Interviews

1208

Interview with Alex on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

I would like to thank Alex of 1208, Laure from Epitaph and Whybee from RockSound for making the interview happen.

PB: Your first album is going to hit the streets in a few days. How do you feel ? It’s an important step in a band's career…
1208: It is our first album and we haven’t had any release before. It’s pretty cool, it’s on Epitaph.

PB: 7 years for a first album is quite long…
1208: Actually, we've been together with this current line up for about 5 years now, and some of the songs on this album actually go back to the beginning. It’s like a compilation of all songs we’ve written since we’ve been together. It has been a long time. We finally got signed and we’re expected to be signed sometime ago. We didn’t know when and where, and all of it happened very quick with Epitaph. We’re glad to have stuck with it, ya know?

PB: How did you meet Fletcher from Pennywise? You were a fan of Pennywise and you asked him to produce the album?
1208: We heard he was interested in our stuff, and he came to a couple of shows. He was interested in producing our album cuz we were going to sign with Nitro. Anyway, he started producing the album and he took it over to Epitaph. They were interested in it. I guess everything worked out and they wanted do something with us. He took interest in us and we were pretty flattered. It’s such a big name and stuff. He start attending our practices. We have a good relationship with him and he’s a friend now. He helped us a lot in the studio, and we recorded our album in his studio, Stall #2.

PB: In your biography your voice is compared to the Dex Holland’s. Are you happy or it is too far away from your influences?
1208: I don’t know… I mean, I never thought I sound like the Offspring, you know. You never really know until other people tell you so. Personally, I’m influenced by anything melodic. I like The Offspring, of course, and Pennywise. We listen to a lot of melodic punk stuff. That ‘s pretty much how it came to be. Listening to those bands, and what they do with their backgrounds, their background vocals, and all of that. But I like the scratchiness in the voice. I think that’s always cool, like the guy from Minor Threat, Ian McKaye. Its something we want to incorporate in our songs, some aggressive sound. A mixture of both.

PB: In the radio and music industry, there is a lot of pop-punk bands. The punk is not aggressive anymore. You wanted to come back with the early 80’s hardcore-punk?
1208: Yeah, we want to do as much as we can to keep the whole aggressive sound in all of that. We’re not into this poppy stuff, although we’ve got poppy songs too. We wanna keep the aggression.

PB: You think punk rock has to be aggressive? Is it the spirit of this kind of music?
1208: I don’t know… a lot of time it doesn’t really have to be aggressive. There‘s a lot of art-punk bands… You know, Fugazi is like a punk band… Those bands get some experimental stuff. They’re punk. They might be not as loud like a loud recording or destroying guitars, but they have punk roots.

PB: For us European's, the Californian punk scene looks like a family. Is this image real or is it just a European fantasy?
1208: It’s actually pretty true. A lot of bands come out the South Bay, like where we’re from, like Hermosa Beach. Inside Southern California, everyone is pretty close. Pennywise, 98 mute, our long time friends The Deviates... It’s like a big group of friends which try to support each other, getting shows together, keeping a whole thing alive. It’s pretty much how it’s been. Even back in the 80’s punk scene with Black Flag and Descendents and all that stuff. They always played together. It like the same thing but with a different generation.

PB: Is 1208 a full time job?
1208: Right now a couple of us work, the drummer and the guitar player. Brian and I don’t work at the time and we’re crashing around… It seems to be a full-time thing. We’re pretty busy with the band. We play shows almost every week and we try to practice every day. I wouldn’t say a full time job, I’ll say it will be a full-time job. 

PB: Now it’s time for the classical boring question.. Where did your name come from? It’s weird, there are so many punk bands who have numbers in their name like Sum 41, Blink 182, Catch 22, 22 Jacks, H2O…(laugh)
1208: (laugh) Our name has a personal meaning. It is the address of an apartment we stayed at for a while, we first wrote songs together there. It was during a time period important for us. It’s just a place where we stayed, us and the Deviates hung out, we grew like a band together there. Usually the trend is to have a word and a number like Screw 32 or Blink 182. I don’t really understand the thing with that. We weren’t trying to do that. I don't know why bands are choosing these kinds of names. It’s pretty trendy to do that. The word is not enough... (laugh)

PB: Is that true your uncle was the guitar player for Black Flag?
1208: Yeah. He played guitars for Black flag and he still runs SST records. He still plays music and stuff. He’s my uncle, and Ray Pettibon is my other uncle. They are brothers. He made our cover art.

PB: Do you think it brings advantages or disadvantages to the band having a well known uncle in this scene ?
1208: I think it would create more interest. This question always come up about my uncle Greg. Actually, he really doesn’t have much to do with that band at all. I mean, we pretty much struggle by ourselves. Fletcher had maybe more influences on us and Greg is just a part of my family. It would seem more weird if we were on SST!

PB: Is It important for you doing all ages shows ?
1208: In all ages shows, any age can go to the show. It is really important cuz most of our fans usually are kids. Anytime we played all ages shows, it always seems like there’s a lot of younger and younger kids. There’s a younger generation of people interested in punk-rock. In 21-and-over crowds, there is a disillusion to new punk, and they don’t really care about it. They usually seem pretty cynical. There not really interested in it. It comes from my experience in playing bars and stuff where we get a better response during all ages shows.

PB: Next projects ?
1208: We have a few things in works, like a small tour, play on the Warped Tour, but we don’t know exactly when. We don’t know about Europe. Maybe some festivals. It’s in the process. If you had any options on Europe, we’ll be happy to play those (laugh)

PB: A word to conclude?
1208: I guess, buy the cd and go to the shows! We’re playing in your town very soon!!