Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
After spending time as drummer of the seminal, NYC squat-punk outfit Choking Victim, Skwert Gunn set his sights on something new. The result, a 6-piece Jersey ska-core act, Public Serpents. Before the realse of the upcoming record Bully Puppet, Skwert rolled the dice with TGEFM for the latest in our interview series.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats in advance of Bully Puppet‘s release. What was the process like in fleshing out that record and bringing it to life?
Well, all of the songs were already written, so mostly, it was just dialing in the specific flow of each person playing. The songs are a culmination of material I wrote over the last ten years that I was unable to record and also done with the interest of actually not being the sole person on the album. This is really the first time I’ve let other folks record the parts and I’m really happy of how it turned out.
How did this recording compare to the experience of recording The Feeding of the Fortune 5000 or the recent splits and EPs?
Before I had just did all of the recording myself. A lot of the material in the beginning were just raw ideas that I began laying down on to tape. I never intended to be a singer, but because finding someone to sing something so specific (dancehall reggae/punk mix), I just resolved to doing it myself. It comes with its benefits, and drawbacks.
Benefits are you just create you’re own sound… no input, and it’s interesting to see what one can do on their own.
Drawbacks would be the fact that sure, I can play a lot of instruments, but I don’t feel that I play them extremely well, so not having each voicing, played with the intensity of a good musician, who’s studied that instrument, is definitely something you hear in the end product.
The world has been going through some shit over the last few years. What affect, if any, have the cultural (and/or political) landscapes of the last few years had on your music?
Big existentialist type question here.
I mean, In general, the world has always experienced major upheavals, but you’re not wrong in stating that recent events seem more telling of the times.
By revolutionary standards, the world is on a precipice of uncertainty, and that in itself has created more of a need to finalize my songs. More of an urgency to get it out to the public for a couple reasons. Mainly that I feel my lyrics, although mostly subjective and sometimes vague if you’re not in tune with goings on in your own lives or oppression in general, are something that can now be related to more so because for a long time, people didn’t really want to acknowledge that they were being led around by their own greed, vanity, libido etc.. now, because of recent events, the ability to have less partisan inquiries about important things in our lives, and to reflect on our own actions (because of financial downturns etc) and in general, people just being more aware, the more political side of my lyrics are less about paranoia and more about the resounding “I told you so’s” that have been happening regardless of our own apathy.
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should know about?
Man, that’s also a big one, but as far as bands I have played with and/or have listened to, I’m gonna say that Crazy and the Brains, The Upfux and Soul Glo come to mind when I think about new blood out there that needs to be paid attention to. Of course there’s always the new Bad Time Records crew, and of Course, SBAM records who have been making steady strides, enlisting a lot of great new bands as well.
Not to put the cart before the horse, but what’s next for Public Serpents after the release of Bully Puppet?
Tbh, who knows. Hopefully it bankruptcy. But, there are still about 12 songs I’ve yet to record (or record to their fullest potential) that I’d like to release in the next year if we can find a willing label to do this. Tours though are on my mind and at the moment, we have two legs of this European tour happening in May/June and July/aug that will seat us at some great festivals like Rebellion, Brakrock, Boomtown Fair and of course the night SBAM fest in Austria. After that, we will be doing a west coast/south coast US tour, and currently discussing A Brazil tour as well as a southern Europe and an east coast/US tour.
Was there anything we missed or that you’d like to put more focus on to?
I think your shoelace is untied.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
