MaximumRocknRoll

TOXIC NARCOTIC

Interview by Erika Jay

BRUTAL, LOUD, and PISSED. The music hits fast and hard, and a Boston pit goes full tilt—no circle skips or pogo clones—as the crowd joins the energy and rage of Toxic Narcotic. A pause in the song, and the crowd yells, “Instead of grievin’, I’m believin’, do all you need to do to get even!” The guitar blisters onward, and the fury continues. The singer belts out lyrics that “…rip apart the works that grind the blind at will…” while the drums and bass pound out rhythms that flow, twist, and sting—creating a unique and brutal sound not easily pinned down by any reviewer’s rhetoric. And so goes “Believin,’” my favorite song by Toxic Narcotic (that came out on their first 7,” “Popullution” in 1992) as played live, in one of the countless Boston shows that TN has headlined over the last ten years.

Needless to say, Toxic Narcotic is not your average flyby punk band. TN has logged six tours across the U.S. that draw a following from New York to San Francisco, from Canada to Tijuana. The band has self-released six 7”s, two CDs, and a recent full length 12” (that is also on CD) all on their label, Rodent Popsicle Records. While some songs such as “Believin’” are now classic, the band’s music continues to evolve. New members have brought new sounds, like a mean-ass bag pipe on “Paddy’s Leather Britches,” recently released on “Another Boston Punk Comp.”

This summer, I met with Will Sullivan-guitar, Bill Damen-vocals, Ben Upton-bass, and Sam Jodray-drums, in their jam space in Allston, a small room plastered with show flyers and crammed with gear. Amy Sullivan, Will’s wife, also joined the discussion as one of TN’s oldest friends. We talked about Toxic Narcotic’s DIY label, tales from the road, punk in Boston, why People Suck, and a decade of playing music together.

Toxic Narcotic can be reached through their label:

Rodent Popsicle Records/ PO Box 335/ Newton Center, MA 02459.

MRR: When did TN start?

Bill: Toxic Narcotic started with Will (guitar), Kevin Barnello (drums), and me, Bill (bass and vocals), in 1989.

MRR: If TN had a motto, it would be the infamous People Suck. Where did this come from?

Bill: It sounds like a cheesy bumper sticker, but if you’re not pissed, you might not be really aware. It’s not that hard to be pissed.

Will: The more you try not to be pissed, the more you realize that people just suck.

Bill: I don’t lose any sleep over it usually, I just hate most of the human race. And well, day to day, everywhere I go there is shit that pisses me off. I see all the injustices around me, and it comes out in my music. That’s where I like to vent. I like to play heavy music. I feel happy occasionally, once in a while.

Will: I feel happy when I play music.

MRR: How would you describe your music?

Bill: I guess the simplest way to describe it is to call ourselves an angry band rather than calling us any kind of music. Just angry music, rather than punk. It’s just that punks happen to be pissed and that’s why they happen to like us. It’s just pissed, angry, aggressive music and like Will said, if I wasn’t doing this than I would probably be in a lot of trouble- jail, etc.

Will: It’s not just punks that like us tho’. This MIT guy came up to us after a Rat show one day, and said that seeing us made him want to run around and hit things indiscriminately.

Bill: I notice we play a lot of shows, at least in our own town, where there are people of different interests. People who like either hard-core, punk or metal come to our shows. I’d rather not be generic and have only one sound and one kind of fan base. That would be boring. That’s what we’ve always been into.

MRR: How was your last tour?

Bill: We were just on our west coast tour in October [1998]. Mostly with Fleas and Lice and Callused and a few other gigs in between.

Will: We also played Tijuana.

Ben: Tijuana was great. The Mexican punks are so fuckin’ cool.

Bill: That was probably like the fifth time we’ve been on the west coast. It is the first tour we even came close to not totally losing tons of money. But whatever, it was fun.

MRR: TN has definitely logged the miles across the lonely stretches of the U.S.

Bill: Yep, daps to all the road warrior bands that have driven around the country for years and years in a row and still nobody knows who they are.

Will: I think we are one of the oldest, hardest gigging bands out of Boston.

Bill: That’s stayed together all that time at least. A lot of bands that broke up from the earlier years have come back to profit on punk’s fame. We’ve been at it constantly non-stop, putting out our own records, touring, for ten years now. Trying to keep going.

MRR: Any advice for bands that haven’t gone on tour yet?

Will: Turn up your volume. Adventure.

Bill: Get a reliable van, even if you have to sleep in it in-between tours.

Ben: Get a sleeping bag.

MRR: Any crazy tour stories you’ll always remember?

Will: LA cops. We played this benefit in LA the first time we played there, in a garage.

Bill: They just tried to slip us on the bill, we weren’t booked on it.

Will: There were hundreds and hundreds of people crammed into this garage. Like a gas station fix-it garage. Then nine paddy wagons showed up full of cops, right before we were supposed to get on stage. The cops tried to rush the stage - I was on stage and could see the cops coming- but the people started slamming in such a way that the cops couldn’t get to the stage. So half of the cops left the garage and just waited outside. They were pulling out the clubs and shit like that. Then all a sudden Fox TV showed up.

MRR: Oh shit!

Bill: They were doing a special on homeless people in the LA area or something like that, following the squatter movement and homeless people. They showed up with movie cameras and immediately the cops got a lot nicer. It dispersed pretty chill I guess, but we didn’t get to play, that sucked.

Bill: I’d like to say probably the best stories I don’t remember, but the people reading this do, and I’d just like to say I’m sorry. [laughter] I’d like to apologize for those doors and bottles and tons of other things, and definitely thank anyone who let us sleep at their house and fed us. And thanks to everyone we’ve forgotten because we were shit faced.

Will: Your house was messy before we got there [laughs].

MRR: As TN has gotten more well-known across the country, it seems that punks either love you guys or hate