BLOOD SHED RAIN ZINE

I grew up in Connecticut. I loved metal and played drums. My favorite bands in 5th grade were Pantera and Sepultura. Chaos AD is the holy grail of all records for me. My older brother’s friends in high school (some older stalwarts of the CT hardcore scene) left CD’s in his car. Played me some of them and I was hooked. Grimlock, Hatebreed, Fury of Five… I was hooked. It wasn’t until I moved to California that I found the more punk aspects but I eventually found Spazz, Infest and all that stuff too. I love it all.
Twitching Tongues and Nails are the more active bands so it’s not hard to juggle the two. Ruckus and Disgrace I do for fun just because I love playing hard music.
I was playing in another band at the time that I wasn’t really into anymore. My brother and I decided to do a hard hardcore band by the likes of Kickback, Merauder, Bulldoze etc. We wrote a demo and tried out a bunch of singers and eventually found Jacob. We’ve had a bunch of people in the other positions but the line up with have right now with Keith Paull and Justin Sakamoto is by far my favorite.
Todd and I met a while ago. I would bounce my riffs off him and he would give me his input. He asked me to help demo songs with him. After that, he asked me to join full time. There isn’t much more to it than that. It’s a lot of fun and very creatively fulfilling to be in Nails.
My brother and I joked about doing a band with clean vocals for a long time. We wrote some Only Living Witness/Type O Negative style stuff and we put together 5 songs just to see if we could do it. We were happy with the result, and picked three to be on the demo. Keith was already playing with Ruckus at the time so we asked him. Mike heard it and immediately wanted to play with us. That was that.
It makes things easier and cheaper now, but it cost me a lot to build up to the current status I’m at, and I’m always getting new gear.
It’s easier for me to get into it if I’m playing guitar and it’s much more fun. Drums have their perks too, and I’m probably a better drummer than I am a guitarist.
It’s a big place. You can fit a lot of people and bands between San Diego to Santa Barbara. Each little section of Southern California has their own little set of great bands. As a group, it’s easy for us to reign over the rest of the hardcore world. It’s undeniable.

-what does 2012 have in store for you bandwise

Twitching Tongues -Sleep Therapy will finally be out, and we may release a 7” before the end of the year. Ruckus - Of Malice and Man will finally be out as well as a split 7” with Brick by Brick from Troy, NY. Disgrace will be releasing our 12” EP called Songs of Suffering in the Spring. Lastly, Nails will be recording a new LP, but I’m not sure when it’ll be released.

-do you think its criminal that more people dont listen to Grimlock

Yes. One of the absolute angriest bands ever to exist that cannot be copied.
That’s complicated. I don’t think I could choose. I go through phases where I only listen to a certain record. Right now it’s World Coming Down. I will say that I think Wolf Moon is my favorite song.
That’s not for me to say, but I don’t think anything we’ve written so far is nearly as legendary as any Melnick stuff.