ZERO CRED – Details, episodes & analysis

A chat about compiling a giant book of emo band photos.

A conversation with Ratboys frontperson Julia Steiner about their new album The Window, as well as iPods, The Simpsons, and where good song ideas come from.

Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, my perfect email newsletter about music which has never had a single typo or msitake in it!

I had my West Coast SELLOUT release party last week in Los Angeles and it still amazes me that an entire venue’s worth of people will show up to hear about A BOOK. THE WRITTEN WORD! Thank you for coming if you did! I really do need to set up some events in other cities, huh?

I shook a lot of hands and took many pictures with people and as a result I got sick for the first time in two years. Don’t worry, it’s not The Big C. I got tested just to be sure. Just a regular boring cold. Aha, suckers! Your best efforts to infect me with your Covid germs have failed! I AM UNKILLABLE! I’m feeling much better now thank you but you’ll have to excuse the scratchiness in my voice in this interview I recently recorded with Thrice’s Riley Breckenridge.

As I mentioned, I’ve been running this series called Sellout Stories in which I talk to some of the supporting players in SELLOUT about their major-label experiences. (Check out previous interviews with Norman Brannon from Texas Is the Reason, Chris #2 from Anti-Flag, and Chris DeMakes from Less Than Jake.) Glad to add Thrice to that list today.

I’m forgetting who said it at the moment, but someone I interviewed for the Thursday chapter of SELLOUT told me that around the time the New Jersey band went to Island Def Jam, the label also signed Thrice, almost as a backup plan. You know, in case Thursday didn’t work out. Good to have another ‘Th—” band on deck.

I don’t think it was as simple as that, but Thursday certainly did cast a long shadow at Island Def Jam. When the band got bought out from Victory Records for $1.2 million, there were a lot of expectations. The New York Times Magazine compared the band to Metallica and U2. There wasn’t nearly as much drama surrounding their West Coast counterparts in Thrice, but the band did have a similar experience with the label. They got a ridiculously overblown budget to make their major label debut (likely also somewhere around the half-mill mark) and had months to overanalyze it. They were also caught in the unfortunate transitional period when Lyor Cohen left the label and L.A. Reid stepped in.

The result of Thrice’s big-budget effort was The Artist in The Ambulance, which was released in July 2003, two months before Thursday’s War All the Time. I figured, since Thrice only got a few passing mentions in SELLOUT, they deserve to have their story expanded upon here. So I convinced drummer Riley Breckenridge to chat about the band’s major label experience.

Check it out above or at all the usual podcast places: Spotify, Apple, blah blah blah.

Order my book, SELLOUT, here:  B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Bookshop | Goodreads

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Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the only/greatest newsletter about music in the world. Welp, SELLOUT has been out for a week and the response has been so overwhelming. Every morning I wake up to dozens and dozens and dozens of nice messages from you all. Apologies if I haven’t gotten to all of them but I really appreciate the support! I’ve done approximately 9,000 interviews about the book recently if you want to read/listen to any of em. There have been a few new ones I’m probly forgetting. I was interviewed by Mark Hoppus, which kinda blows my mind. He asked me to settle the debate: The Blue Album vs. Pinkerton. Naturally, I panicked and asked him to settle MY debate: Dookie vs. The Blue Album. He chose wisely. (Dookie.)

Aaaaaanyway. I mentioned the other day that I was starting an interview series called Sellout Stories, where I expand the major-label tales of people in the book. (My first guest was Chris from Anti-Flag.) Since Texas Is the Reason’s Norman Brannon makes an appearance in the chapter on Jimmy Eat World, talking about how great Clarity is, I figured he should be the second guest and woooo boy what a story his band had!

This conversation ended up being so much deeper than I’d expected. We talked a lot about putting mental health first, the added difficulty of being a closeted gay man in the face of rock stardom, and lots of other heavy topics. Also, haircuts. This was a really special chat and I hope you like it.

You can listen above or on Spotify, Apple, etc. If you want the short text version, below is the section about Norman that appears in my new photo zine, MAJOR LABEL DEBUT, which you can pick up in my online store.

Oh, and if you’re in the NY area, come to Vitus this Saturday! I’ll be in conversation with Geoff Rickly. Non-ticketed. Just show up. I’ll have books for sale. Happy to sign em. Also, the first 20 people who buy a book there will get a FREE photo zine. The first 10 people to buy multiple copies will get a FREE tote bag.

SELLOUT is a book about bands releasing their major label debut albums, so technically Texas Is the Reason was ineligible for inclusion. But as far as major-label signings go, the New York band might take the award for all-time closest near miss. 

The band had people interested in them from their very first show in 1994, says guitarist Norman Brannon. They played six songs in his Manhattan living room for their group of friends, who happened to be members of bands like Youth of Today and Sick of It All, as well as people who ran or worked for record labels. So, there were eyes on them from day one, and they had the chance to go major very early.

“At that time in New York City, there were only two streams,” says Brannon. “You were either going to be an indie band or you were going to be a major band. Quicksand, Into Another, Orange 9mm, Sick of It All, CIV, they were all on major labels. So it wasn’t foreign to us because those people were all our friends and they didn’t seem to be having a difficult or miserable time on a major label. I wasn’t super anti-major, but it didn’t feel right.” 

Wanting more time to figure out what their band was about, Texas Is the Reason shooed away major label A&Rs by locking in a deal with indie Revelation Records for two full-lengths and an EP. “‘That way, all the major labels will leave us alone.’ That’s what we thought,” he says. “But that did not happen. As soon as we signed, they actually got more aggressive. It got crazy.”

Major labels pursued the band even harder after their debut EP sold an impressive 30,000 copies for Revelation. The band’s profile kept growing as more and more A&R reps took them out to lunch, bought them groceries, and gave them free CDs. The members started to fall under the major-label spell and finally conceded: Maybe we really are that good. Further bolstering their confidence were the price tags being thrown around. “The highest offer we received was $3.5 million for three albums,” Brannon says. “$500,000 was a non-recoupable signing bonus. They were literally gonna give us half a million just to sign us.”

The band whittled the long list of interested suitors down and ultimately agreed to ink a deal with Capitol for $2.3 million. Their lawyer drafted up the paperwork while the band was on tour with the Promise Ring. As soon as they returned home, it’d be ready for signing and they'd be cut a check that day. But the nearer the signing drew, the more Brannon felt like backing out.

“I was having a really difficult time in life. I’ve struggled with clinical depression for as long as I can remember, and had suicidal ideation before puberty. 1996 was a particularly difficult year for my depression. I believe it was neurological and situational. The situational aspects were the pressures of being in the band and feeling the weight of people depending on me and feeling uncomfortable with the amount of responsibility I had. On top of that, I was hitting this place in my life where I was starting to realize that I needed to be an out gay man. This was at a time when Jason from the Promise Ring was coming out and he was attacked mercilessly on the Jade Tree message board, so I knew there was risk. So now I’m about to sign a major record deal and if I do that, will I have to stay in the closet?”

When he expressed to the rest of the members that he wanted to break up the band, some shared his sentiment while others thought he was out of his mind. They called it quits in 1997 and it caused a rift between them which took some years to mend.

When asked if he regrets his decision all these years later, Brannon says no. “Had I signed that contract, I’m not kidding, I would be dead. 100 percent, I cannot stress that enough. ...So how could I possibly regret it?”

Order my book, SELLOUT, here: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

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Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the greatest email newsletter about music in the world/shameless hype machine for my new book SELLOUT, which is out NEXT WEEK. (BUY IT!)

Today I’d like to introduce a new podcast segment which I’m excited about called Sellout Stories. These are interviews with people whose major-label experiences (or near-miss experiences) deserve a full hour of chatting. Some people will appear in SELLOUT, some won’t. Today’s guest does!

Listen above or anywhere you listen to podcasts: Spotify, Apple, etc.

I mentioned this in the introduction to SELLOUT, but there were a lot of bands to whom I would’ve loved to have devoted chapters. At the top of the list is Anti-Flag. Sometime in the early 2000s, the politically vocal and often deliberately anti-commercial punk band came under the radar of none other than Svangali producer Rick Rubin. Rubin pursued Anti-Flag for a while, prompting other labels to join the quest to sign them and the negotiations got competitive, but ultimately Anti-Flag turned him down to go with RCA.

That last sentence should hang in some sort of museum of indie rock. Just a perfect encapsulation of a music industry moment that would never exist today. Anyway, I interviewed none other than bassist Chris “2” Barker for the book in Chicago, and once he started telling me about his wild major label story, I knew I had to have him tell it to me in full one day. So here it is—the story of how Anti-Flag came to sign with a major label.

This story, as well as the above photograph, appears in my new photo zine, MAJOR LABEL DEBUT, which features over 70 original photos that I took while working on SELLOUT, as well as additional interviews, essays, and stories. Pick one up!

Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

Follow me on the internet. Twitter | Instagram | Website

Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the world’s greatest music newsletter which is also sometimes an interview podcast. Listen to all previous episodes on Spotify and Apple.

The kindest praise I believe a writer can give another about their work is: I wish I’d written this. About 100 pages into Franz Nicolay’s debut novel, Someone Should Pay for Your Pain, that thought hit me like a baseball bat. God, even that title fills me with envy.

Franz, an author and longtime member of The Hold Steady, touched upon so many themes in this book that have been running through my head over the last couple of years—how brief and fleeting generations are in the world of indie rock, the artist’s life vs. the domestic family life, watching time pass through the lens of music. Franz distilled it all into a story about a fictional aging rocker clinging on at the tail-end of his career. It’s an examination of the path indie-rock lifers face that is at times bleak, beautiful, authentic, sweet, and sobering. I can't recommend this book enough for Rockers Of a Certain Age.

In today’s interview, Franz and I chatted about the years of touring experience that went into the book, his writing process, and how fast time moves in the rock scene. Listen above or anywhere you listen to podcasts: Spotify or Apple.

And if you’re going to take my recommendation for one book this year, let it be Someone Should Pay for Your Pain, which you can buy here! OH WAIT actually hang on. If you’re only gonna let me recommend you one book this year, I guess it should selfishly be my forthcoming book, SELLOUT. But if you will take TWO literary recommendations from me, then they should be my book and Franz’s book. And if you’ll take THREE recommendations, they should be my book, then Franz’s book, then, of course, the Bible.

Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here: Bookshop | Deathwish Inc. | B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

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Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the greatest newsletter about music, ever. Sometimes I put text into these things and sometimes I put audio conversations. Today is a convo for your listening pleasure!

Hm. Do I, of all people, need to sit here and type an introduction for today’s guest, Brendan Kelly? [my producers are yelling in my earpiece that yes, in fact, I do.] OK, OK, fine, I will introduce Brendan even though I’m positive most people who are familiar with my work will also be familiar with him. He is the bassist of The Lawrence Arms. He is the mastermind behind The Falcon. He is a solo artist. He does several podcasts. He has a newsletter. He is Brendan Kelly.

Brendan’s most musical recent output was Skeleton Coast, The Lawrence Arms’ seventh record, which falls into the category of Albums I’ve Been Itching to See Performed Live but Haven’t Been Able to Due to This Fucking Pandemic. We didn’t talk about the album, though. That would’ve been smart. Instead, we somehow got sidetracked talking about The Lawrence Arms’ lifetime ban from the Warped Tour, and eventually we went down a wormhole about our favorite Simpsons episodes. Look, I don’t profess to understand how or why these conversations turn out the way they do. We just start talking and 60 or so minutes later, we stop.

So please, enjoy this 60 or so-minute conversation with Brendan Kelly!

Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the newsletter about music which is also sometimes a podcast. Listen to today’s episode and others on Spotify or Apple.

I’ve got to be out of my goddamned mind to agree to interview The Armed on April Fool’s Day. Trying to get a clear picture of the enigmatic Detroit collective has been like nailing Jell-O to the wall for those who’ve tried. A few years ago, I sent a writer to profile them (which as far as I can tell is the only substantial piece ever written about them), and while I think it’s a stellar piece of writing that reads like a murder mystery, I’m still not quite sure I can 100% vouch for its authenticity. The band was vague with their answers, they were unclear about who the actual members were, they all lived together in a big compound in an undisclosed location, they rented a $200,000 Porsche because “it would look cool.” It all felt like an elaborate prank. So even though I went into this April 1 chat with frontman Adam Vallely feeling like I stood a 50/50 chance of getting duped in some way, it was a risk I was willing to take to hear about their brilliant new album ULTRAPOP.

As far as I could tell, Adam is a real person. He wasn’t in the band during the release of their last record, 2018’s ONLY LOVE, though. Well, he was one of the 28 members of the band, but he wasn’t the frontman at the time. He was in the band but not in the band, you know? It’s complicated.

Anyway, I’m pleased to report that Adam and I ended up having a legitimate and, as far as I can tell, authentic conversation about The Armed. Most of it was spent talking about health and fitness, since most of the members spent the last year working with a nutritionist, putting themselves through an intense diet and exercise regimen for this album, for reasons that are explained. (I’ve always said lifting weights is art!) We also talked about breaking new ground in hardcore, the meaning behind ULTRAPOP, the unexpected critical acclaim the band has received, manifesting success, and using confusion as a medium in art. I feel like I was born to do an interview that stands at the cross section of hardcore and gym gains.

And lest you think Adam was not serious about the strictness of his diet, please know that he went through a damn barrel of water over the course of the interview:

This was a fun interview, even though his audio quality is a little wonky (apologies!). ULTRAPOP is out soon and is very worth your time. I know it’s a cliche to put it like this, but it genuinely sounds like an a noisy hardcore record played on top of a pop record, the two sides competing for attention throughout. And, if we are ever in the position to see live music again, I highly recommend you go see The Armed. A truly disorienting and unforgettable experience. Here are some photos I took of them at St. Vitus in 2018:

Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here: Indiebound | B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

Follow me on the internet. Twitter | Instagram | Website

Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the only email newsletter about music that is also sometimes a podcast. Today, it’s a podcast. Listen to this episode and others on Spotify or Apple.

You’d think a guy like Mikey Erg would get cynical or jaded about music. After all, the guy has played in a near limitless slew of bands over the last decade, toured through every venue in every city in America, and is practically the glue that holds The Fest’s lineup together every year. And yet, despite all his punk rock bona fides, he maintains a fanboy-like appreciation for music history which I find very endearing. He still has the enthusiasm in him to geek out over the most inconsequential rock ‘n’ roll landmarks wherever he travels. If there’s a spot in the world where The Beatles have ever recorded, been photographed, or taken a leak, Mikey has snapped a selfie in front of it.

I talked to Mikey recently about his journeys as a rock ‘n’ roll tourist, as well as his transition from the end of his beloved pop punk band The Ergs! to his recent venture as a solo artist. He’s got a new, self-titled record out this month, which he calls “a return to form.” It’s a bit looser and more playful than his 2016 solo debut, Tentative Decisions, which should be obvious from the Clash parody album artwork and the Green Day and Pearl Jam covers stuffed into it.

So, enjoy this chat about Mikey’s solo work, meeting celebrities as the former drummer of the house band for The Chris Gethard Show, and being a sponge for rock minutiae. And check out Mikey’s new record! It’s got a cover of one of my favorite Green Day songs. Oh, and speaking of Green Day, did I mention there’s a chapter about them in my forthcoming book? (Oh you thought I’d get through an entire post without plugging my book, SELLOUT by Dan Ozzi in stores 10.26.21 for more info visit sellout.biz?? Nuh uh, think again, yo!! Pre-order now please and thank you.)

Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here: Indiebound | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

Follow me on the internet. Twitter | Instagram | Website

Hello and welcome to REPLY ALT, the only email newsletter about music that is also sometimes a podcast. Today, it’s a podcast. Listen to past episodes on Spotify or Apple. This post is a sappy one. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Many years ago, when I was entering the thoroughly unprofitable world of writing about rock bands for a living, I was largely figuring it out as I went along. I didn’t know where I was headed with it or where it would lead me. Hell, I still don’t know. I only knew to follow one guiding principle: Write about bands I like. That’s it. As far as career moves go, that may have singlehandedly assured that I stay destitute forever, but it also led me to some special people who, in one way or another, ended up changing my life. That’s how I met today’s guest, Anika Pyle.

When I first met Anika, she was fronting the band Chumped. I’d watch them play at little rooms around Brooklyn once or twice a week and they always had a small clique of supportive friends who reliably showed up to drink heavily and yell their lyrics back at them. It was just a party. Every time. I don’t know any other way to explain it.

I started writing about Chumped wherever I could, partly because I believed in them and partly because no one else would write about them. Eventually, other people caught on to how good they were and the band started gaining a little buzz. Chumped took opening slots on bigger tours, got covered on the cool websites, and played some music festivals here and there. Basically all of the things an indie band hopes to cross off their checklist these days. But as they gained speed, the wheels started to wobble. The band lasted just a few short years before calling it a day. As brief as Chumped’s tenure was, though, meeting them really helped map out my life, as strange as it may seem. I’m not sure I realized that at the time, but now, six years from the end of the band, I can appreciate those years a lot more for how special and free they were. 

Anyway, in case it is not glaringly obvious, reflecting on that little pop punk band really hits me right in the feels. Although I’m sad those days are in the past, it’s also been very exciting to watch the path Anika has taken as an artist since then. Following the demise of Chumped, she started another project, Katie Ellen, and released an album in 2017. She also has a new record out this month under her own name called Wild River. The album sees her processing the recent passing of her father and is a staggeringly beautiful meditation on grief that weaves together delicate musical arrangements with long spoken word sections. Poetry, songs, and eulogies blend together so seamlessly throughout.

I mean this in the most complimentary way possible: I find Wild River to be a very tough listen. I can usually make it as far as “Orange Flowers” before dissolving into a puddle. It’s not something I’d sit and listen to for pleasure, but I do find myself coming back to when I am seeking catharsis.

I had a long, overdue chat with Anika about all of these things and yet I still don’t feel like I even scratched the surface of what I wanted to talk about. Hear the two of us get overly sentimental on today’s episode! (Oh, and if you’re looking for a more coherent, text-based interview with Anika, I’d recommend her very good recent talk with David Anthony. Don’t get too comfortable over there, though. I can’t afford to be losing readers to that guy!)

Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here: Indiebound | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads (Here’s a little teaser chat I had about it this week with Jim Ward of Sparta/At the Drive-In.)

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