NIGHT BIRD BRIAN GORSEGNER /NO HOLDING BACK
WITHIN PUNK ZINE INTERVIEW WITH
BRIAN GORSEGNER @THE OLD LAUREL
OCTOBER 23 ,2015 COURTESY OF
MELANIE KAYE PR
BRIAN / PHOTO J.B
J.B: Hey, it’s Within caught up with Brian Gorsegner vocalist of the ever so amazing NIGHT BIRDS! How’s it going my friend? BRIAN: It’s going good, exhausting but good! It’s the end of a very long day! J.B: And what a day it is but hey! NIGHT BIRDS it’s got to have a nocturnal meaning right? BRIAN: NO! Quite the opposite (Laughing) I don’t party, I’m a day bird. J.B: Well that’s strange because on Mutiny at Muscle Beach you have the late night channel surfing? BRIAN: I wish it was like that! In a way that would make sense but I wanted something at the beginning of the record that you could instantly hear and recognize as an album. There’s just certain things you hear right away on an album and you’re like, ‘I know which album this is’ within the first two seconds. I was like, I don’t want to open with drums and guitar, I wanted to open it with something cool so we already had little sound clips in the middle of the album. I was like, let’s open it with a TV turning on and then off to kind of tie it all together. And we have that song “Agents of the TV” on there so, we like TV! J.B: Late night TV is the best programming anyway it’s either something weird ass on the shopping network or it’s some kind of weird shit! BRIAN: YA! Like some super religious crazy people shit and giving them money and “Halleluiah” and all that shit! J.B: Hey like Jim and Tammy Faye “Send your Pennies to Jesus”! J.B: So your lyrical content is mostly about Wrestling, Suburbia, Choices, and Horror movies and hard times. What gives you the inspiration on writing? BRIAN: I don’t know pretty much those things, they are inspirational on their own with their own merit. Something like Mick Foley - a guy who completely annihilated himself for the love of his craft. You know he just didn’t care and he just did it because he loved it, and he got out there and just did it and he destroyed himself for the enjoyment of others and he did for that and not for waking up tomorrow and going “Ah I’m going to feel this” he didn’t give a shit it was just fun. And he just ruined himself for other people’s enjoyment and I don’t know I think that’s just fucking beautiful.
“ At the end of the day we are a punk rock band and that’s where it all started”
J.B: So you really wanna say that “Mankind” was the best wrestler? Cause “If you don’t like it you better learn to love it Whew ” (J.B doing his Rick Flair) Emmmmm YAAAAAAAA! BRIAN: (Laughing) what was the question there? I heard the end part was there a question in there? (Laughing) J.B: THE MACHO WANTS TO KNOW EMMM YA! (Laughing) Ya old school
JOE / PHOTO J.B
wrestlers you know Jimmy S BRIAN: I have to admit I’m t just not too familiar with the era. Pre racist banter but it k J.B: And also on lyrical conte neighbour’s house was exact BRIAN: That’s fucked up tho Scared Stupid” and I’m man to go” and my friends still bu the toilet at that kid - well at time and I saw that at my gra time and just kind of keep lo lins with the toilet scene I ca J.B: No “Ghoulies” All about BRIAN: Fuck your right! J.B: Big Horror fan! So comin Mutiny on Muscle Beach you some elements of surf still in BRIAN: Ah at the end of the and some of the stuff that yo like “Boom! Boom! Boom!” know it makes you want to g know. From top to bottom y and its fucking punk rock bu carries a tune and D.I and lik means so many things but at
“Like some super religious crazy people luiah” and all that shit! “
bands like “The Dictators” and would just write a good tune and that’s all we are J.B: So do you think the new formula is working out? You guys had that surf thin and then “Born to Die In Suburbia” and had the beginnings of that hardcore earl your face here we go! BRIAN: You know I can’t even pinpoint where we changed we had a very similar that’s what brings the four of us together. We love that early eighties sound and w stuff and Joe is into Jazz and stuff and you can see it when he plays bass. And we - where is the interest in that? And every now and then something will come out will be like well you know you guys just sound like “The Dead Kennedys” and stu
Snooka, Koko B Ware, and Iron Sheik? the worst the only NIGHT BIRD not into wrestling - a huge Mick Foley fan e wrestlers. Like I watched it in the mid-eighties like Ultimate Warrior, Hogan kind of ended there with like my thumb fingers. ent - Horror movies? For me it was Amityville Horror at age seven because my tly like it and I used to go out the back door all the time to avoid it. ose are really scary movies though I had to ask my dad to leave during “Earnest enough to say that but we went to see it and I was like “This is too Scary I want ust my chops about that. And that movie Critters where that thing jumps out of least I think it was “Critters”. And that scared the shit out of me for the longest andmother’s house and I couldn’t sit on the shitter I had to sort of hover all the ooking back. So yeah all fucked up from “Critters”. Fuck was it Critters or Greman’t remember? t Johnathon’s House Warming parties till it goes all wrong!
ng back with Suburbia and you have that West Coast Hardcore sound, then on u have a mixture of old school Adolescents with some Street punk sound with n there. What was the influence coming into this album? e day we like all stuff you know some melodies and aggressive music and stuff ou were talking about like Naked Raygun it was fast and it was hard and it was but it could carry a tune stuff like “The Damned” and Machine Gun Edict you go out and throw garbage cans but it also makes you carry it’s so musical you you know. So anything that falls within that realm you know like “The Ramones ut it carries a tune and stuff like the Dickies. So yeah all that aggression and ke all these bands. All these people like to call it melodic hardcore but it’s 2015 it t the end of the day we are a punk rock band and that’s where it all started with
e shit and giving them money and “Halle-
trying to do, just write a catchy good song. ng going on with Monster Surf and then into The Other Side of Darkness lier works and then full into it with Mutiny at Muscle Beach” with that “Ah” in
r formula from the get go really, there’s definitely surf elements in there still and we love the Dwarves and New Bomb Turks but the Adolescents and Garage-y don’t try and go out and say okay we are going to sound like “Ramones Core” t and it sounds cool but then it’s just usually a glob of stuff out and then people uff. But we are influenced by twenty five years of punk rock you know so thirty
years of stuff. J.B: So - positivity from negativity? BRIAN: Turning something bad into something good you mean? J.B: Exactly! BRIAN: I think it’s important. As a teenager I played in bands and that’s what I used to get it out I think everybody needs some kind of outlet, whether it’s karate or soccer or wrestling or skateboarding or you paint or whatever you just need some kind of out. It just an outlet to get it out you know, everybody goes to work every day and everybody’s got there bullshit responsibilities at the end of the day. I don’t know it’s what unwinds me you know, it’s what I crave. J.B: So you ended the European tour in 2013 and then just did smaller tours after that because of the new awesome family, do you find it harder to go on larger tours now? BRIAN: No it’s awesome now we ended that 2013 tour because my wife was pregnant and the due date was too close to when we would be in Europe and I wanted to be there two months before and two months after just because the last thing I wanted was to be 200 hundred miles away. So now my wife is very understanding, she does her thing I do my thing and we are very understanding with each other, and she’s an artist and she went to Europe this year to see a bunch of Museums. And I stayed home with my kid and a lot of parents now think kids are errands and that’s it. But if you have aspirations in your life, make your child an extension of that not a stop sign you know. And I love my daughter she’s not a chore she’s big piece of my life, you know? There’s people out there that are like, ‘well it’s time to have kids well it’s time to get married, well it’s time to do this’! And that’s why the world is full of so many fucking idiots, just stop! There’s so many fucking shitty parents and so many fucking shitty kids, that’s why it’s Suburbia! J.B: So big time fans of John Carpenter’s? BRIAN: Yeah I think we’re tapped out on the whole Escape from New York thing but we did a really cool Mel Brooks cover on the 7 inch surf we did, but I got to say we love Snake! J.B: Fat Wreck Chords family? BRIAN: It’s cool we did the Fat Wreck Chords 25th Anniversary tour in San Fran and we are the new guys - there’s a couple of them and we are one of them and going out there they are all super tight and they know each other for like twenty years and stuff and I was like “holy shit” but they were cool they would come up and say ‘hey I liked your set’ and stuff and that was super cool. It’s cool, they let us do whatever
P.J PHOTO J.B
we want you know it’s a punk rock label run by punk rock people and you know i 2015 and it’s still a DYI kind of label with all their heart and it’s extremely hard to a profit now but they do it because they love it you know. J.B: And on the Fat Wreck comp “Going Nowhere Fast” was the song “In the mid Did you pick it? BRIAN: We recorded a song just for the comp and Fat Mike was like NO! I want t one this is the best song on the album I want this one! And I was like really? Appa ently everybody thinks that’s the best one on there but I don’t think it’s the best on but when you spend so much time recording and mastering it you get desensitize to it and your like fuck I don’t know if people are going to like it or not! I don’t kn what the fuck it sounds like because we put it together and now my ears are shit, I don’t fucking know what people think, but it’s nice to give it to him and be like, h you’ve been doing this for years and you know better and are successful at this so guess I will take your word for it. I guess people like it so that’s good. J.B: So you have that crazy video for “Mutiny at Muscle Beach” any other plans fo another video? BRIAN: Yeah we’re doing another video that will be out like maybe next week or after for “I’m Wired” and one of the first things I got into when I was a punk was Punk sort of skate videos and throughout the video there’s ton of great punk band playing in them. So we hooked up with our friend Greg Harbor and he’s a profess al skateboarder and we went out to San Francisco for the 25th anniversary tour an the day before the show we went to book the Fillmore and then we went out to th Berkley Park and did this video out there. Essentially it’s an old school skate video kind of looks like an old Vision Skate wear thing! J.B: Psycho Stick Hell Yes! You also have the Jack Torrance Ripper shirt and dam i only a limited edition to Fest? Like come on man you’re killing me here! BRIAN: Yeah we’re going to keep that one going we love to keep you guys well stocked J.B: So Derek on this album as usual is a beast on the drums. I can definitely tell h fan of Bill Stevenson. BRIAN: Yeah Derek’s has tattoos on his legs and grew up worshipping All and he’ obsessed with everything to do with All and Descendants and you can tell that in ence it really shines through he defiantly has a Bill style. And Joe also grew up aro that influence also and is also a huge follower of it so it’s great to have that rhythm section behind me it makes it easier. And yeah he is a machine, I’ve known him fo like fifteen years and he was always one of my favorite drummers and he followed
“There’s so many good bands out there n and going strong!”
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DARICK / PHOTO J.B
now, you know. It’s awesome, it’s alive
in 2010 around touring with us but he lived in Maryland and we lived in Jersey, but now it’s easier with the Fat wreck thing. J.B: So let’s talk about the hardcore scene. Where do you think it’s at? BRIAN: Ah man there’s so many good bands out there now, you know. It’s awesome, it’s alive and going strong. We’ve been a band for six years so we’re not completely new - well new to Fat but we’re not new. This is the scene we came up with, bands like Government Warning, Career Suicide, Direct Control, Cloak Dagger, Deep Sleep and The Omegas or Give or Violent Reaction there will always be an awesome hardcore scene you just have to dig. J.B: So we always end with a famous book or quote that inspired your life anything come to mind? BRIAN: “Here’s to those who wish us well and those who don’t can go to hell” and that’s Elaine Benes and that’s from Seinfeld. J.B: And there you have it!