Choice To Make

Caleb is one of the nicest dudes I’ve met in the hardcore scene the last years! Besides playing for Choice To Make and Worn, or filling in for One Step Closer, he does the zine Saturday Kids and draws amazingly for tons of, scene or not related, projects. Take a look at the cover of the previous issue of this zine and you get Caleb’s awesome design in all its glory! He has also contributed with a drawing to my streetwear brand Good Vibes; soon to be released on a shirt or long-sleeve, keep an eye on it (@goodvibesonlystrtwr)! I sent those questions by email to Caleb on 30th December and he replied half a day later, on new year’s eve! Play the ‘Vicious Existence’ EP on your Spotify or whatever service you prefer (on your turntable ideally!) and enjoy this in-depth interview!

Pictures by James Scott, Kathy G. & Spencer Chamberlain

www.instagram.com/choicetomake www.instagram.com/saturdaykids_zine www.instagram.com/kalu__one

Hey Caleb! Thanks again for being part of the zine; in the last issue you took care of the amazing cover, in this issue let’s talk about Choice To Make! Who’s in the band? When and where did you form CTM?

Thanks for asking me to take part again! I love the zine and I’m excited for everything you have going on! The current Choice To Make lineup is myself, Nate Preschutti (from Strength for a Reason), TK (from United Youth and Life of Reilly), Ryan Savitski (from One Step Closer), and Tommy Norton (also from One Step Closer). We formed back in the summer of 2018. Nate had mentioned the idea of starting a mid to late 80’s era NYHC style band with some friends before and then finally at a Power Trip show in Philly that May, he came up to me and asked if I would be down to do it, he mentioned Ryan and TK were down so I said sure! Nate and his buddy Adam ( the OG drummer of the band) had a demo worth of music written already so at first, it was the rest of us learning the songs and putting our own little personal inflections on them. We played our first show in August of

2018 in Scranton PA (a city 20 minutes outside of Wilkes Barre). As time went on we started to grow into our style and eventually found a permanent drummer with Tommy (Adam had real life adult stuff to tend to so he couldn’t really keep up with the touring we wanted to do after releasing some music).

You are a relatively new band but you have managed to draw the scene’s attention since day 1 and especially with the release of ‘Vicious existence’ in early 2020. How do you feel about this?

It’s pretty surreal to be honest. Before Choice To Make, I was in a string of HC bands that pretty much flew under the scene’s radar. All of those bands are equally important to me, and without them there would be a lot of learning and earning I’d have yet to do. But, with all that being said, it was incredibly rewarding to finally have joined a band that had some notoriety and respect outside of the Wilkes Barre area. When the demo came out, people were pretty hyped on it which got me excited at first, but the demo was all Nate and Adam’s work (writing and recording) so I looked forward to being able to contribute more. After the demo came out and we played a couple shows, Nate came to us with the two promo songs written, so the lineup at the time (the current lineup except with our brother Jonah on drums) recorded them at Botti’s (singer of Blind Justice) house, and the tape came out thanks to Streets Of Hate. After that, Tommy joined the band, I helped write a compilation song that eventually came out on

the One Scene Unity comp, and then finally the 5 of us got together to write Vicious Existence. VE is the most collaborative work we’ve put out yet. We all had a hand in creating it and honestly, I love that record, so the fact that people fuck with it as much as they do makes me feel insanely proud of what me and the homies have created.

By the way, it seems that nowadays is super easy to spread the word and establish a name without having to release countless records and do hundreds of shows. And I’m pretty sure that with the pandemic we have entered a new phase in the hardcore scene with the online world penetrating the real one. What’s your prediction for the future of hardcore?

Honestly I feel like that’s been a part of the hardcore tradition for a while now haha. It seems like it’s a natural biproduct of the same group of kids starting like a thousand different bands. Kids in the scene hear that 5 kids from all of their favorite bands just started a new thing that sounds like blah blah blah and they’re already sold on the idea hahaha. But, I will

admit that it’s become even more of an anomaly in the world of music in recent years. It seems like now, some bands can blow up in the scene, without the kids in them even having paid their dues (maybe I’m just being a little jealous). In the end, a band can’t survive on hype alone, so I feel like if a band does blow up solely based on internet hype, that band will be a quick burn and people will move onto the next thing just like with every other trend. I’ve been going to hardcore shows for about 10 years now, so the internet has been a big part of the scene as long as I’ve been around, and even before that I know message boards and Myspace were a huge part of people connecting outside of shows and sharing info about shows and new bands and stuff like that. So with all that being said, I don’t think it’s a completely negative thing, but I respect the shit out of the homies that had to call someone’s landline to set up a show or go to an issue of “book your own fuckin’ life” to set up a tour or even had to send a handwritten letter overseas to get an interview from some dude in a band haha. As, for the future of hardcore, I have no fucking clue haha all I know is that it’s a young person’s scene. Kids grow up and either drop out, become irrelevant, or become mentors to the next generation of show goers / band members, then those kids grow up and the vicious cycle goes round and round.

‘Vicious Existence’ was released via Flatspot Records, a label that is well known for releasing the crème de la crème of the last decade’s hardcore bands like Backtrack, Trapped Under Ice, Mizery, etc. I feel that Choice To Make belongs to the second wave of Flatspot’s catalogue along with Hangman, End It, Kharma and the likes. How did the collaboration occur? What’s your top 3 of Flatspot Records releases?

So, after we released the promo tape on Streets of Hate, Ricky from FS hit up Jonah who was our drummer at the time and relayed an offer to put out a 7” for us on the label. We got 2 other offers but Flatspot seemed like the best way to go! It was crazy to think that a label responsible for some of the best HC releases of the past 20 years wanted to put out our music! They were super cool to work with and they repped the shit out of VE which felt great. As far as top 3 releases I’d have to say other than Vicious Existence haha, “Dreams about…” by Rule Them All, “Demo ’08” by Backtrack, and “The Extermination Vol.1 Comp”. I also love the Candy demo, TUI demo, Higher Power LP, Blind Justice LP, anything by Mizery, and the Hands of God LP.

I am always into reading and trying to interpret bands’ lyrics. Which topics do you cover with Choice To Make?

To be honest, that’s more of a Nate question haha, he’s the poet of the band. I can seriously relate to a lot of the stuff he writes about though, and I’m personally a big fan of his lyricism. I’m sure they all have a deeper personal meaning to him, but I portray a lot of the lyrics as an acknowledgment of the unforgiving cycle of life and the lack of time we have on this earth. Especially in the song June, it expresses the idea that life is too short to waste a single moment so take advantage of every experience before it’s too late. Death is a seriously intimidating aspect of our existence, and instead of just playing like it won’t happen to all of us, let’s live every day knowing that the next day isn’t always promised, and that we all have the same fate. Aside from that, Fifty Nine is about 59 priests in Pennsylvania that were convicted of pedophilia a few years back, it had a strong impact on a lot of communities around us and showed how disgusting an abuse of power can really be especially in the realm of religion. Other than that, I would definitely ask Nate for a more in depth explanation of his lyrics, cause he has some really cool, genuine shit to say!

2020 marked the mass return of hardcore bands to politics! Black Lives Matter spark the flame and lots of bands did great things trying to support the movement by raising money or physically supporting the demonstrations. How important are politics for you and the band?

I think politics have always had a part in hardcore music. Although, I think lately it’s been near impossible to ignore the horrible things going on in our country that have just been slowly building up to their current state right under most of our noses. Given the administration of the past 4 years, a lot of ideologies we had all hoped were dead and in the past came back to rear their ugly heads, although horrendous shit has been pretty much happening in America

forever (indigenous decolonization in the United States, oil pipelines poisoning communities water sources throughout the country, the ongoing drug war, and the list goes on and on). In my opinion, the past 4 years have been rough to say the least, but a lot of that shit was always there, it just needed to be smoked out so that it could be in the light enough for us to take another swing at the corruption and out right racism going on in our nation. I’ve always loved the giving spirit the hardcore community has had when it comes to supporting causes we believe in, and if anything all the fucked up stuff going on lately has perpetuated that giving spirit. Hopefully when shows start happening again, we’ll see more benefit gigs and stuff like that. Politics has always been pretty important to me, and it’s definitely a large aspect of the band. Choice to Make was able to raise money throughout the pandemic to support protesters that had been incarcerated as well as a few other causes, and honestly I don’t think that that’s out of character for us at all. Nate’s lyrics definitely take a look at some political and social corruption going in the world around us and none of us are ignorant to what’s happening in our country. Punk has always just been a genuine form of social commentary whether it’s political or personal, a lot like how hip-hop and rap are forms of social commentary just from a different perspective in most cases.

There’s probably something in the water in Pennsylvania and especially in the Wilkes Barre area. So many good bands coming out of there! Give us a small scene report! You also play in Worn and moreover you fill in for One Step Closer!

Yeah, it’s a pretty crazy thing, for such small towns, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton have pumped out so many good bands! It’s probably just a mix of causes between the two town being equidistant to Philly and New York city, along with the communities being very supportive of art and music, and honestly just a new form of local tradition. Our area as had such a rich history in hardcore and alternative music, it’d take hours to go over all of it haha. Currently the scene is definitely on an upswing I’d say our last major peak was back in the early 2010s when this local community run venue Redwood existed. At that time, some of our area’s most important bands were in their prime (Title Fight, Bad Seed, Tigers Jaw, Dead End Path, The Menzingers, Disengage, etc.) and huge bands from all over the country were coming to play this tiny room connected to a strip mall across the street from a trailer park haha. After that venue closed the scene started to hit a decline although it was never completely diminished. Lately though, some notoriety is starting to come back to the NEPA music scene and we once again have a community run venue. I have some sincere hope in our areas in the years to come, I just hope more kids take the initiative to start bands, I don’t give a shit if there are hardcore bands, metal bands, ska bands, or even fucking jazz bands lol I just wanna see some new shit popping off in our area.

You draw amazingly. Is this job paying your bills? Who influenced your drawing and what are your favorite hardcore graphic designers of the last decade? All-time best hardcore cover?

Thanks! That means so much to me! It’s easy to get a little insecure about how people perceive your art when it’s out in the world haha. It definitely doesn’t pay my bills completely but it helps! I would love to get to a point though where it could be my primary source of income. I’ve had a lot of influences over the years, the first time though that I can really remember being blown away by an artist was seeing Jim Phillips artwork on a Santa Cruz board. His work was one of my first glimpses into my own personal taste of art. Before that, my mom and her dad were both artists and got me into drawing and painting, they were major influences at first, but the second I got a look at Jim Phillips work, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. Beyond that, the work of Shawn Kerri and Ray Pettibon really caught my attention (notice a pattern of artists from the So Cal punk and skate scene from the 70s / 80s, haha). I also, loved walking the train tracks by my childhood home when I was younger and even now to look at the graffiti that rolls through our area from all over the country. Hardcore specific artists that are my current favorite though, are definitely Chris Wilson and Peter Maria, I would say a strong majority of album covers and logos coming out of the scene right now are created by one of those two guys and their work is incredible! I also love artists like Shane Moran, JP Flexner, Dan Nelson, Dan Santoro, Chun Guo, John

Slaby, Josh Stephens, Elijah Funk, and Shane Coslett. Graffiti is a big part of my life, as well, and some favorites would be SoCool, BEGR, Pear, Gasm, all of top dogs crew, and a big shout-out to Shit Heads Crew! There’s definitely more but that would be way too long of a list and I didn’t even mention any favorite photographers haha (there’s a lot). Finally, as far as all-time best hardcore cover, I’d have to say… “Bullet E.P.” by The Misfits. The Misfits are definitely not my favorite punk band by far, but if one could say anything about them it’d be that they have their aesthetic down! I remember as a little kid, my sister was friends with all the older punk kids in the neighborhood and the one day when her friend came over wearing a shirt with that album cover on it, I was in awe of it! It’s so bold, graphic, and aesthetically pleasing, all together a legendary piece of hardcore artwork, and looking at it, to this day, still gives me chills in the best way possible.

You have recently started a zine called Saturday’s Kids. Why did you choose this name and what’s your goal with SK? I wrote somewhere else in this zine that I’m super excited that the quarantine regenerated the zine scene. Hardcore zines are blooming right now!

The name comes from this band called The Trouble, they’re a legendary punk band from Boston. I did one zine before I started SK back when I was in high school. After I did that zine, I knew I wanted to do more, but I never had enough free time to make it happen. In the time between making that first zine (around 2013 maybe?) and this past April, I had played around with the idea a bunch, I thought of doing a skateboarding based zine, a photo zine, a zine that was all illustrations, but the only thing that stayed consistent was the thought that Saturday Kids would be a great name for whatever it would end up being haha. This past April I was fresh off of the Turnstile tour in Europe that ended abruptly due to the pandemic, I was out of work indefinitely, and I was bored out of my fucking mind haha so I thought what better time than then to start Saturday Kids. I hit up my newly made friend from that tour Jeff, my buddy Jay (who at the time I was helping out with art for his new project Pillars of Ivory), and hometown hero / artist John Slaby asking if they would be interested in doing interviews for my new zine. They all said yes, and the rest just fell into place. I wasn’t making any money at the time, but I also wasn’t spending any so it just made sense to donate the money to one of the many causes that were in strong need of support at the time. My goals are pretty much to keep growing the zine, and to just not let that shit burnout. I wanna make that zine look as amazing as possible and keep people’s interest! I work really hard on that shit and people have been incredibly supportive, Keeps my mind out of the depressive gutter sometimes too which is nice haha. I think it’s sick that the zine scene has blown up the way it has and I think it’s due to the fact that there’s a shit ton of humans with the same exact story as mine lol. I hope it keeps up even after people go back to touring, and attending / playing shows.

What are the future plans for CTM, Worn and all the projects you are involved in? Will we meet in Europe in 2021?!

Choice To Make is in a very interesting predicament. We released our EP about 2 months before everything shut down, and we didn’t even get to have a fucking record release show haha. So, with that being said, we’re hopefully gonna have that show as it was originally planned, and make up for lost time in the sense of touring and playing shows on that record, and when the time is right hopefully work on an LP but all of that is as certain as the pandemic ending is. Worn just recorded a full length back in October and we’re all currently taking a much needed break from practicing / writing haha, but we’ll be releasing that in the spring on From Within Records and will hopefully tour on that record when shows start happening again. Dude, I seriously hope so.

Thanks for your time! Keep working on great things! Last words are yours!

Thanks for asking for my time haha and same to you! Last words would be… If you haven’t purchased Vicious Existence yet, then what the fuck are you waiting for?! Keep your eyes peeled for the new Worn record “Human Work”, in my totally biased opinion, it kicks ass. Check out Saturday Kids Zine if you haven’t yet and I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve, so FUCK 2020, let’s have nothing but good vibes for the upcoming year.