INTERVIEW: End On End
Melodic LA Hardcore (End On End)
By: Liz Ortega
 Melodic hardcore is brewing up with the mighty LA band, End On End. This four piece group has been going at it for a little over a year now and they have definitely gained some serious recognition within the local hard core scene. Made up of members of the Frankenburies and Osker, these guys have incorporated various musical influences that make up a truly amazing sound all together. End On End is a sweet collaboration of melodic, yet, powerful vocals by Andy, awesome guitar work by Jeff, solid bass playing by Josh, and INSANE drumming by 'the visual timekeeper,' Phil. And to top it all off, they are incredibly funny. A must see act for any hard-core fan that craves a side of pop once in a while. Enjoy!LIZ: WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHAT DO YOU PLAY? ANDY: I try to sing. JEFF: I play guitar. PHIL: I play drums, but I'd like to be called the "visual time keeper." JOSH: I play bass. LIZ: WHEN DID END ON END FORM? PHIL: Well, goddamn! JOSH: We met through a mutual friend named Tony. PHIL: He played guitar. He's no longer with us. JOSH: That sounds bad! He didn't die or anything! He's pursuing golf. PHIL: He's a golfer now. JOSH: But we wish him the best. He's a good golfer, too! PHIL: I was playing with him and we were looking for a bass player. He worked with Josh and we all hooked up one day and the rest is history. JEFF: I was looking for a car in the Recycler and passed by the 'Band' section and saw that they needed a guitar player. So, I decided to call them up. ANDY: I was the last person to come into the picture! JOSH: He was sleeping on a bus bench and we felt bad. (LAUGHTER) ANDY: No, actually I came out to California like 3 years ago and I wanted to get into bands again. I put an AD in the Recycler and got a lot of freaks. Serious Freaks! So, I just gave it up. I looked at the Recycler and saw the AD for these guys' band and I called up Tony. That was about a year ago. We've been playing together since then. LIZ: WHERE ARE YOU GUYS FROM ORIGINALLY? ANDY: I'm originally from Hanover, PA. JEFF: I'm from Redondo, CA. PHIL: Glendale, CA. JOSH: Denver, CO. LIZ: DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND. I LISTENED TO YOUR TAPE AND I HEARD A LOT OF INFLUENCES. I HEARD A BIT OF HARDCORE, A BIT OF POP, A BIT OF PUNK. WOULD YOU GUYS SAY IT IS ONE TYPE OF STYLE OR DO YOU LIKE TO BLEND YOUR MUSIC WITH ALL YOUR INFLUENCES? ANDY: We like to bring all our influences together. We all come from different bands. The stuff we listened to separately, we all kind of brought together. We all write songs-this guy [Jeff] is crazy. He writes like 8 songs a day! But we're all song writers and we all bring in a piece of what we know and what we grew up with. I mean, if people ask us what we play, we usually just tell them melodic hard-core. I hate to say 'Emo-core' because it's a genre that's so bizarre. A lot of bands that call themselves 'Emo' now, play poppy stuff. I mean, I got into what I call 'Emo' now when I was in the East coast and it wasn't poppy stuff. It was bands like Dag Nasty, Embrace, and Fuel from San Francisco and it was essentially hard-core but slightly more harmonious or a little bit more Pop. But not the mellow, radio friendly stuff. I mean, when we say 'Emo-core' or 'Hard-core,' talking about ourselves, I think that's more of what we would align ourselves with. Bands like Dag Nasty, Embrace, or Rites Of Spring. LIZ: YOU MENTIONED YOU WERE PLAYING A FEW SHOWS SOON. WHEN ARE THOSE SHOWS TAKING PLACE? ANDY: The nearest confirmed show we have is October 9th at Head Line Records on Melrose. We're playing mid October at the Lava Lounge in Long Beach with Youth In Asia. We may be playing with Youth In Asia at UCLA on campus in a couple of weeks. JOSH: Really? (SURPRISED) ANDY: Possibly. LIZ: HE DIDN'T KNOW! (LAUGHTER) ANDY: But that's all we have lined up. LIZ: ARE YOU GUYS WORKING ON ANY PROJECTS? ANDY: We have some possible compilation tracks in works. There's a label called Lost and Found in Vegas and they're putting a compilation together that has the Bollweevils on it and we're going to send a track for that. Gary from North East Records is putting together a comp that we're going to be on. Hmm, what else?We're probably going to put out a split 7" with a band from Arizona called Brand Name. We just played with them a couple weeks ago in Arizona. LIZ: HOW WAS THAT SHOW? JOSH: OH YEAH! MUAH!! EVERYONE: It was great! JOSH: We played in front of like 200 kids and they just went NUTS! They asked me for my pick afterwards. I was like "Sure!!" It's very different from LA. PHIL: The kids were just great! They were like "Hey, can we get you anything?" *LAUGHTER* LIZ: THAT'S GREAT THAT YOU GUYS HAD A POSITIVE RESPONSE. ANDY: Yeah, it went really well out there. We've been talking to a couple of the bands from out there. We've been talking to the guys from a band called Bueno quite a bit. We're at the stage where we are getting ready to send out some tapes to a bunch of labels, fanzines and clubs in the LA area. We're trying to book more shows. JEFF: It's really hard to get shows in the L.A area. There's no scene. LIZ: O.C HAS A PRETTY GOOD SCENE. THERE ARE MANY CLUBS OUT IN O.C THAT BOOK BANDS LIKE YOURSELVES. JEFF: O.C has always had a good scene. LIZ: LONG BEACH IS ALWAYS GOOD. ANDY: Yeah, we sent a tape to Que Sera down in Long Beach. LIZ: ISN'T THAT A GAY BAR? I'M NOT REALLY SURE IF IT IS. I'LL ASK MY GIRLFRIEND. PHIL: WHOOHOO! JOSH: Is it really? ANDY: They have some good bands that play there, don't they? LIZ: I'M NOT SURE, BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS A GAY BAR. I COULD BE WRONG. SO, WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE GROUP? WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO WITH END ON END? PHIL: Make money! (LAUGHTER) JEFF: To be honest, right now, all I want to do is to be able to tour and play at a bunch of places. PHIL: SPREAD THE MESSAGE! (EVIL! EVIL!) ANDY: I think we all want to go as far as we possibly can. It would be nice to start playing with some bigger bands. Get out of the L.A area more. LIZ: HAVE YOU PLAYED WITH ANY BIG NAMED BANDS? ANDY: Well, there haven't been all that many. JOSH: It's usually a bunch of friends that are all in bands. So, all our friends just show up. ANDY: Josh and Phil are both in different bands and we've played with them. PHIL: We've played with Bueno and they did a couple shows at the Warped Tour.  LIZ: WHAT DO YOU GUYS DO ASIDE FROM BEING IN A BAND? ANDY: I'm a grad student and I do archeology in Central America. I go away 3 months out of the year. JEFF: I work in a coffee shop in Redondo. PHIL: I work slave labor. I just started today. I do shipping and receiving in a hot place in Azusa. JOSH: I do shipping and receiving, too. LIZ: WHAT ARE YOUR INFLUENCES? ANDY: Our own personal influences-the bands that I named already. Some of the West coast bands were an influence. Some of the old Orange County hard-core bands were an influence like Uniform Choice, stuff like that. Most of the East coast stuff, especially from the D.C area. Bands like Minor Threat, Rites Of Spring was a big influence, Fugazi, but I also listen to a lot of old British stuff like Oi! and what's called 'Krust Punk' now. LIZ: KRUST PUNK? ANDY: I listened to just about anything. I guess if you have a mohawk, you're 'krust punk.' But that's pretty much it. I was into a lot of straight edge stuff in high school. LIZ: JOSH, YOU LISTEN TO THE MISFITS WITH MY BOYFRIEND GLEN! JOSH: OOH! LIZ: WHAT ABOUT YOU, JEFF? WHAT WERE YOUR MUSICAL INFLUENCES? JEFF: Back in high school, when I first started getting into punk, the big thing was like Fat Wreck Chord bands like Lagwagon and NOFX. I started to get into bands like Jawbreaker, SAMIAM, and Screeching Weasel. Slowly, I started to listen to more hardcore and now I listen to everything. PHIL: It started, I would go back to the 5th grade. No, okay! I'm not going to lie! I was into the 80's metal thing. We won't name any bands. LIZ: WHY THE HELL NOT? C'MON! PHIL: Trust me! OK, I was a big KISS fan. I was into, you know, Poison, uh, Stryper. Later, I got into Iron Maiden. Like Andy, I got into the straight edge thing. I listened to Snapcase, Strife, Ignite, and Good Riddance. Of course, all the Fat Wreck bands. JOSH: I have to agree with him, I was into the 80's metal bands. Iron Maiden, TRIXTER, keep that low....shhh! ***EVERYONE LAUGHS AT JOSH!!!*** JOSH: My sister listened to a lot of early punk like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. Of course, I had to get into it. So, I got into LA's Wasted Youth and T.S.O.L. I listened to a lot of that stuff and that's where all my influences come from. LIZ: WHAT WOULD BE YOUR DREAM GIG? WHO WOULD YOU LOVE TO PLAY WITH? PHIL: STRYPER REUNION! Just kidding! ANDY: We would all probably have completely different answers. LIZ: WELL, LETS GO-WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY WITH? ANDY: I think my dream gig would be to play with Fuel from San Francisco. That would be awesome! JEFF: I would like to play with LIFETIME. ANDY: Yeah, that's a good one. They were from the East coast, Jersey area. They are not around any more. PHIL: Oh shit! (CONTEMPLATING HARD) I'm gonna go with a multi band bill. I'd love to play with Good Riddance, AFI, Snapcase, Ignite, the Gorrilla Biscuits reunion. Maybe Youth Of Today. God, who else is there? Motley Crue with Tommy Lee. JOSH: Yeah! Seriously dude! PHIL: I saw Motley Crue on (?) tour and HOLY SHIT! (LAUGHTER) JOSH: I'd go for that! Have a little N'SYNC open up. (LAUGHTER) ANDY: Oh, he is serious, too! JOSH: I like the Backstreet Boys a little bit better. No, seriously, I would actually like to do a Misfits, back with Glen, definitely Good Riddance and LIFETIME. Oh, and do I love me some Black Flag! PHIL: I'd like to play with Osker! ANDY: We ALWAYS play with Osker! LIZ: WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE AT AN END ON END SHOW? ALL: HIGH ENERGY!!! PHIL: It's pure intensity, OK! OH SHIT! ANDY: This kid [Jeff] makes himself bleed sometimes when he plays. (LAUGHTER) PHIL: Some cheerleader action. LIZ: WELL, THAT'S GOING TO RAP IT UP FOR ME, ANY FINAL COMMENTS? ANDY: Come check us out. Hopefully. We'll be playing a lot more shows throughout the winter. If you see End On End on a bill, come see us. PHIL: You won't be disappointed! (WITH AN EVIL TONE) LIZ: GOD, YOU'RE WEIRD! ANDY: Wait till you see him play. PHIL: We'd also like to give a shout out to Robert from Prescot,Arizona. That guy is fuckin tight! Serious, that is a GUY right there. SHIT! LIZ: THANK YOU! ALL: THANK YOU!
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