sandiegopunk.com

Underminded Interview

J- Joel
N- Nick
Y- Yabbo (Matt)
M- Mike
C- Chris

J- You guys are Underminded, so names and instruments please.
N- Nick, play the damn guitar.
C- Chris, bass.
Y- Ah, Yabbo, guitar.
?- (laughing) Yabbo.
M- My name is Mike, I play the drums.

J- Can you just give me a brief history of how you got to be here today?
Everyone- Yabbo.
Y- K, yeah, basically it just started out at this bay side settlement (basement settlement?) house that wasn’t really a concert hall, and it was just us three (Chris, Nick, and Yabbo) and I was playing drums.
N- Well what happened first was he (Yabbo) came up to me at the Bouncing Souls show at ‘Canes awhile back, and he told me they needed a guitarist for the show like next week. And I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ I just did it.
Y- Yeah, ‘we have like four songs done and we’re gonna write some more and we have this show lined up that I put a lot of money into.
N- Yeah, it was like Chris and Matt in the basement, and Chris started playing guitar, then he went to bass-
M- I didn’t even know these guys (laughing), I was like ‘who the hell are you?
Y- Yeah, he was in a band called the Throwing Fits and they were pretty cool-
C- We stole him from them, we stole Mike from the Throwing Fits. N- We like Mike.
Y- Yeah, he’s a cool guy. He’s gonna be really good, (he) just got a new drum set.
C- He’s ok, he’s getting there (laughing).
Y- Anyway we met Dan from the Excuse and he got us a show here.
N- That guy’s f---ing rad.
Y- Him and Doreen, working here.
N- They’ve been helping us out so much dude. They’ve been with since the beginning and they’ve helped us out. They haven’t f---ed us over or anything, they’ve just been really cool people.
Y- Really cool guys, yeah. So then they got us on a show and it was alright.
J- When was that?
N?- I don’t know, it was awhile back.
C- We recorded before that, right?
Y- Yeah.
C- So we had a CD to give everyone. So…
N- But we don’t really hand that out anymore.
Y- Yeah, the only song on there would be “Wrong of Way” and-
M- Matt (Yabbo) made a mistake on our first show saying they could steal the CDs if they want.
Y- (laughing) They actually did it.
(More laughing)
Y- I guess that’s good you now, at least they want the CDs.
C- And now we’re here.
M- That was a sick show dude.
Y- It was a lot of fun.
N- Let the boy ask more questions. We’re rambling.
(Laughing)

J- I don’t even have questions prepared so, um, you guys were getting filmed today for Radiation Nation?
Everyone- Yeah!
N- I met them like a few weeks ago, he just e-mailed me about the show he’s doing. Its got like Agent in it, and Larger Than Life’s doing it.
Y- One Track Mind.
J- The Excuse.
Everyone- Yeah.
N- The Excuse once again.
N- So he said he wanted to come record songs, and like heck yeah, we wanna be on TV. (Laughing) We wanna be TV stars.
Y- Yeah, it was a lot of fun tonight. It wasn’t as much work as cutting a CD or anything or trying to get publicity there, but I don’t know. What was that? That night we got back from Chicago?
N- Yeah, we went to Chicago to play a show.

J- You played in Chicago?
N- Yeah, for whatever reason.
Y- We know people, we hooked up with them, we got a show up there.
M- Nick went crazy.
N- And met the guys from Los Lobos!
Y- Yeah, on the plane.
N and Y- That was rad.
C- Early January, Arizona.
Y- Yeah.
N- We’re playing in January in Arizona.
Y- Punk Rock Fest. So anyway, we’re trailing off here.
N- Yeah, we’re trailing off.
Y- Anyway we get back from Chicago. That night we hear about Corruption Productions, which is another rad company, and the guys from Scribble are cool. They told us they needed a song for a comp they’re doing, so we cut that the night we got back, all night.
N- We we’re recording that at like one o clock, two in the morning.
M- We had a deadline right? The next day, or that morning.
J- And the comp still isn’t out.
Everyone- Yeah.
N- There’s still bands turning in the goddamned things.
M- Yeah, they’re still accepting demos.
N- But we love Corruption though, they’re cool guys. I like Scribble-
Y- They really helped us out.
(Lots of “yeahs” from everyone)
Y- And, uh, San Diego Punk’s cool too.
J- Oh yeah, definitely.
N- That one guy.
J- double u double u double u dot San Diego Punk dot com.
(laughing)
N- There you go.
(Lots of side talk)
N- You know that Chris has only been playing for five months on bass, five months.
Y- Yeah, five months.
N- We had to teach this kid everything we know, he’s getting good.
(Pause)

J- So what’s your inspiration for your lyrics and what do you like to sing about?
N- All the songs I wrote have been about my ex-girlfriend, practically, pretty much. All the problems, all the issues.
M- All the hard times.
Y- And than the flip side of the coin is that I like my girlfriend a lot, and I write a lot of cool songs for her too, or whatever, BonnieMinded.
(laughing)
N- BonnieMinded.
Y- And she’s cool. And, ah, don’t smoke weed.
N- Stay off the drugs.
Y- Yeah, stay off of drugs.
N- Drinking’s okay.
Y- Oh, vegetarianism’s cool too.
(Laughing)
N- This kid (Yabbo) turned vegetarian just because of his girlfriend.
C- (Laughing) because of his girlfriend.
N- It’s okay Matt, Matt’s still cool.
(Pause)

J- So, um Matt was in Throwing Fits?
M- No just me.
Y- Mike, just the drummer.
J- So do any of you else have prior experience in bands?
N, M, Y: Yeah
M- I’ve seen a tape of Nick’s old band (laughing)-
Everyone- Diaper Rash
(More laughing)
M- They covered-
N and M- “When I Come Around”
N- And Blink 182 “Wasting Time.” We did that in like 7th grade. M- He had a little practice amp on a huge stage.
Y- They had to play the goddamned song twice because they fucked up the first time (laughing).
N- Yeah.
C- (I have) no experience at all, just started.
N- Yeah, Chris is a newbe.
Y- I was in couple bands, Dysfunctional Youth and um…
M- I was in some hardcore bands.
Y- Yeah some hardcore bands.
N- You’re in another band Mike.
M- Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it. (Laughing) I used to sing in a band.
J- I’ve made that mistake.
(Laughing)
M- Like 7th grade, I used to sing in a band. Ah man I don’t want to talk about it.
Everyone- Yeah.
M- I’m in two bands right now.
N- Oh, don’t forget Last Man Standing.
Y- We’re going.
N- We’re rambling now.

J- So you guys looked like you had a pretty loyal following out there in the pit.
N- I swear to God.
Y- We played some shows with Sub Factor, which I really don’t know those guys, their rap and I’m not going to knock them for that. Just we’re playing-
C- All these people from out of nowhere, there’s like 10 people in front of us, we get on stage and like this guy comes running in, ‘Let’s hear a real punk band!
N-The mohawk guy.
M- We get stuck with a lot of weird shows. We had this big huge show in Fallbrook at this church; every other band was gutterpunk-
Y- Gutterpunk or either really hardcore emo.
M- We go on first and they’re just like-
Y- There were no monitors, just a fucking prop. The monitor was even plugged in.
M- Mic stands are my cymbal stands.
(Laughing)
Y- It’s funny now, but it was serious at the time, we were ready to walk off stage.
N- It was pretty bad.
Y- We’re willing to take any show we can.
C- No cussing, I couldn’t even play my bass because it had a Heineken sticker, and it said drink beer and I can’t do that because-
Y- So then Nick had to use profanity in the house of God.
N- Yeah I got in a little bit of trouble for that (laughing). Everyone just looked at me like I was the devil.
Y- We did a cover, and no one was really too hot with it.
N- Yeah they were just standing there bored.
C- But then we ended up finding out that there was a lot of people that liked us.
Y- That’s how it goes, like every show it’s like ‘oh my friend told me…’ or ‘oh I got the CD…’
N- Yeah, we want to start a fan base more than just our friends.
Y- Yeah, we’re trying to get away from that.
N- You know, we want to meet people all over.
Y- Our friends are cool, but…
M- I saw some girl singing our song, “Wrong of Way” and I’m like, ‘Whoa, I don’t know you.’
Y- Yeah, I gave her a shirt.
N- Those girls are at every show.
Y- If you find out their names tell them to e-mail us.
(Pause)

J- So are you guys on a record label, or just-
N-Looking.
Y- We’re looking right now.
N- We’re looking around, we’re not gonna like name names, but there’s a few that we’ve been looking at, but…
Y- It’s like really do we want to get stuck in something for a long term thing that’s not gonna do shit for us.
N- But its rad what they do, some of them, like recording, shows they can get you-
Y- We’re looking to set up, try to set up, a tour for summer and I don’t think it’s going to work without a label, which is making me kinda scared.
J- Do you have a van, or…?
Y- Well that’s another thing, but we’re working on that thing. J- You all drive?
N- Yeah, we all drive.
M- Except me, I’m the young one, I’m only 15.
J- I’m 15, so…
N- Alright!
Y- So we got the kids here.

J- So what’s the ages, all around?
N- I’m gonna be turning 18 in like two months.
C- Chris, 17 in a month.
Y- Matt, and I’ll be 18 in August.
M- Drummers get all the girls, my name is Mike and I’m 15 years old.
N- This is my cousin Jose over here.
Y- Goddamn twin.
(Laughing)
N- Did you enjoy the show Jose?
Jose: Oh yeah.
Y- Look at this, fan base, family.
Guy from the Epicentre: Do you guys have somewhere safe to your gear?
Y- Yeah, we just gotta finish this recording.
J- We can wrap it up real quick.
Y- Sorry about that.
N- We love the Epicentre, good guys. If you (Joel) get your band together let us know. We’ll get you on a show easy.
Y- Or you guys can take us.
N- Yeah you guys can take us.
(Laughing)
M- You’ll probably get hooked up with a lot of shows easily.
(Lots of people saying things all at once that I can’t make sense of)
Y- That guy was yelling at me for letting people up during “Wrong of Way.”
J- Oh yeah, they can get pretty strict here. Like have you ever been here after a show ends and they start to like yelling at you and making you leave?
C- Our last show, September 17, no security and they were like cool with everything. Everyone just came out of nowhere, no security nothing.
Y- It was on a Sunday night too.
N- We had all these kids come up on stage, it was nuts.
Y- That gave us the idea to record for Radiation Nation. And so we saw that, and we were like, ‘Oh, that’s gotta be the one.’

J- So wrapping up do you guys have any closing comments or wanna say anything?
N- We love everyone, we want everyone to come to our shows.
Y- New Found Glory!
N- The Clash.
J- The Clash is awesome.
N- Everyone go listen to the Clash and Dillinger Four.
N- And Underminded.
M- By the CD, listen to the drums.
(Laughing)
Y- The “Full House” track we cut.
M- There you go.
N- I just want to thank everyone, we like everyone.
Y- Everyone’s so cool to us.
N- Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank Joel.
Everyone: Yeah.
J- Thank you.
Y- Very cool dude.
J- Alright. Cool, thanks.