A Park Tradition

A Park Tradition interview conducted February 2006 by Jackie Snow.

Cramped into a soccer mom’s ideal ride, A Park Tradition and I got incredibly cozy before their set at the Hot Monkey Love Café on March 11th to talk about touring, the San Diego scene and dealing with losing power during a set by taking a shirt off for the rest of the show. Citing influences such as Lagwagon, Refused and Poison the Well, APT has a hybrid sound of post hardcore, screamo and skate punk. Coming onto the stage undeterred after their set

A Park Tradition
gotpushed back from 10 to 12, they stormed out and rocked every exhausted rocker there. Some serious thrashing, intense chair jumping and high energy playing took place in their seven song set, ending the show with an impromptu duet with their former singer, who obligingly let them drag him out of the crowd for the last song of the night.

A Park Tradition is:
Brian Frank - Vocals
Nick Norton - Guitar/Vocals
John Prindle - Guitar
Scott Toepfer - Bass
Barry Hackett - Drums

SDP: Okay guys, could I get a brief history of the magical beginnings of APT and the origins of the name?
Nick: Well we were thinking of a name for a really long time and Scott came up with the word tradition and we thought that sounded cool, then realized “hey, everyone in the town that we come from, Newbury Park, is in a band,” and since we’ve left that town we figured we could carry on the park tradition, as it were.
Scott: I think it was more or less just sort of paying homage to your town, if you want to put it that way. If you want to talk about it being a literal meaning I guess.
John: And it sounds cool.

A Park Tradition

SDP: Let’s hear about lineup changes since the band’s inception.
Scott: The original three guys were me, Nick, and John, and we found a drummer named Mike on a classified ad online.
John: Craig’s list or something.
Nick: The FRSD (Free Radio San Diego) classifieds.
Scott: Yeah, so we found the drummer, a local San Diego guy, and he came and played with us for a while, and actually Nick was the original singer.
Nick: Yeah that wasn’t very good.
Scott: So one of Mike’s friends, named Jon, came in and did vocals for us for about six months.
Nick: Something like that.
John: Yeah.
Nick: It seemed like we were heading in different directions from them though.

Mike is now in Nome Aesthetic, who are awesome, and are a lot more his style of drumming. There were just differences in what we wanted.
Scott: In essence we lost Mike and Jon together, and then auditioned a few different drummers and decided on Barry, our blonde friend here-
Nick: Because he said he liked Strung Out. That made me really happy.
Scott: -and then we found Brian through Barry. So good drummers lead to good singers apparently. Drummers are hard to find though.
Brian: I was actually a mail order bride. (laughter)
John: From Cambodia. (more laughter)

SDP: Who writes the lyrics?
Barry: Brian and I write most of them, but we all take a part in it.
John: Some of them are Nick’s.
Nick: Yeah, I’ve got a song; they’ve got a few.
Barry: We don’t really have a set system for who writes the lyrics, we all give input.

SDP: So all of the lyrics are a collaborative process?
Nick: Yeah. At the studio sometimes Brian and Barry would come in with something a sing it all the way through, and the rest of us would be like “that’s all good except for this, this, and this,” and we would switch some stuff around. We all had input.

SDP: Are you guys planning a tour anytime soon?
Nick: We would like to very much. The lineup may be changing again sometime soon, unfortunately, because Scott is graduating, with a bachelor’s in biology, and John has been accepted to a couple of PhD programs, so we’re trying to get in at least a tour before then.
Scott: I think we’re trying to do something in June. The show we’re about to play tonight I think is one of the last SD shows with this lineup. We’ve got a little bit of other stuff going on too.
Nick: We’ve got a few more shows in the works for a month or two for now, and then we want to at least get through some of Arizona and Vegas or Reno in June.
Scott: And Nick won’t even be 21 so he’ll have to sit outside while we have fun in those towns.
Nick: The 21 and up thing sucks. We’ve played a few shows where I’ve sat in the parking lot until we’re about to go onstage.
SDP: That’s adorable.
Brian: Maybe we’ll play a Chuckie Cheese so Nick can get in.

SDP: I know you guys are working on a CD. How’s that going?
Scott: It’s a long process.
John: Just plain long.
Scott: We finished recording, now it’s all in production and mastering at SushiFish.
John: Go see Matty, he’s awesome. Chi Chi will love you too.
Scott: Yeah, Matt and his chihuahua have been really good.
Nick: The chihuahua especially.
Scott: The tracking- dude you can’t even pronounce chihuahua.
Barry: It was a good experience. We grew a lot, I think it helped us a lot, to really record it and get a lot of feedback while we were doing it.
Nick: Next time we should definitely use a click track.
Brian: For all of us, yeah.
Scott: It really taught us a lot. It made our songs a lot tighter.
Barry: Afterwards.
Scott: Yeah, afterwards. You hear a lot of the little nuances you don’t catch at practice while you’re doing it.
Nick: (sarcastic) Yeah, recording is fun.
John: Fun and long.
Scott: You learn your songs really well.
Barry: It also put us in a better spot for next time we’re going to record.
Nick: We have to decide now how we want to release it, whether we want to get a bunch of money together, which is hard, because we’re all broke, and order a thousand copies, or if we want to try to get a label to help us out.
Scott: We’re all broke college students. A thousand dollars is a lot of money.

SDP: How has the San Diego scene been treating you?
Nick: There are a lot of places to play, but it’s hard to get booked.
John: There’s a lot of 21 and up.
Scott: We’re not all that involved in the quote unquote San Diego scene.  I don’t think we’ve quite got that whole network down yet.
SDP: Keep in mind that this is for San Diego Punk.
Scott: Well it is a great scene; there are so many really good bands here.

A Park Tradition
John: You’ve got Lower D and a bunch of bands like that that are awesome, we’re just not networked in there yet.
Barry: You’ve got to keep in mind we’re just getting things rolling now finally.
SDP: Think you’ll break in sometime soon?
Nick: Hopefully this will help, and hopefully the CD will help a lot.
Scott: It’s just a process that takes a long time. It’s a lot of phone calls and a lot of bugging people. There are so many good bands that play in San Diego it’s just ridiculous. Just meeting people and getting your name heard… I think getting your name heard is the biggest thing. Promotion is huge in trying to get in there. The bands that make it the biggest I think are the ones that promote themselves the best.

SDP: How have you guys been promoting yourself, other than myspace?
Scott: Lots of flyers.
Nick: We put up posters everywhere for this show. A lot of it is word of mouth too, just trying to talk about it as much as you can with whomever you can. Tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends.
Scott: Our old drummer and singer are involved in bands too, and we’re all still cool with them, so we try to promote each other, we’re doing the same thing so why not. I guess we are kind of getting the networking thing going.
John: We had that show at APA too, met some people there. Qaelum. Good guys, good guys.
Scott: There’s so much banter in this interview.

SDP: What has been the craziest experience at a venue so far?
Nick: I liked it when the power went out. (laughter)
Scott: We were playing at APA, which is the Academy of Performing Arts, in La Mesa…
Nick: It’s right by State.
Scott: Yeah. We were playing there and all of a sudden the lights went out, and we thought at first it was just another lighting trick, and then we realized that the bass, vocals, and John’s guitar were gone. And Nick shot a mean look at us like “why did you stop playing?” (laughs) Because his guitar was the only one still working.
Nick: And on that we should mention that the guitar I was playing didn’t have any markings on the fretboard, so when they lights went out I started playing wrong notes all over the place. (laughter) So it was just me and Barry playing, and you could barely call what I was doing playing.
Barry: It was a train wreck.
Nick: Then after that train stopped we stood onstage looking awkward for like fifteen minutes trying to get the power back on.
Scott: Then when it came back on it blew one of John’s tubes in his amp. I broke my cable. John had to use some Marshal solid-state thing.
Barry: Then I made Nick take his shirt off to keep the crowd happy.
Nick: It was horrible.
Scott: That’s a picture on myspace you should all go look at. And we’ll never speak of it again.
Nick: One of the guys in The Award Goes To came up and was like “dude what gym do you go to?” and I was like “fuck you.” (lots of laughs)
Scott: That was a complete disaster of a show.
Nick: But The Award Goes To are really good, you should all go listen to them.
(hilarious car horn honks in parking lot)
(laughter)

SDP: How have the ladies been treating you since you’ve been in APT?
Nick: As badly as always.
Scott: I got hit on once, by one of Barry’s friends. I totally didn’t know what was going on because I was spaced out.
Nick: Barry has exceptionally hot friends.
Scott: I got a wink and I had no idea, and Barry told me about it later. My girlfriend was sitting on the other side of the room, she was not happy.
Barry: You looked so scared. (laughs)
Scott: I was totally awestruck, like, “I have no idea what I’m doing right now.”
Brian: Ever since Nick took off his shirt at that show he’s gotten a lot of fan mail from thirteen, fourteen-year-old boys. (laughter)
Scott: I actually had a few of my friends from LA drive down for that and everyone was calling them my groupies.
Nick: Yeah well you had four hot blonde girls show up.
Scott: They definitely made a ruckus about Nick’s shirt coming off.
Nick: It should have been yours.
Scott: So that was a running thing, everyone thought I had groupies, but they talked a bunch afterwards about Nick’s shirt being gone.
SDP: Why didn’t everyone take their shirts off?
Scott: I’m skinny and bashful.
John: I was trying to fix my stuff. And once Brian’s shirt goes on it doesn’t come off.
Brian: I’m bashful too.
(Nick leaves van to answer his phone)
Barry: Back on the name question, we were thinking of changing the name to the Nick Norton Experience for a while.
Scott: Oh yeah we forgot to say that. That was an idea.
SDP: And he has no id- hey Nick what’s up?
Scott: How’s it going buddy?
Nick: Talking about me I see?

A Park Tradition

SDP: Just a bit. What’s the best and worst part of being in this band?
Nick: The best part of being in a band is playing.
Scott: Yeah, just playing shows. When music comes together.
SDP: Okay, how about in this band in particular?
Nick: I like the music we write, I would listen to it, and I like the people in it. We’re all friends. Scott and John
used to live together, then I lived with Scott for a while. We’re all close.
John: I think we have fun with it. We’re all doing what we want to do.
Scott: And me and Nick can bicker and get over it in about five seconds.
Nick: Yeah sometimes I want to kill him, and then seconds later I want to hug him.
Scott: Nick’s a hugger.
Nick: You’re good looking.
Scott: The worst part I guess is bickering, and booking, but that happens. Booking is hard for every band, but for this band particularly, we do bicker quite a bit.
Barry: It’s like having a girlfriend for five years.
John: All condensed into a month. (laughter)
Barry: Band drama is just as bad as girl drama.
Scott: I just like playing with my friends. I like the fact that all of these guys are people I consider my friends.
Brian: We’re all certainly friends, and as far as our personalities go we mesh together well. No one is too much the same that we might butt heads over something and we all have something to add creatively.
Nick: We all bring something different, and that makes the music sound more interesting.
Scott: Nick brings the metal.
Nick: I bring a little bit of the metal.
Brian: I bring the rice. (lots of laughter)
Nick: I bring the jokes that are usually followed by silence.
Scott: And the chest hair.
Nick: Oh don’t write that. (laughter) Hey that worked.

SDP: Any parting words?
Barry: Thanks for having us.
Scott: That was fun, being all crushed in a tiny little van. John is on my lap.
SDP: Nick’s arm around Barry. Cuddling.
Nick: We’re in the same seat.
Scott: So are John and I.
Nick: Um…support bands you like, not bands that you like the way they look or that your friends like. Just listen to the music.
Scott: Plug plug plug plug plug.
Nick: Support local record stores. Local coffee shops. The usual stuff like that, it’s said for a reason.

mp3s: http://www.myspace.com/aparktradition
Interview: Jackie Snow
Photos: Jackie Snow and ???

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