Civil Conflict Releases ‘Live Fast, Skate FASTer’ Album
The Oxnard band’s first LP is to be celebrated with a release show at the PACC, with Ill Repute and NNN.
VENTURA – Fist Fight on Ecstacy’s set just ended and Dead Heat’s about to go on with Stäläg 13 closing out the show. Outside Ventura’s Hong Kong Inn the members of Civil Conflict are talking quietly, standing in the shadows of a brick wall.
It’s almost too normal the juxtaposition to everything else – all the good things – that has happened to this band in roughly a year’s time.
The trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable in a scene and at a time where it seems as though everything is ephemeral – news, an idea, a band, a song. In the underground scene, the general philosophy holds you’ve “made it” if you’re playing packed shows, engaging with people and that’s, well, enough. And by that measure, Civil Conflict’s done what they set out to do since their 2015 start, sharing the bill with bands that paved the way for them such as Know and Stäläg 13, along with contemporaries: Bootleg Brigade, Malice Thoughts, 3 Day Holocaust and beyond the 805 to break into Orange and Los Angeles counties.
And, now, tonight, it’s Ill Repute at the storied Oxnard Performing Arts Center along with Long Beach’s NNN, as singer Dorian Hill, bassist Danny Altamira, guitarist A.K. Tapia and drummer David Stalsworth celebrate the release of their 10-song LP, “Live Fast, Skate Faster” on It’s Alive Records.
All this is in some ways a far cry from that October 2018 show in Baldwin Park, which marked Stalsworth’s first show with the rest of the band and the beginning of a dizzying cadence of shows that, with the help and support of their parents, had them crisscrossing freeways and county lines to play what’s surpassed 90 shows, all the while helping bridge scenes, making friends and also personal growth.
“Honestly, I feel like being in the band and being put in different places and different situations has matured me a little bit and opened my eyes to certain things,” Stalsworth said.
It all begs the question of what’s next?
Their thought process in answering that question is much more earnest than it is calculating on how to make it big.
“I think [our goals are] already achieved, honestly,” Altamira said. “We got the album coming out. We got everyone in town to come to our shows, we’ve played the PACC [Performing Arts Center] and we’re playing with the old school nardcore bands. And that’s what I’m going to hold inside forever: people liked it and people had fun.”
“At this point in time, if we stopped right now, even just this show we could say we went hard just a little bit,” Hill added. “We did something within our community and were recognized just for doing it. We did our own thing, and that’s just if we stop now.”
There’s no intention of doing that, by the way. The answer to what’s next is pretty simple: play more and meet more people. That’s what’s driven them from the start.
“When someone comes up and tells you ‘That was a sick set. I really dug you,’ It’s just the coolest thing,” Hill said. “You did something and someone came up and said that.”
No one could have predicted what’s happened to them in the last year, but the signs were there. They worked hard, they put themselves out there and they stayed – as simple as it sounds – nice.
“You start playing music and you don’t think you’re going to get far until you’re in too deep and you’re just, like, ‘Oh, I did this.’” Tapia said. “It’s a good thing, but it’s just crazy. It still feels the same.”
Tonight, catch Civil Conflict at their album release show with Ill Repute and NNN. For more on the band, what follows are excerpts from their interview with Paradigm.
Civil Conflict Album Release Show Details:
Nov. 1, 2019
8 p.m.
Oxnard Performing Arts Center
800 Hobson Way; Oxnard, Calif.
Free
*Presented by Midnight Society
On Favorite Songs off the New Album:
Dorian: We talk about this at practice.
Danny: “Judgment Day” is so sick.
Dorian: I do like the breakdowns on “Judgment Day.” “Expand Your Mind” I really like that one because I get to yell “Expand your mind” and people caught onto that one pretty quick, so it makes it kind of easy for people to pick up.
A.K.: All the new ones are pretty equally good.
Dorian: We’re all really stoked on the songs. I think it comes across. You can really tell we like what we’re playing.
The Song “Expand Your Mind,” Written by Hill.
Danny: The message to this shit, bro. I just fuck with the message.
Dorian: I was just at work and I was like, fuck. I was sitting there at lunch and thinking is this really it? You work five days a week pretty much like school, and you work for the weekend. You get the weekend off and then you go back to work. I was just sitting there thinking we’re on the Earth, but there’s so many other planets, so many other galaxies. Shit’s fucking ever expanding.
The lyrics kind of jump around a bit. I mention vibration and frequencies. There’s 432 MHz called the Schumann Resonance. The Earth vibrates at 432 MHz. We tune all our instruments to 432 so part of that’s in there, too.
All atoms, natural atoms, all of them vibrate at a certain frequency and the frequency is 432. Our bodies vibrate at that frequency too. Standard tuning for electronics got changed somewhere in the early 1900s from 432 to 440. So it’s not the natural megahertz that we feel. That’s why a lot of people stay inside. You stay inside because you’re inhibited by everything around you – your TV, your computer, your phone. You go outside and you go into nature, people say they feel better walking outside.
On the Song “Potential,” Written by A.K.
AK: “Potential” when I wrote that it pretty much was intended to be about how people they’re only limited by their own limits, you know? There’s so much negative self-talk and people don’t understand how much power they have and how much they can do with the time they have.
Lessons Learned from the Scene.
Danny: I was telling A.K. earlier, our scene is a product of when you get your friends and your friends’ friends together. Everyone that’s here just knows someone and it’s a fun time.
Dorian: Everyone’s got a friend.
Danny: Yeah, and you meet new people too. Since I joined the band, it’s made me more of a people person.
A.K.: It makes you realize how connected we can be, too.
Danny: Yeah, we’re all pretty similar. We all go through the same shit. We all fuck with the same music. That’s all we need to get along.
On Staying Humble.
Dorian: You can’t ever think you’re going to be something because then you’ll get nothing. You can’t be cool if you say you’re cool.
A.K.: When I decided to play music and pursue the music, it wasn’t like I was trying to get anywhere, you know? We all just love it for what it is. It’s just something we need. It’s just something inside of us.
Dorian: That’s why we’re all still here.
Goals Outside of Civil Conflict.
Danny: Right now, for me, I’m just working. I’m trying to work until the end of December maybe and then once the new school year starts up a bit I might go to college, but that’s still up in the air because I kind of fell in love with the money just working and I kind of just want to make more money.
A.K.: This fool said ‘I fell in love with the money.’
Danny: It’s not even like that. But it’s just with money you can do your actual projects and shit.
A.K.: You just gotta spend it wisely…. Outside of music, I just like skating. I only work once a week right now, but I’m still in high school, too, so I just need to get out of there.
I’m trying to actually learn what’s given to me instead of just having it forced on me and then just not even thinking about it when I’m done. That’s what I hate about school. School they just give it to you, then you learn it and then once it’s finished it’s never talked about. It’s never brought up again in what’s going on daily. But hopefully I can get into some field of study in college like plant medicine or mycology or botanical stuff.
David: Outside of the band… honestly, all I have is music. That’s just all I want to do. It’s just my main focus and that’s all I want to do in life.
Dorian: Pretty much the same. Just ride it as long as I can. Outside of this, I work, I lay low. I’m working five days a week. I’m working so I can be in the band. I’m just going to see, take this as far as I can.
On Friends vs. Real Friends.
Danny: There’s a difference between having friends and having real friends. Your friends they’ll talk to you and they’ll say ‘what’s up’ and say ‘hi’ when they see you and have a little conversation, you know? But your real friends, those are the ones that are actually keeping up with you and they’re into what you’re doing. If your friends fuck with your music, they’re your real friends.
AK: I’ve seen people that don’t even like our music that are my homies, and I see them get in the pit and that’s how you know those are our homies right there.
Danny: For anyone that’s trying to do music, they start their own thing but their friends may make fun of them for it and they kind of get put down or whatever.
A.K.: Especially at first. And then, once you get to a certain point, people want to be your friend and, honestly, I hate it. You hate it and love it. But I hate it more.
I love it because you never think it’ll be like that until it’s like that, you know? It’s just funny the idea of it, but I hate it because of what it is. They see you doing all good and then all of a sudden they want to be friends again.
Dorian: I feel like it’s easy to pick out. You can tell when someone’s doing that or when someone’s being genuine.
A.K.: And you can tell who’s actually a supporter.
Danny: You just see the change. It’s just, I guess they kind of notice your progression and it’s like a compliment to yourself.
Danny and Alchemy.
Dorian: We should get into it, if you really want to get into the band.
Danny: Basically, I’m into really old, mystic stuff and Medieval-type stuff. I’m into psychology. Just the mind and other dimensions. I think all that stuff is real. I think our reality definitely has a lot more to it.
A.K.: It’s symbology, too, a bunch of magic.
Danny: Yeah, this is what I believe: reality is subjective. If you’re doing your part in your little bubble, you’re good. And you just keep your little lens clean you keep telling yourself, ‘Oh, everything will be good. Everything will be fine. Just keep that positive mental status and everything is going to be fine for real.’
Your mind, your body is connected to everything, to something on a macro scale. And even your thoughts and emotions are connected to something on a macro scale. So if you could control that, if you could go deep inside yourself and fix yourself first, then the world would also change, too. “As within, so without. As above, so below.”
The Balance of Opposites.
Dorian: It’s like being the bigger man in a fight.
Danny: It’s always a constant battle, too. The whole thing with non-duality is like nothing is really separate. Black and white are not different
A.K.: That’s how things work
Danny: It’s yin and yang. The opposites are one. Without black, you can’t have white
A.K.: They can’t exist without each other.
Dorian: There’s a lot of references to this kind of stuff in our songs.
Tuning to 432 MHz.
Dorian: We play at 432, so we tune our instruments to that, the frequency of the Earth.
A.K.: It’s also a constant in mathematics.
Danny: When we play this kind of stuff, this music being played at this frequency is hitting people somewhere in their brains.
A.K.: Subconsciously attracting people
Danny: It’s rooting them. It’s making them feel good. It gets people going and it makes everyone feel like, ‘Oh, we’re all the same. We’re all having a good time.’ It’s just a theory.
Dorian: One of the lyrics in “Expand Your Mind” is “Vibrations change the way we feel; frequency allows the mind to heal,” which is basically a reference to that. We’re saying just being in the right space with the right vibrations and frequencies, opening yourself up, you can make yourself feel better without really having to do anything.
A.K.: They did experiments where they froze water and played 440 [MHz] to the water and it froze in such a super, distorted and weird way.
Dorian: There was no structure to it.
A.K.: We didn’t know any of this before. Sometimes you just go by accepting things. You don’t question things.
Dorian: You just tune your guitar.
A.K.: And then sometimes you happen to come across some pretty wicked information and you act upon it. And you can see for yourself what it does. We think it works. We think it’s legit.
Dorian: We do a lot of research on stuff we like. And we honestly believe everything we say in our songs.
On Seeking Out Information.
A.K.: This is all information just right in front of us.
Danny: We just look at things so deep, and I guess this is what Civil Conflict is, too. It’s just an outlet for that.
A.K.: It’s also at the same time to just lift each other up.
Danny: Optimism.
A.K.: And that’s why when you go deeper into that you realize that you can do anything. The world is yours. Your thoughts create your reality. So pretty much if you can understand how beautiful and divine and how much potential you’re worth, you can put that out into the world and have an effect.... Man, this is a really long talk.
Final Thoughts
A.K.: My legs are getting tired as hell from standing here. We’ve said so much.
Danny: I just want to bring more bands out to Oxnard. I just want to introduce more bands to the scene.
A.K.: Also, nardcore, it gave me the information, too. It was almost a gateway for our thought processes, because in a lot of punk music, you’re not just screaming random words. It all means something. That’s why I love this music so much.