Roger Miret is more punk than you, but not too punk for you. That's what makes the longtime frontman of classic New York hardcore band Agnostic Front so cool. I crossed paths with him in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and got to visit him in his New York City apartment, meet his dachshund, see pictures of his car, watch him paint his bathroom, and talk about his new band, the Disasters, punk rock girls, hot rods,Cremaster 3, and Good Charlotte. The only thing he didn't want me to talk about was what he was wearing at the time.
Sarah Jaffe: So you're about to go off on tour with the Dropkick Murphys again. Are you excited about the tour?
Roger Miret: Yeah. We leave on Friday or Saturday, and we start in Tucson.
SJ: This was your first Disasters album. When did you start this project?
RM: Well, initially it was just going to be a little solo type of release, because we'd really never played with each other. I just started writing a bunch of songs, and then Rhys and I started writing together, but it was never like a stable band until we actually recorded a record. It was the first time we were all in the studio at the same time, and we realized, once we played the songs, that we were sounding really good -- and we decided to get a little bit more serious and be in a band. We never played a show until...the first show was in August last year. It's been a year now. At the Rumblers' show, even though our record wasn't out, we just did a show. Really, we've only been playing together since August, so we're fairly a new band, no matter what, even though some of the songs were written as far back as four years ago, but we never played or rehearsed as a band. It was just like, I'll send tapes out, we'll meet, do like a demo or something. Our first demo we did with Matt Kelly from the Dropkick Murphys; that was pretty cool, but we actually became a band in August. That was the only show Johnny Rio played with us, but then we realized Johnny wasn't going to go to Europe and we had Joe, who's been filling in, and we decided since he'd done so many shows with us, we'd keep him on as a member.
SJ: So you just started writing a different kind of material?
RM: Well yeah, originally, when I was writing these songs, I tried a few of them with AF. We used "Run Johnny Run" to sound check with, minus Vinny because he wouldn't play it, and a couple of other ones. It's just that when we went to record Dead Yuppies, they wanted to do harder stuff. So I had found myself writing all of these songs for a long time, so I said, "You know, I'm not going to just throw them away, I'm going to do something with them, just put 'em out," not thinking of making a band out of it, and then we became a band.
SJ: One thing that's been on my mind. At the Agnostic Front show in Denver, with the Misfits, you said that you weren't allowed to play in New York after...
RM: The Dead Yuppies record, yeah.
SJ: Yeah.
RM: That record came out directly after September 11.
SJ: I remember seeing it when it came out and thinking, "Ouch, that was kind of bad timing."
RM: Yeah, that record hitting the world was really bad timing. Because it's called Dead Yuppies, because it has like...you should've seen the original...you know Epitaph [Records] does that thing on their site where you could actually...you know those moving little ads, and the original ad for Dead Yuppies was this little yuppie guy falling through the air, and he falls, and it goes "Dead Yuppies". They pulled that out too. Everybody pulled all this stuff out, and obviously they pulled our ads out, so we got shafted with that record. They never re-did anything. It just came out, nobody knew. Just the other day I got two boxes full of stickers, Dead Yuppies stickers they never even put out. They said "Coming October." For a punk label, you know, I think it's pretty fucking lame; they should've put it out anyway.
So it was just really bad timing. It was really weird, and we really weren't on their good list because of the Giuliani song, "Police State". Howard Stern used to play a little bit of that at six o'clock in the morning when he had his show in New York City. It'd be "Giuliani, Giuliani...it's the Howard Stern Show," and they'd play a little bit. [The city] just didn't like it. They put a ban on it. Clubs were afraid to book us. Police were coming around to give us a hard time, so then that record happened it didn't make things any easier. But we still play. We still sneak into shows. We do very little advertisement. You'll notice, if we play, ever since September 11, they won't even advertise it until the week of, so there'll be no advertisement, and then the week of, you'll see "Agnostic Front," just a little tiny thing, not like regular advertisement that you'd see like three weeks ahead, because they don't want to make a big thing about it. Which kind of sucks for us, we want advertisement for all three weeks. We're like "Shit, is anyone going to see this?" That Wednesday, CBGB's will put the ad out, and the show's on Sunday. We're like "Is anyone going to show up?" So we have to do word-of-mouth, do some flyering. It's kind of tough.
SJ: I associate bands with places so much that I thought, "How could they have trouble playing in New York, they're such a New York band."
RM: It's our hometown.
SJ: On a sort of related note, a couple of years ago, I was at a show in Boston, and somebody behind me was talking about "The Dropkick Murphys, when they were a Boston band..." I was surprised, but that whole sell-out label really makes me mad.
RM: People don't know what a sellout is. Any time a band gets a little bit of success, it's considered selling out. You should be cheering for your band and be glad, I mean, I'd rather put on the radio and listen to the Dropkick Murphys then seven-eighths of the shit they play, but that'd be selling out.
SJ: Exactly.
RM: In my eyes, that's what I'd rather listen to on the radio. The minute you get some kind of success, people are quick to talk shit, but there are only a few people like that. For that one or two people you lost, you gain a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's just that they should be on your side the whole way like the bands are. The bands are for the scene the whole way -- fighting for their scene. It's not their fault they're getting a little successful with it, and they're making a little something at it.
SJ: It's sad that you would have to say it's not their fault that they're successful; it should be what you want.
RM: It happened to a lot of bands. It's happened to Rancid, to Green Day, to Nirvana. These were just regular bands, they were playing, all of a sudden they got successful, and something happens, it happens.
SJ: They're good!
RM: They're good! We've never been good.
SJ: You've been good. You're just a little more abrasive than some of these bands. Not everybody's able to deal with the...
RM: I always like to say, we, Agnostic Front, have always been the true aborted child of punk rock. We're not really a pretty band; we have nothing pretty to say, which keeps us heavily underground, which is cool. It's more of a solid fan base. Sometimes, when you come up really big, especially MTV fans, they're weird, they come and go. Whatever's in next week is, whatever...it depends who's trendier, too. When you become a cool band, then there are a lot of people seeing it. When you become uncool, you know, whatever. It's stupid.
SJ: I have the debate a lot with people about bands like Good Charlotte getting popular, and even Avril Lavigne. People are like, "Oh God, she's so awful," and I say, "I'd rather have my kid listening to her than to Britney Spears."
RM: There's no doubt about it, if I had a choice.
SJ: You don't want everybody selling your scene, but...
RM: The music we play is very personal music, and when it goes beyond where it's supposed to be kept...it's very personal when you discover a band like the Disasters. It's personal to you. It's new to you. There're not many people who know it, so it's really cool, but when it starts to grow and get bigger it starts to feel like it's not personal to you any longer. It doesn't belong to you; it belongs to too many people, and instead of supporting it, instead of saying "Yeah, this is really cool for them. I'm glad for them. I discovered them and they were this big and now they're this big, but I'm really happy for them that they've done so much," people just turn their backs on them. They say they sold out because it's not personal to them, but they don't understand what it means to others.
SJ: Let's talk about cars! Tell me about your cars.
RM: I'm down to one right now; the '32, the hot rod coupe. My friend is going to pick it up and bring it to a show this weekend, because I'm not going to be there. I'm in a club, the Rumblers, which is kind of a nationalsmall nationalwith a chapter in New York, a chapter in Florida, two chapters in California, one in Arizona. We're just into having fun with cars, building 'em, riding in 'em, having a blast. There was a really cool feature on my '32 in a magazine called Rolls and Pleats. You can look at it online. I'm on number 11. I've got the cover and a centerfold. It's what I do in my spare time, my downtime I guess. I do that and I've been doing a lot with the Disasters. I've been touring my ass off. I'm trying to break in a new band. We're finally getting the right tours, too, which I'm excited about, which is the Dropkick Murphys and then Rancid, but in my downtime, when I'm not writing songs, Rhys has been writing a lot of songs. I've got to catch up lyrically, but when I'm not doing that, I spend a lot of time with the club and with the car. If it'd been a nice day, I'd have taken you out for a ride, but my car is disappearing as we speak.
SJ: That's too bad. What else did you have?
RM: I had a '50 Ford, which I sold to Benji from Good Charlotte.
SJ: Oh yeah?
RM: Yes, he owns it. He fell in love with it when he first saw it, and was like, "I've got to have it," so I sold it to him. It's kind of tough, living in New York City. It's not like living in Denver, or other areas where you get a garage and it's not that expensive. Renting a garage here...I pay $250 a month for a garage, besides my regular home rent. You've got to really want to own a vehicle; you've got to love it. It ain't easy. Which is the only downfallotherwise, I would've kept my '50. In December and January a couple of guys in the club and I are going to build a little racecar just to take out racing. The website, it's a cool website, it's going to be redone, but the main website is RumblersNYC.com. You always get information on that one. We do a yearly event, which is a great time, which just happened in August. There are tons of cars, tons of clubs, tons of music. We mix it up, from your traditional rockabilly right down to your street punk. The Disasters' first show ever was at last year's Rumblers, which was cool.
SJ: Seems like a good time to bring out a new band.
RM: Yeah, I figured it would be safe because I'd be playing with all my friends, so if we sucked it wouldn't be that bad. Even if we sucked, I waited on purpose so we went on when everybody was drunk. It's hard to suck when people are drunk; they think you're good anyway. It's just when you're straight that everything sucks. So we went on at prime drunk time.
SJ: How did Agnostic Front get involved in Cremaster 3?
RM: Oh, that was really cool. Matthew Barney, he's a true genius in movies, in the art community, he's very well known. He's also a big hardcore fan. His favorite bands that he grew up listening to, and still does today, are Agnostic Front and SSDecontrol; so he tried to get us both. SSDecontrol's been broken up for a long time, and he almost had those guys together to do the film, but they backed out last minute, so they got Murphy's Law. It's a really bizarre film. It's like 3 hours long, and nobody talks until we play. It's like drops of water, really artsy, really good. The Chrysler building out here, he actually got to wrap it aroundthis is all real, it's not computer generated or anything. We play against each otherhe's actually doing a soundtrack to it. I'm curious as to what that's going to sound likewe're playing at the exact same time, against each other, Murphy's Law and Agnostic Front, and only parts of the songswhen they'd stop one song, you'd kind of hear us, and when we'd stop you'd kind of hear them. It sounded like a big mess to me, but I guess to anybody who's into some kind of art stuff, it'd sound all right to them.
It was great doing it, though, because it was at the Guggenheim Museum. Five floors, and while we're playing against each other the Rockettes are dancing above us, this famous guy who works with wax and oil was throwing something on the top floor, or no...the Rockettes were below us, and there was this girl with no legs, they had to make crystal legs for her, she's dressed like a cat, she's a famous model with no legs, and all this is going on, and he's climbing this thing, it's really bizarre. He had the whole Guggenheim Museum for a week to do his film. People just give him stuff because he's that much of a hotshot.
SJ: I never saw it. I meant to, but, well...
RM: You would really have to be dedicated...but there are a lot of big Matthew Barney fans. He's done five of them, but they're not in any order. We're number 3, but that was the last one. He's a good guy. He just had a baby with Bjork, she's real sweet too, and he's brought her down to a couple of AF shows. She's a funny girl.
SJ: I'm trying to picture Bjork at an Agnostic Front show.
RM: We put her in the DJ booth, and everybody was kind of surrounding her, trying to get her autograph, so she had to leave, because it was a little bit uncomfortable.
Matthew Barney donated parts for my car from Cremaster 3. There's a car, with about five other cars, like a derby, they crashed them all up, and they make it into this littleit's the whole car when you see it, and the whole time they're gutting it, they were giving me the parts, so I could take them and use them on my car, and they crushed this car into nothing. It was a Chrysler that they crushed down, and these other cars were at least ten grand apiece. This Chrysler was in really good shape. It must have been a $50,000 car, and they just crushed it to shit, so you can imagine the amount of money spent on this thing. It was really amazing.
SJ: I sort of already asked about the pop-punk bands, and then you said you sold your car to Benji from Good Charlotte, so I'm sure a lot of people right now are going, "Oh my God!
RM: Good Charlotte are good guys, they've been getting a lot of flak, especially now since they won that Viewer's Choice. My car club, the Rumblers, actually took Good Charlotte right to the red carpet at the MTV Music Awards. Three of our cars drove them in, they got out of our cars. Then at the afterparty, here in New York City, which we all went to, when I was leaving with my car, Benji came up to me and said, "The guys from..." What's the name of that band? Fred Durst's band?
SJ: Limp Bizkit?
RM: They were talking shit to them, and those guys had their big bodyguards with them, and I'm like "Are you all right?", and he's like "Yeah, it was stupid." People are alwaysthere's a lot of people talking a lot of shit on them -- they feel like they came out of nowhere and just made it, but like I say, you know, why come down on a band that's doing what they want to do anyway, isn't really changing their ways? He doesn't claim to be a know-it-all punk rocker, he just got into the punk scene, he's enjoying it, and he's discovering bands. He discovered the Disasters on his own, he loves the band, and he took us on the road. His brother and all, they never heard of us, or a lot of punk bands, but they don't claim they do. They're just learning on their own, but you know, the Punk Police are always quick to get you.
SJ: The Punk Police. That's a good one.
RM: That could be a song...
SJ: It could.
RM: You know, they're always talking shit about people, somebody's more punk than someone, and it's always someone that just came around like four years ago. Like a couple of people I knowall of a sudden they're like the ultra-punkers, like they've been there and did it all. Forget it. Just shut the fuck up and enjoy your life! Who cares? That's the number one rule, punk rock, it ain't about policing, it ain't about setting rules -- it's about breaking them, being an individual, being yourself, so why the hell should everybody be the same anyway?
Those guys are good guys. I have a lot of friends in a lot of different bands. Musically, I'm pretty open-minded. I don't like rap. I never did. I think 50 Cent is hard as fuck. I think he just comes out hard, and lyrically he's insane, and I could probably appreciate it, but I don't listen to it. I hear it and I'm like "That's fuckin' hard," and I like the hardness of it, but I don't like anything else about it. My favorite music, if I have a choice, is punk rock. I love punk. I'll put the Clash up against any of these fuckin' bands. That's what I like, but there are all these other bands that I do meet. I'm friends with the guys from Good Charlotte, a variety of people; we're all right with each other. We talk. Besides the music, we're people. There's no rock star attitude. I've had dinnersat down, broken bread, ate, talked about good times, not about what show you're doing. A lot of people get caught in that. You see them, and it's "I'm doing this, I'm doing that," well, who cares, man, how you doin'?
SJ: What were the last five CD's you bought?
RM: The most recent CD that I bought was D.O.A. I saw it and I remembered having that albumit's in the van right nowit's the second album, and I had to get it. It was just reissued. The ones before that were Thin Lizzy, and Cheap Trick. I bought the Damned's new album. It's a good album. Grave Disorder, I bought it to see what it sounds like. I love early Damned. I'm not too big into the gothy Damned, though I do like goth, I'm a big Siouxsie and the Banshees fan, and this is a great mix of both. I bought it before I was even asked to play with the Damned, so it was really cool. I bought it when it first came out. I don't even like CD's, but I guess for the road, it works...Springsteen, that's another one, I bought Nebraska, that's a great listening record. I always find myself listening to the same stuff anyway, no matter what I buy, I go back to the same two, three CD's. I like Give 'Em Enough Rope, more than London Calling, Never Mind the Bollocks; it's always the same ones.
SJ: What do you think of the Sex Pistols reunion tour?
RM: I haven't seen it. I don't knowI think it's kind of pitiful that they're not getting a lot of people.
SJ: Yeah, they cancelled the show in Denver because they weren't happy with the turnout.
RM: Maybe it has to do with ticket price...
SJ: Well I looked it up the first time, and I don't remember how much it was, but then they had an ad for seats as low as $9.50, and then the Dropkick Murphys filled up a theater by themselves.
RM: It's sad, because these kids just don't know. These kids will pay the stupid amounts of money for Warped Tour or Ozzfest. They don't care, but still. If it had been a $25 ticket, it probably would have sold out, but these kids just don't know. I realized that when I went on the road with a certain band, and I thought they were supposed to be these punk rockers, and I realized they didn't like any of the old bands, their beginning of punk rock was Nirvana. They didn't know any of the old bands, they didn't know who Cockney Rejects were, or the Business. So the Pistols come around, and the people who knew the Pistols come out, but the kids just don't know.
SJ: And a lot of the older people don't go out anymore. Or if they do, they just stand by the bar.
RM: And don't forget, those young kids, they're going to go to school or whatever, and they're going to be out. I've seen people come and go, they ain't sticking around, they're just there for maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe two years. It's also what's at Hot Topicif you're not at Hot Topic, you ain't shit.
SJ: True.
RM: We ought to start our own store like Hot Topic, just to get in the malls. You know, this is what's really funny about it. When I got into punk rock, it was about finding things. If I discovered a band that nobody knew, it was great. Now, it's the cool bands, the bands everybody knows, that are what everybody follows. The bands nobody knows, they think you're like a geek or a dork, but that was discovering stuff. I would go there, buy it, look at the whole package, just stare at it, look at everything, read everything about it. These kids download everything. They don't even know what it is. They don't know what the lyrics are, they don't give the artwork a chance. From a band's point of view, you put so much into it, you want to make sure it looks cool. If these people don't give a shit, why should I bother? I might as well just sing the same lyrics on the next record. Use the same cover, just make it in yellow. It's sad.
SJ: It's too bad. You've got two types: the one that likes the three bands they've seen on MTV or heard on the radio, and the other that won't listen to any of those bands because they're too punk for them -- they only listen to bands that have been broken up for 20 years because they can't sell out.
RM: Or people try to tell you what's punk and what's not punk. That's the best. [sings] The Punk Police...
SJ: I'm telling you, you've got a song right there.
RM: It's the same thing with the cars, the car world.
SJ: Where do you see underground music heading next? The big thing now seems to be this indie rock...
RM: That's just a different scene. I don't know how underground that's going to be, since it's pretty much all over-ground now. It's finally been exposed, but people have been doing the indie thing for a long time. I saw R.E.M. on tour with the Clash, but now, what they call emo, I guess, took over for what they called indie rock, college music, and now all those bands are out, like R.E.M., all those bands. The 'in' bands are like Radiohead; they're like the gods of that scene. It's very depressing music. It's just like music to kill yourself; I don't get it. I guess it's supposed to be very emotional, but it's a different scene. It's not a punk scene. It could have started off and branched off from the punk scene, I mean Fugazi, you've got to give them credit for all that stuff, but it's so commercialized now, it's eventually going to lose its true intention -- like everything. I like more aggressive punk stuff. I'm not into the emo stuff.
SJ: One of my favorite things about going to see Agnostic Front is that you guys are always calling the girls up on the stage. It's nice to be appreciated, to acknowledge that there are girls who don't just go to the shows because their boyfriends are, or because they think the boys are cute.
RM: Most of the time, it's because I feel bad for them. You see a lot of girls, and then some jerkoff guy will come out of nowhere and just take a dive and whether it's a girl or not, you're probably hurting some little kid. I mean, that's what our music is all about, it's very aggressive music, it's an aggressive release, but you feel bad for that girl that got a boot right in her face. I'm like "Come on, let's go, let's get even, girls, it's your turn to jump on them and stick your fingers in their eyes, kick them in the face, and if you get low enough, kick them in the nuts. It's get-even time." I've always had a lot of respect for the women in the scene. They're there, so why not? Some people just don't acknowledge them, but I've always acknowledged them. They're part of the scene. The scene's verynot that it's very sexist, but it's very male-dominated, and then when there is a girl band there's automatically that division, girl band, boy band. It should just be one scene.
SJ: It always seems like everyone's ready to jump on the girls. There are few enough girls in bands. A lot of people will say, "Oh yeah, she's hot, but her band sucks," or won't even listen to it, and I think, "Why does it have to be like that?" I get comments if I say that I think a guy in a band is hot. Then it becomes "You only like them because he's cute," not that I could actually like the music.
RM: Yeah.
SJ: Anyway, this comes back to the SuicideGirls question. Some of the girls have said that they like the site because it's a place where women in the punk scene are celebrated, even if it is for their looks. It's a space for that kind of girl, rather than them being left on the sidelines.
RM: You know, it's like I said, I look at the women, the girls, and I see equals. They're involved in the scene in every way, whether it's musically, in bands, or even in a sexual way, it doesn't matter. They're trying to find somebody they like to hang out with and want to be with, too, just like a guy would. I'd rather hook up with a punk chick, and I'm sure a punk chick would rather be with a punk guy, so what's the difference?
SJ: No cheerleaders for you?
RM: No.
SJ: Well thanks a lot for talking to me. I've just got a few silly questions to wrap this up with. Elvis or the Beatles?
RM: Elvis.
SJ: Johnny Cash or Hank Williams?
RM: Johnny Cash.
SJ: Blondes or brunettes?
RM: Brunettes!!
SJ: What's the first porn you ever saw?
RM: Candy's Little Sister.
SJ: What's the last book you read?
RM: Street Justice by Chuck Zito.
Catch Roger Miret & the Disasters on tour with the Dropkick Murphys or Rancid this fall, and don't forget to pick up his CD and really look at it so you know if he does put out the same lyrics and pictures next time. Sarah Jaffe.
Sarah Jaffe: So you're about to go off on tour with the Dropkick Murphys again. Are you excited about the tour?
Roger Miret: Yeah. We leave on Friday or Saturday, and we start in Tucson.
SJ: This was your first Disasters album. When did you start this project?
RM: Well, initially it was just going to be a little solo type of release, because we'd really never played with each other. I just started writing a bunch of songs, and then Rhys and I started writing together, but it was never like a stable band until we actually recorded a record. It was the first time we were all in the studio at the same time, and we realized, once we played the songs, that we were sounding really good -- and we decided to get a little bit more serious and be in a band. We never played a show until...the first show was in August last year. It's been a year now. At the Rumblers' show, even though our record wasn't out, we just did a show. Really, we've only been playing together since August, so we're fairly a new band, no matter what, even though some of the songs were written as far back as four years ago, but we never played or rehearsed as a band. It was just like, I'll send tapes out, we'll meet, do like a demo or something. Our first demo we did with Matt Kelly from the Dropkick Murphys; that was pretty cool, but we actually became a band in August. That was the only show Johnny Rio played with us, but then we realized Johnny wasn't going to go to Europe and we had Joe, who's been filling in, and we decided since he'd done so many shows with us, we'd keep him on as a member.
SJ: So you just started writing a different kind of material?
RM: Well yeah, originally, when I was writing these songs, I tried a few of them with AF. We used "Run Johnny Run" to sound check with, minus Vinny because he wouldn't play it, and a couple of other ones. It's just that when we went to record Dead Yuppies, they wanted to do harder stuff. So I had found myself writing all of these songs for a long time, so I said, "You know, I'm not going to just throw them away, I'm going to do something with them, just put 'em out," not thinking of making a band out of it, and then we became a band.
SJ: One thing that's been on my mind. At the Agnostic Front show in Denver, with the Misfits, you said that you weren't allowed to play in New York after...
RM: The Dead Yuppies record, yeah.
SJ: Yeah.
RM: That record came out directly after September 11.
SJ: I remember seeing it when it came out and thinking, "Ouch, that was kind of bad timing."
RM: Yeah, that record hitting the world was really bad timing. Because it's called Dead Yuppies, because it has like...you should've seen the original...you know Epitaph [Records] does that thing on their site where you could actually...you know those moving little ads, and the original ad for Dead Yuppies was this little yuppie guy falling through the air, and he falls, and it goes "Dead Yuppies". They pulled that out too. Everybody pulled all this stuff out, and obviously they pulled our ads out, so we got shafted with that record. They never re-did anything. It just came out, nobody knew. Just the other day I got two boxes full of stickers, Dead Yuppies stickers they never even put out. They said "Coming October." For a punk label, you know, I think it's pretty fucking lame; they should've put it out anyway.
So it was just really bad timing. It was really weird, and we really weren't on their good list because of the Giuliani song, "Police State". Howard Stern used to play a little bit of that at six o'clock in the morning when he had his show in New York City. It'd be "Giuliani, Giuliani...it's the Howard Stern Show," and they'd play a little bit. [The city] just didn't like it. They put a ban on it. Clubs were afraid to book us. Police were coming around to give us a hard time, so then that record happened it didn't make things any easier. But we still play. We still sneak into shows. We do very little advertisement. You'll notice, if we play, ever since September 11, they won't even advertise it until the week of, so there'll be no advertisement, and then the week of, you'll see "Agnostic Front," just a little tiny thing, not like regular advertisement that you'd see like three weeks ahead, because they don't want to make a big thing about it. Which kind of sucks for us, we want advertisement for all three weeks. We're like "Shit, is anyone going to see this?" That Wednesday, CBGB's will put the ad out, and the show's on Sunday. We're like "Is anyone going to show up?" So we have to do word-of-mouth, do some flyering. It's kind of tough.
SJ: I associate bands with places so much that I thought, "How could they have trouble playing in New York, they're such a New York band."
RM: It's our hometown.
SJ: On a sort of related note, a couple of years ago, I was at a show in Boston, and somebody behind me was talking about "The Dropkick Murphys, when they were a Boston band..." I was surprised, but that whole sell-out label really makes me mad.
RM: People don't know what a sellout is. Any time a band gets a little bit of success, it's considered selling out. You should be cheering for your band and be glad, I mean, I'd rather put on the radio and listen to the Dropkick Murphys then seven-eighths of the shit they play, but that'd be selling out.
SJ: Exactly.
RM: In my eyes, that's what I'd rather listen to on the radio. The minute you get some kind of success, people are quick to talk shit, but there are only a few people like that. For that one or two people you lost, you gain a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's just that they should be on your side the whole way like the bands are. The bands are for the scene the whole way -- fighting for their scene. It's not their fault they're getting a little successful with it, and they're making a little something at it.
SJ: It's sad that you would have to say it's not their fault that they're successful; it should be what you want.
RM: It happened to a lot of bands. It's happened to Rancid, to Green Day, to Nirvana. These were just regular bands, they were playing, all of a sudden they got successful, and something happens, it happens.
SJ: They're good!
RM: They're good! We've never been good.
SJ: You've been good. You're just a little more abrasive than some of these bands. Not everybody's able to deal with the...
RM: I always like to say, we, Agnostic Front, have always been the true aborted child of punk rock. We're not really a pretty band; we have nothing pretty to say, which keeps us heavily underground, which is cool. It's more of a solid fan base. Sometimes, when you come up really big, especially MTV fans, they're weird, they come and go. Whatever's in next week is, whatever...it depends who's trendier, too. When you become a cool band, then there are a lot of people seeing it. When you become uncool, you know, whatever. It's stupid.
SJ: I have the debate a lot with people about bands like Good Charlotte getting popular, and even Avril Lavigne. People are like, "Oh God, she's so awful," and I say, "I'd rather have my kid listening to her than to Britney Spears."
RM: There's no doubt about it, if I had a choice.
SJ: You don't want everybody selling your scene, but...
RM: The music we play is very personal music, and when it goes beyond where it's supposed to be kept...it's very personal when you discover a band like the Disasters. It's personal to you. It's new to you. There're not many people who know it, so it's really cool, but when it starts to grow and get bigger it starts to feel like it's not personal to you any longer. It doesn't belong to you; it belongs to too many people, and instead of supporting it, instead of saying "Yeah, this is really cool for them. I'm glad for them. I discovered them and they were this big and now they're this big, but I'm really happy for them that they've done so much," people just turn their backs on them. They say they sold out because it's not personal to them, but they don't understand what it means to others.
SJ: Let's talk about cars! Tell me about your cars.
RM: I'm down to one right now; the '32, the hot rod coupe. My friend is going to pick it up and bring it to a show this weekend, because I'm not going to be there. I'm in a club, the Rumblers, which is kind of a nationalsmall nationalwith a chapter in New York, a chapter in Florida, two chapters in California, one in Arizona. We're just into having fun with cars, building 'em, riding in 'em, having a blast. There was a really cool feature on my '32 in a magazine called Rolls and Pleats. You can look at it online. I'm on number 11. I've got the cover and a centerfold. It's what I do in my spare time, my downtime I guess. I do that and I've been doing a lot with the Disasters. I've been touring my ass off. I'm trying to break in a new band. We're finally getting the right tours, too, which I'm excited about, which is the Dropkick Murphys and then Rancid, but in my downtime, when I'm not writing songs, Rhys has been writing a lot of songs. I've got to catch up lyrically, but when I'm not doing that, I spend a lot of time with the club and with the car. If it'd been a nice day, I'd have taken you out for a ride, but my car is disappearing as we speak.
SJ: That's too bad. What else did you have?
RM: I had a '50 Ford, which I sold to Benji from Good Charlotte.
SJ: Oh yeah?
RM: Yes, he owns it. He fell in love with it when he first saw it, and was like, "I've got to have it," so I sold it to him. It's kind of tough, living in New York City. It's not like living in Denver, or other areas where you get a garage and it's not that expensive. Renting a garage here...I pay $250 a month for a garage, besides my regular home rent. You've got to really want to own a vehicle; you've got to love it. It ain't easy. Which is the only downfallotherwise, I would've kept my '50. In December and January a couple of guys in the club and I are going to build a little racecar just to take out racing. The website, it's a cool website, it's going to be redone, but the main website is RumblersNYC.com. You always get information on that one. We do a yearly event, which is a great time, which just happened in August. There are tons of cars, tons of clubs, tons of music. We mix it up, from your traditional rockabilly right down to your street punk. The Disasters' first show ever was at last year's Rumblers, which was cool.
SJ: Seems like a good time to bring out a new band.
RM: Yeah, I figured it would be safe because I'd be playing with all my friends, so if we sucked it wouldn't be that bad. Even if we sucked, I waited on purpose so we went on when everybody was drunk. It's hard to suck when people are drunk; they think you're good anyway. It's just when you're straight that everything sucks. So we went on at prime drunk time.
SJ: How did Agnostic Front get involved in Cremaster 3?
RM: Oh, that was really cool. Matthew Barney, he's a true genius in movies, in the art community, he's very well known. He's also a big hardcore fan. His favorite bands that he grew up listening to, and still does today, are Agnostic Front and SSDecontrol; so he tried to get us both. SSDecontrol's been broken up for a long time, and he almost had those guys together to do the film, but they backed out last minute, so they got Murphy's Law. It's a really bizarre film. It's like 3 hours long, and nobody talks until we play. It's like drops of water, really artsy, really good. The Chrysler building out here, he actually got to wrap it aroundthis is all real, it's not computer generated or anything. We play against each otherhe's actually doing a soundtrack to it. I'm curious as to what that's going to sound likewe're playing at the exact same time, against each other, Murphy's Law and Agnostic Front, and only parts of the songswhen they'd stop one song, you'd kind of hear us, and when we'd stop you'd kind of hear them. It sounded like a big mess to me, but I guess to anybody who's into some kind of art stuff, it'd sound all right to them.
It was great doing it, though, because it was at the Guggenheim Museum. Five floors, and while we're playing against each other the Rockettes are dancing above us, this famous guy who works with wax and oil was throwing something on the top floor, or no...the Rockettes were below us, and there was this girl with no legs, they had to make crystal legs for her, she's dressed like a cat, she's a famous model with no legs, and all this is going on, and he's climbing this thing, it's really bizarre. He had the whole Guggenheim Museum for a week to do his film. People just give him stuff because he's that much of a hotshot.
SJ: I never saw it. I meant to, but, well...
RM: You would really have to be dedicated...but there are a lot of big Matthew Barney fans. He's done five of them, but they're not in any order. We're number 3, but that was the last one. He's a good guy. He just had a baby with Bjork, she's real sweet too, and he's brought her down to a couple of AF shows. She's a funny girl.
SJ: I'm trying to picture Bjork at an Agnostic Front show.
RM: We put her in the DJ booth, and everybody was kind of surrounding her, trying to get her autograph, so she had to leave, because it was a little bit uncomfortable.
Matthew Barney donated parts for my car from Cremaster 3. There's a car, with about five other cars, like a derby, they crashed them all up, and they make it into this littleit's the whole car when you see it, and the whole time they're gutting it, they were giving me the parts, so I could take them and use them on my car, and they crushed this car into nothing. It was a Chrysler that they crushed down, and these other cars were at least ten grand apiece. This Chrysler was in really good shape. It must have been a $50,000 car, and they just crushed it to shit, so you can imagine the amount of money spent on this thing. It was really amazing.
SJ: I sort of already asked about the pop-punk bands, and then you said you sold your car to Benji from Good Charlotte, so I'm sure a lot of people right now are going, "Oh my God!
RM: Good Charlotte are good guys, they've been getting a lot of flak, especially now since they won that Viewer's Choice. My car club, the Rumblers, actually took Good Charlotte right to the red carpet at the MTV Music Awards. Three of our cars drove them in, they got out of our cars. Then at the afterparty, here in New York City, which we all went to, when I was leaving with my car, Benji came up to me and said, "The guys from..." What's the name of that band? Fred Durst's band?
SJ: Limp Bizkit?
RM: They were talking shit to them, and those guys had their big bodyguards with them, and I'm like "Are you all right?", and he's like "Yeah, it was stupid." People are alwaysthere's a lot of people talking a lot of shit on them -- they feel like they came out of nowhere and just made it, but like I say, you know, why come down on a band that's doing what they want to do anyway, isn't really changing their ways? He doesn't claim to be a know-it-all punk rocker, he just got into the punk scene, he's enjoying it, and he's discovering bands. He discovered the Disasters on his own, he loves the band, and he took us on the road. His brother and all, they never heard of us, or a lot of punk bands, but they don't claim they do. They're just learning on their own, but you know, the Punk Police are always quick to get you.
SJ: The Punk Police. That's a good one.
RM: That could be a song...
SJ: It could.
RM: You know, they're always talking shit about people, somebody's more punk than someone, and it's always someone that just came around like four years ago. Like a couple of people I knowall of a sudden they're like the ultra-punkers, like they've been there and did it all. Forget it. Just shut the fuck up and enjoy your life! Who cares? That's the number one rule, punk rock, it ain't about policing, it ain't about setting rules -- it's about breaking them, being an individual, being yourself, so why the hell should everybody be the same anyway?
Those guys are good guys. I have a lot of friends in a lot of different bands. Musically, I'm pretty open-minded. I don't like rap. I never did. I think 50 Cent is hard as fuck. I think he just comes out hard, and lyrically he's insane, and I could probably appreciate it, but I don't listen to it. I hear it and I'm like "That's fuckin' hard," and I like the hardness of it, but I don't like anything else about it. My favorite music, if I have a choice, is punk rock. I love punk. I'll put the Clash up against any of these fuckin' bands. That's what I like, but there are all these other bands that I do meet. I'm friends with the guys from Good Charlotte, a variety of people; we're all right with each other. We talk. Besides the music, we're people. There's no rock star attitude. I've had dinnersat down, broken bread, ate, talked about good times, not about what show you're doing. A lot of people get caught in that. You see them, and it's "I'm doing this, I'm doing that," well, who cares, man, how you doin'?
SJ: What were the last five CD's you bought?
RM: The most recent CD that I bought was D.O.A. I saw it and I remembered having that albumit's in the van right nowit's the second album, and I had to get it. It was just reissued. The ones before that were Thin Lizzy, and Cheap Trick. I bought the Damned's new album. It's a good album. Grave Disorder, I bought it to see what it sounds like. I love early Damned. I'm not too big into the gothy Damned, though I do like goth, I'm a big Siouxsie and the Banshees fan, and this is a great mix of both. I bought it before I was even asked to play with the Damned, so it was really cool. I bought it when it first came out. I don't even like CD's, but I guess for the road, it works...Springsteen, that's another one, I bought Nebraska, that's a great listening record. I always find myself listening to the same stuff anyway, no matter what I buy, I go back to the same two, three CD's. I like Give 'Em Enough Rope, more than London Calling, Never Mind the Bollocks; it's always the same ones.
SJ: What do you think of the Sex Pistols reunion tour?
RM: I haven't seen it. I don't knowI think it's kind of pitiful that they're not getting a lot of people.
SJ: Yeah, they cancelled the show in Denver because they weren't happy with the turnout.
RM: Maybe it has to do with ticket price...
SJ: Well I looked it up the first time, and I don't remember how much it was, but then they had an ad for seats as low as $9.50, and then the Dropkick Murphys filled up a theater by themselves.
RM: It's sad, because these kids just don't know. These kids will pay the stupid amounts of money for Warped Tour or Ozzfest. They don't care, but still. If it had been a $25 ticket, it probably would have sold out, but these kids just don't know. I realized that when I went on the road with a certain band, and I thought they were supposed to be these punk rockers, and I realized they didn't like any of the old bands, their beginning of punk rock was Nirvana. They didn't know any of the old bands, they didn't know who Cockney Rejects were, or the Business. So the Pistols come around, and the people who knew the Pistols come out, but the kids just don't know.
SJ: And a lot of the older people don't go out anymore. Or if they do, they just stand by the bar.
RM: And don't forget, those young kids, they're going to go to school or whatever, and they're going to be out. I've seen people come and go, they ain't sticking around, they're just there for maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe two years. It's also what's at Hot Topicif you're not at Hot Topic, you ain't shit.
SJ: True.
RM: We ought to start our own store like Hot Topic, just to get in the malls. You know, this is what's really funny about it. When I got into punk rock, it was about finding things. If I discovered a band that nobody knew, it was great. Now, it's the cool bands, the bands everybody knows, that are what everybody follows. The bands nobody knows, they think you're like a geek or a dork, but that was discovering stuff. I would go there, buy it, look at the whole package, just stare at it, look at everything, read everything about it. These kids download everything. They don't even know what it is. They don't know what the lyrics are, they don't give the artwork a chance. From a band's point of view, you put so much into it, you want to make sure it looks cool. If these people don't give a shit, why should I bother? I might as well just sing the same lyrics on the next record. Use the same cover, just make it in yellow. It's sad.
SJ: It's too bad. You've got two types: the one that likes the three bands they've seen on MTV or heard on the radio, and the other that won't listen to any of those bands because they're too punk for them -- they only listen to bands that have been broken up for 20 years because they can't sell out.
RM: Or people try to tell you what's punk and what's not punk. That's the best. [sings] The Punk Police...
SJ: I'm telling you, you've got a song right there.
RM: It's the same thing with the cars, the car world.
SJ: Where do you see underground music heading next? The big thing now seems to be this indie rock...
RM: That's just a different scene. I don't know how underground that's going to be, since it's pretty much all over-ground now. It's finally been exposed, but people have been doing the indie thing for a long time. I saw R.E.M. on tour with the Clash, but now, what they call emo, I guess, took over for what they called indie rock, college music, and now all those bands are out, like R.E.M., all those bands. The 'in' bands are like Radiohead; they're like the gods of that scene. It's very depressing music. It's just like music to kill yourself; I don't get it. I guess it's supposed to be very emotional, but it's a different scene. It's not a punk scene. It could have started off and branched off from the punk scene, I mean Fugazi, you've got to give them credit for all that stuff, but it's so commercialized now, it's eventually going to lose its true intention -- like everything. I like more aggressive punk stuff. I'm not into the emo stuff.
SJ: One of my favorite things about going to see Agnostic Front is that you guys are always calling the girls up on the stage. It's nice to be appreciated, to acknowledge that there are girls who don't just go to the shows because their boyfriends are, or because they think the boys are cute.
RM: Most of the time, it's because I feel bad for them. You see a lot of girls, and then some jerkoff guy will come out of nowhere and just take a dive and whether it's a girl or not, you're probably hurting some little kid. I mean, that's what our music is all about, it's very aggressive music, it's an aggressive release, but you feel bad for that girl that got a boot right in her face. I'm like "Come on, let's go, let's get even, girls, it's your turn to jump on them and stick your fingers in their eyes, kick them in the face, and if you get low enough, kick them in the nuts. It's get-even time." I've always had a lot of respect for the women in the scene. They're there, so why not? Some people just don't acknowledge them, but I've always acknowledged them. They're part of the scene. The scene's verynot that it's very sexist, but it's very male-dominated, and then when there is a girl band there's automatically that division, girl band, boy band. It should just be one scene.
SJ: It always seems like everyone's ready to jump on the girls. There are few enough girls in bands. A lot of people will say, "Oh yeah, she's hot, but her band sucks," or won't even listen to it, and I think, "Why does it have to be like that?" I get comments if I say that I think a guy in a band is hot. Then it becomes "You only like them because he's cute," not that I could actually like the music.
RM: Yeah.
SJ: Anyway, this comes back to the SuicideGirls question. Some of the girls have said that they like the site because it's a place where women in the punk scene are celebrated, even if it is for their looks. It's a space for that kind of girl, rather than them being left on the sidelines.
RM: You know, it's like I said, I look at the women, the girls, and I see equals. They're involved in the scene in every way, whether it's musically, in bands, or even in a sexual way, it doesn't matter. They're trying to find somebody they like to hang out with and want to be with, too, just like a guy would. I'd rather hook up with a punk chick, and I'm sure a punk chick would rather be with a punk guy, so what's the difference?
SJ: No cheerleaders for you?
RM: No.
SJ: Well thanks a lot for talking to me. I've just got a few silly questions to wrap this up with. Elvis or the Beatles?
RM: Elvis.
SJ: Johnny Cash or Hank Williams?
RM: Johnny Cash.
SJ: Blondes or brunettes?
RM: Brunettes!!
SJ: What's the first porn you ever saw?
RM: Candy's Little Sister.
SJ: What's the last book you read?
RM: Street Justice by Chuck Zito.
Catch Roger Miret & the Disasters on tour with the Dropkick Murphys or Rancid this fall, and don't forget to pick up his CD and really look at it so you know if he does put out the same lyrics and pictures next time. Sarah Jaffe.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
user8935778:
haha this was entertaining. i met roger once at a car show. he came up to me.. and said he was hung like a farm animal. i asked what kind. and he said a chicken. strange strange man.
adjunct:
Hey, the Cremaster 3 question got in there! That was a pretty good interview.