by Michela A.Jimi Hendrix on a skateboard, recording sessions in dirty dungeons, shows in living rooms... This and more stuff in the nice talk gotanerve-zine had with the longhaired lords of Psychedelic violence rock 'n' roll, THE SHRINE, just before their show in Berlin at Cassiopeia.
With last LP “Bless Off” out on March 2014, the rock 'n' roll destroyers from Venice, CA, are now inflaming stages around Europe playing shows at insane decibels with PA shooting wind like a thousand of hair driers all in one.
Read what they told us just before hell broke loose.
gan: So let’s talk about the band first! How did you get together? How did it all happen?
Josh: Well me and Court we went to high school together and then years later we met at a party. Court was a guitar player but then he said that he was playing bass and we realized that probably we were the only two people in entire west side of Los Angeles who were feeling lazy, so we started jamming together and then few weeks later we happened to meet Jeff...
Jeff: I’d just moved down from east Coast, from Baltimore, I was playing in a couple of bands and then I found these guys and then we just started to jam for days in a row for 3 and half years...
Josh: Yeah it’s been 6 years now…
gan: Did you have other bands before the Shrine?
Josh: I played in a Californian hardcore punk band called Rabies, and that was when I started learning how to tour and how to book shows and figure out how to make our own shirts ‘cause it was the only option, you know, in the punk hardcore world there is no record label, nor sponsorship, nor anything...
gan: Pure DIY...
Josh: Yes, which is rewarding and you make sure everything is done the right way and it’s awesome also because it creates connections all over the world which we come across nowadays too.
gan: That’s great! Let’s switch to music now. How did you come to this hard to define “Psychedelic Violence Rock 'n' roll”? Was it a choice, I mean, were you guys searching this sound or did you just keep on jamming and came across it naturally?
Jeff: We started off more like a Jimi Hendirx kind of...we played with a lot of bands around Venice who had a more psychedelic vibe..
Josh: Yeah, Chuck Dukowski’s family band (The Chuck Dukowski Sextet, in which Chuck Dukowski -ex Black Flag and SST Records- plays with his wife) were a really, psychedelic, tripped out band and we played a lot of shows with them in our first few years. Our psychedelic violence is kind of a mix of the sounds of all psychedelic guitar rock and a mix of hard rock, punk and metal...that’s just to give interviewers troubles!! Hahaah!
gan: Hahaha! True!!! Just to keep staying in troubles, what if I ask you about your influences and inspiration?
Josh: Black Flag, Black Sabbath, Metallica, George Carlin (Note for the non-Americans: George Carlin was an American comedian, social critic, actor, and author who died in 2008. Look at some stuff here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RT6rL2UroE) Hahaha!!!
Jeff: Jay Adams (An American skateboarder from the original Z-Boys like Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta), Bill Hicks (Died in 1994, Bill Hicks was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist and musician).
gan: I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that you said your music sounds like Jimi Hendrix on a skateboard...
Josh: There is a photo of Jimi Hendrix on a motorcycle and it’s a famous one but I don’t think Jimi Hendrix ever rode a motorcycle...And I know he definitely had not ridden a skateboard hahah...
gan: No, I really can’t figure him on a skateboard, indeed. What’s skateboarding for you then? It seems like it’s a big part of your life.. What came first? Skateboarding or music?
Jeff: Well...that’s like the chicken-or-the egg question...
Josh: Yeah, when you are a little kid you see all these teenagers skateboarding and causing troubles to your neighbors and I grew up watching people skating in front of my house or my neighbours’ and then you heard them driving away in their car with loud music blaring...things are all connected together...
Jeff: You know, there has always been a connection: my friends listened to their brothers’ mixtapes, while skating on their brothers’ half-pipes in the backyards...
gan: And also in empty pools I guess (if I think of your videos..)
Josh: Yeah, that’s a special things we have only in California, a little bit in other places too, but it mostly started there because of in rich southern California, like Hollywood and other places like “paradise” they built all these beautiful big homes, big pools and then the American dream kind of just crashed and so there are lots of neighborhoods that used to be rich and really nice middle class neighborhoods that are ghettos now so the pools are empty...
gan: Cool, you use spaces...
Josh: The only good skateboarding is on something that was not built for it.
gan: Good to know. How was your first time on the skateboard?
Josh: Probably I fell down on my knees on my toys-r-us-skateboard...
Court: Yeah, the same...
gan: Are you not afraid of breaking your arms, fingers or the whole front row teeth falling down the skate before a show?
Josh: Well, mostly on tour we are so busy that we barely get a chance to skate. On tour there’s usually no time, worrying about the planes, sound checks, making sure that all our gears are not broken from the night before. We skate on tour but once in a while, in these places where there is a skate kind of attitude -and there’s a lot in Europe- Yeah, like 2 out of 3 nights we’ve been playing in Europe there was always a ramp or something...
gan: You’ve been on tour with big bands like Fu Manchu, Graveyards and I remember also Red Fang recently, actually I saw your show for my first time in Milan when you were touring with them. How was being on tour with them?
Josh: It was awesome being on tour with Red Fang, we went to places we had never been before, these guys were awesome, crowds were huge, and now we’re excited to come back on our own, we are with these two friends- bands, the Dirty fences form Brooklyn and Death Alley from Amsterdam and we are really kind of different but we’re all the same family...
Jeff: With Graveyards we owned a bus together for a month and there were just us 3 and these 9 Swedish guys we have never really met before.
Court: They’re rad they’re great guys...
Jeff: The tour was lot of fun, just like now with Dirty Fences. We are like brothers you know, wherever we are, in Europe or there in the US we’re always hanging out... like a life-long friendship...
gan: Let’s switch to the creative side of the thing now. Who of you comes usually out with the idea of a new song? Is it just like jamming and see what happens or...?
Josh: Well, sometimes maybe you’re listening to a new record and you’re trying to figure out how to play a riff and you don’t know how to play it, then something totally different comes out and you remember it...
Jeff: Josh comes out with his riffs while he’s walking the dog!!
gan: Hahahaha! How can you do that?
Josh: Haha you’ve just have to spend a lot of time...
Jeff: You have to spend a lot of time walking your dog…
Josh: I mean, you have to be dedicated and spend a lot of time on playing, sometimes we also come out with bad things, but then we spend lot of time around it and try to play and work it out...
gan: And what about the lyrics? Who of you is the writer?
Josh: Actually me...Usually one line comes out from something, like just stealing it from an old book, a movie or a description of something weird that has a word that catches my attention, just like “primitive blast” and then later it’s basically writing words about what the title meant, or sometimes we also have songs like “spit in my life” which is something that Court screamed out once, I remember...
All: Hahahah!
Josh: Yeah, it sounded like a good line so I just took the title and then later just thought about a bunch of lines with “Spit in my life” on top and more stuff...
gan: And so what are your lyrics about if I may ask?
Josh: Oh, lots of songs are about our friends, others are about freedom, about perseverance, so about not giving up or not let anybody else get in your way, just like sticking to it, being determined...
gan: What about “Nothing Forever”? Do you refer to something in particular?
Josh: Well no, it’s made of millions of pieces, like when your friends complain about something or somebody treats you badly...It’s like a hundred stories all put in one.
gan: Nice, thanks. Before we mentioned Chuck Dukowski...What about your relationship with him? Do you remember the first time you met?
Jeff: Yeah, he came up to us and he said he wanted to help us out and we were like “Fuck yeah!!”
Josh: He lives in Venice also...
Jeff: Yes, he lives in Venice and I think we played with him just the time after we met up with him. He’ s always been inspiring: just the way he plays bass and has always approached music and put shows together, tours together and also the stories that he had... The first time we sat down and recorded he had so many stories to tell about, stuff that just inspired us. Every time you just watch him play it’s like.. that’s what you wanna do: you wanna just feel that much emotion and passion about playing the kind of music that you like or that you wanna play.
gan: And a song of Bless Off has his lyrics isn’t it?
Josh: Yeah and we did not really have a title, so we just named it after and called it “The Duke”, it’s a lyrics that he wrote in 1982 for a Black Flag song, and then all the guys of the band thought it was to hippysh and then he was telling me the story and I was like “Wow, that’s crazy!” and he said he was gonna use that now for something else, for a project. Then I remember him telling me the project was supposed to be used for simply did not happen, so I asked him whether we could use that and he was like “Of course you can use it”...
Jess: I mean, there are many people that inspire us, but he is like the fourth member of the band, you know...
Josh: Yeah, Chuck is 60 years old, he still plays and lives his life with the same independent attitude, not letting people tell him how things have to be done or are supposed to be, like having everything in line as a record label, a booking agency...
gan: So, he is a sort of mentor for you...
Josh: Yeah, for all the things that we do, you can look back to him...
gan: You mentioned your first record... Where do you usually record your albums? In Venice or somewhere else? I read you recorded something in Europe, is that true?
Josh: Oh, so the word is getting around!!!
Jeff: We recorded with Guy Tavares in Holland...
Josh: Yes, he’s made a lot of records we really love with his band Orange Sunshine and also other stuff we really like. He’s a producer and he has a studio and for years we thought that anybody else in the world had a sound like that, so the very first time we came to Europe with Fu Manchu we booked ourselves a week at his studio which it turned out to be the house where he lives, so we spent a week in this dungeon of an elementary school. We were like out of our mind in his “medicine” for 5 nights and we had all new songs and we just learned them and recorded them on the spot and a lot were first takes and mistakes but he was saying all the time “Mistakes were great, I never heard it before so it sounds good to me, don’t worry about what it was supposed to be!” So now we have got these crazy pretty special recordings that have a lot of character, we’re gonna put them out sometimes soon...
gan: Great!! So new stuff coming out! Are they all new songs then?
Josh: It’s a lot of the same songs of Bless Off..
Jeff: We also recorded a song which is 15-20 minutes jam...
Court: He just let us meditate on sounds to get us into a kind of mind-space dimension..
Josh: He always had a story or something he wanted to play us, like from some bands we never heard of. He heard the song we were working on and he was like “Let me play you something” and he was showing us something like “D’you hear how they do this? Bring that in the way you’re doing!”
Jeff: He’s pretty much the smartest guy in the entire world...
All: Hahahahaha
gan: I am so curious now to listen to the new record...
Josh: You’ll hear it, there are some of the same songs, few new ones...it sounds like a recording studio on Mars!
gan: Wow!!! And what about “Eliminator”? It’s your rehearsal room, recording studio, shop…
Josh: It’s our home base in Venice that’s where we practice, record, have all of our T-shirts...
gan: Is it your own project?
Josh: Yeah, exactly! We now have few people that work for us...they’re home now, sending out orders and stuff while we are here in Europe. It’s also growing as a skateboard company now, we’re going to do a board for Dirty Fences right now...
Jeff: We’ve done like 10 skateboards ourselves so far...
gan: I saw on Eliminator’s page that you’ve also a pedal with you name on it... Did you create the design and sound? It’s a fuzz box isn’t?
Josh: Yeah it’s our friend Magic who used to tour with us a lot, he was always on the road with us and started to learn how to build pedals, so he’s gonna make me a custom fuzz pedal, he took a big muff and changed it around a little bit and...then it’s a blank pedal now, just put the Shrine on it! We both use a fuzzbox, me for my solos but also Court uses it on bass for all of his “explosions” of solos and stuff. Why having the name of another company of it? We have our sound and our pedal.
gan: Cool! So skateboards, then pedals...
Josh.: And we wanna do the same for all our friends’ bands, I mean, bands we tour with and for skateboarders in Venice who may not know how to do it by themselves and trying to help them making some cool shit.
gan: This brings me to your artwork… on LPs, T-shirt, skateboards.. I mean, artwork in general. Who designs it and who takes care of it? What about the wolf?
Jeff: Well the wolf was drawn by our friend Kris Kirk and for the Bless Off album we were talking with the guys from Dogtown about doing a skateboard and we found a graphic that we liked and we incorporated the wolf and then...we decided to use it for the album, so basically we took Dogtown graphic and made it our own.
gan: I see...Talking about live shows, do you prefer small places, big venues?
Jess: This place is perfect...
Josh.: Yeah, when the places are too big, sometimes the sound is good, if you have a big stage and a good PA, and you can feel good, but some other times it’s too big, everything sounds far and it kind of sucks. A few weeks ago when we were home we just came back from Japan and we played at the Juice Magazine party, a skateboard magazine in Venice and we played in a living room...
Jeff: I think it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever played.
Josh.: Yeah, 30-40 people in a living room. And it was like, after being on big stages with everything miked up and listening from monitors and with a great PA...there it was just our amps! And it was like “Fuck our amps sound really good!”.
Court: Small venues are much more better because they’re much more intimate, and it’s better for the band and for the crowd too...
Josh: Oh, so the word is getting around!!!
Jeff: We recorded with Guy Tavares in Holland...
Josh: Yes, he’s made a lot of records we really love with his band Orange Sunshine and also other stuff we really like. He’s a producer and he has a studio and for years we thought that anybody else in the world had a sound like that, so the very first time we came to Europe with Fu Manchu we booked ourselves a week at his studio which it turned out to be the house where he lives, so we spent a week in this dungeon of an elementary school. We were like out of our mind in his “medicine” for 5 nights and we had all new songs and we just learned them and recorded them on the spot and a lot were first takes and mistakes but he was saying all the time “Mistakes were great, I never heard it before so it sounds good to me, don’t worry about what it was supposed to be!” So now we have got these crazy pretty special recordings that have a lot of character, we’re gonna put them out sometimes soon...
gan: Great!! So new stuff coming out! Are they all new songs then?
Josh: It’s a lot of the same songs of Bless Off..
Jeff: We also recorded a song which is 15-20 minutes jam...
Court: He just let us meditate on sounds to get us into a kind of mind-space dimension..
Josh: He always had a story or something he wanted to play us, like from some bands we never heard of. He heard the song we were working on and he was like “Let me play you something” and he was showing us something like “D’you hear how they do this? Bring that in the way you’re doing!”
Jeff: He’s pretty much the smartest guy in the entire world...
All: Hahahahaha
gan: I am so curious now to listen to the new record...
Josh: You’ll hear it, there are some of the same songs, few new ones...it sounds like a recording studio on Mars!
gan: Wow!!! And what about “Eliminator”? It’s your rehearsal room, recording studio, shop…
Josh: It’s our home base in Venice that’s where we practice, record, have all of our T-shirts...
gan: Is it your own project?
Josh: Yeah, exactly! We now have few people that work for us...they’re home now, sending out orders and stuff while we are here in Europe. It’s also growing as a skateboard company now, we’re going to do a board for Dirty Fences right now...
Jeff: We’ve done like 10 skateboards ourselves so far...
gan: I saw on Eliminator’s page that you’ve also a pedal with you name on it... Did you create the design and sound? It’s a fuzz box isn’t?
Josh: Yeah it’s our friend Magic who used to tour with us a lot, he was always on the road with us and started to learn how to build pedals, so he’s gonna make me a custom fuzz pedal, he took a big muff and changed it around a little bit and...then it’s a blank pedal now, just put the Shrine on it! We both use a fuzzbox, me for my solos but also Court uses it on bass for all of his “explosions” of solos and stuff. Why having the name of another company of it? We have our sound and our pedal.
gan: Cool! So skateboards, then pedals...
Josh.: And we wanna do the same for all our friends’ bands, I mean, bands we tour with and for skateboarders in Venice who may not know how to do it by themselves and trying to help them making some cool shit.
gan: This brings me to your artwork… on LPs, T-shirt, skateboards.. I mean, artwork in general. Who designs it and who takes care of it? What about the wolf?
Jeff: Well the wolf was drawn by our friend Kris Kirk and for the Bless Off album we were talking with the guys from Dogtown about doing a skateboard and we found a graphic that we liked and we incorporated the wolf and then...we decided to use it for the album, so basically we took Dogtown graphic and made it our own.
gan: I see...Talking about live shows, do you prefer small places, big venues?
Jess: This place is perfect...
Josh.: Yeah, when the places are too big, sometimes the sound is good, if you have a big stage and a good PA, and you can feel good, but some other times it’s too big, everything sounds far and it kind of sucks. A few weeks ago when we were home we just came back from Japan and we played at the Juice Magazine party, a skateboard magazine in Venice and we played in a living room...
Jeff: I think it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever played.
Josh.: Yeah, 30-40 people in a living room. And it was like, after being on big stages with everything miked up and listening from monitors and with a great PA...there it was just our amps! And it was like “Fuck our amps sound really good!”.
Court: Small venues are much more better because they’re much more intimate, and it’s better for the band and for the crowd too...
gan: And so where was your best show so far? Apart that one in Venice...
Josh.: The one of tomorrow.
Court: Well for me it was Tokyo, it was a few weeks ago and it was a fucking awesome show. Just a little, dirty, black punk metal venue in Tokyo, it was our first time in Japan and the venues was so loud and the kids going completely nuts...
Josh.: Yeah, it’s crazy I think that I saw more people singing along in Japan, than anywhere!
Court: And nobody spoke English but they know the music! Very inspiring!!!!!
gan: And the hardest place to play?
Court: US definitely…
Josh: I don’t know why it’s harder...maybe everybody is spoiled, jaded, pretty much anywhere. Then you just go to Vancouver which is just outside US and you see people are so much more excited and stoked and I don’t know...Do they have less music up there?
Jeff: Well we had also pretty nice shows in US too, but just to get across the US, sometimes you got a lot of days off because just of the mapping of the tour and distances.
Court: Extremely long drives, no such hospitality...
Jeff: The hospitality in Europe is certainly much better...
Josh: Yeah!!! Maybe because we come from so far to play or just because the people care more.
Court: The attitude is just better out here. Humans in general.
gan: And what about the first show ever?
Court: it was at a guitar shop in Venice, 5 blocks from where we practice, so close to home.
GAN: What about labels? I know you’re out on Tee Pee Records...
Josh: We got a really good relationship with Tee Pee, but we still love to make our stuff on our own too, like, sometimes, if we think our work is good we just put it on a seven inch and print it on our own and sell it yourself, pay for it yourself, taking it on your road, to Europe, people buy it at the show and so it goes! It’s simple, you’ve to work more but there is no confusion and no middle man...
gan: Sweet. And what’s next with the Shrine? Any plans already?
Josh: Well we’re on tour now (it was September) but we actually went today to our friend Tiger, the drummer of Kadavar who lives here in Berlin and recorded a song in his studio and he will work on the mix. We had also our friends Dirty Fences there, doing some back vocals...
gan: Wow! So more and more stuff to come! Now you’ll be on tour for a month approximately but...
Josh: Yeah, until the end of October...
Jeff: No, we’ll be in tour forever!!
All: Forever.
Josh.: The one of tomorrow.
Court: Well for me it was Tokyo, it was a few weeks ago and it was a fucking awesome show. Just a little, dirty, black punk metal venue in Tokyo, it was our first time in Japan and the venues was so loud and the kids going completely nuts...
Josh.: Yeah, it’s crazy I think that I saw more people singing along in Japan, than anywhere!
Court: And nobody spoke English but they know the music! Very inspiring!!!!!
gan: And the hardest place to play?
Court: US definitely…
Josh: I don’t know why it’s harder...maybe everybody is spoiled, jaded, pretty much anywhere. Then you just go to Vancouver which is just outside US and you see people are so much more excited and stoked and I don’t know...Do they have less music up there?
Jeff: Well we had also pretty nice shows in US too, but just to get across the US, sometimes you got a lot of days off because just of the mapping of the tour and distances.
Court: Extremely long drives, no such hospitality...
Jeff: The hospitality in Europe is certainly much better...
Josh: Yeah!!! Maybe because we come from so far to play or just because the people care more.
Court: The attitude is just better out here. Humans in general.
gan: And what about the first show ever?
Court: it was at a guitar shop in Venice, 5 blocks from where we practice, so close to home.
GAN: What about labels? I know you’re out on Tee Pee Records...
Josh: We got a really good relationship with Tee Pee, but we still love to make our stuff on our own too, like, sometimes, if we think our work is good we just put it on a seven inch and print it on our own and sell it yourself, pay for it yourself, taking it on your road, to Europe, people buy it at the show and so it goes! It’s simple, you’ve to work more but there is no confusion and no middle man...
gan: Sweet. And what’s next with the Shrine? Any plans already?
Josh: Well we’re on tour now (it was September) but we actually went today to our friend Tiger, the drummer of Kadavar who lives here in Berlin and recorded a song in his studio and he will work on the mix. We had also our friends Dirty Fences there, doing some back vocals...
gan: Wow! So more and more stuff to come! Now you’ll be on tour for a month approximately but...
Josh: Yeah, until the end of October...
Jeff: No, we’ll be in tour forever!!
All: Forever.
Check: www.facebook.com/theshrinefuzz
Stupid questions by Michela A.
Pics and Videos by Enrico P.
Thanks to Dagmar at Gordeon Music
Stupid questions by Michela A.
Pics and Videos by Enrico P.
Thanks to Dagmar at Gordeon Music
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