An 805 Tale
Interview With Civil Conflict
Oxnard, Calif.
November 7, 2018
OXNARD, CALIF. – “He’ll be here in 15 minutes,” Civil Conflict lead guitarist A.K. Tapia said into a mic.
Tapia was talking to a crowd of kids lining the perimeter of the large bowl inside the Oxnard Skatepark. The “he” in that announcement was Civil Conflict singer Dorian Hill. It wasn’t the first delay of the evening though; the generator blew out early into South Bay band 1034’s set.
Fifteen minutes passed. A.K. told the crowd it would be another 10 minutes and the final PSA, five minutes. At least it was counting down.
Eventually, the blur of Hill’s silhouette could be made out, racing in from the entrance and then down into the bowl wasting no time starting the set, which was inspired enough to get people and skaters into the pit.
Weeks before Civil Conflict was at the VFW in Baldwin Park and, following this local gig, they drove two hours to Long Beach. In other words, they get around.
“There’s not too many punks back home,” Hill said of Oxnard as he and the rest of the band stood outside DiPiazza’s where they had just finished a highly energized set that caused a couple injuries – serious enough for the sound guy to warn the next band if anymore people got hurt, he was going to shut it down.
“The young ones are there, but they don’t really support the local bands,” Tapia added about their local scene.
“They just go to the bigger shows. You’ll play a backyard show with a bunch of local bands and it’ll be like 10, 15 people,” Hill said. “And then you’ll go to a Nardfest or something like that with T.S.O.L. or Ill Repute and there’s all these people. It’s, like, where’d you come from?”
It’s slowly changing, pointed out bassist Daniel Altamira. Since the band’s founding some three years ago, he said they do see more of the younger crowd supporting local bands. Still, it’s not the same as what they encounter when they venture outside Oxnard where it’s, what they called, kid band after kid band playing shows. It’s hard to say what’s causing the proliferation suddenly of younger bands and if it’s simply the cycling in of a new generation or environmental factors.
“I’ve thought about it and I don’t know because it’s not necessarily like there’s anything nowadays that pushes kids towards punk,” Hill said. “I used to be pretty against the whole rap and trap and all that shit. But I think a lot of that shit kind of helped contribute to our scene, too. Because these young kids that are pissed, some of them realize some of that music doesn’t really have the right message, so they find punk instead.”
The majority of Civil Conflict in one way or another fell into the music via relatives.
Drummer David Stalsworth (aka Baby Firmz) is the youngest of the bunch at 13 – a fact a fan squealed over after approaching them following their Long Beach set to shower them with praise. Stalsworth grew up with parents into metal and punk, providing the gateway, he said, into firmer footing for himself to eventually find nardcore.
“I’m mostly self taught,” he said of the drums, “but then for more of the technique aspect I’ve gotten lessons.”
There’s a similar story with Tapia, whose parents were also into metal. However, the genre didn’t necessarily stick.
“With metal there wasn’t that connection, like in your face type of feeling that punk gave me,” Tapia said. “And it also gave me a sense of community that I could be a part of. With punk, you could go to a show and you could meet the guys in the band, you could get up on stage and push into something.”
Hill described his father as an “old school punker dude” from Oxnard who brought his son along to concerts as early as the age of 2, making him a regular part of the scene.
Anthony Moran, on rhythm guitar, said he always wanted to play music.
“I always wanted to make it my passion,” he said. “So I started playing guitar and then it just stuck with me. I just kept sticking with it and it molded me into who I am now.”
Altamira, who first began hearing punk in skate video games, was gifted a guitar for his birthday when he was 13, made an attempt to learn and then didn’t touch the instrument for a year after getting frustrated with it. He picked it back up, but ultimately transitioned to the bass.
It’s skateboarding, much like other bands in the scene, that partially forms the backbone to the Civil Conflict DNA, but it’s being born and raised in Oxnard that’s shaped them as people and their outlooks on life. It’s a source of pride, particularly when isolating the city’s musical history. They’re successors to a scene that birthed bands such as Dr. Know, Ill Repute, Aggression, Stalag 13 and on.
“Oxnard’s not very well known. It’s very under the radar, I guess, and when people hear Oxnard they’re like what the fuck is Oxnard,” Altamira said.
“But then when you come to places like here [in Long Beach], everyone knows,” Tapia said. “You come to a punk show and L.A. and [nardcore] is what everyone knows Oxnard for.”
“It’s just the culture there that kind of puts the sound into the music,” Hill said. “There’s just a certain type of music you play living there because of what’s around you.”
“The bands that kind of paved the way for us to even go on this whole voyage into music, they’re older from the 80s,” Moran said. “So they did pave the way, but we also have to continue it.”
And they are. Civil Conflict has a double meaning, a reference to a civilian war of sorts in a society, but also a disagreement that can be ironed out without aggression or fist fights. They sing about everything from skateboarding to politics, and the broader idea of critical thinking and “not falling into certain ways of thinking,” Moran said of some of their songs.
“A lot of the kids in Oxnard are just so nihilistic and oblivious to everything,” Hill said. “They just don’t care and if you tell them they’re just going to tell you you’re wasting your time. I think that’s what comes out in our music. We’re trying to put these ideas out like think for yourself, be aware of these situations.... Everything’s so shitty and everyone’s always pissed. You’d think the way things are, there’d be more punks.”
And for being so young, they’re thoughtful about why that isn’t the case, blaming social media and what Tapia said is an inability for people to think on their own without relying on Twitter to formulate an opinion or earn more invisible points in the game of who has the most clout.
The fusion of families that supported their music interests, mixed with skate and hailing from Oxnard gives Civil Conflict a unique edge and point of view that dips into nardcore codes and even some 80s U.S. punk for a sound that’s wiser and more seasoned than their ages would have you believe.
It’s a bit of an endearing anecdote, but before their sets cap, Hill always makes it a point to introduce every single band member before saying they’re from Oxnard, Calif. Sure, they’re not the only band to do that and won’t be the last, but not everyone does that. Some bands don’t even bother telling the crowd who they are.
“You should take pride in where you’re from because it makes you,” Hill said. “It really puts in a lot and I think Oxnard has a lot of good to teach people. There’s some bad, like it can get pretty fucking boring and there’s not stuff to do sometimes and there’s drugs and junkies or whatever, but there’s hardworking people and families that go to work every day past retirement age because they have to. A lot of kids get taught that from a really young age and there’s a lot of people with good work ethics.”
“Nardcore’s probably the best scene to be honest,” Tapia said matter of factly, somehow managing to skirt around sounding arrogant, as the rest of them laughed. “To be honest, it’s the sickest bands; the sickest people.”
Their ultimate aim for Civil Conflict is pretty simple: to play more shows. Do they want more for the band? It depends on how “more” is defined.
“It’s a trick question for a punk, isn’t it?” Hill mused.
“We just want to keep playing,” Altamira said.
“Yeah, just keep playing as much as we can and reach as many people as we can,” Tapia said.
The best way to end this may be to loop back to where this story started, which is in Oxnard
“Oxnard everything,” Hill said
“Probably said Oxnard like over 100 times,” Tapia said.
Actually, it was more like 20 and his comment doesn’t stop them from continuing to heap compliments on the city.
“Oxnard’s cool. It’s like a melting pot of everything. Usually immigrants are down there just working trying to make a living,” Altamira said. “There’s always been a really good music scene, not just in punk, but in hip hop too.”
“It means a lot to the kids down there,” Hill said, “when you can get something with Oxnard’s name on it.”
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