Music
Q&A: We talk all things Descendents with Bill Stevenson ahead of Oz tour
We’re pretty excited for Descendents‘ return to Australia this week, with the legendary California punks kicking off proceedings in Adelaide on Thursday.
Ahead of the tour, we caught up with drummer Bill Stevenson to talk all things Descendents. Yep, really.
We cover everything from the musical similarities between 2016’s Hypercaffium Spazzinate‘s and 1982’s Milo Goes To College, and the role of punk bands (and, indeed, all bands) in today’s society, to exploring their back catalogue and asking how on earth they put a setlist together after 40 years as a band.
Descendents tour Oz this Feb:
16 – Adelaide, The Gov
17 – Perth Club Capitol
19 & 20 – Melbourne, 170 Russell
22 – Brisbane, Eatons Hill Hotel and Function Centre
24 – Sydney, Enmore Theatre
Pick up remaining Descendents tickets now at Ticketmaster.com.au.
Scroll down for our full Q&A with Descendents drummer, Bill Stevenson…
We can’t help notice how much the new record, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, has been compared to Milo Goes To College, why do you think that is?
“There’s a couple of things that the new record has that Milo Goes To College has; one is that there are several of the really short, little songs. We used to do more short songs and recently we haven’t done as many, but on the new record there are a whole handful of them that aren’t even a minute long. Another thing might be [that] some of the songs are a little less melodic [and] more of a fighting vocal approach. The other thing might be that [in] some of these little songs, the amount of overdrive on the guitar is cleaner [and] not as much saturation in the guitars. Those three things are the areas where I think there are a lot of similarities between the new record and Milo Goes To College, but I never thought that other people thought that, I thought that just I thought that.”
Are there any similarities between the kind of angst that’s portrayed on the new record and that of the first album?
“We’re different people now. We’re 53 instead of 15, so we don’t write about the same kind of things but we try not to repeat ourselves. When a band’s been together as long as we have, more often than not the band’s end up repeating themselves and that can get boring and predictable. But at the same time, when a band’s been around as long as we have, sometimes they often go into these ridiculous departures that don’t even sound appropriate for what the band means and we try not to do that either. We try to continue to make music that’s interesting to us and that’s fun for us and when we practice it, we get a good laugh with each other and get a good feeling. We try to write lyrics about things that matter to us, whether it’s talking about a hamburger or a failed relationship, whatever it happens to be.”
From a fan’s perspective, the band still stands for the same things it always has done; is that still the case for you?
“We’ve always tried to write stuff that was genuine and honest from our opinion, we’ve never tried to pretend that we’re someone else or tried to write lyrics to be cool, so I think we’re still doing that the same way. When we started our band there was no hope of being famous, or being rich, or being cool, it simply wasn’t a possibility so we only did it for our own amusement in our own garage and that was it. We still do it the same way and in that way we’re very consistent.”
Do you think it’s as common today for new bands to start out for those same reasons?
“I always thought of a band as being music for music’s sake not for any other reason, not for money, not for popularity. Things have changed a lot; when we started there were no [music] videos, no MTV, no Internet. Now bands know that they could start a band and be famous; they know that’s a possibility and we didn’t know that, so we never considered it, it was only for our own amusement.”
Considering punk as an entire community and movement, what do you think its role is in today’s unsettled political climate?
“I suppose it’s a matter of personal preference [but] speaking for us, after what’s happened in our country in the last six months, some of our lyrics on our brand new songs that we’re working on, they’re more socially or sociopolitically involved because that’s what happens to be on our minds right now. I do think it’s good for any band, not just a punk band, to use their stewardship responsibly. The band has been given a stage, a listenership, and they can use that stewardship and throw it away and make it worth nothing, or they can use it to promote humanity, kindness, tenderness, generosity [and] cooperation. I think that’s a good thing, not just in punk rock but in all kinds of music.”
We also picked up themes of social anxiety and mental health on the new record, were they intentional?
“That’s interesting. There are quite a few; there’s Fighting Myself, there’s Testosterone, there’s Feel This, Human Being is also like that. There is some of that happening [but] I had never thought about it. In our band it’s interesting because there have always been four songwriters, everybody contributes [equally] and sometimes we collaborate with each other. That means that a Descendents album will never have a unified lyrical perspective because you’ve got four lyric writers. But at the same time, when you’ve spent 30 years with the same four people, there is a collective mentality that does come into play.”
For your younger fans who’re coming to see you live for the first time, what’s the best way to revisit your back catalogue beforehand?
“The easiest way to do it is to get Somery, which is a greatest hits record up to a point, and then to get Everything Sucks and Cool To Be You. By buying four albums they’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’ve done with ourselves.”
How will you even manage writing the setlist for these upcoming shows?
“It’s never been our style to play too much of the new record, to where the kids don’t get to hear the old songs that they want to hear. But at the same time, we’re not doing what some bands do when they’ve been around a long time and they only play two or three songs when they do a new record because they only want to play the old ones. We’re practising 40 songs and 11 of them are from the new record, so in a typical concert we’ll play 30 songs and seven of them will be from the new record. We try to play all the songs we think everybody wants to hear because they’re the ones that are thankfully paying for us to play, allowing us to survive and putting food in our mouths. We want them to be happy and feel like they got a good show from us!”
See Descendents on tour in Australia this week – remaining tickets at Ticketmaster.com.au.
