Flipside: So why the reformation of the BATS?
George: I got bored with all the stuff that I had been hearing, so I decided I would run an ad in the newspaper, "BATTALION OF SAINTS A.D. looking for a guitarist and a drummer." And then Curtis from Taang! called me up two weeks later, "George Anthony! George Anthony! From the Battalion of Saints!? I said yes, thinking he was a bill collector or something. And Curtis goes, "I have been looking for you for two years and I want to put out all of your old stuff." I said okay. I went over and talked to Curtis and worked everything out, but in the meantime, Terry Bones called me and told me to come out to Chicago. But I told him that had just gotten all the old stuff signed and he said he'll come out there. So we started doing this big phone band thing for ages. Terry was touring with the U.K. Subs and so we met here and recorded two songs.
Flipside: Did that come as a surprise when Curtis called you up?
George: Oh yeah, completely. I thought I would do some shows and have a big laugh at it. I wanted to take it some place but I didn't think it would be an overnight thing where he would go "Okay, here you go..." And then Terry, who had been a friend for years, who I hadn't seen in 10 years and just heard about what he'd been doing, called me, and that was another suprrise.
Flipside: So you got a phone call from Curtis and a phone call from Terry?
George: Yeah. I had talked to some friends and they said that Terry was in town and had been asking about me. And then our friend Captain Scarlet was slow in giving him my number, but he eventually did.
Flipside: So what else have you been doing for the last few years? What has your mindset been about the newer music coming out?
George: After the BATS broke up I moved to D.C. for a couple of years bumbling around trying to get bands together. I was just kind of afraid cuz I had a bit of a problem at the time. Then I came back to San Diego. It was weird because when I was in D.C., no one wanted to be in a band with me because they were afraid they were gonna die if they did.
Flipside: You had some kind of jinx?
George: Jinx, drug habit, and I didn't care. It was kinda like people said - keep away.
Flipside: So you had this reputation?
George: Yeah, basically I am just a nice guy though. So then I moved to England for a few years, then came back here, got married, and quit doing drugs. I just drink a bit, and I don't drink excessively. I just want to write a bunch of new music and tour, tour, tour! Originally, Curtis thought it would be just the old stuff. I told him that I had this band coming out, and we're going into the studio and record. So we recorded "Hell's Around the Next Corner" and "Thru With You."
Flipside: Is there a story behind the recording?
Gregor: We made it up in the studio.
George: Yeah, they made up the music part in the studio, and I wrote the lyrics and and later added the vocals, and mixed and mastered it. Then Curtis and I went in and did all the other shit and made the single. It sold out of it's first pressing before anyone had even heard it.
Tezz: So that was a good sign.
George: So we were excited and ready to go make a lot of noise!
Flipside: Terry - what have you been doing, and how did you decide to hook up with George? Also, can you give me a brief synopsis from the beginning?
Tezz: In 1978 I formed Discharge with my twin brother. We didn't get signed until '81. We had 3 singles, and a 12 inch for which I didn't get credit for. Then my brother and I fell out, as you do with family. I split from Discharge, and learned how to play the guitar and have more control over the music. So then later my brother left Discharge and I picked up the bass guitar and he played lead guitar and we formed Broken Bones. The name came from a popular magazine called "Sounds" 'cause my brother had left Discharge and they said that it was "broken bones." Since then my brother has been knicknamed "Bones." The I got picked up by the U.K. Subs (one of my all time favorite bands) just after Nicky Garrett left. Captain Scarlet joined playing guitar and I joined playing bass in 1983. Within a year I was playing guitar. Then I went back to Broken Bones after 3 years. I planned that I was going to move to the states anyways. So there was a forthcoming tour in the states and I wanted to rejoin the band to get over here. So I ended up in Chicago because of meeting a lady friend I particularly liked that lived there. Then I got picked up by Ministry which helped me a great deal financially and amongst the music community. So I was embraced, so to speak, by all the drug dealer scum bags that were associated with Ministry.
Flipside: Do you think that it was because of Discharge and that musical influence on the "musical community?"
Tezz: With Al? Al came right out and said I heard a lot of good things about you and I want you in the band. I was auditioning for Naked Raygun at the time and I didn't know too much about Ministry other than what people told me. I was in Ministry on and off for 3 years. The last thing I did was I got asked to jump into the middle of the Lallapalooza Tour, which was really good. Then I came back to Chicago and Charlie Harper asked me to join the U.K. Subs again and that's when I got Gregor to play bass who was a cousin of my girlfriend. Before that I was speaking to George because I had already been to England and my brothers quit the music now and fortunately he picked me up from the airport and he had a tape with the BATS on it. And that's what inspired me to get in touch with George. So I got in touch with Captain Scarlet because I knew that George was in England with Scarlet. So I got in touch with him and I didn't want to blatantly come out and say I want to start a band with George, and reform the Battalion of Saints. So I was discrete about all of that and I called George and asked him if he would fancy putting the band back together. I told Gregor and he was up for it. The drummer was Mathew McCoy, who was the drummer for the UK Subs also. So when we were all touring with the UK Subs, we stopped in San Diego and recorded and killed two birds with one stone. We were in the studio for 4 hours. We got in at noon from L.A. and George was freaking out.
Gregor: We had gotten a little carried away the night before playing in L.A. Originally we were gonna drive from L.A. after we played so we could get here at 5AM and sleep til 10AM and go into the studio. We all got a little excited in L.A. and ended up waking up in the morning at the time we were suposed to be in the studio. So we called up George and we rushed down to San Diego and got the studio set up and recorded the two songs.
George: Without the vocals, because we didn't have the time.
Tezz: We all had to assess where the vocals were going to go. So prior to the vocals we had to allow a certain amount of time for the vocals to come in. Well we got to give him four bars to come in here and prior to that you have to structure it so you can have the changes. You can't get away with that these days because the kids want more. So we put a little tricky bit in and then we go into 8 bars of a guitar solo which the kids can...
Flipside: Yeah, but does that make you happy?
Tezz: Yeah, we are satisfied with what came out of it.
Gregor: I think for 4 hours of work it is briliant. Completely off the wall.
George: I wish those guys would have been here when I laid down the vocal tracks. After that I went in and had a quick lager and mixed it with Jeff Forrest and it was done.
Gregor: In a way it is almost better when you don't have all the time in the world cuz then you can't be as picky and it doesn't take 10 months for the release.
George: It has that balls sound to it. Really raw. Whereas, if you take your time - which I hate doing - cuz I hate being in the studio. It's like being in a goldfish bowl. So I try to get it done as fast as possible.
Flipside: So for you it's all about playin' live?
George: Yeah. It's the rawest form of energy.
Gregor: There's an energy that you can't capture in the studio.
George: The first time we got to play were those five songs the other night with Agent Orange and Buck O Nine and that was a lot of fun.
Tezz: Prior to that we did one song with the Subs at the SOMA gig. Then when it comes time for us to come out here and get the ball rolling the guy that I believed in that I thought wanted to do this as much as me quit on us. That was Matthew McCoy.
Flipside: And why did he quit?
Tezz: He just didn't have it. He lost it. He's English and he moved over here and lives in Wisconsin.
George: If it wouldn't have taken as long as it did. Granted you can't do things overnight in the music business. It's like pulling teeth. "My machine will do your machine and we'll do lunch." It sucks. I tried to tell Matthew to come out here, and I was only three months off in my time frame. But he couldn't wait.
Tezz: I tried two other guys before that. But there is no money in the tours. We are doing it to promote the "Death R Us" CD and the Battalion of Saints.
Gregor: Right now, we are more or less the support band for Total Chaos. We are just coming out here like a steam roller and repaving the road. Like "Here we are, get ready!" And if you're in our way, you're gonna get flattened.
Tezz: Fortunately, Darrin jumped in from Wisconsin. He's got another band there. He was the last person I called and he's here doing it.
Flipside: The next question...?
Tezz: Sex? Yes, please.
Flipside: A lot of older bands are doing what you are doing and some fans are skeptical about a band coming out again and rehashing the old stuff and then saying "What's worse than seeing a 30-some year old guy on stage doing this "punk rock" thing?
George: What's worse than seeing a bunch of kids picking their asses? Standing around looking like they rock, but they just stand around. We are like "what do you wanna do?" The reason the BATS dropped out originally was because we did a 9 month tour and we had a contract with Enigma and a whole album's worth of music ready to go. We came back and our guitar player wanted to knob my girlfriend who had financed the whole tour. He had called her from the road and told her about all these girls I was nabbing, and that wasn't what I was there on the road for. You know, laying pipe all over the country was not what it was about. It was about playing music. So we took a break and met again to patch things up and the guitar player said he was moving to New Jersey and getting married. So everything was cut short when I still had a lot of music that I wanted to do. I moved to D.C. and the bands were afraid of me and the stuff I got to do was not what I really wanted to do. So I think this is what I like to do. Terry likes to do it, performing, making records, having a really good time.
Gregor: I think that one other thing that sets the Battalion of Saints apart from some of the bands people mention is that they are bands that were around in the beginning and put out good music. And as the feel of mainstream music changed, they tried to adapt to that. Music started getting heavier, and they tried to adapt to fit in. The loyal fans that they had were like "This is bullocks and this band can go dry up for all I care."
Flipside: And most of them did.
Gregor: Yeah, and now the kids want to hear what the bands were originally playing in the first place. The bands were trying to turn back to that and the fans that knew the bands can see the bands as trying to make money. Whereas, the Battalion of Saints have always had the same reputation for quality, in your face kind of stuff.
George: The thing is to play - that is the most important thing. What I sing about is what I believe in. It's not like I just pick out a subject and go hey hey! It's not like "I'm pissed off at the army...Chink-a-chink-a-chink..." (all laugh). What I am doing now is what is on my mind and I have a good time doing it. We just want to have fun. Terry and I will just sit there and tell stories all night... It's all about having fun.
Flipside: Do you look forward to your tour with Total Chaos?
George: Hell yeah!
Flipside: Do you like what a band like Total Chaos is doing?
Gregor: I like their music. We were talking about this the other day. We try not to listen to a lot of hardcore punk rock, because that's the stuff we do ourselves. We are just better off listening to something else.
Flipside: What else do you listen to?
Gregor: I listen to a lot of things.
George: Gregor is a classical guitar player as well.
Gregor: I like classical music. Particularly string quartet.
George: All my albums got stolen and I haven't even bothered to try and redo it. That was a different time frame and I'm not trying to relive that. We all like Motorhead, though.
Flipside: What about other bands like Rancid... bands like that were once kiddy fans that listened to the BATS, Discharge, U.K. Subs, etc...?
George: I like it. It sounds good. It's well produced. It gets the kids going. If it weren't for bands like that, no one would give a shit about punk rock anymore. Bands like Green Day came out and gave it that edge again.
Gregor: I like it all.
George: I would never knock it. It's really funny, Terry and I were trying to get this tour set up and we called up Lars from Rancid. We talked to him and at the end of the phone conversation, we asked if we could do some shows with Rancid and he said he would love to. Then Lars said to me, "I just want to tell you that it is an honor that you called me." I was totally flattered. I was floored by it. I couldn't believe it.
Gregor: That's another thing. I think you made a good point. It is at the point in time now that all the kids that were listening to punk rock in the early 80's are the ones that are making the music now, and I think that's why punk is coming around again.
George: The most important thing is that it is fun. Once it becomes herbal and shitty it's not any fun anymore. The kids have to have something to do. When there is nothing to do, that's when there is serious trouble. Music is the best thing for them to do. As long as it makes you feel good. You just want it to be an in your face, raw sound where you're feeling like you're getting torn apart by the music.
Tezz: I prefer the Jack Shack.
Flipside: So how is Taang as your new label?
George: Brilliant!
Gregor: Ian (Silverman) is the man!
George: It wouldn't have been made possible without Curtis.
Tezz: I got a whole box of Jack Shack tokens.
Flipside: So what else is in your future?
George: We'd like to do an album of all new stuff. Do it in three weeks and do another tour. Tour the U.S., Boston, go to Europe and beat the hell out of them!
Flipside: Any bands out there right now that you'd like to tour with?
Tezz: I am looking forward to my friends in G.B.H. touring in the states. We would be sure to tour with them.
Gregor: We would like to do a week or so with Rancid. Cuz that was originally part of the plan.
George: 'Cause they said they wanted to do a week with us. Then Stormy Shepherd called up Mike Kelly and said why don't you do this. And I said all right. So basically the next couple of years we see the BATS touring.
Flipside: So you see a next couple of years?
George: Oh, yeah! I've got way more energy in me than I'd like to admit.
Flipside: So what are you going to do about a drummer?
George: We got Slayer Hippie from Poison Idea and he's gonna get here July 4th and we're gonna start recording our new album and go out about three weeks later.
Flipside: How did all this come about?
George: Terry talked about it for a while, saying we got this got this guy who is a really great drummer. So we asked Curtis to get a hold of him. Actually, I asked Joe from Total Chaos cuz they have worked with each other. And all of the sudden Slayer Hippie calls me this morning! So we talked for a long time.
Flipside: Where is everyone going to live? Tezz and Gregor are from Chicago, Slayer Hippie is from Portland?
George: We are trying to sort things out. I say San Diego, maybe I'm a prick. But the label is here and I think it would be beneficial all around. It's a beautiful city. I'm not ready to move to Chicago. Maybe Oregon later. I like being here where tha label is at. The studio is out in Santee. Terry has about 6 songs, Slayer Hippie says he's got 4.
Flipside: Everyone wants to keep the name Battalion of Saints?
George: Yeah, that's what I came up with. The original logo came from a religious comic book titled "Signs to Avoid." It had pentagrams and other symbols like that in it. "Mad" Mark Rude, our artist at the time, had changed it, and now I have changed it back. Mark is a brilliant artist...
