Interview with Tim “Shagrat” Jenkins
CB: When did you start going to
see shows? What kind of stuff was going
on in the 90s?
TJ:
I think I first starting to punk shows around ’94, and those were shows
at St. Andrew’s Hall, major label stuff like Pennywise and Bad Religion, you
know, stuff like that. I started going
to DIY shows around late ’95, ’96, Trumbullplex was doing shows around that
time. I met some people like Jeff
Nonsense, who wound up singing in Feast or Famine; I started going to shows
with him, and he was a few years older than me, 2-3 years older than me, knew
about some house shows, did a distro, and I started finding out about a lot of
stuff pretty quickly through him. That’s
about it, you know. Other shows spaces
back then, like that is the Token Lounge now, was Pharoah’s, they did a lot of
shows back then, the record store called the Beat Hotel that was in Berkley did
shows, and carried a lot of punk rock records.
CB: Where was that at?
TJ:
It was in Berkley, it was on 14 Mile Road between, somewhere between
Rochester and Woodward on 14 Mile. Do
you know the band Social Scare?
CB: I’m aware of them, yes.
TJ:
There was a guy, Shawn who was in that band. They were very popular in the mid-90s. All sorts of punks, like, kids who were into
hardcore, and kids who were into, just punk rock, he worked there, so he got a
lot of records in; a lot of kids got a lot of shit from that store, and it was
like, the main focus was ska music, which was weird, but ska was really popular
at the time. I was never to into it
myself, but it was cool because it crossed over; they’d get Oi! records,
hardcore records, UK 82 records.
CB: So he was kind of the guy
who brought everyone in one place?
TJ:
Yeah, basically. Noir Leather,
too. They used to sell punk shirts, and
used to have punks that used to work here.
CB: I know Jason from Social
Outcast and Justin from Civil Disobedience did, I’m pretty sure you know
Spinny…
TJ:
Yeah. Benji Moss too. He’s a really famous tattoo artist in Seattle
now. He used to be a crusty who was down
with all those guys who worked there too.
That was the place, man, for young punks. You could go check out the scene in Royal Oak
on a Friday or Saturday night, there’d be a ton of punks out on Main
Street. Those are some of the first
people and places I started learning about punk from.
CB: Was there any one particular
show that jumped out at you, one that just made you go, “I wanna be in a
band. I want to not just be a showgoer,
I wanna be a contributor”?
TJ:
Pretty much everything I’ve ever been to. I remember seeing Dystopia in or around 97-
it was at the Trumbull, and it was packed, shoulder to shoulder, on a hot
summer night. It was one of the most
intense shows I’ve ever seen. People
were just going crazy, there were people in front, they knew the samples to the
songs, there were people in tears, releasing this crazy energy. That show really stands out in my mind as
being one of best, most special shows I’ve ever seen. I don’t think they play live anymore.
CB: Dino plays in a band called
Ghoul.
TJ:
I like Ghoul, actually. But
Dystopia, I think they pretty much gave up playing live. But that show was actually very cool, that’s
one that really stands out in my mind, I guess.
CB: What is your connection to
the Trumbullplex? Did you find out about
it just by going to shows, or did you find out about it in a different way?
TJ:
I think the first time I was there was actually for some sort of ARA
(Anti-Racist Action) meeting, I don’t really know why or how I ended up there,
but I met a few people there, like Aaron/ Redbeard, then Jesse Waters, I met
there, we started hanging out. I don’t
really have any connection to anything.
In fact, I kinda thought it was a mismanaged place, with way too many
egos, too many fools running it.
CB: I will note that they have
had some decent shows there, and that seems to be like, their one saving grace,
and I haven’t seen them putting on many shows there, at least punk-wise.
TJ:
Without a doubt. With everything
I just said, one of the reasons why I feel that way is because it’s kind of a
special place, and it’s got a lot of history, and some of the best shows I’ve
ever seen have been there. Some of the
best shows I’ve ever played have been there.
They never really cared for hardcore punk. While I think they’ve always tried to be diplomatic
enough, to always try it, I think that ultimately, it goes with the pace of who
lives there and who’s booking. I don’t
think anyone there is really into like crazy shit happening. So they don’t like… certain bands have a
reputation. From what I understand from
some people, Shitfucker’s banned from there, Anguish is banned from there, I
don’t know…
CB: Shitfucker’s banned from
there- really?
TJ:
It’s all politics, that’s what I think is so silly about it- it’s such a
hierarchy, when you claim to be an anarchist collective, and you have one of
the most dramatic hierarchies that I’ve ever seen. No one else goes around formally banning people.
CB: Right- and that very much
runs counter to their culture of inclusivity that comes with anarchy.
TJ:
It’s a thin line, though, isn’t it?
It’s very easy to circle around from the far left to the far right,
where all of a sudden, you’re reactionary and you’re banning people, and you’re
witch-hunting people, and you’re closing off your mind to understanding other
peoples’ art. That’s all it is. They’re quite terrified of art, to be honest
with you, and quite terrified of things that are not in a PC-friendly zone, and
sometimes…
CB: A lot of my friends have
just refused to go to shows there, and say, “They’ll kick me out,” or “I just
can’t take that PC stupidity anymore”.
TJ:
Yeah. I mean, it’s hard for me,
because… I’m not trying to fuck up anybody’s shit, but every once in a while,
at punk shows, they’re chaotic. People
are drinking, they’re doing drugs, and they’re releasing this extreme energy
that people have pent up inside themselves.
People go to work at their shitty jobs every day, and sometimes they may
go weeks or months and then they can get to a show, get wasted, and just unload
all that energy. And it’s not
necessarily malicious. Sometimes in the
cathartic release of that, things get a little wild- bottles get broken, shit
gets smashed. But I think if you’re
involved with punk or any form of music, you have to be open to that, especially
in this community. You have to realize
that it’s gonna be a dangerous place to be sometimes.
CB: Artists have always been a
little different, and you have to be accepting of that difference if you want
to be inclusive; or, you can not be inclusive, and you can have your little
clique, like everybody else.
TJ:
I mean, that’s what sad, is that the opportunity’s there, for them to be
a legendary spot, one that really deals with issues, like Gilman Street, that
has a strong collective of people who are not about the personal cliques or the
personal biases, they’re about the collective and the good of the scene, and
they run it well, they have their shit locked down tight, and it’s a legendary
club where all sorts of bands, like heinous death metal bands to bands like
Green Day have played there, and that’s what the Trumbull could have been and
still could be, if you had the right people running it.
CB: How did you get the name
“Shagrat”?
TJ:
Pretty simple answer- when I was younger, I was a really big fan of
Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. In the
Lord of the Rings, one of the most notable orc names is (since orcs aren’t
really named) Gorbag and the other is Shagrat.
I was really influenced by that when I was younger, and I started
writing some graffiti, and started doing artwork, and started writing some
articles in my friend’s zines at the time, and I just kind of wanted a
pseudonym, and that’s where it came from.
CB: That’s similar to how I came
across mine, but mine’s a lot less interesting.
When did you form Feast or Famine, and what was the scene like then?
TJ:
Feast or Famine was formed in the summer of 2000. The scene was really shitty- the year 2000
was one of the worst times I’ve ever seen in punk or hardcore. There weren’t a lot of punk bands, and anyone
who was playing hardcore punk or was playing older style music- it was just
nonexistent. No one was really playing any kind of raw punk or D-beat. Some bands really got into this sort of
pseudo-folky style with bands like Anti-Product- there wasn’t any spiky hair
and studded leather…
CB: So basically, just about the
really wild guitars and fast drums, stuff like that?
TJ:
Everyone was way politicized, way self-absorbed; the scene was getting
to the point of where it was so pretentious, and it was just like, bordering on
arrogant. It was ridiculous, like emo
kids going to shows and crying during bands, and everyone was making their own
mini-personal zines, and it was all just fuckin’ self-indulgent emotional
bullshit. And we just started to be like
a fuckin’ fist to the face to all that, and we just started a band, like
myself, I was just with people who were all into that kinda music- myself,
Jeff, my friend Zan at the time (Zan Rehash), and then Jean-Paul. Just friends who were… none of us except
Jean-Paul knew how to play that well and I knew a little bit; I’d played bass
before, but never really guitar that much.
CB: But sometimes, you learn by
trying and failing.
TJ:
Yeah. That’s what we did- just
went for it, cause no one else was doing it, pretty much. And for better or worse- some it I like now,
some of it makes me kinda cringe, but I think all in all, we kinda did what we
set out to do, and that was get people into some different shit.
CB: You guys as (I won’t say
JUST you guys), but you were definitely a part of the group of people who
started getting things moving again.
TJ:
Yeah, I mean now, there’s a lot of different scenes, there’s a lot of
people who are into… how I can put this- darker sides of punk, there’s a kind
of established scene of bands that wasn’t there before. I think Feast of Famine probably had some
influence on that a little bit, but…
CB: Like I said, you were part
of a larger movement to get things running, so… you were basically the band who
was there when everyone else wasn’t.
TJ:
In Detroit, I mean nationally, around that time, there were a few others
bands, like in Portland, there was Atrocious Madness, bands like that were
starting to show the change in the scene, where people were starting to wear
black clothes again, started to wear studded leather and have charged hair
again- that was just fucking nonexistent before then. And Feast or Famine was I guess the harbinger
of that in Detroit. We didn’t really
sound like that band- they were way less noisy then we were. But that was what we were trying to do- trying
to bring out shows where kids were charging their hair again, and wearing fuckin’
leather jackets, bullets belts, and were die-hard kids into punk.
CB: Where did you guys play some
of your first shows?
TJ:
There was a place called the Hell House- it was Jean-Paul’s house, in
his basement. It was where a few of our
first shows were- it was pretty cool, actually.
We played at this place called Mr. Mugg’s in Ypsilanti. There was shit- I mean, I’m trying to think
back on places we played, and it was just fuckin’ shitty coffee houses and
shitty venues, which mostly got destroyed. We were pretty much banned from everywhere
because people would just come and tear everything apart, we were banned from
the Magic Stick, cause we played there near Christmas. We played downstairs in the bar area on a
Monday night at midnight, and they used to have shows… when we started playing,
the place just exploded; there were pint glasses being thrown everywhere, there
was just three solid inches of beer liquid on the floor, tables were getting
smashed, P.A.’s were getting knocked over, they had a Christmas tree up at the
time, and like, the Christmas tree totally got smashed, and there were punks
just flying into it, and people fighting, and I think Jeff smashed someone’s
face in with the butt end of a mic stand…
CB: That sounds pretty awesome,
actually.
TJ:
Yeah, we were banned from there, we were banned from Mr. Mugg’s, cause
it was just a coffee house, and everyone would come in and start drinking, and
we were banned from the Trumbull because Jean-Paul and I played in a noise
project called A.I.D.S. and people were all offended.
CB: He still does that now.
TJ:
He still does sometimes, but people with the PC attitude at the time
were all like, “That’s very offensive, so we’ll ban Feast or Famine by
proxy.” So, I don’t think we ever played
at the Trumbull because of that. We used
to play at Alvin’s a lot with Pub Life- that was later in our career, around
2003, right before we broke up, and those shows were when punks started coming
out again, you had Pub Life, who kind of had the same message that we did. They brought out a lot of kids as well. And you had the Ratfinks, who would show up
to shows and these 11-year old kids with huge mohawks and shit and little kids
were standing on the sides of the P.A. and shit and they had this weird little thug
crew of spiky haired punk group of kids who followed them. And they (The Ratfinks) were young
themselves, they were probably still teenagers.
CB: Alright- I think they’re all
roughly the same age, like late 20s, maybe early 30s, depending on who it is.
TJ:
Ironically enough, Slasher Dave, who I do Acid Witch with, was the
original guitar player for the Ratfinks.
CB: Huh- that I did not know.
TJ:
I don’t think a lot of people know that, actually.
CB: Nothing wrong with that;
Ratfinks are a good bad, and I like Acid Witch.
Did you guys ever tour (when you were in Feast or Famine)?
TJ:
Yeah, we did a couple small tours; the biggest was when we went out to
the west coast, we only did about 7 or 8 gigs on this tour. We went down through Ohio and Illinois,
across through Idaho into Washington, Portland, we played Seattle… those are
furthest away dates we ever did. We
tried to go down into California, but it just never worked out. So yeah, it was cool, because that was kind
of the height of the scene at that time in Portland and Seattle- people were
really into the whole kind of raw punk/ hardcore thing going on.
CB: I think Tragedy is from
Portland.
TJ:
Yeah, yup. So, it was cool, the
shows out there were pretty cool. We
played in Minneapolis, that show was awesome.
A lot of fuckin’ punks were there- at the time, a lot of crusties… Felix
Havoc showed up, and he was like, “Oh, I heard you guys like to collect
records.” So, he brought some of shit
from his personal collection that we might be interested in, and he somehow had
heard that Jean-Paul liked to collect Star Wars toys, so he brought some Star
Wars toys to the show, and tried to sell ‘em and for us to check out.
CB: Did he (Jean-Paul) wind up
buying them?
TJ:
I don’t remember. Probably not, I
think we were pretty fuckin’ poor at that time.
CB: Most bands usually are. What kind of bands did you bring in to
Michigan? I’ve seen some of the flyers
on the inside of the split LP you guys have with Social Outcast, but not
everyone has seen that.
TJ:
Yeah… trying to think of a few big ones…
Through myself or through people that I was pretty close with, mainly
being like Jeff or Zan or people in that band, we brought in bands like What
Happens Next, Dropdead, Phobia, Protestegnation (sp?) from Portland, Caustic
Christ…
CB: DS-13, too.
TJ:
Yeah, DS-13 played, but that was not something that any of us booked.
CB: Oh, it just happened to be
there?
TJ:
Yeah, it was a show that we played with them. Maybe Jeff booked that, I’m not sure. Man, there’s so many more, I’m just drawing a
blank… Provoked from Minneapolis, Riistetyt from Finland, shit. Yeah, that’s the question that I’d have to
kind of go through and like-
CB: Dig through some more
flyers?
TJ:
Yeah. Look through some old stuff… But yeah, that’s a few there, a few
kind of bands that were pretty well-known at the time, that were kind of
influential to bring through.
CB: Just part of the scene that
was going on, and you tried to bring some of it in?
TJ:
Yeah, we ended up playing through Jason, he would book and Paul Sinn,
from Pub Life, would book a lot of these UK 82 and pogo punk bands… Oxymoron, Anti-Nowhere
League, and stuff like that.
CB: How did the old school
network of bands function? Because it’s
hard to look back and look at pre-internet and e-mail from someone coming from
my perspective, since I’ve been using the internet since I was like 15 or
something, so I honestly don’t know how shows used to be booked like that.
TJ:
Well… a lot of it was done through the mail or phone calls. You’d get contacts from people, through
records, a lot of it was like, “Okay, well, I wanna go to this city,” so you’d
look around at the records from that city, maybe write to someone, or call
someone if you can get a number, and say, “Hey, can you do a show?” That was pretty much that, or just get
contacts from people who traveled around, and that was all you could do. Go through the people that did shit- through
labels, the distros, and the bands, and contact them and see if they were down
to help you out. That was that. E-mail was around, I know some people were
using it, some people were using websites, I’m sure, but I didn’t know anything
about it at the time. I think Jeff may
have been a little bit more down with all that, doing e-mail stuff in the
beginning, he was a little more computer-savvy.
You just had to meet people. Back
then, you’d meet punks, like, if you were driving your car and saw somebody
that looked like a punk, you’d slam on your brakes and be all, “Hey, hey, come
here.” And then, more or less, you
pretty much had a friend for life. A lot
of people I met in the Detroit area when I was in the 90s… if they were into
weirdo music or hardcore punk, people just bonded, and they were friends.
CB: Right, because it was that
much more rare.
TJ:
Yeah, it was such an obscure thing.
CB: Alright. If I can ask, when and why did Feast or
Famine break up? Because Jason (Outcast)
did tell me that there was a little bit of ambiguity there with Jeff.
TJ:
Well, yeah. I’m sure you’re
referring to some of Jeff’s politics…
CB: It was something like that,
yeah.
TJ:
To be honest about it, Jeff and Zan were assaulted in Pontiac in a
racist attack by some people and were told, “White people, get the fuck out of
our neighborhood.” They were beaten
really bad- left in the hospital, broken jaw…
CB: Oh, so some really nasty
stuff?
TJ:
Yeah, and Zan was beaten really bad, some guys beat her up and were
telling them, “You white people don’t belong here.” And I think after that, she moved, she moved
out of Michigan to Seattle, and Jeff stayed and I think there was some
confusion and some anger within him, and he started getting more into some
skinhead type stuff. He used to be
really crusty, like long dreadlocks, covered in patches and bullet belts and
started getting more into what you would say is right wing, skinhead, militant
type viewpoint. I wouldn’t say he was
ever a Nazi or ever affiliated with anything like that, but to go from being
like this filthy crusty to this Fred Perry wearing, stay-pressed… it was a
shock to people, and they were like, “Oh, he’s a Nazi, he’s a Nazi!” But I think his tastes were just changing,
and he was changing as a person. The
real reason why the BAND broke up was because I think him and Jean-Paul just
didn’t get along anymore. Jeff was
straight edge since the day I’d known him.
He was one of the few people I’ve ever met who throughout all the
drinking and drugs of the punk scene, he never wavered, he was never tempted,
never said, “Oh, I’m gonna try it.”
(I’ve) never seen him smoke a cigarette, never seen him drink a beer at
a show, and Jean-Paul obviously was the complete exact opposite, so those two
sides… I always told myself and whoever else was in the band, be it Zan or be
it Jaysklar, our last bass player, we were like the in-betweeners.
CB: Just basically the
mediators?
TJ:
Yeah, the mediators. Those two
guys, they were THE Feast or Famine of the band, so eventually tensions rose
between them, and I believe it was Jean-Paul quit the band, told us he wasn’t
gonna play in the band anymore, and then that’s how the band broke up.
CB: What kind of stuff did you
form after that?
TJ:
After that, the first thing I started doing was a band called Warwolf,
which played maybe six or seven shows, we opened up once for Michale Graves,
that replacement singer for the Misfits, and we ate all his pizza and drank all
his beer and him and his band tried to challenge us to a backyard wrestling
match, death-match thing.
CB: And then you just went home?
TJ:
Yeah, and pretty much everyone just laughed at him. So, Warwolf played a few legendary shows, it
was more weird crusty speed metal type stuff- we wanted to sound like
Repulsion, or maybe Slayer, but we couldn’t play our instruments like that, so
it sounded a little more like Repulsion or the first Mayhem demo, pretty
rough. After Warwolf, I joined Pirate
Law- I’d played with Aaron and Jesse in a band called the Nihilists when we
were teenagers, and a band called Lindane, which actually had Tony Bevaque from
the Bill Bondsmen in it, which is pretty funny to think back on now- indeed he
was the singer in a grindcore band at a point.
CB: That’s definitely a bit of
information I didn’t know and I think I’ll go hassle him about that the next
time I see him.
TJ:
Yeah, I think he tries to disassociate himself from the Lindane legacy,
but, you know, we did a demo- it’s not too bad.
But anyways, so I started playing with Pirate Law, which was the band
those guys were doing (Jesse and Aaron); we were in Lindane, and then the
Nihilists, and then I was in Pirate Law for quite a while.
CB: Whatever happened with
that? I know you guys played a few shows
for a little while, but I never saw anything really released from the band.
TJ:
The band was kind of known for its live performances, let’s say that as
a point. Definitely a crowd favorite;
the live band did some pretty crazy live shows- lots of puking onstage, and
pirate-y drunken antics. The band,
because of that, never really did too much- we recorded one demo tape, that was
all we ever really recorded, and then band eventually (fell apart); some shit
happened, and I ended up moving out to Lansing, I left the band, and I think
they continued on for a little while longer with Mark from Anguish playing
bass, and then they broke up.
CB: How long were you out in
Lansing for?
TJ:
I was out in Lansing for almost exactly a year. Yeah, I went out there- I was kind of burned
out on Detroit after some stuff happened, we were getting kind of just burned
out of the whole just… chaos every day thing, you know, drinking every day, mad
partying…
CB: Just after a while, it
becomes like, “I’m either gonna keep being the party guy, or I gotta get myself
together.”
TJ:
Yeah, everyone was starting to get really reckless, and pretty crazy,
and things were escalating to a point where I think everybody knew that something
bad was gonna happen, too many places trashed, literally parties trashing
houses to the bone, where you eventually got to a point where you just had to
leave. After things got to a point in
the summer of 2007, after several of our houses burned down, I should say, like
Manarchy House burned down, Pumpkin House burned down, and a few other pretty
wild incidents throughout. My friend
Barton was looking for some roommates at her house, the VMC, in Lansing. I don’t know if you ever got a chance to go
out there before.
CB: Were those house issues,
were those related to the Klinger Street incident?
TJ:
Yeah, a lot of the shit was getting pretty crazy over there, so after
that, after Manarchy burned down, I was pretty much homeless, so I was like,
“Fuck it, my friend needs a roommate,” and went out there, lived out there for
a year to get back on my feet a little bit.
You kinda reap what you sew, and karma’s a bitch, I guess, but myself and a lot
of people around that time were living on a razor’s edge, and I guess when you
do that, sometimes, eventually, you’re gonna get cut, and I’m not surprised it
happened.
CB: When did you actually meet
the guys in Shitfucker? Because I know you weren’t the first guy in that band.
TJ:
I met Dick, Bruce, and Tony, the original members of Shitfucker, when
they were pretty young, about 15. I was
a bit older, well into my 20s at that point.
They were in a band called Hue that used to play out at Flipside in
Clawson. At the time, they were just
some young kids getting into punk, but unlike most kids their age. They were the kids who wanted to seek out
some interesting shit, and they’d ride their bikes out from Berkley or Oak Park
or wherever they lived, and ride down to the ghetto on Klinger Street and party
all weekend.
CB: So, just lots of weird shit?
TJ:
Yeah, it wasn’t uncommon for a naked 15-year old Dik-Beat to be running
around outside in public in the neighborhood, it was a pretty common occurrence
over there.
CB: I’ve never talked to him
much, but he has always seemed like a dude that’s a little out there. For better or for worse, he seems like just a
bit of a weird dude.
TJ:
I don’t know, for whatever reason, those kids were young, but they could
hang, and were genuinely interested in learning about punk and they picked it
up pretty fast, and they could hang with a bunch of fuckin’ drunkards. He’s… he’s Dik-Beat, what can I say? He’s a real character.
CB: When was it that you
actually decided to join that band?
TJ:
I always liked them from the first time I saw them. I was really into what they were doing- they
were taking this kind of Feast or Famine raw punk influence, but then taking
all of the crust influence out of it, and almost just doing the straight
Discharge D-beat, Shitlickers type stuff, and I was always really into that, so
I was like, “Fuck man, these guys.” I
never really heard a band in Detroit do that before, so I was really interested
from day one, and then eventually, after just hanging out all the time- I don’t
know who brought it up, but the idea of me playing second guitar for them,
adding an even noisier sound, to be more Japanese, like Gloom… We talked about
it, and I was like, “Yeah, let’s do it,” so for a time, we were a four-piece,
with Bruce playing guitar, myself playing guitar, Tony on drums, and Dick playing
bass and doing vocals. Then, Tony left,
because Tony was in Anguish, and kind of left.
I think he wanted to progress a little more musically, because we were
like really raw noise punk at that point, and Anguish was starting to get a lot
more technical, so he kinda left, and Bruce went to playing the drums, and then
we were a three piece for a while. Bruce
quit the band, for various reasons, and we got Charlie, and that’s where we’re
at now.
CB: How did Charlie come across
to meet the band? Was he one of those
guys who was just kinda there, and you wound up needing a drummer, and he just
said, “I’ll do it”?
TJ:
I’ve known Charlie for years. He
was in a band called Random Axe of Terror, that were pretty cool with Feast or
Famine, another band that was like… they were the Lansing Feast or Famine, they
were doing this cool noise raw punk thing out there at the time. Charlie used to be in that band, so we played
all the time, then he and Dick were roommates for a while, and when Bruce quit
the band, him and Dick were still roommates, so it was kind of just a natural
choice to be like, “Hey, you wanna play drums?”
CB: Since you’ve been in the
band, what has Shitfucker physically released?
I know you’ve got a few 7” records and one split LP, but I don’t know
too much about them- I’ve never been able to actually find a physical copy of
(them). I’ve looked around, I just
really never had that much luck.
TJ:
Yeah, the distribution and presses have always been relatively
small. We have three demo tapes: Total
Fucking Noise, Human Disorder, and then a rehearsal tape, which has various
names.
CB: That’s the one thing I’ve
heard, because Brian gave me some of the tracks from it.
TJ:
It was a rehearsal tape, but I consider it a demo, because a lot of people
ended up getting it. And then we put out
(the) I.N.R.I.-F.O.A.D. 7”, which was limited to like 300 copies that we put
out ourselves, and then we did the Sexual Maniac record 7”, which was 500, that
was with Black Shit Noise from Texas.
CB: Yeah, Charlie was just
telling me about that the other Saturday- he was saying the guy’s kinda flaky.
TJ:
Yeah, and that guy, he can be kind of hard to get a hold of, as with all
underground releases. That’s just kind
of the way things are, you know- Shitfucker’s not a band for everybody. People with particular tastes are going to be
into it, I should say. And then we put
out the 12” four-way compilation, “Filthiest of Apocalyptic Detroit”.
CB: That was with Perversion,
Anguish, and your other band, Reaper.
TJ: Yeah, that release is still pretty available-
you should be able to find that, in distros and stuff.
CB: Tell me a little more about
Reaper. I know you guys were playing out
for a little bit, and then just kinda stopped for the two years, and you guys just
started playing out again.
TJ:
Yeah. Reaper came out of the
ashes of a band called Hellstallion, which was Charlie and Jack from Random Axe
of Terror, and then they had a different singer- she couldn’t cut it, I guess- they
did some shows where she ended up walking offstage for whatever reason. She didn’t feel she could cut it, so they
were looking for another singer, and I was friends with those guys, and I’ve
always been into thrash metal, early death metal, so I was looking for the
chance to play in a band like that. So
that’s how that got started, and we just wanted to be more like… no one was
playing metal, so we wanted to a pretty straight metal band. Everyone came out of punk bands, so it had
inherent punk influences, but we wanted to do something different, and then
thrash metal got really big soon after, and there were a lot of new old-school
sounding thrash metal bands around, but most of ‘em fuckin’ suck.
CB: A lot of them do. I’ve found a few rare gems in that big, big
bunch, but yeah, to a large extent, when to try to revive something, sometimes
it’s just not nearly as good.
TJ:
Yeah, a lot of it is too overproduced- that’s the biggest problem with
music today- a lot of it is just fuckin’ overproduced. When you think about a lot of old school
bands, you listen to like Minor Threat, Discharge, GBH, whoever you name… None
of these bands sound the same, all of these bands have different recording
sounds, and even in the metal, from like Venom to Slayer to Metallica to
Megadeth, all of the records sounds different.
But now, with ProTools and all this crap, bands just sound the
same. You listen to fifteen of these new
thrash albums, and they all have the exact same production, and you can’t tell
‘em apart. And that’s where the boredom
sets in- if you have fifteen bands playing nuanced music with different
sounding recordings and different levels of professionalism of recordings, I
think I would be way more into a lot of new music. But because of that fact, I’m just not- I’m
not into new metal, I’m not into new punk, I’m not into new fuckin’ whatever,
thrash metal, new crust, it’s… a lot of it is just too overproduced and
homogenized sounding for myself.
I mean, that’s my personal tastes,
to each their own. I’ve always liked
raw, shitty sounding recordings. I like
fucking filthy sounding shit.
CB: Why do you think
Shitfucker’s gotten so much national attention?
For whatever reason, you guys seem to be pretty big around the rest of
the Midwest, and you’ve definitely got your fans here too. You guys have a lot of attention that a lot
of other bands have not gotten.
TJ:
Yeah, I think it’s because we’re different, there’s not really a lot of
bands that sound like Shitfucker. It’s
something where people that are going to seek out weird and lost forms of
music, if they really wanna dig deep down into that scum, Shitfucker’s waiting
there at the bottom. It’s weird- it
sounds weird, and it recalls things that I think are vaguely familiar to
people; obviously, G.I.S.M., Hero, Japanese bands like that. But we don’t really sound like any of those
bands; we really have our own thing going.
Plus, I think the image is fuckin’ weirdo to people, people don’t know
what to think of it. If you wear cool
studs and spikes, there’s always going to be a built-in thing for that where
die-hards- people are just gonna be attracted to that. I find it somewhat interesting that you asked
me this question, because I don’t really see Shitfucker as being a band that’s
popular nationally.
CB: Well, not so much popular as
in MORE popular than some bands from around here. For example, Hellmouth gets some attention,
but I know why. It has (at least partly)
to do with Jay being in Suicide Machines.
And (as for) you guys, I don’t know.
TJ:
And I guess that’s what I mean.
Hellmouth is an example of a band that I would consider gets a lot of
national attention. There’s a big gap
between the amount of press that a Hellmouth than a Shitfucker gets. Like I said, Shitfucker’s kind of a unique
band- there’s not many people doing it, and I think the real thing that really
sticks with people is that it’s from the heart.
People know it’s fucking real, there’s no contrived shit, no images or
graphics we use are stolen from someone else’s ideas, or just, “Hey, let’s use
more skulls or bombs or bullets,” and all this crap. I think we’re trying to forge a real new
direction, combining new influences, plus we’re just all a bunch of weirdoes
who get around, meet people- we seem to stick out. When we play at fests, you can definitely
tell that people are either really into it or they just fuckin’ leave the
room. It’s the worst shit they’ve ever
seen.
CB: Well, some people get it,
and those that don’t get it, don’t matter.
TJ:
Fuck yeah, dude. I think that’s
what punk’s all about- the iconoclasts.
Be a fuckin’ rule breaker. When
things become too status quo, move on to something else. I think with Shitfucker, that’s why we
changed a bit from being a pure D-beat band into being more of a band that has
more metal influences, and just different influences in general, because I
think we just got tired, and felt limited, there’s so many bands playing that
style. You gotta be creative, and you
just gotta branch out on your own.
CB: Regarding your art in
Shitfucker, what do you think the future holds?
Do you have any future plans regarding releasing stuff, or doing some
more art for bands, or what?
TJ:
Those are kind of two separate questions that I have to handle separately. As far as Shitfucker goes, we’re working on a
full-length, and I’d say it’s probably about 90% written, we probably wanna do
one more song for it, so hopefully we’re gonna record that over the summer
(editor’s note: he’s referring to what is now the Sucks Cock In Hell LP on
Hell’s Headbanger’s Records). When my
artwork is involved with bands, like Shitfucker, Acid Witch, or Reaper…
CB: Or Choose Your Poison.
TJ:
Well, Choose Your Poison wasn’t my band.
I wasn’t in that band.
CB: Oh, I was referring to your
art that you did for them.
TJ:
Oh, right. Like, when I do art
for other bands, like for example Choose Your Poison, most of that’s just guys
I knew from playing shows with them, so they contacted me, and just did a
commission. I like doing that stuff, I’m
open to working with different bands and stuff, I’m into it. Essentially, that’s what I want to keep it
as. Some punk artists you see stuff by,
like I’ll see (this kind of work) all the time, and eventually, the same
imagery starts to repeat itself. It’s
the same skulls, skeletons with Viking helmets that are brightly colored with
colored pencil.
CB: And it’s not like a unique
sort of mascot like Vic Rattlehead from Megadeth or something.
TJ:
It’s the same imagery, and it gets boring. Any imagery in punk gets boring, be it black
and white photos of dead bodies, or skulls with bombs or wings or
whatever. I feel as an art form, punk is
in a really stagnant point right now, there’s not a lot of people who are
pushing it forward as an art form, I think it is an art form- even the reaction
of hardcore in the 80s, going back to our Bags conversation, with the art punk
of the 70s, hardcore was always evolving, and something needs to evolve
now. There aren’t not too many bands
that are evolving- most of the bands are devolving, trying to play…
CB: They’re trying to play stuff
that was created in the 80s?
TJ:
To a tee. They would say, “Oh, we
like Discharge. We’re gonna wear their
clothes, we’re gonna do the record logo, we’re gonna have their same kind of
images, we’re gonna do a similar design, we’re gonna fuckin’ sound like ‘em…
you know, insert that with any band.
CB: And then, after a while, you
just go, “I’ve got that record already.”
TJ:
And I will say with Discharge, they are probably my all-time favorite
band. I do like Dis- bands, and I’m not
trying to say that I think that shit’s necessarily a waste of time or stupid,
I’m just trying to use it as a metaphor for other things. Now, you see all these thrash bands that do
the same thing as, say, Exodus, just like the Dis- bands do the same thing as
Discharge, they just wanna be like someone else.
CB: Indeed. While Discharge is a good band, there are a
thousand different bands that are playing that stuff that are absolutely terrible.
TJ:
Yeah. I mean, there are some
bands who do it well, and then there are other bands where it’s pretty boring,
and you can tell, it’s just straight-up regurgitated. I wanna see people have some new ideas, and
some new creative ideas in punk, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what I’m all about at this point, just
trying to do something kinda different, still being true to your influences,
and being true to the predecessors. But,
taking all that, and building something new.
Trying to build on a foundation, but go to a new place with it.
CB: Basically, to go back to the
original foundation, and instead of walking their same path, walking a
completely separate one?
TJ:
Yeah, like I was saying about art punk and hardcore, those guys were all
into that shit, and then they took those influences and they ran in a
completely different direction with it.
All those guys listened to the Bags, and they listened to the X-Ray
Spex, and they listened to Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and stuff, and the
Ramones, you name it, but then they made hardcore. It’s completely different, but without that
influence of those bands, it wouldn’t exist.
And that’s what I’d like to think Shitfucker is. You know, without G.I.S.M., we probably
wouldn’t exist; without Venom, we probably wouldn’t exist. But we don’t, I don’t wanna just ape Venom or
G.I.S.M., I don’t just wanna rehash what they’ve done, I wanna do our own new
thing.
CB: How did you come across
meeting Jason “Outcast” McGregor?
TJ:
Through Feast or Famine. You
know, he started doing Pub Life- Jason was out of the scene for a while. I got into punk, started going to DIY shows,
crust shows around like late ’95, early ’96, and Social Outcast I think broke
up in ’94, and Civil Disobedience had moved to Minneapolis around that time, so
I just missed that scene. Jason was out of it for probably the late
‘90s, and then he started to see Feast or Famine stuff, and he was like, “Whoa,
this stuff is coming back.” Because it
was dead- when those bands, like Civil D and Social Outcast left, it was dead
for those maybe five or six years, seven years until the early 2000s, and then
we met through that. I think the first
time we ever met each other was maybe at Flipside Records.
CB: It tends to be a common
meeting place. I go there like every
Tuesday or so.
TJ:
Yeah, I think he had met Jeff. I
remember Jeff met him, and he was like, “Holy shit, you’ll never believe who I
met today.” And I was like, “Who?” And he was like, “Jason, who used to be in
Social Outcast,” cause, we were fans of that band, we were fans of Civil D and
Social Outcast, but it was like a completely different scene to us, we didn’t
know anyone from that time. It was
pretty exciting for us to meet someone from that time, meet someone from those bands.
CB: I’ve noticed you guys have a
lot of similar traits. He does a lot of
art too, he’s sort of the head of a band, you’ve (both) got the glasses thing,
there’s a number of similar traits that you share.
TJ:
Yeah, I mean it’s kind of ironic.
Before I ever met him in person, when I was a 15-year old crusty who was
into Social Outcast, I used to do all sorts of punk drawings, and I used to
always look at his drawings of skeletons with spiky hair and shit, and try to
kinda steal a little thing or two from his style. Yeah, it was cool when I met him- I
definitely got along with him from the start, we kind of had some interests in
common. It was like meeting another punk
or another artist.
CB: Right on. Just out of curiosity, who did you record
with when your recorded your tracks for your 7” records and the split LP?
TJ:
All the Shitfucker stuff we’ve ever recorded except for the tracks on
the split LP, we’ve done ourselves, on 4-tracks or 8-tracks; we’ll record
ourselves on analog, 8-track or 4-track cassette players. And then the stuff for the comp was recorded
by our friend Chris Slavin, and then our friend Dave Cohl. They just like did it pretty much out of
their house, they had a little bit more recording equipment than we had. Everything we’ve ever recorded, we’ve always
pretty much done ourselves or with friends.
CB: How do you feel the four-way
comp turned out?
TJ:
I mean, I think it turned out great.
But, then again, I did pretty much most of the design and layout for it,
or art and layout. So, I guess, if I
thought it sucked, I’d have no one to blame but myself. All in all, I think it turned out pretty
good- I mean, there were a few things that bothered me. I know like very small things- like, on the
Reaper track, we busted a snare drum head on the bottom right before we
recorded and didn’t have time to go get a new one, so it’s a little
high-pitched, but fuck it.
CB: That’s what punk’s about,
saying, “This isn’t perfect.”
TJ:
And it was recorded in the middle of August on the 8th floor
of a fuckin’ warehouse/ slaughterhouse, meat-packing place in Eastern market
where the elevators didn’t work, so we had to literally lug equipment up 8
flights of stairs in like 95 degree heat.
Of like warehouse stairs, which means a flight of stairs is actually
four, or like, “One, two,” so we were doing almost like 16 flights of
stairs. And that was pretty… we were
like, “Let’s just record this shit.” So
everyone busted it out, it actually turned out really good for the amount of
time that was spent on it in the recording process.
CB: That’s very good. Is the thing (the vinyl record) actually a
benefit for Jesse Waters?
TJ:
Yeah. Alejandra put it out, and
it was her first release. She was
coordinating some benefits for Jesse and stuff.
I didn’t handle any of the distribution or any of that stuff, that’s all
her and her label. She kinda did it as a
favor I think to him and to us, you know- she did pay for the record and she
paid for all the bands’ recording costs, too, so that was kind of our trade-off,
we gave our time as bands and our music, contributed artwork, contributed our
thing. So as far as the money she’s
raising and all that stuff, I’m really not the guy to ask about it.
CB: Is there anything else you
wanna mention, like any name-drops, some input, opinions, words of wisdom?
TJ:
Words of wisdom, I’d say… Keep blinders on, don’t worry about what other
people are telling you to do, don’t worry about what fuckin’ people say on the
internet, don’t worry about people who talk shit to you and say that what you
do sucks or whatever. Keep those
blinders on, run your own race, and be true to yourself, and I think people
will have more success as a band or as a person, whatever you do. I think too many bands worry too much about
what other people have to think about them, and when that happens, they just
end up putting out the same old shit, and eventually, you get forgotten. It’s the bands that everybody fuckin’ slags
off and everyone is afraid of- when they come out, those are the bands that
people remember.
CB: One thing that you can
always say is even if someone’s talking shit about you, your name is still in
their mouth, so… free promotion.
TJ:
Well, that’s the thing that I always get a kick out [of] it. I think it’s fuckin’ hilarious that people
talk shit on the internet, or whatever, on Shitfucker videos. Like, whatever people say… I’ve always gotten
a kick out of that- but I’ve also… I dunno, not much offends me, either. You’ve gotta take yourself with a grain of
salt. Get over it and take some risks.
CB: Also, how did you feel that
show last Saturday went (editor’s note: this show was Shitfucker, Krang,
Scum, and Final Assault)?
TJ:
Pretty good, I think it’s cool. Detroit
needs a house space, a DIY space like that.
I gotta hand it to those dudes, they have the right punk mentality. They’re responsible enough to kind of control
the chaos, but they’re reasonable and punk enough to realize that there’s going
to be chaos, and they’re flexible enough to not shit a brick if some bottles
get broken or some shit happens. As far
as I know- I think they’ve always been really cool. It’s been pretty cool to open their house to
that- literally in their living room, not even their fuckin’ basement. I thought it went pretty well- hopefully,
fingers crossed, knock on wood, the space continues for a while with good
results.
CB: And it was too bad about the
whole Deviated Instinct thing, too- I was kind of looking forward to that.
TJ:
Yeah, so was I- I mean, I was really looking forward to it- I’ve always
been a big Deviated Instinct fan, and I was looking forward to seeing
them. Obviously, I’ve never seen them,
so I was just excited to see a fuckin’ band play live that I actually wanted to
see for once. Seems like shows, at least
shows I’m interested in, have been pretty few and far between in Detroit
lately.
CB: Sometimes that’s what
happens. The more bands you see, you
just go, “Eh, I’ve seen this band enough times, I’m not really interested- I
want to find something else.” Especially
seeing a band you could consider maybe not heroes, but like, something higher
than contemporaries.
TJ:
With that stuff, you’ve gotta be down to earth. I don’t think bands should look at themselves
as heroes, and in the same way, I don’t think bands should look at bands as
heroes- I’ve always tried to be a pretty down-to-earth person, and if people are
into cool stuff, that’s the main interest, the main frame for me is like, don’t
get too full of yourself, because you’re gonna, in a lot of ways, I think,
discredit yourself, because how many bands have you stopped listening to
because you met somebody in some band that you thought was really right on and
then you met ‘em and they’re just a fuckin’ asshole, and then you start to
realize, “You know what? This person’s
an asshole.” And then you look closer at
the band, and you’re like, “This band’s kinda fuckin’ fake. None of this shit’s… it’s all a fuckin’ act.” And then you know what you do? You sell your CD or you throw it away or
whatever. I hate fuckin’ rock stars and
I hate people who act like that. I’m
still playing the same shitty DIY shows that I’ve… I’ve played some fuckin’ big shows too- I
played Maryland Death Fest, and stuff, but I was humbled by that. I went there as a fan, and it was fuckin’
awesome, but I don’t think I’m some rock star.
I just think I’m a dude who just got lucky and was able to do something
like that.
CB: Right. Was that last year or the year before?
TJ:
It was last year, with Acid Witch.
CB: How did that wind up going?
TJ:
It was pretty awesome, man. It
was like nothing I’ve ever really experienced before. We had a really good time slot, we played
Saturday night at like 11:30, and it was pretty much like, “Holy shit.” When we got on that fest, we thought, “Oh, they’ll
probably put us on some time during the day,” and then we got that spot, so it
was gonna be packed. And, yeah- played
in front of probably like 5000 people, and it was- the energy was great. I’ve never felt energy like that where you’re
just like… it’s almost like a transcendental experience, like being, feeling
something like that, and playing that in front of that many people, it almost
sends you into a weird kind of astro trip, almost, I would say- kind of an
out-of-body experience, at least for me.
It was like a fuckin’ trip, it was like an out-of-body experience.
CB: Well, not every band gets to
play Maryland Death Fest.
TJ:
Just the vibe too- for us, I think it was really cool because no one had
ever seen us before, because we’re not a band that plays live very much. And especially no one from anywhere else-
we’ve played maybe four or five shows in Detroit, never out of state, so that
was really cool. Actually, we did play
in Chicago once, but that was after Maryland Death Fest. So, yeah, there was definitely excitement in
the air, I think. It’s pretty cool.
