The weight of years living punk

By @grupimoderna

In this new Interview we had the opportunity to visit the world of a punk band that has survived for many years, internal problems and changes in their line up. 

In the midst of their new release: «Detonate», David Tejas, lead singer of the combative punk band legends The Casualties, gave us a moment to talk about the history of the band, their artistic vision and the progress they’ve had in the last ten to twenty years, a full heart description of the album and its themes and the Northamerican tour followed by their dreams of touring South America once more. Read the full interview below! 

ITSA: First of all thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. Please introduce yourself for the people who may not know you

DAVID: Cool, David Tejas Rodriguez, singer of the Casualties, screamer of the casualties, not much of a singer.

ITSA: Screaming is great tho, it fits a lot with the band. You guys have been in the industry for a while now, you started in the 90s, We know there’s been some changes in the members and all of that, but people often refer to you as “the torchbearers of the combative hardcore music scene” which is a great title. How would you say the music has progressed through the years?

David: I think I’ve got a good way of seeing this because i`ve been in the band for 8 years now but i`’ve been friends with them for 27 years, so… I used to play in a band called Krum Bums, and The Casualties took us on tour when we were very young and we were so impressed with the way that they traveled. Just everyday just playing and playing and they cared about what they were doing.

This is a funny example but you know, when The Ramones were first starting, a lot of people loved the ramones because they thought “hey, i can do that. I can play those four chords, i can play that drum beat.”  Not that The Ramones were easy, but it wasn’t this Van Halen, Metallica shit. I was, you know… Four Chords. And The Casualties, when they came out it was something that was visually “woah”. Jorge had this big torched out hair, everybody had mowhaks, and they were screaming about things that we could understand and they were playing riffs that we could play and it was such a- When «For The Punks» came out and «Underground Army», i remember we used to get together like everybody after work and we’d get 40 oz, and we would just play it because it sounded like music for us, you know? And I watched them progress like most bands, if you follow the casualties they start from barely knowing how to play their instruments and that’s a compliment you know, and it’s such a cool thing, you watch them grow. You can literally see Jake and Meggers go from little kids to grown men, and they got really good at their instruments. But they were the torchbearers because they were the kids that said “we don’t give a fuck what we sound like, we’re coming to your city, we’re comming to your town, your fucking village, we’re playing” and it was big for an outside point of view.

ITSA: And even though they have grown, both musically and as people, is it still the same? I’ve listened to your albums for a while now, and with the new album «Detonate», it’s not anger, because we feel like it has changed over the years, but it’s a lot of energy in the music, except maybe polished

David: I’d say we’ve been so fucking lucky to have kept the energy. Here’s the greatest thing, we’re not trying to maintain that energy, that’s our Energy. It’s not fake, it’s not false, when we wrote this new record it was because we wanted to write. We just were writing different stuff and everybody had these different ideas and the most- I think this is why it comes off and I’m so inspired to talk about it is when everybody has ideas and they come together. If Jake would’ve just written the album it would sound different. Me or Meggers, it would have been  different. But when everyone puts their ideas in, it’s awesome. But we also all  felt the idea that we wanna explode right now with all the shit that’s going on in the world. That’s why it’s called Detonate. And at first you know you say oh it’s just a simple word, but it’s not. It’s like a meaningful explosion on purpose like, i’m gonna go nuts. Does that make sense?

ITSA: It does! Your creative process sounds a lot like a group thing. So do you usually work on different things separately or do you do everything together in the studio?

David: Music is such a delicate thing to understand because when we were younger we have this vision in the way that we work, you know, when you`re younger we`re gonna get together, and ‘re gonna stay in this house and we’re not coming out until it’s done. That’s it. Then you get older, you get married, you know you have a family, you know all these different things. Your heart is in the same place but we havee to adapt. That`s the main word tha we latinos know , so Jake is in New Jersey, and Meggers is here in austin, texas with me and our bass player is in California. 

The funniest thing is the character that you see in Jake is really Jake and he’s hilarious and an outspoken guy. He’d send videos and he’d say “hey” you know with that New York accent “I got this riff, like, check it out”. Sometimes I would tell him, “Jake I can’t hear it. You’re like headbanging and rocking…” and he’s like “aw man it’s so good!” So from being in the house together now that we’re adapting from different spots. That’s kinda how you get the ball rolling. Jake would write some riffs, I would write a song… Here’s a perfect example. Meggers wrote all the lyrics to «Detonate», that song. And I think that’s so cool too because a lot of the time people think the drummer is just thw drummer. And in Casualties we all write a little bit of everything and he kinda hummed out the guitar riff for it, you know? So then Jake can work on it and then, «Allies & Assassins» I was just walking down the street, singing the song. This riff in my head, and then we came up with it. Jake would send music and then I would… “ok i think it’s about this”. So that’s how we did it and everyone came down to Austin, we have a little studio, we sat in there and we said let’s start putting these little chunks together. And we had a lot of fights, we had a lot of laughs, all of the things that go on, if it would’ve just been like too easy it probably wouldn’t have been that good. So there was a lot of yelling, a lot of yelling and a lot of laughing.

ITSA: «Detonate» came after you signed with Hellcat records, how was it working under a different company?

David: I’m so excited to talk about this because it all happened by chance, by accident. We were gonna put the record out ourselves. We were recording at Tim Armstrong’s studio. We’re doing vocals and drums and Tim has been a long time supporter of The Casualties, they’ve been friends for like 30 years you know? Tim used to wear Casualties shirts, patches and everything, if you look back at early Rancid stuff. He came in and said “this is good, this is cool” and i’ve made copies of all my lyrics so we could just look at them and he looked at them and he loved the guitars, the drums and the lyrics and he just said “hey… what do you think about me putting it out?” And we were like “Hmmm…” playing hard to get at first and then we turned around and were [excited]. So the coolest thing was that we weren’t writing a hellcat record. We were writing a casualties record and this is the raddest thing also about Tim Armstrong, is that they don’t want you to do a hellcat record, they want us to do a casualties record and if there’s any way that they can help… We finally realized we’re part of the family. They don’t want stuff. You know whwn sometimes somebody gives you something and then you go… “Yeah but whay do you want?” This is the first time I think we’ve ever felt like tjey don’t want anything from us. The only thing they want is to see us do well and that’s a whole different feeling.

ITSA: Yeah, it’s great that you guys have that as a workplace, it doesn’t happen very often so i’m very glad you guys have that. I know that you guys are going on tour in the states and in Canada, all of North America. Are there any plans to go to Latin America?

David: Yes, of course we’re definitely doing it. We just did six or seven months ago a Latin American Tour, we have such a good family relationship with everybody. My wife is from Brazil and we have family there too, so we’re definitely coming back. Now when are we coming? That’s to be seen. So we’re gonna do North America, april and may. June, july and august we’ll be in Europe. So this is a long tour, we’re about to start a five month tour, then we’ll come home, breathe a little bit and then we’ll go to Mexico and I think by then the Latin American tour will be picking up. Where do you say you live?

ITSA: Chile! We love punk music here and there’s a lot of punk fans here so you’ll always be well received here. Finally, I’d like to know if there’s something you would like to say to your fans in Latin America?

David: Gracias por quedarse con nosotros tanto tiempo, gracias por aceptarnos, y gracias ppr venir a nuestros shows. ¡No podemos esperar a volver donde nos sentimos en familia!