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- How and when did Angleworm get started? - Me (Chris) and Ryan both started to discover punk rock when we were in middle school. Ryan took up playing bass and I took up the guitar and right away we started writing songs together. We got a little better at our instruments and found a drummer in February 2001. We played our first show in April 2001 and then kept on playing more shows all over CT. We added and then kicked out one lead guitarist before adding Joe. About a year and a half ago we added Durso as our new drummer. Since then we've just kept writing more songs and playing more shows anywhere we can. I like to think we've gotten a little better since 2001.
- How would you describe Angleworm to someone who had never heard your songs? - A bunch of kids who listen to too much of The Clash, who like to play punk and reggae music, and make really stupid jokes on stage. I'd also probably tell them that we're all extremely good in bed.
- On …Ruin Your $cene, were the faces on the cover chosen for particular reasons or just randomly chosen? - We just picked faces we thought represented different cliche "scenes." Like Axl Rose is the prima donna rockstar, Kurt Cobain is the tortured artist; Sid Vicious is the drugged-up punk rock stereotype, etc.
- I saw on a few of your things that you have the Jesus Fish with the word “Worm” in it. Are you guys an undercover Christian band? - Nah, it's supposed to be like the Charles Darwin evolution fish. It's a reference to our song "Mosh For Darwin." But it works because worms often end up inside of fish in real life too.
- Do you have any upcoming tour plans? - We've always wanted to go on tour, but it's hard to come up with money and/or time to do it. We were talking about doing a small tour this winter up and down the east coast, but nothing is planned out yet. We do play a lot of shows in Connecticut though and anyone can check our myspace page to see when and where (myspace.com/angleworm).
- You’re songs have a lot of political (Government & Punk Scene) based lyrics. What is your favorite song? - I don't know about the rest of the fellas, but my favorite song depends on my mood. Sometimes I like playing the faster songs, sometimes the more groovy ones. Right now I'm going to say my favorite is a song called "Oh Shit." It's a really simple three-chord song, but the lyrics are about the Great Depression and how things can get fucked up really quick in this country. It's mostly just fun to chant "oh shit!" over and over in the chorus.
- “…Ruin your $cene” is one of the best recorded CD’s around. How much time did you spend recording it? How did it come out so good? - It came out in such good quality because Nick Bellmore recorded it. He runs a studio in Milford called Dexter's Lab and he's been recording bands forever. He's just got an insane ear for producing music, especially rock. He knows how to help a band get as much energy out of the studio as they can. I know we were all pretty revved up while recording it. We only spent about 3 days in the studio and maybe 8 hours each day. We did all the instruments in the first two and all the vocals on the last day. Then Nick took less than a week to mix and master it.
- Give us the highlights & Lowlights of making the CD. I don't think there are any lowlights. It's basically taking three days off from everything else in life to hang out with your best friends and record. What could suck about that? But it was fun just dicking around in the studio and eating Taco Bell everyday.
- What are the future plans for Angleworm?- Well we just recorded an acoustic EP called "This is Propaganda." It's got drums, acoustic guitars, harmonicas, ukuleles and an upright acoustic bass, but no electric instruments. It's going to be a short-run cassette tape and the tapes are going to be made of colored plastic (probably baby blue). It's gonna come out on Triumph of Life Records and it should be out by the end of summer, hopefully.
- Tell us about Triumph of Life Records. - It's a small label run out of Berlin, CT by a couple of the coolest kids you'll ever meet. Right now our CD is the only TOL release, but soon they're putting out a split 7" with O Pioneers!!! And some other band whose name I can't remember right now. There's also a new EP coming out really soon by My Heart to Joy at the Same Tone who are a fucking tight hardcore/grind-ish band.
- Where is you’re your favorite place to do shows? - I can't think of any one place in particular. I don't think the location has all that much to do with whether a show is fun or not. I'd rather play in a crap-shack for 10 kids who are all digging the music than play on a big stage to 200 kids who are all stale and cold. House/basement shows are almost always fun because you know people came for music and not just for fashion. We play acoustic shows all the time in parking lots around our town too. Those can be a ton of fun. We just grab acoustic instruments and go chill in a parking lot playing music all night.
- Is there any one place you’ve done a show and decided to NEVER play there again? - Not in particular. We never play at any pay-to-play venues though. I think it's really fucked up how places like the Webster make local bands sell 20 tickets at $10+ each just because they know they'll do it to get their name on the same bill as some marginally successful punk/ska/emo/hardcore band. Those local bands end up making the venue $200+ dollars and they don't get shit back for it. They even end up having to pay for parking. It's like, for all the time and effort they spent selling tickets for the Webster they could have rented their own hall and put on a sick show themselves. We used to get a lot of emails from promoters wanting us to sell tickets to play their shows and I always responded with a rant like this one.
- What do each of you do when you’re not playing music? - We all go to school and work part-time jobs here and there. Joe and Durso have one more year of high school; I'm at Trinity College in Hartford and next year Ryan's going to Berklee in Boston for music. Most of our activities really do revolve around music. Without music we're all pretty boring individuals.
- The term "Punk" is thrown around in many ways. What makes punk, "Punk" to you? - I don't know or care. Punk is a term that was vague to start with. In a general way I guess it means anything that's shocking or revolutionary, but lots of bands get pigeon-holed into the genre and then kids just follow their lead. After a while it seems like all of the originality is sucked out of it and it just becomes another formula. We like to mess with those kinds of kids. That's what the idea behind "...Ruin Your Scene" is all about; breaking out of narrow views of how you should dress or play music. Punk rock as a whole has so much more to offer than drugs, swear words, and dirty clothes. I think the most punk rock thing to do nowadays is to be like, "fuck punk rock."
- What is your favorite Angleworm song to play live? - "Number One On My List." It's just really fun to hack right into on stage.
- What’s the funniest thing you've seen at a show? - At a North Haven High School Battle of the Bands in like 2002 there was this band called Dollhouse. They were all dressed in gothic black clothes and they were wearing mascara. I remember the music was just awful prog-metal and they kept remarking about why the school let a band as terrible as them play in the Battle of the Bands. You could tell they only formed to play for that one night. I loved it.
- Most bizarre place you've played a show? - The Puppet House in Branford. Hands down. It's just this little barn that they converted into a theater on a dark little side street. The place used to be a puppet theater or something, so there are all these creepy puppets hanging from the walls. It's kind of a cool venue, but the place gives me the creeps every time.
- What is your evaluation of the current punk scene? - It sucked for a while, but it's getting better. I think that with the internet it's a lot easier for local bands to get their music heard all over the country. Websites like myspace and things like file sharing are letting bands share their music with other people for free. It cuts out the middleman of promoters and scene politics. For the first time it seems like it's possible for bands to get popular based on talent and not just who they happen to be friends with.
- Who are your musical influences? - The Clash. They were just so revolutionary. To me, they are the greatest rock and roll band ever. They played pissed-off punk rock, but then if they wanted to throw in a reggae song, they did it. If they wanted to play a rockabilly song, they did that too. They didn't care about the backlash from people. They were on a different level from anyone else just because they knew how to have fun with the music and express deep ideas without being preachy.
- Any bands you really want to do a show with? - Not in particular. A few bands that come to mind who I think would be awesome to play with are Bomb the Music Industry!, Defiance Ohio, Dillinger Four, The Thermals, Fucked Up, The Lawrence Arms and Propagandhi.
- Who's the wildest band you've ever done a show with? - Treephort. Anyone who knows this band will understand why. They're notorious for doing the craziest stuff on stage. We played in a church basement with them about 5 years ago and during their half-hour set they kept puking in buckets, making out with each other, lighting their crotches on fire and dry humping random audience members. Sometimes all of those things at the same time.
- Anyone you want to thank? - Everyone who comes to the shows and gets into this music for the right reasons.
- Next - Word association, Type the first thing that comes to your mind when you read the following words
- > Punk = Crass
- > Drink = Whiskey
- > Porn = Computer
- > Eat = Food
- > Money = Dirty
- > Work = Suckers
- > Sex = Nice
- > Sleep = Wisdom
- > Leather = Pleather
- > Police = Shitty band
- > Movie = Casablanca
- > Government = Pollution
- > TV = Simpsons
- > Life = Death
- > Death = Life
