The Descendents don’t require much of an introduction as they’re simply one of America’s most important punk rock bands. They started in 1978 and over the years have released six albums, toured throughout the world and influenced countless bands. Last year, they began playing shows again and we spoke with singer Milo Aukerman and drummer Bill Stevenson before their recent performance at Riot Fest in Chicago. Milo joined the conversation after a few questions and we talked about their motivations for reuniting, what their shows have been like lately and what they’ve got planned for the future.
Bill – The last time you guys played Chicago was in May of 1997. The show was here at the Congress Theater and Guttermouth and Less Than Jake opened. Do you remember anything unique or significant about that show?
Bill – Well, I remember that show, but I didn’t realize it was in this building. I remember the show because we brought a PA system in and everything.
Bill – What do you recall about the Caffeine Nation tour that year? I remember you guys did a lot of touring in support of Everything Sucks.
Bill – We did a lot of shows around that album, but I don’t know what constitutes a lot of shows now. It seems like bands are just living on tour now because it’s the only way you can survive. You don’t get any record company money or royalties to speak of.
Bill – That’s true. Last month you played Riot Fest East in Philadelphia. What did you enjoy most about that?
Bill – It was really good. It was tough because the New York show the night before at Roseland, I think that was the best show we’ve ever had in our lives. It may be the best show I can ever remember in my life. It was that gnarly. Philly the night after was awesome, but when you play like the best show you’ve ever had in your life, then the next few weeks of shows can’t be as good.
Bill – What made the New York show so special?
Bill – I don’t know. I mean, it’s intangible. It’s perplexing intangibilities. That’s the thing, you can’t quantify what happens because it’s four dudes. It’s not one dude. You can quantify your own performance, but you can’t quantify what happens onstage. When it’s done you go, “I dug it!”, but you don’t even know why really. It just happens.
Bill – Got it. What are you looking forward to in regards to playing Riot Fest tonight?
Bill – I’m looking forward to having fun. It’s pretty simple. We don’t have too big of an agenda, other than to just enjoy the music and to really enjoy the fact that there’s going to be over 4,000 people in there that appreciate the work we put into our songs, our lyrics, our playing and all that. We’re going to celebrate that with them.
Bill – What were some of the factors that led to you guys reuniting last year?
Bill – It kind of happened for a few different reasons. On the one hand, it’s a point in our lives collectively where we’ve kind of managed to secure a little bit of freedom for ourselves from such things as day jobs, families, kids, mortgages and those sorts of things. We were able to secure a little bit of free time so we could sneak out and do some shows. We were a little bit huddled-up last year. I think people were kind of calling each other because I almost died. I was very, very ill. We were all kind of at each other’s attention and then we got these show offers and we were like, “Yeah, let’s do them.”
Milo – Part of it was that Bill had a huge tumor in his head, which caused him to gain a whole bunch of weight. He had a pulmonary embolism, diabetes, gout and sleep apnea. The whole list went on and on. They took out the tumor and he called me two days later and was like, “Hey! What’s up?” That alone, I think the whole band was just so relieved. There was this huge elation having Bill back. To kind of move forward from that, the momentum kind of carried over, like “Fuck! Now let’s play some shows!” Without even really thinking about the ramifications it was like, “Let’s go do this!” It was really all because of Bill’s health and the sheer enthusiasm of the whole moment.
Bill – That’s amazing. Since reuniting, you guys have played shows in Australia, Belgium and England. What do you like best about playing overseas?
Milo – We went to the Jenever Museum in Belgium right when we landed basically and that was a fun thing to do. Jenever is this berry flavored, really strong kind of liquor that they have over there. Usually when we’re in Europe we don’t have a lot of time to see the sights, but that was one thing we got to do. It’s always fun to go to England. Last time we were there we had some days off and we tooled around down along the River Thames. We were also playing the Reading and Leeds Festivals there, so it was cool checking out all the bands.
Bill – It seems like the further from home you play there’s this kind of exotic, not to use the word “foreign” redundantly, but there’s this unknown quantity to what the audience is going to be like and things like that. I know that everybody’s sort of more homogenized in a way now because of the internet and television. More and more places are becoming westernized. What I’m getting at is I’d really like to play somewhere like India, Africa or China. I’d like to look into that. I think it would be cool to play somewhere where you literally didn’t know anything about it. To me that would be exciting.
Bill – Absolutely. What are some of your favorite Descendents songs to play live?
Bill – I like them all. When we’re making the setlist we’ve got this master list of like 40 songs to choose from and it’s hard every night to narrow that down to say 25. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of quality control. A lot of them are just cool.
Milo – Plus some nights some of them really gel and then other nights it’s different songs that gel. I’ve been enjoying playing “All-O-Gistics” because I have this scroll or tablet that I get to go out there with and it’s kind of fun. His kids have been onstage with me, saying the commandments.
Bill – I got fed up with religion, like my church kicked me out when I was in high school because I was in a punk rock band, so I just decided it would be better to make my own religion. That’s kind of what “All-O-Gistics” is about.
Milo – I like playing “Everything Sux.” That’s always fun to play. I actually like playing the songs we did off of Cool to Be You. We actually get a decent response from those, which I was surprised by with it being our most recent record.
Bill – I like “Weinerschnitzel” because no one has ever or will ever write a song like “Weinerschnitzel.” It’s an entity unto itself, (laughs).
Bill – A lot of today’s bigger punk bands, from Blink 182 to Rise Against, cite you guys as a major influence. How does that kind of recognition make you feel?
Bill – It’s just all part of a musical continuum. We took our influences from The Kinks and this band The Last that went to our high school in L.A. The Germs, Black Flag and X were influential. The Stones and Sabbath, The Ramones and The Beatles were big ones too. For us to take some of their elements, deconstruct them and reassemble them into our own formula, and then put out records and have other bands hear those and get influenced by that. Maybe they put that together with some other influences they have and made something new. I see it as kind of like a river where the water keeps flowing.
Milo – It’s definitely most gratifying when you hear about a band that’s done exactly that. Not necessarily a group that copies someone else, but a band that takes elements from different places and then makes their own thing. That to me is what it’s all about and that’s kind of what we did. That’s how rock ‘n’ roll survives basically.
Bill – This question is for Bill specifically, but over the years you’ve become more and more active as a record producer. In what ways is the gratification you get from recording music different than the excitement of playing in a band?
Bill – It’s a nice balance. I reckon, if I had my druthers, I’d spend a third of my free time doing shows, a third of it producing records and another third of it actually writing songs. I like the balance. When I go years and years with only producing records, I get pent up because I feel like I’m fucking but using someone else’s dick to do it with. With playing shows, it’s my dick that I’m using, (laughs). At the same time, just beating the drums mercilessly night after night, driving all night, drinking too much coffee, eating too many donuts and not getting any sleep, that’s no good either. I like all of those elements in my life and when they can be put into a nice balance that makes harmony for me.
Bill – That makes sense. Given that you’ve been making music for over 30 years, what’s the proudest moment of your career?
Bill – I’m going to just throw this out. My sister bought my son a drum set five years ago and he never touched it, ever. Three to four years ago I got really ill and I didn’t play any shows for a while. My son got the drum set when he was five and he’s ten now. We played L.A. three or four weeks ago and my whole family came out and saw us. At age ten he saw me play and we came home from L.A., we got off the plane and he went right in his room and started playing the drum set. I’ve never tried to make him play the drums, they’re just there for him and he’s never touched it, ever, but as soon as we got home that night he sat down and started playing. He goes, “Daddy, can you show me something?” I was like, “Yes!”
Milo – I guess the same thing with my kids. Bringing them up onstage with me is always special. They get to experience what I’m experiencing, which is kind of exciting. They obviously have a certain affinity for music and that’s kind of a proud moment for me.
Bill – For those of us that don’t know how to draw or paint, music is our way of being creative. I can’t even draw a stick figure. I record my daughter singing a lot. She’s 13, so she just started a couple years ago. It seems like ten is the age for my kids. That’s been really fun too because that’s such a solid type of bonding for she and I, to go in the studio and record together. I think it’s made us closer because we really have something. We get in there and work on it. I’ll be like, “Hey man, you were flat on that bridge, let’s go again.” It’s really, really cool.
Milo – Going back to, obviously we’re kind of lacking memory, but I remember being really proud when I wrote my first song. The whole point of why we do this is to create and to get whatever is inside of ourselves out. I remember writing my first song and being amazed that not only could I do it, but also that it was really fun.
Bill – Our other band ALL played last night at a small club that holds about 500 people. We played a particular song that I had written about a particularly rough time in my life where I was mistreated by someone very, very severely. I wrote these lyrics pretty honestly and in an un-shrouded manner. When we were playing it last night, I could see quite a bunch of people were getting really affected by the song. It made me remember what had happened and I got affected by it too. I remember just thinking, “Whoa, Bill. You wrote a pretty powerful song if you’ve got this many people feeling shitty right now.”
Milo – Congratulations. You just ruined their day, (laughs). What song was that?
Bill – It was the song “Scary Sad.”
Milo – Oh yeah, sure.
Bill – I’m guessing you guys get this question a lot, but have you discussed the possibility of recording any new material?
Bill – You know, the only time we talk about it is during interviews. I feel like there seems to be some gravity in that direction or some momentum in that direction, but we don’t have any formal plans to do it yet. It’s a nice idea.
Milo – I think it would be a no-brainer if I wasn’t having a career elsewhere and Bill wasn’t producing five million bands next year and playing in Only Crime and…
(At this point Bill Stevenson interjects with a particularly loud fart…)
Milo – And farting. Farting takes a lot of effort and concentration, (laughs). That was his creativity for probably the next year. How can you afford to be any more creative than that? We’ve all got so many different things going on, juggling so many different balls, that we would have to set a lot of that aside. That’s really the only thing holding us back. I think part of the motivation behind being together is obviously because we’re friends, but we’re also creative entities with each other. For sure someday, it’s a natural progression. We just have to kind of make the time for it.
