Feature Artist
"DESCENDENTS"

Artist:	"DESCENDENTS"
Title:	"Everything Sucks"
Label:	Epitaph
Released:	9/24/96
Available:	Any Major Music Store
Reviewed By:	Mary Ellen Gustafson
Rating:	4

Since this album was released at the end of September, there have been dozens of reviews, ruminations, opinions and histories of the DESCENDENTS published in just about every conceivable place. Everybody has something to say about this "reunion" (although the band is not fond of this get together being labeled a reunion), and I don't really want to cover ground that's already been done to death.

Is "Everything Sucks" up to the standards set by the DESCEDENTS ten years ago? Most definitely. Have they lost their touch in expressing the simple day to day life of "nerdy" teen angst? Not at all. Is the sound more polished? Yes! This is a great CD, and it immediately becomes obvious where the punk bands of the 90's got their influence from - although half of them were too young to even say DESCDENDENTS, let alone know who they were. Without this sound started in the South Bay area of California back in 1978, by a trio called the DESCENDENTS, where would bands like "Green Day" be today?

Karl Alvarez - Bass, Stephen Egerton - Guitar, Bill Stevenson - Drums, and Milo Aukerman - Vocals are the DESCENDENTS. All of the members of this band are talented song writers, and this release showcases their versatility. The title song, "Everything Sucks" (music and lyrics by Stephen Egerton), although delivered in proper pop punk style, I think everyone can relate to - "Got up on the wrong side of life this morning, everything sucks today." References to taxes, bills, flat tires, and not the chosen love interest pretty much sum up what most people feel at one time or another. On top of great lyrics, this song is fast, catchy, has some great guitar riffs, and you can actually understand the lyrics despite the speed of delivery.

"I'm The One," the first single and video from the album, is brought to you by Karl Alvarez. Although the pace is a bit slower, the melody sticks in your mind and the lyrics express what happens in so many relationships - the guy who's there when the girl they love constantly gets shafted by the wrong man but ever hopeful that someday she'll "wake up and smell the coffee" so to speak! This song is followed by a contribution from Bill Stevenson, one of the original 1978 members of the DESCENDENTS, that continues to carry their obsession with coffee to today's audience, called "Coffee Mug." This is one song that is so fast you really CAN'T quite catch the lyrics without the help of the liner notes. Talk about a caffeine buzz!

On a lighter note is the track "We" (music and lyrics by Milo Aukerman) with an upbeat sound, and lyrics to match, that read ". . .This world is just me and you, and we know just what to do, we've got it made" and ". . . Hey everythings gonna be okay (We've got it made together)." The basic theme of us against the world and "we've got it made" is one of the most positive songs on the album.

Other notable tracks include "Sick-O-Me," "When I Get Old" (which has been compared to the Beach Boys 'When I grow up' [To Be a Man], expressing the same idea, but thirty years later), "She Loves Me" (my personal favorite on this CD), and "I Won't Let Me." The final track, "Thank You," includes a great instrumental after a few seconds of silence at the close of the song.

Overall, this is a pretty decent pop punk album, with all the energy, melodies, lyrics and themes you would expect from the DESCENDENTS. There are a few rough patches, which is why it's rated at a 4, but they haven't lost their touch. The DESCENDENTS, thrilling live audiences from one end of the U.S. to the other since 11/11/96, finished with a gig in Las Vegas on 1/4/97 before they head off on their European Tour. (Find an interview with Milo Aukerman and the European Tour Dates listed below.)


Interview With Milo Aukerman Lead Vocalist of the DESCENDENTS Interview Conducted by Mary Ellen Gustafson

AMZ: Thaks for agreeing to do this interview. When I read everything recently printed about the band, everybody seemed to be making a big deal about "Oh boy, the DESCENDENTS are getting back together, making another album and going on tour. It's a Reunion!" Does this aspect bother you?

MA: I think, from our perspective, people like to consider it that way, but we don't consider it a reunion. Before I got back into the picture recently, the other three guys in this group were in a band called "ALL," and it's a very similar styled band. They're a very up and coming band themselves, and have been playing together for the last eight or nine years, while acquiring their own audience. Early last year, I called Bill and said "I've got these songs can we do these?" and he was willing to accomodate me in that way. It was more like I re-inserted myself into their thing, but it isn't really a reunion per se, and I think it's a mis-representation to call it that. It started out with I had some music I'd written, and they had some music they'd written, and they were willing to insert me back into the equation and we went ahead and made a record. After we made the record we thought "Well shoot, we should probably tour on this record because it's a good one, and this will help promote it." But it started from a very musical basis - like "Hey let's make this music!"

AMZ: I thought that was the case. I didn't get the impression that this was the big DESCENDENTS reunion, but more of a sense you're back recording under the name of the DESCENDENTS "for now."

MA: Right. It's a "for now" thing. Especially because the band "ALL" still exists, and it can't co-exist with the DESCENDENTS when we're out on the road being the DESCENDENTS. Once we're off the road, "ALL" will put out a record and will be thrust into the limelight again. It's like we're alternating the two bands. The main reason to do that is to accomodate all concerned parties. Chad, the singer for "ALL," has been nice enough to let me fill his shoes for a while.

AMZ: Isn't he singing back up vocals for you?

MA: On the record he sang back up vocals and he's being a real trooper about it. "ALL" will put out a record this year sometime and then they'll go on tour for that.

AMZ: The first time I listened to the new album, I immediately thought "Green Day." Is it flattering to have the younger groups emulating the DESCENDENTS, or does it feel more like a rip off?

MA: I consider it flattering. In the whole scheme of rock music, everyone has their influences, and we had our influences. I wouldn't call it emulation, but I hope the bands that influenced us are flattered by our using similar motifs or whatever you would call it in our music. Some of our favorite bands were the "Buzzcocks," and a band called "X" in L.A., and "Black Flag" obviously. These are the kind of bands where we wear their influences on our sleeve, and the new bands around today are doing the same thing with us. So I just consider it very flattering, and it's kind of the continuum of rock. You can either think of it as "Oh that's a big rip off," or you can say "That's the way Rock music works!"

AMZ: Obviously there's always new bands coming out, but the sound was so close. I understand when you're working with punk pop that's the sound - fast and boom, boom, boom it's out there; but your subject matter - I haven't heard anybody else that hits it the way you do. Yours seems more - innocent is what I want to say.

MA: That's cool. That's nice. We write our songs from a very uncalcuted point of view. From "I have this emotion" and I want to try to get it down on paper and on guitar.

AMZ: The other thing I really liked, was that except for two songs that were really mega-fast, I can understand the lyrics even though you guys are going 90 miles an hour! Also, I'm so sick of hearing gloom and doom, and even if you have a little gloom and doom in there you don't make it obvious.

MA: Yes, that's true. On the song "Everything Sucks Today," people always ask us "Is this your, like, pessimistic statement about the world?" and it's really not. It's just about waking up on any given day and having it turn out to be a lousy day. It's supposed to have a laugh in it. The song has a kind of pissed off flair, but it's also laughing at the whole process, because everybody has that kind of day once in a while, and you have to laugh it off.

AMZ: Well that's pretty much what I got from the song when I heard it. Having a bad day happens to the best of us.

MA: You are one of the few! We talk to a lot of people who come from the kind of punk rock political background where they can't even see past the title. They just see it as "everything sucks today," and try to place some kind of world politics angle on it.

AMZ: Most of the punk I've heard is very politically oriented and it's also very anti-social, and depressing. Yours isn't. This album was fun to listen to, because even though you have some things in there that are kind of downer subjects, you don't emphasize them as a downers. I was very impressed by the song you wrote, "We," because it's such a positive song.

MA: Oh, Great, thanks! It's hard to write like that. I took it on as a challenge to write a positive love song, because we spent many years writing love songs that were kinda like "Oh, you left me" or whatever. Those are obviously easier to write because they're so full of that kind of pain and anguish you can really get into. I think I'm going to have to continue writing positive love songs because I'm happily married and everything, so it's kinda hard to write a negative love song any more.

AMZ: On this CD there were really no tracks that I didn't like. There were a couple that were a little rough - The Eunuch Boy was one. It didn't have anything to do with the subject matter or anything, it was just so doggone fast that boom, it's gone!

MA: That was like the first song I ever wrote, when I was seventeen years old. Back in those days our band used to play 20 songs that were all that fast and short, so we've kinda evolved away from that. But I thought since we never recorded Eunuch Boy, wouldn't it be fun to pull it out of the past and have it be this funny knock off song that we did just for kicks.

AMZ: You guys go so fast and yet you enunciate your lyrics so well. Do ever get tired from the speed and energy you expend when you play?

MA: Really what it comes down to is one thing, and that's coffee - and we drink a lot of it! Coffee is what turns back the years. We used to have this expression " Thanks to modern chemistry, sleep is now optional." What that referred to was drinking lots of coffee. I think now it should be "Thanks to modern chemistry, age is now optional." You drink enough coffee you're gonna get up there and just go, go, go. I drink a lot of coffee before a show, and then I have trouble sleeping afterwards, so it's kind of counter-productive because of the sleep factor. If I'm not getting enough sleep, that's not good either, but you do what ya gotta do.

AMZ: A lot of what I read emphasized the "putting off adulthood" philosphy associated with the DESCENDENTS. Is going out and being rockers a way to put off adulthood as most people know it? Don't take that the wrong way. I mean look at the Stones - they were around when "I" was a pre-adolescent and they're still hangin' in there, and Ozzy - I couldn't keep up with him if I tried and he's older than me, so it's not anything like that.

MA: Yeah, we have a couple songs about it obviously, and I think what it comes down to for us is that we see what it does for us - especially me because I've been in the outside world and held a regular job. I see what that does for me, and I see what playing music does for me, and it's like night and day. When I'm doing science or whatever, I feel like I'm about ten years older than I really am, but when I go play music I feel like I'm about ten years younger, and it's a very stark contrast. A part of our denial of growing up is just our refusal to give up doing the kind of music we like to do. It's the music that keeps us young.

AMZ: When you write and record an album, or go on tour, are you trying to get out a message or is it just fun?

MA: Well, I think that on any given record, there's not any message for that record. It works more on a song by song basis where each song has a message - but I think that there's more emphasis on the fun aspect of it. Going on tour is a very fun thing.

AMZ: Some musicians are so into "I've got to get this across to people," that their music is overly serious and message oriented. I don't get that impression from listening to your music.

MA: I think it's been strange, because right from the beginning, when we very first started doing this, I've always placed all of my motivations in the kind of cathartic nature of what we do. I will write a song because I have something I have to get off my chest. The song, for me, seems to be the best way for me to do that, and it's been that way since the beginning. It's funny because I have people coming up to me now and saying "Oh this song you wrote, it really speaks to me." Or "I really relate to this song because I've gone through that same kind of stuff." It's weird because that was not my motivation going in - that I'm going to write something that people will relate to or try to "speak to somebody." If you write music about your own personal experiences, and try to get your own frustrations and feelings out, there are always going to be people out there who are going to relate to it. There's not really an emphasis on getting a message out, but rather getting our own frustrations out, and then people can live vicariously through the music.

AMZ: When the music starts running around in your head, do you get the lyrics or the melodies first?

MA: It kind of changes. It comes in all different forms. Sometimes I'll have a completely written lyric and I'll have some melody that somehow plays into the lyric. But there's other times when I have some music that I've written that has a certain melody associated with it, and then I write a lyric over it, so I guess it kinda goes both ways. There's no reason to believe that either way is better. It's whatever works to give you the end product that you like. In recent months, or even within the last year, the songs I've been writing have come from small snatches of lyrics and small phrases that I'm kinda saying to myself. Then some kind of melody just seems to attach itself to that phrase and I start to construct a song from that starting point and build it up from there. A lot of people writing music say "Well it all just came out in one five minute rush." I don't have that happen as much as maybe having a chorus coming out in one small rush, and then constructing a verse to go with it. Whatever way works is what it comes down to.

AMZ: Does the band get together and jam to come up with something or does everybody kind of do their own thing and then bring it in?

MA: For the most part everyone brings in completed songs, especially because my involvement with the band in the recent past has been long distance. I live in Wisconsin and they live in Colorado, so I tend to write complete songs and give them to the band and say "Hey can you do anything with this?" But on this particular record there was a fair amount of collaboration between Bill, the drummer, and Karl, the bass player, where Karl would help Bill finish songs and stuff. There's been a certain amount of that, where different members will help other members finish a song off, and that's worked out good to have that kind of collaberation.

AMZ: Did the U.S. Tour go pretty good?

MA: Yeah it was great. It was a three week tour, and it mainly covered the midwest and the east coast, and all the shows were very well attended and there was just a lot of enthusiasm. We really didn't have an off night in the sense of crowd action and stuff.

AMZ: I see next up is the European tour. You sure have an ambitious schedule there. Isn't that tough on you?

MA: The European tour will be by bus where we can kick back between shows and let somebody else do the driving. During the U.S. tour we drove ourselves, and that was pretty wearing. In Europe we'll leave the night before and just sleep on the bus.

AMZ: What a way to live though!

MA: Well, with a driver you learn to sleep on the bus. You start out doing it and it's like a camping trip, "Oh Boy!" and then after a little while it's not so much fun any more. Obviously playing the shows is fun, but getting from place to place can get to be a bit of a drudgery.

AMZ: Once the European tour is over, are you going to at least think about going back to work for a while?

MA: After the European tour, we're going to do another U.S. tour and potentially we might be going over to Australia as well. We want to take the tour to a lot of different areas. I think what's going to happen is we're going to try and do as much touring as possible before we alternate the bands and they do "ALL" and I go back to my thing. But obviously I've kind of left my job as of now, and when I start back up in science I'll have to figure out a new situation.

AMZ: But when all the touring is done, you're planning to go back to work for a while until the mood strikes again?

MA: Yeah, that's kind of the way I was evisioning it. I have this other life that I lead and I don't necessarily want to give it up to go be a rock star. I like to do both. Unfortunately it's not clear to me whether it's feasible to do both. I know one thing, I can't do both simultaneously.

AMZ: They don't quite fall into the same category, do they?!

MA: No, they're quite a bit different and I have to alternate between the two and that's going to be the challenge for me in the upcoming years - to try and balance the two and how much of each am I going to be able to do and still provide some balance for myself personally.

AMZ:Well, I wish you luck in all your endeavors and it's been a pleasure talking to you!

DESCENDENTS European Tour Schedule

1/14/97 - London, U.K.	1/26/97 - Stockholm, Sweden	2/07/97 - Zurich, Switzerland
1/15/97 - Paris, France	1/27/97 - Malmo, Sweden	2/09/97 - Varesa, Italy
1/16/97 - Strasbourg, France	1/28/97 - Coppenhagen, Denmark	2/10/97 - Biella, Italy
1/17/97 - Groningen, Holland	1/29/97 - Hamburg, Germany	2/11/97 - Bologna, Italy
1/18/97 - Amsterdam, Holland	1/30/97 - Essen, Germany	2/13/97 - Barcelona, Spain
1/19/97 - Eindboven, Holland	1/31/97 - Berlin, Germany	2/14/97 - Madrid, Spain
1/20/97 - Brussels, Belgium	2/02/97 - Munich, Germany	2/15/97 - Bergera, Spain
1/21/97 - Utrecht, Holland	2/03/97 - Frankfurt, Germany	2/16/97 - Toulouse, France
1/23/97 - Oslo, Norway	2/04/97 - Nurnburg, Germany	2/17/97 - Aneers, France
1/24/97 - Vanersborg, Sweden	2/05/97 - Stuttgart, Germany	2/19/97 - Leeds, U.K.
1/25/97 - Linkoping, Sweden	2/06/97 - Vienna, Austria	2/20/97 - London, U.K.

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