You said lead single ’Til The Light Guides Me Home was partly inspired by your experience of fatherhood. How did becoming a dad change you?
“Oh man, on an emotional level, it’s indescribable. One of the things about parenthood is that you come to grips with your own history, and your own childhood. What was good about it, what was not good, and mistakes that were made. It’s your chance to perhaps correct some of those things, to emphasise the things that were positive in your own childhood and hopefully pass those things along, and change the pattern with regard to things that weren’t so good. You have a decision to make about how you conduct yourself, now that this little person is modelling themselves on every behaviour you display. It’s tempting sometimes to implode under the responsibility. My whole life was always about artistic pursuits. It was always me, me, me and music, music, music. So it’s about having to change that mind-set, or at least change some of the life habits that are fuelled by that mind-set, now that there’s something more important.”
What were you like as a kid?
“I was kind of a loner, and because I was an only child for the first 10 years of my life, it was pretty solitary. I didn’t grow up in a neighbourhood full of kids out playing. I grew up in the city in DC. There was a lot of alone time spent in my own head, which I think is good for kids. It definitely helps you develop your own inner world. It was mostly just my mother and me. My biological father wasn’t really around, and when he was, it was a really volatile situation. I built my inner world, and that naturally led me to pursuing music. When I was really small, I wanted to be a cartoonist, so I used to draw. I loved comics and I loved inventing characters and developing stories. Later on, music came along and it quickly took over everything.”
Your first band was Awareness Void Of Chaos. How come you guys didn’t conquer the world?
“(Laughs) Well, I was only 14. There were only two kids who would talk to me in school, so I convinced them to be in a band with me, and that became AVOC. Roger [Maynard] didn’t play anything, but I said, ‘Bass is easy!’ It was truly punk rock. We didn’t conquer the world because that wasn’t even in our wheelhouse. It’s hard to really convey how hostile people were to that music at that time. When parents, club owners, police or whatever saw the reactions at the gigs with what became known as moshing, it was like, ‘We’re not having that!’ But people grow in different directions and I wanted something even more intense. That’s how I recruited the guys in Neon Christ.”
Can you paint a picture of who you were as an artist in Neon Christ?
“I was very driven, focussed, and intense. I was hard on myself, and I was hard on everyone playing with me. The bands I loved were ones that have now gone on to stand the test of time, like Black Flag and Bad Brains. I was always trying to measure us against the best of what I was hearing. And most of the time I felt we were falling short. A lot of things had a role in us eventually falling apart, but things had gotten really intense. Neon Christ went from being totally written off to becoming a real force for our kind of music. The scene was growing, our audience was growing, and naturally, the resistance also came to bear. You had skinheads and interference from the police. That was heavy stuff for a 16-year-old. I just wanted to rock. Our music did have a message and I wrote all the lyrics, but nothing prepares you for your rehearsal being staked out by three different counties with cop cars, or for your gigs to be invaded, or for rumours going around that there’s a contract out on you by Nazi skinheads. It was nuts, man. The band broke up partly because of all of that pressure. It was getting plain dangerous. There were people getting hurt and there was a lot of violence. Eventually I was like, ‘The band’s done. I need a change of scenery.’ That’s when I moved to Santa Cruz, and joined BL’AST!. Them and Alice In Chains were the only bands I ever joined.”