Reason Unknown Interview

Photo by Patricio Gonzales

Reason Unknown hit the Phoenix scene back in 2006. They bring a political punk voice to the local Phoenix scene in the same vein as bands like Anti-Flag and DC Fallout. It can be said there is some NOFX influence to be found in their music, but their sound associates more with the former bands mentioned above than the latter. They are a band that has opened for numerous national acts, including Agent Orange and Swingin’ Utters, with the list only continuing to grow. I got the chance to sit down with them, and learn more about this great local band.

Joe: Alright, let’s start off with whoever wants to answer. I didn’t specifically write these to anyone in particular, but I’m sure everyone has a unique answer to some of these or most of these. How did you guys end up meeting each other and getting together, forming this band?

Travis: That’s a good question.

Scott: I’m the late comer.

Travis: I’ve known Scott since I was sixteen, seventeen.

Scott: We were both friends for a long time.

Travis: We both played in separate bands when we were younger.

Pat: I met Scott in 2000. We actually needed a guitar player. We were playing a show and we had a fill-in guitar player because our guitar player had left. We met Matt at Jugheads.

Matt: My old roommate, the old guitar player for Sorrower (Billy), pretty much forced me to go to the show. I didn’t want to go and we showed up. Todd Seres was filling in for their guitar player and after the show Todd kind of forced me to meet them. He said “Hey, here’s your new guitar player!”

Travis: Yea, actually, yea, outside he’s like “Here’s your guitar player.” [laughs]

Joe: A kind of fateful night.

Pat: Of the nine years, he has been in [the band for] seven.

Travis: And before that it was pretty much started. It’s funny because me and our original drummer were in a band that was not very good. But it was like, more like practice and stuff. Then it went on hiatus, and then Pat joined.

Pat: Originally I came in as the singer, and we had this guy Robert as our guitar player. He lasted a month because his wife didn’t like him doing it.

Travis: Yea, he was going to play guitar, and we were going to find a singer.

Pat: And we were a three piece. We couldn’t find a singer and we said “Fuck it.” Me and Travis will sing. Then Scott joined in 2010.

Joe: So five years now.

Pat: Yea, we’re still waiting on an album with him on it. [laughs]

Joe: So none of those prior albums have him on it?

Travis: Uh no.

Pat: We recorded a seven inch that was supposed to come out through a certain label. But they fucked us, and he has since disappeared.

Joe: Nameless label?

Pat: It’s not nameless, but I’m not going to get into too much shit slinging.

Joe: Off the record already, we already are going. [laughs] Alright, well this is more individual, but what got you guys into playing music?

Travis: I’ve always been into music since I was younger. Played drums, little snare drums when I was a kid, then moving onto guitar, and then bass. I always liked reggae and ska, so it made me want to play bass. Scott has like a family history.

Scott: I was born into it. My grandpa was a drummer, and my dad was a drummer. I was pretty much born with it in my hands. It’s always been my dream.

Pat: I was just instilled with a love of music from my father when I was kid. Then, when I was twelve years old I heard my first punk rock record, which was Citizen Fish’s Wider Than a Postcard and that was it!

Matt: For me, I just started. My dad always played guitar and my mom was a pianist. So we always had a musical family. When I was probably eleven, I started playing my dad’s guitar. Then he gave it to me at twelve. So I learned on this twelve string acoustic guitar how to play major chords and stuff like that. My sister gave me my first electric guitar when I was thirteen. I started getting into punk at that age. I started learning, I think, Face to Face, which was one of the first bands I got into.

Joe: On your own?

Matt: Yea, I just sat there and listened every day. I tried to play along with all the songs. Learned power chords, obviously, and kind of went from there. I was always destined to be in a punk band, I guess.

Joe: [to Scott] Did your parents, your father and grandfather, teach you?

Scott: Yea, it was mainly my dad who was teaching me. Grandfather would once in a while when we would go visit, but I was in the fifth grade. I started the school band, and that’s when I got really polished up. I was in drumline, and punk rock bands when I was sixteen.

Joe: So we have two bands, and high school band.

Travis: When we were sixteen years old, we used to play in a band.

Scott: Separate bands.

Travis: Yea, separate bands, but we always played together.

Pat: Yea, I think we’ve all been in bands since high school.

Joe: Oh no, I meant in high school band then.

Travis: Oh no, I wasn’t in high school band. That was when I was in elementary school.

Pat: I think I was in my first band when I was eighteen. My first band was called Food Stamp Barbeque.

Matt: My first band was The New Republicans, then we found out Shane MacGowan already had a band called The New Republicans.

Travis: You could be The New New Republicans. [laughs]

Matt: The New New Republicans. Well we broke up a long time ago, and I’m in this band.

Pat: The Shane MacGowan New Republicans. [laughs]

Joe: Well do you guys play any other instruments?

Travis: Guitar. I played piano a little bit. I suck at drums.

Joe: That’s why you have him [Scott].

Travis: Yea. [laughs]

Scott: I can play power chords on the guitar; that’s my limit.

Pat: I can play the A.C. Slater beat on the drums. [laughs]

Travis: The Stamos, the Stamos beat?

Pat: Yea. [laughs]

Matt: I can play a little piano here and there, very rarely. All that year or two [I rarely played] because I never learned how to read music. Yea, I’m that guy. I think we are all that guy.

Travis: Yea.

Matt: That is pretty much it. I fuck around with my friend’s drums every once in a while. I have no desire to play them.

Joe: So what was the most influential musician for you guys growing up? It sounds like it was mostly family for Scott.

Scott: Yea, I will definitely say family had a huge influence. As far as drummers I idolized growing up, [there were] Neil Peart, obviously, and Buddy Rich: jazz musicians. I grew up listening to a lot of jazz because of my grandfather. For the most part, it is all family.

Matt: The obviously cliché Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain and Trever Keith were my two. Then I got into Screeching Weasel and Ben Weasel, The Queers, and all that.

Travis: Mine is pretty standard: Matt Freeman obviously. I think that [goes for] every bass player. Then any ska bass player.

Pat: Mine is the other half of his, Tim Armstrong, since I was fifteen years old.

Joe: He is amazing; those are a lot of amazing musicians. So what is your favorite local venue you like to play in the Phoenix area? If you have a preference?

Travis: I always liked Yucca. I always have a good time at Yucca; they put on great shows.

Pat: Yea, Ben is always fair to everybody so Yucca for me too.

Travis: There are a lot of other good ones. First thing that comes to mind is [Yucca has] always been really good to us, good to bands.

Pat: Club Red is always fun.

Travis: Club Red is always fun.

Pat: The soundman is really good.

Travis: Yea, the soundman is always good at Club Red.

Joe: So how does the writing process work for you guys? Is there a certain one person, or multiple people?

Travis: It is kind of everybody. Sometimes Pat will come into the studio with lyrics, and we will kind of have an idea of how certain things will sound. We will mouth it out, and start playing it. Sometimes I will come into the studio with lyrics, and sometimes chord structures. Sometimes our songs are songs that Matt had played when he was twelve. It’s kind of everybody. It’s always our writing process. Usually we will confuse the shit out of Scott because we will change the song about forty times. He’s looking at us all confused. Dude, just let him try; he’ll figure it out. [laughs]

Pat: You might as well stand there as they go back and forth. “Hey, you got that?” [laughs]

Travis: “I don’t know, I’m just going to play.” Just play it out; you’ll figure out how it plays.

Joe: Then he adds the drumline, the correct drumline.

Travis: Yea. [laughs]

Joe: What is your favorite moment playing with this band?

Scott: The tour was a blast.

Pat: Yea. For me, my favorite show we ever played was the grand opening for the new Club Red, opening for Authority Zero. Playing for a thousand people; that was amazing.

Travis: That was awesome. I guess a pit broke out. That was a good time.

Joe: In the humidity.

Travis: Yea, humid and what it smelt like because, I guess, the toilets backed up. Everyone was miserable, but it was fun. Everyone had fun.

Matt: Yea, I can agree with that.

Scott: [My] top two shows were definitely Authority Zero and The Adicts. The Adicts put on a killer show.

Pat: They put on a great show.

Joe: A spectacle in their own.

Everyone: Yea.

Joe: So what’s a favorite local band of each of yours? That is not your own band. If you can narrow it down.

Travis: I’ll name drop my homies, Knuckle Buster. Our boys!

Scott: I really enjoyed Common Tongue when we played with them.

Pat: Common Tongue is sick, and puts on a great show. For me, it’s Knuckle Buster, No One Wins, and Black Mountain Moonshine.

Travis: Obviously, you have the really good ones that have been around forever. No Gimmick is really good. LightSpeedGo is really good.

Pat: Authority Zero doesn’t count anymore. [laughs]

Travis: Authority Zero!

Joe: They’re local. Jason plays enough locally. [laughs]

Matt: I’m a big fan of Pork Torta, but they are from Tucson. [laughs]

Joe: Alright, what do you guys have coming up in the future for the band?

Travis: We have an album we have to record. We have eleven songs, but we need one more. Our last two [albums] we did only had nine songs on [them], so we made a point that we were going to do twelve more [songs]. We are at eleven, so hopefully we have it before the Adicts [show]. We are playing with the Adicts on October 26th. Hopefully it is recorded before then. Then, hopefully soon after that we [have] a lot of great plans., like a seven inch we want to throw out soon after. It’s been awhile since we put anything out musically, so we want to put a bunch out.

Joe: And you said Scott isn’t on any of them.

Travis: Yea and we want to remedy that since he has been in the band longer than our original drummer.

Pat: Then, we should, in the next couple of months, have a tour van and tour more.

Travis: The big thing is to get out of the state.

Joe: Expand the fanbase.

Travis: Yea. [It’s] a little different when you go out of state. You’re treated as a touring band, not a local band.

Pat: Our first destination is, of all places, we have a following in Utah. Of all places!

Travis: They have the most reason to rebel. [laughs]

Joe: Well what’s your current favorite musicians, local or otherwise? Or, what are you currently listening to?

Travis: What have I been listening to? I’ve been listening to a lot of Teenage Bottlerocket after that show. I’ve been listening to a lot of that. Those guys are rad.

Pat: I’m currently listening to a lot of Sturgill Simpson.

Travis: Oh, the Copyrights. I’ve been listening to a lot of Copyrights from that show.

Pat: And always Rancid. Always listening to fucking Rancid.

Scott: I’ve been listening to The Water Rats from Brazil.

Pat: So good.

Travis: We played with them in Las Vegas. Super cool guys who came all the way up from Brazil.

Matt: I haven’t really been listening to anything, to tell you the truth. [laughs]

Travis: Matt is a huge Bette Midler fan. She hasn’t put out any albums in awhile. [laughs]

Matt: I’m too busy working. I listen to a lot of old- actually this is what I’ve been listening to -a lot of old rocksteady stuff: old Melodians, and I don’t even know who is all on it.

Pat: We were supposed to play with them.

Travis: What? The Melodians?

Pat: Yea, remember?

Travis: Oh yea, that’s right.

Pat: That was another botched job by that certain record label.

Matt: I’ve been jamming The Specials a lot lately, for some reason.

Joe: So what are your favorite non-punk genres?

Travis: A lot of reggae, ska.

Pat: Reggae.

Matt: Ah country, old country, classic country.

Pat: Yea, the American, the outlaw shit, the underground movement. So much outlaw shit going on.

Matt: Jazz and blues.

Scott: I have a lot of roots in ska and reggae, of course growing up with this guy [Travis].

Joe: And you’ve said jazz.

Scott: Jazz definitely [while I was] growing up, but my guilty pleasure is all the metal and even the prog rock sometimes.

Travis: Scott’s going to be a prog rock drummer. [laughs]

Joe: Alright, now to the Clark Kent part of it, what is your normal day to day life? Like, what kind of jobs do you do?

Travis: I work for a structured cable company. Wake up, go to work, and have a daughter. Do that thing. Same ol’ mundane life.

Pat: Work construction, have two kids, and getting married again soon.

Scott: Work at a county club. I went to culinary school; cook there. That’s pretty much it.

Matt: I work for the local cable company and then I bartend on the weekends.

Joe: What are some of your favorite hobbies then? What do you do for fun?

Matt: I’ve been golfing a lot lately. Golfing, and playing guitar obviously. Just those. A hobby [guitar] since it’s not quite a job yet. Yea, that’s pretty much it. Just go to the drive-in theater and drink beer.

Pat: And all types of ill shit. [laughs]

Travis: I play videogames every once in awhile.

Scott: Skateboarding.

Travis: Yea, skateboarding.

Scott: Softball.

Travis: Yea, Scott is a huge softball player. [laughs]

Scott: Camping, and fishing.

Pat: Reading romance novels and masturbation. [laughs]

Scott: Masturbation is a given.

Pat: No, romance novels. [laughs]

Travis: Pat has Danielle Steel’s last book written on the back of his shoulder.

Pat: Oh yea, I celebrate her entire bibliography. [laughs]

Joe: Favorite videogame?

Travis: I don’t know. That’s a good question. The last one I played was the new South Park: The Stick of Truth. That was really hilarious.

Scott: NHL

Joe: So he’s the hockey fan of the group?

Travis: No, I like hockey too.

Pat: Pong!

Travis: Pong?

Matt: Anything 1970’s.

Joe: So keeping up with it.

Matt: I don’t keep up with it. My favorite videogame is Burgertime. [laughs]

Joe: That’s a pretty good game though.

Travis: Frogger was pretty rad.

Joe: I ran out of questions on here, but let’s go out on one more music question. Who is your favorite musician you’ve met in person or favorite moment meeting them?

Pat: Mine was just recently. I met the Anti-Flag guys at Punk Rock Bowling and Elvis Cortez of Left Alone. Fucking huge fans of all those guys.

Joe: The Justin and the Chris’s.

Pat: Yea.

Travis: The lead singer of Kemuri. He was super cool. It was hard to talk to him. He didn’t speak a lot of English. I was asking him about a lot of records and he didn’t really understand. That was awesome.

Matt: When I was in my former band, and we were in the studio, Joe Queer showed up, and we were playing with The Queers that night. Joe Queer actually showed up to the studio while we were recording. I got to sit and fucking hang out and talk to Joe Queer about writing music, writing lyrics. That was probably my favorite moment of meeting someone, especially through my childhood growing up, who I considered a punk rock god. That was pretty cool.

Pat: Are they the ones from Indiana?

Matt: No, they are from Massachusetts.

Pat: I don’t know anybody from Indiana. [laughs] Except for Larry Bird.

Scott: When we played with Break Anchor, we got to meet Jay from The Suicide Machines.

Pat: Yea, add that to mine too!

Matt: He was really cool. I guess the other time was meeting all the guys from VGS [Voodoo Glow Skulls], I got to play with them and Flogging Molly at Mesa Amphitheatre in 2005? Something like that. Before I was in Reason Unknown.

Joe: Then I saw you play I believe.

Matt: Yea, we were the first or second band, middle of the day. I mean, it was terrible. It was hot as balls. Yea, but that was cool. I hung out with VGS the entire time. As a matter of fact, I got kicked out of that show because I went to take a piss and we were a local. They were real assholes about locals even being backstage. I literally got carried out and thrown out of the fucking gates. A couple of guys from VGS were walking by, and I was like “Hey man, they fucked me here.” [They said,] “Oh dude, no worries.” They took their laminate off and threw it on me, and said “Let this motherfucker back in.” Then I mooned everybody later. [laughter]

Joe: That sounds awesome. That was an awesome story.

Pat: That does sound awesome.

Joe: Well thank you guys for doing the interview!

~ Joe Maier