The Road to Success

Somewhere between the snarling underground of punk rock and the white gates of mainstream success a few bands wait for their shot to have the world’s ear for a few months. Nestled comfortably in this pocket is One Man Army, a group of miscreants who have managed to garner enough fans through relentless touring to be able to knock on those gates without fear of outright rejection.
This Bay Area trio has made a name for itself by working hard and writing some pretty damn catchy music. While pop-punk sprang up, One Man Army just kept plugging away and touring the country with their unconventional punk rock that gets teenage girls dancing, but, while it isn’t exactly Scandinavian thrash-core or anything, still has enough sneer to delight old schoolers who like their music to matter.
Drummer Chip Hanna was able to squeeze in a few minutes to talk between putting the finishing touches on an upcoming European tour schedule and preparing to move from Orange County, California, to Phoenix, Arizona. A little bit of chaos is normal in Hanna’s life. Before scoring his current gig, he played for years with the riotous US Bombs, definitely an experience. Even with a little stress in his life, Hanna described the couple weeks since finishing up the Warped Tour and before hitting the road again as “the calm before the storm.”

So you’re going to hit Europe soon. What is it like touring in other parts of the world compared to America?
In America, it seems like the kids are going by what they see on the TV and hear on the radio. I’ve been to Europe eight or nine times and it seems to me that they think for themselves more over there, and they have more of an underground thing going on and they’re not really listening to what’s being played on the radio. I’m sure that there are some fuckers over there who are radio and MTV Europe freaks, but the people I’ve met and seen are cool.

So what is touring with One Man Army like, a party all the time or what?
It’s not a nonstop party at all. If you play every night, you can’t party. You have your nights where you just blow it out, but with every show, the people in every city; that’s their night out, but with us, every night is that night. That’s what Duane [Peters, singer for the US Bombs] and some other guys got caught up in, and they take it to where they’re almost killing themselves. Number one, if you’re a touring motherfucker, you’re a crazy motherfucker to begin with to live the life that we do. If you’re going to do it a lot, you can’t be a drunk. You can’t be inebriated all the time and play good shows and just survive.

How is playing with One Man Army compare to playing with the US Bombs?
It’s great. The Bombs…well goodness gracious, it’s all a blur now. DP was such a fuck-up for the longest time, but now he’s all straight and shit. He’s cool now, he’s turning into a great guy. When he was drunk he was such an asshole.

So what’s the plan as far as recording? It’s been about a year since your last record came out so what is in the works now?
We’re doing a BYO split, tentatively, with the Alkaline Trio. I was just up in San Francisco laying down drum tracks for that and we’re going to be recording that on the road. We’re also going to be on a Rocky Horror punk rock tribute CD compilation if that comes together. Shit. we’re just going to write a new record for around February to May. We’re going to have a live record released in Australia and Japan hopefully. I taped five shows when we were on the Warped Tour and the one in Pittsburgh turned out great. That’s only going to be on vinyl, though. That’s just a dream at this point, I’ve got the tapes but it hasn’t been mixed or anything.

So what do you try for when you all sit down to write songs?
There are only A, B, C, D, E, F and G chords and the fuckin’ drums are only on the two and the four, so shit, we just usually do what comes out. I’ve just got a rough guitar track that I play drums to and Jack’s got a CD of that and he’s just going to write lyrics to that, I hope, because we have to get this sonofabitch done. Truthfully, I don’t have any idea what it’s going to sound like.

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