No Apologies

The End (for real)

2008-11-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

It sucks, but one of my favourite bands in hardcore right now, Bad Blood, had to pull it of our last show. A young band who is turning heads, The Hollow has replaced them, iam looking forward to checking them out for the first time live, the demo rips.

And in other news, my good friend Martin Stewart from one of the realest (again is that a word?) hardcore bands to ever exist, Terror, designed this sweet shirt for us.

There will only be very limited numbers of these and they will ONLY be available at the show.

We're Done

2008-09-10T13:25:00.001-07:00

Come and say goodbye.

Tickets on sale now.

California/Tijuana

2008-08-09T02:35:00.000-07:00

Yep we did that.
THANK YOU to everyone that helped us while we were there and all the great bands we got to share the stage with.
I believe there are some pictures and even some (poor) videos available on the www, if thats what you do.
I am sort of done with this blog.
If we are doing something and you care, you can work it out for yourselves.

We Be Jamin'

2008-07-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

We have been jamming as much as possible over the last couple of weeks.

Its all sounding pretty good, i just cant wait to fucking play again.

Most days we have been jamming in Pete's meditation/jam room.

But, last night we had the chance to jam inside a music store after hours.
It was kinda crazy, being able to use WHATEVER we wanted, and the choice we had.
We didn't get too crazy, but Pete did use a new Kerry King signature model, that i didn't even know existed.

He's Back

2008-06-29T23:39:00.000-07:00

After 3 months of existing on a higher plane than most people will ever know, Pete is back in society.

We start jamming this week, and i cant fucking wait.

When i asked Pete what gear he would prefer me try and get him for when we play in the states this was his answer;

"I dont give a shit, as long as its loud!"

Great!

Down But Not Out

2008-06-25T05:27:00.000-07:00

This world can be a funny fucking place.

After he has spent almost 3 months with having NO contact with ANYONE i got a text message from Pete B tonight.

Here's a part of it;

Your vocal chords better not have regressed to the sound you were making in 99 and that fat mexican better be well oiled, we got three weeks and i want the band tighter than my jap's eye that hasn't had his top blown in three months! Sort it! I have been practicing on a plank of wood.

It was so great to hear from Pete, and to hear that he is excited to get straight back into it.

But my excitement soon diminished when i called Andres to tell him the good news.

Andres went on to tell me that he was badly bashed on Friday night and spent most of the weekend in hospital recovering and nursing his injuries (a broken cheek bone, nose and lots of bruising) He was sitting in a taxi when the door swung open and for no apparent reason at all, a guy laid into him, totally blindsiding him and catching him off guard.

The only reasoning that Andres and his friends who were with him at the time can come up with is that it may of been a case of mistaken identity, or maybe some stupid fucking form of a "gang initiation".

Either way, all i can say is this, whoever you are, wherever you are, karma is coming for you, and it will get you, it never misses and hopefully your days on this earth are numbered.

We start jamming on Monday.

Broken, bloodied, beaten and bruised, down but not out.

America we are coming.

Time, Time, Time, Goes Slow

2008-05-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

So, Pete has been away for 2 months now, 1 more month and he will be home.
That will leave us just over 2 weeks to jam before we leave for America.

There is not a whole lot we can do with Pete away, Andres has been playing the songs, i have been doing my vocal exercises, but really until Pete is home we are stuck.

Its a kind of weird spot to be in, because we are getting offered some cool things, but until Pete is home and i talk with him i cant really say yes or no to anything as it stands.

I cant wait for Pete to be back, its been hard being out of contact with him for this long, since we have met i probably have called and annoyed him about something every single day, haha.

So its been a little weird not having any contact with him at all. I went around and saw his parents the other day, and they felt the exact same way i do. Happy for him to be doing his thing, but feeling a little weird from not having any contact for so long.

I cant wait to be back in some dirty room with him, his guitar making my ears ring, and i cant wait to be getting on a plane with him to fly to the other side of the world to show them how we do it down here in Sydney, Australia.

January 08 To Present

2008-04-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

After x-mas and the new years break, Pete B came up with another one of his plans.

See, i guess he was disappointed that he didn't make it to Angourie on his walk so he came up with a new idea.

His new plan was that he was to catch a train to the spot where his walk had finished and then ride his bike ( just a standard mountain bike ) the rest of the way to Angourie.

Again i hope that pete writes some of his experiences here, because i probably only know a quarter of what he went through.

What i do know is that he made it as far as Macksville, but once there severe flooding and a broken chain halted his momentum. So he threw his bike in a tree and caught a train and a bus the rest of the way.

This is why No Apologies didn't play any shows in January, haha.

Our first show for 2008 was on Saturday the 2nd of February, it was our (6 months late) Album Launch. See because of other tours that we had been on we never really got a chance to have our own album launch in our home town, Sydney.

I booked the show and its always good to be able to book the supports you want for your show. All 3 bands (AVO, Bad Blood, Persist) rule and it was good to share our show with them.

Our set itself was really cool, and something a little different i guess.

As you can see from the setlist we played all of the songs off our album and nothing else.

We started with the didgeridoo and our friend Travis ( who played it on the record ) nailed it and it was an awesome way to start the set.

The wheelchair dude kinda bummed people out, i was just hoping he would get on stage and do a "stage dive" like he did a week before at the Extortion show, haha, fucking crazy dude.

That pretty much brings us up to the present, just a few hours ago Pete B left his house and will be gone for the next 3 months, where he has gone you will never know, but all i know is that no one will have any contact with him whatsoever until Sunday June 29th and that is a little crazy for me to even think about right now, i already cant wait to have him back and be jamming with him again.

Also, in i guess "big news" , a few days ago we were announced as being a part of this years Sound and Fury Festival in Santa Barbara , California.

Something we are all very excited about and are already looking forward to. The best bands in hardcore today are playing it and we are honoured to be a part of such a line up.

Check it out for yourself

http://www.myspace.com/soundandfuryfestival

November/ December 07

2008-03-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

We couldn't play any shows in November because Pete B had planned on walking ( yes, walking) from his house in Sydney to his friend's house in Angourie in far northern NSW.

That's 684 km's people, but Pete had planned to walk along walking tracks and then in some parts just straight through bush land, so it would turn out to be a lot more than the planed 684km's.

So after a couple of week's of preperation Pete set off mid November, i wished him well and reminded him we were doing half of the Resist Tour starting on the 13th of December so to make sure he was back by then, haha.

After 2 weeks of hellish conditions, Pete arrived in Newcastle with a bad back and a badly swollen knee, it had barely stopped raining the whole time and Pete was physically and mentally exhausted.

He decided to get a train home and in his mind had already started planning his next adventure.

Pete could describe all this in much greater detail, and i hope he does, just thinking about all the things he would of gone through in those 2 weeks is crazy.

So, Pete was home, December had rolled around and it was time for us to get back into jamming and to get out there as a part of the Resist Records Tour.

We did half of the dates, Canberra, 2 shows in Melbourne, Adelaide and finishing the year at one of our favourite places to play, the Manning Bar right here in Sydney.

I'll be honest, we weren't at our best at any of these shows, Pete's body still was all fucked up after his walk and personally we were all in different head spaces, with me and Pete even having a heated discussion right before we played one of the shows.

The vibe just was not there and we knew it.

The last show in Sydney was definitely our best of the lot, but we needed a little break, and plus Pete had other plans.

Horizons

2008-03-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

I'am not sure where to start when talking about this tour. I have been on tour with Parkway numerous times and every single time has been a blast. These 2 weeks were no exception, and pretty much as good as it gets for a band like us to be playing shows like that every night.
I'am going to try my best to remember as much as i can from each day/show and write as much as i can without boring you, so here goes.

Monday 8th Oct- Byron Bay

We decided to drive up to Byron a day early so we could just take our time and there was no stress, and also for the main reason, to go to the beach and hang with our mate's.
After a day of driving we arrived at Parkway(the house), and met up with The Warriors dude's who if they werent asleep were pretty beat from their flight out here.
Everyone had an early night and it is always a good feeling falling asleep in the clean air of Byron Bay.

Tuesday 9th Oct- Arena, Brisbane

Today was the day of the first show, and we were all up early, but it wasent to go to the show, it was to go surfing. We all went to the beach and spent as much time there as we could before it was time to get back in the van and get up to Brisbane.

We got up there pretty early and saw what was to be a daily occurance at all the shows, a ball game of some sort ( cricket, football, baseball, etc) taking place inside the venue.

After loading in, we joined in the game of cricket, but i hate that game, and i'am shit at it too, so i kept myself busy setting up and packing up the merch desk numerous times. See, the venue manager was going fucking crazy at everyone and making them move and arange things every 2 seconds. She was yelling at everyone in her path and carrying on, until i pulled her aside and had a calm conversation with her and basically told her to chill out, haha. Her attitude was to set the tone for what was to happen that night though.

I dont remember all that much about our set, we played pretty well i thought, covered Burn and got an ok response from what i could tell(Chode had the lights shining in our faces, haha) for our first time playing in Brisbane.

I do remember seeing each one of the Warriors dude's side of stage for our whole set as well as most our mate's from Parkway and Nightmare. That was to set the theme for the whole tour, pretty much every night every band would watch each other's set's, no bullshit hanging in the backstage room going on on this tour.

Not so much during our set, but during Nightmare's and the Warriors set's i started noticing people getting kicked out for "moshing". See, because this show was all ages but also liscenced, there were police inside the venue( who the fuck knows why?, i guess its a qld thing) and they had fucking no idea what was going on, and the security were fucking clueless as well.

Basically kids were getting thrown out for having a good time, none of them were causing trouble, no one had stage dived( except me, haha), no one was starting fights, etc, etc.

It was complete bullshit and there was nothing we could do, when Parkway played kids were getting taken out left right and centre, and when i started saying things to security and the venue people they didnt do shit.

To cut a long story short the venue, security and police were totally out of hand and they only inflamed the situation by being heavy handed with kids( most of them 14- 16 year old girls, haha) I honestly thought it was going to turn into a riot, i was getting fucking pissed, and i kind of wouldnt of minded if things got crazy.

When we were loading out the roads were blocked by cop cars and their were police outside with dogs pushing kids back down a dark side street ( in a shitty part of town) who were just waiting to get picked up by their parents.

Good move retards.

We drove back down to Byron after the show, and we were the first to arrive back at Parkway.

I guess Byron got hit by a crazy hail storm when we were up in Brisbane playing the show and Gaz's recently purchased car got hammered along with his car port's roof which had totally caved in.

Crazy night, time for sleep.

Wednesday 10th Oct- Arena, Brisbane

After what happened during/after the show last night( fucking nothing), there were some doubts if the show was going to go ahead today, and because of this we had to cut our day at the beach short which sucked.

We did however get to have a "tour bbq" with all the guys and crew from each band, and go in the pool. Pete B and i also climbed the huge tree behind the house, it was awesome.

We got up there really early and were told we had to have a "meeting" with the police, venue owners and security to see if the show would go ahead.

I said i was Parkway's manager and basically told the police that they and the security were totally out of hand in their treatment of the kids, and that if there was anyone to blame for anything it was them for kicking kids out and roughing them up for nothing.

One of the cops asked Pig that if when they saw kids getting excited could they "slow it down a bit and tell the crowd to relax", hahahahahaha, what a fucking idiot. These people really did have no idea.

That nights show sucked for me, we played well and everything, but every security guy in the place and every cop were acting like fucking retards, i even over heard one of them saying "lets smash these little kids"

I told all the dude's to be ready cause i thought things could go off at any time.

Thankfully nothing happened, apart from those dude's just being super rude and obnoxious, everyone played and we got the fuck out of there.

Its been said before, but ill say it again, FUCK THE POLICE and also FUCK THE ARENA.

If i never set foot in their shitty stinky and hot as fuck venue again then ill be a happy man.

Thursday 11th Oct- Byron Bay High School, Byron Bay

Another crazy storm hit Byron again last night when we were gone, and you could see the damage it had caused in town, cars were smashed, ceilings/roofs had collapsed, it was crazy.

Most of today was spent doing our own things, i went surfing, we hung on the beach, ate food, and just relaxed. I love Byron Bay and hate leaving whenever i am there, but what's even harder is having to go play a show when i'am there. I dont want to be locked inside a room hearing loud music, i want to be in the ocean, hearing waves break, haha.

We loaded in, and saw that today's ball game of choice was baseball, i didn't even bother, but watching some of the Warriors dude's go for it was cool, some of them had some skills.

My girlfriend didn't want to come inside the venue when the game was on because whenever she is around ball sports the ball has a way of hitting her in the head. I assured her that the ball had come nowhere near where i was at the merch desk and she finally came in to help me set up the merch, just as we got there the ball came flying and neither of us even saw it, we did feel it however fly between our heads, haha, she sat behind the desk and waited for the game to finish.

Just before we were to go on tonight, Andres got a call that a family member had passed away, which of course was horrible news, we decided that as soon as we were done playing we would drive through the night to get him back to his family asap.

Our set went well, but i can only imagine how Andres was feeling, getting that news literally as he was setting up his drums.

We packed up quickly and got out of there, i bet Parkway's set would of been crazy that night with no fun police there to ruin it.

Friday 12th Oct- Roundhouse , Sydney

I called Andres in the afternoon, to see how he was and to make sure he was good to go on and finish the tour (we are only a couple shows in at this point) and he was not only good but he was siked.

We had played at the Roundhouse at HC2007, and it was the craziest show i have ever seen, 1600 hardcore kids going nuts to every band, so i had no idea what to expect tonight as it was sold out at 2200 fucking kids! This was crazy.

Our set went down really well, the best of the tour by far, but i still wasent quite used to dealing with such a large gap between me and the crowd. Which is something i did have to get used to. Some girl in the front row with fucking balloons for Winston kept distracting me too, haha. She fucking sat there squashed on the barricade through all 3 support bands just so she could try to give her shitty balloons to Winno, fucking hell, haha.

Watching parkway's set that night was UNBELIEVABLE, my little mate's from Byron Bay are fucking HUGE! The view from the balcony was crazy! 2200 kids going fucking mental, it was great. Walking on stage to sing "Dead Man's Chest" was a crazy feeling, it was like i was in U2! haha.

Home to sleep in our own bed's.

Saturday 13th Oct- Jamison Inn, Canberra

This show ruled, but when we arrived and i found out that our show was in one room and there was a 21st birthday in another room next door i knew that was not a good combo, haha.

Every band's set was fucking crazy, Pete B fucking loved it tonight and told me he wished every show was like this (small stage, no barrier, no security, etc) and i think so did everyone else.
Towards the end parkway's set i went back to the merch area to get some air, and a girl with her shirt half ripped and marks on her face came up to me and told me that a guy had just punched her, not by accident, but intentionally and a few times too.

I thought it was fucked up, but didn't think too much more of it thinking maybe the dude didn't really mean it or the girl was exaggerating , but after parkway had finished and we were at the desk both her another girl and a young kid came back up saying that the same guy had punched them. As they were telling us, a guy went up to egg and asked for "2 parkway shirts", turns out he is the birthday boy and him and his mates thought it would be a good idea to come into the show( without paying of course ) and get in the "moshpit" and be tough guys.

The girl started nodding her head at him, as in "that's the guy", so i went over and calmy asked " so you like to punch girls hey mate?", i could see in his face that he knew his number was up, but he tried to stay like the tough guy and said "fuck off mate", at that i threw a nice straight right across the merch desk that caught him right on the chin, i saw his legs going but that wasent enough, fuck this guy, i quickly jumped the table and held him up ( the fucker ripped my Madball shirt clean off me) and gave him a few more to teach him that hitting girls really isn't that cool.

After that i knew it was only a matter of time until the birthday party, fueled by alcohol came in to see what happened to the birthday boy, so i told everyone to pack up asap and make sure someone is at the van's at all times to make sure no one does anything to them.

Well when it was my turn guarding the vans i heard a crazy loud noise and i was like "no way" and run in and just find mayhem unfolding, its an old fashioned pub brawl! haha and i missed it!, so i throw myself into it, but its mostly over except for Javi, Charlie and i throwing some chairs, haha. One guy was still down when we left over an hour later, but you know what, FUCK HIM, thats what you get.

Later reports had Baina, Chizza, Javi and Charlie as being the standouts, but points went to Marshall for taking a huge cheap shot from the side and not dropping. Good work brother, haha.

After the show we all drove threw the night to get to Melbourne so we could fly out to a place none of us (except Parkway) had ever been, Hobart, Tasmania.

Sunday 14th Oct- Brisbane Hotel, Hobart

It didn't matter that we had all had barely any sleep, we were all real excited that we were going to a place that we had never been too. That dosent happen to much anymore when your on tour in Australia, so we were siked.

By the time we got in to Hobart and worked out how 4 bands and all our gear were going to fit into 3 cars it was time to go straight to the venue. It was a cool little pub, sort of an Arthouse type vibe, except it was a little cleaner, haha, and they made us all real nice dinners for nothing, thanks guys!

After our set i took off for a walk with my camera and took some pics down by the harbour, i noticed a huge mountain and it must of been the one that the Parkway guys had been telling us about, we were going up that in the morning, that was for sure.

Every band except parkway's set was kinda weird, i guess they dont really know too many bands down there, so it was kinda dead, but no one really cared, we were in Tasmania! haha.

Monday 15th Oct- Camberwell Centre, Melbourne

After a great nights sleep at Liam from The Scandal's house (thanks brother), we headed up that fucking huge mountain(Mt Wellington), and it was fucking crazy. When we finally got up there it was so fucking windy that Pete B actually got blown over and fell on the ground, haha.

The view was awesome and we stayed up there as long as we could until it was time to get to the airport.

Today was meant to be a day off but beacuse the tour was doing so well and most ( by the end, ALL) of the shows had sold out, Graham added more, so today was the last added show in Melbourne.

From the get go the monitor guy was a fucking asshole to everyone, and i was just thinking great, another fuckwit to deal with. He told us all not to touch his "$5000 each monitors" and not to put our feet on them or he would "fucking kill us".

So, during our first song when his "$5000 monitors weren't even on i was understandably pissed off, i stared at him for a while, and when he laughed at me and called me some fucking name i guess it got the better of me and i went to each of his fancy monitors and kicked them all and looked back at him like he was the next thing i was going to kick, haha. I guess he got the picture because the sound on stage was great after that, haha.

The show was pretty crazy, huge room, lots of kids, Javi and Baina stage dived at the same time during Parkway and i think they are still trying to dig the 16 year old girl's out of the ground that they landed on, haha.

Tuesday 16th Oct- Roundhouse , Sydney

Same deal today, it was meant to be a day off, but due to the other Sydney show selling out, another one got added. We decided to spend the money and fly back up and back down rather than driving back and forth and thank fuck we did that. The Her Nighmare and Warriors dude's looked shot, haha.

The show again was fucking crazy, and we actually got a better response that the first Sydney show. I made the 2 huge pits that had formed attack each other during a song and that ruled.

I also just said fuck it and climbed down of the huge fucking stage and got on the barrier and in the crowd a little too. I guess i was starting to get the hang of the huge fucking stage's.

Parkway's set was again crazy, but not as crazy as the previous show in Sydney, there was no diving off the fucking huge speaker stacks, and i didn't see any girls spewing up blood in the ambulance room that night like i did during the other show, eeewwww.

Wednesday 17th October- Camberwell Centre, Melbourne

Back down to Melbourne, and yeah the flights were the best money we had ever spent.

We played 1000 times better than we did on Monday night, and there were no issues with the monitor guy this night, he was actually a little nicer to us all, maybe he was having a bad day on Monday, haha.

Everyone's sets are great and we take a group pic at the end of the night becuase Chizza from Nightmare cant make it to Adelaide, fucking cat.

Thursday 18th Oct- The Gov, Adelaide

I always love going to Adelaide, something about the place just relaxes me. My girlfriends family live there, so it has been a second home to me over the year's, so maybe that's why.

On the drive there we came across Parkway pulled over on the side of the road. Turns out they ripped there tow bar almost clean off their van because of the weight of their trailer.

With no other options it looks like we are towing the thing the rest of the way into Adelaide, haha, it weighed a fucking ton and definately slowed things down a little, i'am glad we didnt have to tow it the whole tour!

At a truck stop in Border Town, Pete is dacked not once, but twice in front of the lady taking his order, he dosent enjoy it and dosent quite enjoy parkway's sense of humour , haha.
Our set tonight was kinda weird, tonight was a show when i guess not all that many actual "hc kids" got in, because it sold out so early and everyone knows hc kids dont buy presales, haha, so we kinda had a few people into it but most just nodding their heads, fuck it, its all good.

Tonight was Her Nightmare's last night on the tour as they wouldn't be coming to Perth, so we all said our goodbye's and they set off straight back on the road for Melbourne.

Friday 19th Oct- Day Off, Adelaide

Today was the only day off on tour, i spent it hanging out with my girlfriend at her family's house. I fucked up and decided to fly with everyone to Perth that night instead of going to see Nick Cave and his new band Grinderman in Adelaide. Fuck i regret that.

The reason why i did decide to fly with everyone was because we had 3 bands and all our gear on the one flight and i had organised a group check in for all of us, so we all had to be together, bummer.

In the newsagent in the aiport i was joking around with Gaz saying "look i'am on the cover of that mag!" and pointed to some buff dude with abs, and then he said "look i'am on the cover of that mag!" and he actually was! Parkway were on the cover of Blunt, Crazy!

The flight was pretty funny, with Javi calling out "Winston, Winston" like a 12 year old girl every 5 minutes.

Saturday 20th Oct- Amplifier, Perth

Perth has always been good to us, maybe its because we used to be on Common Bond Records or that we are good friends with Miles Away, iam not to sure what it is, but these shows were to be the best for us on this tour and a fucking great way to go out.

After a day of hanging out with my family(who live in Perth), we loaded in and got fucking soaked in a crazy afternoon storm.

Blkout opened the show, and it was my first time seeing them, they were cool.

Tonight's show was awesome, we got a fucking crazy response and everyone just seemed to have an awesome time, it was just a no bullshit vibe and no one gave a fuck, great!

Sunday 21st Oct- Capitol, Perth ( plus 208)

This show was kinda unbelievable for me, see, we had had pretty good responses every night, but today we probably almost matched the other bands which is fucking crazy.

For the whole set there were tons of people singing along, diving, and moshing. It was just one of those shows, and this dosent happen all that often, when you can stage dive and know that you are not going to hit the ground because there was so many people squashed up front.

I took full advantage of that and did one of the best things in the world to do, and that is stage dive to your own band, numerous times, haha.

I wish i had some pictures of this show.

During the day we had been asked to play a quick set that night before we flew home at the legendary perth house, 208. We were all really into the idea, and headed straight off after the show to try and find the place.

Both the Parkway and Warriors dudes came as well, and before we played we were outside and i said "fuck it, if we are going to do this, lets have fucking fun". Every guy from both bands came inside ( a tiny lounge room ) and circle pitted and/or bashed me the whole set, it was great. There were even a few stair dives thrown into the mix. This show was fucking awesome and a great way to end the tour.

After it was done we went and got some greasy shitty food and said our goodbye's as we were all on seperate flights home.

It sucked that it was all over, but it was 2 weeks of my life that i will never forget.

Lets Play

2008-03-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting on other Pete to post his writings and thoughts, but he has been snowed under (or is it sunned under?) with a heap of work/other activities (ie- trekking, meditation, etc, etc) so i'am going to just keep this thing rolling and when he has his stuff finished he is just going to post it up.
So, where were we?, we had finished the recording/mixing/mastering and had sent off the finished mastered disk and art and were now just waiting on the plant to get all the copies back. They turned it around in record time, and i remember being pretty excited when i was driving to Resist to actually have a finished copy in my hands. For someone that hasn't been involved in a band or a recording process the best way i could explain it is like a pregnancy( i'am not sure how i would know how that feels), it takes around 9 months and when you have the finished product in your hands all the hard work is worth it, haha.
The first thing i noticed was that they had fucked up the printing job, the first and last pages of the booklet were so dark you could barely read the lyrics or credits, that bummed me out( and still does) but we werent in a position to send them back and get them to do it over, as we were heading out on tour in 5 days.
After we had finished the whole recording process the first thing we had to do was find a bass player and 2nd guitarist. I had a few ideas for both positions but was still very unsure as i didn't want someone i didn't really know, and i knew that they had to be able to play fucking well to keep up with what Pete and Andres had layed down on that record.
One afternoon i headed around Pete's place to try and come up with some names, and i remember one of us saying , "what about Beans?", i'am not sure why we hadn't thought of him earlier as him and Pete has played together in Toe To Toe and jammed in a new band that never ended up doing anything called DEMON LIZARD(best band name ever). Pete called him then and there and he pretty much gave us a 99.9% yes on the spot, a couple days later and he was locked in and learning the songs.
That still left us with finding another guitarist, i left this one up to Pete as i knew that he would want someone who could really play, because some of the stuff he had come up with was kinda tricky, plus he not only wanted someone that could play it, but someone who had THE VIBE. He told me about a young kid called Chris who lived just down the road from him who he had known since they were baby's. Chris also went to the institute of music and had jammed around in some local bands.
Pete hooked it up and the next day Chris was at Pete's learning songs.
So we had a full band, and a new album about to drop, now was the time for the hard work to be done. We jammed fucking hard before our first shows as a full band together, sometimes every night of the week. Things were sounding good and this was definitely the tightest band i had ever been involved in.
I booked us 2 "warm up" shows before the start of our Australian tour with Internal Affairs, see IA were meant to fly into Brisbane and then we were meant to play a show in Noosa and Byron Bay with them, but their flight out of Japan got fucked up so they couldn't make it, so i called the promoters to tell them that we still wanted to use the dates.
We flew up to Brisbane and drove up to Noosa, and apart from all the fucking roundabouts we were in paradise, the place was fucking beautiful and i had the best banana smoothie in history. After a day of swimming and lying on the beach it was time for our first show. It was on the floor in a HUGE gymnasium with no monitors and only a vocal pa. We got through our set with no real problems, so it was 1 from1 .
The next night in Byron was pretty much a repeat of the night before, HUGE gymnasium, floor show, vocal pa, again we got it done but it wasn't really the best practice for what we had coming the next night. See, the next night we were playing hardcore 2007 at the Roundhouse. For anyone who hasn't been to the Roundhouse it really is BIG. It has a cap of 2200 with a hug balcony running around the length of it. I definitely never imagined in my wildest dreams playing there once, let alone three times(more on that later)
I remember doing my vocal warm ups and hearing the crowd for the band before us and being actually nervous, i just remember feeling fuck, this is it, if we fuck up here its over, and questioning if we were really ready for this as it was only our 3rd show altogether as a band and the first one were we actually had monitors and a stage, haha.
Still to this day it was one of the best shows we had ever played as a band, we fucking nailed it and i couldn't be happier with how it went ( thats very rare for me, ask any of the other dudes in the band) and when my friend Gabe burst into the backstage room and just walked up to me and hugged me(i was covered in sweat) and said thank you and that it was amazing i was stoked. We sold every cd we had that day and a fuckload of merch, and i remember falling asleep that night thinking i wish i could play to 1600 kids every day (yeah right)
The next day was the official start of our tour with our bothers in IA, and we set off on a fucking cold day to Penrith.
The show went well, but for what was to set the pace for the rest of the tour the crowd was kinda small, and after the show the day before a bit of a bummer. I guess it was a tough time of the year to be touring ( the middle of winter) and just after hc2007 but at most of the shows ( Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide) crowds were kinda smallish and for the most part seemed pretty uninthused. I guess its harder now with every fucking band in the world touring every week, but if anything i felt bad for the IA dudes, who were like what the fucks happened here?. Dont get me wrong the shows were still fun, but yeah something was just missing.
The biggest bummer of the tour was us missing our flights to Perth and having to miss the shows over there. Not only did it fucking suck having to drop of the tour early and say goodbye to our bro's in IA but it sucked missing playing in what has been an awesome place for NA, Perth. It didn't matter too much cause we knew we were heading back there real soon, on a tour where we were definitely not going to have to worry to much about turn outs.

EDIT- I forgot but in between the IA tour and the Horizons Tour we played a bunch of shows, Sike Your Mind in Melbourne with Down To Nothing, Miles Away, 50 Lions and a bunch more was awesome, we drove there, played, got back in the van and drove home, that sucked.

Sike Your Mind in Sydney at the Manning Bar was awesome, Manning Bar shows are always really good for us, Sydney rules.

We also played a last minute "secret show" with Miles Away on a Monday night, that ruled.

And then before October came around we played on the Central Coast and out at Castle Hill, which kinda sucked and made us feel as if we were at a school band night ( huge hall, mc, etc)

What's Up With The Nude Guy On The Cover?

2008-02-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, i feel this deserves it's own post because almost every single person who has seen our album cover has asked the same question, "whats up with the nude guy on the cover?", i didnt think it would cause that kind of reaction, beacause to me it seems pretty straight forward, but here i go, ill break it down for you.
Our album is called SURVIVAL, right?, ok, and the lyrics( those words on the inside of the booklet, oh thats right you dont have a booklet you downloaded it) all have to do with dealing with your own personal demons and surviving them (SURVIVAL, get it?) and making your own path in this world and taking it on.
So, around the time we were deciding on what our artwork was to be, Pete and i were frequently taking a little trek over the headland at Malabar to a little cove in between Maroubra and Malabar for a swim. Its a crazy little spot, and quite desolate, even though its right next to Maroubra there is no phone reception and no one else is barely ever around. Which gives you the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere when in reality your in one of the biggest cities in the world.
Anyway, one afternoon we were down there swimming around in a rock pool and just taking in everything around us, and i said to Pete, what if the cover was just a black and white photo of those cliffs with the ocean and sky, kind of like a "gateway", and a guy standing out on a rock in the ocean looking out to sea. He loved the idea, and he asked me what the guy would be wearing and i replied plain black shorts and that i wanted the guy to have no tattoo's and no markings on his shorts, just as "original" and "real" as it could be. Thats when Pete was like, "man, he should just be naked", and i thought for a second, and agreed, "you come into this world with nothing except yourself, you leave this world with nothing except yourself", hard.
The day we got the photos done turned out to be quite interesting. See, Pete had organised the model, but on the day of the shoot he pulled out for whatever reason, but we needed to still do it that day, because we had a deadline for the art to be all done, or for at least the cover to be done, so we still had to do it.
The photographer(Ryan), who took all the pictures in the layout is a cousin of one of my friends, so the plan was to meet him at my friend's Bryce's house and we were to go up to the spot and take the pictures we needed. At this point i really wasent sure of what i was going to do, but the moment Bryce answered the door i had my answer, haha.
On the walk there i told both Ryan and Bryce the plan, and Ryan started snapping of pictures of the sky, ocean, cliffs, rocks, trees, etc, etc. When i got to the part about the naked guy, straight away Bryce said "iam not getting fucking naked", haha.
When we got to the spot where we thought would be best i said "lets go Bryce" and he half agreed to do it, and climbed up onto this crazy cliff face and started disrobing. See, the final picture of the guy standing down at the bottom of the cliffs was not the first we took, when we realised that both sides of the cliffs wouldnt fit into the frame we ended up experimenting with a whole heap of different ideas, so not only did Bryce get naked, but he got naked for over 2 hours on quite a cold day i might add, and in some situations with a fisherman( the first time i had ever seen anyone else down there) standing about 15 metres
away looking at him( and Ryan and i taking photos of him) wondering what the fuck we were doing, haha.
As i said we were there for well over 2 hours and when Ryan showed me what we had come up with i was pretty happy, Bryce was freezing cold, and not that impressed, but maybe the case of beer(his payment) cheered him up a little, haha.
Here's some of the pics that we didnt end up using.

SURVIVAL

2008-02-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

Doing an album was something that i had always wished to do, alot of bands release a ep or even a couple of them, but then when it comes time to step it up and do an album they either fall apart or release an album that could of/ should of, been an ep. My 2 previous bands had never managed to get there, and i was hoping that it would be third time lucky, but looking back on it, i wasent taking the steps necessary to make it happen. Yeah i was writing some songs ( bad ones) and lots of lyrics, but i was lacking direction, and more importantly dudes working hard together with me to get an album written and recorded.
Pete was super busy doing his school stuff , and seemed to be just happy to fill in on bass just to help me out, and Jiggsy and Dooley already had their hands full with work and trying to write and record the Jungle Fever album.
Everything changed when Todd arrived in Australia, ive said it before, but if it wasent for Todd and his stay with me here, Survival would of never happened. Through just hanging out with him he managed to ignite something in both Pete and i that i dont think would of ever come out without a little bit of a push. I have never seen Pete so driven then i have in the lead up to us recording the album, there wasent a day that went by that we didnt either jam or talk about songs for the record and our ideas on how we wanted things to work.
Before Todd had gone home he had given us 2 songs ( Crushed and Survival), and started us off. In the weeks that followed Pete and i went through a whole heap of old tapes, yes, tapes, some that had gone all the way back to the Restraint days, that i had recorded riffs on using a dictaphone( which is where we got the start to Reality, and a few other riffs i think from memory), and jammed new shit ( him playing guitar me sitting and watching, haha) pretty much every day.
We then knew that there was some tough decisions to be made, both Jiggsy and Dooley were unable to give us the time needed to make the record the best it could be, and one afternoon Pete and i decided that we would put that to them and see their opinions. Both of the guys totally agreed and said they were about to say the same thing to us anyway, as they were in the middle of recording the Jungle Fever album and were having a hard enough time juggling life/work and one band, let alone two.
So that left Pete and i with a bunch of new songs, but no band.
We decided that the easiest way to go about things was to just find a drummer and start jamming and worry about the other stuff later. He told me he had been jamming with a young south american gentlemen named Andres at his school ( the institute of music) who lived in our area, grew up listening to Pantera, Metallica, etc, could smash the fuck out of any drum kit placed in front of him, and that he would be perfect for what we wanted to do. It sounded good but i was a little hesitant of not having a "hardcore" kid in the band, would he be bummed when we didnt come home from tour with his pockets over flowing with cash?, how would he react to sleeping on strangers floors or in shot hotels?, did he know what he was getting himself into?
All my questions were put to rest after the first night we jammed, not only was he a fucking unbelievable drummer who hit fucking HARD and FAST, but he didnt give a fuck about anything, he just wanted to play music, he was perfect.
That night he picked up the songs straight away, and watching him and Pete work together was amazing, i didnt understand a fucking thing they talked about in between songs(fucking music nerds), but when they were jamming it just worked.
Pete was going nuts playing all sorts of crazy shit, and Andres was not only matching him but fucking making it sound awesome.
Right there that night, i knew we could do whatever we wanted with this album, there were no limitations whatsover, the ball was in our court and all we had to do now was make it happen.
We jammed every night of the week or whenever we could, sneeking into their school after hours, for 2 months leading up until we were due to start tracking the drums at Q Studios on the 19th of May 2007.
We had our plan, we knew what we wanted to do, we had the songs, now it was just time to record everything and make it happen.
So, first thing saturday morning we were in a laneway just off Oxford St in the heart of Sydney, loading all our gear in and the feeling i had was, "we are fucking doing this", after years of falling short, all the hard work, we had finally got to the stage of doing an album. I just remember this feeling of being focused on what i wanted, but little did i know it was a long way off.
Andres smashed it out for 2 long days, Beau did a great job pulling some great drum sounds, and Andres did an even better job playing some fucking crazy parts with relative ease. My friends Craig and Armand from Sick Of It All, who were on tour here in Australia popped into the studio on Sunday, and when Armand said "wow, that kid can really play" i was even more happy with our decision to ask Andres to be in the band. We joked around with the idea of either Craig or Armand singing something on the record, and i said only if it was a Straight Ahead cover or if Armand was singing "suck my dick, balls and all", if only, haha.
So after 2 long days Andres got all his drums down and sounding fucking good, it was now in mine and Pete's hands. First thing Monday morning we left for our friend's Trent and Joel's house the central coast of NSW, where we would be recording all the guitars and vocals.

After a long drive in my Dad's old station wagon filled to the roof with gear, and where it felt like we were getting gassed by petrol we arrived and straight away started setting everything up. There was only so much we could do until Trent got home from work, so we went across the road to the beach, lucky the waves werent much good or it would of taken us even longer to get it done, haha.
We had estimated that we would get everything done in 1 week, a pretty small amount of time for 12 songs, but with Pete playing all the guitars and me just having to sing my parts we thought we would be fine, we were wrong.
The plan was for Pete to do all his parts first, get the didg done, and then i would do my parts in 1 day( jj did it so why not?), but the guitars ended up taking alot longer then we anticipated because we could only do it when Trent was home from work. I must add here, Trent was a fucking trooper and after working for 8 hours in his shop ( East Gosford Music ) he would get home to find me and Pete sitting in his lounge room ready to go, so he would literally put his keys down and sit down at his desk and start recording, solid dude! This is how it went pretty much every day Monday to Friday, the poor dude must of been glad to see the back of us. By the end of the week, we had all the bass down, and the first guitar track for most songs, it was coming together bit by bit.
I started my vocals on the Saturday, with Pete at the desk, it felt kinda funny screaming my lungs out in a suburban lounge room, not even in a sound booth or anything, with Pete being the "engineer", but we got off to an alright start. We started with the songs that i had already sung on before ( there were quite a few songs that i hadn't even sung to before ) and i was getting through them ok. After a few hours my voice started to go a little, but i still kept pushing as i knew that time wasent on our side ( we were meant to be taking the external hard drive back down to Sydney either Sunday or Monday). It ended up getting to the point that i had to stop, i was fucking pissed off and stressed out, so we had a break, went for a swim and tried to get back into it that night. But again my voice was nowhere near as strong as it was when we had started, FUCK! now i really was stressing the fuck out. I had never had problems recording before, but then again i had never tried to sing 11 songs before, so we called it a night, but i could barely sleep, so many things were going through my head, what if my voice took days to get better?, what if it wasent finshed and ready for us to take back to Sydney for Lachlan to mix, what if it wasent ready for the release date and tour with IA? FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!
The next day Pete and Trent really got stuck into what was left of the guitars and they smashed out a 12 hour+ day, i think i sung a little, but iam not sure if we even used it.
So Monday had come around and today was the day we were meant to be heading back down to Sydney with the finished product ready to be mixed, but we still had quite alot of vocals and guitars to get done. By now i had reached the point of being like "it is what it is" and Pete was his usual calm self, just relaxed and saying it will get done when it gets done.
I had to go to work at night, so i did as much as i could until i had to leave, and i got quite a bit done and it was sounding ok, Pete stayed and worked on the guitars again that night with Trent until the early hours of the morning. The next day i headed back up, and Pete played me what they had done the night before, and i was like "holy fuck!", it was sounding awesome and we were starting to be able to hear "it". I got most of my vocals done, and again Pete and Trent were up till the early hours of the morning working on the guitars. Come wednesday we could see the finish line, both of us had a few things to finish off but by late afternoon it was done. We were both physically and mentally exhausted but so happy with what we had achieved, i think we went above what we ever thought we could do, but fuck we had worked for it.
I definately learnt that its not a good idea to try and sing all my parts in one or two days, one song a day sounds like a much better plan, but alot of the time thats just not a possibility, and in this case it wasent. When i listen to the record now i can hear where my voice isnt at its best and i sure as fuck can sing those songs alot better now, but hindsight dont mean or change shit, and in the words of a wise man, "it is what it is".
There were still a few extras that we had to record, and we did that back at Q with Beau on Friday night, and then we were booked in for what was to be a fucking HUGE weekend of mixing with soon to be great friend Lachlan Mitchell.
We started at 10am Saturday and went through to 10pm that day, so thats 12 hours, but the next day was the big one, we started at 10am and went through all the way until 7am the next morning! Thats fucking 20 hours straight! We were all fucking shot after it, and when Andres came back to the studio after a "celebratory drink" with Beans telling us that he "hated what we have done to that song", haha. He was talking about Succumb, but he cant even remember saying anything, and after passing out on the lounge i drew a large penis on his face and wrote "i like" on his forehead.

But the best thing was when we were finally leaving and blocking the laneway loading our gear, an undercover cop beeped his horn at us, and it was obvious that he was a cop and we were around the corner from the police hq, so anyway, the cop beeps, Andres slowly turns around calmy looks him in the eye, raises his middle finger and slowly says, " FUCK YOU" and then turns around shuts the boot and then gets in the car. All this with a huge penis drawn on his face, it was fucking amazing. The guy didnt know what to do, but jumped out saying something about being a police officer, i said "yeah ok" and drove off, it was a great way to end a fucking marathon weekend of mixing. Oh yeah and shit was sounding fucking great!
The next Thursday Pete and i headed down to Melbourne to Crystal Studios to get the final mix of the songs mastered, which ended up being another long day, but i dont think we appreciated the whole mastering process and how much it brings everything out and it was great to be there with Joe and to have our input and see how much mastering really does effect the end product. His book of "The 100 Greatest Records Ever" caused a few arguments though, ha. Driving to have our "celebratory dinner" at the vegy bar, we were cranking the final mastered version of the songs and we were fucking blown away by what we had created. Listening to it, i almost couldnt believe that not only was it all over but it sounded better than we could of ever imagined.
All we had to do now was get the disk to Graham for him to send it off for production as all the artwork was already done(more on that in the next post) and we would have it in our hands. We only just made the deadline but we did make it and now we had a month to get a band together and start jamming before our July tour with our brother's in Internal Affairs.

Free Time? Whats that???

2008-02-21T22:02:00.000-08:00

I havent slacked on this thing, i just have had no time whatsover to actually sit down and add to it, shit has been crazy, its been so long since ive even attempted to be on this site that i couldnt even remember the password and i just wasted another 10 minutes of my valuable time trying to fucking remember it.
Anyway, bullshit aside, this thing will be updated every day from now until its up to date and current.

Summer 2006- Nardcore invades the Bra

2007-12-30T17:31:00.001-08:00

The split came out around late nov/early dec( i think, possibly later, ha) thanks to the hard work of Clint at Organized Crime Records, the finish product looked awesome ( Hot Ash!) and i was siked to have some coloured vinyl of my own band.
NTB stepped up to the plate and wrote the best song (i think), but Corey managed to sing both No Turning Back and No Apologies in the IA song which was pretty fucking cool, ha.
Around the same time my friend Todd Jones was due to land in Sydney for a 3 month holiday, and for him to realise that Maroubra is where its at!
In his time here, this is a brief summery of what was achieved, KFC Pagewood got the fuck eaten out of it ( by Todd alone), linkys wireless was stolen daily, red creaming soda was slammed, Survival( the song) was written after a late night Mags session, Crushed became a NA song after Guns Up didn't use it because they didn't like the speed picking (pussies!), NA played a show with Todd on 2nd guitar where Survival was given its live debut, the suns rays were soaked in (almost) daily at Maroubra Beach, a Limp Wrist show was attended, but we didn't make it though the first support band, after the singer decided it would be a good idea to talk shit on stage and got what had been coming to him for a long time.
Hanging with Todd every day was awesome, because he gave me an insight on making an album, that at the time i needed, like a marketing genius once said "just do it", whatever it takes to get it done, do it. And that's what we had to do, a label change, member changes, etc, etc, we did it, and we got it done.
Without him, i dont think Survival would have ever been released , he gave me and Pete the kick in the arse that we needed, and for that iam forever grateful.
For more on Nardcore invading Maroubra we will have to go direct to the source.
Take it away Todd...

Mr Todd Jones

2007-12-30T17:31:00.000-08:00

-Pete asked me to write something for the No Apologies blog. As honored as I feel to contribute to this blog, I'm just as scared. I'm not much of a writer. My puncuation is bad and improper. My sense of humor is vague, dry, and pessimistic. I come off as an asshole when I'm not trying to. I'll try to get thru this without boring you too much. Here goes...

In October of 2006, I turned 25 years old. I had a decent amount of money in the bank, and since I just got laid off of my job, I had a nice severance package and unemployment (that's America's dole to all you Aussie's) was coming in every month. I had no idea (and still have no idea) what I wanted to do with my life, so I called up my good friend Pete Abordi and asked him if I could come to Australia for a undetermined amount of time. Luckily for me, he was into the idea of letting me sleep on his fold out couch and letting me hang at his apartment with him and his awesome girlfriend. So I bought a plane ticket, and on November 24th, I found myself standing at baggage claim in Sydney Australia. My new home (for the next two months).

I got to Australia with absolutely no plans or expectations. I just wanted to hang out in Sydney and relax. Pete and I did exactly that. We went to Maroubra beach almost every day. Pete and I would go back to his place and listen to records, watch movies, and talk about hardcore and everything and anything. A few days of hanging out at Pete's and I got to meet one of Pete's best friends, also named Pete. Pete Bursky was a quiet guy. He showed me a bunch of jazz chords on guitar. Bursky was all about THE VIBE. I could tell Bursky and Pete knew HARDCORE. They felt it, and they had it in them. So many people play in bands just for an aesthetic. Just so they can get the glory of being on stage, being the "cool dude" in a band. They don't give a fuck about the songs they write/play. Not Abordi and Bursky. These were two anti-social motherfuckers. They don't want to know you, they don't want to be apart of your bullshit scene where everyone sucks each other off, they don't want to be apart of your social elistist bullshit, or your nightclub cocaine wannabe incestous hipster bullshit. They lived hardcore and they didn't need to prove it to anyone else, and weren't going to spend their time trying. A little jaded, but they still felt THE VIBE. Abordi and Busky didn't really have any plans of doing much with No Apologies. I knew these guys were capable of doing some ungodly shit with No Apologies. I tried to convince Abordi to get the band together and write the hardest record they were capable of doing. No Apologies had a show coming up at The Manning Bar in Sydney with Parkway Drive, Carpathian, and I forget who the other band was (sorry guys). He asked me to play the show with them and I was thrilled. He also asked me to help write a song for them. The song I ended up writing with those guys became the title track to thier album, "Survival". I think it's (musically) one of the hardest songs that I've written on guitar and I'm honored that No Apologies decided to use it.

I played that show at the Manning Bar and then a few weeks after, I came home to Southern California. In July, Resist Records (shout to my man Graham Nixon) released the record in Australia and I got a copy of it. I was floored by what the band did. They killed it. They went out on limbs but still maintained to make a record that is very cohesive. Something that hardly any hardcore bands are able to do. Anyway, that was my very short-lived experience with being a temporary member in No Apologies. I can't wait to come back to Sydney and hit the pit for those jams. Much love to Sydney, Resist, No Apologies, 50 Lions, Parkway Drive. And of course Pete Abordi for being one of my best friends and being a crucial part in visiting Australia, and Bursky for being a guitar god. -Todd

Split 7"/ BID Worldwide!

2007-12-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

I had recently returned home from a european tour with F.V.K (the Cro-Mags) and Betrayed, and also at the end of that tour Betrayed did a week with a band called No Turning Back. NTB blew my fucking mind, not only were they some of the best dude's i had ever met, they were one of the most amazing hardcore bands i have EVER seen, and i still stand by that. Anyway, when i came home i bought a heap of NTB cd's/shirts/etc and went about spreading the word about this band amonst Australian hardcore kids, cause i thought they NEEDED to know, and one day over a subway lunch at Innaloo shopping centre in Perth it was put to me that NA for our next release should do a split 7" with them to help them get their name out over here, and of course to help us get our name out in the EU. This soon turned into an idea of a 3 way split, NA, NTB and IA, as IA were looking at touring here again soon and a new release would help everyone involved. Corey suggested the band's just doing one original on the A side and a cover on the B side, which was fine for us as we had NO songs written, haha.
Pete and i soon got together and slapped together( i say slapped because thats what we actually did, i had a riff, Pete had a riff, we put them together and that was that) Only You. Looking back on it, i wish we wrote something stronger rather than just a fast part/ mosh part song, but it did the job and the message behind the song was a good one. We decided to cover Judge's "Take Me Away", at first i wanted to do a Cro-Mags cover, but to many bands have already recorded covers of the mags so we stuck with Judge. I had never sung that song at all before we went into the studio, actually we had never even played it together as a band before, so considering that, i think it came out pretty well. You also have to take into consideration that we recorded those 2 songs at Zen Studios, with the world famous Keith (its not Jeff) Lee. Neither the studio or said engineer are really at a world class level,haha, so with the time frame, money available and the studio we used the finish product could of been a lot worse.

Intro/Changes

2007-12-25T22:58:00.000-08:00

After getting home i didn't even think about the band for a few days, i was just happy to be home and back to doing the usual stuff, but after a week or so the band started to creep into my minds thoughts( as it does, ha), and the more i thought about it the more i didn't want NA to be over, things had only just started and there was a whole lot more i wanted to do with it.
I knew that things couldn't continue the way they were though, Mick and Bruz weren't happy or enjoying themselves, Rob never really said what he thought and is a pretty quite guy so i didn't really know what he was thinking either, so i went about calling the guys, without having anyone else in mind i knew that the band had to go on without Mick and Bruz, so i told them thats what was going to happen, and they were happy with that as they weren't really feeling it anyway, Rob said he was still down to play, so that left us without a guitarist and drummer after we played what would be Mick and Bruz's last show at HC06 at the Manning Bar.
Sydney is a weird place, most guys i grew up going to shows have either long ago dropped out or have no clue about current hardcore, and i didn't want to be dealing with someone like that, there are tons of new(er/ish) kids in Sydney, but i either didn't know them/ didn't want them in NA / didn't want to hold a kids hand , so finding a guitarist and drummer looked as though it was going to be tough.
Jungle Fever had more or less recently relocated to Sydney and although i didn't really want people that were in other bands/ or steal other bands members, i didn't really have much of a choice, so i asked Jiggsy if he would be keen to play guitar, and Jiggsy being the nice dude that he is was siked. He also suggested Dooley and after a few phone calls it was sorted and our first jam as a new band was booked.
We didn't have much time to waste though as Jungle Fever had 2 shows booked in Melbourne ( one at the Arthouse and the other was Sike Your Mind at the Boatshed) and we were going to jump on them. I guess that was one benefit of stealing the JF dude's, ha. I just jumped in a car with Jiggsy and Dooley who were meeting the other guys in Melbourne, Rob couldn't get the time off work, so i'd organised for Steve from MA/CBR to fill in on bass.
The shows were a fucking blast, actually the whole weekend was, it was so awesome to be just hanging out with dudes that were siked on hardcore and playing shows, and that didn't give a fuck about anything.
Sike Your Mind at the boatshed was especially awesome, the show was an all day type thing, which i usually hate, but this show just had the best vibe, it was just like a big group of friends hanging out, bbqing, talking shit, and bands were also playing, haha, not to mention the venue was right on this little lake and the weather was actually good for once in Melbourne.
NA's set was fun as fuck, and probably the most fun i had had playing in a band for a long time.
I love circle pits.

That weekend both Jiggsy and myself talked alot about the band, he was excited to be doing it and to be helping me keeping it going and i was just siked to be around guys like him and Dooley that just wanted to play in a hardcore band.
If it wasent for Jiggsy and Dooley, NA would be long gone and buried so THANK YOU dudes.

Once we got home we continued playing shows in and around Sydney usually on Jungle Fever bills.
We were booked to play a benefit for Paint It Black at the now closed Club 22, and iam not exactly sure how it came about, but my old friend Pete "Outbursk" Bursky was to be playing 2nd guitar. I've been in bands with Pete for what seems like forever, and he always helped me out with NA, but not having him on stage next to me always felt weird for me , so i was siked to have him back next to me on guitar, but it wasent to be for long, after our next show, supporting Madball at the Manning Bar, Rob told me that he would be moving to Perth.
I was happy for him to be getting out of Sydney, cause we often talked about how much of a shithole this place can be , but this again left us a member down, the quick fix was for Pete to fill in on bass using my gear, which ended up turning into a long fix, but fuck, i dont think my bass had ever been played like that.

With our line up relatively settled, it was now time for a new release, we had just been playing the 7" songs and a few covers here and there for the last 5 or so months, and very little new material had been written let alone jammed out.
So our work was cut out for us.

Its Time To Play

2007-12-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

So, the recording was done, and the pressing/manufacturing/etc was underway, i was happy with how the songs turned out, and as far as i was concerned that was it for NA, i had no intentions of wanting to play shows, or to record again, the 7" was done, and i was happy. But as anyone knows, pressing vinyl isnt cheap, and Steve from Common Bond Records was starting to get a little concerned about his new "signing" that had no plans at all to play any shows. Iam not sure how, but he convinced me to start playing shows, and i aggreed, but on my terms, i only wanted to play the 6 songs off of the record, in a row, with no breaks, and not say one single word in between songs. I was pissed off with everything i saw around me , and at most shows, and this in my own weird way was my way of dealing with it. So i went about booking some shows, the first show we played was Jungle Fever's 7" launch at the now closed Club 22, and it started off with a bang, ha, i was facing Mick , all ready to release the past 6 months of anger in 7 minutes, he clicked in Heaven Knows, and as i turned to face the crowd and start singing i stepped on the mic lead and the mic dropped straight to the floor, what a start!
Our next show was a "secret show" i organised whilst on the road with the Champion/IA/MA/Betrayed Tour, it was to act as our record release show, and what a fucking way to do it, to this day, that show is still the best hardcore show ive ever been too, ive never felt the feeling that was in that room that day anywhere else, it was in a tiny fucking room, with my friends( and their bands) from Australia and the US, Last Nerve and Carry On (with Aram singing and Prebosk drumming) even played some songs, and it was fucking awesome.

We played a few more shows in and around Sydney, supporting both local and os bands, and then we were booked to tour WA, with our bro's in Miles Away, we had only played a handfull of shows at this point, and here we were flying off to the other side of the country, for what looked to be a weekend of great shows and lots of fun.

But that didnt really end up being the case, between everyone having their own individual shit going on outside the band, and no one really seeing eye to eye with how the band was going anyway.
Bruz didnt like having someone else's ( Pete's) involvement with the writing of the songs, he wanted it to just be the 4 of us, and it be OUR band, but the new songs we had tried writing were sounding to different for me, as Bruz is more of a "punk rock" guitarist as opposed to pete who plays pretty hard and raw, i guess more of a "hardcore" guitarist and also the guys were getting to the point of wanting to write some "different" stuff, not just the same old simple hardcore songs that i had written and i wanted to just keep it as simple as possible at that point.
So, the wheels were falling off, and you could tell, we played badly most shows, no one was really enjoying it, and if you put that vibe out there to a crowd of people when you play live that's usually what you get back, and it pretty much was.
Before our last show in WA, at the awesome HQ, we got together in the car park and i told the dudes that this was gonna be our last show, i didnt want to deal with the hassle that is being in a band, and if we werent enjoying lets stop it right now, everyone agreed, we played, and that was that.

Jamming/Recording

2007-12-01T18:55:00.000-08:00

I'am not to sure how many jams Ricky actually had with us, but it wasent many, before he told me that he would be moving to Canada, i knew this was coming, so it wasent a shock, but it did leave us needing a bass player, at this point i had been jamming with some other dudes for a band that never ended up happening, and Rob who played bass in Stronger Than Hate was playing Guitar, so i asked him if he would like to play bass again , and he said "yeah, why not", so we were back to a 4 piece again.
We jammed fairly consistantly leading up to what was to be the only output for NA, our s/t 7", i had no intention at all of playing out live , and looking back iam not even sure why i went about getting a full band, i think it was that at the time i didnt feel confident enough going into a studio to record my songs on my own.
So, one weekend of October 2005 we hit Sound Basement Studios( the same place where we were jamming, and where Bruz was working at the time) and went about recording 6 songs for our soon to be released ( pre-orders had started before we were even finsished writing) s/t 7".
I remember the recording process being quite easy, i knew the songs back to front, and felt pretty confident of getting the job done, Mick and Rob smashed their parts easily, and Bruz, straight from a night out and with no sleep and half a case of beer to keep him awake was the utter professional that he is, even writing the end part to Love Hate ( love, hate, fuck) that came out awesome.
This was my first time recording vocals since the Restraint days, so i was understandably a little concerned as to what they would sound like, but i was, and still am very happy with how my voice turned out, iam not sure what it was but i think that was the most comfortable ive ever felt in a studio.

Winter 2005

2007-11-22T03:31:00.000-08:00

So, Last Nerve had just broken up at the annual "HARDCORE 2005" fest in July, and i found myself not being in a band, which at first i was more than happy with, because after dealing with all the "business" side of LN quite frankly i needed a fucking break, but after a little time i felt myself longing for that feeling again, that feeling or release of playing live, that no matter what else you do , you cant match.
At the same time i was still working as the tour manager for Resist Records, but being on tour constantly was starting to take its toll on me, i hated what i saw around me, i hated the kids at shows all dressing up to out do each other, i hated the bands( most that i saw) that were bringing nothing to the table that i hadent already eaten, i hated dealing with all the bs night in night out, i had had enough, and i needed out. Around this time i started writing some thoughts down, that ended up turning into lyrics ( Heaven Knows and Outburst ). Towards the end of LN , Pete ( Bursky ) and i had been getting together almost daily trying to write for an LP, we ended up with 2 songs that no one else in the band heard, my friend Nick from Terror had helped me write one of them when we were on tour with them( Heaven Knows ), and the other one was all Pete (Outburst, thats were the name came from, Outburst = Outbursk!) and it was and still is one of my favourite NA songs.
So i told Graham that i couldnt do it any more, but there were still a few tours coming up that i had to do so as not to leave him hanging. During these next few tours whenever i had a little bit of down time i would grab a spare guitar off one of the dudes and start fucking around with some riffs, i started to realise, "hang on a second here, ive got some riffs, ive got some lyrics", and just thought fuck it, iam going to put out a 7", i had no intentions whatsoever of playing out live and at the time didnt have a band anyway , so the plan was to just get some friends together and record a 7" and somewhow get someone to put it out.
I didnt want to waste any of Graham's time, knowing that we werent really going to tour or even play shows, i knew he wouldnt be too interested, but one day when i was telling my friend Steve about it he just said "ill do it" as he had recently taken over Common Bond Records from another friend of mine, Ryan Willmott.
So that was it, we had a label, we had some songs, all i needed was a band.
The first person that i wanted in it was one of my best friends and a guy that is like a brother to me, Ricky Taylor, i asked him if wanted to play bass and he was siked, next i needed a drummer, i called Mick who was in LN with me and Pete, and he was down, i then talked to Pete about playing guitar, and he told me that he just needed a break from playing in a hardcore band, as he was really concentrating on finishing up his schooling at the institute of music, and playing such different styles of guitar (core vs jazz) just fucked him around too much, but he would still like to maybe write and have some input, which is how it was always going to be anyway, cause i didnt feel comfortable enough anyway to go it alone, all alone, without him, ive been in bands with Pete since i was 15, and ill tell you right now, i feel straight up weird on stage without him, i love that dude.
So, anyway, that left me needing a guitar player ( i didnt feel comfortable enough going into the studio to record the guitar myself), so Mick suggested Bruz, who was also in LN with us, at first i was a little concerned cause i didnt want Dave to think we were doing a band without him, so i called him and he told me to go for it and that it didnt worry him as he had his own thing going on anyway ( Bad Blood) , so that was that, i called Bruz, he was down to help out, and our first jam was booked.

.....have arrived

2007-11-22T01:33:00.000-08:00

Ill be honest, i just saw that Blacklisted had one of these, and after reading it and realising how fucking cool it was, we are gonna rip em straight off.
So here goes, No Apologies, have arrived.
Iam going to take it back to the very start of this band and try to jog my memory ( its fucking shot) the best i can, i also want to get the other guys that are in or have been in the band to write some stuff as well, so that its not just me and its not so one dimensional.
We will update this as often as possible, and try to keep it as honest and free from bullshit as possible also, so this should be interesting.