Where does a successful hardcore musician go after he’s accomplished all his hardcore goals? Mariachi, of course! That is if you’re Matt Caughthran of Los Angeles’s The Bronx. We were able to speak with the talented screamer after The Bronx’s show Tuesday at the First Unitarian about tour mishaps, his growing love for the East Coast, and Mariachi El Bronx.
Phrequency: So, you’re called The Bronx, but you’re from Los Angeles. What’s up with that?
Matt Caughthran: We just try to be as awkward as possible, and try and do things a little bit backwards. It made sense to us, it doesn’t really make sense to anyone else, but to us, it just makes sense being an LA band called The Bronx. So I just it’s a little bit of a juxtaposition, but that’s about it.
P: You guys were originally going to be signed to Island, but then decided to put out your record on your own label, White Drugs. How did that decision happen?
MC: Well we’ve always had White Drugs, and we did sign to Island, and Island put out our second record. The first one came out on Ferret, and then the third one has come out on White Drugs. So it’s been a little bit of an experience, but it’s cool. Not a whole lot of people can say they’re put out a major label record, so I like that. It’s a trippy experience, a little overwhelming. At the same you know its great making a record, and having a budget. I mean when we signed with them they gave enough money to buy a van and tour, and kind of really help us. Band become bands on the road, at least normal bands, so getting out and touring was something we always wanted to since we all started playing music individually, and none of us had ever really gotten the chance to do. So when we hit the road we were so blessed. And that was kind of the beginning of the end, I guess you could say. But Island’s cool, Ferret’s cool, and nowadays it just kinda makes sense to do things on your own, it’s actually more beneficial for the artist.
P: Are you planning on putting out anybody else’s record on White Drugs?
MC: Yeah! We’re hopefully going to be doing a lot of stuff this coming year. We have a project called Sangre Sangre that we’re going to be putting out that record, and Toby and I have another band called The Drips that’s going to have vinyl reprinted on White Drugs. There’s this band from Manchester UK called Kong, we’re putting out their EP. We’re on tour with a band right now called Trash Talk, and hopefully we’ll be putting something out of theirs sometime soon.
P: Speaking of, where is Trash Talk this evening? I heard they were on this tour.
MC: There’s kind of a thing where they can’t play Philly, because of some sort of hardcore beef thing. But they’re good dudes and we miss ‘em, and the tour’s been fucking awesome.
P: Obviously I heard what happened on tour when you mentioned it during the show, but what’s the deal? It seems like you’ve have a bunch of mishaps.
MC: It was fucked up. So we were on tour and it was great, and we came back from Canada and our van basically died in Portland, and we had to play Bamboozle in LA. So we had to fly in, leave our van, tour manager, trailer and merch guy in Portland, flew down to LA to play Bamboozle, borrowed all the gear, did the show, then rented a van, drove the van back up to Portland, attached our trailer, picked up our tour manager and merch guy, sold our old van for parts, and then we had to drive from Portland to Denver in like a day and half, which is just a gnarly amount of driving. So did it, and the show was awesome, but literally took us like a week and a half to catch up from that three or four days of just that nonstop go, go, go, go. But you know, every tour has been great, and it’s just another challenge. It’s all good.
P: What does a band do when things like that happen? Like getting gear stolen and stuff?
MC: Lucky for us, it’s been all just kinda personal stuff, like computers and shit like that. It’s definitely a bummer but the band can go on. I feel so fucking sorry for bands who get shit like their gear stolen. I think it was like five years ago or so Sonic Youth got broken into in New York, and their guitars were all handmade and stuff. When you think about the discography that a band like that has put out…I just can’t even imagine having all your shit stolen like that. Lucky enough we’ve been fortunate enough to not have our gear fucked with.
P: Philly in particular, I’ve heard of several bands having their entire trailers stolen off the back of their van.
MC: Yeah, you know I never really knew what to make of Philly for a while, because we’ve been in and out of here. It’s always been a town I’ve never really gotten to know. But today was awesome, I mean it sucks its rainy now but it was so fuckin’ beautiful. It was rad just walking around and hanging out. It was really cool. I’m getting really stoked on the east coast lately. I think I’m too slow a person to live here full time, but I do love it a lot.
P: Is there really that much of a difference between the coasts?
MC: It’s really just a mentality thing. I do love cities, you know I was born in LA, so I love atmosphere and surroundings and that city type of energy. It’s just a California thing. I love oceans and waves. It’s really hard to put your finger on it. People from the east coast have it too. They come out to California and think California has no soul, at all. They’re all like “East Coast has history!” and you know, California is one of the most soulful places on Earth. But there’s Hollywood, so people just see that side of things and kind of spread it out a little bit.
P: I really wanted to ask you – you guys also perform as a mariachi band?
MC: The records been done for a while now, hopefully it’s gonna come out in like early or mid summer. It’s a really really important record; it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s all original music, traditional mariachi stuff, and it’s the punkest thing in the world for a band like The Bronx to put out a record like that. And I know it’s gonna fuck a lot of people up. I want to make sure it gets done the right way, so we’re being real careful with it. We don’t know if we have the manpower ourselves to put it out on White Drugs, so we’re trying to see if we can find a label who’s in love with it enough to put it out there.
P: What prompted you guys to go in that direction?
MC: Being a musician is awesome. And a lot, when they get an opportunity to something like tour and make music for a living, they kind of blow it by not challenging themselves and not listening to their urges, so to speak. A lot of bands play it safe and make the same record over and over again. It’s like, it’s you’re gonna bust your ass the way we’ve all busted our asses, if you’re going to go through touring and not being able to have relationships and not have a home, and doing all this shit...your art and your music become very important, and its everything you have. There’s no point in laying everything on the line and then not doing everything you can, you know? It was just one of those things, where we got asked to do an acoustic thing for Fuel TV, and it’s like nothing sucks more than rock bands playing acoustic rock songs. You know, it just sucks. So we did a song mariachi style, and it just opened up this whole thing where we were like “This is awesome.” So we wrote some songs, and it just became.
P: It kind of reminded me of Calexico, a little bit.
MC: Yeah, Calexico’s fucking awesome! I think the first El Bronx tour when the record comes out is going to be El Bronx and the Hold Steady. It a whole different outlet – we can go tour with band The Bronx couldn’t go on tour with.
P: Hell yes! Looking forward to it. Thanks so much Matt!
Check out The Bronx's new video for "Knifeman," shot in their friends pool in the UK.
