{"id":29918,"date":"2000-02-01T15:26:24","date_gmt":"2000-02-01T20:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=29918"},"modified":"2014-11-08T18:08:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T02:08:43","slug":"rocket-from-the-crypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/rocket-from-the-crypt\/","title":{"rendered":"ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT<\/strong>
\nINTERVIEW WITH JOHN REIS<\/strong>
\n BY BRIAN LENTINI<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can tell when someone means it, and that\u2019s what\u2019s missing in punk music right now. No one believes what they\u2019re saying and no one means what they\u2019re playing.<\/p>\n

So, you\u2019re off Interscope and just released All Systems Go 2 on Swami, your own label.<\/strong>
\nYeah, I don\u2019t know what the future of Rocket is. We just want to get in the studio and record them and get \u2018em out. It\u2019s been a long time. People\u2019s perception of the band is that we\u2019re doing nothing. When, in fact, we\u2019ve been practicing all the time and writing tons of songs. Some good, some bad, but only time will tell. You gotta keep playing it for a while, get used to it. But right now it\u2019s exciting. I can\u2019t wait to get out to the East Coast.<\/p>\n

The East loves you guys. That 4th of July in Central Park was the best.<\/strong>
\nThat was the best time I ever had outside. Usually I don\u2019t like playing outside. It was cool, good vibe and everyone having fun.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m tired of seeing people on stage who look as pissed as me.<\/strong>
\n(laughs) Yeah, but not everything we do is all about having a good time. But, hey, what it comes down to, touring around the world, playing every night. If you\u2019re not liking what you\u2019re doing then you better stop, because it\u2019s basically burning the candle at both ends. So you better, at least, have fun.<\/p>\n

How long did you guys play to no one?<\/strong>
\nMaybe the first 2 tours. It picked up pretty fast. That was a time when more people went to shows. Yeah, we were a good band and we played good music, that wasn\u2019t really \u201chappening\u201d at the time. But you have to credit that it was a time when independent music was exploding. It\u2019s not like that anymore.<\/p>\n

Tell me about the Hot Snakes.<\/strong>
\nHot Snakes is a new band that I\u2019m doing with Rick, who I played with in Jehu. Jason, who plays with Delta 72 and the three of us made this record. Live, a friend of mine, Gar, from Tanner, plays bass. We\u2019ve got a record coming out February 5th and I\u2019m really stoked on it.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re on both sides of the recording booth right now, huh?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m trying to be. I wanna be as busy as possible. This year I\u2019ve been broker then I\u2019ve ever been in my whole life, but I\u2019ve been busy so it hasn\u2019t really been that big of a deal. When ya don\u2019t got money and you got nothing ta do it makes ya feel like shit.<\/p>\n

After the East what\u2019s next for Rocket?<\/strong>
\nCome home, chill out. Find out what we\u2019re gonna do for our next record. I don\u2019t want another year to go by without a record.<\/p>\n

How did you manage to put out Rocket\u2019s music through so many labels?<\/strong>
\nYou wanna put out our records and you wanna work with us. Then you gotta let us be the band we wanna be. Part of that is to be able to put out different stuff with whoever we want.<\/p>\n

What do you think of current indie music?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve heard some, I\u2019m not totally alienated from what people are listening to right now, especially when it comes to bands in San Diego. I\u2019m somewhat of an authority.<\/p>\n

Seems like you\u2019ve got a good scene going.<\/strong>
\nPeople are cool down here and really supportive. Now, there\u2019s not as many people going to shows. But there\u2019s this new group of people starting bands and becoming part of the rock n\u2019 roll community. New blood is definitely a good thing. I have a couple complaints. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s that many good punk bands out there. A lot of it\u2019s completely diluted. They stopped being important because they lost the spirit that made them refreshing and new. It\u2019s important to not duplicate what\u2019s already been done. You just don\u2019t see bands like Black Flag, or The Misfits, or Negative Approach. You can tell when someone means it, and that\u2019s whats missing in punk music right now. It\u2019s going through the motions. No one believes what they\u2019re saying and no one means what they\u2019re playing. Black Flag made me feel that I wasn\u2019t alone, maybe that has to do with how you feel when you\u2019re younger. But I don\u2019t see that going on. I consider Rocket From The Crypt a punk band. When I said that \u201cpunk is dead\u201d, that was to piss people off and create more contradiction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen fights about how to categorize bands.<\/strong>
\nPunk used to be anything goes and now it\u2019s turned into a drum beat and a style of dress. You used to be able to have Suicide, Blondie and The Misfits on the same bill and that was a punk show. If Blondie were starting up now they\u2019d be called alternative. It\u2019s more about spirit and a state of mind than anything else. I was really into rock n\u2019 roll. Now I hate rock n\u2019 roll. There\u2019s so many bad rock n\u2019 roll bands playing right now and everyone wants to be Kiss or Guns N\u2019 Roses. It\u2019s cock rock. It has no punk rock spirit. It\u2019s all about being up on a pedestal, higher then the audience. Although it\u2019s all tongue and cheek, how far is that gonna take you. You gotta have a balance.<\/p>\n

TO ORDER JUICE MAGAZINE ISSUE #48, PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT INTERVIEW WITH JOHN REIS BY BRIAN LENTINI You can tell when someone means it, and that\u2019s what\u2019s missing in punk music right now. No one believes what they\u2019re saying and no one means what they\u2019re playing. So, you\u2019re off Interscope and just released All Systems Go 2 on Swami, your own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4028,4034],"tags":[11204,4177,3829,11208,5796,14698,11206,11203,14255,4241,14494,6900,2869,11205,11207,4978],"class_list":["post-29918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-music-2","tag-all-systems-go","tag-black-flag","tag-blondie","tag-delta-72","tag-guns-n-roses","tag-hot-snakes","tag-interscope","tag-john-reis","tag-juice-magazine","tag-kiss","tag-negative-approach","tag-rocket-from-the-crypt","tag-suicide","tag-swami-records","tag-tanner","tag-the-misfits"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/ROCKETFROMTHECRYPT.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29918"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48592,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29918\/revisions\/48592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}