PipemanRadio Interviews Ultrabomb at Punk Rock Bowling XXV

0:04 Hi, you have done to you? That's sure? W for why for you? Young no one, I'm not thanks.

0:48 It is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with hi. I'm Greg Norton, Ryan Smith, Derrick O'Brien. Ultra Bomb here at Punk Rock Bowling. This is one of the coolest festivals, isn't it. This is yeah, that BRB is one of the best punk festivals in the world. Definitely the premiere punk festival in the United States. I think it's totally cool because you got the bowling, you got the poker, you got the club shows, you got the festival. It's like it's like just overtakes all downtown Las Vegas. It does, and you know, it's kind of kind of fun to, you know, go over to the Golden Nugget and see the swimming pool completely overtaken by punk rockers, and then there'll be you know, some old couple going like what is going on here?

1:41 I know I was at I was at the Punk Rock swim this morning. It was funny because you know, you have the circle pit in the water. But then the mandatory every year at this festival is somebody has a blow up sex doll in the circle pit. Well, you know some traditions you just can't break. Right, So tell the listeners a little bit about how this, as they want to call it, super group happened, Like what happened that one day you guys just decided to do this? Well, the ultra bomb story is so years ago. I was in a band called Hooskard and I think I heard of them. Yeah, yeah, they they did a thing right.

2:25 And about four years ago a guitarist friend of mine named Finny McConnell, who lives in Toronto, contacted me because he saw that I wasn't playing with anybody and asked if I wanted to be in a band with Jamie Oliver, who was the UK subs drummer for seventeen years. And the original concept was just to get together for fun, have some laughs, maybe play a festival or two and just do hooskerdo covers, Mahones covers, UK sub covers. And things quickly changed. When I decided to fly to Berlin, Germany because Finny was there, he had some studio time booked.

3:09 He said he was going to just kind of. Record some demos for some original Ultrabaum songs and Jamie happened to be in Berlin at the same time. And this is the crazy thing. I had never met either of these guys in person, so I decided to jump on a plane fly to Berlin, and the very first time the three of us were in the same room together was in a studio in Berlin, and in two days we wrote ten songs, and on the third day, Finny looked at my lyrics and said, I've got the whole record figured out. And on the last day, the fourth day, he went in and sang all of my lyrics to the music that we had just written, and we recorded an absolute banger with time to burn. Being an international trio was very challenging logistically, and we did. We played Punk Rock Bowling two years ago, and we did a tour last year with Me First and the Gimmy Gimmes.

4:17 And it became a parent. That Jamie had some legal issues that prevented him from getting a work permit in the US or getting into Canada. So the decision was made that Jamie was going to step aside. We met Derek actually here two years ago, and Derek is a longtime friend of Darren Hemon who runs DC JAM Records, and Darren is putting our records out, So when it came time to look for a new drummer, we decided to ask Derek, not knowing if he would be interested or not, and he was like, absolutely, I'm in.

4:58 I would love to be in this band. So that's Ultrabaum now two point zero. And at the beginning of this year we had to Finny McConnell decided that he was going to step aside and concentrate on the Mahones, and so we needed a new guitar player. I've known Ryan for quite some time. Ryan actually lives in Minnesota with me, and I was like, hey, man, would you like to play guitar in my band? And he said I would love to. So that's the lineup now.

5:42 Ryan has been playing with sol Asylum for about ten years. Derek has drummed with a lot of really great Southern California bands, Social Distortion, The Adolescence, DII, Agent Orange, and was one of the founders of Punk Rock Karaoke, which of course is a huge tradition here at Tarde. They close out the festival every year and we are really excited now to get out and rock. I love it. What a great story too, because you know it evolved and then I was sitting outside before while you were sound checking, I'm like, man, they sound pretty badass soundchecking.

6:24 You know. Well that's good. There you go. Yeah, And so maybe you guys can tell your side of story here. Well, I think for me, it's a huge, huge honor to play like I've known Greg a long time. Who Scootoo is one of my all time favorite bands flat out, So playing those songs with Greg is really really cool. And Social Distortion all the bands that Derek's been in too, So yeah, I was really intrigued by the initial call, like, hey, can you play guitar for show? We had a show book together with a couple of different bands, and I was super excited to do it. So I was like, there's no way I'm saying no to that. That sounds really awesome, man, right, Yeah, I've started listening to the Ultrabomb catalog and I was like, this is great. So I'm just super excited about playing with these guys in the future and making new music, playing these shows, going on tour.

7:23 Yeah. Cool, that's my side of the story. What's your side? Of story dark. My side of this story started two years ago when I came out on the word of Darren Heman from DC JAM. He was telling me all about you know, Ultrabomb and kind of filled me in on what they're what they're doing, and I got to hear, you know, their music, and then I came out to see him at Punk Rock Bowling and was gonna. I was talking to them about just doing some recording with them, and I met you know, everybody Finny Jamie greg and you know, the merch Guide and just everybody that's that's involved. But you know, I'm a longtime fan of Whoskerdoo and Soul Asylum and like everything that these guys have done too, so it's like, hell yeah, you know.

8:11 See that's why I like to hear, like all three of you have like ultra respect for each other, and that doesn't always happen in bands, Like there's a lot of egos sometimes. So you guys, guys, you have this chemistry that I think that's what makes great music. Well, you know, I mean, walking into a situation like that keeps me humble. So anyway, you know, we we kind of kept in touch and then after Jamie left. You know, Darren told me about like, man, you got to play drums for these guys, you know, and you kind of just put it like that, like I was like, yeah, I do. So then I talk to Greg and was just like yeah, I'd love to, you know, and then we kept in touch and then, you know, if Finny ended up leaving as well, so it was kind of like, okay, so what do we do now? And you know, Greg and Darren had just gotten fresh Ultra Bomb tattoos, so I knew they were dedicated, and I asked them if they still had their tattoos? Nice, and so like, all right, man, how do we move forward?

9:20 You know? Ultra Bomb two point zero nice? And I think Darren was the first one that brought up, you know, talking about Ryan, and we were just like, hell, yeah, you know that sounds great. That's pretty cool. And so how do you guys, like, as people are been around a long time in this whole scene, how do you see how music has changed and punk rock has changed in general and rock and everything From your point of view, that's a bad question, I know, right, That's. What makes it harder. You know. The crazy thing, you know, who's Gonna started in nineteen seventy nine and we toured extensively through the early eighties up until the band disbanded in nineteen eighty eight. And this is pre internet, right, So you would have a notebook with phone numbers in it.

10:20 You would find a payphone. You would call some kid and go like, hey, I hear that you put on shows in you know, wherever you are, and they'd be like, yeah, I'll put on a show. And a lot of times like their mom or dad would answer because they were still like in high school, living at their parents' house. And you'd show up and just hope that there'd be a venue, hope there'd be a stage, hope there'd be a pa, hope that there'd be like, you know, an audience. But back then, it's like people did show up because that's how you found out about music, you know, and every town that you played there was a kid that was you know, writing writing a fanzine and we'd want to do an interview and review the show, and uh, you know, that was kind of like the the lifeline for for people to find out about music. Now, uh, you know, forty years later, it's, uh, the Internet, everything's online everything's digital. Uh, it's a little bit harder to get people to discover you because you know, if you don't capture their attention in three seconds, right, they're out, you know.

11:35 Uh. And and again it's uh. The other big thing is is now they're you know, the the promoters and venues. It's I mean, it's a real machine now. Crazy. The amount of money that bands used to make in the eighties is still the same amount of money that clubs want to pay you, you know, so that that hasn't changed. Ticket prices have gone way up. Yeah, the amount of money that goes to the bands has it. You know, it's sort of like uh minimum wage, right. Yeah. That's why I always tell everybody when I'm doing the interviews that they can't listen to my show unless they buy the band's merch because that's the only way you guys that's running nowadays.

12:21 Uh. And that's it. It's like, you want to support bands that you love, make sure you go to the show, pay that cover charge, stick around and watch all of the bands, not just your friend's band, and then uh yeah, buy some merch because that's that's money that's going to go into their gas tank and you know, and keep them fed to the next show. Yeah. For me. For me, a beautiful thing is like I lived in LA in the eighties, had long hair, couldn't go to fucking punk shows because I would have gotten my ass kicked. And there were a lot actually, there's like a lot of shows I've got too in the past ten years that were like bucket list because I like Discharge Exploited.

13:05 You know. The only show I could really go to back then was d r I, which again, same thing they recorded, I don't need Society in their parents' bedroom. Yep, you know. So that's what I love about. That is one thing I do love about today is that we're a much bigger community now. Right And really, punk is it is about community. It's about helping people out. It's you know, if h somebody falls down, you you help them up, no doubt. Uh. And and that's you know metaphorically too, is like you know, you support your friends, look out for their mental health, lookout for their you know, general well being. Uh, you know, support marginalized groups of people. Punk is all about that community and always has been, always has.

13:58 Been yep, you know. And being here at Punk Rock Bowling, Uh, you know that this is something. You know, So this is the twenty fifth year of Punk Rock Bowling, and there are so many other really great festivals that have sprung up, you know, Camp Punk Sylvania and uh, you know you've got Punk in the Park, You've got you know obviously Riotfest and things like that, and and these are really great opportunities to get in and discover new bands as well, you know, and I'm excited. I saw a band called Civic just earlier this afternoon There's in Australia. They were amazing and they blew my mind. It was great, you know, So it's getting out and discovering that. You know what what I love is that seeing these young bands and these young kids that are just really killing it on the punk and hardcore scene and knowing like, you know what what I did, and you know, in Soul Asylum and Social Distortion, all these bands that have been around for quite some time, they're still listening and they're carrying on the traditions that we started.

15:03 You know what blows my mind is I do like festivals all over the US, UK, Europe and seeing all these kids wearing shirts and actually knowing the lyrics to songs that like, how did they notice music? And you know what, I figured out what it was. When we were kids, our parents were listening as shit that we had to rebel agains. And nowadays, you know, we're our generation is influenza kids. My son I brought him in his first pit, my grandson just last week. I brought him in his first pit at Welcome to Rockville. And you know, it's like, we're our kids are listening to what we listened to, which didn't happen when we were kids.

15:46 So I think that is amazing. When I see these kids with that. They're not just wearing the shirts, like you know, there's people out there that just wear misfit shirts because they look cool. But I watch these kids like actually singing the lyrics. I'm like, whoa, how did that happen? And I think it's totally cool. I would agree with that. Anybody else I agree with that. My daughter's right over there, Skyler, and she definitely like has really uh taken onto this. She loves punk music and she loves all of the music. She's exposed to. And I have to give it out to my grandma who gave me the Stooges album Fun House Nice which I was telling my grandma, so talking about I didn't have to rebel up against my grandma's music.

16:31 But that's pretty cool. Nice Ryan, Ryan's the kid in the band. I love it now. What I don't like nowadays is it blows my mind that punk brack bands have to sing about the same shit we sang in the eighties because it's even fucking worse. How did it not get better? It fucking blows my mind. I agree with that, you know, it's protest music. Well, we'll never go away because there's there's always ask there, there's yeah, there's always something to get outraged about and be and and protest about. And this is really definitely a time that's kind of like even more important now than it was, say, you know, ten years ago, fifteen years ago. You know, music, it seemed like, you know, the nineties was a lot of like pop punk and stuff like that, and.

17:28 It was. It didn't seem like there was a lot of protesting going on. But now it's like there's there is definitely a lot of outrage and people do need to speak up. And you know, if you don't speak up now, it's going to make other people that want to speak up. They're they're not going to because you're not speaking up. So I think it's really important. Made it now more than ever, I think, you know, like. Yeah, more more than ever in this country's history, equal or more to uh, you know, the Vietnam War, when a lot of great music came out. Originally, you know, sixties protests were kind of what stylized you know, protest music, if you I mean, there was early stuff with the the unions. You know, this machine kills fascists hasn't died, and now we have a fascist government that is oppressive and really hurting, you know, like the marginalized people that you know.

18:37 Greg just. Yeah, that fucking blows my by Reagan becomes normal. Norman Rockwell, I. Know, right, my best bro who passed away last year, but since thirteen we always went to shows together. He was like it after twenty sixteen is like, you know, you know, I hated Reagan's policies, but at least he was actually even though he was an asshole, doing what he thought was good for the country. Not this person I call him on the air, so we don't get h I don't get visited. I call him Resident Rump. Well, what I think what's confusing is that's good, right.

19:22 I think what gets confusing is the idea of you know, the anarchy and punk, where if somebody takes that in the wrong way, it's yeah, we will do whatever we want. We'll destroy the government and we'll leave everyone out and they'll only be the well, you know, a very small few who even have a benefit from a government. Meanwhile, I didn't ever see punks or metal heads storm the capitol ever, right, Like, so we're not the ones. No, no, we're well, we're for the people exactly exactly. And that's really like, you know, how punk started, It was kind of the outcasts getting together and kind of helping each other out and starting a scene.

20:08 I think the punk scene was like the natural segue from the hippie scene because they were the protesters. But you need to take it to another level, and I think that's what punk did. And now we need to take it to a fucking striospheric level. Now absolutely, I. Have this philosophy. Let's get the whole world to go to a mandatory music festival and then we could finally unite the world and beat all the fascists. Yeah, I mean, and then at the top of the chain. You've got Bruce Springsteen and you know others chiming in on the message. Yeah, you know Taylor Swift, and it's like they're saying the same thing the punks are saying. Which is wild right when the pop is saying the same as the punk, you know, it needs to.

20:54 Be set like Dropkick Murphy's and then the next day it's you know, totally top forty. So is there anything else you guys want the listeners and know about you guys or anything that's coming up. Plus socials, website, all that good stuff. Yes, Ultra Bomb is on all of the socials, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Bands in Town, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, find us, follow us, like us, comment on things, share it with your friends because this is also one of the big differences is now you have to feed the algorithm because that's a beast that is insatiable and unfortunately it's a game that everybody needs to play. But yeah, find us on that. Also, we're doing a West Coast tour in June with the band called Dead Bob, which is John Wright, the drummer from No Means No.

21:58 It's his new outfit. They are an amazing, high intensity band and they definitely match Ultra Bomb's intensity on stage. So that's that will be a show that people should get get to. So it's so all West coast, Washington, Oregon, California happening this June. Love it and I'm looking forward to your show tonight here at punk Rock Bowling at and Heifers. Yeah, punk Rock ho Down which the organization Punk Rock Saves Lives. This is the tenth year that they have had the Punk Rock co down here at Hogs and Heifer's And it's a donation at the at the door, but all of that money goes to support punk Rock Saves Lives and everything that they do to help the community.

22:52 Which is a great organization because punk rock and music in general has saved so many people's lives. Punk rock has saved my life numerous times. There it is I think all of us seeing at this table for sure, Well, thanks for being here with us, Thanks for making great music. Yeah, thank you, thank you for being on the adventures of pipe Man. Thank you, and thank you for keeping journalism alive and real and real. That's the way I like to look at you know, like fuck this other shit. You know, when did that happen too. You know, when journalism got paid by the people with the money, makes no sense to me. Yeah, keep it, keep it, keep it talk, keep everyone talking.

23:33 That's it going. Well, let's do it. And you guys keep fucking killing it and look forward to seeing you again. Thanks, thank you, thank you for listening to the Adventures of pipe Man on w for CUI Radio.