Strung Out interview: “You be who you want to be. That’s punk.”

After releasing seven albums on Fat Wreck Chords and being one of the first bands signed to the label in 1992, California punk rockers Strung Out barely need an introduction. But you might want to name check them as influencing bands like Rise Against and Blink 182. What Strung Out have forgotten about punk rock, most bands are yet to learn. I spoke to drummer Jordan, who has been in the band for two decades, before the show with Strife at the Lido, Berlin.

Now that Fat Wreck Chords has got bigger over the years, how does it feel to look back and know you were one of the first bands to be signed to that label?
There are more bands but actually the label has got smaller. It’s a sign of the times, with the record industry and everything like that. There’s not a Fat Wreck Chords in Europe anymore, things have scaled back. Being one of the first bands on Fat was obviously a big thing for us. Back then even if people didn’t know your band, they came to see you just because you were on Fat. They were the good old days. But things are still cruising, we’re still doing what we’re doing and people are still coming to see us.

Is it like a family, are you good friends with Fat Mike?
Sure. I mean we’ve known him forever.  I’ve known him for a long time and I knew him before I was even with Strung Out. Is it like a family? I dunno, sure.

What is one thing that Fat Mike has taught you?
Don’t start doing drugs at a later age in life.

You have actually been influenced by metal, in your live set you drop in a quick cover of Pantera. What other metal bands do you like?
Well there’s endless amount of influences from Iron Maiden to Rush. I mean there’s five guys in the band and everyone listens to a variety of music. What we’ve been directly influenced by, I dunno. 18, 19, 20 years later. I dunno. We try to be influenced by everything we hear. We like to make music we think will be good for the listeners’ ears and our ears and I think we’re influenced by each other.

What has been the toughest time on tour?
That would be in October 2007 when we had our van and trailer ripped off with all of our equipment. We lost about £70,000 worth of stuff and coming back from that was tough. We lost everything on a six-week tour on the second week.  We could have gone home but we continued with Evergreen Terrace’s help and made sure it happened.  You just stay focussed. At home we had a lot of help from sponsors and we played a benefit show which really helped us.

Can you tell me why you have decided to do a Best Of release now?
It seemed the right time. It was really tough putting the song list together. We narrowed the song list down with the five of us,  Fat Mike and several of the employers at Fat.  We made a list of the songs we have and everyone made check marks of their favourite songs and from that we put the list together. Which ever songs got the most votes made it on to the record. We didn’t want to do a typical greatest hits. We wanted to do something a little different.  I think most bands take the songs, stick them on and release them. We took the time to remix everything with Ryan Greene, the famous Fat producer of the old days.  All the songs have a really modernised production and they sound so much better. Of course people out there will like the original better but I believe people will think the remixes sound way better. We had over 500 tattoos from fans which is a collage on the inlay and we’ve got this cool timeline of the band so I think it’s a pretty cool album for old and new listeners.

Do you hope that people who have never heard of you before may grow to like the band after hearing the Best Of?

Well I always hope for that and we strive and hope to make new fans. Even just on our Facebook page I read ‘Hey I’ve just found out about you guys last night, I love your record.” and that’s pretty cool. That’s what I get stoked on. If we can still make new fans at this point then that is a good thing. We’re not some gigantic band. There are millions of people who have never heard of us, even though we’ve been around so long.  I remember the days when it was special for a band to come to Europe but today there is a US band playing every day of the week.

So the Best Of is almost like a  milestone,  so what is the proudest moment of being in the band?
I’m proud of it all. Everything we’ve done and accomplished, the people we’ve met and the music we’ve made. The only thing we strive for is to achieve more and to keep going and to hope people still care. We’ve had a really long career and have been together for 18 years, with only one member change, which is a rare thing too.  I read that we wasn’t proud of the ‘Blackhawks over Los Angeles’ album we made, and its like what the fuck, who said that?  We’re proud of every record we’ve made.

You say you are proud of everything but what about shows, do any stand out?
We sold out the Hollywood Palladium in our home town which was 3,500 people and the bill was Rufio, Rise Against and Poison The Well. It’s funny thinking about Rise Against opening for us. We took them out on some of the earlier tours and now they’re like one of the biggest bands. We’re like ‘Hello, we’re here, take us on tour.’  I have a lot of video footage from the tours we did and we had a great time together so sometimes it’s frustrating but there are so many bands where that happened. Like Tom Delonge from Blink 182 used to have Strung Out stickers on his guitar and we’ve never been asked to go on tour.

So having toured quite a bit, what’s the strangest food you’ve had?
I’m really open minded when it comes to food. I dont party a lot anymore so I like to party with food haha. In Europe you always have funky vegan chilis and we wish there was meat involved.

What is the most intense story you have heard from a fan who love your band?
There’s a lot of that. Before email we used to get a lot of really cool letters, like ‘I was in a coma from a car accident. They played your music to me every day and it kept me alive.’ I think it’s pretty inspiring and that makes you want to keep going. Being in a band isn’t always easy and you can sound spoilt by saying that but its cool to find other inspiration and that can come from people with tattoos too. It’s good to collect that positive energy.

Do you think modern punk has contradictions, with some bands preaching their philosophy?
There is no punk. Punk is so far and done over.  It’s commercialised and is no longer dangerous or scary.  Some people still try to fly the punk rock flag but if you’re going to preach things like being vegan then fuck that. You should be who you want to be.  That’s punk.  It’s about being individual.

After two decades of doing this, what’s next for Stung Out?
There’s still a lot of places we havn’t been to like Russia,  South Africa and Mexico city. There’s still plenty of places we can go where people haven’t seen us play.

So say if some aliens came down to Earth and asked for one life lesson what would that be?
All politicians are fucked up and have ruined this world but they probably already know this. I do believe there are other forms of life who see how fucked things are. I  just got an email from my buddy which said 545 politicans control everything.  Those people need to be wiped out and we need to start over.
What if they asked you what your personal meaning of life was?
Live your own life. Be who you want to be and don’t be a poser.

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