Rock De Los Punk

Straight from the barrio onto major punk label force Epitaph, Union 13 speaks la verdad [the truth]. Signed by head poobah, Brett Gurewitz, after only a rough demo and practically no courting, the quintet, known mostly for their legendary backyard shows, released to much fan aplomb, East Los Presents. It was met with open arms in hometown East L.A. and abroad. Speaking with Edward Escoto, vocalist for the Union, I was surprised to hear a soft spoken voice greet me over the phone instead of the raging hardcore braying I’ve heard on the Union’s CD. Supporting label mates (and punk rock legends) U.S. Bombs on a mini tour of the West Coast before their new full length, Union 13 got chill with us for the cause.

It was produced by Donald Cameron. He did the first Rancid and engineered some of the Bad Religion records so I think it’s great that he helped us out on this one. And I’d also say that this one is well produced, better than our first album because that one we really did more raw, we wanted to capture the live thing more.

Yeah, exactly. We hadn’t done anything in the studio, didn’t have anything out. So the first record was just raw, and then the second one, we wanted it to be different, we wanted to progress with it. So we decided to do the second one more produced-sounding, a little more mellow since the first one was so punk rock, hardcore. So we did that one more sing-a-long, you know, with choruses you could sing along to. And this third one is just punk rock again, really fast and hard. That’s how we are, you know, just a punk band that plays fast. We didn’t want it to be the same as the second or the first so it’s not overly produced, but it’s really, really good.

Yeah, we do. It’s like a bit of a trademark for us to do some of the Spanish lyrics. It’s natural for us to write in Spanish, we’re Latino, so we write in English and in Spanish.

No, we don’t have two versions, just different songs. We did a Spanish version of "Roots Radical" by Rancid once.

I like the new Pennywise. That one’s really good. Also the new Rancid, I got to hear that one early, and it’s great.

Yeah, we toured with them back in ’97. We always tour with them, you know?

Oh, back then Duane was a crazy guy. He was always drinking and fucking around. Now he’s calmed down, stopped drinking. So now he’s more serious.

When?

When he was drunk? No, he was always passing out. Not really, I don’t have any crazy stories, only ones where they always leave him at a gas station because he always wanders off. But that was pretty much it.

I’m pretty sure they would; it would be funny because a lot of things that happen. Like if it was us, it would be a total disaster, we’re always breaking down, walking down the highway looking for a tow truck. [laughs]

Naw, we have a van, a twelve-seater, you know, with a trailer on the back, so we have enough room with that. But every time we tour and then we come back we’re too lazy to take the car to the mechanic so that when we take off again the car’s fucked up because we drove it like 3000 to 4000 miles the first time and it’s just a mess. So every time we try to go back out we just get stranded in the middle of nowhere when the car breaks down. We have a cellular phone too, but it never seems to work because we’re so far out there, we still end up walking. But I think it would be a good story to do a show on a punk touring band. It would be crazy.

Yeah.

I think that they said he was buried under the Dallas Cowboys’ field, or one of those football fields. I heard that’s what he was buried under — that he was murdered and then buried under this football field, like the goal line, or under the 50 yard line. I’m not sure which. You never heard about that?

Yeah, there’s a lot of rumors, but that’s the funniest one I heard.

Oh, pretty much just skating. Like myself and the bass player, we skate.

Where at?

Cool. We’ll have to go check that out. Every time with the U.S. Bombs we hit every park that’s around where we’re playing usually. Or we try.

Yeah, he’s an old-school skater. He skates for Beer City. He carries boards with him and we get to use them, you know, so it’s cool to have that.

Yeah, you know, just keep the message alive. Don’t give up. Any little band that’s trying, we tell them not to give up. Look at us: we come from a raw neighborhood that’s infested with gangs and violence and we still have the courage to continue, even though sometimes we got laughed at by gangsters. We kept on trying and we finally made it. We’re on a good label — like, Epitaph is one of the best — and we’re on it. Just keep the feeling alive.

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