I got a chance to talk with Steve Soto of The Adolescents. The Adolescents invented the punk sound that came out of Orange County in the early 1980s. Frontier Records is releasing Adolescents - Complete Demos 1980-1986. Fourteen of these tracks are previously unreleased, including one studio recording, Richard Hung Himself.
Check out the official site for The Adolescents
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to?
Steve Soto: Not much. Its a nice day out here. Running some errands. Trying to relax. Go up to the wild beach of California.
DRE: How did The Adolescents Complete Demos 1980-1986 come together?
Soto: Our singer Tommy had some of them from when I taped him in his garage. I could never save any of them. I dont even have copies of our records from when we put them out.
DRE: Is it real punk not to have the masters of your albums?
Soto: [laughs] I dont know if its real punk. Its kind of lame on my part. I wish now that I saved stuff. Over the years I was moving around a lot and not paying attention. Honestly I didnt think anyone would care today that we had made a tape 20 years ago. So it shocks the hell out of me.
DRE: Did you remaster them or are they not supposed to be?
Soto: The guy thats drumming with us is Derek OBrien who used to be in Social Distortion. So we did it at his studio. We had to tweak the first four songs, the real old stuff, a little. But other than that, its all pretty much the raw deal.
DRE: How much awareness of The Adolescents is out there?
Soto: A lot of bands have mentioned us and I think thats where a lot of kids have picked up on us from. Brian from the Offspring just cites us a lot of times as an influence. Also Fat Mike, I got so many phone calls when he was off doing the whole PunkVoter thing. When he was on Dennis Miller he was wearing an Adolescents t-shirt. There were a couple of different TV shows that hed be on. He was sporting the shirt a lot. So Im sure we get awareness from kids and stuff from that. I dont know how it transmits across the country as much. I know we do okay on the east coast and we do really well on the west coast but we havent been in Middle America since 1989. So Im not sure.
DRE: And when was the last time you guys broke up?
Soto: I guess 89.
DRE: How many times had you broken up and gotten back together before that?
Soto: [laughs] In the original inception, in 1980, we put out the first record and then broke up a year and a half later. Then we got back together from 86 to 89.
DRE: What brought you guys back together in 1986?
Soto: I cant even remember to be honest with you. Rikk Agnew and Tony [Cadena] had been butting heads so Rikk had actually been out of the band and we had Pat Smear played with us the last three or four months we were together in 81. A lot of people just kept saying Well you should take another run at it. We play really well together so it kind of seemed like Why not? It was more or less Im getting more enjoyment out of doing this than anything else Ive got going musically. The first time we still had a lot of chemical and substance problems dragging the band down.
DRE: [laughs] Ive heard about stuff like that.
Soto: I hear it happens with other bands. Not just us. [laughs]
DRE: When was this stuff found and put together?
Soto: It must have been 96. For three or four years Epitaph was licensing the blue record from Frontier Records. That was when Lisa, who owns Frontier, talked to Tony and Frank about doing a demos thing. Originally I think it was going to come out of Epitaph and then it didnt happen. So its been an idea thats been tossed around for a while.
DRE: I read some stuff about the making of your first album, were you guys always drunk?
Soto: [laughs] Yeah.
DRE: Did Tony turn the fire extinguisher on the soundboard?
Soto: It wasnt on the board. It was on just the studio itself. I dont think he did it on the board. I think he got everything else in the room though.
DRE: Was he trying to put out a fire?
Soto: Well thats what I think. Im going to stand by him on that one. Theres always downtime for some people when youre recording and they had a basketball court but Tony didnt play basketball. So he had put out fires before and I think he was just trying to fill his free time with some firefighting practice.
DRE: Are you guys planning on touring again?
Soto: Yeah, were going to be doing East Coast and West Coast this summer. Also well be out with a new record thats coming out on Kung-Fu.
DRE: Whos going to be on this record?
Soto: Casey [Royer] is not with us. We have Derek from Social Distortion and Rikk is a very questionable member of our band at any given day. Sometimes he shows up and sometimes he doesnt. In the last few months, Rikks brother Frank Agnews son has been playing guitar with us. Hes 18 and looks exactly like his Dad did back then, which is kind of scary when were playing. But Rikks one of those guys so hes never completely out of the band. When he pulls it together hes always welcome. He hasnt done a very good job of pulling it together lately [laughs] so its up in the air.
DRE: How you guys getting along now?
Soto: Everyone else gets along very well even with Rikk. Hes just the one guy that hasnt let go of chemistry so it makes it harder deal with but everyone else finally grew up. All the things that we used to fight over are kind of pointless now.
DRE: What else do you do now?
Soto: I tour managed Flogging Molly for a while. I worked as a stage manager at a co-op in Long Beach. I play in two other bands so sometimes I just go from one tour to another. Im in a band called Punk Rock Karaoke with Greg Graffin and Eric Melvin. Im also playing in a band called Manic Hispanic that puts records out on BYO.
DRE: Tell me a good Adolescents story!
Soto: We did a tour where Rikk was convinced that Satan was living inside his amplifier. This is no joke. Every night he would say Hes in there. I dont know if it was Satan or a demon but he said something evil was living inside his amplifier. The thing was the amplifier just wasnt working very well. So one night in the middle of a show in Boston he turns to me and he says Hes in there again. But I had borrowed another amp for him that night so he wasnt even playing through his amp but he was so out of it he didnt know. So I go Dude. He cant be in your amp right now because youre not even using your amp. He looks across the room and sees his amp sitting in the corner, throws the guitar down in the middle of the show, runs and grabs the amp then runs upstairs. We were at this place in Boston called The Rat and its a downstairs basement kind of thing. He goes into the alley and proceeds to smash the amp against the wall and takes off running down this alley where a car comes flying through and hits him. He rolls over the top of the car. Hes okay. He lived so I can laugh now when I tell the story. Thats pretty much the end of the demon. He came and exorcised the demon out of the amp. Of course we had to buy him all new amps the next day which may be the reason he was going for it in the first place. Things like that just kind of happened to us. Hes somebody who figured very heavily into it Im sure.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site for The Adolescents
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to?
Steve Soto: Not much. Its a nice day out here. Running some errands. Trying to relax. Go up to the wild beach of California.
DRE: How did The Adolescents Complete Demos 1980-1986 come together?
Soto: Our singer Tommy had some of them from when I taped him in his garage. I could never save any of them. I dont even have copies of our records from when we put them out.
DRE: Is it real punk not to have the masters of your albums?
Soto: [laughs] I dont know if its real punk. Its kind of lame on my part. I wish now that I saved stuff. Over the years I was moving around a lot and not paying attention. Honestly I didnt think anyone would care today that we had made a tape 20 years ago. So it shocks the hell out of me.
DRE: Did you remaster them or are they not supposed to be?
Soto: The guy thats drumming with us is Derek OBrien who used to be in Social Distortion. So we did it at his studio. We had to tweak the first four songs, the real old stuff, a little. But other than that, its all pretty much the raw deal.
DRE: How much awareness of The Adolescents is out there?
Soto: A lot of bands have mentioned us and I think thats where a lot of kids have picked up on us from. Brian from the Offspring just cites us a lot of times as an influence. Also Fat Mike, I got so many phone calls when he was off doing the whole PunkVoter thing. When he was on Dennis Miller he was wearing an Adolescents t-shirt. There were a couple of different TV shows that hed be on. He was sporting the shirt a lot. So Im sure we get awareness from kids and stuff from that. I dont know how it transmits across the country as much. I know we do okay on the east coast and we do really well on the west coast but we havent been in Middle America since 1989. So Im not sure.
DRE: And when was the last time you guys broke up?
Soto: I guess 89.
DRE: How many times had you broken up and gotten back together before that?
Soto: [laughs] In the original inception, in 1980, we put out the first record and then broke up a year and a half later. Then we got back together from 86 to 89.
DRE: What brought you guys back together in 1986?
Soto: I cant even remember to be honest with you. Rikk Agnew and Tony [Cadena] had been butting heads so Rikk had actually been out of the band and we had Pat Smear played with us the last three or four months we were together in 81. A lot of people just kept saying Well you should take another run at it. We play really well together so it kind of seemed like Why not? It was more or less Im getting more enjoyment out of doing this than anything else Ive got going musically. The first time we still had a lot of chemical and substance problems dragging the band down.
DRE: [laughs] Ive heard about stuff like that.
Soto: I hear it happens with other bands. Not just us. [laughs]
DRE: When was this stuff found and put together?
Soto: It must have been 96. For three or four years Epitaph was licensing the blue record from Frontier Records. That was when Lisa, who owns Frontier, talked to Tony and Frank about doing a demos thing. Originally I think it was going to come out of Epitaph and then it didnt happen. So its been an idea thats been tossed around for a while.
DRE: I read some stuff about the making of your first album, were you guys always drunk?
Soto: [laughs] Yeah.
DRE: Did Tony turn the fire extinguisher on the soundboard?
Soto: It wasnt on the board. It was on just the studio itself. I dont think he did it on the board. I think he got everything else in the room though.
DRE: Was he trying to put out a fire?
Soto: Well thats what I think. Im going to stand by him on that one. Theres always downtime for some people when youre recording and they had a basketball court but Tony didnt play basketball. So he had put out fires before and I think he was just trying to fill his free time with some firefighting practice.
DRE: Are you guys planning on touring again?
Soto: Yeah, were going to be doing East Coast and West Coast this summer. Also well be out with a new record thats coming out on Kung-Fu.
DRE: Whos going to be on this record?
Soto: Casey [Royer] is not with us. We have Derek from Social Distortion and Rikk is a very questionable member of our band at any given day. Sometimes he shows up and sometimes he doesnt. In the last few months, Rikks brother Frank Agnews son has been playing guitar with us. Hes 18 and looks exactly like his Dad did back then, which is kind of scary when were playing. But Rikks one of those guys so hes never completely out of the band. When he pulls it together hes always welcome. He hasnt done a very good job of pulling it together lately [laughs] so its up in the air.
DRE: How you guys getting along now?
Soto: Everyone else gets along very well even with Rikk. Hes just the one guy that hasnt let go of chemistry so it makes it harder deal with but everyone else finally grew up. All the things that we used to fight over are kind of pointless now.
DRE: What else do you do now?
Soto: I tour managed Flogging Molly for a while. I worked as a stage manager at a co-op in Long Beach. I play in two other bands so sometimes I just go from one tour to another. Im in a band called Punk Rock Karaoke with Greg Graffin and Eric Melvin. Im also playing in a band called Manic Hispanic that puts records out on BYO.
DRE: Tell me a good Adolescents story!
Soto: We did a tour where Rikk was convinced that Satan was living inside his amplifier. This is no joke. Every night he would say Hes in there. I dont know if it was Satan or a demon but he said something evil was living inside his amplifier. The thing was the amplifier just wasnt working very well. So one night in the middle of a show in Boston he turns to me and he says Hes in there again. But I had borrowed another amp for him that night so he wasnt even playing through his amp but he was so out of it he didnt know. So I go Dude. He cant be in your amp right now because youre not even using your amp. He looks across the room and sees his amp sitting in the corner, throws the guitar down in the middle of the show, runs and grabs the amp then runs upstairs. We were at this place in Boston called The Rat and its a downstairs basement kind of thing. He goes into the alley and proceeds to smash the amp against the wall and takes off running down this alley where a car comes flying through and hits him. He rolls over the top of the car. Hes okay. He lived so I can laugh now when I tell the story. Thats pretty much the end of the demon. He came and exorcised the demon out of the amp. Of course we had to buy him all new amps the next day which may be the reason he was going for it in the first place. Things like that just kind of happened to us. Hes somebody who figured very heavily into it Im sure.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
dasha:
i am confused, this is not about Patrick McCabe or the movie or Cillian Murphy.
solus:
Steve's got a new band these days called Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts. I saw them open for X last year. Really great.