THE SHRINE
POP QUIZ: JOSH LANDAU – THE SHRINE
INTERVIEW BY: BAM BAM
Where did you grow up?
Around West LA. Lived in Mar Vista most of my life. Grew up surfing the Venice Breakwater all through middle and high school. Went to Santa Monica High School.
What are your parents like?
Too young to really be hippies, but not young enough to not wanna be. I think my dad was about 17/18 when Woodstock happened, but he was over here at Fairfax High. My mom went to Garfield High in Seattle same school as Hendrix and she ditched the day Hendrix came back to school to hang out on his first tour. She didn’t graduate. My parents rule. They used to take me and my little brother everywhere skating. Always family trips involved where there was a rad skatepark. My mom took me and my buds to surf Trestles the day our high school class went to Magic Mountain for graduation party. High school sucked. Nowadays they hang around home and smoke a lot of weed. Everyone in my family, except me really. My dad smokes with my bros and we all play guitars, it’s cool.
Who do you think was the first punk band ever?
Well George Carlin came first but Bill Hicks was equally amazing in his own right.
What made you want to be in a band?
It seemed like a way cooler way to waste your life than a desk job…Guitars and rock and roll and skateboarding rule and always will.
Ultimate band to open for?
Ultimate is playing with Chuck Dukowski’s band CD6 nowadays. I dunno who else. We don’t wanna really open for anyone except our friends and bands that rule. The Ramones. Motorhead. Neil Hamburger.
Best band to open for you?
The Harlem Globetrotters on acid.
Favorite bands you have opened for?
FEAR, Cro Mags, Pentagram, Fu Manchu, Kyuss, Graveyard, Howlin Rain.
What was your favorite gig?
The next one.
Tell us your favorite punk story.
The cover of our last 7″ was from this stripper’s house we destroyed. That’s Court lifting her American flag in the name of rock and roll and destruction. She was selling mushrooms while this all went down.
Which of the 7 dwarves are you?
Shredder.
What is your favorite kind of fish?
The kind that comes with Chips.
How has your relationship with Chuck Dukowski influenced your music?
Chuck has been an influence on me long before I knew him. A lot of people know, but most people don’t really know the crater he and Flag and SST made on music, and how much the shit that came after them succeeded due to their route. And’s that not even talking about how straight to bone direct and awesome the music was. Hanging with him now is rad. We jammed on a new song recently that The Shrine were working on. He gave me some lyrics for it that he said he wrote for Black Flag’s “I Love You”. Chuck is a mad scientist from another dimension and it rules to know him and his family.
Describe what went into the song “Freak Fighter”. (nerves, beers, blood, blah, etc).
A lot of the devil’s tritone as they call it. Haha. That’s one of the sickest sounds, my favorite. It runs from Iommi to Ginn and then I just rip it off. The song is just one big riff. It’s like racing an escalator all the way to the bottom floor of some abandoned dungeon.
Have you had a “rockstar” moment yet?
That stuff tastes awful…we had the coffee flavor on some radio thing we did and it nearly made me puke.
Um, so for the sake of asking, was that a quippy response to the Rockstar question or did you really think I meant the energy drink?
That was my first thought, those awful energy drinks. I stick to coffee.
Do you have heroes?
Magic Spiegel the original.
Top 5 Rock N Roll Combinations
1. Pizza and Vinyl
2. Acid and Guitars
3. Skateboards and empty pools
4. Fuzz Pedals and Beer
5. Vans and Cassette tapes