Interviews

Interviews: Humble Beginnings

The interview is with Josh, the singer/guitarist. Check them out at their site.

Smother - Humble Beginnings....so, why don't you tell me about your "humble beginnings?" How did you guys get together?

Josh - Ummm. We got together like gradually over the course of these past 2 years. Chris and I met at Jay from the Jerkoffs house, and we caught Jeremy stealing Chris's hubcap right outside Jay's house, and we were all "ok, you little bean...you can either play with us, or go to the police..." I think the choice was obvious for him. He should have gone to jail, I bet he regrets that now. Rob, you know Rob from his Lanemeyer days. We were all just friends and we were like "you didn't get caught stealing a hubcap, but do you wanna play anyway?" Yeah, that's the way it went, kinda. The way I remember it.

Smother - Talk a little about the guys in the band. Sort of a "Dating Game" kinda thing..."Bob is a millionaire from Austin, TX who enjoys piggy back rides and playing horseshoes," that sort of thing.

Josh - Jeremy is Puerto Rican. He enjoys stealing cars, mowing lawns, and breaking the American border. He is 20. He's funny...and gross. Chris is 20, and he...I don't know. He play drums, and he likes to fuck around with the ice cream machines at work (he works at dairy queen) and make things I can not talk about. Rob is 19 and he started a T-shirt company called "Manic Depressive Clothing". They seem to be really cool looking so far. He is as unemployed as ever. Josh is 20 and works at Starbucks. He hates coffee a lot. And he thinks Jeremy's gross.

Smother - Now, I notice some Nofx influence in you guys, but who are the not so obvious influences you guys have?

Josh - Um...NOFX? What?! We've never ever heard that before. That's crazy. Actually in Flipside, we got trashed in the review, they compared us to Dave Mathews Band. We all like a lot of different stuff, and maybe some more influences will come out in the near future recording. We just recorded, so maybe it has already. Jeremy likes Pennywise (a lot), RKL, Pulley, NOFX, and the Get Up Kids. Chris likes Pulley, a lot of old Lookout stuff like Screeching Weasel, Grimple, etc. He likes Propaghandi too. Rob likes Jimmy Eat world, Alkaline Trio, and Weezer. Josh likes NOFX a lot. He also likes Dick Dale, Bracket, RKL, and Pulley.

Smother - You won the chance a while back to do some Warped Tour stuff in California, right? What was that like, the whole experience?

Josh - Well, in short, we went to California for free courtesy of Ernie Ball Musical Equipment. It was going to be out of hand at the start, because, we are 4 kids from NJ and they put us in this 5 star hotel with just nice people and things in it. The other bands there had like producers, light engineers, managers...and he had us 4, and some of our girlfriends. All these bands were like late 20s-late 30s. So we played the 1st Hard Rock Cafe show ever. I wish we were out there for longer. We get there and we knew immediately that shit was getting thrown off the balcony. They dressed all the people that worked at the hotel as these royal British guards, so that was kinda humiliating for them. Chris once told me that any job, which requires you to wear a hat, is just degrading. Like..."hey, look at that monkey with the tin foil hat on, lets just be mean to him." I guess when someone wears a hat for a job, they are basically saying "yeah, I AM a monkey" Anyway, we videotaped us pouring stuff over the balcony like piss, soda, beer, candy, jelly, etc...oh, and shaving cream. We went to this big music expo in Cali. and there were all these famous people there. So we played and 311, Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish, and other people were the "judges". They weren't really into judging because they were "judging" which waitresses and groupies they wanted to fuck. Jeremy actually gave a CD to the singer of Goldfinger at the end but he just walked away. It was pretty disgusting. But we made some friends, and we are desperately trying to get on Warped Tour again. Yeah it was just a funny thing that happened. These things always just happen to us, you know?

Smother - What are your aspirations for Humble Beginnings?

Josh - I guess we'd just like to not have to work at shitty jobs for the rest of our lives. Just to live off the band. Not like tour busses and snorting coke off of hooker's boobs, but like just getting by. Someone once told me "every band has to pay their dues", and it's true. Forget punk and everything else. Jewel lived out of her car for 2 years before she made it. Everyone does it. Everyone's gotta hurt every once in a while to pursue their beliefs and dreams. It's a fact of life. It's like that guy said from "A League of their Own." Jimmy Dugan. He's all: "It's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great". That pretty much sums it up.

Smother - What was the recording experience like for your CD EP, "Overanalyzing the Manifestations of the Unconscious"? Are you happy with the way the album came out? What has been the reaction towards your album?

Josh - We recorded it in like 3 days. We recorded at Nada Studios, which John from lounge owns. He's a great guy. We just recorded there again. I hate recording. It's bad, because I love recording too. It's just very tedious. I'm just impatient. Like as soon as I'm done with my respective instrument, I just wanna get the fuck out of there. I think everything John does gradually gets better, our new recording is better than the CD , but I think the guitar sound is great on the CD. It's our 1st CD, y'know? It's definitely special. It's been mixed feeling for the CD. We get the usual "NOFX rip-offs" or "NOFX Sounding". That actually flatters me, but Chris hates it. Then we have the idiots who hate the "Fat Wreck Sound". Like if a song is good, regardless what tempo it is, how can you say you hate all one kind of music. I don't love a lot of ska bands, but there are good ska songs. A lot of them. Like, just say the fucking songs are bad. Not "I hate Fat Wreck". The thing is, if you take that fucking Celine Dion Titanic song and just make that double the speed, it'll be Fat Wreck style, but none the less a good song. Some people. Oh, and some people actually do seem to like it.

Smother - If you met a guy named Carbomb, what do you think you would do?

Josh - I think we would be very disgusting. I would maybe ask him to change his name to "Gary" or "Steve H." Carbomb's are usually the kind of people who wear chef's hats. Those people are pompous.

Smother - What's in the near future for Humble Beginnings? Tour, plastic surgery, world domination, dinner?

Josh - Well we are doing a split CD with Bracket (Fat Wreck Chords). They'll be unreleased songs from both sides. We are touring with Lanemeyer in June and then Canada during the summer and maybe some shows with our friends Whippersnapper. The split should be out in summer or before summer.

Smother - What has been the biggest non-musical influence on your band?

Josh - Hmm, I'd say any vacuum that can give someone a haircut is definitely special. I think that nice people and HONEST people are definitely rare and influential. But the biggest? Charlie Sheen. After a career of funny and ridiculous movies, who has the balls to change their name to "Charles" and think that that will upscale their move direction and acting career? Kudos.

Smother - I was checking out your guestbook, and it seems there is some rather violent opposition from several people towards Humble Beginnings. Are you at liberty to discuss this situation, how you feel about it, and all that jazz?

Josh – Ok, here's the deal. The internet is evil. Guestbooks are evil. Guestbooks serve no purpose whatsoever. I really think that I should get rid of ours already. It's really an utterly useless thing. I'll discuss whatever. Someone pretending to be Fat Mike has signed numerous times. He somehow knows things that other people couldn't know besides us, and it isn't anyone in the band. And just people are writing bad things constantly. But for some reason, people love to see that kinda stuff. People feed on negative shit like that. I don't know why. Like, our guestbook, as silly as it is, keeps a lot of people coming to the website just to see us get trashed. I don't know. I'm thinking about getting rid of it. Maybe if there was something where you'd have to enter your name, or where every entry was made private, so it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. How do I feel about it? We have a lot of nice friends that sign it, but honestly, it's a computer. I think it's silly that people sign it and think that it makes any difference or "hits home". Someone called us "humble gayness"...come on! Seriously, oh, then there was "corporate ends". Like, it's dumb. I think negative stuff like that is just ridiculous, and I didn't always, but lately, if you don't like someone, just stay the hell away. We really haven't had much to do with anyone lately, so where are these people getting this from? I hate the internet.

Smother - I'm curious what the writing process is like for you guys. Is it a long and drawn out method, or do the songs just pop out? In particular, "Three Thirty Four," the first song on your CD-EP. It's just amazing.

Josh - Jeremy wrote 3:34. It was the 1st song we wrote in the band. The writing process is kinda simple. Songs just pop out. On the new recording, everyone wrote. And that's the way it'll go. Someone will come to practice with a song and we'll all arrange it. I'm kinda bad at arranging , but Chris is really good at it. So is Jeremy, actually, so is Rob. I suck at it. Someone will come to practice with like a verse, chorus, and bridge. I guess, and we'll just put it all together. The new recording, one song was written "in the studio". No, but everyone learned it in the studio. It's really easy. We take a while to perfect them, but usually, it's just Kechunk song writing. We all have our really weird ways of coming up with songs, like our little rituals.

Smother - Does anybody in the band have any weird habits? Fascinations with metal objects, collecting foreign objects (I always wondered exactly what constituted a "foreign object"), anything like that?

Josh - Um...we have a problem with abusing out help. We pre-order children through the mail and we make them help us carry things. The problem lies here, though. They carry all of our shit, and then we'll be selfish and be like, "ok, now that your done with that, put on some wooden shows and start dancing". They don't appreciate it. We have an obsession with midgets. We have "midg-dar". We played at a bar the other day, and there was dwarf or some little fella. And we just like "sensed his presence". He was all pissed off though. I think a foreign object, is anything that is not normal. Like midgets, chefs hats, that kinda weird stuff. Any kind of shoes are weird too.

Smother - Are there any final comments you'd like to make to the readers? Anything that got left out that you'd like to mention? Any dating/hair/food/life tips?

Josh - Um, ok, be genuine. Thank you to all the people that like us. All the people that come see us. Dax Wax Pomade is really good for hair to make it sticky. The Game Show network is good. Dawson's Creek isn't a good testimony of adolescent life. June '99 Humble Beginnings/Bracket split CD. Save your feelings for people who really deserve it. Treasure your real friends. Peace.