few punk bands have experienced the fickleness of the punk-rock scene more than horace pinker. since their debut in 1991, the band has seemed to
be continually on the edge of something greater, yet often they have been forced to watch as their peers experienced the success that has seemingly
eluded them.
power tools, released in 1994 by houston's justice records, set the stage for horace pinker, originally from tempe, arizona while the album
received good reviews and sales fueled by the band's relentless touring, justice dropped the band just before they were to record their second
album.
after recording a successful seven inch for fat wreck chords, horace pinker seemed poised to make a jump to one of the biggest labels in punk rock.
it didn't happen.
onefoot records released 1996's burn tempe to the ground, and horace pinker toured again.
and then for three years, very little happened.
sporatic compilation tracks hardly filled the noticeable void of releases. the band moved to chicago, where guitarist and vocalist scott eastman
finished his degree at depaul university and bass player miguel barron worked for an advertising firm. in the winter of 1998, drummer bryan jones
moved to the windy city. a short tour followed in the spring of 1998, with the noticeable addition of matt arluck as the band's second guitarist.
barron left the band the following summer to work with armchair martian. during the search for his replacement, karl eifrig of lynyrd's innards
filled in and cowrote horace pinker's new record, pop culture failure. the record, completed in april of 1999, sat on dat tapes for several months
as the band settled the details with onefoot.
the band is also putting together a b-sides compilation called seven mile road on jones' offtime records.
in the summer of 1999, chris bauermeister, formerly of jawbreaker, joined the band. it was his first musical project since jawbreaker's demise,
and he played his first show in three years in july of 1999 in rockford, illinois. since then, eastman has moved to boston for graduate school.
scott eastman: vocals|guitar
chris bauermeister: bass
bryan jones: drums
matt arluck: guitar
mrr: so where the hell have you guys been? let's pick up with burn tempe. horace pinker is a three piece, miguel barron's in the band, and then...
bj: then matt came in around february of last year.
se: we recruited him [arluck] from type a snowboards and skateboards. we had a big, nationwide talent contest for the youngest, cutest boy.
ma: i won the cutest part of the talent process.
se: we had hundreds of applicants.
ma: they waived the talent part.
mrr: the line-up isn't the only thing that's changed. whereas burn tempe was a very fat-wreck-sounding album, pop culture failure is...
se: not.
mrr: so how else does pcf differ from its two predecessors?
ma: it's the extra guitar i think.
se: it's the dueling solos.
bj: i like it better than all of them.
cb: it made me want to join the band.
bj: chris hated us at first.
se: [imitating bauermeister] 'they're better than the last band i was in!'
mrr: musically, has it evolved?
ma: i think it's definitely evolved. it sounds more mature.
bj: when we were in texas recording...we were doing this stuff back in like '94. we had all these songs, and then one way or another we
ended up doing burn tempe. after that, we sort of re-evaluated what we were doing. i think it's in the same spirit, but it's just more honest.
se: i think it's more like our old stuff, because we used to have two guitar players when we formed the band in 1991.
mrr: how much of a creative force was miguel on pcf?
se: he cowrote two of the songs.
so karl [lynyrd's innards] filled in. how much of a help was karl when the record was being written?
ma: karl wrote all of the bass lines, and they're all really good.
cb: i like them.
se: actually, the bass lines are incredibly intricate. i was surprised when chris learned the bass lines how intricate they are, and how they
deviate from the guitar lines.
mrr: how long was karl working with you?
se: he was with us for about six months.
mrr: and then you picked up chris.
se: yeah, we were at the fireside [bowl, chicago punk-rock club] one night, and we were at a show, and we saw this guy puking in toilet,
and then i heard a little 16-year-old kid say, 'hey, i think that's chris from jawbreaker!' and we're like, 'hey, we know chris from jawbreaker.'
and so we saw him puking, and we were like, 'chris, would you like to join horace pinker? we've been known to puke in a few bathrooms.' and he said, 'yeah, that'd be great [puking noise].'
so chris, how did you get on the hellbound path of pinkerdom?
cb: i'm in grad school, and this is my second year. but when we moved here, we didn't know anyone, and we went to a show of a friend's band,
and we saw these guys, and i kept running into them at different shows and bars and stuff. i was thinking about doing something musically again
after being away from music for a long time. it worked out, especially since scott's going away to grad school in the fall, so it works out
that it's not like a band that's going to need me when i can't be around‹because i've got buttloads of work to do.
mrr: now this being your first gig since the break up of jawbreaker, how much of a culture shock was it to come down to their level?
cb: it was weird. what was weird was being on stage again, and it was different because it'd been a long time since i played really small shows, and i think it was nice. 'i'd like to thank all five of you for coming out to the show...'
i'm surprised you weren't getting song requests at that show. so no horace pinker/jets to brazil splits anytime soon?
cb: no.
mrr: you all think this is horace pinker's best stuff ever. but having a three-year gap with only sporatic touring and occasional comp tracks
in between, how much of a task is it going to be to rekindle interest in the kids who are notorious for their short-term memory?
bj: i think it's definitely....hard..what was the question again? [laughs] you know, hopefully people will hear the record, and you know,
it's a good record, and hopefully people will like it. maybe it will even turn people on to our older stuff. i think we're just making music
that we like, and people will either like it or not like it.
mrr: so with you [eastman] moving, what are we to expect from horace pinker with everyone being across the nation?
bj: we've never really lived in the same city. it's not going to be any different. we won't be doing any eight-month tours, but we're going to
do breaks.
se: look for us on all school breaks and after-school specials.
mrr: that's good for the kids!
cb: exactly.
se: it's going to be kid-friendly-kid-friendly horace pinker.
mrr: what do you think is keeping you from taking it further now?
bj: i think it's something called lives.
ma: it's something that none of us have had in a long time, and it's kind of neat.
bj: it's kind of neat not living in a van.
cb: there's a reason i haven't been in a band in three years.
mrr: so these are the lifestyle changes that come when you're around 30?
cb: hey, i'm going to be as old as jesus was in a little over two weeks.
mrr: wow, 'chris bauermeister compares himself to jesus.' there's the headline. subhead: 'blake schwarzenbach angry.'
