Interview with Bill Stevenson, an American
musician and record producer at Fort Collins Blasting Room. He is the drummer and frequent songwriter for the
California punk rock group Descendents.
CMB: What are your thoughts on punk now, and how your influence from back in the day still pertains to today?
Bill: There’s been a lot of miles traveled since then by
everybody, and many years passed, so I supposed it’s hard for a feeble
earthling like myself to quantify how things are now, compared to how they used
to be. I know that there’s a constant line of comparison between what people
call the old punk and the new punk, and I may be just old enough to where I
don’t look at it that way. I see it all as a big continuum of a very long river
flowing, and bands contribute to it and they take out from it, and they ride
along the stream, they ride along the flow of it, so it’s like a flowing
river, or like a circle. Just as we’ve influenced things, we’ve also been
influenced by things, and I think that the punk scene is that way. It’s always a
two-way street in and out, constantly evolving, and I don’t feel like there are years or eras or decades where it was like ‘Punk is dead.’ I just try and keep
an open mind, and let the independent artists do whatever they can do, and try
and enjoy it.
CMB: Do you think that people now categorize pop punk
(radio-friendly)? Do you think there’s a difference between pop punk and punk?
Bill: It’s always been my opinion that those were more useful
for, say, people trying to market or sell music, but when you actually put a
guitar on, or get behind a drum set or put pen to paper, nobody really thinks
like that. I know in the early ‘90s there was kind of a more 'acceptable' version
of punk rock that got on the radio a lot. I guess there were tons of little
kids at the mall who were really happy that that happened, and then there were
some crumudgeondly older punk rockers that felt like that phenomenon was kind
of a disservice or a dishonor to punk rock. But if you think about it, the
fact that Blink-182 got on the radio, that doesn’t change how I feel about my
Minor Threat single. It’s all just music, right? I just don’t think in those
little boxes—even punk rock, it’s just one—in my itunes I’m gonna say maybe 20%
of it is punk rock, if that. SO it’s just notes—they’re notes, and rhythms and
that’s—I think it was Louis Armstrong who said ‘There are only two kinds of
music: good music and bad music.’
Back in the day, Louis Armstrong said, “If you can tap
your foot to it, that’s good music!” That’s a simpleton answer, but the point
he was making is, if it makes you feel something, you get excited, then who cares what it’s called; pop punk, indie, hardcore, emo, jazz,
you know, whatever. Who cares?
CMB: You being at the Blasting Room is huge for our local scene
here in CO, and you see a lot of bands coming through there. Since this is the
punk issue, who have you seen locally, punk bands, that should be on people’s
radars?
B: Oh gosh, you should ask Andrew or Chris. They have
their ear to the ground more—I’ve been gone a lot traveling and playing shows,
so they could really dial in that answer for you. I am guilty of being 60? 50?
I might be listening to Cole Porter on the way to work or maybe the 1st AC/DC album. I don’t always have my finger on the pulse of the local music
scene, or the national or global.
CMB: What words of wisdom do you have for punk bands wanting to
make it now?
Bill: That is the question because, is it easier now? Is it
harder now than it was when we were try to get established? I can’t tell. Some
would have you believe that it's easier because the networking; just the access
to information is so complete, BUT, then some might say it’s harder. When I was
13, you got a bike for christmas. Now, you get a guitar. It’s like
everybody—EVERYBODY—has a band, so I guess it’s both easier and harder. But to
push that to the side for a second, it comes down to just practicing.
Basically, not to put the pernicious influence of a competitive element into
all of this, but at the same time, if you’re trying to be established, you have
to be better than the other bands. And so one of many ways to be better than
other bands is to practice more, this is what the Descendents did—we just used
to practice incessantly. That’s not a solution, but it’s one of
several things that, when you put them all together, it can be part of a
solution. I suppose in the Internet age, it’s almost just as critical
for bands to have to be concerned with how they look while playing, as opposed
to just how well they’re playing. We didn’t really have that. We could be ugly and it was ok because nobody could just go online where somebody has a camera one
foot from my nose hairs. So I think appearance has, unfortunately, become a
factor.
Of course, nothing beats a great song, and this is where I
suppose the accumulated experience at the studio that I have has led me to the
conclusion that there are not nearly as many worthwhile songs out there, as
there are bands playing in garages somewhere. And so this is kind of full
circle. So when I started listing things, the first thing I listed was
practice, but you can practice til you’re blue in the face, but if your songs
aren’t any good, then that’s really wasted energy. So I think, somehow, for a
band to get noticed, they have to find someway to find a voice that is their own
voice, that is a unique voice, and that has not been heard before a million
times. And the lyrics have to be worth listening to; I don’t mean they have
to be politically correct or intellectually deep, I mean, they could be “I Like
Food” or whatever, but there has to be something about them that draws people
to them and so it goes with the DNA of chord progressions and also the
melody.These things are what really affect people, and we can’t all be great
songwriters. We can’t all be great players, and we can’t all look handsome like
whatever the movie star of the moment is.
So if the complexity of all these different
(intangibilities) line up, and a band happens to do well, I would think they
should consider themselves very fortunate, because it’s tough.
CMB: Three songs to sum up the last few years for you. (3
years tumor free)
Bill: "Waiting for Superman," the Iron and Wine version. Those
lyrics are such that I wish that I’d written them, and when I was sick, that
was my song, you know? Milo wrote a song about me, he wrote it right after my
brain surgery called “Comeback Kid,” and he wrote it about me and my recovery,
and so I’d definitely have to throw that one in there. Probably the one I’ve
listened to the most is a song by Propaghandi called “Without Love.” This song
is—I’ve probably listened to it more than any other song in the last three years.
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