Bootleg Brigade
Backyard Show
Ventura, Calif.
January 19, 2019
Tear Down: A Q&A With Bootleg Brigade
Austin Boutell, vocals; Eliel Herr, guitar; Trebor Herr, bass; Dalton Cruz, drums
VENTURA, CALIF. – Whomever took the shirt of Bootleg Brigade singer Austin Boutell during the band’s set Saturday in Ventura, he’d like that back now, please. No questions asked.
Boutell makes up one-quarter of the Bootleg crew, which also consists of Trebor Herr on bass, drummer Dalton Cruz and guitarist Eliel Herr. The band, nearly eight years old, has shared the stage with Leftover Crack, MDC and Ill Repute among many other well known acts and also appeared in the documentary “Clean Cut American Kids.”
The four stood at the end of a Ventura home’s driveway after a set ultimately capping the evening after the cops shut the show down prematurely. They spoke about some of their more colorful shows, not taking themselves too seriously and the nardcurse.
Are you all from Oxnard?
Austin: Oxnard and Simi [Valley]. Most of us are from Simi. Dalton’s from Oxnard.
So what have you put out that people can check out?
Austin: We’ve put out –
[Trebor laughs]
Why are you laughing?
Austin: It’s just a funny story. We’ve put out a demo and two splits. And we have a catalog of material that hasn’t been recorded because of the nardcurse.
What’s that?
Austin: Basically, it’s a curse surrounding bands from the region.
Trebor: You get a good show and then it gets cancelled four times in a row. With the same bands.
Austin: Or, you’ll record an album and then the files will be stolen and you’ll be pushed back another three years and then shit will hit the fan.
Dalton: The icing on the cake is procrastination, too.
Eliel: Yeah, that’s just the bottom line.
Austin: Our new album, Vegetative State, is going to come out some time in 2040. But, yeah, we’ve got shit on YouTube from when were 18 years old. We will have new shit coming out soon. We’re going to have an LP.
Who thought up the name Bootleg Brigade?
Austin: I came up with that really five years, six years before I even started the band. And it was just a name that sounded right. We’re just bootlegging – it’s the culture of doing shit yourself basically.
As far as nardcore and what you define it as, what does that term mean to you? Is it different from when the term first came into existence or is it the same?
Austin: Today I don’t think it’s any different because when it came out, the comp – the nardcore comp – had bands from Santa Barbara, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ventura. Pretty much the 805 and surrounding areas. Now it’s the same but there’s definitely a lot of people that use the word nardcore without knowing where it actually came from. They’re just like, “Oh, it’s a nardcore show,” but it’s just indie bands playing in the 805. So there’s that. It’s just hardcore punk from Ventura County.
Eliel: And surrounding areas. I’m sure it goes farther. Some of the obscure bands maybe back in the day, were let in from the valley even.
Austin: Yeah, there was. Dalton’s uncle is in Stalag 13, one of the original nardcore bands, and Dr. Know. His other uncle is Brandon Cruz.
Dalton: The whole music thing and the culture behind it runs in my family. It’s in the blood line so when I was growing up and picked up an instrument, it was like what genre do I want to focus on right now that represents myself and expression? And I started listening to Stalag 13, Ill Repute, Aggression and I just fell in love. It’s a big part of my life.
Who writes all the lyrics and where are you drawing inspiration from?
Austin: Pain, life experience ...
[Trebor laughs]
He says pain and you’re laughing.
Austin: You should have seen our last interview we did eight years ago. It was awesome. Completely satirical.
Trebor: I don’t remember most of it.
Austin: We just don’t take ourselves too seriously, except when we do.
[laughter]
Austin: When we started, our drummer was 14 years old. El was 15. Our old bassist was 15. I was 16, 17. We’ve just been doing this our whole adult lives up to this point. It’s just a passion project.
Do you all look at this as a hobby, or do you want something more for the band?
Austin: I look at it as a –
Dalton: Release.
Austin: A release. A way of life because there’s no money in it, but that’s not the point. The point is once you start playing music, you can’t stop and you’re fucked for life. You’re fucked because you’re going to be broke for the rest of your life.
Eliel: Because any money you get from it, it just goes right back into it. And we don’t make any money so that’s why nothing’s coming out.
Trebor: It’s all about the energy. The energy and the music and the lyrics itself.
Austin: And the people and the community of it. I can’t think of anyone I know in my life that I didn’t meet through music.
Eliel: And it’s a way to find yourself really.
Austin: Just being exposed to radical ideas and radical activism and ideology. It’s good for the developing brain.
Do you guys get a chance to play a lot down in L.A. and Orange County?
Austin: We get offered to play there all the time, but our schedule’s are so fucked right now. That’s why we don’t play as much anymore. But, yeah, we play all over.
OK and your next show is when?
Austin: I have no fucking clue.
[laughter]
Who does the booking for you?
[everyone in unison] Austin.
Austin: I don’t book shows. People just hit me up and they’re like, “Yo dog, Bootleg Brigade want to play this show?” And I’m like, “Yeah, dog. Where we playing?” “My kitchen, fool.” Alright.
Do you mostly do backyard shows?
Austin: Well, I mean, we’ve played everything from the [Majestic] Ventura Theater to the shittiest piece of shit of all time.
Eliel: The side of a house.
Austin: The inside of a tin can in the middle of the road on the 101.
What’s the most memorable show?
Eliel: Too many, dude. Too many.
Austin: Alright, you’re going to have to break that down categorically into most fucked, most memorable. Let’s just start bringing up shit.
Eliel: OK, there was this show and there was a knife fight and a chick got stabbed. In Pacoima.
Dalton: I don’t think I played that one.
Eliel: It was packed. It was 250 people in a small backyard. A little bit bigger than this one we were at.
[Someone walks up]
Eliel: Hey what’s up, dude? This is our good friend Anthony. Yeah, the show just got shut down.
Anthony: Oh, that fucking sucks.
Austin: Doing an interview.
Eliel: A special appearance from Anthony.
Austin: This is going to be the most lit interview ever.
So someone got stabbed in Pacoima?
Austin: That wasn’t the most memorable show. It was definitely –
Dalton: That’s definitely memorable.
Trebor: I would say one of the Santa Paula ones.
Austin: The Santa Paula – the original Santa Paula. Yeah, there’s an address called 420 Cummings Road and it was a real address. And people didn’t show up to it because they thought it was fake.
Dalton: I would think it was fake, honestly.
Austin: El, you’ve got all the stories. I have brain damage.
Eliel: Yeah, I have brain damage, too, but I’ll try. Our friend got hit with a beer bottle that same night as the stabbing.
Dalton: Not to mention all the countless injuries that Austin gets. Self-inflicted. Not like GG Allin shit but he’ll roll off stage.
Trebor: It just so happens that his actions lead to this and he just doesn’t learn at all.
Dalton: I’ve seen him break his toe.
Austin: I’ve got this broken toe from ... Yeah, I chipped my tooth on the mic.
Trebor: Remember you yakked at an AA show?
Eliel: We played at an AA show one time pretty recently. I walked in like what? This is an AA get together? Oh my god.
How do you land an AA show?
Eliel: I have no idea.
Trebor: He hadn’t eaten anything all day because he was feeling sick, so he’s going hard on the mic and singing all he can. Then he motioned for a trash can and just started yakking in the middle of [the song] “Skate Mediocrely Fast.”
Austin: We got the show because a good friend of ours, Ricardo, he’s an old school punker dude. I think he runs the meetings there. He has booking responsibilities there so he threw a show.
Eliel: Another memorable show – this is an anti-drug P.S.A. right now.
Austin: Is it about me?
Eliel: No, it’s not about you. It’s about another friend of ours and another friend of ours, they took what they thought was acid. They took 25I. This is related to me after the experience, but he thought he was in hell and they were pitting, going hard. I saw them sweating and they wouldn’t stop. So he tells me after he thought was in hell.
Austin: As far as memorable show – I forgot about this earlier, but we played with R.K.aLiens at the Ventura Theater and that’s one of my favorite bands. So playing with them was a dream come true.
Dalton: We did drink a lot of their beer though.
Trebor: They drank all their beer.
Austin: This is true. We were upstairs in the Ventura Theater and they specifically said, bands –
Dalton: By the way R.KaLiens, I’m sorry.
Austin: They specifically said no opening bands could be upstairs past a certain time. So we went up there to drink all the beer in the beer garden and stay up there so they couldn’t kick us out. And we watched the bands from upstairs. So we’re in this room. We’ve already drank through one beer garden, me and Dalton – and my sister. And RKL comes in and they’re like what happened to all our beer? We apparently were in their room. We drank all their beer and I had three beers in my hand at the same time. I’m going, “You guys are my favorite band. Sorry.”
Eliel: Oh, so two quick stories. At E P Fosters, our friend Grant broke both of his wrists. On the same fall. I think he fell backwards, actually. That was a good show. That was a fat pit.
Is that the measure of whether something’s good? If something breaks?
Eliel: We embrace it.
Austin: We get adrenaline boners from dumb shit.
Eliel: It’s all fun until someone gets hurt. The second story was – this wasn’t even a show we played. We saw RKaLiens and I got to Lil Joe after the show and he was staring at me. He was like, “Your hair reminds me of science. Bill Nye. Einstein.” I was like “Woah, that’s so cool. I love your music.”
Last question. Why should people listen to you guys?
Austin: They shouldn’t. This is a P.S.A. If you haven’t heard of us before, now you know. Don’t come to a Bootleg show. You’re probably going to get stabbed.
Or break your wrists.
Austin: Yeah. And don’t come to Silver Strand [State] Beach. Locals only.
*He didn’t mean that. A matinee show at Silver Strand is in the works for Saturday, January 26. Follow Bootleg and @civil.conflict805 for the latest details.
