Chad Price of A Vulture Wake/ALL

One of the more notable albums to come out in 2018 so far has been A Vulture Wake’s The Appropriate Level of Outrage, which was released on January 31, 2018 through Bird Attack Records. The band has a stacked line up that features Chad Price of ALL and Drag The River, Joe Raposo of RKL and Lagwagon, Sean Sellers of Good Riddance and Real McKenzies and Brandon D. Landelius of The Mag Seven. The band has been touring quite a bit and already has plans to release a new EP later this year. Editor Ricky Frankel caught up with lead singer and guitarist Chad Price to talk about how the band got started, the new album, his time with ALL and more. Read or listen to their conversation below or on iTunes.

Brian Wahlstrom (Gods of Mount Olympus)

Sometimes the best types of bands can happen by accident, take Gods of Mount Olympus No stranger to the punk music scene, Brian Wahlstrom, while playing with Joey Cape and his Bad Loud project, decided to mess around with some Billy Joel songs during a sound check in 2012. Writing songs on piano that needed heavy drums and guitars to come to full realization, Brian needed to but a band together. Fast forward to a few years later, Brian and drummer Paul Rucker were able to recruit Steve Morris of Unwritten Law to play guitar, and by chance of luck, have bassist/fan of band Matt Riddle of No Use for A Name, to make the band a 4 piece. The piano-centric punk rock band just played their first show as a 4 piece last month, and recently released their debut EP on Bird Attack Records. Punknews writer Matt Dumont was able to catch up with Brian while gearing up for the release. You can check out his interview below.

Jan Drees and Curtiss Lopez of The Shell Corporation

With several albums and EP’s to their name, The Shell Corporation have become a contemporary gem in the Los Angeles punk scene. After a bit of a break, they are back with their new and very powerful album called Fucked, which will be out on March 2, 2018 through La Escalera Records and Gunner Records. Editor Ricky Frankel caught up with lead singer Jan Drees and guitarist Curtiss Lopez to talk about the new album, the movie Network, their interesting album art choices, Jan becoming an airplane pilot and a bunch more. Read or listen to their conversation below or on iTunes. (Music from The Shell Corporation is featured in this episode, Brian Pretus's DownWrite.com Profile).

Photo Credit: Dr. Matt Grimmer

Catching up with the bands before Saturday's Hinterland Hoedown in Toronto

This Saturday Punknews.org, along with Beau's All Natural Brewing, Some Party, and Melanie Kaye PR, will throw our first event in Toronto, Ontario. The Hinterland Hoedown goes down at the Bovine Sex Club and will bring together St. Catharines vets The Lucky Ones, the reunited Toronto garage-punk group The Exploders, Montreal's eclectic Bolo Mojo, and celebrated singer-songwriter Jenn Fiorentino. I spoke to all four acts recently about their storied histories, latest records, upcoming projects and more.

All Souls on their new album, metaphysics, and flamenco

Totimoshi is now at rest. After some 20 years, the experimental desert rockers have ascended into the ether. But, in their wake, All Souls have been re-born. Comprised of Totimoshi's brain and backbone, string slinger Antonio Aguilar and bassist Meg Castellanos, All Souls also includes Tony Tornay of Fatso Jetson on drums and Erik Trammell of Black Elk on the bass. The band's new, self-titled album is out February 9th, so Punknews' John Gentile spoke with Aguilar and Castellanos about the new record, cosmic connections, and how to do the flamenco. Check it out below.

Felix Hagan and the Family are bringing spectacle to a boring rock scene

London's Felix Hagan And The Family call themselves a "seven-piece beast made of makeup, hairspray and rock and roll." The theatrical multi-genre group has been touring in support of their new album Attention Seeker, which arrived last October. Writer Graham Isador caught up with the band recently to dig into their storied live performances an what makes Hagan tick.

Kody Templeman of The Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket

2017 was a busy year for Kody Templeman. Both of his bands put out a full length and a seven inch. He toured middle America with The Lillingtons. With Teenage Bottlerocket he went to Hawaii, Australia, Europe, the East Coast and South America.

So, to catch up with the man and all his antics, Punknews writer Tom Trauma rang Templeman up and got the inside dirt. Check it out below.

Blag Dahlia on image, Trump, and the new Dwarves album

Ever since their resurrection with 2011's Born Again album, The Dwarves have been getting leaner and meaner. 2014's Invented Rock & Roll found the band stripping back to their hardcore and pop-punk aspects and blasting through a 25 minute album. Now, their new album, The Dwarves Take Back the Night, is even more primal, more savage, more vicious.

It opens with the slamming "Forget Me Not" and gets more crazed from there. "Take Back the Night" is a sinister, swaggering slash. "Everything and more" is 44 seconds of violent aggression. Of course, the band does slip in a few sweets here and there- with its bubblegum hook, "Trace Amounts," which is about OD-ing on coke, is downright cheery.

Because the band is coming out swinging on their latest LP (out February 9 via Burger/Greedy), Punknews' John Gentile spoke to frontman Blag Dahlia about how he is perceived, how he perceives himself, and drugs, of course.

Deanna Belos of Sincere Engineer

Deanna Belos has been blazing a trail attending shows and writing songs on her guitar since she was a teen. Over a decade of being in the crowd, and with some encouragement by some local Chicago punks, she assembled a band together and switched sides to write her debut album, Rhombithian, earlier this year under the name Sincere Engineer. Editor Samantha Barrett spoke with Deanna Belos about punk, anxiety, and the new record.

Jello Biafra on what makes up Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra is tricky to decipher. Despite the nearly 20 albums of music that he's released, despite the dozens of hours of spoken word discs that he's cut, it can be tough get a glimpse of what makes up the seminal musician, and moreso, what he thinks about internally. There are hundreds of hours of Biafra attacking the president or other political figures (and those are well worth your time) and there are numerous tunes of Biafra lashing out at big biz types who trample the less fortunate. But, how often does Biafra really open up about how he's feeling deep down? And moreso, how did he become the living fireball that he is? To cap off Jello Biafra week at Punknews, Editor John Gentile spoke with Biafra and a few of Biafra's close friends about just how the iconic singer/label owner/provocateur, came to be.

Photo by Dod Morrison

Reflections on Jello Biafra

To quote Plato if we may, "The measure of a man is what he does with power." And no doubt, Jello is a man of power and influence in the punk rock/alt-scene (even though he may deny it himself.) And to that end, he has influenced countless, countless, countless musicians and artists over his FORTY YEAR mischief-filled career. So, to get a perspective of how far the guy reaches, as Jello Biafra week continues, we asked a bunch of bands, artists, and arty-type-people to relfect just a little bit on the Boss B. Check out those thoughts, below.

Jello image by Chris Urban .