The Punks Next Door

For the four-piece punk outfit, originally from San Jose, No Use For a Name would seem to be surprisingly un-punk. Not in a bad way, mind you. It's just that when you try to get them to dish the dirt on anyone, they will politely and correctly dissuade you from further prying. In talking to Tony Sly, the lead man on the mic and main songwriter for NUFAN, I found him to be resoundingly normal. A cool cookie. After clawing up through the punk ladder and with a few good selling albums under their belts, Tony and his crew have settled into the middle years of their career after releasing some fine pieces of craftsmanship in their fourth full length on Fat Wreck Chords, More Betterness and then a year later with a wicked live CD graciously called Live In A Dive.
What could they do then?
Well, take some time off for one thing. So the band members went to their places of residence, two to L.A., one to Tahoe, and for Tony, to his new digs in NorCal, Sacramento of all places, where he has decided to put down roots and buy a house. But they're not all domestic and shit. Here's an interview which shows a little more about the guys in NUFAN through some information I got from talking to Tony on a quiet eve recently.

What have you been up to?
We've been rehearsing a lot and writing songs and getting our record ready because we're going to record in January. What we're doing is kind of road testing the songs to see if we like them.

How would you describe the new stuff then?
It's a little different but it's not like, 'Whoa, I can't believe this is that band,' kind of new stuff. It's like, just a little heavier and maybe a bit more melodic and heavier at the same time.

So what do people need to know about you guys?
Well, we're all really nice guys, I guess. I like sandwiches. Meatball sandwiches are good. Our bass player Matt, he hates bugs. He's really afraid of them. And uh, he collects Star Wars action figures. And, god, let's see…

Drummers are always weird. You got a weird drummer?
Yeah. Well he is weird, for sure, because he's a Buddhist.

Does that clash with the rest of the theology in the group?
Not so much, really. He's just always into his thing. He can tolerate anything. It's pretty weird. It doesn't clash at all; it might make things better, actually. Like we could be in the van fighting and he'll just be sitting there and you could slap him in the back of the head or throw a bottle at the back of his head and he wouldn't even notice.

Has he achieved inner peace?
I guess so. I guess that's what that is.

Is it like that Beastie Boys' Tibetan Buddhism?
I think so, I mean, it could be. I know that he definitely looks like one of the Beastie Boys, so maybe.

Do you have any good van games?
Um, PlayStation is pretty good. You can set that up in an R.V. Do we ever play van games? Oh, we play a game where you say band's names and it just goes forever. It's like the last letter of the band that I name has to be the first letter of the next one and then the next person has to name the next band. So, [for] example, if I say ABBA the next person would say something like Anthrax. But not to be lame… I didn't mean to say Anthrax. And the next person would have to say Xhibit or X. It's a really a stupid game. We played it for four days straight in Australia and it kept continuing every time we got in the van and it was pretty annoying.

Do you guys still have day jobs?
No, but everyone has their one little side project, like Rory [Koff, drums] is actually doing some kind of rap thing where he raps. It's pretty cool.

Is it funny?
I guess it's trying to be funny. Dave [Nassie, lead guitar] is in that with him, so I guess it's not really much of a side project because they're both in it.

Do they ever come out and do a little thing before your thing?
No they never have. Dave's the DJ, and Rory raps, but they haven't done that yet. I'm sure that they will be… I don't think they're practiced up enough.

You should encourage them to do it on this tour.
Maybe we could get them to open the show.

That would be cool, like a self-opener.
Yeah, well, they call themselves the Tick Turds when they do this rap thing. I guess they've done a few house parties. I dunno.

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