Diving right into the tape..........
Jason: I don't know we were just talking about it how there has been like 10 really good shows on this tour. Hey what else Cliff?
Clif: Boston
Jason: Boston, we have played Boston a few times, Toronto. A lot of shows in the South were really good. We had never been to Florida, Orlando. Oh yeah Boston we had always played Brockton, but we never played in the city limits of Boston because we were always having trouble finding places to play so....
D: When I did review the record I thought I was all profound and shit in comparing it to Kill 'Em All and I read like 8 other reviews and its in every one...
Jason: Yeah, we get that a lot.
D: You cool with that?
Jason: Yeah that's a fine comparison, we love Metallica.
D: Cro-Mags?
Jason: Yeah, yeah that's good too. I always thought that was more of an influence on our earlier material. People still tag it on us. I think our LP has that flavor to it, but not so much the new stuff.
D: So what is it that creates that signature IA sound. It has metal appeal but is still pure hardcore. Like all I hear is all this busy metal core shit these days and...
Jason: I agree there's very few good metal bands around, I could probably name them on one hand. The same goes for hardcore I think too, I think music is real lean, a lean area these days.
D: Give me some new bands you really like?
Jason: I like War Hungry a lot from PA. Rise & Fall, the band we are on tour with, from Belgium. Clif who else?
Clif: Let Down
Jason: Let Down is real good.
D: Top 5 dance parts of all time? (Alex comes over and D meets Alex)
Jason: The whole song of Threatening Skies by Obituary.(Jason tells Alex, hey 5 hardest mosh parts ever, get involved.)
D: Dance parts!. We always say at C-RAP we never moshed at CBs, we danced. I don't know anything about moshing.
Jason and Cliff and Alex laugh.
Jason: Mark of the Squealer has one of the hardest breakdowns of all time actually, even harder than Rise and Fall. That song makes me want to murder people. That's two. I don't want to give the obvious, I am trying to think of some really good ones. Breakdown Discriminate Me is a pretty good breakdown. When Things Go Wrong by Outburst.
Jason and Alex together referring: Live Undead?
Alex: The breakdown in Wrong Side of the Good by the Accused.
Jason: Pantera This Love. Obviously.
D: Tell me more about Texas?
Jason: Texas is cool man, Texas is my favorite place in the US. Texas has been really good lately. I always took Texas for granted, like Ii always wanted to leave Texas and go on tour, but the more scenes I see across the US, we have done a lot of touring and I think Texas has a real good scene. Like Austin is not always like the coolest place for shows, but there is real cool people there you know, but sometimes Austin is incredible for shows. But consistently like San Antonio is always really good, Houston is always really good.
D: SXSW? I imagine as disgusted as I am with most people I know in the music business that if I lived there and SXSW came I would just want to beat people left and right.
Jason: Oh fucking absolutely, I fucking hate SXSW. I actually like it because we can get into shows for free and get drinks for free and there is a lot of girls around, but its a fucking circus, its a fucking media circus. I hate everyone there, the town just gets invaded. When I am trying to go to work during SXSW and I can't get down the fucking highway....
D: Day jobs?
Jason: I work construction, plumbing. I am a plumbing apprentice right now. Me and Wade, the guitarist, do the same thing actually.
D: But the band is for real?
Jason: The Band is for real, we are trying to make it for real and take this to the next level right now.
D: I go off here about how I think kids who make a conscious decision to want to be in a band and then start one is gross and how it has to burn the fuck out of you and its not a choice...
Jason: Its is the most illogical ever to be in a fucking hardcore band. Its just wrecks you your life, its so stupid. We do it anyway, I don't really know why, I guess I never thought of it until now. Every tour that we have had has been the hardest possible thing, everything that has gone wrong with putting out records, to this van we have here to all of our money problems, being homeless and broke all the fucking time, you wonder why you do it? But this tour is where its paying off, we haven't had any problems and we're having the time of our life.
D: You're not crying about it though before right?
Jason: No, not at all, I am not crying at all. Life, you are going to struggle anyway, life is just shitty. Just being in a band is not a logical thing to do, you gotta really want to do it. Like tours before and you play like 5 shows in a row and you won't get a reaction and you're like, "Fuck I ruined my life financially, I got shit I have to take care of at home and our shows aren't going that good I wonder what's going on." But if you work hard at it, we just proved it, we're touring a lot now, we've been touring the past 6 months pretty consistently, and now its paying off. I realize if you keep coming back to places, even if you had a bad show 3 times in a row, if you come back you can have like a really fucking sick show. As we wrote new material, get on a bigger label, make more money, it will be easier for us, and we won't mind it so much, it won't be such a struggle. I would like for this to be my job, I kind of miss working at home and having a regular life and getting up at 8 and doing hard work, but this is nice too.
D: Where you bed down every night?
Jason: First part we were staying in hotels and that was pretty sweet, but we have met so many friends on the east coast it is really easy to stay at peoples houses; every night we have been taken really good care of, especially like in Canada, we got treated really well.
D: Tell me some shit IA people wouldn't know?
Jason: Our new stuff. It's pretty good. I just thinks it's a lot different, I don't; think a lot of bands are challenging themselves, i hope when we release e new record people understand it. Like we are not just trying to come out of left field or something weird because it is different than constant struggle.
D: Last words shout outs?
Jason: Thanks for the IV, thank you to Nicole (Hollis-Vitale at Deathwish) for booking our tour, Rise & Fall for coming with us. Cliff our roadie.
This is the old interview done over email:
D: In 4 sentences: what iron age is, where they are from, who they are and what they stand for?
Jason: Iron age is a heavy band. Most of us are from small towns in Texas. We have been Jason, Reed, Wade, Matt, and a few different rhythm guitarists for a while, and now we have our boy Alex with us. We are down for whatever.
D: Quietly you have this incredible record out there and I don't know if it's the fact that I live far away or so many bands out there smother what's great, but very quietly there is this incredible Iron Age record and anyone who loves the cro-mags and is not too jaded to pick up a record by a new band should own it, thoughts on bringing it to the people? Are you down to work like that?
Jason: Thanks man. We're gonna grind and hopefully make this band bigger. It's hard to tour as often as we do and have a normal life. I'm always out of work and struggling to make ends and so are most of the guys in the band. But as you said, there are a lot of groups out there and you have to keep going out on tour to get exposure, and play with different kinds of bands to reach new kids. Hopefully, our next record will be bigger and touring will be easier for us.
D: Touring? Is it hard to hustle yourself into the right rooms? Seems like the struggle for even good bands these days, thoughts?.
Jason: We have met a lot of connects on tour, but it is a hustle to get good shows and make enough money to survive. Booking our own shows isn't fun for any of us so we found a manager in our friend Timmy Hefner. He hooks us up and does a great job lookin' out. Probably the best decision we've made.
D: Does your producer like gates? Shit is clean.
Jason: Probably. That shit is pretty clean huh.
D: Metallica: I thought I was all cool to think kill 'em all and then I read 18 reviews done well before mine making reference to your sound, what up? Influences
Jason: Our influences change all the time. There are a lot of people who say we sound EXACTLY like so and so, but we listen to all kinds of shit. Some of the newer stuff is on the Metallica tip, but there's a lot of stuff going into the new songs that are a bit heavier than that. I don't think I could name just a few bands to sum it up.
D: Cro-mags?
Jason: What?
D: Scene take? Is there one?
Jason: If you are referencing the hardcore scene in general, it is hard to say because in some places it's shitty and the kids are goons, and some towns everything is peace, but in Texas things have been going well. Lots of real bands and a lot of people party at our shows so I would say yes, there is one, and it's on the up.
D: Something cool you have seen on the road, something whack?
Jason: I've seen Amsterdam and THAT was cool. The whackest shit ever is a van dealership in St. Louis that made life very hard on us.
D: Shout outs, rant on something.
Jason: Shout out to Chase Warlow (Constant Struggle LA), and you. Thanks for the interview, come to our show and we'll get drunk.
Jason, a man of few words and or elaboration, on what I think will be a good story (when we get drunk and I finally catch them on the road) about that van dealer in STL, leaves much to the imagination and is very modest about his history in Far From Breaking or Wade Allison's history with Desperate Measures. That said Constant Struggle comes highly recommended from this staff and I hope we can get IA to NYC and Chicago to hang soon.
Iron Age MySpace
Young-Blood Records
The Inspectors Review of Constant Struggle
