| DiSCORDER: To whom do STREETS owe the largest amount of RAD-itude? James: Hey guys, who do we owe the largest amount of gratitude? No, RAD-itude, I said. James: Oh... RAD-itude!! [Laughs] I say me movie Thrashin'. Jonny 0: We owe fuckin' RAD-itude to beers at 7am, and fucking skating naked down hills, just your average bullshit. Just livin' gnar. It's our lifestyle man. There is not a single personality the STREETS owe RAD-itude? Jonny: Uh... yeah. Animal Chin is pretty inspirational. Mike P: Yeah man. Animal Chin! Jonny: Yeah man, the spirit of Animal Chin! And the Z-Boys! Everybody should go see that movie, man 'cause that truly repre- sents what skating and the STREETS are all about. It is Vessence of skateboarding. Indeed the RAD-issance. Jonny: Yes! Thats what they were, man, the RAD-issance of the 20th century. James: Also, skating peoples' living rooms is pretty rad. Definitely Georgia Street living room sessions. How do you guys find the time and energy to juggle both skate- boarding and the rigorous musical requirements of such a band? Mike: It's harder to find time to drink beers. Jonny: Well, it's not hard to find time at all. We dedicate ourselves to both elements of our lifestyle. I mean, just skating from Point A to Point B is enough, man. Like, anyone can incorporate getting rad ' and shredding into their every day lives. Doesn't really matter. Ifs a skate of mind. Corey: Plus, we aU try to get at least an oUie in at band practice. Jonny: But with STREETS, it's like we did our research, man. We'd go up to Mary Poppins [mini-ramp], and shred, then go directly inside and channel our energy into me music. That sounds totally RADI Jonny: Well this was back in me Corey Webster days [pre-STREETS band], but he was kind of a kook in the movie Thrashm'. You thought so? I thought he exemplified the RADness of the plot... Jonny: Well, we just go by what it stands for you know—STREETS: Skating Totally Rules Everything Else Totally Sucks. So where do the STREETS like to skate in Vancouver? Jonny: Me, personally, I like alleyways. Not any particular one, though. Mike: I like alleyways, and I like mini-ramps too. I can't really skate bowls or anything. Never really got the knack tor it. Originally, I'm from Ontario, and they didn't have that sort of tiling there. I'm more about alleyways and mini-ramps. Corey: And the streets, that goes without saying. Jonny: Zarlac [Hastings Park] is pretty good to carve around in. But lately I've been into Point A to Point B skating. Just putting a walk- man on and going really fast. Cruising through traffic. Lazy ollies. There's a nice hill on 7th and Fraser. It's really fun. It's got these big speed bumps at the bottom, you just get really fast when you pump over them. Totally fun. Isn't it hard to skate with a walkman on? Personally, I'm not a phones type of guy. Jonny; Nah... 'cause you're stoked, man. Corey: Nah, it isn't hard. Jonny: One of our songs is about listening to Suicidal Tendencies and skating down a hill. You just go with the vibe or whatever. What else you guys got playing in your Walkmans? Jonny: Fuckin' Thin Lizzy, man. . Mike: Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple. Jonny: Just a lot of '70s classic rock. Diamondhead. They are so good. Corey: Hawkwind. Jonny: Yeah, Hawkwind totally rules. What about the Nuge? He was sort of on the fringes of skate-culture in the '80s. The music you guys make reminds me of that sort of... Mike: He's a piece of shit. Jonny: No, not really into the Nuge. Mike: I just don't think we really stand for anything that he does. Sort of redneck, intolerance. He married an Asian woman. Mike: Oh. Well, really, I guess maybe I shouldn't have judged him so quickly. She was only 15 years old, though. Jonny: I'm more into Dinosaur Jr. Christa: Isn't there another band called The Streets? Cory: Yeah, there is... or was. The Streets were like a glam, butt-rock band. So bad. Don't you fear that they may come back to haunt you guys for jack- ing their name? James: They are probably all dead. Jonny: There was going to be a lawsuit. But we are STREETS, not The Streets. Ifs like we're pretty harsh about how rad skating is. And so if you don't skate, you suck. Nah, man. Just kidding. Sort of. I mean, people read into our name, and they infer that we don't like anything but skateboarding. Were you guys big fans of Thrasher's Skate Rock collection in the '80s? Jonny: Yeah! Dylan Doubt [local skate photographer] brought us back a box of them from the last time he went to Thrasher in San Francisco. [The interview pauses as all four band members begin to hold a ramshackle High-Jump Competition on the loading dock. With Mike steering home the winning jump, the combatants in this children's game, still weary from their gruelling contest, find enough flair to reach back into their reserves, and go on with the interrogation.} Who did you guys look up to when you were younger? Particularly in Vancouver. James: I'd have to say that the people I used to find heroic changed, or whatever. Or I changed, and I really don't find them to be very inspiring anymore. Maybe Sluggo. A lot of those older guys own companies now. Ifs kind of a disappointment in skateboarding. They just aren't the same. Their role as hero changed somewhere along the line... or your idea of a hero changed, sort of, huh? James: Yeah. But my friends, really. That's who are my heroes in skateboarding. Always have been. I mean, those are the people who always influenced me. And Gator, before he murdered his girlfriend. Yeah, to all the fallen skateboarders... who murdered their girl- friends. Jonny: I really looked up to James Lindsay. Jamer. When I lived in Victoria. I saw him win like some X-treme Challenge that was on TSN last year. Smile on his face the whole run, clearly an underdog, against all of the east coast heavy weights, and Jamer, probably drunk— and to the bewilderment of the cheeseball MC—landed a perfect run. It was flawless, man. So I can see why you might have been hyped on him. The MC was counting him out as a washed up party animal, and here the guy busts a flawless victory. Jonny: Yeah, man. I also like Rick [McCrank], Keegan [Sauder], Quinn [Starr], Dylan [Doubt].... Well, what about back in the day? Those guys are current shredders. Jonny: Maybe Darcy Dennis. He's the guy I'd always hear legends about when I was a kid. Cory: I grew up with the Skate Ranch in Richmond, and all those dudes are pro now. So I guess those were me guys I looked up to. Carlos Longo? Cory: Fuck, I remember him. China Creek legend. Destroyer. All those old Jaks were fuckin' scary. Jonny: Going back to Victoria, I mean, the heroes there were like Syd Clarke, Jeff Halliday, he was really fuckin' good. Mike: Jeff is still rad. Jonny: He just doesn't skate as hard as he used to. Like all of us, really. Now it's Keegan and Quinn, those kids. Super good style. Dylan. I mean, I grew up on the island. So hands down, best style ever, James Lindsay. When he skates, I just wanna stop and watch. He's a total natural, he just flows. Skateboarding nowadays is get- ting so mechanical. I mean, it's starting to get a bit better, with peo- ple paying more attention to style, and things. Like back in the day. They just wanted to surf, and carve. It's all about style. Cory; People that can skate everything. Jonny: Like Rick, man. He can skate everything, man. Like back in the day, you had to have style. Everybody had style. Now theres just robots out there... but I guess it's all about having fun, anyways. I think we prefer the old ethic in skateboarding for sure. Just getting rad? Jonny: Yeah, whatever. Just dorking around on a curb, or whatever. Just having a super good time. Is it safe to say that you guys apply the same aesthetic to your music? Everyone: Totally! Jonny: I mean, originally, we just wanted to be a three-chord skate rock band. That was Cory Webster. And we just got a lot better musi- cally, so we were better musicians, so naturally, we wanted to just become more technical and stuff. Now we will just write a pretty technical song. Then write a shitty three-chord one to make up for it. We will spend like three weeks on a song, then maybe spend five minutes on another. Cory: But we definitely are not into like skate punk music of today. Jonny: Like snowboard rock, man. Totally sucks. Mike: I think the consensus is that we basically hate new school skate rock. Jonny: I don't know if we hate it, man. Like tarly Bad Religion, early NOFX, you know: back in the day. Mike: I said New School, though. Not back in the day. James: Back in the day, though, that was New School! Like Descendants, and All. We're basically trying to fuse Classic Rock with fucking old school pumk. A little bit of cross-over metal. Cory: Some cross-over metal, mixed with a little Celtic inspiration. [Laughs] I take it then that STREETS is not a Snowboard rock band? Cory: No. James: There's nothing wrong with it, though. We don't slag anyone for doing whatever. Do you guys allow the people in the pit to skate at your shows? Jonny: We played at Video In and the kids were just going fucking crazy. They were doing coffin rides into each other and acid drops. Mike: Like we played with this band called The Attack. Jonny: They were so good. Cory: Like that guy street-planted his bass at that one show. And Jonny did a couple of ollies. Jonny: Yeah, I ollied off the stage. On the beginning of "Cory Webster" on the album, there's a skate sample, and what we were doing is playing live, and I'd oilie just like the part on the CD. Would you guys agree that there hasn't really been a true skate- rock band—a band that actually lives and breathes skateboard- . ing, as well as making it the focal point of the music? No one has taken it to interstellar achievement up to this point Jonny: Usually, one guy in the band skates or something, and I don't know-—like Suicidal Tendencies, did they even skate? I know Metallica skated. Mike: They did? Cory: Yeah. Remember, mat's how what's-his-name broke his arm- James Hetfield. Mike: Didn't Axl used to skate? Jonny: Yeah, I think he did. I heard that, too. Yeah, I mean, skate- boarding has always been cool, right? Ifs always been a force in arts and music. Since the beginning. What are STREETS' short-term goals? Jonny: Hopefully, go on a little tour, man. We have a bunch of friends in SF, a big crew called me Gnargoyles; they're really rad, they came up here and played at one of our parties and everybody got beat up. They're called Hightower, the band. So we will go visit them. We have connections all along the coast, you know. Mike: We are also playing some. shows with •Hightower and Three Inches of Blood. Jonny: Just lots of shows with our brother bands. Do those dudes skate too? Jonny: Yeah, some of them do. Mike: No, they do. They all skate. Jonny: Actually, we're planning to do a side project with Three Inches of Blood. Ifs going to be called Blood On the Streets. Three singers, two drummers, two bass players, four guitar players... we're going to try and record a song with Jesse at Wreck-age, hopefully. We're hoping it will be pretty epic. James: We're also playing Naughty Camp 2002. Jonny: Our goal is just to play. We are also planning another record, and we are going in to record for that right away, too. Mike: With Jesse at Wreck-age, of course. Jonny: He's totally cool, I mean, he did so many local bands. The Attack, Three Inches—he knows punk rock. He's just rad, you know? It's like you go to another city, and guys aren't into what you're doing. It's like, Jesse just knows, man. It's cool. Mike: If you fuck up, he'll be patient with you, and if it's good, you know. He tells you straight up. Encourages you, and stuff. With all your new-found authority out on the streets, do you guys seem to be butting heads with Vancouver Police agenda? They are trying to clean up the streets, you know. Jonny: Well, they don't ofidally know who we are as a band, but we had a party the final week we lived on Georgia Street which was just the fuckin' classic shit, man. We brought a couple of quarter pipes into the living room, so there was this huge session going down in the house. Big wall-rides and stuff. At about l:30am, the cops came, and they came with the intent to just maim the occu- pants of the house. No warnings, no fucking questions asked, they just started beating people down. And some kid got his lung punc- tured. And just, a whole bunch of lame shit went down. Total chaos. Corey: They had their dogs and everything... just running through the house macing people, and beating them up. Jonny: like I was the first person to talk to them, and I just wanted to sort me situation out... and the police officer is just yelling in my face, "YOU'RE FUCKING WASTED, BUDDY! YOURE FUCKING WASTED!" And I was like, "No, we're just running this party, you know, and now I want to rationally sort this out." Then he grabbed me and just threw me off the stairs onto the cement in the front, like nine stairs, to cement. And well, I landed it. Then a cop wilh a dog says, "GET MOVIN' BUDDY OR I'LL SICK THIS DOG ON YOU*' But it was all good, I mean, we just circled the block, and then came back, and moved our gear out the back, over to the Three Inches house. Mike: Yeah, they had like about six people in the paddy wagon, and they just dropped them into the wagon, pepper-sprayed, (hen dropped them all off on Hastings and Main at five in the morning. Corey: Our friend Adam C made a video tape of the party and ifs all on our website... skating in the living room, our last show (heic, and stuff. So although the Vancouver Police may have succeeded in de-log up the party, they certainly couldn't clean up the STREETS;, coold they? Jonny: No, they couldn't They can beat us down, man, but they can never take our spirits. • DiSCORDER: To whom do STREETS owe the largest amount of RAD-itude? James: Hey guys, who do we owe the largest amount of gratitude? No, RAD-itude, I said. James: Oh... RAD-itude!! [Laughs] I say me movie Thrashin'. Jonny 0: We owe fuckin' RAD-itude to beers at 7am, and fucking skating naked down hills, just your average bullshit. Just livin' gnar. It's our lifestyle man. There is not a single personality the STREETS owe RAD-itude? Jonny: Uh... yeah. Animal Chin is pretty inspirational. Mike P: Yeah man. Animal Chin! Jonny: Yeah man, the spirit of Animal Chin! And the Z-Boys! Everybody should go see that movie, man 'cause that truly repre- sents what skating and the STREETS are all about. It is Vessence of skateboarding. Indeed the RAD-issance. Jonny: Yes! Thats what they were, man, the RAD-issance of the 20th century. James: Also, skating peoples' living rooms is pretty rad. Definitely Georgia Street living room sessions. How do you guys find the time and energy to juggle both skate- boarding and the rigorous musical requirements of such a band? Mike: It's harder to find time to drink beers. Jonny: Well, it's not hard to find time at all. We dedicate ourselves to both elements of our lifestyle. I mean, just skating from Point A to Point B is enough, man. Like, anyone can incorporate getting rad ' and shredding into their every day lives. Doesn't really matter. Ifs a skate of mind. Corey: Plus, we aU try to get at least an oUie in at band practice. Jonny: But with STREETS, it's like we did our research, man. We'd go up to Mary Poppins [mini-ramp], and shred, then go directly inside and channel our energy into me music. That sounds totally RADI Jonny: Well this was back in me Corey Webster days [pre-STREETS band], but he was kind of a kook in the movie Thrashm'. You thought so? I thought he exemplified the RADness of the plot... Jonny: Well, we just go by what it stands for you know—STREETS: Skating Totally Rules Everything Else Totally Sucks. So where do the STREETS like to skate in Vancouver? Jonny: Me, personally, I like alleyways. Not any particular one, though. Mike: I like alleyways, and I like mini-ramps too. I can't really skate bowls or anything. Never really got the knack tor it. Originally, I'm from Ontario, and they didn't have that sort of tiling there. I'm more about alleyways and mini-ramps. Corey: And the streets, that goes without saying. Jonny: Zarlac [Hastings Park] is pretty good to carve around in. But lately I've been into Point A to Point B skating. Just putting a walk- man on and going really fast. Cruising through traffic. Lazy ollies. There's a nice hill on 7th and Fraser. It's really fun. It's got these big speed bumps at the bottom, you just get really fast when you pump over them. Totally fun. Isn't it hard to skate with a walkman on? Personally, I'm not a phones type of guy. Jonny; Nah... 'cause you're stoked, man. Corey: Nah, it isn't hard. Jonny: One of our songs is about listening to Suicidal Tendencies and skating down a hill. You just go with the vibe or whatever. What else you guys got playing in your Walkmans? Jonny: Fuckin' Thin Lizzy, man. . Mike: Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple. Jonny: Just a lot of '70s classic rock. Diamondhead. They are so good. Corey: Hawkwind. Jonny: Yeah, Hawkwind totally rules. What about the Nuge? He was sort of on the fringes of skate-culture in the '80s. The music you guys make reminds me of that sort of... Mike: He's a piece of shit. Jonny: No, not really into the Nuge. Mike: I just don't think we really stand for anything that he does. Sort of redneck, intolerance. He married an Asian woman. Mike: Oh. Well, really, I guess maybe I shouldn't have judged him so quickly. She was only 15 years old, though. Jonny: I'm more into Dinosaur Jr. Christa: Isn't there another band called The Streets? Cory: Yeah, there is... or was. The Streets were like a glam, butt-rock band. So bad. Don't you fear that they may come back to haunt you guys for jack- ing their name? James: They are probably all dead. Jonny: There was going to be a lawsuit. But we are STREETS, not The Streets. Ifs like we're pretty harsh about how rad skating is. And so if you don't skate, you suck. Nah, man. Just kidding. Sort of. I mean, people read into our name, and they infer that we don't like anything but skateboarding. Were you guys big fans of Thrasher's Skate Rock collection in the '80s? Jonny: Yeah! Dylan Doubt [local skate photographer] brought us back a box of them from the last time he went to Thrasher in San Francisco. [The interview pauses as all four band members begin to hold a ramshackle High-Jump Competition on the loading dock. With Mike steering home the winning jump, the combatants in this children's game, still weary from their gruelling contest, find enough flair to reach back into their reserves, and go on with the interrogation.} Who did you guys look up to when you were younger? Particularly in Vancouver. James: I'd have to say that the people I used to find heroic changed, or whatever. Or I changed, and I really don't find them to be very inspiring anymore. Maybe Sluggo. A lot of those older guys own companies now. Ifs kind of a disappointment in skateboarding. They just aren't the same. Their role as hero changed somewhere along the line... or your idea of a hero changed, sort of, huh? James: Yeah. But my friends, really. That's who are my heroes in skateboarding. Always have been. I mean, those are the people who always influenced me. And Gator, before he murdered his girlfriend. Yeah, to all the fallen skateboarders... who murdered their girl- friends. Jonny: I really looked up to James Lindsay. Jamer. When I lived in Victoria. I saw him win like some X-treme Challenge that was on TSN last year. Smile on his face the whole run, clearly an underdog, against all of the east coast heavy weights, and Jamer, probably drunk— and to the bewilderment of the cheeseball MC—landed a perfect run. It was flawless, man. So I can see why you might have been hyped on him. The MC was counting him out as a washed up party animal, and here the guy busts a flawless victory. Jonny: Yeah, man. I also like Rick [McCrank], Keegan [Sauder], Quinn [Starr], Dylan [Doubt].... Well, what about back in the day? Those guys are current shredders. Jonny: Maybe Darcy Dennis. He's the guy I'd always hear legends about when I was a kid. Cory: I grew up with the Skate Ranch in Richmond, and all those dudes are pro now. So I guess those were me guys I looked up to. Carlos Longo? Cory: Fuck, I remember him. China Creek legend. Destroyer. All those old Jaks were fuckin' scary. Jonny: Going back to Victoria, I mean, the heroes there were like Syd Clarke, Jeff Halliday, he was really fuckin' good. Mike: Jeff is still rad. Jonny: He just doesn't skate as hard as he used to. Like all of us, really. Now it's Keegan and Quinn, those kids. Super good style. Dylan. I mean, I grew up on the island. So hands down, best style ever, James Lindsay. When he skates, I just wanna stop and watch. He's a total natural, he just flows. Skateboarding nowadays is get- ting so mechanical. I mean, it's starting to get a bit better, with peo- ple paying more attention to style, and things. Like back in the day. They just wanted to surf, and carve. It's all about style. Cory; People that can skate everything. Jonny: Like Rick, man. He can skate everything, man. Like back in the day, you had to have style. Everybody had style. Now theres just robots out there... but I guess it's all about having fun, anyways. I think we prefer the old ethic in skateboarding for sure. Just getting rad? Jonny: Yeah, whatever. Just dorking around on a curb, or whatever. Just having a super good time. Is it safe to say that you guys apply the same aesthetic to your music? Everyone: Totally! Jonny: I mean, originally, we just wanted to be a three-chord skate rock band. That was Cory Webster. And we just got a lot better musi- cally, so we were better musicians, so naturally, we wanted to just become more technical and stuff. Now we will just write a pretty technical song. Then write a shitty three-chord one to make up for it. We will spend like three weeks on a song, then maybe spend five minutes on another. Cory: But we definitely are not into like skate punk music of today. Jonny: Like snowboard rock, man. Totally sucks. Mike: I think the consensus is that we basically hate new school skate rock. Jonny: I don't know if we hate it, man. Like tarly Bad Religion, early NOFX, you know: back in the day. Mike: I said New School, though. Not back in the day. James: Back in the day, though, that was New School! Like Descendants, and All. We're basically trying to fuse Classic Rock with fucking old school pumk. A little bit of cross-over metal. Cory: Some cross-over metal, mixed with a little Celtic inspiration. [Laughs] I take it then that STREETS is not a Snowboard rock band? Cory: No. James: There's nothing wrong with it, though. We don't slag anyone for doing whatever. Do you guys allow the people in the pit to skate at your shows? Jonny: We played at Video In and the kids were just going fucking crazy. They were doing coffin rides into each other and acid drops. Mike: Like we played with this band called The Attack. Jonny: They were so good. Cory: Like that guy street-planted his bass at that one show. And Jonny did a couple of ollies. Jonny: Yeah, I ollied off the stage. On the beginning of "Cory Webster" on the album, there's a skate sample, and what we were doing is playing live, and I'd oilie just like the part on the CD. Would you guys agree that there hasn't really been a true skate- rock band—a band that actually lives and breathes skateboard- . ing, as well as making it the focal point of the music? No one has taken it to interstellar achievement up to this point Jonny: Usually, one guy in the band skates or something, and I don't know-—like Suicidal Tendencies, did they even skate? I know Metallica skated. Mike: They did? Cory: Yeah. Remember, mat's how what's-his-name broke his arm- James Hetfield. Mike: Didn't Axl used to skate? Jonny: Yeah, I think he did. I heard that, too. Yeah, I mean, skate- boarding has always been cool, right? Ifs always been a force in arts and music. Since the beginning. What are STREETS' short-term goals? Jonny: Hopefully, go on a little tour, man. We have a bunch of friends in SF, a big crew called me Gnargoyles; they're really rad, they came up here and played at one of our parties and everybody got beat up. They're called Hightower, the band. So we will go visit them. We have connections all along the coast, you know. Mike: We are also playing some. shows with •Hightower and Three Inches of Blood. Jonny: Just lots of shows with our brother bands. Do those dudes skate too? Jonny: Yeah, some of them do. Mike: No, they do. They all skate. Jonny: Actually, we're planning to do a side project with Three Inches of Blood. Ifs going to be called Blood On the Streets. Three singers, two drummers, two bass players, four guitar players... we're going to try and record a song with Jesse at Wreck-age, hopefully. We're hoping it will be pretty epic. James: We're also playing Naughty Camp 2002. Jonny: Our goal is just to play. We are also planning another record, and we are going in to record for that right away, too. Mike: With Jesse at Wreck-age, of course. Jonny: He's totally cool, I mean, he did so many local bands. The Attack, Three Inches—he knows punk rock. He's just rad, you know? It's like you go to another city, and guys aren't into what you're doing. It's like, Jesse just knows, man. It's cool. Mike: If you fuck up, he'll be patient with you, and if it's good, you know. He tells you straight up. Encourages you, and stuff. With all your new-found authority out on the streets, do you guys seem to be butting heads with Vancouver Police agenda? They are trying to clean up the streets, you know. Jonny: Well, they don't ofidally know who we are as a band, but we had a party the final week we lived on Georgia Street which was just the fuckin' classic shit, man. We brought a couple of quarter pipes into the living room, so there was this huge session going down in the house. Big wall-rides and stuff. At about l:30am, the cops came, and they came with the intent to just maim the occu- pants of the house. No warnings, no fucking questions asked, they just started beating people down. And some kid got his lung punc- tured. And just, a whole bunch of lame shit went down. Total chaos. Corey: They had their dogs and everything... just running through the house macing people, and beating them up. Jonny: like I was the first person to talk to them, and I just wanted to sort me situation out... and the police officer is just yelling in my face, "YOU'RE FUCKING WASTED, BUDDY! YOURE FUCKING WASTED!" And I was like, "No, we're just running this party, you know, and now I want to rationally sort this out." Then he grabbed me and just threw me off the stairs onto the cement in the front, like nine stairs, to cement. And well, I landed it. Then a cop wilh a dog says, "GET MOVIN' BUDDY OR I'LL SICK THIS DOG ON YOU*' But it was all good, I mean, we just circled the block, and then came back, and moved our gear out the back, over to the Three Inches house. Mike: Yeah, they had like about six people in the paddy wagon, and they just dropped them into the wagon, pepper-sprayed, (hen dropped them all off on Hastings and Main at five in the morning. Corey: Our friend Adam C made a video tape of the party and ifs all on our website... skating in the living room, our last show (heic, and stuff. So although the Vancouver Police may have succeeded in de-log up the party, they certainly couldn't clean up the STREETS;, coold they? Jonny: No, they couldn't They can beat us down, man, but they can never take our spirits. • |
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