PipemanRadio Interviews Swingin' Utters About Punk in the Park & Riotfest

0:00 Hi, you have unto censure? Wow crazy you. Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four c Y dot com. West pomp Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the Pipe Man. Are you a stupid shot up? H K Preacher right?

0:42 The situation job Chapio. There you go. Eisbopo Nazi and solistery I can't shoot b God. I love you. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm very say of our next guest, kind of bumm because I missed her set at punkin Park this last weekend to to other things going on in life. But I will catch them this coming Sunday at Riot Best and I'm very excited about that. So let's welcome to the show. Darius from Swinging Others. How are you good? How are you? I'm doing good? You know, listen, I am so happy that as an old school punk rocker, that punk rock is still alive and well, and probably even more so than back in the eighties.

1:37 Yeah maybe, actually you know eighties. Yeah, it's I just I just kind of realized that. Honestly, only a few years ago. That it's kind of old people music nowadays. I know, isn't it funny? Right? Yeah? Yeah, it is kind of funny. I got kids, I mean they're grown men now, but they're in their mid twenties, and I remember when they were teenagers telling me like, nobody's in bands anymore, that's not a thing. Wow wow really yeah. You know, and what's interesting, Like my friend Joe from the Vandals one time we had an interview where he knew I wouldn't ask the question, but everybody asked him, so when are you guys coming out with new music?

2:18 And you know, he knew I wouldn't answer it, so he asked it. So he brought up during an interview because he said, like, who wants to hear a bunch of fifty year olds write in punk rock music? Yeah? Right, so funny, right, But it's funny because then we're all fifty year olds singing about being teenagers. So I know, right, exactly exactly, And you know, it is kind of there's truth and there's not truth. The truth is, yeah, you don't have that same angst as you did as a teenager, and you don't hate the world as much as you did when you're a teenager. Yeah, there's different bitterness though, and there's different types of anger. So I don't exactly.

2:58 I don't think that fear it ever goes away, really, I mean, unless it has changed that much. But I mean, I don't know. We still we still write a lot of punk rock songs. Right right, Well that brings me to the other thing. Okay, So a lot of punk rock bands would write about shit they were angry about, about political things, right, And it's almost like you could write the same songs in twenty twenty four as in the eighties, just change the names, that's all. Oh for sure, even I would almost say more so now yeah, yeah, it's similar, like, yeah, for sure. It just blows my mind in twenty twenty four, Like you said, some of these issues are worse instead.

3:42 Yeah, oh yeah, I don't think. I think it could be a political punk man until the end of time. There's always going to be something that is, you know, totally totally that you don't agree with, you know. So tell us what the difference has been for you and you guys through all these years, and how you as a band are different from those older times. I think the main difference is that really the main difference. It started in the really the late nineties when we started having kids. Yeah, and we started we didn't do three month long tours anymore. I mean, we still did, you know, month long tours, but that slowed down considerably.

4:31 There was a period of like seven or eight years in the mid in the like two thousand I don't even I lost track, I don't know, and like two thousand and three to ten or something where we didn't do any we didn't go internationally, and we didn't do any long US tours. We just did kind of long weekends and flew out and stuff. Yeah, because of the kid thing and the whole adulting thing and getting jobs and careers, and it's it makes it it's really hard to wrangle grown ass men together, even just to practice when you're younger. You know. I in the nineties when we were touring heavily, I delivered pizza for four years. So when I come home, I deliver pizzas and then we go on tour, and I'd usually be on tour. But I mean that's the main thing. And I mean in twenty nineteen, I think I started my own plumbing contracting business. So it's even less touring. Yeah, And I mean we've been trying to write a record for a few years now. And it's not a lack of songs we have. We have enough songs for three records probably, but it's literally getting together to practice, yeah, just so hard.

5:44 It's funny you say that too, because when you were saying, I'm think about yeah, like it'd be easy to wrangle around your band members to go play a gig, yeah, but to practice. That's a great point because when we have time. Yeah, and we're kind of all the place. I mean, I'm in Santa Cruz, which is about an hour or so south of San Francisco. Our drummer is in Sebastopol, which is about an hour north of San Francisco. And our singer just moved to Eureka last year and that is six hours wow of San Francisco. So we're kind of all over the place. And I know there's a way to do it, and there's a way to make it happen, but it's just harder when you get older.

6:26 It just it just is. I mean, yes, fired, I guess, but we're not yet. But we're still manging to you know, make it and play these festivals, and it's we're still doing stuff, but it's just a little harder to be as active as we'd all like to be. Yeah. Absolutely, So let's talk about the festivals. It's last weekend. You played punkin and Park Orlando, which you know, my main location for my studios is in South Florida. Oh nice. I was supposed to take the drive up there to Orlando, but things happened in life that deterred me. And I'm very bummed that I missed your set there. But so I want to hear about the set at Punk in the Park and how it was.

7:07 It was good, it was let's see, we flew in and it was you know, Florida. It was ninety degrees and seventy four percent humidity, and. Is that all? I know, that's probably not even that bad, but you know, it's we're kind of privileged to be in this situation where we can actually fly out and play these festivals and they're they're always fun and good, and the crowd was great and it was a good time. And we see our friends, I mean, our friends are like running the festival. Because we've been a rund long, we kind of know everybody. Yeah, and then all these bands that you all know, the Bronx and the Dwarves and all these people are people we've known for years, so it's just kind of it's kind of hanging out with your old friends and getting to jump on the stage for a half hour. And it was great. It was super fun.

8:00 Yeah, that's the best part though, right Like now, instead of touring being like this, some like dem it as a drudgery after a while, because you know, it's rough on the road. It is. Yeah, so it's kind of cool to play like these festivals and not have all that stress and just have fing on stage. Now we're actually doing a weird little run of festivals. We just got the offers and I was like, screw it. It's easy enough. It's basically a long weekend. We did Orlando this last weekend. This coming weekend we're flying to Chicago to do riot Fest, and then two weeks after that we're going to do the Sam Pedro thing for the No Effect shows. Nice drub like.

8:41 So so that's cool because I'll be at riot Fest and I'll be able to catch your set there nice and then I'm doing the final, the final, final No Effects show. The last show the Sunday or whatever. Yeah, the last one. Yeah, so that's be kind of cool and like, I'm I'm gonna miss Punk in Drublic. It's one of my favorite festivals to do. Are they I mean, I don't even know are they actually ending the festival? I don't know. I haven't really gotten into. It, but check this out. I saw some news recently. It blew my mind that they might bring back Warp Tour in twenty twenty five.

9:24 Wow. I mean imagine that shocked, But that is kind of that's kind of crazy, right we did We did the first and I think the third Warp Tour. Wow, million years ago. That's when it was like a real That's when it was like a punk rock tour. Yeah. I got a little bit less punk in the in the later later Warp Tour dates, but those are the times, man, that was great. Well, you know what's funny you say about that, because like one time I was interviewing not a couple of years ago, Waddie from The Exploited Yeah, and I got him all riled up because at the end to the interview, and the interview was right before going on stage, and I knew what I was doing. I was doing on purpose. I'm like, no, wadie, what do you think of pop punk?

10:07 Oh boy? Oh went on the stage, it went off of the crowd like it was so funny. That's awesome, But it is. Like, I don't know, it's funny to me, Like I think they should change that genre name because it's kind of like jumbo shrimp. Yeah it's not it's yeah, I know, you mean, it's I don't know. I don't even know how or why some of those bands are considered punk rock. And I'm not gonna name names, but I don't even not agree, and it's not even talking shit about them. It's just that they're there's nothing punk rock about. It me too. And there's nothing punk rock about pop.

10:51 You no, because it's it's a different genre exactly. I don't know. You know. The whole idea when I was a teenager was if you were getting played on the radio, I didn't want to listen to your music, right right, you know. And so it's good now that there's stations that do play it, but they're not pop stations and it shouldn't be like the main I don't know. That's just me maybe on that, but it shouldn't be mainstream. A lot of it. It's it would change from being a lot about the attitude as well as the music to just being the music. In other words, like if it's fast and it has kind of distorted guitars playing bar chords, then it's punk rock. Yeah, that's what it became.

11:38 It seemed like exactly, and that's not how it started. It is an attitude. Punk punk rock is so much more than just a MUTI. It's it's a whole way of living your life. And yeah, it's it's it's it's a lot, it's it's like a philosophy. Yeah, exactly. So what your kids think of punk rock? As far as I'm concerned, my kids are punk rock because they were raised by punk rockers. I mean there they're I mean, they're into it. My younger one is especially just totally into it. He's i mean, he's not even that young as twenty three, but he's pretty into it. I have a twenty six year old. He's knowledgeable about it all. He doesn't sit around listening to punk rock.

12:24 He's more of a hip hop guy. Just fine. But they both have really very taste in music like their parents do, and they're both just total music snobs basically, right, because we are too. So it that way. My kids have gone been going to shows and festivals since I can remember, Like, yeah, I put I put my son in his first mosh pit, and I put my grandson in. His first man that's so good. Yeah, like you got past the torch type of thing. It was funny too, the story with my son. We were actually it was a Metallica Tattooed the Earth tour with Slipknot, and it was at Giant Stadium, and you know, we're sitting out there when slip Knot's going to be coming on. There's barely anybody there yet we're right up front in the middle. And I kind of clued them in on what was going to happen, and I said, like, listen, people are gonna shove you around. Don't get pissed, Okay, just go with it. It's not about going in and hurting the Maimon people. It's just about getting out your anks in a healthy way and having fun and dancing and all that. And so when it first started, I could see on his face him getting pissed, and I like tak my hand. I was like, chill, out, chill out.

13:46 Five minutes later, I saw a grin ear to ear and I was like, the baton has been passed, yep, exactly, and then ever since he's been doing it ever since. So there you go. That's great. Yeah, I don't think I don't know if they've really I haven't thrown my kids in the pit, and it's not happening now because I'm too damn old. But but I mean, you know, their first shows were when they were babies, so right, that's that's something I guess. Absolutely, it's a I think it's a great experience for kids to be able to experience that, especially that I think it's not the same nowadays as it was when we were kids, you know, like it was a thing and now it's like it's not the same, it's not the same type of thing as we experienced.

14:33 Yeah, totally. Yeah. Like I lived in La so the OC punk scene, the original original punk scene, you know, and I was a long hair so it was kind of scary being a long hair in those punk rock shows. G Yeah, for sure, totally. So riot Fests have you ever? I don't even know. Have you played riots Fest before? Yeah? We played I think just once. Before, but it was the year the Misfits played for the first time, so that was cool. Oh yeah, it was a good one. That was a good one, for sure. It's gonna be fun this year. It's funny because they were going to move it to somewhere else for years people have been complaining around that area and they wind it gone, but the town of Chicago knew how much they needed and how much they wanted. So now they brought it back to Douglas Park.

15:26 And I was wondering. I don't know why they changed venues again. They just well, I think they always wanted to be stay at Douglas Park, but there was so much going on that they got forced out of it. But something like that. I don't know the whole story. But then I guess the town of Chicago realized how much it would affect them negatively and invite them to come back right right, And I don't think they ever wanted to leave Douglas Park. It is a kind of cool venue for for the festival, and I dig what's going to be going on this year because there's a lot of new stuff going on, you know, and with no Effects playing every night, and then the first Slayer show in five years, Like it's it's definitely gonna be insane and a great time and you're on on the best day Sunday. Yeah, so you know there it is anything else you want to tell the listeners about that we haven't covered that they should know about you guys, that's coming up.

16:25 You know, other than these little shows here and there. Nothing besides we're we're still just we're just we're just trying to write for a record and we'll be we'll hopefully be in the studio within the next year. It's been way too long, but that's that's kind of what we're concentrating on right now. I love it. Just wanting to get more releases out there. I can't wait. Tell everybody how they can connect to you guys on socials, on the web, but most importantly by your merch because you have cools merch and that's the only way bands make money nowadays. Absolutely, that's the truth. Yeah, we're uh, you know, swing utters dot com. We're really bad at updating, but we're all over Facebook and Instagram and swinging Utters Official or swing Utters on Facebook.

17:11 Yeah yeah, and they can look for the swinging Utters merch store there's a whole merch store that's cool and they can check everything else out on Fat Wreck and fat Wreck Records and so you guys rock. I'm sorry I missed you at punkin the Park. I wanted to be there, but I'm super excited about being there for your show Sunday at riot Fest. Yeah. Man, it'll be a blessed absolutely. Thanks a lot for you know, playing all these years, Like at this point you don't even have to play anymore. It's for fun, so I'm glad you're still having fun and giving us some fun too. So thanks a lot, and thank you for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pipe Man on w for c u I Radio.