NY Cops, JD, and Speeding – Interview w/Bouncing Souls

in Interviews by BBtBB Team — November 16, 2009 at 10:40 am | 3 comments

NY Cops, JD, and Speeding – Interview w/Bouncing Souls

by Diego Silva & Stephen Shaw
Photos by Switchblade Visions

Jersey has been the birthplace of some amazing musicians, including the great Bouncing Souls, who are celebrating their 20th year together by touring the world. During their stop in Toronto with Youth Brigade, we had the opportunity to talk to Bryan ‘Papillon’ Kienlen, bassist of the Souls. As we rested on their tour bus, eating subs and drinking whiskey, we talked about their label, their history, and the culmination of 20 years of non-stop rock. Bryan gives insight into the true life of the Bouncing Souls and the reality of the musician’s constant struggle. The Bouncing Souls have recently released a 20th Anniversary Series, their eighth full length album, in a very unique manner. The album is split into four series and each of the 12 tracks were released each month of the year. Volume 4 is set to be released in December, finishing off the series alongside 4 unreleased tracks available for anyone that pre-ordered the series or ordered it on iTunes.

BBtBB: We started the day with the BYO documentary, Let Them Know, have you seen it?

Bryan: Yeah, it’s great! How was the turn out to the screening?

BBtBB: It was pretty good, considering the size of the hidden venue they chose for it. The place is called the Trash Palace, which suits the whole vibe of the film, but is very well hidden! You released your first full length in 1994 under your own label, Chunksaah Records. Can you relate the story of BYO Records to the creation of Chunksaah? Are there any similarities?

Bryan: I guess so. One thing we have in common is that we were born out of necessity. We didn’t have a grandiose plan or vision, we just needed to keep moving forward and waiting on a record label to come along and put our stuff out, we realized it was a waste of time. We didn’t know anything coming into this at all. We just decided to put out our own shit, that’s the long and short of it, really. Born out of necessity.

BBtBB: I’m sure in the time from then to now, you must have learned something. What are some of the most important things you’ve learned along the way?

Bryan: For sure we’ve learned as we’ve gone along. One thing we learned about ourselves is that it’s really hard to run a label and be a band at the same time, and you can see that in Youth Brigade as well. We got to a point where we had choose, not one or the other, but we had to focus our energy and you can focus all of your energy eternally on either of those things. We decided to focus all our energy on the Bouncing Souls, which led to us getting behind on the label stuff. We couldn’t keep up with the mail, or the time needed.  That’s when Kate [Hiltz, now owner of Chunksaah] stepped in and has been helping us ever since. She helps with the Bouncing Souls and she also basically runs Chunksaah Records because we can’t do it! We’ve been on tour all year, so you need help, that’s what we’ve learned. Luckily we have good help, Kate and Zack do a great job. We have the fun of putting out a band we really like once in a while. Basically it’s a money-losing operation right now (laughs). It’s based on love, you know? We’re so happy to be able to do it.

BBtBB: You recently went to South America for the first time ever. How were you received? Were fans going wild to catch you after waiting so long?

Bryan: Yeah! We hadn’t been there ever! In the case of Mexico City, they packed the club out – it was 600 person capacity and there was another 600 kids outside the place who couldn’t get in. There were these giant doors on this 50 year old church that stayed closed but there was this crowd outside that wouldn’t go anywhere. Cops came and bottles were being thrown and there was a whole melee. We were in our hotel room across the street and we couldn’t get in either. We couldn’t get through the crowd to get to the club! Eventually we did, of course, but Mexico City was fucking awesome. It was really cool to have that kind of response. It just went from there, that was the first major show and the whole tour had that vibe. A lot of crazy kids. It was cool because it was all ages so you had kids of all ages. You had old punks who got into us 10-15 years ago or even longer, then all these young kids were there, which is true of a Bouncing Souls show anyway. It’s neat that old punks still come out with the young kids, it’s a good mix of people.

BBtBB [Shawzy]: Would you ever consider doing a Backstage Pass Tour like NOFX did going to places where people have been dying to see you?

Bryan: I would love to do it, but I don’t think the Souls could do it. Fat Mike has money and NOFX does really well and makes a lot of money in general. They can afford to do that kind of thing and we can’t even afford to go to Sweden! (laughs) It takes money and I would love to do it.

BBtBB: It must be refreshing to have a crowd go wild for you like that and have the cops called. You don’t see much of that here anymore.

Bryan: People get a show every week here. It’s not like they’re saying, “Oh my fuckin’ God, a PUNK band!” I think if we could get to the places where people haven’t seen us before, if we could afford to go there, we’d have that same reaction. I know because people tell me, “You have to go to Hungary! You’ll pull in 1000 people!” I believe it but it’s just not that easy. It took us this long just to get to South America.

BBtBB: You guys have been around for 20 years now! You celebrated it with some exclusive shows with great bands like Lifetime and 7 Seconds. How was it playing alongside those bands that have lived through the same struggle as you?

Bryan: It was a total honor in both those cases, Lifetime and 7 Seconds, and all of it is friendship. We are all just fucking brothers with both those bands, same with Youth Brigade. At this point we’re totally family with those guys. From my point, it’s still an honor to play with those bands. We were huge fans of them when we were in high school. Talk about living your high school dreams, we just do it everyday for a living! For as bad or as hard as this can be and as uncertain as it is and there’s no security – there’s a lot of downsides. I couldn’t dream of affording health insurance. Things like that, there’s no real security in it, but we’re so happy! It’s hard, but we’re happy.

BBtBB: Something I saw in the BYO movie that sparked something in me was their creative roller coaster ride – like the Brigade and other projects that came from it. Did you ever feel that with the Souls, the need to try something that you were scared people might not like?

Bryan: If you go all the way to our first record, it’s not just straight out punk. We’re all over the place and on every record we had those songs that were not punk per say but they were whatever the fuck we wanted to do. That’s the beauty of the souls, we’ve always done whatever we wanted to do. That’s why there’s a ton of variety. The downside of that is that we didn’t catch on in Canada when the punk thing blew up. Everyone was excited for punk, like all the Fat Wreck bands – Lagwagon, Ten Foot Pole,  and No Use For A Name. In Europe too, everyone understood that punk to them was THAT, and hardcore was the NYC, Madball thing. Then there was The Bouncing Souls from New Jersey that you can’t really pigeonhole into either of those categories. The downside is that it took a long time for us to catch on. You have to pay attention to what the Bouncing Souls are doing to understand it. You don’t get it right away and think ‘Oh! They sound just like this band.’ or ‘Oh! They’re NY Hardcore and I’m a hardcore fan, I’ll go to their show’. The upside is we have total freedom because our fans are people that understand us as people and get it. You have to get a couple of steps into our world, and once you’re there, you’ll accept whatever the fuck we’re doing and that’s a real Bouncing Souls fan.

BBtBB: When was the first time you really left North America?

Bryan: Let me think about that one. Youth Brigade took us and it was 1994. We played in front of a bunch of old punks in small dive bars who didn’t take to us really well. They would say, “Vee saw ze Youth Brigade here in 1984!” We played to that crowd, and we were just fresh kids with mohawks. We were psyched and we personally had a great time, but it didn’t catch on at all. Those old farts weren’t buying our records or giving a shit about a new band. We did go back in ’98 when Millencollin took us and that was the first time we played to a younger crowd and we sort of started to build something from there, then we kept going back relentlessly every year. This year, on our 20th anniversary, was our first time that we made money going to Europe! (laughs) We’ve been going there and I can’t even tell you how many times [we were] just losing money! Maybe it comes back to what I was saying, it takes money to make it. There were waves and I guess we just kept missing it because we were in our own world doing out our own thing at our own pace, it’s hard. People get it there now, it’s cool, and now it’s rock solid for us all over the world now.

BBtBB: It is totally something different, because I remember re-visiting the Argyle EP days, and it’s kind of like the Millencollin thing, but not at the same time. I don’t know how to describe it. (laughs)

Bryan: We didn’t even like those bands! We didn’t like any of that shit on Fat Wreck Records, none of it. Punk to us was Youth Brigade, 7 Seconds, and all the early LA punk bands – Black Flag, DOA, Adolescents was one of them, it goes on and on. England, that shit and England – we loved OI. The Damned, Sex Pistols, and all those bands and Henry Rollins too from New York.

BBtBB: I think a lot of those bands influenced a lot of the newer stuff, and being older, I think that you had to be into bands like The Damned to really get into the newer stuff.

Bryan: Man, I fucking loved the Damned! They were my favorite band in high school for a long time! We were anglophiles, which is a word I learned. “You guys are total anglophiles!” (laughs) We did! We totally jocked England for a while. We went through different things, I was a skinhead for a bit when I was a kid, then we discovered the Who again. Everyone grew up knowing them, but we re-discovered them and watched Modraphelia and Tommy, and we sort of got into the whole Mod thing a little. We weren’t mods or anything but loved that shit. Of course, the whole Oi! thing was something I brought into the band all the time, and I got everyone listening to Cock Sparrow and shit. Cock Sparrow was a huge influence on the band, and the whole football hooligan thing. We got so many weird things tossed in our salad bowl. (laughs) We’ve outgrown the whole hooligan thing as people, we’re just dudes now. No one’s a skinhead or a punk or this or that, we’re just dudes.

BBtBB: What’s your favorite band out of Jersey?

Bryan: Bruce Springsteen is definitely #1. I love Lifetime, and the Misfits too. I think it would go Bruce Springsteen, Misfits, then Lifetime is up there somewhere. Misfits is one of the best bands ever.

BBtBB: You recorded some new tracks to go along with your 20th Anniversary compilation album. These were done in a new Chunksaah studio, correct?

Bryan: Well, it’s Kate’s basement. It’s where we’ve been practicing for years and we wrote and did pre-production for The Gold Record there and we did a lot of the recording this year there. We call it Little Eden Studios because Kate calls her house Little Eden. She took that from a Springsteen lyric from a song called ‘4th of July, Asbury Park’. Little Eden Studios is her [Kate’s] basement. We recorded everything there but the drums, which we did at a place called The Magic Shop in Soho, NY because we wanted the bigger and better drum sound.

At this point Bryan was getting phone calls, texts and two cop friends from NY City showed up with a fresh 40 of JD as a gift to the Souls. After telling jokes about cops speeding to Canada to catch the show, drinking and driving, and things I shouldn’t mention, we squeezed the final question in.

BBtBB: Last question, if you weren’t in a band or playing music, what would you be in jail for? (laughter ensues all around the crowd)

NY Cop #1: Statutory rape! It’s so much better than masturbating any day! (laughs)

Bryan: That’s a cop saying that! (laughs)

BBtBB: Do you agree?

Bryan: No, no, no! That’s not my answer! (laughs)

NY Cop #2: Reckless endangerment, speeding, all sorts of other shit?

Bryan: Yeah, I’d probably be in jail for all that speeding I’m doing, or some kind of speed or another would kill me eventually. Something dumb for sure and drugs and alcohol related. I’d probably be high AND driving too fast. These guys are always trying to bail me out of trouble all the time [NY Cops] and I’m calling them every weekend! (laughs)

CHECK OUT MORE PHOTOS OF BOUNCING SOULS HERE

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