Drinkers with a Music Problem

By Maurice S. Teilmann

As I sit down to write this article, Socially Pink’s guitarist, Dain Sandoval, walks into the Synthesis office covered with scratches and cartoon-esque welts all over his face, generally looking worse for wear. Apparently, the prior evening’s events involved Socially Pink’s bassist Steve Pankhurst, dressed in a clown suit, throwing DVDs at Dain’s head.

Under normal circumstances, with the exception of the clown suit, such an event wouldn’t be too far off the mark for a Socially Pink show. As it so happens, this particular outing had nothing to do with their band: it’s just one of those things.

Earlier in the day, speaking with Steve, he smiles when admitting to breaking Dain’s nose, ankle and wrist, all on separate incidents. Yet, overall, since their beginnings in the mid-‘90s, the band’s sense of self-destruction seems to have receded. Somewhat.

“Originally, it was kind of a three-ring circus,” grins Steve, recalling the band’s early shows. “We’d show up, start off okay, get a bunch of booze in us, me and the guitar player would get in a fight, and Schwenkler would take his pants off. And, you know, that was a show. Now we actually play all the way through the set. We’re not nearly as drunk…” He pauses, considering. “Sometimes we are.”

After a late ‘90s hiatus, Pankhurst and vocalist Jason Schwenkler reassembled Socially Pink in 2000, eventually adding guitarist Sandoval and drummer Matt Eckhardt to the group. Schwenkler concedes that “you have to be pretty easy-going,” to play in Socially Pink.

“A lot of musicians in this town seem to be pretty serious, they think there’s a chance to make it. We realized a long time ago: we get free booze out of it, so let’s do it.”

Record amount of booze consumed at a show: $400 (an event marking the last time the band got an unlimited bar tab).

Now set to release their first album, Crappy Music For a Shitty World, an album three years in the undertaking, the band is excited to finally have it completed. During the recording process, “everything that you can think of went wrong,” says Steve, including countless takes and punch-ins, problems, excessive use of “the suck button,” and eventually, personnel changes. In fact, the tracks were recorded prior to Matt and Dain joining the band. “I think they’re just looking at it like, ‘great, now we have an album. When do we do the next one?” Steve says of the band’s new members.

Now mastered and ready to go, Crappy Music For a Shitty World chronicles a wide range of the band’s material, some songs almost as old as the band itself.

“They’re all songs that we still play, we love everything on the album,” Steve continues. “It’s one of those things where, now we have this new tight unit, we’re all friends again, like how it started. Everybody’s got a thick skin and can take everybody’s shit; we still yell at each other, all the bullshit still goes on, now we have people who can take it and laugh about it later.”

As the band has watched their surrounding music scene grow and decline, evolving through the years, one thing remains: people still get much more than they bargain for at a Socially Pink show.

“It’s definitely changed over the years,” says Schwenkler. “At one point, people were pretty stoked because we tried to approach that old ‘80s style. Now I’m thinking it’s probably more like, ‘Oh my god, look at these fat bastards.”

Bookmark:

Record Label www.sociallypink.com Released February 2004

Tracks Dogs of War Angry White ands on Allowance Blue Meanies Proudman Blah Confused Different Cunt Drunk not Retarded SP Theme (1) Christians Guns and Whiskey Retribution Tough Guy Sybaliss In My Eyes Struggle Conspicuous Demise Fishbowl Suicide Born Enemies Live Fast White Trash No Thanks Man SP Theme (2)