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.
On 17 May, Smartpunk Records will be releasing the End Is What I Want, the new record from Suck Brick, Kid. To celebrate the upcoming release, TGEFM was joined by the band for the latest in our Roll of the Dice series.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats in advance on the upcoming album: The End Is What I Want. For the uninitiated, could you tell us a bit about yourself, the record and how it came about?
Of course! Happy to be here. We are SBK (Suck Brick Kid) from Orlando. Collectively, a bunch of old dudes who just can’t seem to kick the habit of drinking shitty beer, playing fast punk music, and bleeding our label dry of all of their resources…
This record was born in a dive bar (surprised?) where in the dim and balmy bathroom we found some truly inspiring scrawlings on the wall. One in particular being “The End Is What I Want” painfully carved into the cheap sidewall above the urinal. We immediately started compiling unique bathroom graffiti that we found during our travels and curated our favorites into this album. Each song is written from the perspective of the individual making the inscription which yielded some very imaginative scenarios…
What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?
I think this answer would be very different for each of us BUT since I am the one replying here I will explain it from my perspective. For me, it wasn’t a certain band or song that made me want to pursue music to this level. It ultimately boils down to “being a musician” and that the “connection of creating and performing with other musicians” is something so simple and special that it cannot be recreated at any given moment. Almost like a “lightning in a bottle” scenario.. when you find those people you click with – all the other problems of the world wash away and you can (for once) truly enjoy the moment.
Normally, I ask about moments on the road here, but since the record is a tribute to the piss-stained floors of the best dive bar bathrooms, I’m going to change it up a bit. What have been some of the most memorable bathroom scrawlings or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
Oh man..where do I start?? I think the craziest thing (related to this album) is that the very dive bar where we found “The End Is What I Want” had undergone a remodel a year and some change later so the etching was lost forever.. (good thing I snapped a photo that night) but even more insane is that we told the bartender about how their bathroom inspired our entire album (showed them album art, played songs, etc) only to find out that the gentleman who carved TEIWIW 10 some-odd years ago was sitting 6ft away from us at the end of the bar. The night turned into a celebration with a lot of beers on ice, some tears, brothers in arms, and a new understanding of how someone at their lowest of lows can pick themselves back up and get back on their feet.
The music world has also changed a lot over the last few years. What are some of the biggest industry changes you’ve come across in your time within the scene?
No doubt! One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed that directly impacts the immediate experience of the listener and artist is that audiences are now very fearful of hearing damage caused by loud environments. I am not saying people shouldn’t be wearing protection by any means but there is something sad about this that I wish could be addressed so that fans and bands alike aren’t missing out. Because truly, what kind of experience is paying $30+ entry to see a show where you have earplugs in the entire time? People are fixated on this because hearing loss is no joke but I feel that there needs to be a clearer understanding that “live sound” isn’t inherently dangerous. It only becomes dangerous in the hands of inconsiderate sound engineers and venues that aren’t abiding by the rules. I don’t have a solution for this necessarily but I fear it will perpetuate the stigma that “concerts are dangerous” on a sonic level when that simply is not true or the case for every show.
We all have a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?
“No regerts” – Honestly I do not regret anything of actual importance (especially as a musician.) However, it’s easy to list off a bunch of inconsequential things like “I wish I got to the bar earlier so I could enjoy 16 Miller Lite Bottles instead of the 14 they had left by the time I got there” or “I wish I didn’t spend the 1 bitcoin I had in 2010 on the Silk Road” I would probably be in a much better place in both of those scenarios but what can you really do about it now that the time has come and gone?
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?
We are obligated to answer this question by pointing your viewers towards all of the amazing acts that we are labelmates with on Smartpunk Records – check them out here!
Once the world has its hands on The End Is What I Want what’s next for Suck Brick Kid?
You would think based on the name of this record that there would be nothing to follow as it appears to be “the end”. Despite my desperate attempt for that last sentence to be “clever” we plan to support this release by ripping some sick gigs with sick bands in sick places. We have a million and a half ideas for a new record but for now we are excited to sit back and reap the fruits of our labor.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Yes! Thank you again for your time and the opportunity to talk a little bit about the band and upcoming release. We are pretty darn proud of what we created here and think that anyone out there that found this interview interesting will absolutely love what we have coming. Stay tuned for our next single and of course mark your damn calendars for May 17th for the official release of “The End Is What I Want”
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/
