THE MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER!!! MONGREL
I Couldn't have been more stoked to do this interview, it was actually a lot easier than i expected, not that asking the questions was hard but i'd somewhat lost hope tracking down Jason seeing as the Eating Rats website and Myspace are defunct, as well as the Think I Care Myspace, but luckily i found an e-mail address and struck gold!
A big thanks to Jason for doing this posthumous interview on behalf of "Think I Care", hope all you cats enjoy reading this one. Myself and D.SAW put a bit of effort and collaboration into this so i hope we covered just about everything you'd wanna know!
*Dean's questions are noted with an (s) prior to the question. **They are also in purple cause he is a poof
Welcome to the party! Thanks for doing the interview Jason, give us a run down of who Think I Care was...did you ever have any members changes?
The lineup most people are familiar with is Shawn Bredberg guitar, Joe Shumsky bass Aaron Shumsky drums, and myself on vocals. We had a replacement drummer for a few gigs and the last US tour named Colb. But he never recorded with us.
You guys were around from 1999 - 2006, correct?
2000 was our first show with the lineup mentioned in the last question, but before that I played bass and Joe Shumsky sang. We played a handful of shows like that and put out a demo. So the band think I care probably got started in 98ish
Being around for so long and having 4(or 5?) releases out of those 7 years, not including the Fucked Up live 7"...you guys would've seen your fair share of tour time, or did it take people a while to wake up to Think I Care?
We never really toured. We did two full us tours and a couple trips to California. We were a bunch of broke ass kids who really couldn't afford to drop everything and tour.
(s)Unfounded I assume, but over the years I have heard the odd rumor every now and then of TIC reunion shows. What’s the likelihood of this ever happening? Seems most bands who manage as much as TIC did, always get around to the odd reunion or two?
I’ve heard the same rumors but we’ve never talked about doing it. If we did do it would probably be a somewhat scab lineup, and a real quick set.
(s)Is there anything you wish you could have achieved with the band? Or were you happy with how TIC ran it’s course?
I would of liked to go to Europe or Australia. We had 2 opportunities to go to Europe but couldn't really swing it. Once it was with RnR and I wasn't really feeling how the tour was shaping up, so I bailed. I really did not want to headline a tour our first time in Europe. And another time b9 asked us to go with Righteous Jams after we broke up, but I didn't want to do it.
Think I Care's most recent release before breaking up was World Asylum which was on Bridge 9, a lot of people shit all over B9 how do you feel about this, was putting the album out through Bridge 9 an easy transition from the previous labels? What labels were the ones prior released on?
The transition was easy because our prior label Walk all Night was awful. As far as shitting on it that’s fine. I personally don’t like 99% of the bands he’s dealt with, but Chris Wren (B9 guy) was always cool to me. He’s at a point where he probably doesn’t make as much off the label as you would think so he has to put out some more commercially appealing stuff to keep it moving forward. But that’s just me speaking for him and I could be wrong, my opinion I guess. Before B9 we did Walk All Night and as I said that was awful. Deadalive did our 2nd 7” and LP, and that was cool. 1st 7’ was on a small label called Boiling Point.
The band didn't stay together much longer after the release of World Asylum, was it just all reaching a boiling point after the years had you all had enough of it or was there further issues?
There were so many issues with the release of Mongrel and it burned us out, me especially. We were out of gas and Shawn and I were close to just shutting it down. Then b9 asked if we wanted to do a record and we figured we'd stick it out and see what happened. It just didn't click the way I wanted it to. So mid way through our last tour I told the other guys that I was all done when we got home. After that I didn't care about anything and had a lot more fun with it. We had an agreement with B9 for a second record but I just told them we were done.
Speaking of previous releases and labels, I’ve heard a lot of talk like "their only good stuff is the first two 7"s" and I also read in one of the TOHC interviews that after you put out the S/T LP you wouldn't play any of the 7" songs...what was the reason behind that, tire of the same old songs and narrow minded critics?
1st 7" I think is pretty bad. We didn't really know what kind of band we were. I was 16 and it was my first band. 2nd 7" I like. It has a lot of energy and I think we were figuring out what to do. It was a simple as learning song structures and tempo changes. The reason we shied away from playing those eventually was... we were literally playing almost every weekend to the same 30 kids in a shitty basement in Boston. We took a break and wrote the LP, and felt we had played those enough, and if you missed it you missed it.
I personally reckon the "Mongrel" 10" is the best mix of being fast and being hard grooves, do you have a personal favorite record that you guys did over your time?
I like world asylum. I wasn't real happy with the recording on mongrel or world asylum though. For me I liked each release we did better than the one prior.
What songs got the best response? What Sheer Terror song did you cover?
Hammer, Disease, Broken Neck, Burn, Nature of the Beast.... always kind of depended on the crowd. We played a lot of different style shows. We covered Spoiler pretty regularly.
I've heard TIC likened to Sheer Terror meets DYS, how do you feel about being linked to such prolific(and controversial) bands, an honour or just frustrating?
It’s fine. Every band has to be compared to something. I’ve heard so out of no where stuff but it's all in the ear of the beholder.
Negativity and rage seem to be ripe in TIC lyrics, were you the only person who wrote lyrics for TIC?
Eventually, some of the first 7" were songs from the demo era when I played bass I didn’t write.
One of the TOHC interviews has a lot of jokes about sounding like Merauder and the likes, what's the go here, in-joke?
Ha that was just a running joke over that particular weekend.
You put out the TOHC Zineography through Eating Rats with the FU/TIC Live 7", how'd all of this come about?
In the early stage of the band, we played a fest in Pennsylvania. My friend had xs tattooed on his hands and some huge skinhead looking guy started talking to him. My friend told him he was here with TIC so he checked us out. Sounds kind of corny. But that was Steve Wiltse, the guy who did the town of hardcore zine. And from that point on we had a great friendship with him. If you’ve read the zine you see that he went out of his way to help get our name out there. So I just asked him if he’d b into doing the book and he was. Coincidently b9 did the schism book a little before so I asked Chris for advice and it all came together after a ton of work. Steve is definitely on of the better friends I’ve made through HC.
(s)You dissolved Eating Rats a few years back now, just after the TOHC book. Why?
The thing was a god damn money pit. I wanted it to go out on a good note so I decided TOH was it.
(s)You managed to put out a fair bit of amazing stuff with the label. Looking back now, can you think of anything in particular that you were proud to release? And to contrast is there anything you regret doing? Anything that you wanted to do, but didn’t get the chance?
The TOH book cause it was so much work and pretty successful. I like all the stuff we did but if I could get in the time machine I might of just keep it to local Boston bands that I was friends with. I became friends with Lewd Acts (from Cali) and we managed to do a week with them out there, but it was just different working with people that you don’t really know. They have been by far the most successful band on ERR and I fear that we may of stunted them a bit. That and the TIC record are the only 2 releases that completely sold out. So I wouldn’t say I regret doing it from my end but maybe they would do things different.
My friend was over in America last year for a bunch of festivals and he managed to catch a WRONG SIDE re-union and he mentioned to me the singer wouldn't stop talking about TIC, did you expect TIC to have that kind of an impact?
That’s Chris, and he was around for pretty much our whole existence and did some shirt designs for us. I’m not so surprised that he would say something because he’s a friend of the band, but I am surprised that since we aren’t a band anymore kids who never seen us are into us. Whatever staying power the band might have is surprising.
Are you doing anything these days band wise or are you doing other things to occupy your time?
Not to active in the band thing. I work, own a house have a fiancé. A bunch of boring grown up stuff.
(s)What’s happening with Dead Black, if anything at all? I heard rumors of a break up, but never anything from the band yourselves.
Dead Black is a state of mind and can never be broken up.
(s)I know of the Dead Black demo tape, and I have heard talk of a mix tape. What’s the deal with this mix tape? Craig Mack uploaded a track on his blog too. Where does this one come from? How much Dead Black recorded output is there?
The demo. Then we did a mix tape with demo songs a couple of new ones, re recorded stuff, and a live set. With a ton of retarded effects and samples going on through out. Not sure what Craig put up, but I thought he was doing a comp or something. We recorded a 7” but my vocals were awful cause I was sick so I shelved it for now. We always talk about playing and recording though.
A lot of people once their band ends, seem to fall behind on shows and current bands, did this happen to you or are you still as stoked as you were when you started?
Definitely not as much. I still go out to friends shows in Boston and stuff. Like Mind eraser rival mob. I was never really into a lot of current band when were playing, not to sound like a jackass or anything. I rarely cared when whatever hot band was coming through anyway. Of course there were some exceptions.
Here's some fun filled ones right here and old one with a twist, Top 5 Records in your opinion from the 80's, 90's and 00's!
80 Cromags “age of quarrel” Misfits “walk among us” Nirvana “bleach” Bad Brains “rock for light” Negative approach “tied down”
90 Melvins “Houdini” Hatchetface “volume 2” (find them if you can big influence of TIC) all the eyehategod stuff Alice in chains and soundgarden
00 Mind Eraser “glacial reign” Rival Mob “mob rules” no warning “ill blood” new lows and waste management
