An Interview with Harley Flanagan

2:09 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Harley Flanagan on this very special episode. Welcome to the pod.

2:18 Harley Flanagan Thank you for having me.

2:19 Luke F. Walton So I've been doing an absolute deep dive into your life, watched your movie, read an excerpt of your book,

2:25 Harley Flanagan Okay.

2:25 Luke F. Walton listened to the podcast. But the one thing that I'm actually really, really excited to talk about that I want to lead with, the music, your influences, your inspirations, and then talk about you as a person.

2:36 Luke F. Walton But I want to start with the music because I'm a musician, I'm obsessed, and I want to know when was that first moment, I believe it was drum kit, that you had that spark and you said, at a very young age, I want to be a musician.

2:49 Harley Flanagan I actually never had that spark. I was always playing music as long as I can remember. It was always around musicians. I have been at clubs and concerts since I was a baby.

3:02 Harley Flanagan And I really couldn't even tell you the first time that I was ever behind a drum kit or the first time that I had ever touched or played a guitar or whatever. I don't remember when that was. I mean, I was already on my first tour in an adult band.

3:19 Harley Flanagan when I was like 10 there never really was a time when I said this is what I'm going to be in fact I saw a little clip with Roberto Chihilo Robert where he was talking about in high school you know everybody all the music guys you know we all wanted to be you know rock stars we all wanted to be like the next Van Halen and this and that and I actually thought that was kind of lame

3:41 Harley Flanagan you know and uh like when i heard him say that you know and i heard someone else say it recently too oh yeah one of the guys from typo negative he was like everybody in brooklyn you know we all wanted to be rock stars and you know i had never had that moment My ambition or goal or dream was never to be a rock star. I mean, I was into punk rock.

4:02 Harley Flanagan So for me, that's like the antithesis of what rock stardom is. You know, it's like punk rock was, in my opinion, was. music by the people for the people you know the

4:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:15 Harley Flanagan people in the crowd are the same people on the stage they're your friends i didn't actually know or think about whether the Cro-Mags was ever going to play a show outside the new york area i didn't really think about it reality was really more about just like survival from day to day because that's what reality was for me the dream was not an important one when you're still just trying to

4:39 Harley Flanagan You know, not get jumped, figure out how you're going to eat, the

4:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah, get

4:45 Harley Flanagan simple things, survival, forget about being the next Van Halen. I don't want to get beat up by the fucking Puerto Ricans on the block and I'm trying to figure out what's for dinner, you know.

4:56 Luke F. Walton I'm curious, how did you how did you manage gear in that type of environment, like have your bass guitar where you have

5:01 Harley Flanagan We used to borrow shit for the most part,

5:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

5:04 Harley Flanagan you know, and for the first few years I was playing on a borrowed bass that eventually she gave to me. It was a friend of my mom's who had that semi-hollow body starfire that used to play. That was hers.

5:19 Harley Flanagan I basically borrowed it and didn't give it back for like a really long time and eventually one day I saw her on the street she was like you know that bass you have of mine well you could just keep it I was like

5:30 Harley Flanagan thank you meanwhile i'm like you thought you were gonna get back like you know like you know i mean i wasn't you she was like she was like my aunt penny i mean i knew her my whole life you know she wanted it back was her face but nonetheless that was uh and i in fact i i was i hated that face because i thought it was so rockabilly i

5:48 Luke F. Walton was Mm

5:48 Harley Flanagan like embarrassed

5:48 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

5:48 Harley Flanagan to play it but fuck that i have the choice you know in fact i remember one time billy milano came to one of our shows at cb's

5:56 Harley Flanagan and he had went out and purchased a perfect version of it that was mint condition but more expensive it was a higher and he's like look what i got and i'm like thinking to myself yeah that's nice like you think i want to be playing this fucking thing i think i'm kind of thinking myself like that's cute you know you think you're one-upping me and i don't even like playing this fucking thing

6:19 Harley Flanagan I like this shit's a hand-me-down dude if I was up to me I'd have like a fender or a Rick you know get the

6:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

6:25 Harley Flanagan fuck out of

6:25 Luke F. Walton I'm

6:25 Harley Flanagan here you know okay

6:26 Luke F. Walton so curious about that time too, because I was thinking with another member of OG punk Andy Chernoff of the Dictators.

6:35 Harley Flanagan yeah

6:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:35 Harley Flanagan of course

6:36 Luke F. Walton And so we did a great podcast talking about CB's and Lower East Side and the energy that was there.

6:43 Harley Flanagan yeah man I remember seeing those guys in the fucking 70s man I saw them at Gilder Sleeves.

6:51 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

6:51 Harley Flanagan Yeah. My aunt's band, her band before the Stimulators was opening up for the Dictators. That's when I first met them.

7:01 Luke F. Walton That's,

7:01 Harley Flanagan That's like we're talking 70s.

7:02 Luke F. Walton I know.

7:03 Harley Flanagan Yeah.

7:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

7:04 Harley Flanagan Yeah. Like pre-punk.

7:07 Luke F. Walton Right. Pre-punk. Exactly.

7:08 Harley Flanagan Yeah. You know, I mean, first time I went to CB's, I was. it was 1970 fucking three you know i was a little kid i was like under 10 you know uh

7:18 Luke F. Walton Crazy.

7:18 Harley Flanagan he really didn't want to let me in

7:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:21 Harley Flanagan but i was with my aunt so she talked him into it and um that was like literally the year they opened so i mean i probably you know i'm not even bullshitting i'm probably

7:33 Harley Flanagan I probably went there and played there combined like to get combine the two and it's probably more than anybody walking the earth really

7:41 Luke F. Walton Unreal.

7:42 Harley Flanagan you know think about it because I mean I started going there the year it opened and I literally played the last show the last gigs they had when the place closed i'd

7:54 Luke F. Walton it's yes

7:54 Harley Flanagan say that's a long run from beginning to end

7:58 Luke F. Walton and it's it's such a pillar of hey

8:00 Harley Flanagan and i'm playing the cbgb's festival coming up yeah

8:03 Luke F. Walton great awesome hell yeah i i i'm also so fascinated by that era of like bootleg slash underground recordings and yeah

8:12 Harley Flanagan yeah we're lucky that uh as much stuff got reported as it did because you know You didn't have all that digital availability back then, you know?

8:22 Harley Flanagan things have definitely gotten easier and also back then you know if they caught you trying to record something you'd probably get your ass kicked you know so unless it was like the guy at the soundboard recording something i mean i remember i got that what was it sabbath live in paris and like what was it 70 what you know the one that they did the classic war pigs where he's got like the totally different lyrics and shit i had that on cassette like i don't even remember what year i had that cassette for fucking ever you know how many

8:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

8:49 Harley Flanagan times it That thing got eaten and I had to like wind it back up and like take it set apart and put it back together because it was like, you know, and then years later I found it on VHS and I was like, oh fuck, there's a video of this show. Wow.

9:05 Luke F. Walton you're a huge sabbath fan right

9:07 Harley Flanagan Yeah.

9:07 Luke F. Walton because I I

9:08 Harley Flanagan How can you not be?

9:09 Luke F. Walton can

9:09 Harley Flanagan If you like if

9:10 Luke F. Walton your music yeah

9:10 Harley Flanagan you like rock and roll, you better like Sabbath or you don't know what the fuck rock and roll is.

9:16 Luke F. Walton Yes.

9:16 Harley Flanagan You know

9:17 Luke F. Walton I mean, they feel like a band that is in that same. world is Cro-Mags and dictators and sex pistols of it feels of the people right am i wrong what do you think yeah

9:30 Harley Flanagan nah bro they were fucking real that was working class shit i mean but like to the you know on a musical like scale of like godzilla i mean they were i mean they were such a fucking amazing band and then you know ozzy just brought that shit right back to the streets like you know of course he turned into you know a bit of a cartoon you know

9:51 Harley Flanagan nowhere in life but you know in those early days he was a fucking he was a real street motherfucker you know that's i think what part of what gave them the extra integrity i've read interviews you know bill ward you know he was like when we met ozzy he was a skinhead and you know skinheads were like not too popular back then so you know we didn't really know if it was a good idea you know and just that alone is just like you know football hooligan street kid no fucking been around like

10:17 Harley Flanagan will do that gives them some extra cool factor when everybody else is trying to you know the roger daltry fucking shirts and all that you know yeah everybody's like but again you know ozzy kind of turned a little corny to himself which is why i really wasn't in i actually didn't know shit about sabbath until i didn't really get into them until kind of after the fact i i discovered them and this was like 82 around 81 or 82 my friend turned me on to

10:45 Harley Flanagan the masters of reality was the first album of theirs that i heard and all of a sudden i was like whoa you know up until then i kind of wrote them off as just being a bunch of hippies and i really didn't fucking pay them no mind i didn't know any better i just i was into punk rock so what the fuck did i care it just didn't it was off my radar oh

11:02 Luke F. Walton Did that change the way that you approached the bass like Geezer Butler?

11:05 Harley Flanagan absolutely though that was an absolute game-changing moment i can tell you exactly what the fuck song you put on

11:12 Harley Flanagan i had been fucking tripping my balls off for like days because i used to eat a fuckload of acid right i was like 15 and um he was like no you got to check this out and he put on fucking children of the grave and bro i just i felt like You know that Saxon album cover with the dude on the horse with the axe?

11:31 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

11:32 Harley Flanagan I felt like that motherfucker came out of the speaker. Like, I was just like, whoa. I was just like, whoa, like I was just like, fuck me, man. This is like heavy.

11:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:44 Harley Flanagan So fucking I went on a bender. And that was the album that set it off. And actually that album, you know, wasn't just a huge influence on me musically, but lyrically, like, have you ever thought about your soul can't be saved, you know, it was part of the reason that song in particular really opened me up lyrically and made me feel like the lyrics have to be more important than just like, you have to say something that's like deeper.

12:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:13 Harley Flanagan You know, so

12:14 Luke F. Walton Yep.

12:14 Harley Flanagan like my lyrics started turning from like street type stuff. to more dare i say spiritual uh

12:23 Luke F. Walton Yes, definitely.

12:24 Harley Flanagan quest for self-awareness type stuff street shit was always there because you know that's where i came from and it wasn't unlike most of the new york park core bands in particular i can't speak on other areas but those street lyrics they were fucking really more or less my diary they were they were real life you know a lot of people used to really you know make up a lot of tough guy stories to try to like sound

12:48 Harley Flanagan like they were and

12:49 Luke F. Walton Yep.

12:49 Harley Flanagan for better and for worse I always tell people I was not a tough person I just survived a tough life you

12:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:55 Harley Flanagan know those lyrics were actually just real that was my day-to-day existence

13:03 Luke F. Walton But I can feel that, but I can also feel that yearning, that spiritual side through your lyrics. I was reading them too, and it was hitting me in a different place of really feeling like I was connecting with you at that time. who you were and hearing that cry for help but also a cry for like power and and standing on your own

13:25 Harley Flanagan The strength thing and the power that I was trying to have that a lot of people felt, especially the young kids who were needing that, people like Jocko Willink, for instance, he told me that that album got him through some of the toughest parts of his life. A lot of people have told me that in different ways.

13:42 Harley Flanagan So, you know, like I was definitely trying to invoke strength in my own strength to get through my life from day to day because it was such a fucking bleak and heavy and quite scary at times life. You know, I had to be tough again. It wasn't that I wanted to be. I would have never been a tough guy.

14:03 Harley Flanagan badass or a dangerous violent aggressive person if i didn't have to be in order to survive that's probably not who i would have become those lyrics you know that shit was real but even going back as far as like life of my own you come into this world with nothing except yourself you leave this world with nothing except yourself and all this self-analysis of your memories of the times you had that's the way you see it so me and my boy eric our old singer we wrote that shit when we were like 15 16 years old

14:32 Harley Flanagan So, you

14:32 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

14:32 Harley Flanagan know, that hunger for self-awareness and for answers was always there, even as a kid. And I think that comes from already having been exposed to how cheap life is, you know, already having had to see things with our eyes that most kids don't see. I wouldn't say most kids don't see, but most kids shouldn't see.

14:53 Harley Flanagan So, you know, I still think those are some of the strongest lyrics, very simple lyrics, but the lyrics to life of my own in hard times are very potent because.

15:01 Harley Flanagan because you know they're coming from a pure place we were 15 years old 16 years old and that was like our reality hard times are coming your way you're going to have to rise above them someday organize your life and figure it out or you'll go down without a doubt that shit was real and to this day it's still that shit is fucking real man you know

15:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah. The hardest thing for me is to, you know, I've gone to New York City, I've experienced it. It is a completely different world.

15:29 Harley Flanagan It's different, man. It's

15:31 Luke F. Walton And

15:31 Harley Flanagan different.

15:32 Luke F. Walton But at the same time, I recognize that the world that you grew up in is well and alive in a lot of different places throughout the world.

15:39 Harley Flanagan absolutely and actually you know one of the things about the documentary wired for chaos that um you know one thing that

15:48 Harley Flanagan People have told me that I've seen it is that literally everybody that has seen it has told me that they could identify with something in it, you know, something that I experienced really hit home for them.

16:04 Harley Flanagan Because I think no matter where you come from, no matter what country or what city or no matter your financial status or your background or your nationality or race, I think everybody can identify with certain things. Everybody to some degree understands pain. You know, everybody knows what it's like to, you know, you may not have been sexually abused, but you may have been mentally.

16:30 Harley Flanagan be abused you may have been violated violent you may have been beaten you may have been everybody's suffered through some kind of trauma in life trauma and life kind of go hand in hand like you know you come into this world screaming you get smacked in your ass you know you get your fucking your dick snipped off right away you're already getting traumatized from the fucking second the shit happens you're like in a comfy cozy place and then all of a sudden oh what the fuck so trauma starts pretty early right so that being said

16:59 Luke F. Walton Mm.

16:59 Harley Flanagan you know i think most people are going to be able to relate to something in this story even if they haven't lived my life you know i mean even anthony bourdain said nobody's lived your life harley and quite honestly i gotta say no nobody has you know i mean there's other people out there who've lived crazy fucking lives you know like insane lives you know i'm not fucking michael jackson or whoever the fuck but my life has been

17:26 Harley Flanagan equal with fucking nuts just you know think that there's definitely a story that people will be able to dig on even if they're not into the Cro-Mags or don't give a fuck about hardcore or oh

17:36 Luke F. Walton I want to know more about what C-Squat really like. What did it look like to live and have that be your day-to-day and the people around

17:42 Harley Flanagan there

17:42 Luke F. Walton you?

17:42 Harley Flanagan are pictures of it in the film and it was a burnt out building you know it was covered in graffiti uh the top floors were literally exposed

17:54 Harley Flanagan well we had a roof but like the top floors a lot of the windows we didn't have windows you know and the top the top floors were very charred the steps going up the flights you know a lot of them were just frames of the steps and they were not actually steps so you had to like walk on the frames i mean one guy actually

18:15 Harley Flanagan the step broke and he fell and the fucking thing like cut him right up the middle he had to like get taken to the hospital and like operated on because he basically got like rusty fucking metal right up his fucking crotch uh and then you had like on the first i forget what floor flaco was on but he was like an old dope dealer who had been in the building before everybody so we really couldn't get him out

18:40 Harley Flanagan because he also was a dope supplier for a lot of neighborhoods so you really couldn't get Flacco out that brought a lot of weirdly crazy weird elements in and mostly it was like runaways and and just like fucking just like street people and punk hardcore kids and skinheads who were staying in this building and at one point the slumlords in the area who were responsible for burning a lot of the abandoned buildings down they were trying to get us out because they

19:08 Harley Flanagan wanted to buy the property from the city we thought in our drug fucking fantasies we thought we were going to actually eventually legitimize the building and own it this and then and now there actually is a c squad because it eventually turned into a different building under the same moniker which is now a condo they actually legitimized it and actually bought it from the city and now like they own their apartments so god bless those who actually got their shit together and followed

19:34 Harley Flanagan followed through so back then we weren't mentally prepared financially prepared or or anything else so anyway this motherfucker he hired one of the neighborhood gangs to try to get us out so it like turned into a thing where it was kind of like you know it was like some old school like movie type shit like the warriors meets fort apache the bronx or some shit like it was crazy like we were like barricading our building and like fighting with gang members who were trying to like fucking

20:01 Harley Flanagan get us the fuck out and then when I had a hit put on me when I was all of I guess 15 or something they came looking for me there and were like putting guns on people and this and that so that was when I hitchhiked out to California for a little while to change

20:19 Luke F. Walton Get the heck

20:19 Harley Flanagan my

20:19 Luke F. Walton out

20:19 Harley Flanagan environment and let that die down oh

20:25 Luke F. Walton yeah speaking of out of a movie you were recounting some of the different ways that people were dressing and then the guy that was had that was going to try to execute the hit the

20:33 Harley Flanagan yeah great man yeah of course yeah yeah

20:35 Luke F. Walton wearing

20:35 Harley Flanagan yeah

20:35 Luke F. Walton an actual

20:36 Harley Flanagan well but he used to wear a pit that for those who haven't read the book or seen the movie he uh used to wear a pig's mask when he would do his hits that's why he was called pigman and the scariest shit was that he was like a i don't want to say a neighborhood celebrity but

20:50 Harley Flanagan we all knew about him i mean i knew about pigman when i was kid in fucking junior high school so when i was no longer in high school and i actually had pigman looking for me it was kind of fucking scary because like oh fuck you know like oh shit it's like now freddy krueger

21:06 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

21:06 Harley Flanagan is after me you

21:07 Luke F. Walton Right.

21:07 Harley Flanagan know and uh so it was fucking scary you know i mean he you know and he used to drive a blue nova so what would happen was a blue nova would pull up and you'd see a guy in a pig's mask and you'd get shot and that was that you know he would fucking pull up and blast people with a shotgun and you know they came to the squat looking for me and they and um they came to my friend's apartment and they put guns in everybody's mouths and thank you and that's when i just was like you know

21:38 Harley Flanagan out of here from yeah it was definitely some movie type shit and honestly if i wasn't so fucking crazy when i was young and i wasn't doing so many drugs it would have probably been a lot more terrifying than it was i mean it was definitely scary but it was just like this was my life you know but the funny shit is when i actually had my book come out however many years ago that was we had a book signing party and some of the guys from that crew showed up at the book signing

22:04 Harley Flanagan and you know of course we're all like grown-ups now and like you know middle-aged whatever and I was like who the fuck was Pigman I gotta know and they told me and of course I knew who the fuck it was and I'm like what's up with him you know because they were from my block like so they knew who my mom was it wasn't you know like this like this shit was heavy I remember telling the neighborhood people like they were like yeah you should get the fuck out

22:32 Harley Flanagan and i was like what about my mom and they're like i mean i don't everybody likes your mom you know okay all right so okay so i was like so what's up with him and they're like oh you know he's got an auto body shop out in brooklyn he's got grandkids and it's just such fucking such new york shit you know what i mean you know you can't make this shit up you know you really can't

22:56 Luke F. Walton Did it change you when you moved to California? I know that you talked about the the drug scene in san francisco and maybe picking the wrong city there did that change did change did it change your music did how did that affect you or was it more of just like a an interruption between your your new york yeah

23:12 Harley Flanagan it was just more madness i mean as far as what did it do for me well it introduced me to crystal math which we didn't have on the east coast which helped me learn how to play bass fast i

23:25 Luke F. Walton Really? Is that... Oh

23:29 Harley Flanagan literally sat in a chair for

23:32 Luke F. Walton my gosh.

23:32 Harley Flanagan like a week fucking playing bass and like only stopping to do speed and like at the end of that week there was just blood all over the bass and i could play my ass off and i had written about a hundred songs and forgotten all of them you know besides everything else that was probably the one good

23:50 Harley Flanagan good thing maybe that came out of that trip and discovering black Sabbath masters of reality happened on that trip so that was

23:56 Luke F. Walton Okay,

23:56 Harley Flanagan at least

23:56 Luke F. Walton okay, yeah

23:56 Harley Flanagan at least two good things that came out of that trip and I also didn't get killed by pig man you know I did learn how to like shoot meth and you know that wasn't great but um

24:10 Harley Flanagan also lived in an abandoned brewery for a while when i was out there which was you know exciting and interesting but

24:16 Luke F. Walton How do these spaces work? Was there like governance or anything or was it just pure anarchy? Everybody just kind of finds their spaces. How do you have

24:23 Harley Flanagan uh

24:23 Luke F. Walton like.

24:23 Harley Flanagan well there was like a fake idea of some sort of government but no you know i mean in c squat we tried we had like i would call it tenants association but we like tried to have some you know because we were actually trying to quote quote-unquote turning it into a legit building

24:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:38 Harley Flanagan so we would have like meetings and shit like once every week where we were like we create a list of priorities like okay we got to get a front door that works you know we need to get uh we need to do this we need like we didn't have electricity so you know we had like a power cables running from the the street light the street post outside going into the building so on the first

24:58 Harley Flanagan couple of floors we had cables going in same thing in the brewery out in san francisco we had power cables and we all lived in the actual vats that used to store the beer which were like these big black rubber coated rooms with like a round manhole type of cover and

25:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

25:16 Harley Flanagan you know so we'd all have our extension cords and shit so you'd have your you

25:22 Luke F. Walton Into

25:22 Harley Flanagan know the huh

25:22 Luke F. Walton vat?

25:22 Harley Flanagan yeah

25:24 Luke F. Walton Into the vat?

25:24 Harley Flanagan yeah so we all would that was how you'd have your your light and your tv your hot plate you know they were actually charging fucking rent to live at the vats and me and um and i

25:36 Luke F. Walton That's

25:36 Harley Flanagan started

25:36 Luke F. Walton very California.

25:36 Harley Flanagan off living i i wasn't getting charged because at first i was living literally in an air vent like just a vent like you have to climb up with the you know ladder thing and so there wasn't even enough room to like stand up it was just like lay down room

25:50 Harley Flanagan the room but it was safe I was pretty sure nobody was going to find me in there and shit and when you're a 15 year old runaway you know somewhere safe to close your eyes for enough time to sleep it's priceless I

26:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:03 Harley Flanagan wound up moving into one of the vats themselves with my bro Mark and his girlfriend's bike they took me in we started running security for the guy who took rent from people to live there so we got free rent and we eventually wound up moving up to the top floor which was the yeast culture room so we actually had a window like we were we

26:27 Luke F. Walton live

26:27 Harley Flanagan like a fucking penthouse you know like in the top floor and our gig was basically that if somebody didn't pay rent we had to evict them and usually was you know forceful eviction that's

26:38 Luke F. Walton Yep, yep

26:39 Harley Flanagan how we got free rent so yeah it was total fucking anarchy man it was like literally like road warriors meets a squat It's fucking crazy and

26:48 Luke F. Walton That is fucking crazy.

26:49 Harley Flanagan you know just a lot of fucking mess a lot of mess you know this was in the 80s people in New York didn't even know what the fuck that shit was and I was fucking shooting LSD and shooting mess with it and just out of my fucking mind and I was all of 15 years old so there you have it

27:10 Luke F. Walton and growing as a musician as you're doing it and writing these lyrics and i

27:13 Harley Flanagan yeah man i was actually i wrote some fucking killer shit that was kind of the beginning of you know me uh creating my sound playing

27:21 Luke F. Walton want to dig into your sound so you started at like 10 11 12 you

27:27 Harley Flanagan like drums in a punk band

27:28 Luke F. Walton know just

27:28 Harley Flanagan but i've really always been and

27:29 Luke F. Walton yeah

27:29 Harley Flanagan you know i was playing music in school when i was little uh and it was kind of like a hippie school so we weren't

27:37 Harley Flanagan You know my music that with the music we were playing we were doing like Santana covers and cool and the gang and

27:43 Luke F. Walton Uh

27:44 Harley Flanagan funk and learning how to play reggae and just like really learning cool stuff and you know and that was pre 10 and then when I turned 10 was when the you know never mind the bollocks came out and basically punk rock exploded so that was Where I jumped into playing drums in a punk band.

28:08 Luke F. Walton What did punk look and feel like back then? I feel like there's the late, I don't know, almost cartoonish or whatever image that we have of punk rock now. What was it like in its inception, playing those early shows? What were the people like?

28:24 Harley Flanagan You know what? It was a mixed bag because there was no stereotype yet.

28:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:31 Harley Flanagan Yeah, I mean, even if you go back and just listen to the records,

28:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:34 Harley Flanagan you know, never mind the Bollocks didn't sound anything like the first Dan's album, which didn't sound anything like the Clash's first album, which didn't sound anything like Generation X's first album, which didn't sound anything like Susie and the Banshees first album. And the list goes on. There were actually no two bands that sounded the same.

28:56 Harley Flanagan Also, the fact that you had like stiff records, which was putting out the damn first singles and stuff, they were also putting out things like Ian Dorey and Elvis Costello and these other things that would now be looked at as new wave.

29:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:14 Harley Flanagan But back then, it was all sort of happening at the same time. And then at a certain cutoff point, what was like...

29:23 Harley Flanagan punk light became new wave like things like blondie was all of a sudden not being called punk anymore it was being called new wave and they started appealing a little bit more to pop pop uh aesthetics and like uh you know same thing with generation x they started leaning a little bit more pop eventually the clash put out london calling and then forget you know san denise and so on so it's like

29:48 Harley Flanagan people started you know and of course the Sex Pistols broke up before they had a chance to continue or sell out or anything so you know it was all and then to me kind of what happened was you know the whole Nancy Spong and Sid Vicious fiasco kind of really just shot punk in the fucking head because you know people forget that first wave of bands

30:09 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

30:11 Harley Flanagan Most of them got signed to actual real labels

30:14 Luke F. Walton Yes. Right.

30:15 Harley Flanagan like you know most of them got signed to EMI like the Sex Pistols wrote the song or Virgin a lot of them got signed to Chrysalis or any of the other albums that the other labels that were out at the time most of those bands did not start out to like not be successful most of those bands were they were just trying to be the next t-rex or whatever the fuck it

30:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:38 Harley Flanagan was just next thing and it was just more abrasive you know nasty punk vibe because in in britain they still said you punks whereas

30:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:52 Harley Flanagan in america being a punk was like oh you young punks are so you know you're so whatever you know in the early days every band had a signature it was more diverse and then then when that first wave died in my opinion two things happened people started uh getting more like what they thought punk was which was like

31:21 Harley Flanagan started looking like wadi or or whatever the music got almost bad you know bands started getting simpler and just not as musical you

31:30 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

31:32 Harley Flanagan know it's not as good honestly you know and then Sanctioned with boy like the all of them skin advance the music just got a little worse and it started just being more about the fashion statement and then eventually it turned into the political statement and the music suffered

31:55 Luke F. Walton Got some big news, everybody. My vinyl record is out. We didn't make a ton of these, so these guys are going to sell out and I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope. And it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and special stuff, the things that really went into making this record.

32:11 Luke F. Walton And I want you to get your hands on it. So go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the show notes. the bio or wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy.

32:24 Luke F. Walton You know, they're going to sell out. We really did not make very many of these and I want you to have it. It's like a collector's item. So thank you. Thank you for supporting my music and I can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl. Enjoy the rest of the episode. How did you feel about that watching something that you were a part of kind of like branch off and over the years become

32:43 Harley Flanagan I'm gonna fuck I was part of the branching out

32:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

32:45 Harley Flanagan I mean I

32:45 Luke F. Walton yeah.

32:45 Harley Flanagan you know I became a skinhead when I was in Belfast in 1980 so I was part of that branch growing and all that shit was influencing me as it was happening you know to me hardcore was just a continuation of punk it was hardcore punk you know when the when the Bad Brains started playing faster music

33:06 Harley Flanagan music that was this punk speeding up black flag was a punk band who just started rewriting what punk was weren't addressing it as punk

33:15 Luke F. Walton Right.

33:15 Harley Flanagan but the music was getting almost more explosive same thing with the circle jerks they weren't really dressing like punk rockers but the music was getting faster Same thing with like minor threat. The music was just getting more intense faster and it was less of a fashion statement and more of an expression of actual ideas.

33:38 Luke F. Walton Mm.

33:38 Harley Flanagan I think people fucking forget that punk rock in its inception really was a lot to do with fashion more

33:45 Luke F. Walton Mm. Mm-hmm.

33:46 Harley Flanagan so than idealism or social revolution or social justice, you know. people always talking i hate when i see these fucking assholes on the internet like punk rock is about or you know punk is that's not very punk it's like motherfucker punk was a goddamn fashion show with music to it you know get the fuck out of here you just don't know because you weren't there tell yourself whatever the fuck you want to tell yourself you know

34:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:17 Harley Flanagan i mean

34:19 Luke F. Walton That's why I like having these conversations because I want to hear the real history.

34:22 Harley Flanagan there was very few bands that were really actually trying to make political statements and let's just call it what it is you know fucking johnny lyden makes fun of joe strummer all the time because he came from a family with money and he's like making all this political injustices it's always the fucking spoiled motherfuckers and the fucking it's always the the ones who are doing the most bitching are the people that don't have

34:45 Harley Flanagan Have anything to bitch about so they need something to fucking be idealistic about to fill up their fucking lack of struggle in their lives Yeah.

34:56 Luke F. Walton That actually reminds me of, there was a Facebook post you made, this is a while ago, but it was talking about dingbats and people that were protesting against dingbats.

35:06 Harley Flanagan I

35:06 Luke F. Walton And

35:06 Harley Flanagan don't

35:06 Luke F. Walton I thought,

35:06 Harley Flanagan remember what

35:07 Luke F. Walton but

35:07 Harley Flanagan it was, but I remember something stupid happened there.

35:09 Luke F. Walton it was, it was something, the gist was you were talking about, and I thought it was actually a very interesting message where you were saying, but there were some bands that were playing that were bad.

35:18 Harley Flanagan I don't even remember.

35:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah, no, something like that. It was like. like being you know political statements that were very like hateful and obviously like there's room for people to be offended but this was something where it was drawing a lot of people wanting to shut down the club and yeah

35:33 Harley Flanagan I vaguely remember something.

35:35 Luke F. Walton something

35:35 Harley Flanagan I think it was like a band that played there or like something that had made some sort of a statement that was taken some sort of way. I don't even remember any of the details. I just know that, you know.

35:45 Harley Flanagan the club is a fucking place for everybody to play at and the fact that they were trying to close or that people were protesting and closed down a club for what somebody may have said on stage you know i can't actually speak on this because i

35:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

35:59 Harley Flanagan don't remember the

35:59 Luke F. Walton no,

35:59 Harley Flanagan details

35:59 Luke F. Walton no worries.

36:00 Harley Flanagan but you know what for you know you can't really hold a club responsible for if i'm remembering the details correctly you can't really hold a club responsible for some fucking shit that somebody says on stage but i don't recall All the pizza in the world.

36:14 Luke F. Walton that's

36:14 Harley Flanagan Everybody out there, get off my ass.

36:16 Luke F. Walton that's i think the biggest thing that i'm trying to speak at i guess i'm being too too circling around it is you know you you come back from belfast and you as a skinhead

36:26 Harley Flanagan you

36:26 Luke F. Walton And I feel like there's a very different idea of what being a skinhead means today. And I know that a lot of people would,

36:32 Harley Flanagan yeah you know actually i was just talking to this guy earlier today and this sort of came up you

36:37 Luke F. Walton sure,

36:37 Harley Flanagan know people who don't know any better they have this idea that like skinheads are it's all like american history x you know and

36:44 Luke F. Walton yep.

36:44 Harley Flanagan for those people out there and for the people who don't know any better i suggest you just go to youtube right now and type in skinhead reggae

36:55 Harley Flanagan or type in skinhead ska and the amount of music that's going to come up that has that says the word skinhead in it over and over and

37:10 Harley Flanagan it's all played by black artists and they're singing about being skinheads and this is the music that skinheads used to listen to back in the day

37:21 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

37:22 Harley Flanagan So if you actually get right down to it, skinheads were like the first wiggers because they were white boys who listened to black music and basically borrowed their style of dressing from Jamaican rude boys.

37:38 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

37:39 Harley Flanagan And it slowly morphed into something that was a little bit more working class where the clothes stopped being as fashion conscious and started just being more working class clothes, which is when it went from dress shoes to working boots and

37:55 Luke F. Walton Okay.

37:55 Harley Flanagan rolled up jeans instead of suits and

37:59 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

38:00 Harley Flanagan the fashion changed, but they were still the same kids.

38:04 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

38:05 Harley Flanagan And they listened to ska, which is black music. So really, it was just the same as in low income areas where white kids in America adapt to black culture.

38:21 Harley Flanagan and start dressing like b-boys or whatever you call them these days you know i don't even know the terms young people use but you know

38:29 Luke F. Walton I

38:29 Harley Flanagan when

38:29 Luke F. Walton know what you mean, though.

38:30 Harley Flanagan when white kids start adapting the black culture like street culture that was really actually where you find the roots of skinheads and and all it takes is you any all you can do is like i just said for all you motherfucking morons out there type in skinhead reggae type in skinhead ska

38:48 Harley Flanagan Yeah Okay. And do the fucking math. All right. What happened was in the, I guess, probably the early mid 70s or whatever, when things like the National Front and the British movement and all those things started to get popular in the working class areas in England because of all the poverty and poverty makes everybody go crazy. Everybody starts blaming everything on everybody else.

39:14 Harley Flanagan It's because of the Italians came in. It's because of the Jews. It's because of the... Because of the blacks. It's because, you know, everybody's fucking black. Poverty fucking makes everybody mean, hungry, turns against everybody else. You know, and then you throw in sports, which in Europe and England brings out the worst in people.

39:33 Luke F. Walton Sure.

39:33 Harley Flanagan Everybody's a hooligan. They go to fucking sporting events to fight. They don't go with their kids to like cheer on the Yankees. They go there to fight the

39:41 Harley Flanagan fucking fans. So those were all elements that were coming into play back then.

39:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:47 Harley Flanagan So you get working class white boys who are skinheads now and that national front British movement shit starts to infiltrate all of everything in the culture over there. So slowly you wound up with skinhead bands that leaned more towards the right. And of course, the media and the press always loves. to zoom in on the negative just

40:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:15 Harley Flanagan like they do with black youth they only zoom in on the negative they don't zoom in on on the good and so they did the same shit with skinheads they fucking find a bad guy and sure they were bad guys they were at sporting events raising fucking hell that's what fucking soccer hooligans do in england and europe So all of this shit creates a fucking imagery,

40:40 Luke F. Walton Yes.

40:40 Harley Flanagan okay?

40:41 Luke F. Walton Yep.

40:42 Harley Flanagan And when they're only fucking pointing out skinhead bands and skinhead music that's racist and they're not playing songs like skinhead moon stomp, which is by a black guy. and it which is like an old school skinhead anthem your

41:01 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

41:01 Harley Flanagan average person isn't going to know any better and let's just call it what it is man people love to sensationalize and people love to fucking freak out and people love to be oh my god oh my god those skinheads you know they might as well be saying oh my god those blacks you know it's the same fear mongering that the media has always done and people love to latch on all that shit oh my god now it's

41:24 Harley Flanagan the libtards oh my god the transgenders are going to teach our kids how to be gay you know everybody everybody loves fucking you know freaking out but

41:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:33 Harley Flanagan it's just a you know let's just call

41:36 Luke F. Walton it That's

41:36 Harley Flanagan what it is right

41:36 Luke F. Walton one of the things I like about you and your story is that you're impossible to flatten. People have tried. When you got jumped, people tried.

41:44 Harley Flanagan yeah that shit didn't work out for them i'm still standing life goes on man yeah you know what life is complicated man that is so fucking cookie cutter fucking simple and the simpler people try to make it you know that's fine they can simplify their lives but reality is way more complex and we're all on many different spectrums yeah

42:06 Luke F. Walton we're all trying to survive and you're all a product of the culture and the society that you came from just like you were talking in the very beginning

42:12 Harley Flanagan man all those things play a huge fucking thing and then you know you throw on this basic chemistry and then and trauma and the effects that that has on us you know mentally emotionally and physically we're fucking basket cases man we're lucky if we can fucking make it from here to death and ever find peace you know which is ultimately what i'm working on

42:33 Luke F. Walton Well, I also like that. through music you're able to channel some of that and be able to give voice to other people's stories who who might not be able to who they might not have an outlet but you're able to tell that story in a way that resonates with them and can get them through so that they can have that auto body shop and grandkids

42:52 Harley Flanagan it's still good man well i'll tell you what man you know what it really is pretty uh incredible to have that type of effect because obviously i've never felt like

43:02 Harley Flanagan i've never felt like a spokesperson for others and i've never felt like an important person in that way but like you know jocko willink who's a friend of mine um for those of you who may or may not know him look him up you know he told me that my music got him through some of the hardest parts of his life and that motherfucker has seen some things so that made me really feel a little bit different like about my

43:29 Harley Flanagan input my value when I can help someone get through shit like that I'm like wow and let's just say that's happened more than once where people have really given me a lot of appreciation for my music helping them at times when they really needed to help and

43:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:48 Harley Flanagan now you know so you know my music music was kind of you know the way it sounds and the lyrics are really a byproduct of my for the most part my trauma you know and the aggression and the rage that's in my music is you know part of my story part of how I think pretty much the reason I stayed alive and out of prison is because I had that way to let the steam out instead of just

44:20 Harley Flanagan letting it completely eat me and that has become the soundtrack for a lot of other people and given them a place where they could release some of that steam or perhaps not feel so alone in their own situation you know and again I think my movie may have that effect too because I think people who've suffered through some of some of the things that I've been through may say you know Bob I'm not alone

44:46 Luke F. Walton Yes.

44:46 Harley Flanagan They may say, well, you know, I can make it if this guy did, you know, because I'm the first person to say, you know, I don't feel like a tough guy. I feel like I've survived a tough life, you know.

44:57 Harley Flanagan i'm not even a very big guy you know people look at me they're like oh that fucking dude's huge you know i just work out a lot you know so and i do like a lot of push-ups right before i get on stage so i look a little bigger when

45:09 Luke F. Walton Yes,

45:09 Harley Flanagan i'm on stage you

45:10 Luke F. Walton yes.

45:10 Harley Flanagan know but you know i'm not a big guy and that's part of the reason why i have i had to be as

45:16 Harley Flanagan intense as I was as it's an intense world and I you know I had to survive in And it well

45:21 Luke F. Walton I think hearing that story coming from you hits a lot more than coming from somebody else that didn't live it.

45:27 Harley Flanagan I don't think anybody who didn't live it can't I don't think they can really speak on it I think it becomes masquerade it's like you know that's why I didn't get into metal when I was a kid because I felt like you know it's a bunch of fantasy land bullshit and I felt like hardcore was more for the streets it wasn't

45:42 Harley Flanagan until later on in life that i realized at least 60 of the hardcore kids were faking the punk as well i mean i grew up and god bless them i love them to death i grew up with some of the guys from the beastie boys but and they were straight up rich kids you know they never smoked dust in their lives they you know it's just fucking fun it was just fun and games and a lot of the so-called you know thug guys on the scene who write all this shit you know it's just storytelling

46:11 Harley Flanagan They're writing songs. Yeah, that's the difference. I was writing basically my journal down and putting it to music. So the trauma and the drama and the blood was real. It wasn't like made up for... Your listening pleasure.

46:28 Luke F. Walton Yes. And I love that it's filtered through the lens of where you're at now as a father and as a teacher.

46:34 Luke F. Walton I'd love to zoom in on jujitsu a little bit because I love hearing from musicians who have other passions because I think that it tells a lot about the musician's soul, the mindset and the intensity applied to something else and how it can wrap back around to music. So like becoming a black belt in jujitsu, becoming a teacher in jujitsu. So how that changed you, how did that affect you?

46:54 Harley Flanagan Oh, drastically. Ironically, I got my black belt right before what would be probably the hardest part of my life, which has had a lot of hard parts. Got my black belt right before the Webster Hall incident happened. And if anybody's interested, you can look it up. But I think you should just read my book or check out the film because it was pretty intense. I wound up getting assaulted by a bunch of people. I got.

47:19 Harley Flanagan I got set up by people I knew, assaulted in a club and wound up in Rikers Island. I got, I think it was like 40 something stitches. I got some, some object I was stabbed with. I don't know what it was. I can't say a knife or whatever. But I put three of them in the hospital and I was looking at.

47:40 Harley Flanagan three years in jail for assault even though I was anyway long story short I just got my black belt and this was happening and at the same time just starting to go through a really bad separation with the mother of my two sons who was of course threatening that I was never going to see my kids and that was really really going badly so all these things are happening at once and of course the incident that happened was not helping my case

48:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:07 Harley Flanagan shit couldn't have gotten much worse it actually I don't think it could have so really like I got my black belt and my life fell apart and it was like now let's this is where we really see what I am

48:21 Harley Flanagan You know, and I could have given up. I really could have. I was like, what kind of message does that send my sons? I thought that to myself. That was like important to me. So I knew I couldn't give up. I remember a couple of things that some of my black belt brothers said to me that really just got me through. Master Henzo Gracie, who gave me my black belt, he's like a brother to me and like a mentor.

48:45 Harley Flanagan He said, my brother, this is the best thing that ever happened to you in your life.

48:50 Harley Flanagan and meanwhile i'm like these are the last words i want to hear i'm like what the fuck is i'm thinking myself what the fuck you're talking about like i just lost my family i lost my kids he looks at me and he goes your happiness depends on no one but you you were born to run naked through the jungle with a spear and i was like and it hit me like you know your happiness depends on you that's and you have to find that

49:19 Harley Flanagan You got to find that strength. You are not relying on anybody else for that. It's really up to you

49:26 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go onto the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot, dot, dot on Spotify.

49:44 Luke F. Walton Under there, it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms, all that stuff.

49:51 Luke F. Walton stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and a five star would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode

50:09 Harley Flanagan You know, and that was really powerful to me, you know, because and then my other friend, another black belt, one of my good brothers. Edgar Chutan, the combat veteran, and he said this can either make you a cripple for the rest of your life or will make you a millionaire. And I don't mean in the financial way.

50:36 Harley Flanagan like this is either going to bring you everything or going to leave you like hobbling through life and you know what now it's like if you would have told me then this is going to take years before your life gets better i would have said kill me now man i can't live i'm just like my life is i'm looking to go into prison i'm losing my kids the woman i just spent my last 14 years with is leaving me my whole life is falling apart if you would have said you know

51:05 Harley Flanagan suck it up this is going to be a few years before things get back to normal i would have just said fucking kill me but i can tell you right now that i'm in the best fucking place i've ever been in in my life and it took a while but you know what once you get fucking through it the shit is it's a blip

51:28 Harley Flanagan I just tell people like, you know, when you're ready to give up, man, don't because you don't fucking know what could happen tomorrow.

51:35 Harley Flanagan May not even happen tomorrow, may not happen for a year, may not happen for fucking 10 years, but something could happen that could change your whole feeling about everything, could change your outlook on life, could change your feeling about yourself, could change everything and you just don't even know what that is yet. The fact is it could never happen. But you will never know if you give up.

51:58 Harley Flanagan So I'd rather fucking take my chances, me, myself. You know, like whenever I want to fucking cash it all in and just be like, I just fucking remind myself like, you know what, first of all, I was playing Russian roulette my whole life. You know, every time you shoot fucking drugs, you're playing Russian roulette. That's just the opposite, you know.

52:18 Harley Flanagan It hit me, I'm less like, you know, we already know I'm going to die. Yeah, that's come

52:23 Luke F. Walton Built

52:24 Harley Flanagan it's

52:24 Luke F. Walton for the inevitable purpose.

52:24 Harley Flanagan that's gonna happen so why rush it I'm

52:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:29 Harley Flanagan gonna get there be patient motherfucker you may have a few good days between now and then you may not but then fine you're there relax slow the fuck down and you don't need to run there

52:44 Harley Flanagan you'll get there it's actually guaranteed it's one of the only things that's guaranteed you don't even have to fucking work on it you're gonna die that shit's going you know so fucking relax something good might happen in between if you fucking don't give up if you don't cash in your fucking chips life could actually be pretty fucking cool you know once in a while if even if it's just once in a while that it's great that's fucking

53:09 Harley Flanagan are you expected to be great all the fucking time what are you kidding me that's like not realistic

53:13 Luke F. Walton great answer and a great thing for people to hear because honestly i mean everybody feels those feelings no matter yeah no matter what you're at and everybody's suffering and i feel like that's one of the greatest uniters of humanity when we if we accept and realize that and recognize that in each other

53:29 Harley Flanagan well we all go through it you know in every shape or form you know we all go through and rich people maybe don't get

53:35 Harley Flanagan get hungry you know they always have food but they suffer in other ways everybody like has some whatever you know i mean shit fucking chris cornell man you know people would think you know anthony bourdain you know two dudes who fucking would from the outside you would think have it all i mean and tony was a personal friend of mine a close friend you know that shit broke my heart still breaks my heart every time i think about him

53:58 Harley Flanagan You know, his kids grew up now without a father who would have been amazing for her to grow up like he's an amazing guy, you know, and it's like Chris, like what the fuck man, like what, what dude like and I think a lot of that is actually just science. I think that people don't understand that to every.

54:18 Harley Flanagan fame rock and roll whatever all anything that makes you feel you get dopamine surges from shit if you're playing a game of football if you're up on stage if you're fucking you know If you're fucking screaming, if you're having a fight, if you're in a state of anger, if you're in any sort of an emotional pumped up state, if you're even sadness,

54:42 Harley Flanagan all these things release chemicals in your system. Your dopamine goes through the fucking roof. Your fucking body is releasing cortisol and all these other fucking things that most of us idiots don't even know what the fuck are. And if you're not aware of this shit, it's really easy to be like.

54:58 Harley Flanagan go from extreme joy to extreme depression and not even understand why or not even understand that it's happening that just like that moment where you're just like I'm fucking fire and everybody's with you and it's like you know or that minute where you're in the ring and you know and whether you lose forget about it it's even more intense you know all that and then now you're in the fucking silence of your room you know

55:26 Harley Flanagan only thing you can hear is the ringing in your ears and uh how the fuck do you deal with that and then all of a sudden like you miss home what the fuck is wrong with me i've got everything in the world and i just want to die and

55:43 Harley Flanagan because they don't realize that it's actually a roller coaster that they're on because of all the fucking the adrenaline and the emotion which is actually all just a reaction to

55:54 Harley Flanagan What's happening a lot of people fucking give up before they even understand what the fuck is going on

56:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Well, it's kind of like some people talk about the musician or the artist as a lightning rod or a shaman, somebody that feels more than other people, that takes on more, that absorbs more. Do you see that playing in at all?

56:15 Harley Flanagan Well, I I'm not going to get all esoteric about it, but I will say that it is pretty intense

56:22 Harley Flanagan You know, and me, I've been on stage for my entire life. I've literally been doing shows on stage since I was under 10 years old. So I really don't know. I don't even I actually had to start like competing and grappling and jujitsu tournaments to get stage fright again because I just forgot, you

56:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:41 Harley Flanagan know, I didn't know what it meant.

56:43 Luke F. Walton Fascinating.

56:44 Harley Flanagan But it's it is intense and just all the things that go along with it, you know, it's very soul sucking to have. to have to take a hundred or more selfies in an evening.

56:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:54 Harley Flanagan you know it's but you don't want to be mean anybody because then that becomes your legacy so there's just a lot of different energies in play and also the fact that i was assaulted at a fake Cro-Mags show you

57:06 Luke F. Walton Right.

57:07 Harley Flanagan know so that i have a lot of different levels of trauma that make it all complicated you know you can't really be addicted to anybody because then that's then all of a sudden you're hated for having a bad day or for for not responding the way you want In a way somebody else wants, or better or worse, this is part of my gig, job hazard.

57:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah

57:29 Harley Flanagan So it was, you know, what happened to Don Bagdaro and John Lennon on the same day, ironically.

57:34 Luke F. Walton I didn't know it was on the same day. Oh my god.

57:38 Harley Flanagan Don Bagdaro is always overshadowed.

57:39 Luke F. Walton Oh my god Wow Yeah

57:43 Harley Flanagan How do you like that shit? What does that mean? Yeah, I don't even want to try to think about that.

57:50 Luke F. Walton I know. Yeah.

57:51 Harley Flanagan But anyway, my point is, is, you know, same people that start off as like your biggest fan can become your actual worst nightmare just because they have mental problems. So it's a difficult place to be at all times because. People always have expectations. They always have ideas of what they think you're about.

58:13 Harley Flanagan You're not really given the room to have faults or flaws without people beating you to death online about it. If you wipe your ass wrong, God knows the whole fucking world will say, that motherfucker's got shit on his fingers.

58:33 Luke F. Walton We all do. We all do.

58:36 Harley Flanagan Hey, man, I just don't even give a fuck anymore. I just live from day to day, you know life is good,

58:42 Luke F. Walton I

58:42 Harley Flanagan man

58:42 Luke F. Walton got one last question for you. So the show is called Love Music More. And this segment is called Love Music Why. I ask the same question to all of my guests at the very, very end of the show. Why do you love music?

58:55 Harley Flanagan because it I mean, I could say that in a very simple sentence and then I could elaborate if I had to, but I don't think I need to because it's everything to me. It's almost everything to me. It has been my method of survival for most of my life. So it has fed me.

59:14 Harley Flanagan It has given me the little bit of popularity that got me through times when I was homeless and on the streets and actually like even in the old punk rock days when I was, I had just enough clout to be able to couch surf, you know, it fed me, it gave me enough fame to get me eventually off the streets and beyond that it gave something out of the people.

59:40 Harley Flanagan My music, you know, so it's like it's been like a circular effect. It saved me and I was able to, I don't know if save other people, but at least give something to other people. There have been lyrics to songs that gave me strength and got me to being who I am now that helped me evolve. And there have been songs that just... musically make me feel good and so yeah music is almost everything to me yes

60:09 Luke F. Walton The movie is called Wired for Chaos.

60:12 Harley Flanagan my movie is called Wired for Chaos I don't know if any if you have the book Hardcore Life of My Own they are similar but very different you can enjoy both and learn things from both that aren't in either the film is actually going to start showing in theaters June 15th it's going to be playing at the Roxy in New York for I think three days I will be there doing a Q&A and

60:39 Luke F. Walton Great.

60:39 Harley Flanagan yeah we actually signed a deal distribution deal with Lightyear Entertainment and they're getting it overseas and it's going to be besides the New York showing in June it's I'm going to be doing Q&A's and it's going to be in different Different theaters in L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Philly, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Austin, and more. And the theatrical run is going to be going through July.

61:11 Harley Flanagan And I believe in August there will be a pay-per-view. So this summer is going to be pretty nuts. Like I'm going to Europe next week for some festivals. I'm coming back for some West Coast shows and then the movie tour begins. And then I go back to Europe for another tour.

61:29 Luke F. Walton working hard amazing

61:30 Harley Flanagan Yeah, I'm actually losing track. This is my third podcast today.

61:36 Luke F. Walton that

61:37 Harley Flanagan Fucking shit is crazy, bro.

61:38 Luke F. Walton that shit is crazy and what else is crazy i'll see you in a like a couple weeks down in san diego hell

61:45 Harley Flanagan I will see you in a couple weeks in San Diego and to all you listeners out there, I hope I see you there as well.

61:51 Luke F. Walton yeah

61:51 Harley Flanagan Pick up my book, check out the movie and come to the show.

61:56 Luke F. Walton Harley Flanagan, everybody.

61:58 Harley Flanagan Right

61:58 Luke F. Walton Thanks so

61:58 Harley Flanagan on.

61:58 Luke F. Walton much, man.

61:59 Harley Flanagan Thank you for having me, bro.

62:00 Luke F. Walton Appreciate you.