Tony Alva music interview, bass and Fender collaboration

People have powerful feelings about the traffic in Los Angeles. It says something that local officials warned motorists about a temporary roadwork closure on the 405 last year by calling it Carmageddon. Angelenos took the hint, and this weekend they're expected to steer clear of the latest 405 closure, named, of course, Carmageddon 2. That's how it is in L.A., a snarl of overstuffed freeways and commuters who keep their cool, except when they don't. KPCC's Stephen Cuevas has this profile of a punk rocker whose music expresses the insanity of L.A. traffic while extolling the virtues of public transit. Couple of things you need to know about Eddie Solis. He lives in L.A., loves the band Kiss, and does not own a car. Being someone who's from L.A., born and raised, and, you know, having a few cars in my past, I saw the city much differently through a different perspective through the eyes of a bus rider. One just all the way to the back. Line 18, Wilshire, Western Station. Just steps from the front door of his home, across the street from a tortilla factory in L.A.'s Boyle Heights neighborhood, Solis catches a bus that connects him with the city's subway, and the commuter train he catches to his day job at an indie record label in Hollywood. It just opened me up to, like, little neighborhoods, galleries, clubs, bars, just everything. Just seeing what's out there, little pockets of the city. Solis' journeys aboard L.A. buses and subway cars informs a lot of the material on The New Los Angeles Part One, Through the Eyes of a Bus Rider, the latest release by the singer-guitarist band It's Casual. The New Los Angeles No one has learned much In Solis' vision of a New Los Angeles, people abandon their cars, climb aboard public transit, and rediscover their communities. One song extols the virtues of the L.A. County Metropolitan Transit Agency's E-ZPass, and the urban underbelly it introduces to the rider. And that's, like, a nod and homage to, you know, the people who know what you can even go cheaper, and really beat the system, and really steer away from spending money on gas and oil profits and all that. Fifty dollars is all it takes for me to get to work. Fifty dollars is all it takes for me to get to work. Fifty dollars is all it takes for me to get to work. It's not just for me to witness racial tension, for me to witness illegal aliens. It's not to paint a negative picture. It's just my perspective of what is seen. Off the bus and back on the street, we make our way past a jazz saxophonist playing for pocket change, and down a long escalator to catch a train. So, where are we now? We're at the Red Line Station. The... Pershing Square Station in downtown L.A. And what's our destination? We're going to go downstairs another tier, and in about five minutes, we're going to get on the Red Line going northbound. Okay, let's go. Let's go. The Metro Red Line snakes from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles. It's the train that inspired its casuals' signature tune, and spawned a viral internet video. It was partly filmed late at night on a moving train as it hurtles from station to station. Solis thrashes away on his guitar and barks the lyrics, which celebrate the Red Line and call out the congested freeways that coil around Los Angeles. This is a Metro Red Line train to North Hollywood. The 210-605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the 210, the freeways are not so nice. The thread that comes out of the record that ties everyone together is just like, be alive, don't be a victim of having a car. The 210-605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the 210, the freeways are not so nice. The Red Line. The Red Line. An MTA spokesman said he couldn't comment on Eddie Solis' furious pro-Metro message, but the Red Line video was a hit at the offices of Move LA. Eddie's done a good job. Thank you, Eddie. Thank you, Eddie. Public Transportation Advocacy Group, headed by former Santa Monica Mayor Denny Zane, he liked the juxtaposition of Solis blissfully riding LA public transit in one scene with scenes of the band raging against those notorious freeway jams. Eddie is all frantic when he talks about highways, and so mellow when he's like grooving on his skateboard and on the bus and on the Red Line. There's a metaphor for the transformation, you know, from the, oh my God, I just got to get out of the, I just got to get out of the traffic to, hey, this is cool. I can mellow out. Or you can blast the tune like too many people as you claw your way across Los Angeles by car, bus, or skateboard. Los Angeles There's too many people I want them to go away Even though I think they're so free Too many people could also be a motto for its casualness. Over the years, the band whittled itself down to a power duo of Solis and a rotating cast of drummers. So you may think the burly, bearded punk rocker just can't get along with freeways, with people, or his native LA. Not true. I love it. I love everything about it. I've traveled throughout the U.S. many times, and I could never look forward enough to coming back. The weather, the different cultures, the landscape. I was just like, you know what? Now I know why everyone moves to LA. Solis will bring the love and the volume during a Redline mini-tour next month. Its casual will play a different venue within walking distance of several Redline metro stops from Union Station to West Hollywood. For the California Report, I'm Stephen Cuevas. I was my driver last night I was my driver last night I was my driver last night I was my driver last night I was my driver last night by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by by The 405 The freeways are not so nice The 605 The 101 The 101 The 101 The 80 The 210 The 605 The 101 The 405 The 80 The freeways are not so nice The red lights The red lights The red lights The red lights The red lights The red lights The red lights The red lights Welcome to Los Angeles Nista episode 134. I am the show producer, creator, and host, Eddie Solis. And tonight is the definitive music interview with Tony Alva. Alva, how are you, man? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you for coming on and discussing the all-new... The almighty beauty of la música. I'm excited. Our passion. Our passion. Our passion. Besides surfing and skateboarding. Absolutely. And all are very cohesive. I think... Well, it goes hand in hand, a lot of that stuff, especially when I was a kid as far as being a skateboarder. I mean, surfers, first and foremost, it was always rock and stuff when we were young kids. You and I were talking a little bit even about like the first rock stuff that I was into, and it was just basic stuff like from the Beatles to like Led Zeppelin to like stuff like 10 Years After. I mean, there was Iron Butterfly in the 60s, Creedence Clearwater, like all those bands influenced our surfing lifestyle a lot. But later on, you know, with skateboarding, it became pretty edgy because it went into the full punk rock experience. Hardcore punk and all that stuff. Now, we're going to be talking about an item that's available, a collaboration piece between you and Fender Guitars. We'll get into that. But I really want to start from the beginning. Let's talk about significant bands that anchored you to being a music fan and wanting to play music. Be a fan to listen to it. Led Zeppelin. That was a huge component to you being into rock. Definitely. I mean, with those records that came out, Led Zeppelin 1, Led Zeppelin 2, Led Zeppelin 3, like the whole, the series of every year, that was the most popular record in the junior high school. The middle school that I went to was Lincoln Junior High. And every year at the end of the year, they would have the favorite album. And in the yearbook, it would be Led Zeppelin every year. It was crazy. Right. But meanwhile, we were digging on a lot of, really eclectic stuff. I mean, you know, always being from LA, the Doors were like a big influence. But obviously, I think the most experimental and just like, just amazing talent was Jimi Hendrix. All of us, like, when we started picking up guitars and actually playing guitars and learning basic songs, we just learned Hendrix songs. And what year are we talking? That's how we learned how to play guitar and stuff. Was it the Hendrix blueprint? By playing Hendrix songs. Probably in the mid, to late 70s, like, was when we started actually picking up guitars. My brother was a natural at it. So he obviously learned the stuff. And then later on, I really had to work at it to really learn to play. But I always wanted to play bass. That's what I still do. Right. And, you know, regardless of the fact that I'll pick up a guitar and I can mess around on it, I'm not very much of an avid guitar player. I'm a bass player. And that's what I love to do is, even the bass that I brought today is an acoustic version of the White Lotus, the one, that is the first official, like, Alva, I would say, signature collaboration that I have with Fender is the White Lotus. It's an acoustic guitar. Yeah, yeah. And we're going to get into that. I want to bring everyone in full connection with you and get everyone really acquainted with your musical taste. Because there's a lot of different perspectives to music in your spectrum because you're a fan, you play live, you play live, you play live, you write at home, and you have a collaboration with Fender. So I want to talk about the first time you started connecting with that instrument. Was it by just seeing bands live and listening to records where you said, okay, I'm going to pick up the bass? What was it that was a catalyst? Well, I think since we were all self-taught, it was just basically, the bass just felt natural for me. It was like my ear and the rhythm that I had a natural ability for the rhythm because the rhythm section, you know, with the bass, the bass is like, you're pretty much joined at the hip with the drummer, you know? And I was really fortunate that I always played with really, really good drummers. And even when we had like a 15, 16 year old kid in our band, in the punk band that I played in called the Scoundrels, they were just amazing drummers. We had this little kid, Bella Horvath, that was in our band and he was like kind of the protege of the kid that was playing in Black Flag at the time, which was Emile McCowan. Oh, Emile McCowan. And he was the protege. He was the protege of the original, one of the original drummers for Black Flag or probably the original was Robo. Right. So Robo's protege was Emile, Emile's protege was Bella. Bella was our drummer in our band. So that was one of the first drummers that I watched not only progress, but grow from being just a little kid to, you know, being like an accomplished musician and having a drummer like that to jam with really taught me a lot. And then I played with Mike Ball from Suicidal Tendencies, Mike Dunn again from Suicidal Tendencies, like these guys were like amazing guitarists. So basically it was just like a metamorphosis of like, you know, you better like learn quick and come out of the cocoon and be a butterfly pretty soon, man, because like these guys are really good. And if you're not good enough to hang with these dudes, you're not going to last in this band. So that was kind of where I learned a lot was after the whole rock explosion thing of wanting to be a rock star so bad, the skateboarding and the surfing, because, you know, that's kind of how we carried ourselves. Right. Like streetwise, we were wanted to be like exactly like our heroes who were the rock stars, guys like Jimmy Page, you know, guys like Jim Morrison, guys like Hendrix, guys like Alvin Lee, you know, like the list goes on. I mean, there was a lot of like amazing talent in the 60s and 70s. But what happened was punk rock came and it made it kind of more accessible for us because all of a sudden here we were, these garage band kids that were being exposed to bands like the Weirdos and the Germs and X and, you know, and we were just like, we can do that, you know, and we started our own bands. My brother started a band called the Ozzy Hairs. It was like pretty heavy metal influenced punk rock band. And then my band came a little bit later after my brother had already kind of broken the ice. And that was? Which was funny because it's my little brother, you know, but he was the first one to break the ice. He was an amazing musician and the lead singer for that band, for the Ozzy Hairs. Wow. And they used to open for a lot of the bands that we really liked, that we were really into. I mean, I play with Greg, he had some in GFP now and like, I never really dreamed that that would even manifest ever in a lifetime for me because that's like a dream come true in a way because Greg was one of the guys we looked up to. In Bad Religion and Circle Jerks, right? Well, mostly Circle Jerks because the Circle Jerks was our band. That was like our, before even Black Flag, you know, that was the band that we followed everywhere. You know, and Black Flag, yeah, was, you know, they're like cousins anyways in a way, you know what I mean? But Circle Jerks were more accessible for us. You know, we could actually like go to their shows and be right there with the band and stuff. Right. So it was pretty cool. That's really cool. I want to get your perspective on a few bands coming from your perspective in that timeline when you were growing up being so immersed in skateboarding and surfing and LA, you know, coming, coming, going back to the Doors, were they really the most radical thing that was just kind of unconventional at that time or were there other groups, but they got the attention? Well, I think that the fact that, you know, when you have a talent, somebody that's such an amazing like poet and like, and can put it to music and not to mention the fact that, you know, just the chemistry that a guy like Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek and, you know, and, and in Densmore, I mean, those, it was their chemistry, I think more than anything because they didn't really even have a bass player except when they're in the studio, they would pull a bass player in. But I think Ray Manzarek would play a lot of the bass lines on keyboard. On the, the percussive keys, like. And to be a hardcore kind of psychedelic rock band like that and have like airplay, like AM radio airplay, stuff like that. Long songs on the radio. That was unheard of, right? You know, for him to be singing songs like, you know, like Light My Fire and L.A. Woman and like all, that stuff was iconic with Los Angeles. Exactly. So you couldn't really get away from it, you know. I think when it comes to L.A. rock bands, at that time, they were definitely not only the most, most popular, but the edgiest band. And Jim Morrison's lifestyle and his attitude was like what rock stars were all about back then. You know, it's, I think there was a different perspective of the whole drug culture. And also not to mention, you know, somebody being like pretty much a raging alcoholic, but being functional to the point where they were considered like, you know, a hero to the kids and stuff. You know, nowadays I think there's a lot more exposure when it comes to actually the alcoholism and drug addiction and stuff like that can be detrimental to your career. Where back then it almost made your career. Yeah. Because I think the framework wasn't built yet. Yeah. Yeah. Because Hendrix was an acid head and, you know, Morrison was a full on, you know, like basically like just a drinker. Yeah. And the list goes on. I mean, you can go down the list. I mean, David Bowie and his cocaine. I mean, I'm sure the Stones had enough, you know, a mixture of cocaine and heroin to like, to chill a full blown, you know, like pack of elephants or whatever, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I focused on the Doors was because they were established in Venice. Yes. And wanted to get your take on them. Did you ever see them live? No, but my friend Jay, his mom used to hang out with Jim Morrison actually and hung out with the Doors and stuff. Her name was Flayne. She was Jay Adams' mother. Oh, wow. Wow. She used to hang out with them. She was part of their little inside circle. In Venice back in the day. Yeah. Wow. Now, what about, what about Zeppelin? Did you ever see Zeppelin? Yes, I did. I saw them, believe it or not, in 1973, I think it was. Where was that? Could have even been earlier than that. I could have the year wrong. It was at the Forum, the Whole Lotta Love Tour. Wow. I was up in the nosebleed seats and didn't even care. It didn't really matter. It was amazing. Well, let's talk about bass players. See, Whole Lotta Love Tour, now that I think about it, could have been more, maybe like 71. 71? It could have been. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Because I think I was still in junior high school, not in high school yet. Wow. We won the tickets at a Tom McCann shoe raffle thing. Tom McCann shoe raffle? Yeah, we stuffed the box. Me and my babysitter, there was this teenage girl that was a couple years older than me, her name was Bobby. And she talked me into it and like we stuffed it. A bunch? And we actually won the tickets and she goes, I'm taking you to the concert. So you went to go see Zeppelin? Yeah. Because of the Tom McCann concert? Yeah, yeah. That's so rad. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Tom McCann, you know, it's just, yeah, I mean. Yeah, it was crazy. I always had these babysitters that were like these older teenage girls that my dad would just like give a few bucks to hang out with me, you know, while he would like work late nights and stuff like that. And so, obviously like that whole era of like having these teenage girls that were already like smoking pot and into like going to rock concerts and stuff. I was like influenced at a pretty young age. Sure. That lifestyle. Sure. And I mean, and it didn't even come from like the skateboarding, the street. It was like, that was your babysitter. No, I, I was learning just how to skate, like even roll and just like the natural ability that I had for skateboarding came from just practice. You know, I practiced it a lot, but I, but I had a talent for it, you know, and I really wanted to be a surfer more than anything, a professional surfer, but I didn't have the talent for that or the muscles or the, or the, the courage really for it. It's, that's come to me later in life because I've practiced and just done so much. Just my, my, my dedication to surfing has really paid off more than anything. It appears, you skate more, I mean, surf more than ever, right? Yeah, but it's the same thing with music too though. Like if you go back to what, what really got me to where I'm at as a musician too was like, it was because I was dedicated to it and I practiced like diligently and I never really accepted the fact that I had to be like some formally trained musician or anything like that. I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to do it my way and this is how we do it and I'm just going to keep practicing and I know I have a good ear for music. I know what's good and I know what's bad. I know what isn't good and you know, I have like these amazing musicians that I'm influenced by and even guys that I played with including, like I said, like playing with Joey C, playing with Greg Hudson, playing with Amory Smith, you know, all these guys that I've like basically been in bands with including Tom, you know? Yeah. Our singer Tom is like, he's been around, you know? Absolutely. And you know, he's created your world musically. He's connected to the Beastie Boys in a way, you know, which is kind of a trip because like everybody, like the Chili Peppers, like the guys from like Metallica like T.S.O.L. I mean, the list goes on. All those guys around me, like guys like Johnny Ray and stuff, it's like, I've been exposed to that for years and years and years of like really good musicians. So regardless of how good I am, I mean, I can play and do what I want to do and I know what sounds good to me and I know my abilities, you know, that I have a certain ability and I have strengths and weaknesses. But at the same time, I don't really worry so much about that. What I concentrate on more than anything is to, kind of, have a less is more approach to music. Right. Which I find, like even Katie was showing me lately of some footage of Johnny Thunders where he was talking about that and he was saying like, you know what, and I've read things from a spiritual perspective about Eastern music and stuff too and how you start adapting different styles to music. Well, if you start getting too technical and learning too much stuff and then like, even like with jazz guys, it's like, the less is more approach really works because what it is, it's not necessarily what you're playing, it's how you play it. Exactly. Exactly. If someone plays four notes and really plays it through emotion, that would like, resonate with more people than just some guy that's so mechanical. You know what I mean? Even there was this one interview that I read that was on Mickey Hart, you know, and he was saying like, you know what, it takes years to unlearn a lot of that technical stuff because you find that you've learned too much and then it's taking you in a direction to where you're not really progressing anymore. Exactly. And don't you see when you're out seeing a lot of really good professional bands, you know, the other night I was watching Queen, a documentary on Queen and there was, everything was stripped down. One guitar, one bass, one drums. That's the band. And they were not overplaying. Bands sometimes, local bands, they'll play three chord rock. Yeah. They overplay and the music does not breathe. And the thing is, you know what I mean? That's the thing that's so cool about, you know, playing with GFP too is because even though we're a punk band, we do have a lot of breathing in our songs and stuff. There's a lot of spaces and different things that we do. There's a lot of spaces that are our signature kind of like sound and our signature like style is that we do play punk rock music that breathes. The band that I'm playing with now, that's a new project. We haven't even played live yet, but you know what? We practice all the time. We write original music. It's with Matt Rainwater from the Chicken Noodle Project that I did with Ray Barbie. Mm-hmm. But his daughter named our little band. It's called His Eyes Have Fangs. And we started out as just an instrumental kind of almost like a surf, like a bluesy kind of rock, you know, instrumental surf band because the guitarist has a very surf sound. It just so happens that we started talking about having a vocalist and Matt's wife, Rachel, joined the band. Wow. So Rachel Rainwater is like our singer now and she's growing with the band and starting to become something very interesting because it has a lot of influence from like early before both of the girls Fleetwood Mac, but it also has influence from, I would say, obviously blues because that's where rock comes from, but also like kind of Pink Floyd. It kind of has this really weird psychedelic sound to it. So anyways, it's growing and it's changing and turning into something that we envisioned at first, but now we're not so much pushing it into it has to be a certain sound. It's just turning into what it is. Growing organically. Definitely. Yeah. And that's because you guys are committed to it and it's just taking it. Well, nature's taking its course. I don't think it's even just so much the commitment. You know what it is more than anything? It's that we all communicate really well when we're creating the music. I get to write a lot of the songs on bass because it's pretty simple and easy and we're keeping it like stripped down so it doesn't get too complicated. And the other thing is it's fun. We just keep it fun. We're not getting too serious about it. You know, we're not that serious about it. We're just like, we're recording our practices because we practice in a little studio on Costa Mesa. And every time we listen, it's almost like the guys do with basketball. You know how they look at the tapes? The dailies, yeah. Like we're listening to our dailies, you know, and listening. And I can hear it growing. And then I play stuff for Katie. You know, it was like, you know, it would be the same way like, you know, you came home and you played music for her and you go, like, honey, what do you think of this? You know? And the bottom line is that it's growing and we can both hear it. And like, and Rachel's becoming comfortable now. You know, and Katie came and took pictures of us kind of hanging out and jamming and the pictures were really neat, especially the ones of Rachel, you know? So it's kind of like this little project that's growing and it's come from a lot of the stuff that I've been involved with, like with Fender, with GFP, with stuff like that is like my foundation that created... Components. Well, it created kind of like a sponsorship for me that I never really... I don't take it for granted, you know? It's just that I've got this sponsorship through what I do with surfing and skateboarding, but I've also got sponsorship through, um, the guys like Michael Schultz and like Nate White and these guys down at, uh, you know, down at the little, uh, the Fender showroom and stuff. I go down there and if I need anything like worked on, if I need anything that they have that's new that I want to try or use or incorporate into my music, it's like it's accessible now and where I would go and spend the money on that stuff. Like my first guitar, I bought my first guitar from them, from them, but they saw how I was really into it and I think they tapped into the fact that, that I had, some, uh, potential as a, as a marketing venture for Fender. Yeah, of course my brand is like very popular with, you know, the kids, the surf and skate thing. But what happened was we just put our heads together and something manifested that I really never envisioned was ever going to happen in my lifetime, let alone as a musician, was I got sponsored by Fender, you know? Right. The next thing I know is like we were designing a guitar, you know, and then the thing after that is like, they're like, whatever you need, T.A., you know, oh, you like that cabinet that Duff plays? Oh, yeah, that's, that's a beautiful one. That's a good one, huh? And I'm like, yeah, I really like that thing. I would love to play out of that. Next thing you know, they're shipping, you know, like $3,000 bass cabinets to my house and stuff, you know? And then I got to play the, the music cares thing, you know, with Chester Bennington and with, uh, the Stone Temple Pilots and then Ray and Matt and I went and did this, uh, you know, this benefit for, uh, for health, you know, basically for, for people that needed money and needed help when it came to not only, uh, detoxing and getting sober and stuff, but just health in general, you know? The music cares program. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very aware of that. And the next thing you knew, I had this, like, bass cabinet that they'd just given me and it was my first gig. I was playing it at Nokia, you know? And it was just like, I'm telling you, you know, for a guy that's like a professional skateboarder, that was like, I was kind of like, wow, you know, this is really going to happen and then I was kind of like thinking like, oh man, am I going to get up there and just choke? Am I just going to, you know? But once you get up there, especially if you have a good, you have a good musical, like, um, I, I think a lot of it has to do, like I said, with the rehearsal stuff, just practice stuff and you have a sense of like, you know what? I don't have to go up there and be the best guy. I just have to go up there and do what I do and be a part of and be a part of this band and to be up there with Ray Barbie was magic, you know, because he carries like the melody, like, very like eloquently. To have Matt Rainwater and have him mic'd up in the Nokia Theater, the sound was so amazing, the drums that, I was like, there's no way I can play, you know, I might have a couple little fumblers here and there, but there's no way I can really play bad. When things are, at a venue like that, when things are mic'd up at that level, like, you're like, how can I mess up? It was synchronicity. It was really, really cool. Like those, that level of performing, I think, makes a performer magnified and even better because of the platform that they're on. It was a great experience and I just want to thank those people again, you know, if anybody from Music Cares is listening, I mean, like, wow, they really helped me out a lot. You know, the lady that I worked with, Winnie, I spoke to her today and she was saying that Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica are going to do the next one, so. Wow. So it keeps going on, you know. It's ongoing, it's growing, it's positive for musicians that need the help. They help a lot of people. And, you know, Anthony Kiedis was there to introduce us, Chester, who I was never even a big fan of. Linkin Park. After that event, I was a fan. I can seriously say I'm a fan of Chester Pennington. I went to the last event, they had two, it wasn't this one that you played, but the one before that and Depeche Mode and Jane's Addiction played and Linkin Park and it was really, I did a lot of research beforehand and learned how they help not only the people that, you know, like the musicians that are signed up for the program, but their families. They provide therapy for their families that went through a lot of, you know, heartache. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. They really do help people and, you know, I met some, some people there, you know, that were like part of the fellowship, you know, that helped me as a young, you know, like in my sobriety days, you know, just like barely being able to, you know, like even hold down like, you know, 30 days clean. There was guys there that had like 20 something, 30 years and stuff like that. Those are the kind of guys I like to be around, especially if they're musicians and they're artists and, you know, to be around the DeLeo brothers, you know, from Stone Temple Pilot, I mean, those guys, it was really cool. They were like fans in a way of mine from being a skateboarder, which was weird. That's awesome. You know, it was like, just kind of like, whoa, you know, and then, and then watching them play and then Duff and Slash came out and, dude, Slash is so cool. They did a Mata Hoople song. Mata Hoople. And they did the one that Bowie used to do, you know, all the young dudes and like, Chester just killed it. I mean, he was amazing. Did he? Did he really? It was amazing. It was a really cool experience. And this was after we'd played, so I got to sit in the front row, you know, just kicking back like right there, like at a concert watching these guys play. So that experience in itself, one of my most recent experiences as being not only an artist, but, but being a fan kind of all came together through something that was a benevolent cause, you know, and I was asked to do this through a guy that's one of the chairmen, well, basically one of the board members of Map Cargo, who is, um, his, he's a guy that I had a run in at a club one night when I, when I was still drinking and I had made an amends to him and it turned out that his name is Kevin Lyman and he basically, you know, is the guy when it comes to the Warped Tour. He's the founder of the Warped Tour and the main rock star man. He invited me to come and do this thing due to the fact that I had had to part, not had to, I, I wanted to and I, and I made the effort and I was willing to go and he, and make things, make things better with him and fix the damage that I had done with him. Years ago? Yeah. And then eventually, here we go, like, within a year or two of, after doing this, you know, this full amends process with him and having him being forgiving enough to give me the time of day and say, you know what? It's okay, you know? He offered me this opportunity. That's amazing. So it's pretty crazy how it works when you get, when you get clean up your act a little bit. Right. I mean, when you're willing to admit that you're wrong and, and then move, move forward from there. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it was, back in the day, I never would have, I, I would not have swallowed my pride and, and, and been able to go up and do something like that with a guy like Kevin. Right. Cause I would have held onto that resentment and been like, you know, fuck that guy. Sure. He deserved it. Sure. You know, I would justify shit like that. It was, it's not justifiable at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so basically for those who don't know, Kevin is the founder of the Warped Tour and he founded a metal festival that basically kind of replaced the market that Ozfest left. It's called the Rockstar Mayhem Festival. So he's really good at what he does. He's an amazing guy. Yeah. And so can you articulate what, I work with him all the time lately because we work closely with Vans. Right. Both, both of you guys. Vans is my sponsor. Yeah. And you have your own shoe with Vans. Yeah. I just saw Kevin in Nashville of all places. We were hanging out in Nashville. Is that right? Yeah. Bebs and the Moneymakers were playing there. They're from like Orlando, Florida. Wow. Like a ska, kind of a funky pop ska band. Okay. They played. And then there was a band from Nashville that played. I don't remember their name, but they were kind of almost like a psychobilly band. Wow. We do a lot of music stuff, you know, with Vans. And I get a lot of opportunities even with my new band sometimes when we're not even like accepted yet, even in the music world. It's like Vans will give us the opportunity to go and play House of Vans or go play like a, we'll be on a cruise boat, you know, kind of like going around the harbor in Newport Beach or whatever. And they'll like set us up and, you know, Chicken Noodle Project started that way is that we went and did a boat cruise inside for all these kids from all over the world that were sailboats and sales managers for Vans. They had a big party for them and we were the entertainment on the boat and cruised around the boat. For the Vans staff. And that's how we ended up getting to the Map Cargo thing was because we were doing boat cruises for Vans, you know, in Newport Harbor. That's so cool, man. So, you know, the opportunities are, I don't take them for granted, but they're pretty special. There's some really, there've been some very unique opportunities for me as a musician because of the fact that I'm a sponsored skateboarder. Right. It's kind of trippy. Yeah, I mean, Vans is, you know, obviously, to me, it's the most universal brand as far as the people who wear it. It carries a spirit, a spirit of individuality. You know what it is. It stems from skateboarding. Because I know Katie knows this too. The Vans thing is like a family. Because, like, we've been to, like, their daughter's wedding. We've seen a child born into the, like, Steve Van Doren is like my big brother in a way. Wow. Become a grandfather. We've seen, I've known Christy since she was, like, a little girl, you know? Like, seen her grow up, get married, have a baby. Like, you know, Steve be, like, a grandpa. I mean, like, I travel all over the world with them. Right. And, you know, it really becomes, like, an extension of your family. It really does. The Vans thing is like a family thing, you know? It's a family tradition. Absolutely. Vans are a family tradition for us. Similar to, like, how my skateboards are sometimes with certain families and kids and generations of people. Like, my skateboards, you know, similar to, like, what we were like when we were on the Jeff Ho surf team and stuff. It was a family. It was a bit of a dysfunctional family. But it was still family. But it was a family. Yeah. Let's go back and let's articulate what Music Cares is because I think it's important that people understand that it's available. What's that? The Music Cares program. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. It's like a benevolent cause for musicians. That's what it is. It's just, it covers your ass when you don't have any, you can't even afford to buy a pair of, you know, like, boxers to cover your own ass. Right. They'll buy you underwear. I mean, it's available. It's an avenue that's available for music. For professional musicians. Well, more than anything, it's for healthcare. Healthcare. Exactly. And especially if it comes to if you have issues with, I'd say, HIV or drugs or, like, you know, alcoholism or, there's a list of things. You know, maybe hep C. I mean, like, if you don't have a place to live, you're down and out. You know, it's like they've done a lot of stuff like that for people and basically not only got them back on their feet but saved their lives. So, it's pretty heavy what they've done. The guys from Camp Freddy, there's like a bunch of guys, you know, that I met through them and stuff because of the fact that there's a whole network of these really hardcore rock musicians that are all connected to that organization also. That are in recovery. You could say guys, Dave Navarro, Anthony Kiedis. Yeah, he plays in Camp Freddy. You know, the list goes on. It's just like a long list of guys and people that have not only been a part of their events, but have worked closely with them to be a part, be of service to others. Wow, that's great. So, it's all positive. That's like a really major thing in the world today is like, you know, if you want to keep something that you got, you better be able to give it away because you can't keep it if you don't give it away. You just can't. You have to, you have to share. A lot of us will go back out and get loaded. You know, if we don't give it away, if we're not being of service to somebody else, we get too much into ourselves again and then ego gets in the way. Right? Well, the ego is the worst thing because it's like the delusory perception of self tells you that you're something that you're really not and that you can handle it one more time. You know, and I think that's what happens with guys, you know, that go in and out. I don't want to mention any names, but there's guys that go in and out, in and out, in and out, you know, and that's what happens is they, you know, they think they got this one. They got it this time. You know, I got it, God, don't worry about it. Right, right. And then you get like hit in the middle of the forehead by the ball or whatever, you know, it's just like you're down again. Let's talk about life changing albums. Like, tell me about two albums in your lifetime that you heard that Black Sabbath, Paranoid. That just changed your life. Yeah, Black Sabbath for sure. Paranoid, that was a big one. The other one that was huge was David Bowie's record, Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy Stardust was a huge, kind of showed you you could be a freak and still be like really cool. And then the music was like amazing. Like, you know, some of those songs really settled with me still to this day. I like the Aladdin Sane album. Like a lot of Bowie's albums were really heavy, really cool. The other one I liked was there was an album called Shh, and that was by 10 Years After. And they did like really hardcore rock and blues, like really hardcore stuff like, you know, Good Morning Little School Girl. Like, they did like, they did some really just, just super hard rock blues. You know, the other stuff I would have to say like all the Stones records, all the Beatles records, all of those, you know, and then Cream, like Disraeli Gears was pretty heavy. Some of the T-Rex records were very influential. Yeah. Very, very influential. Now, as far as the Blacks, let's go to Blackside with Paranoid. I mean, was that a complete timing thing? Do you think that record filled a void when that type of music needed, needed to be heard? What was it about that record? It was the heaviest, most distorted, but then also the most beautiful record I think that ever came out at that time as far as rock went, you know. Wow. Zeppelin had some beautiful songs and all that and the Beatles did, of course, but there's something so heavy yet so aesthetically beautiful about that Black Sabbath record and they carried that on for a while, but I think the first couple albums for Sabbath were like, that was it, you know. They'd slow down and do The Wizard or they'd, you know, they did War Pigs and they did like Electric Funeral and all that. Sure. And you're just like, whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was pretty much blown away by that stuff. And it was easy and simple to play. It is. If you wanted to, you pick up, yeah, you pick up a bass or guitar and you don't really know yet how to play, you can play a Black Sabbath song. Because the way it's presented is so mighty. The will and the conviction behind it is extremely delivered with so much confidence and the album artwork and just when they come together, how it sounds. But then when you play, you know, Paranoid, it's like, oh, that's it. Yeah. Well, you know, but nothing wrong with that, right? But you guys remember the Tony Ioni and the Geezer Butler, the sound, you know, like Geezer Butler, that bass sound is like, like a fine line of just totally distorted and then just really like, just, I don't know, just so like far ahead of its time. So as a bass player, does Geezer, do you draw inspiration from Geezer? Yeah, his tone, his tone more than anything. The bass players that I really like are more progressive, obviously, because I've always aspired to be a little bit more progressive, even though I was saying the less is more thing. But, you know, I'm always trying to learn to go in the direction of a guy. I mean, like I look at a guy basically like Jaco Pastorius. Oh, wow. Like, that's like the guy, like, you know. Virtuoso type. Yeah. It's like a dream, you know, to ever be that good or even be able to play, you know, the kind of like, just the material that he, that he's been playing. It's just amazing. But, you know, we borrow stuff. I've borrowed stuff from punk rock songs from Jaco's, you know, records and stuff like that. Wow. And just, you know, to look at my friend Flea, you know, look at Flea. I mean, just like to see like where he's come from, you know, from playing for fear to like doing what he's doing and being able to jam with everybody. Like even like lately, Katie and I were talking about him, you know, getting up and playing at the Troubadour with, you know, he got up and played with Patti Smith. So, you know, it's just, I think a lot of it has to do with being open-minded and being accessible, but also not limiting yourself to just one style of music. And that's why I like what I'm doing right now with the punk rock and then with the psychedelic rock and then even sitting around and playing acoustic guitar a lot of times. I'm not going to limit myself to just one sound. There's no way. There's too much out there to do that. It's amazing. You've got to tap into the cosmic vibration, you know, which comes from the original, you know, the original thing spiritually, which in Indians, you know, in Indian music, is that they have a saying, which means, sound is God, God is sound. And they just say, nada brahma, which means sound is God. Because the original word, God created the word. They say that. And the word was good, but the word was God. So, you know, the vibration of that is the Aum vibration. The Aum vibration is the very simple, somebody even just told me just lately, like a very adept musician, I think told me that it was like a C, either a C minor or something like that was the actual Aum vibration. Wow. And I was kind of tripping out on that. I forget who even told me that, but somebody told me that. C minor. I think they said it was C sharp or C minor, something like that was the actual Aum vibration. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I think it's just something that stuck with me at the time. But I know that the spiritual vibration of a human voice is that that's, it's got power. You know, and that's the thing about that the Aum vibration too is that the human voice can duplicate that vibration. Right. But in order to be connected to something that's benevolent and that's really like divine and that's cosmic, it's got to be coming from the heart. Exactly. You can't just be yelling at somebody or just like... There has to be something behind it. Yeah. An intention. An intention of goodwill usually. Right. Because that's what really works. And that's the thing with music is that you got to realize, you know, regardless of how heavy and dark you're going with your music, if your intention is good and it's coming from the heart, people are going to hear and feel that vibration. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. To resonate with their bones. That's true. It's going to affect them in some way. Exactly. Hopefully in a good way, but you never know. You know how it is with music. People can use music as a weapon too. Absolutely. You know, just like the human voice can be used as a weapon. If I change my tone right now, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like, I might not be the nicest guy to interview her, but you know, and then back in the day, like I said, you know, because the ego gets involved, then it kind of knocks that gentleness or the love out of it. Yeah. You know? I agree. The ego will taint your intention with the music. And the vibration of your voice can be used. It can be used for good. Healing. And it can be used for an attack. Right. So then when we go to the instruments, right? Okay, now what is every instrument that was ever invented by a man doing? It's imitating the human voice. So you got to look at the original sound, vibration, where music came from. It came from the human voice, which originated from the very first word, which was the own vibration. Ooh. So if you think of it that way, Right. God created that vibration and that sound, but man tapped into it and took it to the next level and used it not only as a form of expression, but communication. So now that we start thinking about music, like from a deep spiritual perspective, what is music? What is the voice? What is, what are the instruments that imitate the voice? It's everything. Uh-huh. Guitar bass. You know, it's everything. No wonder it's so powerful. No wonder kids are overwhelmed by music at such a young age. No wonder even like deaf kids can feel vibration and are affected by it. Like this guy that even the Seattle Seahawks guy that was like the fullback or whatever, the deaf guy, that he would basically play the game and became a professional football player from just feeling the vibrations. Wow. You know, so that's what I'm trying to say. I mean, I guess I kind of got excited there. That's fantastic. I mean, the vibration thing is really the root of music. And I believe that when one actually awakens to acknowledge the vibration resonating from music or whatever it is that's their passion, that's part of awakening and being enlightened. Totally. But you know, the thing is that you learn sometimes to just cut all that off. And then for me, you know, my inner peace comes from being able to be calm and like having a time of meditation and having really not a lot of vibration going on in or around you. So, you know, that's why surfing is so important to me. I feel so peaceful when I'm out there. But there's still a vibration out there because you're in this huge ocean and there's a lot of like stuff going on around you. There's a lot of unknown. Definitely. Right? That's the truth. But the cool thing is if you can tap into that, like almost what we try to say is to be a part of the ocean, even though you're the wave, you want to immerse yourself almost like, you know, become like just a small, either a drop of water or a bubble or just one wave in that ocean of calm, of serenity because the bottom line is that you want to be a part of something that's bigger than you and not just the wave because the wave always just comes and dissipates and then there's another wave that comes. Ongoing. So what do you really want to be? Do you want to be the wave or the drop or do you really want to be that whole sea of tranquility, you know? And rock music taught me that a lot. I learned a lot from listening to guys like, you know, Cat Stevens, from listening to guys like, listening to women like Joni Mitchell. Wow. Stuff is like, you learn when you really listen or go back and listen to old Buffalo Springfield records and stuff and you're just like, wow. You know, there's really a peaceful, really groovy thing going on in some of those, those 60s and 70s like. Records. Yeah. There's some amazing stuff. You know, we used to call those old records, they were licorice pizza, you know? Licorice pizza. They'd be, because there was that record store. That record store where you would buy records and get a free licorice. And I saw the, the rockers just lately. I was on tour and we were sitting in the RV for like miles just driving across the United States and we watched, my friend Chopper and I watched the rockers and it showed the, the Jamaican guys pressing their own licorice pizza, like pressing their own records and cutting them by hand and doing all that. We were like, man, we should do that. We should have our own like, record company and just make our own records like the Jamaicans did, you know? Like, you know, do that full like. So DIY, DIY. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. I gotta ask, you brought up the Beatles earlier. What, what kind of Beatle fan are you? Are you all in? Are you like, Lennon over McCartney, McCartney over Lennon? Like, like what are your favorite moments with the Beatles? Um, my favorite ones were the psychedelic records, especially the Revolver. I mean, I even read something just lately where there was people that didn't even like the Beatles until they heard Revolver. My favorite's Rubber Soul and Revolver. Yeah, Revolver like changed the whole deal. Yeah. That was when they got like. That's a serious, that's a serious record. Yeah. It got really groovy and psychedelic, but at the same time. Great guitar riffs. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think they probably started letting George start to write. Exactly. George is all over that. He's the guy. He's the guy with the riffs. Especially when it comes to the guitar riffs. Oh, love it. Love it. Um, we're going to take a music break. I opened my set at, um, Amoeba last week with a Beatles song from Revolver. Did you? Yep. How did, how did that, how did that Amoeba set go for you? It was fun. That's great. Yeah. And it was an hour, hour DJ set? Hour and a half. I could have probably went longer, but I knew where to cut it off. Just, I ended it usually with, uh, I start with the Beatles song and I end with the Jeff Beck song. Him doing a virtuoso, uh, uh, instrumental version of Over the Rainbow. Oh, wow. Well done. We're going to take a music break. We'll come back with more Tony Alva. This is Ignacio Salcido from Lama School, The Bakery in Boyle Heights. You're listening to LA Nista at skidroadstudios.com. Yeah. This episode of Los Angeles Nista is brought to you by Lama Skoda Bakery, a family-owned business serving the community since 1952. Tamales and sweetbread made the old-fashioned way daily. Yeah. Life is too short to not hold a grudge. No concessions I will not budge. I won't forgive. There'll be no compromise. Meet you halfway. I'd rather die. I'd love for a tone or make amends. No surrender will never bring. I'd rather die. I'd rather die. I'd rather die. I'd rather die. I'd rather die. I'd rather die. Be no peace. There'll be no love. Life's too short to not hold a grudge. You fucked me over. You hung me out to dry. You swept me under. You said goodbye. Don't let a flood tone or make amends. No surrender will never be friends. There'll be no peace. Don't grind. be no love life's too short to not hold a grudge you fucked me over, you hung me out to dry, you swept me under you said goodbye I feel no guilt, I feel no shame if I killed you now it would be the same guitar solo no peace, there'll be no love life's too short to not hold a grudge you fucked me over you hung me out to dry, you swept me under, you said goodbye never atone or make amends, no surrender, we'll never be friends be no peace, there'll be no love life's too short to not hold a grudge you fucked me over, you hung me out to dry, you swept me under you said goodbye life's too short to not hold a grudge no concessions I will not budge I won't forgive there'll be no compromise meet you halfway I've been stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts stuck by thoughts I'd rather die I jumped off of a cruise ship Into water like some egg Broken eyes, I slipped to shore Hey man, what'd you do that for? Time collapses Like a hit and run Bullets fired From your tongue When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Get that in your head When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Get that in your head I never had Death I never had A plan B The only person I could trust was me I'd get by with the critics, yay Fuck them, who cares anyway? Time collapses Like a hit and run Bullets fired From your tongue When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Get that in your head When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Death is their domain Get that in your head I jumped off a cruise ship My life per server was a straitjacket I never had a plan B Hey man, what do you want? You're the only one for me Time collapses Like a hit and run Bullets fired From your tongue When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Get that in your head When wild horse subterrains The spirit is dead Death is their domain Get that in your headeled you have to say for yourself. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Keep the children occupied After school Got a match to deploy them To do When they come home Nobody's around Keep them occupied After school Got Children Occupiedeled We gotta get them occupied At their school Get Them Occupied I got used to Making mistakes I got used to Making mistakes I tolerated Phonies and fakes I opened myself up And let myself down I gave Them the rope and now I'm hanging around Hanging around Like a fucking Pinata Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Hanging around like a fucking piñata Bust me open and you'll find nothing Hanging around a puppet on a string Slice me open, you'll find nothing Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around like a fucking piñata Bust me open and you'll find nothing Hanging around a puppet on a string Slice me open, you'll find nothing Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Stupid kids ask stupid questions Fool me once, wonder under the bridge Fool me twice and I'll be fooled Fool me three times, man, fuck you Hanging around like a fucking piñata Bust me open and you'll find nothing Hanging around a puppet on a string Bust me open and you'll find nothing Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around Hanging around Hanging around, I'm just hanging around California, California's not aneled to have my shame California, California's noteled to have my shame California, California's noteled to have my shame California, California's noteled to have my shame! California, California is not an AGM machine California, California is not an AGM machine California, California is not an AGM machine California, California is not an AGM machine California, California is not an AGM machine I guess hope springs eternal in idiots like me I guess hope springs eternal in idiots like me I loaded my car and put my good selfs out to sea The head takes me nothing and a man's word is his life I can't believe I went along for the ride Knife in the face when I was down and out Knife in the face, it left no doubt Knife in the face, this is reality Knife in the face, that's what you think of me Friends are just roles we choose to occupy Splits on the radar, passing in the night And all of the good times, they only end bad And all of the laughter, it always turns sad You lied Youeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled by The LNC Knife in the face That's what you think of me This is the sound Of a broken heart I'd bare my soul And I had it ripped apart This is the sound Of shattered dreams They flew too high And above their means And all of those knives That were buried in my back Not one of them Could stop me in my tracks But the knife that got me That put me in my place Is the one that you stuck Right in my heart Knife in the fucking face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Your handshakes mean nothing And I'm not a fool And I'm not a fool Your last word is to slide I can't believe I'm running off for the ride The ride Yeah, what a ride Just you and me, man We're gonna go down that highway together We're like A dynamic duo It's like Batman and Robin Or Superman and Superdog Which one were you? Which one am I? Oh yeah A fucking fool You're a fucking liar Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Bridges are burning And just watch them burn And no one's gonna see me I'm the one down man When will I learn? When will I give up? When will I quit? Opening my life up To other people's shit? Your handshakes mean nothing And a man's word is to slide I can't believe I'm running off for the ride Knife in the face When I was down and out Knife in the face It left no doubt Knife in the face This is reality Knife in the face That's what you think of me guitar solo! That's what you think of me guitar solo Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Knife in the face Hey, welcome back to Los Angeles Nisa episode 134. I'm the show creator, producer, and host, Eddie Solis. Our in-studio guest, a music interview with Tony Alva, Tony, how you doing, man? Great, great, great. Pearls of wisdom coming from you, and some interesting fun facts. I gotta ask you, I wanna talk about what you're using to play live. You've been, in addition to skateboarding, you've been doing a lot of surfing and a lot of playing live with bands lately, right? I mean, that's something that you've been focusing more on. Yeah, I mean, we practice a lot more than anything, so I get to try a lot of different things before we actually play. I get to try a lot of different things before we actually play. I get to try a lot of different things before we actually play. I used to play my old rig from the Scoundrels, which was like a sun cabinet with two 15s. I had a Gallium Kruger, like a solid state, German head. And then I had a Celestion speaker, Vox cabinet that I used with a Super Beetle series. But just lately, that old rig just got to the point where I wasn't really making any progress. But just lately, that old rig just got to the point where I wasn't really making any progress. But just lately, that old rig just got to the point where I wasn't really making any progress. I didn't feel like with the tone of my bass playing. And then when I started playing some of the newer Fender basses, like the Deluxe bass that I got from them that just had like the active-passive switch on it, not to mention the pickups being a lot better and having like kind of more of an EQ range, you know, on my guitars. But then I graduated to using the Super Bassman. But then I graduated to using the Super Bassman. But then I graduated to using the Super Bassman. And that was a really good system, which really, really works really well for me, especially with the tones that you can get from it. And the fact that it also has more of a vintage sound, where you get a little bit of like a distortion on it, but it's not to the point where it distorts so much that you lose that feeling of clarity. Because, you know, I don't like when it gets to the point where the distortion takes away from the sweetness of the notes that you're playing. And you don't hear every note. And you don't hear every note. You want to hear that definitely. It just gets muddy. It gets muddy then. Right. So, which is really neat, you know, with the new stuff is that, you know, not only with the power that you have, but having the 810s is that I broke it down to the smaller speakers. And I think that you get more of a range and that it really carries through, especially when you're playing live gigs. And if you have a rig basically that is top of the line like that, when you're playing live shows, it really makes a big difference. You know, if you've got a good system, like someplace like the Glass House, someplace like the Belly Up, like even at the Whiskey, you know, places like that. I mean, places that have been around for a while. I mean, they know their sound. And, you know, regardless of whether you even come in there and do a soundcheck, you know that your sound's going to be good when you got a good amp like that. I love to do soundchecks though, because a soundcheck usually is a sign of like what it's going to sound like later. You never know. Right. Every room's different. Acoustics. And it's all about adjusting to the situation. But I'm a big believer in soundchecks. Like if you usually come in and do a really good soundcheck. You're going to sound good. Yeah, you're going to sound good. I agree. I think a lot of people kind of like don't utilize it as a tool to sound better. They don't really understand the art of a soundcheck. Well, I'm really weird about using backlines too. I'll go the extra mile and do the extra work to carry and play my own gear. Yeah, you want to use your own stuff. I don't like using backlines much. But if I ever do, usually it'll have to be like a dependable, well, in Brooklyn when we played a thousand bands, I made sure it was a double SVT setup. Like I doubled it up. Wow. And so I've made sure, you know, that if I'm going to play a backline, it's going to be something that's got balls. Absolutely. And I got to ask you. I'm not a big believer though in the SVT thing though, the Ampeg. I don't really, it's not my cup of tea for some reason. Really? I think it's kind of generic when it comes to like the rock, the bass sound. Too sterile? It's just too predictable almost. Okay. Okay. I can see what you're saying. It's kind of weird. Now I want to get more into more gear, but I want to get more into your bass playing, like your history of being a bass player. Well, I don't play with the pick when I play electric. I play with fingers only. Fingers only. Yeah. Now let's go back in time because you were actually, you played in the Vandals for a while. Yeah, I did play with the Vandals. Can you tell the story how you ended up playing in the Vandals? Human was all messed up on drugs and got really fucked up on drugs. And then I was pretty good friends with Steve-O, but the main reason I ended up was because of Jan. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As far as Jan was a really good friend of mine and he knew that I was playing with the scoundrels and, uh, you know, he pulled me in and we started jamming together and I filled in for Human while he was basically going through like rehab. Okay. Yeah. He had a really bad heroin addiction at the time, I think. And it literally like, uh, you know, messed with, uh, with the continuity of the band. And I'm, I'm pretty sure that was his drug of choice. I could be wrong. But I know that he had an issue there for a while. And, you know, a lot of my friends did. A lot of the guys that were in the Orange County punk rock bands, a lot of times for a while, they had a big heroin epidemic. And that's what happened with Brad, you know, from, from Sublime and stuff like that. There was a lot of really cheap, really nasty, like, uh, dope going around, mostly like heroin. Right. Like heroin speed. I mean, crack cocaine, whatever you could get, you know, a lot of that stuff was a plague in the punk rock scene. Right. Especially in Orange County. Well, a lot of them later, the intravenous drug users, you know, a lot of these guys are not around anymore because of that. Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Darby Crash is one of the first guys to go basically from just, but I don't know whether his deal with it was a suicide attempt or not an attempt. I mean, I don't know if it was a suicide or whether it was an accidental overdose, but yeah, it was sad to watch some of the guys just blow their minds and their lives and their careers. When they're talented and have great bands and people that actually cared about their band. Like, oh, people love Darby. He was like a hero. Like a. Like a real. Almost like a. The anti-hero. But yeah. Now. Now. How long was your tenure in, in the, uh, in the Vandals? I mean, how long were, how many shows did you play? Not long. I just played a few shows with them. I think we played like the Cuckoo's Nest. Did you? In Knights of Each? In like a couple places like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you rehearse with them a lot? Yeah. I played with them quite a bit though. We rehearsed for, for a bit before I actually got in there and played with them. Was that your like first dose of like, I mean, you know, you had a band before that, but, but yeah. Was that your first dose of like. I mean, I played in the Scoundrels pretty hardcore, like, uh, nonstop for like almost like probably six or seven years. Okay. And we used to tour all over the place. We opened for like a lot of like, uh, pretty popular bands back. We opened for Bad Religion. I mean, we, we, we, one time we even played at the Beverly Theater. We opened for, uh, Nina Hagen. Oh, really? Yeah. We played like a lot of really cool shows with the Scoundrels. That was fun. Now. I used to play with the Mentors. We used to play, like, we used to go to San Francisco. Yeah. And. Play with like, uh, at the Tool and Die with, uh, with like, uh, Fifth Column and, um, and, um, like the Faction and the Drunk Engines and the Black Athletes. I remember the Drunk Engines. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we just played with the, uh, GFP just played with the Drunk Engines in Brooklyn like a little over a year ago. Really? Yeah. Wow. They had to reunite, came out and they killed it. That's cool, man. They're still really good. Well, MoFo, I'm a big fan of MoFo's vocals though, because he's like the big, uh, uh, kind of like, uh, he, uh, you can just tell that he really loves like bands like, uh, Joy Division and like The Damned and like, you know. Cramps maybe. Yeah. Kind of like that real. Dark rockabilly. Yeah. But very like, uh, low bassy, really almost goth kind of, you know. Right. Like a real, like a real goth, um, sounding, um, um, like, uh, punk rock. Yeah. Yeah. But very like a real spooky kind of scary goth. Totally. And I think like, you know, I was always like the guy, uh, into Slayer and Black Flag. And then like when I did, when a friend played Joy Division, I was like, wow, this is like at times like the Misfits with more style, but with the bass turned way up in the mix and then you just hear bass and drums. Yeah. And then there was like, you know, this like spooky cloud over it with the lyrics and then like, kind of like. Then, then like, I got into like the TSO dance with me album, you know, like, like where the bass is mixed high. Well, TSO, especially Jack, that was heavily influenced by the Damned. Sure. Sure. That was their band. And they always opened for the Damned when the Damned came into town. It was usually TSO opening for the Damned. That was like the big deal was that TSO was the opening band because they loved the Damned so much, you know? Wow. And you could tell Jack was a huge Dave Vanian fan from the face makeup to the whole. The way he handled himself on stage, you know? Absolutely. Now, I got a question for you. Before we get into all the gear and your collaboration with Fender, let's talk, let's talk your favorite bass players of all time. I mean, we, we, we, we touched on a little bit of it, but let's talk about bass players that, you know, we talked about Geezer Butler, Jacko Pastorius. Noel Redding. I wouldn't leave him out of it. From Hendrix. Yeah. Yeah. He's amazing. Really, really good. Jack Bruce. I just saw a thing, you know, with Jack Bruce and then, and Entwistle from The Who is pretty amazing too. Oh, Entwistle. The Ox. Yeah. Yeah. He's really good. Good style. Yeah. I like that 80s footage of The Who when he's like wearing the leather jacket and he's got the, the, the Thunderbird and it's like all high and he's just like, the fingers are just like, you know what I mean? I've found myself lately wearing my bass even higher than I normally do. Dude, that's so rad. It's starting to get better because of the fact that I feel like I have more access to the bass. I feel like I have more access. I feel like I have more access because my hands aren't that big. Wow. To the neck, to the. It's easier. Yeah. I feel like I, I, and I could see where I'm playing better too and stuff as we get a little older and especially me having to like basically in dim light, you know, I can't really play bass in dim light, especially without wearing my glasses. Right. So I'm feeling that if I have the neck closer to me and it's more accessible and just like that my playing is cleaner. Very cool. I don't worry so much about having that low slung rock look as much as like I want, I don't worry so much about having that low slung rock look as much as like I want, I The sound is much more important than what I look like or my image. I mean, I think I know how to carry myself well enough now, especially because Katie and I have like an eclectic taste when it comes to fashion and stuff too. So I know how to either dress down or dress up depending on what's going on. Like you could do both. Yeah. So if you need to do that, the rockstar thing comes a lot, a lot of times more from style more than it does like appearance. It's attitude and style. Sure. Sure. But the sound's more important than anything. The sound, the tone, the clean, the clean, how clean. The definition. You go from the notes, you know, trying not to be sloppy. The sloppy stuff doesn't cut it with me anymore. No. It's just not cute no more. Right? Well, when I used to drink, I thought it was cool to be sloppy and stuff too because it's no big deal. Well, I'm saying even with the music, with the playing, I thought I could get away with more distortion and volume and the sloppiness and it was okay. But I find it now. No, that's not true. It's about legacy. Like you're making this music. You want to perform it well. As good as I can. It doesn't have to be perfect because you don't want to lose the human element. Sure. I find that's how jazz musicians are and stuff too. You know, it's not about perfection. No. It's about progress. And it's also about the thing that I even, we even heard tonight, Katie and I heard, which is one of my favorite things. It's like, you know, practice. Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Amazing. And that permanence is really important. It's that it's almost like becomes instinctive. Well, now I got to, I got to just touch on something. Or intuitive. Intuitive. Yeah. You're talking about practice. That's part of the journey. Instead of worrying about the end result. Well, some bands think they don't have to practice and they just go out there and some can still rip and do what they do. But most of them, you can tell when they don't practice because they go out there and they're all over the place. Sure. Sure. You know, I think the key word when it comes to being in a band, especially punk rock bands, tight. Completely. You can tell when a band like the Descendants goes out there and plays, even if, you know, that's tight. Always. You know what I mean? Always a band, right? Totally. Yeah. Totally. Now, as far as, as far as talking about, you know, practice as a big component to just making permanent instead of perfect. That doesn't always have to be perfect. I don't. Yeah. I don't really believe in that. I don't believe in the perfection thing anymore. The end result being perfect doesn't matter as much. I think it's about practicing. That's part of the journey. Part of the journey in being in a band or being a musician. Well, even like they say in a spiritual sense, it says the path is the goal. The path is the goal. So not the end result so much. No. It's the path. Wow. As long as you're on the right path, though. The path that leads to whatever goal you're aspiring to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. too. Right. Right. Very well done. So with music, same thing, follow the path and the path usually in my little world is something that's connected to, um, I think something, not only the, the creation, the creator or whatever you want to call it, like in part of the creative process is taking the path that you want to get to a higher level. And so the higher, you know, like kind of like the sign, the family stone song, you know, where they're saying, take me higher, you know, or like, I guess, you know, the, the way the chili peppers even did it, or, you know, you hear George Clinton, you hear all these guys, they do these songs, you know, about taking it to a higher level, elevating. I think a lot of that is, is inherent in the path that you take. I agree. Some paths are not going to take you higher no matter what. And you can get stuck in the insanity of doing it over and over again and thinking you're going to get a different result. You're not going to get that. Yeah. You got to find the path that's going to take you to the next level. So there we're back to progress. I love it. And the human element is like the thing, like with jazz, like I said, you know, like with jazz music, it's like, those guys don't play it the same every time. Exactly. They don't want to play it that way. And then, and then the bottom line is if they start playing like robots and they start playing like so predictable that everybody knows what they're going to play, then where's the jazz in it? You know, it's like guys riding surfboards nowadays with no fins on them. Like Derek Hine does. He compares it to jazz. It's like, oh, I'm going to play jazz music because it's outside the box. And it's something that a lot of people felt is not even like possible, let alone realistic. And then they're doing it. Tell me, tell me, you know, your, your, um, your craft in playing bass live recording, rehearsing collaboration with Fender guitars on your new bass. Um, what do you take that you learned from surfing and skateboarding and apply to playing bass and being, uh, in a band? I think the main thing is spontaneity. That's the number one thing. Two is being intuitive, just spontaneity, being spontaneous. Um, the other thing is fun. If it's not fun anymore, don't do it simple because you know, oh, and that's the other thing you just said it simple. Don't complicate things too much. Don't overdo it. Cause I've been guilty of that in all walks of life of overcomplicating things. More than anything, overcomplicating things is what's going on inside my head. Replaying things in your head. Because when I overthink it, that's when I start choking, you know, and then adrenaline kicks in and then, you know, you know, you're just chunking and then it just gets worse. It doesn't get better. You know, it doesn't get better. It gets worse. Adrenaline can sometimes be my worst enemy next to the ego thing, you know, because the main thing is the word that I love that comes from the spiritual sense, like in yoga and stuff, it's equanimity. Equanimity. Equanimity. Which is balance. Balance. Spiritual balance is equanimity, which is you don't go far too far to the left or to the right or too high or too low. And then you stay in the middle. And, you know, yoga basically is something that I learned from, from Katie and from people that actually do like Hatha yoga and stuff is that it means union. You know, when you're one with a higher power, you know, is, is yoga is, is that union. That's the goal. The goal is to be, you know, joined. Yeah. with something that's spiritual, with something that's magic, that's, it's not material or concrete or foreseeable. Part of your well-being. Yeah, you can't touch it. You can't like hold it. You can have it momentarily, but it's just something that you have to be like in sync with. Isn't it beautiful? You generate that feeling through yoga and it's like there and then you move on with your day. Well, I think the music can be very similar to that too. It's in the moment. You know, when you're in the moment like that and everything's working, you know, you're just on all cylinders. It's a beautiful feeling. And you want that over and over and over. It can be like your drug. And you get that from skateboarding, taking runs. Totally, from surfing and skateboarding. And riding music. I get it. Yeah, I get it. And the cool thing for me is being a bass player is keeping it simple and writing basic, you know, whether it be punk songs or rock songs or just like funky little riffs. And this and that. Like I take from everything that I've listened to my whole life and incorporate it into my own music. Now, it doesn't have to be anything really complicated or technical. It just needs to be melodic, have a nice rhythm, and be fun. Have a heartbeat. Yeah, that's the thing. That's awesome. Well, of course, being a bass player too because, you know, the drummers that I played with are just a really important part of the process for me. And it's like if I'm joined at the hip with the drummer, I'm there. I'm right where I need to be. It's like as they say, in the groove, you know? Sure, sure. In the groove is the best. But before we get into more bass playing in your product with Fender, I got a question. We're talking about this at the break. Let's talk about your skateboard line really quick. You got something new happening. Well, I've diversified it into a collaboration with a friend of mine, this guy, Mike, that does Pool King. And we do a whole new line called the Power Stands. And it's a new collaboration project. Very cool. And we just hybrid all our boards into like, because we have a skateboard and a surf company that are kind of joined at the hip. Speaking of being in the rhythm section, they both have the same rhythm. Sure. And the rhythm with that is that we want surfboards at skate, skateboards at surf. Oh, that's a great load. So they're hybrids, you know? And then the bottom line is that if our surfboards don't skate, you know, we're kind of like, wow, we need to like work on that. And the same thing with the skateboards, you know, we want them to be surfy. It's where they feel like, you know, That's rad. So that's the thing. And that's the thing that we've learned through our experience, you know, is that we've learned of what really works and what makes it feel that way and what doesn't. And with surfboards, I'm constantly evolving and hybriding the designs to the point where they get even more and more and more like that. And I'm going smaller, wider, thicker, different fin configurations. Different specs all the time. Oh, everything is changing. It's constantly changing. Like there's no fixed medium when it comes to the surfboards. But then I find that it's affecting the skateboards too. The skateboards are the same way now. But they're right. It's kind of weird because now the skateboards are behind the surfboards where the surfboards are kind of leading that evolution. And the skateboards are kind of following. But I think I know my skateboards and the way that I ride and the terrain is so dependable and so good nowadays. But I know what works and what doesn't work. I know straight out. But then again, I just got this funky board that's the shape of like Homer Simpson that had this really big tail. I don't know why I put my tail on it because his belly is so big and fat. And it's a board that Santa Cruz makes. And it was a gift from a friend of mine, like almost like a joke gift. Right. But I put the right wheels on it and the trucks that I knew would work for me. I customized the board and I'll take this board when I don't want to take my skateboarding too seriously. I'll show up at the skate park riding my Homer Simpson board. And kids just lose it, man. And they're just like asking me, you know, like they could see me out there, you know, skating good on it. And they come up to me and go, does that thing really work? Well, yeah, look at it. I'm just like, yeah. You make it work. I go, the best thing about it. I go, you know what the best thing about this board is? And they'll go like, no, what? And I'll go, it makes people laugh. And I go, and the second thing about it is the tail. I go, look at the tail. And I go, look at how big my feet are. And look at that big round tail. That thing is functional. It works. You know? That's cool. So anyways, I have really a lot of fun riding my Homer board. I take it to Santa Monica Park, Culver City. I've, I've been there. I've taken it like basically I was in the middle of Wilmington, Delaware, and I showed up in the morning there skating on it and just, you know, just keeping it fun. Because if I take myself too seriously, sometimes I lose track of the fact, the main reason why I started skateboarding. I lose track of the fun because I just get too serious and I get too like that black swan thing, you know, to where if I have a bad day and everything's not perfect, I get too inside my head and I lose the essence. Yeah. And so that's something like back to what we were talking about. That's how I've learned to become a pretty good surfer nowadays, you know, and be at peace and have that, that natural balance that comes from being a surfer for 40 plus years. That's how I've learned to be a decent musician. Wow. It's because I just, I knew that I had to practice because I didn't have the natural talent for it. I knew that I needed good gear, which I have now. And I also knew last but not least that I just had to keep it fun and keep it like, keep it like, you know, like a good thing. So basically don't lose track of like what rock music is all about. Don't go too far away from the blues. Never forget what the original idea was. Yeah. Don't go too far away from the blues. Right. You know, stay close to the blues. Stay close to like funky stuff. Stay close to reggae music. Stay close to like almost like the clash, you know, like that whole hybrid thing of like blues, rock, punk, reggae. You know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Because that's what works for me. And that's the kind of music I love. And ideally my favorite all round hardcore band has been The Clash because of the fact that they're so diverse like that. So diversification is a huge key for you. Paul Simonin, I never mentioned him. There's a, there's a bass player that I can look up to. You know what I mean? Wow. He's still really good. I mean, you see him playing, when him and Mick get together, they even backed up that one time in Hyde Park where they were playing for the Gorillaz or whatever. Right. They were in their captain hats and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, come on. You know, you're like Mick Jones writing songs and working across from you. And then I heard when Paul Simonin first started playing like a lot of punk rock musicians, he couldn't even play. He couldn't play. He didn't even know how to play a scale on the bass or like, or anything. They picked up the bass to start the band. That's what it was. Speaking of basses. He looked good with the bass guitar in his hands. Yeah. So they taught him how to play bass. He taught himself eventually, but he was recruited, like almost drafted into The Clash. Right. Right. And he was like, he was your friend. But he helped create a style. Sure. Through the fashion, the way that he, he handled himself, his, even the way he just combed his hair, that he started helping them design the clothes. Like, you know, Katie knows more about this stuff than I do, but you know, all the whole fashion thing came from do it yourself. Yeah. And part of the, the aesthetic of the music, like being a primitive bass player, the reason why he created his own style, it came from innocence because he wasn't too schooled. Exactly. He was a good guy. He was a good guy. But he's pretty good now when you listen to him technically. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's good. Yeah. He's good. And you could tell he has a lot of influence from all the reggae music they listened to. Absolutely. Him and Joe Strummer and Mick, they were, especially him and Joe, were huge reggae fans. They loved reggae music. There was a lot of it going on in the, I think the Southwest side of London. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Did you ever see The Clash, Us Festival or anything? It's, you know what? For some reason I think I did. But then again, I don't know. I think I did. But then again, it's just, I have a major brain fart when it comes to, I could have sworn I saw him in San Francisco one time. Rad. Rad. Speaking of basses. I think it was at Keysar's or something like that. It's someplace like that. Right. And I know, I remember seeing the Dead Kennedys and the Cramps and X and a bunch of bands playing together at that time. Very cool. But then again, I might not have ever seen them. So. And speaking of basses, you brought the Alva Fender bass. So. Yeah, yeah. Let's take a look at that. I brought the acoustic version of the White Lotus with me. So. It's the, it's a collaborate, it's a collaboration between Alva and Fender. Yeah. And like I said, I don't usually play with a pick. The White Lotus. But with this one I do, I do play it with a pick because it resonates a little. Yeah, it has a nice sound. It's a nice sound. Tell us the backstory to how you ended up with this bass and collaboration with Fender. Yeah. So, um, the bass, I told them basically that, you know, when we did this little video for the guitar, um, I sat around the beach and played like little Hendrix songs and strummed on the guitar. And I was like, oh, you know, but I'm not really a guitarist. So I told them, you know, in order for me to really enjoy playing this new guitar, I'm going to need one in an acoustic bass. And they made this one for me. Wow. We did the double pick guards on it, but the guitar, the actual guitar has a symmetrical body shape. It's like a figure eight, like a, like a big, beautiful empty swimming pool. Yeah. This one, because with the bass, you need to get down to the little note. Sure. And you can't do that with the double side on the bass. Of course. So we did the cutout on this one, but, um, the bass itself is modeled exactly after the guitar. It's just a bass version of that guitar. Very well done. Now I got to ask you as a music fan, someone who is heavily influenced, you know, you've been playing guitar for a long time. Yeah. It has a beautiful sound. In the sixties and seventies, you've, you, you have your setup happening, man, with Alva skateboards and surfboards. Yeah. How is it to like Fender ship you your own bass? What's the feeling you get? It's bitchin'. It's like being a little kid again. Totally. Right? Yeah. Cause I'm like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to guitars. Yeah. Now, now you were saying earlier that there's a Fender showroom in Burbank for the pros. And, and you go there and try stuff out, right? Yeah. I go there. Um, basically the same thing I do with surfing and skateboarding stuff is I'm always looking for the next thing, you know, the next best thing that's really going to work. And I think that I've got my finger on the pulse when it comes to bases and stuff now too, cause I know what really works, especially for me. And, um, you know, I played Mark's bass from Blink 182 and I really liked it, but then I, I graduated from that one. And then I've gone to like the Dimension bass, the new one that they just came out with it. It's, it's kind of like a hybrid of like the jazz and the P bass and stuff, which the P bass is kind of like the Chevy, you know, the dependable where the jazz is a little bit more like a Corvette, you know, it's a little different. So, you know, I loved, I love to compare guitars and surfboards and stuff to cars anyways. Cars are food. Food is my other metaphor that I love to compare stuff with. Okay. So with GFP, I always talk about like when we're writing songs and doing gigs that we're like making a really good, you know, like, like a, like a pot of stew or chili or something. You got to get in the cook overnight. Yeah. You got to really cook it, you know, and you got to have the right ingredients and you got to know which spices to put into it. But to make a long story short, the, the, the designing the bases and stuff is like to take just like you do with surfboards from everything that you've ever played that you really like, including like an old Rickenbacker 4001 or, or the member, the, the Gibson, the sliding pickup one. Oh, the, the ripper. Yeah. Mike Dern plays those from Green Day. Like stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, that's like Gene Simmons bass man. 75. But, but yeah, I mean the sliding pick and pickup, isn't that rad? Yeah. That stuff is just like, you, sometimes you think it's a gimmick and stuff. Believe it or not, that, that shit works. It works. That's a hot rod. So if that's a car, the ripper, the Gibson ripper, what kind of, what kind of car would that be? Like a Chevy Nomad. Very well done. So, so let's talk about the bands you play in and some upcoming gigs you have. I think GFP is going to be doing a gig in Vegas and we're doing something around kind of the punk rock bowling thing around that date and place. I think it's like a skate rock revival gig. I'm pretty sure. Oh, you guys are on that. We're doing one in Vegas and, and his Eyes Have Fangs been doing a lot of stuff in studio. That's another band that you have. Yeah. It's kind of more of a psychedelic kind of spooky kind of sound that we've got, but it's very experimental, but I compare it a lot to Fleetwood Mac before the girls joined the band, even though we have a female singer, but she's kind of more, she's got a little bit of a bluesy feeling to her voice, but then almost that high tone of like a, like a Joni Mitchell or something or a Mazzy Star. So we're just doing our own thing. I don't want to compare her or set her up for failure by comparing her to too many other ladies, singers. But, yeah. It was kind of neat that we envisioned a singer and that it ended up being our drummer's wife, Rachel. That's cool. And that she's a part of like the family, you know, as far as the band goes, but she's also very striking. I think she might have like a really kind of a neat effect being live and having to be playing and, and being kind of part of this, this trio of, of, of dudes, you know? Sure. To have a girl in the band's kind of a neat, almost like an ambience. Yes, it is. So I'm looking forward to playing live. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to playing live with them. We're practicing a lot and getting ready to do that. And that show's at the Sidebar. Yes. Pre-show. Yeah. With you guys. That'll be great. Thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. May 31st, uh, May 28th. May 28th. Yeah. Don't get, don't get people showing up on the wrong day. Nobody will be there. But, uh, the cool thing is I love the Sidebar. It's cool. I love the brothers. The guys that own that place are really cool. Um, they've got decent food there. It's a nice place to play. The sound is amazing. They got a killer bar if you're into drinking and stuff. Well, you don't have to drink alcohol anyways. It's a clean venue. Yeah. It's a nice place. There's a lot of good places in the neighborhood to eat before and after. Um, you know, it's a cool neighborhood. And it's gonna be a free show. You could take the train there if you need to. Exactly. MetroLink from Union Station drops you off right there. Yeah, except after you might end up stranded there late at night. Because they cut it off at 10 o'clock. Yeah, yeah. They just cut it off a little early. But it's, but Wednesday, May 28th, Sidebar, Punk Rock Vatos featuring Jaime Pena of the Chemical People, His Eyes Have Fangs, your band, and It's Casual. Let's give the website to Alva Skateboards. Um, the best one to go through really is the one that's linked up is, uh, is, uh, my little Facebook page is blowing up. The one that's the athlete page. Yeah. Because I've got some ladies that help me with that stuff. Technical expertise, you know, people that are really good at that stuff. And it's got like 50,000 followers or something. So that's, that's a good one to network through. The other one is the Alva Surfcraft is I get a lot of feedback through the Alva Surfcraft, the little, uh, the little surf company that's downstairs. I'm not sure if it's in the South, but, uh, and then Katie helped me set up a little, uh, we got a little, uh, Instagram thing now too. That's legitimate. It's just the Tony Alva. Yep. Um, 1957, which is so cool. There's a couple of good photos on there just getting going, but it's kind of neat because I'm learning more about that stuff, but we're only putting like the most interesting and like some of the coolest photos I think that I come across, you know, we don't do it all the time, but when we do, it's something that's really good. It's special. Yeah. It's like a big account. It's select and it's not, it's not just like generic shit just every day just cause I'm addicted to doing something on the internet or like, you know, I've never been that kind of person when it comes to technology. And like I said, most of the things that I focus on when it comes to technology are where I can improve something like a sound or a performance of a surfboard or even let's say, you know, if I'm doing some projects like drawing or doing a little bit of art or doing collaborations with my friend, Michael Cortez, you know, Pogo and I did some paintings together and stuff like that. It's like, if I'm doing stuff like that, I'm trying to tap into something that is aesthetically cool but at the same time has like a feeling of like, um, kind of coming from like representing kind of like Los Angeles or representing, you know, the East LA or the West LA influence or the surfing influence or something like that. Skating. Yeah. I want it to be connected to our lifestyle, you know, and show kind of where we're coming from. That's important. Whether it be painting, music, making surfboards, skateboards. Yeah. You know, even the food that we eat and stuff. Sure. You know, we want it to be connected to something that's healthy, but at the same time that's- Has a backstory. That's part of our deal though, you know, because we're from Los Angeles and we're proud of it and we love, you know, our Latin heritage, but at the same time you can go anywhere in LA, that's what's so cool about LA. Anywhere. And get any kind of food. Burritos, Chinese Thai. Yeah. Whatever you need, whatever you need, whatever you like, whatever you want. Just by doing the show, you get Thai food, tamales. Oh yeah. One of my favorite restaurants on the West side, I would just like to drop a major like plug for- Shout out. It's my, one of my favorite restaurants on Santa Monica Boulevard, just right by the New Art Theater, half block down. It's called Non Bon Con. If you ever get a chance, go check it out. It's a yakitori restaurant. Okay. But they also have just an amazing menu consisting of everything and anything that you could ever want. Very cool. From fresh vegetables and Japanese cooked food to full on- Non Bon Con. Like sushi styles. Yeah. Like anything you could put on a stick basically, and they cook it right in front of you on the grill right there. Fresh. They've got special like wood and charcoals that they use only to cook the food. And it's a really cool atmosphere because it's a half moon, almost like a sushi bar, but more of like a two-third circle bar. Wow. And you sit there and you can sit at a table too, but the bar's where it's happening. You know? And you can get your- That's cool. You can get your like, your cuisine on, but at the same time, if you're a drinker, they serve a really good cold sake. They have, it's very kind of a less is more thing like what we were talking about. I love it. I love it. Really good food. So, you get a chance. Non Bon Con. Well, Tony- Santa Monica Boulevard. That's awesome. That's a great plug. West LA though. It's not in Santa Monica. It's in West LA. Tony, thank you for being a part of Los Angeles Nista episode 134. My pleasure. This was the Tony Alva music interview, the definitive music interview. It was a pleasure. I'm gonna go to the line. So here we go. Get into these lines. Go for a bump. Letting your memory lead. Make some money and the street. I'm the little Tokyo. You let me be. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm the little Tokyo. I'm theeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled byeled I'm on the goal line Go for goals Biggie's side So here we go Next up, Tynatown Going through the league tonight On the way to Island Park I'm on the goal line So here we go Connecting these eyes I go for goals I'm on the goal line