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TSOL
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True Sounds of Liberty were interviewed by Al, Hud and Pete at
their studio in Long Beach in May, 1981. These guys are athletic
in such things as surfing, golf, swimming and tattoos. The band
is very cooperative and seem to have their shit together.
Pete: How come you all have tattoos?
Jack: I don't!!
Mike: I can't afford it. Jack wouldn't ruin
his body with anything, let alone a tattoo. I change my mind too
much. I had TSOL tattooed right here (arm) but had it covered up
when the band was shaky.
Jack: I had a dream of these guys holding
me down and giving me tattoos.
Ron: I wanna get one like the big dragon that
Todd has..
Jack: Fuck, I'm schiz, so I...
Ron: That's why you aren't playing the Starwood, there ain't
no fuckin'...
Jack: YOU WEREN"T THERE! MAN. I'll play
it I'm gonna wear a bullet proof vest and a riot helmet.
Mike: He thinks someone is gonna bring a gun
to the Starwood and shoot him.
Ron: There's this big rumor that all of these
people are after us because of Jack.
Al: Why don't they like you?
Jack: It all started like when we got together
we had the idea like we're not gonna cause any trouble...
Mike: Give the people good ideas, you know,
fight for a worthy cause...
Jack: Its been really good, there haven't
been any fights at our shows, and then this one guy who gets drunk
and shit and his ugly bitch he calls girlfriend, she goes around
telling people we'll beat them up. If she bumps into people she
tells them "TSOL will kick your ass" and shit like that.
Mike: Not only her, but kids who like our
band and get into fights and if they win or lose they emphasize
our name 'TSOL' (with fist in the air), and plus Devonshire Downs
too - that day me and Ron went to thrift stores and bought some
suits and our hair was all down, it's pretty long for the punk scene
these days, and Jack was wearing a blue boy outfit, and all these
skinheads were bummed.
Al: What happened to Viscous Circle?
Mike: It died!
Jack: Cut that out!
Mike: That's what all these kids with
their new haircuts are trying to bring back, half of them weren't
even there!
Jack: I had a skinhead back then causing
trouble and shit...
Mike: And so they burn us and we're
trying to do something a little different. In a year or six months
what will they have? These kids don't understand, back in Fleetwood
days we were involved in some... just... the worst gang fights,
and usually we came out on top, but we just got sick of it. Fights
where people got knifed and stuff and it's just foolish: "That
guy called me a name so I'll kill him", not very smart, ya
know?
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Pete:
What are your influences?
Ron: Todd's big influence is Judas Priest and
Rush, cause they're really good drummers (their names were written
on the wall behind the drum set)...
Mike: It varies a lot...
Al: How come you paint your face?
HUD: You like the damned, right?
Jack: Yeaha, the new Damned are better.
Al: Why don't the rest of you paint up?
Mike:
We used to, white usually...
Ron: When my hair was red, I used to do my face
grey all the time.
Mike:The
original thing was one night a bunch of our friends went to
the Cuckoos Next with all white faces and got on a big fight and got
banned from the club.
Ron: Jerry Roach said "No more white faces".
Mike: So, uh, he called up and |
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he
turned his back, I ran! and they were chasing me. The bouncers caught
me and the deal Jerry Roach made was "I'll tell them to let you
go if you tell the white faces to never come back" and I'm going
"I'll tell them". They got me anyways...
Al: Who came up with your name?
Mike: Ron and my roommate used to sit around
in the middle of the night and they were fucked up and would call
those church shows where you call up and repent your sins, and they'd
call up and say "You fucking liars!".
Ron: They'd talk to you for hours and they had
the "Sounds of Liberty" church choir on the show...
Mike: We
were all bummed cause the words to all of their songs were lies, so
we said we should make a band and call it The True Sounds of Liberty"
and we all had skinheads then and listened to CRASS and took too many
drugs and they name kept coming up so we finally took it.
Al:
And thats the theme of the band?
Jack:
Used to be, we used to be real |
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asked
us to play so we called
everyone and told them "Wear a white face".
Jack: One night I was drinking beer and I got
really scared cause the cops came and I looked really fucked - I was
wearing a little dress and eyelashes and
shit and the cops go: "They're gonna love you at county, fucker".
And I
go Oh shit. So when |
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political.
Ron:
All propaganda!!
Mike:
We got around a lot by that, we did a lot of advertising, wrote it
everywhere.
Ron: Now we're more advanced.
Jack:
If you call fucking dead people advanced! |
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