EXCLUSIVE: MEDIA BLITZ interview

On June 29th, 2012 we talked to MEDIA BLITZ, who have have recently put up a stream of their entire new full length “Burn The World” (check it out below). Coming from Orange County, CA, this act is one of the most interesting thrashy hardcore punk rock hordes out there, bringing you lots of smashing solos, unique sounds, massive divebombs and good lyrics. Scroll down and see what they have to say.

Go here to see where to catch them live this month.

Hey! How’s the tour going? Tell us about the trek you’re on.

Tour so far has been awesome. We went up and down the west coast first and played both dates of Gnarmageddon Fest in Berkeley and Santa Ana. It was definitely the best west coast dates we have done thus far; lots of sweaty house shows. We had a day off to print more shirts, assemble more records, and catch up on some sleep before heading out for the rest of the United States. We just went through the south which is always fun because we’ve made so many friends in Arizona, Texas, etc. Right now we’re hitting up a bunch of places we’ve never been before: Boston, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. to name a few. This is also the longest tour we’ve ever done, and we’re still doing all six weeks of it in our trusty little minivan.

You’re still looking for some shows for July, right? Tell us how do you usually book your shows.

Yeah, we weren’t able to get everything booked before we left for tour, but that is typical for us because we book everything ourselves. In a lot of places like Arizona, Texas, and Florida it’s easy to book shows because we have been there so many times. Places like the east coast and the midwest have been a bit more difficult. Most of our shows get booked through friends of friends. We’re very fortunate to have made so many awesome friends and everyone is always so nice to us and are always willing to help us out however they can. But yeah, basically booking shows is all about networking and asking our friends to get us in contact with their friends. Websites like byofl.org, dodiy.org are also helpful sometimes with getting contacts but more importantly than that, it’s useful just to see where shows are happening in any particular state, even if the contacts of the website can’t help you out.

How’s playing in your homeland different from other states you’ve been touring so far?

There are minor differences between different cities and different parts of the country, but punk/hardcore scenes are relatively the same everywhere. There’s always a hand full of people who book shows, write zines, play in bands, and run collectives who are always wiling to help out touring bands. However, in most of Orange County it’s impossible for punk houses or DIY spaces to have shows and function for any significant amount of time because of the extremely high cost of living. Orange County is very deficient in music and art culture compared to many place around the country, but we’re still spoiled because every major tour comes through southern California.

When are you planning to finally hit Europe, lads? [smiles]

We’re hoping to play in Europe soon! We had this ambitious idea for this summer to do a full US tour and halfway through we were going to fly to Europe for a few weeks and then come back and finish the US tour. However, we heard that trying to tour Europe in a smaller band during the summer is extremely difficult because everything is booked in advanced for bigger tours. Right now our game plan is to get some of our releases distributed in Europe, wait until some of us graduate from school and then try to do a European tour in the fall or spring of 2014.

What European hardcore bands do you respect the most?

We listen to a lot of VITAMIN X (we were lucky enough to play with them last year in LA), REGULATIONS, and DEAN DIRG (even though we missed them in souther California because we were on tour).

Cool, great bands.

You recently released your brand new joint entitled “Burn The World”. Judging by your shows, the outing was received… ekkhhhm.. positively. [laughs] Looks like people went crazy about it, man.

The day we left for the west coast we played a last minute show in Orange County and it was awesome and then when we played Gnarmageddon Fest in Orange County we got a crazy response.

Aren’t you tempted to drop off the positive attitude for a while, drop down and yell about how the world is fucked up today? Tell us about your lyrics and the sort of topics they cover.

Having a positive attitude doesn’t mean ignoring all the fucked up things, it’s about having hope for the future instead of just being a complacent cynic. That being said, sometimes it isn’t so easy to be positive and hopeful about the way things are. The lyrics on the new LP roughly follow a theme of being dissatisfied with the world around us and about throwing out the things you know and starting fresh.

Good point.

When you released your “No Regrets” EP 2 years ago, you talked about how free downloads helped you and got you a lot of exposure to people who may never hear you otherwise. Have you changed your mind after busting a gut to put out the new release?

Free downloads have been really helpful to us. We put our No Regrets 7″ and our A Voice of Our Own 7″ up for free on our bandcamp as well as blogs like Toxicbreed’s Funhouse and that has helped us get some exposure to people that normally wouldn’t have ever heard us. The plan is to put the new LP up for free too (I think it is up for free in some places already) but we just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. We would much rather have someone download our music for free and enjoy it and maybe come out to a show when we are on tour then make $5 or $10 from selling a digital copy of it or something. People still buy our records and we’re still able to release stuff ourselves, even if we can’t find a label to help. So it all works out in the end.

Ok, let’s go outside MEDIA BLITZ itself for a while. What other projects have you been involved with?

We are all involved in other projects besides MEDIA BLITZ. Our drummer Jeff and I have been in 2 other bands that have since broken up but Jeff is always starting up new bands (right now he plays in a female fronted hardcore band called HEADWIND). Our guitar player Eddie is currently playing guitar in a thrash band called WHY WE KILL that just started up. Our singer Jason was playing bass in an Oi band for a little bit. Right now I play guitar in a pop-punkish band called TOUGH STUFF and we’ve been doing some touring and just recorded recently (and they are doing a west coast tour at the end of July without me since I will still be on tour with MEDIA BLITZ).

Besides being on the road, does living in different cities mean you are really ”separated” from each other and it’s kind of difficult to function as a band and meet its ad hoc needs?

It actually is not too difficult living in different cities. I live in Fullerton, our singer Jason lives in Yorba Linda, and Eddie and Jeff live in Fountain Valley (literally down the street from each other). We all sort of have our different jobs so we don’t really need to be together to get things done so it works out quite well. The music is all written by Eddie and Jeff so it is really easy for them to meet up and write stuff because they live so close. Jeff handles all of the screen printing and things like that. I handle a lot of the show booking and all of the tour booking which I can do from anywhere. The only thing that is sort of weird is that if a show is within like an hour and a half of us we sometimes end up driving 3 or 4 cars there because it’s easier that way.

How has Orange County scene changed, or how is it in the midst of changing? What’s new when it comes to hardcore punk music in your neighborhoods?

There’s not really any huge changes going on in Orange County right now, faces change and bands come and go, but there’s still lots of kids involved with the scene and playing in bands. There’s not really any solid all ages DIY spaces right now, but hopefully that will change in the future.

What’s the most hyped thing recently among your friends? Clothing, bands, venues, longboards? [smiles]

I don’t even really know, listening to indie music and riding bikes? That seems pretty popular among kids these days. I wish smashing the state and blindfolded jousting were more popular, but whatever.

What’s your best argument to convince someone who’s saying that nowadays punk is dead?

I think the easiest argument is the fact that I can call a stranger up on the phone from the other side of the country and they will book us a show and let us stay at their house and make us food. There’s a network of awesome people around the United States who dedicate a lot of time to DIY punk, there’s no denying that.

True true. Thanks so much for the chat. Would you like add anything else?

All adults are pirates. We kill pirates.