“The biggest inspiration on Bronx V was almost like revenge, you know,” says Bronx vocalist Matt Caughthran, of ability to retain the intensity on which the post-hardcore punk rockers have built their name.

Bronx V/Bronx five/BRVNX, or whatever you decide to call the eight studio album by the Los Angeles heavyweights (five as the Bronx and three as alter ego, El Bronx), has generated a continuously positive stream of reviews since its release late last year. “There was a lot going on amongst the band, but not in a bad way. It’s a lot of work maintaining a living as a musician, it’s not like The Bronx has sold a million records. There are certain things that transpire and happen and you have to kind of get into this ideology of like, ‘it’s us against the world’ type of thing. That’s where Bronx V got its edge. It was like, ‘ok, it’s us against the world and we wanna prove to ourselves and everyone else that we’re still doing things that matter and that we still care. We are still going to get through all this crazy arse bullshit that we’ve been going through and we’re gonna make a great record.’ So it was that kinda thing that bonded everybody and brought everyone together. Every record is different; this one was kinda like the middle finger in a lot of ways.”

Returning to Australia for the third time in twelve months, Californian punk rockers The Bronx, who are revered the world over for their ability to reign havoc with their fierce live shows, are touring the new album in October.

“(The songs on Bronx V) rip dude! People are going off, people are losing their minds… heads are exploding! People have now witnessed the power and the glory of The Bronx live and people don’t know what to do, you know, it’s too much for ‘em!” says the Californian frontman of the reactions to new material by the fans as we speak about the upcoming tour, “It’s cool, man! It’s rad as a band to be able to play songs from five different records and just have them all flow together and it’s cool because I think that each record is very different but it’s not like one is jazz and one is folk music, it’s not like it’s that different. They are different records but when we play them live, everything just has such a great flow to it. It’s really cool to experience that after going into the trenches with old records, you put so much into ‘em, and to be able to pull from all of them live is a great thing. And, we play the new songs live and they rip man. People dig ‘em, so it’s a good time.”

A constant stream of positivity pours out of Matt with everything he says. As we begin the interview Matt boasts about being in his home state, “I’m just chillin’ man. It’s summertime… It’s California… the beach… it’s perfect out right now so I can’t complain.” Matt raves about the Full Circle tour supporting Pennywise, “It was great man, I mean, its Pennywise! Pennywise is awesome! They’re good friends of ours and the shows were killer.”

“It was cool man, it was dope,” Continues the positive vocalist in reference to the set at Splendour in the Grass. “It felt great to play another Australian festival, a huge classic one such as splendour; it was a pretty massive undertaking. We had a lot of fun. It was really cool to play. Really cool to see some friends. It felt good to add another notch to our Australian championship belt you know, it’s like now we’ve done Big Day Out, we’ve done Soundwave, we’ve done Meredith, we’ve done Groove in the Moo, I think we have pretty much done them all and now we’ve done Splendour. It feels good man. It was awesome but it was too short! So we wanted to come back and do a proper club tour, do some bigger rooms in the main cities and do some regional stuff and just kinda come through like a hurricane and kick a lot of arse, well that’s what we’re aiming to do”

While we are fresh on the topic of their incredible live shows, we speak about writing songs with stage presence in mind, “you know, it’s funny, I was thinking about this the other day. I was curious about myself and I was going to ask some good friends of mine that are also in this famed music business. We don’t, we never really did and we’ve never really thought about it because when we’re in the studio writing, it’s all about what sounds cool. It’s completely about the song. There has never been a moment of like ‘hey let’s make this part twice as long because when we play this festival next year we wanna have people’s hands in the air and have ‘em clap to this part and dah, dah, dah.’ We’ve never done that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, with thinking that way so that was my question: Almost, is that a better way to do it? A better way to think of it sometimes? Are you supposed to think of things that way, you know? It’s so easy to get lost within the recording process, I mean you’re in the zone like, sonically, lyrically, like there is so much going on. But I know there are bands that do that, that literally write an entire riff that way, like ‘no let’s not do that part because it doesn’t make sense live,’ but then there is the flip side to that where bands fucking make the most insane record of all time then they have no clue how to pull it off live. Like two hundred guitars on it and all these samples on it and all this stuff, and you see it live and you’re like ‘what the fuck is this!’ you know? So you got to be careful not to go too far in the opposite direction.”

This is a band that has had just as much success when they reinvented themselves as a full-blown traditional Mariachi band, Mariachi El Bronx, who has toured the world in support of themselves, have cut a split record with themselves, and achieved recognition beyond any one genre the world over. El Bronx themselves have toured with the likes of the Foo Fighters not to mention appearances all over TV.

“They all leave their make in one way or another,” Matt says when we talk about the people that have helped shape the music, “Gilby (Clark of Guns n’ Roses) was… we needed that rock and roll swagger on the first record and Gilby brought it. He was the guy that kind like helped us step up a little bit and that was super amazing. On the second one, with (Warren) Beinhorn it made us better musicians, like, I basically learned how to sing on the second record. The third record with (David) Schiffman, was way more of like an independent ‘let’s get self-sufficient, let’s get raw’ type of attitude. Bronx four with Beau (Burchell) was about the comfort zone. Going back to the guy who started it all; Burchell did the first six songs we ever recorded. It was in our own studio and that was just about making a record that felt good and felt comfortable because we needed to be grounded at that point. It was kind of like coming home and seeing the family after being out, doing god knows what, for a decade! With Bronx five it was time to make a record that sounded like how we felt, that sounded nasty, that sounded angry, that sounded distorted, that sounded just… raw! And that’s where we wanted to go with Bronx V. Every record is different, I don’t know where we are going to go for Bronx six… well see what happens? But it was cool man, working with so many people and (Rob) Schnapf especially, on the last record, he did such a great job. He knew exactly what we wanted to do. He was there to get the sounds that we needed. You never go into a record with too much of a plan because it never works out that way, you have to be such an open space for these things to happen creatively. But you can have certain things that you want to accomplish. We wanted to be really really nasty, we wanted to sound bad arse like a Bronx record hadn’t sounded before and that’s what we went after.”

“Heart Attack American still feels the exact same to me as when we first wrote it. It doesn’t feel any softer. It doesn’t feel like we are just going through the motions or anything like that. We are still very very attached to the first record just as much as we’re attached to anything we’ve written,” Matt assures me that the fifteen years of solid world tours haven’t changed or diminished the songs or his passion from them, “you know, they still feel exactly the same and it still hits me in exactly the same way. It still feels great singing those lyrics and I’m sure it will until it’s all done. That’s all we want. Like, you see people that hate playing, and these songs we’ve played a zillion times but it’s all good. It’s a fucking song, it could be way worse, so I don’t trip on that stuff, I actively try and keep myself in a position where the things we do creatively and the thing that the Bronx is always something that is going to come from a spot of love. And, you know, still feels the same, everything still has the same amount of anger and rage and passion as it did in 2002!”

Pumping out eleven shows in just under two weeks, many of which are not capital cities, Caughthran explains the awesome venue choices, “I think that’s just a product of being a band for a long time, you know, going over to Australia as many times as we do. We wanna try to do things a little different. It’s not necessarily a pro and cons thing about bigger rooms or smaller rooms, it was just something that we haven’t really done before. We wanted to play some regional stuff and play some small rooms and just do something a little different. Just hit the coast you know, and do it like you would in the states in a van or something like that, and just have a lot of fun. So that’s the aim, to just do some small awesome fun regional stuff, do some bigger stuff in the cities and top it all off with a crazy Halloween show. Well, that was the goal and I think it’s going to be a good time.”

The Bronx is pumped to be returning to Australia, ready to dominate venues across the board and Australia is ready for the Bronx and all the chaos that comes with. As the interview is wrapping up, I assure Matt that the fans are pumped, his response “Right on brother…”

TOUR DATES

THURSDAY 18 OCTOBER | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER | COOLANGATTA HOTEL, GOLD COAST

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER | THE NORTHERN, BYRON BAY

TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER | CAMBRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE

WEDNESDAY 24 OCTOBER | MOLO LIVE @ ANU, CANBERRA

THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER | METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY

FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER | CAPITOL, PERTH

SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER | THE GOV, ADELAIDE

MONDAY 29 OCTOBER: | KAROVA LOUNGE, BALLARAT

TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER | BARWON CLUB, GEELONG

WEDNESDAY 31 OCTOBER | CROXTON BANDROOM, MELBOURNE

From: http://www.destroyalllines.com

