ALL

Interviewed by Phil Lousy and Jimmy Bile - entered on or around December 28, 2001 This interview was conducted on December 7th at the Roseland Theater in Portland, OR:
 
Phil Lousy Do you still have a day job?
 
Bill Stevenson Yes and no. I've never actually had the, you know, day job by typical definition. When I was twelve I started building fishing rods and selling them, and then when I was sixteen I started commercial fishing, and then when I was nineteen I started touring...and so I never got a W-2 paycheck ever, from anyone. So no, But then like okay yes...you know the expression why work eight hours a day for someone else when you can work sixty hours a day for yourself? I mean I...you know I drive like, for instance, we have a six hundred and fifty mile drive tonight so I'll drive seven hours then the (unintelligible) will drive seven hours and like I'll get up at five in the morning and drive the other half of the way kind of thing, you know. And then I'll spend the day on the phone tomorrow you know like booking the studio, you know we have our own studio, "The Blasting Room."
 
Jimmy Bile So yes, you do have a day job.
 
BS So I have a day job, but it's all kind of intertwined with the various concerns to do with the group and, uh, different (tangent?) things that we...cause you know we have our own record label too, "Owned & Operated," and we got the recording studio, "The Blasting Room," and we have a T' shirt printing shop called "Start the Press." So we...we keep busy but it's sort of working for ourselves, but it seems like when you work for yourself, you work a lot harder.
 
PL Yeah, that's fuckin' true, totally true.
 
JB So is Epitaph strictly promotions or.....

PL Come on Jim; let's follow the fuckin’ regiment you dirty bitch...

BS Well no man, I mean we have our own label but we're not releasing like, you know, new ALL albums, we're doing like smaller groups and other things until we get our shit together and then we might try to start doing bigger groups, but for now we're just kind of starting with like....mainly like local bands in Fort Collins (Colorado) just trying to use the studio to make like really great records and then release them you know by local bands.
 
JB Fort Collins, Louisiana?

BS No, Colorado, we live in Colorado.

PL So what's up? Is anybody married or girlfriends?
 
BS Every....I guess a lot of us are married now....yeah, yeah....I mean even...there's even kids and stuff now too... a lot of marriage and kids things...so....yeah like the mean average in the group is probably 34-35 so we're not in high school any more but....that's cool, it doesn't seem to slow us down too much....I mean definitely not musically.....

everyone (many yeah's and nodded agreements here)

PL Okay, so the new albums....when was the Descendant's album recorded?
 
BS Oh....well we're still working on it......you mean the new new one or the live album?
 
PL (obviously buzzed and confused) Yeah the new new one.

BS No, were still working on it.....we got three songs done so we're....
 
PL No, no I'm talking about the two live...the double live album....

BS Oh, okay...I'm on crack sorry.....oh wait....I’m not on crack....

JB Hey....we're recording here.....

PL We got that on tape....

Editor (note: Bill is not on crack; the interviewers had to wait until after the show because the band was sleeping and proceeded to have too many adult beverages)

BS No..the two live albums....the ALL one was recorded in March of this year at the Starlight, which is in Fort Collins, we had Owned & Operated night so all the Owned & Operated bands got to play and it was really fun so we recorded all that and just kind of released the best stuff. And the Descendants stuff was from when we did that week at the Whisky in L.A. 

PL Was that back in 96 when you guys were doing the...

BS Yeah, I think that was 96...it says it in the (linear notes)....
 
PL Who's the craziest motherfucker out of you guys?....I mean, come on, you guys go on tour all the time right?....who's the craziest bastard?...Who's the lunatic of the group?

BS I think...we've been together so long....it's been the three of us for seventeen years and the four of us know for nine years....oh and there's Bug (roadie) for seventeen years...so probably Bug...but we go in phases...like Stephan (Edgerton, Guitar) used to be the craziest you know and sometimes Carl would be, or me, or Chad...it's just so...it just depends...when you've been together that long you go through...everyone goes through different phases in their life and you grow with them and always try to redefine the relationship as far as where you are and where they are and that kind of thing.

PL Hey whatever happened to Scott Reynolds (vocals 89 to 92)?

BS I just saw Scott last week. His band came through Fort Collins, his band is called The Pavers, and their debut album, Stephen and I produced it at our studio Blasting Room and released it on our record label, Owned & Operated records.

PL I think what I meant to ask was, you know, what led to his departure....
 
BS Hmm...we just sort of reached a point. We talk about it when we get together and it's just like whatever things that we were bickering about at the time or musical differences that at the time seemed so great, you know; now we just laugh about it and I think that's how it is a lot of times. Cause like even...okay, you can go all the way back to Frank (Navetta) our original guitar player, you know he wrote "I'm not a loser” You know, I mean he comes out and we go fishing all the time. Tony (Lombardo, Bass 80-85), I see Tony, we're still good friends. Everybody that's ever been around, we're still good friends with all of them. You know Milo's my best friend...so...just because someone leaves the group...it doesn't...you know always have to be a negatively connotated thing if you choose to look at it that way. I think a lot of times when people leave the band it's....a positive thing, you know, somebody's moving on to try to...maybe they're going to try to start their own band or, you know, something positive's gonna happen....and I'm confident enough to, where, when people leave, I see it as a chance to redefine the group...you can look at things positively, always, you know...like if Frank hadn't left and Ray hadn't left, then we would have never found Stephan. And if Tony hadn't left and Doug (Carrion, Bass 86) hadn't left, we wouldn’t have found (Karl Alvarez.) And if Milo, Dave (Smalley, vocals 88) and Scott hadn't left, we wouldn't have found Chad, you know what I mean? Everything kind of builds upon itself if you seize the opportunity.....
everyone (many yeah's and nodded agreements here)

Editor Chad (Price) enters the van

JB (to Chad) Hey, how'd you grow your hair so long?

everyone (laughter)

PL So are you guys working on a new studio album?

BS We're working on a bunch of stuff...probably like the first thing that will come out next year will be a new Descendant's studio album and we're working on some, like, really ambitiously arranged stuff that may end up being like, largely instrumental, or it may be different....and we've got new ALL songs...so we're kind of working...so I see right now, without really defining it, I see that we're working on three albums at the same time right now.....

PL Fuck yeah.....

JB So, I've got a question. Do you feel that ALL or Descendant's have created a sound....almost a genre of music?
 
PL Yeah, of course....

JB I wasn't askin' you, your not in the band you fuckin’ idiot.

BS To be honest, I think that we're just part of a continuum. We've certainly had our influences when we were starting the group. One band in particular called The Last, they went to our high school, and another band was called The Alley Cats, but it's not....I know there's another band called The Alley Cats, but it's not....I know there's another band called The Alley Cats now, but it's not that Alley Cats. This is an old, old Alley Cats from the late seventy's and you hear their influences with the real kind of deliberate eighth notes with the bass and stuff. They were really....they had that thing going on. And with The Last they had the....just brilliant pop style, but a little more aggressive and you hear that.....

JB Like the rockabilly sound?

BS No, no...not rockabilly but like she loves you or something and (unintelligible) just great pop songwriting, and then when Black Flag came around, that kind of just raw un....you know, unleashed aggression level that took a part in it too and you hear some of that in "I'm not a loser" and some of those songs. You know I think those were our biggest three influences are, but for whatever reason we manage to somehow make something new out of it that had never been done and then so we get all the credit for creating the, whatever, the California pop-punk sound and...that's fine...maybe in some certain way of looking at it we did, but at the same time we had our influences too.

PL I remember the first time I heard ALL, it was in 86 or 87, I was watching Snowboarders in Exile and there's a scene with Steve Grant, I think it was, and he was going off this lip doing this fuckin’ badass backwards flip and they were playing "She's My Ex"......

BS Oh...okay....I know the video you’re talking about....
 
PL Yeah, that was the first time.....

JB Speaking of ALL, they have "all weather" anti-freeze.......

BS Is there any other kind?

JB None of us are as strong as all of us.....

PL What is your standpoint on human cloning? Come on, you got one; I know you got one......
 
CP I don't have one.

BS That's all pretty dangerous territory....so it's not something that I will say "well I'm for it" or "I'm against it...that's a....obviously a very complicated subject...very dangerous, and I just think we have to be very careful with uh....like I'm even seeing it with computers now, you have to be real careful....that for instance, I see privacy just going away. Privacy is being....we're being rid of our privacy, slowly but surely. And I see that as kind of a scary thing. I can't even....if I do anything, then it's on the internet. That part of it is kind of weird. I think that with the medical side of things, you can justify it all morally. You can basically strengthen the weaknesses of humanity or human beings but...but then who is to say what the strengths are and what the weaknesses are and that's where it does get dangerous. I know right now, my baby is just to where maybe it's going to have blue eyes like my wife or brown eyes like mine and I find myself analyzing the social stigmata applied to each of those things as opposed to just appreciating them for what they are. Generally speaking, in the western culture, the more blond and blue-eyed you are, somehow, the better off you are, and the darker your hair and eyes, the more frowned upon you are.....I wonder how did it get that way, and why am I sitting there hoping my kid has blue eyes instead of brown eyes, and what the fuck does it even matter. And with cloning you’re looking at all those differences......

PL Okay, last one.....If you were to be represented by a malt beverage, which one would it be?
 
BS Old E. 

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Add Comment

Tag this: