get through 10 or 15 people. By an hour or an hour and a half later, there'd be 50 people. Then by the end of the night there'd be a 100. We got even more of a repuatation for the New Years Eve parties we had. We had them in '89, '90 & '91. Three years in a row, where it was just packed and beer flew everywhere. So we had a big party for our New Years eve parties and we'd always try to top it from the year before. No really specific details on that one.

Smother: I'm curious on what you are listening to right now.

Greg: I've been listening to a Samba record that was compiled by David Byrne, I always listen to Stevie Wonder and Money Mark. He's the guy who plays keyboards for the Beastie Boys. All of the Paul's Boutique record, with the keyboards and that stuff is Money Mark. He's got a record called "Push the Button" and I think it came out last year. Every song is good. I want to hang out with that guy, he's cool.

Smother: So if you could get up an ultimate line-up of all the dream bands you could play with at a show, could you figure something out?

Greg: I don't really know. That's a tough question.

Smother: Well, since they're starting to soundcheck, there's one question that we ask everybody and that's if you met a kid named Carbomb, what would you think/say/do/whatever?

Greg: I'd just say, "Hello Carbomb! How are you?" Works for me.