Taking the Quiet out of Peace & Riot.

Music has been a part of Peace & Riot since the first draft.  And just as the story has changed so has the sound track.   To understand how the music got where it is today, you have to travel back in time.

So hop in the DeLorean and fire up the flux capacitor cause we’re heading to a cul-de-sac in Simi Valley, CA circa 1986.

Best known for the Rodney King trial and not the birthplace of totally rad music, Simi Valley was just another suburb of Los Angeles, even less cool then the San Fernando Valley.   It was here that a young white kid going to Catholic school tried to relate to RUN-DMC’s Raising Hell.  These beat educated me.  I knew all about the streets of New York City, and to my parents delight, could also recite the lyrics to Proud to Be Black better then the Periodic Table of the Elements. 

The summer before the 7^th grade I saw Another State of Mind, a documentary about a music revolution that was taking place just fifty miles from my hometown.  Youth Brigade, Social Distortion and Minor Threat showed the world that there was a punk rock music movement taking place in America.  These guys weren’t singing about their tennis shoes or about how someone was “illin…”  They were singing about the social apocalypse. Their songs were about those dick heads in the park that were throwing rocks at us kids.  The lyrics spoke about how authority, be it your parents or your school, tried to control you – from your clothes, to where you could ride a skateboard.  But Punk Rock wasn’t just about negativity, it also had a fun-loving, comedic and intelligent side to it, the recipe for something amazing.

Staying up late on Sunday nights, I could listen to Rodney on The Roq broadcast from KROQ (Los Angeles).  Rodney Bingenheimer was a maverick in the radio industry and is often given credit for bringing the world new bands.  His contribution to punk rock is immeasurable.   I wasn’t able to be at the epicenter of this revolt, but I could listen to it.

Half way through the 7^th grade I moved to Phoenix, Arizona.  I was forced into one of those after school specials: the skater kid from California left to fend in a cruel and callous world.  It was a cross between Footloose and Gleaming the Cube.   In this burning hot, concrete covered town, jocks ruled and they hated the punks and skaters.   

Eventually I moved from Phoenix to live with my dad on Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard, California.  There, I would develop my love for Nardcore. 

Nardcore (Oxnard and Hardcore) was a music scene in Ventura County.   It was not just the music that made Nardcore, but the fans--a tight community of young adults and teens that supported live music, not only with their dollars but with their energy. These kids would pass out flyers, buy merchandise, and dance hard.  Outside bands took notice and soon we had groups from Los Angeles and all around the country playing our town.   It was a great time to be a teenager with a heart for this type of music.

In college I got a job as a security officer with Golden Voice, a concert promoter in Los Angeles.   While studying screenwriting by day, I was spending nights in the barricade for such bands as NOFX, The Offspring, Pennywise, The Toy Dolls, Youth Brigade, Guttermouth, H20, Henry Rollins, Social Distortion, and ex Sex Pistol himself -Johnny Rotten (Lydon).  My college education wasn’t just in film writing, but music performing.   

That’s where the music in Peace & Riot originated.