with Adam Lombrach
Patrick:My name is Patrick and you are listening to the Zero Hour. Right now I am here with Adam from Home Grown.
Adam: Yo yo. I just wanted to yo because I was feeling the music in the background. Feeling the energy there.
P:Let’s get this interview over fairly quickly because my paper is quickly turning to mush because of the moisture in the air. So how did you guys get started?
A:We got started about eight years ago I think probably just like everyone else in a garage. Playing backyard parties, playing that whole game. Just trying to market yourself as much as you can. Free demos, free this, free that, free shows. And it eventually built up to the nothingness that we are now.
PSo you guys have gone through a lot of band memebers. Any comment on that?
A:We have a lot of information on what has gone on in the past with our members on our website. Um basically in a nutshell, when you tour for seven or eight months out of the year, and you do that in a van, personalities come up right to the surface and if you don’t totally get along with those people you are with and don’t have the heart to tour it’s hard. I mean it’s the funnest thing in the world, but it’s hard. If you’re starting a new band and you’re not friends with the people who your with, you might as well quit now because it’s never going to work. That’s my note to any new starting band, make sure you guys are all best friends.
P:So it’s almost like living in a college dorm then…
A:It is. It’s even worse.
P:Unless you’re living at UCLA, because then it’s like you’re living in a van, it’s really small.
A: Is it? I wouldn’t know a damn thing about schooling.
P: Your new album was the Kings of Pop. That title right there almost implies that you sold out to the whole pop genre of punk. What do you guys say when people say you sold out? Because that album was really different than the others and you didn’t really play any ska on this at all.
A: Pretty much the Kings of Pop, we put that title on there to let everyone know that we are pretty much the best musical talent out there on the market. We could have said that we were the Gods of Pop, but we wanted to leave room for improvement. We’re a little bit modest. Kings of Pop is more modest you know what I mean? Pop encompasses all music. You know, we’ve never been a hardcore punk rock band. Even if you look at your old albums when we were punk or punk/ska or whatever, there’s only like two, maybe three punk songs on every album. The rest of it is just rock and roll. We’ve never really been a punk rock band. Pop is whatever is popular, catchy choruses, sing along stuff. That’s kind of what we try to do.
P: So you guys aren’t in any danger of selling out to MTV?
A: No, but I hope so. I hope MTV plays our new video that just came out. I will not lie, I would hope they would.
P: Which video was that for?
A: We just did a video for You’re Not Alone, and that’s going to be on the new Drive-Thru DVD that’s coming out I think in December or January. And that’s going to have footage of all the Drive-Thru bands; The Starting Line, Finch, RX Bandits, I mean pretty much everybody, Allister. Drive-Thru is also releasing another DVD with a video we did called Kiss Me, Diss Me and that one got banned from MTV actually because there was too much nudity. We did a whole spoof on Girls Gone Wild, you know those ads?
P: So basically every weekend in Santa Barbara…
A: Yeah, exactly, it’s like that every single night on channel whatever on TV at like midnight. But we had a party with about 80 or 90 girls with four or five kegs and it just got really, really stupid and fun. It was hilarious though. It was a funny video. Look for the uncensored video on the internet if it leaks. We might leak it…
P: On Act Your Age, you had a song called She’s Anti. Now the album was released before Columbine and that’s kind of weird that even in the song, the date mentioned is only eight days after Columbine. Has that affected you? Have you not been able to play that as much on stage because of the national sentiment towards that?
A" To be honest with you we are absolute jerks. We played that song at a show the very next day after the event happened. But that song was written a long time ago.The album was written and recorded like six months before it happened. Obviously that was a tragedy but…
P:It was just dumb luck
A: It was. It was. We are the most politically incorrect band you will ever see live.
P: I don't know about that...
A: Who's got us beat?
P: I saw the Vandals…
A: Oh…I’ll bow down to the Vandals, its ok because those guys know how to do it. I’m not even going to go there because those guys know how to rock. They have the cleverest sense of humor that I’ve ever heard in a band. I bow down to Vandals…but their old. They’re old men so we’ve got them on that one. We’re young.
P: So you can do this for a while longer…
A: I don’t know. My shins are starting to hurt every night. I don’t know if I can jump around as much anymore, but I’ll try.
P: How important would you say your fan base is to you? Would you say that your fans have been very supportive, especially of the new album?
A: Well the funny thing is that we have a bunch of albums out before this one. We have two full lengths, we have three EP’s out and we took like a four year break between the Act Your Age full one the new one. Honestly, nowadays it’s like we’re a brand new band starting out. We’re a new band at Drive-Thru, so most of the people who are coming to see us, I’d say to about 80 percent of those people, we’re a brand new Drive-Thru band. So in a sense, we’re working just as hard as the first day we started.
P: So you have to prove yourselves all over again.
A: Yeah, exactly which I think is cool because we still have our old hardcore fans who will always come out year after year and then there’s all the new fans that are coming to us now. Kings of Pop is like the sound and the direction that we’re headed. I think it’s cool. Anyone who comes aboard now is more than welcome. Fans and friends are everything, especially on the road. Thank you.
P: Do you have a favorite venue or place to play? Like has there been one place that you’d have to say was the best or that you’ve always wanted to play?
A: Well Iraq was a tough crowd last week…that was a rough one. We’re never going to play there again. I’d say in the states…dude there’s so many good places…Seattle is really good for us, Chicago, Jersey’s great, any home show in California is always good. There’s so many places…Texas is great. I’d probably say that any home show is good though because we actually get to do all kinds of crazy stuff like costumes and make super jerks of ourselves on stage. That’s what I like the most.
P: So you guys were on warped tour this year…
A: Yes, punk rock high school.
P: You guys where touring with Tsunami Bomb for a while, did you ever get to meet them?
A: A little bit, yeah. I can’t say that I got to be too close friends with them, but they’re really cool people.
P: Do you Agent M’s real name?
A: No I don’t. Sorry I wish I could help you.
P: It’s like a secret obsession for me and my friends. We’re always trying to find out because she won’t tell, not even in her interview. Audio Karate told me they would get beat up if they told us.
A: I’ll do some reconnaissance, I’ll figure it out. Do a little espionage, I’ll work it out.
P: We contacted her college that she went to because she used to DJ there too…
A: I’d like to make a side note that this sounds a little psycho on his part…
P: I don’t care about hanging out with her, we just want to know the name, that’s all.
A: I’ll figure it out for you, I can do that. I’d also like to note that when I do do it, I won’t hit her. Because I will never hit a woman. Never hit a woman. I’ll shake the shit out of her, but I will never hit her.
P:For your new album, it sounds a lot different. Did you have any new influences for this? Obviously you’re a new band for Drive-Thru and proving yourselves again, it almost seems like you re-invented yourselves for this album. You took a pretty long break between your last full length….
A: That’s basically like…Can I keep grabbing the mic? I kind of feel like a jerk because I keep grabbing the mic from you.
P: That’s what it’s there for.
A: That’s the thing, with the last album we literally had four years in between and had to choose from over thirty songs and had to bring it down to what the album was. There’s a few that didn’t make it from that recording that we’ll probably put on Japanese releases and stuff or leak on the internet. They’re probably already on there.
P: They’re not, I checked.
A: There not? Wow, keeping it on the down low. I’m impressed I can’t believe that. Well they will be soon. But yeah, it’s just that we’ve had four years to grown and mature and stuff like that. Usually bands put one out every year and a half so you can kind of see the progression. For us it was like (one giant leap), but I’m happy with the direction. I like the sound a lot.
P: How did you guys get picked up by Drive-Thru? Was there anything special that you did? Did they just pick you up at a show?
A: It’s just our good looks basically, we’re just all really good looking guys and we have real marketable faces. John’s Asian obviously so we can tap into the market. You know how it is right (as he looks at my friends Jackie and Steph, both of whom are Asian)? No, they’ve been friends with us for a log time.We’ve known Richard and Stephanie at Drive-Thru from back in their garage days. We were always just kind of looking for a label to call home and not much was happening, so we got some new demos and sent it out to them, and they were like we want to sign you guys. We saw them build it up from the roots, and they knew the scene, they knew the kids, and we were like this is the place for us to go. It’s working out really well for us.
P: Actually I think this is my last question on the list.
A: Oh thank God.
P: I know this is kind of lengthy. Where do you guys see yourselves five years from now? Are you going to wait another four years for an album? New members?
A: I could say honestly that what we’ve got set right now, we’ve got Dan Hammond playing guitar for us now. He started the first day of Warped Tour amd he’s been a friend of ours for like six or seven years. He’s done local bands at home like Summerville and This Camaro. He’s a great guitar player and a really good song writer, he’s actually got a really good lead singer voice too, so maybe we’ll se that on the next album.
P: You don’t want him to take that too much away from you. That’s your meal ticket.
A: It is, it is and I hold onto it tightly. But right now the set up we have right now. It is what it is. We’re such a tight unit of friends, like we’re really close. So nothing’s changing, nothing’s going anywhere. And there will be a new album out, we’re not really sure what it’s called yet…
P: Gods of Pop?
A: Could be, could be, could be…maybe Demi-gods of Pop, so the next one could be Gods of Pop, there fore leaving more room for improvement.
P: If you want to stretch the whole Greek mytho thing, you could go from Heroes of Pop to Demi-gods of Pop, then Gods of Pop. That way you secure your longevity.
A: Yeah then we’ll put out an album every four years so by the time we’re like 47 we’ll be the Gods of Pop. Oh God if we do that I’m going to shoot myself in the face. No, we’ll have a new release out probably a year from today. We’re going to bust them out like every year and a half. Because we’ve got plenty of songs.
*At this point the interview turned into huge shameless plugs for Drive-Thru Records. Mostly about the new DVD’s coming out as mentioned before, plus Hot Topic will be carrying a 2003 Drive-Thru calendar starting in December. Also they will be touring with the Riddlin’ Kids and All American Rejects along the west coast starting up the second week of January. It’s a three week tour. After all the shameless plugging, Adam did a promo for my show as well as a station ID. A big thank you to Adam as well as Lauren who set all of this up.
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