HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR027- OAK AND BONE, s/t LP

      Outside of bands I have been in there are not that many groups that I can say I was there from day one, and again, at the end.  I mean, I’d feel like a total interloper if that were the case for tons of bands.  A couple of those groups were ones I did records for and Oak and Bone were one of those groups.  I booked their first show for them, got them hooked up with some other bands I thought they would get along with, helped book them some shows outside of town here and there, and released their records, and stuck around until they folded.

            Part of that association stemmed from getting to be pretty good friends with their singer Weston Czerkies.  I distinctly remember the winter we met- February of 2005.  It was an insane week because I had gone on my first date with my future wife and we ended up hanging out the whole week pretty non-stop.  And within that whirlwind of doe-eyed lovey-dovey gooiness a DIY venture was started by another friend looking to start a volunteer-run venue.  They had access to a building and a collective crew of interested parties was assembled to help out.  One of those kids was a young Weston Czerkies.  He definitely had a strong interest in DIY ethics and over the next year or so I could see that he was pretty committed to participating in this stuff through various bands, putting out zines, booking shows, and so forth.  We teamed up on a couple shows and eventually he mentioned Oak and Bone getting started.  When he gave an inclination of what some of the band influences were I was pretty much on board.  Without hearing them I booked their first show with Young Widows and it ended up being a good fit.  Not long after Weston moved into my house and lived there for a few years.  By then I had released Oak and Bone’s debut 7” and an LP was not far off.

 That pretty purple vinyl and a wild live photo insert to the record

            Another change occurred between that 7” and LP- my man Ted Niccoli, who had been in No Idols with me for our entire run, joined the band and had a considerable impact upon their sound and writing.  The songs that came together for that LP were nothing short of awesome and it remains one of my favorite records released by this label. 

            However, due to horrendous luck on the road, things got a little stressful for the guys and eventually they split up.  It’s a shame because they were truly on to something with that band.  It was definitely something that hadn’t really been done in our town so it left a mark, no question.

            A little after the dissolution of Oak and Bone Weston moved to the Ithaca, NY area (a good move, it’s a great town) and got very into the noise scene and has recorded and performed under several monikers (please don’t ask me what differentiates one from the other, I cannot tell), as well as operating a fairly prolific noise label (Prime Ruin).

            But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.  We’re here to talk about the fucking awesome LP, their only full length, by the mighty Oak and Bone.  And any chance to chat with my old pal Weston is a welcome opportunity.  So here you go.

I’m going to apologize in advance because I’m not usually a very good interview subject.

Oh, I figured as much

(laughs) I figured that you’d figure that!  I figure you’ll probably do some editing with this as well?

Maybe.  When I was writing out questions for this I imagined your answer being ‘I don’t know’ for half of them!  So I thought, ‘I’ll give it a try anyway!’ (laughs)

(laughs) I’ve been trying to prepare too!  I actually pulled out my folder of flyers from Oak and Bone shows and I used to do itineraries for every tour we went on.  So I have this pile of disorganized flyers, but very organized lists of every place we were going, and the number of who we were staying with and shit like that.

That’s good!  I mean, someone in your band had to be organized with that stuff, right?

Exactly.  That was really the only thing I contributed- pushing the guys to be like, we have to tour, we have to play shows, we have to be a band that people can see.

Let me ask you this- do you keep a list of how many shows you played?

I could probably figure it out.  Even now I could probably figure it out because I have a flyer from almost every show we played.

What’s your roundabout guess?

I don’t know.  See, there’s your first ‘I don’t know’.  But I would like to figure it out.

So I got the Oak and Bone history from John when I talked to him about the 7”.  But how about your take about how you fit in with the band and where you were coming from.

Yeah, so Jon and Drew have been close forever, and in bands forever.  But I think around the time the band got started me, and Drew, and Chris Putzer (original bassist) were all going to school at OCC (Onondaga Community College).  We were some of the only hardcore kids going to school there and we would hang out sometimes.  We all wanted to  start a band, so we talked about it, and the we had a practice in Chris’ parents basement.  It was kind of whatever and definitely needed something besides a bassist, a singer, and a drummer, which is where Jon was the obvious choice for the role of guitarist.  And then it just took off from there.  The songs were really easy to write I think for those guys.  It was such good music that it was really inspiring to me to yell for and write some words for.

I remember you mentioning having some issue with your lungs and my thought was, ‘can this dude do this band?’

I had Spontaneous Pneumothorax when I was 16, which just apparently means that you build up these weird little holes in your lungs, like these air pockets build up and puncture holes in your lungs.  And I had a ton of them.  It happened in both my lungs several different times.  I had surgery on one of them, but by the time this band started I was around 19 or 20 and I think the last time I had an issue with lung collapse was when I was 18.  So by then I was feeling pretty good.  It was never a lung capacity thing, like if I was running, or doing something physical.  My lungs would just drop.  It would come out of nowhere.  One time I was walking through the mall I just felt this pressure and sudden loss of air to the point where I almost passed out.  Scary stuff.  But apparently common in tall, skinny young dudes.  That’s what I was told anyway.

How did they fix that?  Did they have to patch your lungs up?

I don’t know what they did.  I was 16 when I had the surgery so I don’t really remember exactly what happened.  They definitely put a tube in my side that was connected to some suitcase with some weird fluid shit, and they definitely pulled it out of me when I was awake and fully conscious.

That sounds like the basis of an Iron Lung record or something.

Yeah, it does sound kind of Iron Lung-y.

How would you describe what Oak and Bone did, or what you played? 

I think it was kind of like a heavy hardcore hybrid when we started that became a lot more stoner-y and weed-rock influenced as time went on.  It was an influence of those products upon those gentlemen.

But, for me, it was a little different than those guys because I was always from a bit more of a straight-up DIY hardcore background.  So I just took those DIY hardcore aspects to the band and tried to make things happen all the time, and from an artistic standpoint a lot of the lyrical content was pretty serious, or personal…  I don’t want to say a generic hardcore content, but pretty much all hardcore bands have the same realm from which they pull their content, and I would say I was no different in that regard.

Did you have much in the way of musical input, or songwriting input?

I think so, even though I don’t know how to play a single fucking instrument.  Even now that I do make music…  (laughs) ‘music’, in quotation marks.  I could never articulate what I thought we should do, but I would offer  my opinion if they were working on something, or something wasn’t quite right, or a ‘which do you like better’ sort of thing.  They mostly just figured it out and I watched them figure it out.  They knew what they were doing.  I chimed in here and there.  I never really had specific goals for songs, other than ‘they should sound good.’

That’s a strong opinion my friend.

(laughs) ‘I think music should be good!’  And I don’t want to hear music that is bad!

How did Ted (bassist) contribute to the direction and the sound of the band once he joined?

I think Ted was the missing link in so many ways.  His bass sound and playing alone would have been more than enough to make our band be, and sound, so much better.  But he also did so much heavy lifting in terms of songwriting.  He had really good ideas, and really good input into how the songs went.  I think you can tell, just from listening to the seven inch, into the LP.  The progression is just so obvious in terms of songwriting.  Those guys just clicked.  And he helped to push and pull them into the right directions.

For the LP you guys resurrected some older songs and re-worked them a bit, as well as writing a bunch of new stuff.    Was there an intent to use some of those older songs, or parts, and improve them, or was it more of being pressed for time to write a record?

I think it was really just that we liked some of those old songs and they needed a little updating.  Like they didn’t get the recording that they deserved, or a song didn’t get the audience that it deserved, which is why we re-recorded them.  We totally stood by them.  Parts needed a musical tune up here and there.

Right, because those were demo songs from the beginning of the band.

I know what you’re talking about. I have to look at the record to make sure… “Dust Cult”.  That’s the one.  The basis of that song is from our demo, and I think Jon felt really attached to that song.  It might have been the first song we wrote as a band.  There were riffs in there that he really wanted resurrect and give attention to.  So we sort of just re-wrote it and that’s what became the last track on the LP.  It’s definitely way better than the demo.

And the lyrics for “Acres” were taken from the demo too I believe.  The music is totally different, but the lyrics are the same.

Hmmm…  is it?  Maybe we re-worked two songs off the demo?  Man, I should probably go and listen to this record again, huh?

The live outro was never recorded, which I think is just a shame.

Yeah, I think that was intended to be just a ‘played live’ sort of thing.  There’s another song or two that we never recorded, but would play live.  We just didn’t think they would fit on the record.

 recording the LP with Brad Gorham

Brad Gorham from Engineer recorded the LP, but he did it at Moresound.  He was a little new to recording at this point.  Did he offer to do it?  Or did you specifically want him to record the album?

Here’s a good one where I don’t remember.  I know we were pretty set on Moresound and the recording happening there.  But I can’t recall if he offered, or if we chose him as an engineer.  I mean, it totally made sense.  I really wanted someone who understood heavy music and had seen us play before to record us.  We wanted someone who knew what we were like live.  Having someone who didn’t know that didn’t make sense.  So having Brad made sense in that regard.

We were probably trying to save money too.

So the record comes out and then what?

I think we planned a tour, not a big one, maybe a week long.  I think we lost our van right before that.  It’s hard to keep track of all the vehicles we fucking destroyed.  We lost Jon’s minivan.  And then we bought a trailer and broke that trailer somehow.  And then we got a van, which took us on tour for a bit, and then when we went down to Florida on tour, which was before the record was recorded.  We totally wrecked the engine going down there.  We sold what was left of it and journeyed back.  I don’t remember what the deal was with us canceling our tour.  We weren’t going to make it in the first place.  I think we were going to borrow someone elses van, or something like that, and it didn’t quite happen.  We mostly stuck to playing shows around upstate New York where we could rely on knowing people who had the kind of gear we would need to borrow, and then rolling up in two or three cars.

We had something like two or three vans, and a couple trailers we went through.  We left quite a bit of wreckage in our wake.

 Oak and Bone with future beard-y bassist Rob Button watching front row

What led to Ted leaving the group?  Rob Button briefly came on to play before the band split up as well.  How did he come into the picture?

I think he was just ready to peace out and do something different.  Otherwise, there was no reason.  We were pretty bummed about all the tour stuff that had fallen through, and kind of sitting on this record.  But as a band we still wanted to do stuff and maybe save up some money and figure out how to play shows again.  I think you ought to call up Ted and ask him!  He left for Portland to do shit out there and I know he was really excited to work at a brewery out there and do cool Portland guy stuff.

As for Rob we just needed a bassist.  So bassist number three, who’s it gonna be?  And Rob was the most solid choice we had in terms of someone who is available and has a lot of energy, and commitment to being in bands, and is a good bassist.  So, we thought, ‘this makes sense, let’s try out Rob!’

I think Jon and Drew were a little hesitant because they were like, ‘he’s straight edge right?  I don’t know if that’s going to work!’  But I convinced them he was fine.  He wasn’t going to edge stomp them or anything.  That type of person barely exists and definitely not in Syracuse punk. (laughs)

So we tried out Rob, it worked out pretty well, we played some shows, but we just sort of lost a bit of that momentum after that, after Ted left.  He had become such an integral part of our songwriting that things died back a bit after that.  He was also a pusher for us doing stuff and being active as a band.  With a little less of that influence we lost some momentum.

Discuss the Southern Lord call.  Elaborate prank, or possibly real deal?

I think it’s pretty real deal.  Jon would have the final word on this because I believe he did call them back and talk to them.  But the call from Southern Lord came probably like two weeks after we announced that we were going to break up.  We were talking about it, I was pretty certain I was going to move, and it just seemed alright that we all could do other bands as this band slowly started to fall apart.  So we thought, let’s go out on a high note.  I’d rather break up at our peak instead of stick around and tread water.  So yeah, two weeks after that break up announcement Jon gets a call from..  what’s his name from Southern Lord?

Greg Anderson?

Yeah!  I was going to say ‘Gary’

(laughs) ‘Hi, this is Gary from Southern Lord!’

So Gary from Southern Lord calls us up and is like, ‘Hey!’ (in nasally voice)  I wish his name was Gary.  Maybe it is his real name and he just changed it to Greg because it sounded harder.

So fuckin’ Greg calls up Jon and leaves him a message saying, ‘hey man, this is Greg from Southern Lord.  I heard your band Oak and Bones’ record.  It’s pretty sweet.  We kinda wanna do something for ya, so give me a call.’

So that’s it.  I’m not paraphrasing, that was basically verbatim of what the call was.  So naturally we were all a little skeptical.  It also just so happened that the morning after Jon came over to my house to tell me this and show me the message and I had some friends staying at my place who had played a show the night before.  One of them had worked for that big distribution place that had folded- Lumberjack?  I think we worked for them for a minute and was familiar with these labels.  I asked him if he had ever talked to Southern Lord and he said he had talked to Greg before a few times.  So I asked if that message sounded like him and the way he might offer a band a deal?  He was like, ‘yeah, that sounds about right.’

So I was like ‘fuck’.  I had to think about it a little bit.  But I sort of felt the same way that I did before.  I thought that was really cool, but this is just stupid, shitty timing and it’s a bummer.  We were still in the same situation that we were before.  We didn’t have money to get a van and tour.  And if we did a record on Southern Lord or something they probably would have wanted us to tour.  And even if they didn’t I didn’t think we were at a great point as a band in terms of having ideas for songs for a record.  I mean, at that point, we already had a great record that we wanted everyone to hear.  Did we want to potentially put out an OK record that everyone would hear?  It just didn’t make sense to me.  I think the guys maybe were a little bummed that I felt that way and they sort of wanted to go for it.  Hopefully they aren’t still curing me for it.

I still think there is something to be said about preserving your integrity as a band and realistically what else could we have done?

Looking back on that LP, how do you feel about it now?

Great!  I think there’s always things that I would change, but that’s what listening to your previous work will do.  But I think it’s solid.  I think those songs are sick.  I think Drew’s crazy little drum fills are awesome.  Tons of Jon’s riffs really hit home for me.  I think the quality is good.  I think the process of recording it was so much easier and smoother than all the rickety DIY recordings we had done up to that point.  So it felt like a real pro record.  I think it holds up well.  I think if we recorded it today it would sound just a little different with just how fast recording technology changes.  It might sound a little better.  I really like it as it is.  It’s a unique little piece of Syracuse history, like a unique footnote.

What was the best part of Oak and Bone for you and what was the worst part?

(laughs)  My least favorite-worst part of the band?  I don’t know.  I think they’re both the same thing.  I loved playing shows.  The energy of playing with those guys, even if even if it was a show where no one gave a shit- because outside of Syracuse that was mostly the case, aside from places like Bethlehem, which was always fun.  But the worst part was just not being able to rely on vehicles and shit always breaking down.  The money pit of being a touring band was so, so shitty and disheartening.  It’s a double-edged sword.  Half of that was the best, best possible feeling.  The other half was the worst feeling.

And there you have it.  And, as always, there's a crazy deal happening right now if you want to buy that LP because I'll give it to you for just $5.  That's how we roll.  Get it out of my attic. You'll be better for it.  Digital is only $4.  Get it HERE.