Killing Mainstream Music

Once in a while a rockin’ band squeezes through the net protecting the masses from raw music and keeping the teenyboppers safe from hearing anything real. This time around it’s Death By Stereo.
Somehow a hardcore band made it onto MTV and gets played on the radio, and the real shocker is that people seem to actually like it. Maybe mainstream consumers are finally getting fed up with commercialized crap or the Apocalypse is upon us, but the kids are listening to Death By Stereo. And this time it isn’t just the kids who you usually see kicking ass in the mosh pit.
The band’s story is a real life example of hard work paying off. They are almost always on the road putting out the good word and even when hardships come up (like a recent wrist injury to guitarist Dan Palmer) they still make good on their word and play shows.
Head screamer Efrem Schultz took a few minutes to chat as the tour van was bearing down on Barstow. The rest of the band seemed jealous they were being left out and interviewing Schultz ended up being almost as chaotic as the group’s performances of metal infused hardcore.

So how did you get together?
We’re all old friends from the same area that really wanted to be in a band and be serious about it. I mean not be serious but have fun and be dedicated.

You’re kind of at the forefront of a movement where hardcore is crossing over to a more popular arena whereas it used to be a very underground subculture. Why are the kids getting into hardcore these days?
I really don’t have any idea, all I know is that we just started the band and didn’t really want to put a label on ourselves but we all really like punk music and like hardcore a lot, and we like metal a lot. We wanted to incorporate all those styles, and in doing that, we found other bands who we had things in common with and just started playing with anyone who will let us and found people along the way who like all of those styles. I think a lot of hardcore kids are getting into metal because they’ve been listening to hardcore and a lot of hardcore is just basically metal without solos and kids are starting to realize that there should be solos. Bring the rock back.

Yeah, bands like Strife and Snapcase just have been playing metal but their guitar players aren’t good enough to solo or something.
It was a taboo thing for a long time. People considered a solo dead air time or something.

Is that what you would say is different about your sound?
Yeah, we’re pro-solo.

Do you like Slayer or Maiden better?
That’s a tough call. Me personally, I’m a Slayer guy, well I’m also a Maiden guy but I’d choose Slayer. That would be a tough argument in this van.

Well I don’t want to start any fist fights or anything.
Hold on, let me take a vote. Hey guys, Slayer or Iron Maiden? [voices in back] I think we’re about even, we’ve got two Iron Maiden and three Slayer. [more voices, sounds like an argument is brewing] Dude, you just got kicked out of the band, wait you’re back in I need your vote. [a late Maiden vote comes in] Now it’s three versus three in here, Slaaayyyerrrrr. Who would win in a fight? Slayer.

I think GWAR would wipe the floor with both of them.
Yeah, Oderus Urungus would just whack ‘em with his gauntlet. You just started a huge fight in this van.

I just need a couple more minutes and you can have the full tour van kung-fu fight.
Okay, cool. Hey you guys, I need to give him a couple more minutes and then we can all fight.

So how did the Epitaph thing happen? There weren’t any bands like you on the label until you came along.
My friend Kevin got a job as the webmaster there and he was joking around and he was all ‘dude I’m gonna wear your shirt every day to work and play your CD everyday at my desk’ and then one day Brett was like ‘hey who is this?’ and he gave him the CD and he was totally into it. Then one day Paul got a message on his machine saying to call Brett Gurewitz and he was like ‘dude, who the fuck is this?’ like this is a joke and he never called back. But then two messages later we were like, yeah we better call. He just liked us, he came and saw us play for like 15 people and he was into it so he asked us if we wanted to make a record and we said yes.

I heard that you had to cancel a show in Redding a couple weeks ago because Dan [Palmer, guitarist] sprained his wrist, how is he now?
We weren’t able to play some shows but we played last night and he’s doing really good. He said it wasn’t sore at all and hurts a little now. Yeah, but we’re going to make those shows up.

I hear that you guys are almost always out on the road touring.
Yeah and…[someone in the van interrupts with his theory for the sprained wrist] now everyone wants to have a different version of this. It was really from handjobs. He gave too many handjobs out. Dan does have a nasty case of pink eye, he’s gonna have to wear a patch over one eye. But yes, we do tour a lot.

Your lyrics make it clear that you guys have something to say, what kind of political leanings does the band have?
We don’t consider ourselves a political band, we don’t want to come across as preachy. We definitely have a message in our lyrics but we want to come off as a fun bunch of guys who aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves. If you go to a show and somebody is preaching to you all night and you’re like ‘c’mon play a song already.’ If someone likes what they hear then they can read the lyrics and hopefully get inspired further to think or reach or learn more. We lean toward the side of individuality and self thought, just thinking for yourself and I think that that is where everything starts. Change in politics or in personal life and anything all starts with the individual. We definitely lean way to the left, though. I’d say that we lean off the board.

When you’re playing a show do you want to see hardcore dancing or the mosh pit?
I think I can speak for us all but I’ll ask everyone. [confers with band] Yeah the mosh pit. I think we’re all in agreement. We like the kids getting caught up in the mosh.

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