It’s not an exaggeration to say that Punks in Vegas wouldn’t exist without the Bouncing Souls. And no, it’s not just because the site is named after one of their songs.
Like many who grew up in the 90s, I discovered punk rock through the big radio hits of Green Day and The Offspring, but it was Epitaph’s Punk-O-Rama series that really turned me into fan of punk rock. Say Anything by the Bouncing Souls from Punk-O-Rama 3 was my song of choice, and their “self-titled” disk became the soundtrack to every skateboarding session, first date, and missed class of my high school years. As I grew up the band did too, maturing over the course of their albums while keeping the sound that their fans had come to love.
No strangers to Las Vegas, the Bouncing Souls return to the city on May 29th, playing alongside the likes of American Steel, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and The Descendents at the sold-out second day of the 13th annual Punk Rock Bowling festival. Last week I talked to Bouncing Souls’ lead singer Greg Attonito about the new Bouncing Souls album, his solo record, Punk Rock Bowling, Las Vegas, and more.
Emily Matview: I heard you guys are working on a new album right now, is there anything you can say about it at this point?
Greg Attonito: We just had a really good creative session. We just did four days, and we came out with a ton of ideas. Pete [Steinkopf] and Brian [Kienlen] had come up with a few ideas that we worked on and they went really well. So, it’s going great. It’s probably the most productive first four days we’ve ever had.
That’s good to hear! Have you guys decided, are you going to self-release this record, or are you looking at labels to release it?
As far as what it’s going to be, where it’s going to be, we aren’t even talking about it. We’re just writing the music. And as soon as we start talking about where we’re going to do it, how many songs, a CD or a vinyl, we’re like, just shut up, let’s just write songs.
Yeah, I can understand that.
So that’s where we’re at, at the moment.
Do you have any opinion on labels like Death to False Hope and Quote Unquote that strictly do digital downloads, no physical media? You guys having been around for a while, how do you feel about that shift with some of the newer labels?
Well, it’s economical. And it’s tricky because certain kinds of people buy cds, certain kinds of people buy vinyl, so it’s just so spread out now. And if you do just digital you are missing out on some people, and if you do just cds you have to do digital. So, I don’t really have an answer except the fact is that there are just more venues and formats for people to listen to music. They have their own preferences so you try to cover the bases as best as you can within your financial means, I guess.
I really enjoyed the split you guys put out with Hot Water Music last year. Can you say a little bit about how that came about?
Those guys have been our friends for years now and we’ve toured together, we’ve played each other’s songs over the years. We’ve had ideas of forming one huge band with our members and writing some songs. And we’ve always toyed around with that. Then this one, it finally actually came together, where we got both bands. After two or three years of trying to get to Australia together we did, and that’s kind of what was the fuel to start that happening. I think Jason from Hot Water was like “let’s do a 7’ and have it done by the Australian tour,” and that became the goal. So that was what motivated us to get it done.
Out of all their songs, how did you narrow your choice down to Wayfarer?
It was one of our collective favorites and I think Hot Water had already learned and had been playing “True Believers” occasionally. We just all loved the song, so it was pretty easy.
You just announced a series of full album shows, playing all 8 of your albums in four day engagements. What was the inspiration to do that?
We’ve talked about it for years. It was one of those things. We have enough records, we can play our records and do a couple nights in New York or something. And I think everybody in the band initially didn’t want to go there because there are a whole lot of songs that we have to learn. It’s just like getting into the belly of the beast.
What motivated that finally was the Home for the Holidays. This is the fourth year that we’ve done our four nights at the Stone Pony, and it just worked out perfectly. Two records a night for four nights and we can play all eight records. So we wanted to do something different every year at the Stone Pony and that just seemed obvious. It was like okay, it’s time for it, let’s do it.
As we were doing it, it was such an interesting experience, relearning all these new songs. Playing 100 songs, no repeats, for four nights, is pretty intense. And after we did it, we were like wow, we did this, we’ve learned this, maybe we should just take it on the road. So that was kind of the inspiration. Cool, we’ll go on tour but we won’t have to drive everywhere. We’ll go to LA, we’ll go to Denver. And just do it and see if the promoters are interested. And we got a lot of interest so we just said okay let’s do it.
Going back and playing those older songs, are there some you go back and listen to now and still really enjoy? Are there some where you’re more like “I can’t believe I wrote that”?
Yeah, along the way we were like yeah, this is why we don’t play this song.
Any songs in particular?
There are some we discussed, a few on our self-titled record, the black record. Not that they’re bad songs, but they’re kind of like unfinished ideas. They’re good ideas, but they’re not gelled into something that seems like more than just a couple verses and sort of like another half a verse or something and then it’s over. And it’s not that it needs to be anything but some of the ideas aren’t gelled into complete, full-feeling songs. So I think that there’s a bunch of those that we just didn’t play because of that. It’s still fun to play them though.
The biggest thing we discovered in the journey, which was very simple but we just hadn’t thought about was that we don’t ever listen to the records. And we usually play a certain amount of songs live, and those are the songs that we’re familiar with and always play. There’s like 40 or 50 songs we mess around with I think, maybe less. And you realize that people who like the Bouncing Souls or grew up listening to the Bouncing Souls know us best from the cds and the way the songs play on the cds. So we realized that it’s probably going to be stranger to us playing those songs in that order then it was going to be for everyone else. Because we’re like “it’s so weird we don’t know those songs.” But everybody else, when they put on Hopeless Romantic they hear those songs and that’s what they think of the Bouncing Souls as. But we haven’t listened to those songs in those orders in years or barely ever because we don’t listen to our own records really. So that was a moment where we discovered that this isn’t going to be weird to them, playing these few songs that we never play, cause they’ve heard them. People like them. So it seems like so simple of an idea, but we didn’t really think of it in that way.
As a touring band you are always on the road, spending just a night in each city. Are you looking forward to spending four days in the same place?
Yes I am. That’s the thing, the more years that go by that I’m doing this, all the traveling gets real old. Actually I have less patience for it than I used to. It’s kind of a collective thing. We don’t want to travel a whole lot if we don’t have to.
Moving on to Punk Rock Bowling, how is it playing it now that it’s a big festival versus when it first started and was a smaller party?
I think it’s pretty much the same thing. There’s just a lot more people, more people that I don’t know. But whatever, that’s cool. I haven’t actually been to it in the last few years. So we’ll see, we’ll let you know how it goes.
What bands are you looking forward to seeing at this year’s Punk Rock Bowling?
I don’t even know who’s playing it!
The same night as you there is Descendents, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes…
Oh yeah, Descendents! That’s going to be awesome, I did see that. I forgot. That’ll be great seeing the Descendents.
That should be really exciting. I’ve never seen them so I’m really stoked for them.
Oh yeah, they’re awesome. I haven’t seen them since… I don’t know, we played with them on a short tour in 1996 and it was a treat.
Talking about some older Punk Rock Bowling shows, the first time I saw you guys was at Punk Rock Bowling 4 in 2002, where the show got moved to a bar called Hurricane Harry’s. The show was sold as all ages, but then the night of the show they said “no, it’s 21+ now,” so those of us that were younger watched the show from outside through the open front door. Can you talk about that night a little?
Yeah, I do remember it. Those kinds of things happen occasionally. You know, it sucks because you go outside and there’s a handful of kids out there that are totally pissed and there’s nothing you can do. It kind of reflects on you a little bit. But even though we had no control over it, those things happen. I remember we were all pretty annoyed at how it played out. A lot of times, kids that are underage are usually, not always but in general, the most enthusiastic to be at the show. They can’t drink, they’re just there for the music, you know? So if you exclude them it kind of sucks. But we’ve been playing that game since the beginning, all ages as opposed to 21+ places in America has always just been a dance you’ve gotta dance.
Do you think 21+ shows are more accepted in the punk community now than ten years ago? It seemed like back then there was a big push to always do all ages shows, but it seems like now bands play more bar shows.
I think that there’s just more venues that are doing live shows. There are more bands touring. You can have a bar and do live music there steadily and people seem to come out more so than in the past. But it comes in waves, and it’s hard to say. It feels like it’s a little more accepted, but I don’t know.
The Bouncing Souls play in Las Vegas pretty frequently, which we appreciate. What is it that you like about playing here?
I think we’ve always had pretty good shows. There was that theatre that we played in a handful of times in the beginning. I forget what it was called but we always did well there [Editor’s note: The now closed Huntridge Theatre].
What do you like to do in Vegas when you’re not playing, maybe before or after a show?
Well I guess everybody does different stuff. Some people gamble, some people don’t. Some people gamble a little bit, some people gamble a lot. And then the Punk Rock Bowling tournament is such a huge party, so everyone’s just doing whatever. It totally varies as to what’s happening in that moment or on that tour.
What bands and albums are you listening to now? What in music has you hyped now?
I have been completely focused on a solo record that I’ve been recording. I haven’t really been listening to much music. But it’s almost done so I’m pretty excited about that.
What can you tell us about your solo record?
It’s going to be a 10” vinyl, 6 songs, with a download card. I’m going to release it on Chunksaah Records, and I don’t know exactly when. Probably this… I don’t know, I’m not even going to say when, I’m not sure yet. But it’s almost done being recorded, so hopefully relatively soon. But it sounds great, I love it, and I’m looking forward to getting it out there.
Are you planning a solo tour for the album?
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m definitely going to do a few shows here and there, probably. But as for extensive touring, most likely not. I’m just going to go for it and do it when I feel like it.
There have been a lot of punk rock frontmen putting out solo records lately. Chuck Ragan, of course. Dave Hause. Are there any of those that you’re into?
Oh yeah, I love all those guys. I love their music. Tim Barry as well. I mean, everybody, we’re all good friends and we all appreciate and get along great, as far as musical friends and just brothers in the world.
Talking about that group of people, I have to bring up the Revival Tour. Would you be interested in being a part of that if Chuck Ragan approached you about playing it?
Yeah, he’s actually approached me and my wife Shant [Wintergate] to do dates. It just hasn’t really fallen into place but we’ve talked about it before, so yeah, that’s definitely something we would consider doing.
Is there anything you would like to add at the end of the interview?
That’s it. Thanks a lot for having me and I appreciate it.
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