all photos:Dakota Fine

What is an adult? Growing up in the 80s in DC it was hard to say. The guys in bands in their mid-20s didn’t drink or at least didn’t act like idiots, were thoughtful and passionate about their personal ideals yet most never went to college, and went out of their way to encourage and appeal to younger members of their audience, without pandering. The teenagers were respectful and cautious and sometimes ruthlessly judgmental, but were mostly unconcerned with fame or wealth or popularity. Meanwhile many of our parents worshipped dolphins and smoked pot in their BMWs. The only thing everyone agreed on was that there was no such thing as children.

DC Hardcore, at its best, was always about one thing really: What do you want to be when you grow up? Jesus it’s hard to even imagine a time when kids read the lyrics in new punk rock records like they were the owner’s manuals for their lives, but if it sounds boring or didactic that’s because eventually things devolved into camps of preachers and whiners and all the philosophers moved on. Back then it was one of the few places that presented actual alternatives—a bulletin board system of like-minded confused but hopeful young people confronted with only two kinds of adults: Yuppies and Hippes, and attempting to reject both. Well now anyone who was even on the margins of the scene is edging 30, and what did all that introspection get us? Judging by the subsequent lifelines of the members of Gray Matter, you get almost two decades of honesty, hard work, and uncompromising independence.

Even though Grey Matter’s music and stage show was always more influenced by poppy British wankers and Los Angeles Paisley Underground than Bad Brains or Rousseau, they sang about being depressed with more insight than most self-help books, (”And if I cry I want attention/Realize it’s just pretension”). My personal favorite, Burn No Bridges, is an ode to being self-reliant without fucking over other people—a difficult feat when your only responsibility is to show up at the gig on time and nobody is trying to get you license your songs for a car commercial, and practically impossible when you suddenly find yourself in a culture that no longer thinks it’s cute if you think for yourself.

But somehow either these guys have survived Hardcore, or possibly Hardcore survives because they still believe in it.

Dante Ferrando opened a little club called the Black Cat. Steve Niles started making awesome comic books, including the gorgeously creepy 30 Days of Night. Meanwhile Jeff Nelson and Mark Haggerty continued playing music and working in their chosen fields: turning into that badass older guy you ***ster bloggers all wish you could be, the kind of guy who the Sartorialist could take a picture of in his pajamas and still look more together than every male model on earth. They’ve come back together to DC to practice some songs and see old friends and play a show to celebrate 15 years of the Black Cat being the city’s best all-ages music club, which is cool, and don’t get me wrong the show will be cuckoo bananas lights-out party time, but then I bet they’ll go back to their lives in other places without much nostalgia or regret.

Hanging out with them for a while on a platform in a part of the BC that I swear doesn’t exist when I’m there—at least not without swaying up and down like the ocean—I barely had to get a question out before they took off talking, joking, remembering shit and disputing it. The friends you have as a teenager are the best you’ll ever make, or at least the easiest to talk to, whether you’re reminiscing for an interview or confessing your shortcomings in a late night IM. But it wasn’t just the stirred-up bonhomie that made the conversation get more and more profound as they talked about their history and the current state of DC rock and roll. Unlike a lot of bands who emerged from bright shining scenes, they’re probably more fulfilled being elder statesmen than they ever were as nervous next big things. Or maybe that’s because their music, unlike so much propaganda from that era masquerading as art, doesn’t make anyone do anything, or try, but it survives in the valley of its playing, where executives couldn’t hope to tamper, a way of happening, like a mouth. Down here in this raw town that we believe and die in.

Name Key:

Geoff Turner - vocals, guitar
Steve Niles – bass, vocals
Mark Haggerty – guitar
Dante Ferrando - drums

BYT: So you practiced today. How’d it go?
Steve: It was very fun; we kind of hopped right back into it. I was surprised, a lot came back that was missing.
Mark: I think a lot of the stuff is kind of hardwired into our brains.
Steve: So we’re only worried about what strokes we’ve had or…

[Laughter]

Geoff: Today I did lose a lyric to one of the songs…it took a little while. Just one lyric out of the entire set, it was like a panic attack.

BYT: These are the songs that you’ve been humming in your heads since high school…
Mark:: Pretty much!
Dante: We played them a lot back then…

Mark:: Being on tour, and practicing…

Steve: And it was ten years, and even when we were in other bands, all we did was, when we couldn’t get Dante we had a different drummer. So it was the three of us.
Dante: And then we got back together, and did all the songs again, so…
Geoff: Those songs from this band, I mean…This was the first album I ever did. [to Dante and Mark] You guys did singles with Iron Cross and stuff. Or was that after? But maybe because this was the first release, it kind of stands out as being the most important. For me anyway.
Dante: They’re also not the most complicated songs.
[Laughter]
Geoff: Yeah they were written when we were 16, 17…
Steve: I was going to say—the first two albums I think are pretty easy to do. We’re not touching too much of the last album. A lot of those were from when we were practicing a lot and in shape and young…
Dante: Those would be harder.

BYT: So it’s just Gray Matter stuff, not other bands…
DF: Yeah…
Steve: And Swan Street.
Geoff: And Dante’s correctly claimed part ownership of Swan Street, since it’s from the end of Gray Matter and it became a song with Three, the band Steve and Mark and I were in.
Mark:: And Jeff and Steve actually wrote it…
Geoff: It was something we did on a four-track in our apartment on Swan Street.
DF: And Thog originally was a Three song before we finished it in Grey Matter.
Steve: We just never recorded Swan Street as Grey Matter.
Dante: We never played it live either.
Steve: We didn’t?
Dante: No it was after Mark went to college, and we were only doing a few more shows. We practiced it a bunch but…

BYT: So it came out sounding good today? Who was the rustiest?
Steve: Me without a doubt.
Dante: We’ve done a few songs at some of the other reunion anniversary shows, when there are all staff bands and we’ll play a few songs at the end. We’ve done that…a couple times.
Steve: And I haven’t played music since I left DC, I only played music with these guys so I haven’t played it since.

BYT: Not even in your room…
Steve: Well sure but playing bass by yourself is pretty boring. We were going to do thus once before but, I messed that up. So I had a bass from that. But yeah, nothing. I haven’t played with a drummer or anybody.

BYT: So what brought you out this time?
Steve: Dante just asked and I just realized, I have the time and I could do it. The thing is…when we used to play and we’d tour, I’d throw up every night. They used to wait to tell me about shows because as soon as they told me I’d— *gags*. I had the worst stage fright. And, I think fifteen years of pitching to blank faces in LA has just broken it. It’s completely gone. So he asked and I was like yeah, let’s do it! And I haven’t thrown up yet.
Geoff: We’ll see if you throw up on Friday night…
Mark: Yeah there’s still a few days to go!
Steve: Ask me after the show.
Geoff: This morning you tried to sabotage the show.
Steve: That was not me, the bass up blew up right as I hit the first note.

BYT: Well you know, the crappy wiring in this place, it’s shameful.
Mark: It’s a firetrap. [Laughter]

BYT: So thinking about the late 80s in DC, at least from my perspective growing up as a little punk rock dork here, it seemed like there was a lot of media attention…

[They look skeptical]

BYT: Maybe I’m wrong?

Mark: Not on us!
Dante:You mean when the first records came out? I don’t think there was a lot of media attention, except in retrospect.
Mark: We kind of found out after the fact that people liked us. We also were an outside band in the DC scene.

BYT: Was it all the British and psychedelic influences that set you apart?
Mark: Yeah, we like rock and roll…We loved the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin. We weren’t necessarily the band we thought people in the scene would like but it was really music that we loved.
Steve: It’s not exactly like the other bands were all stepping in line, but…they did have a theme that all brought them together, and we were different.
Mark: Rehearsing the songs today I was joking about being influenced by Teague [ed. Didn't get this reference, sorry if his name's misspelled!] who was an old Food for Thought person who taught us bar chords and twelve bar blues. And playing the songs–a lot of them are kind of in that mode.
Dante: There was this scene around Food for Thought in the 70s that probably influenced us a lot.
Mark: Just straight up rock and roll stuff.
Geoff: We weren’t a hardcore band, really. We weren’t a thrash band.

BYT: Yet most people might think of you that way.

Mark: It’s so funny.
Dante: But I think in DC at the time there was a hardcore thing but there were a number of bands that were a lot different. You’ve got Shudder to Think and Beefeater too which go in completely different directions. I think that’s the point when things started splitting off…
Geoff: and 9353…
Steve: And it was doing songs like Caffeine Blues. We had a sense of humor which was a little out of place too. Very serious business this hardcore.
Geoff: Dante and I were joking the other day how all the songs back then were like: “Walk in Night,” “Hit with Stick.” It was really about being kind of a badass, and being very serious.
Steve: But not by us.
Dante: Me and Mark, coming out of Iron Cross we were up for a little more fun stuff.
Mark: It was just us being the age that we were—high school drama and feelings and finding the person you’re going to be.
Steve: That is another reason there are some songs we’re not playing. There’s one specifically about turning 18. Now, I’m 43, there’s no way I’m playing that song.

BYT: Did you guys feel like you were playing with the only other people in the city you could possibly be in a band with? Like you were being snubbed for being different?
Everyone: Nah!
Steve: Dante, or well, Food for Thought hosted a lot of the shows, so…
Dante: That’s one thing I was thinking when you were talking about the media attention thing. At that point the DC scene had gotten a little bit isolated. The bulk of the shows we, and a lot of other bands at that time played, were like Food for Thought Sunday morning shows where we’d get there at ten and set up and start the show at noon. Totally unadvertised…
Mark: Which is where we all worked, and Dante’s father owned. It was a part of our friendship, it was about us being friends.
Steve:The best example of that is that I just stopped playing bass after I left town. It wasn’t as if I was going to be answering bass player wanted ads. I never even thought about it. Never even thought about joining another band.
Mark: We were hanging out anyway.
Geoff: I haven’t even really played with that many other people when it comes down to it. I mean I was in New Wet Kojak with those guys but that was just sort of a side thing.

BYT: What about Senator Flux (ed: One of the author’s favorite bands ever he so he just decided to toss them in randomly I guess!)
Geoff: Senator Flux were my other, they were all my Bethesda High School friends as opposed to these guys.
Dante: It’s always been very easy for us to play together. I was in a band with Mark and Jeff in 7th grade and Steve learned to play bass basically with us.
Mark: Some Gray Matter songs were just retooled versions of those songs.
Geoff:We never waste anything we actually accomplish!
Steve: When I joined the band, I owned a bass, but I didn’t know how to play it. I never claimed to play it I just told them, “I bought one.” You guys had to teach me.

BYT: Media attn waning state of dc now, It doesn’t seem to be the same
Dante: Currently relevant force?
Geoff: Or to have that built in “cool” factor of coming from a…
Dante: The DC music is really disjointed right now. Because I don’t think it’s even been replaced by anything, which is sort of a shame. Right now, just in this chunk of time there seem to be…some bands, but they’re very separate.
Geoff: The consistencies fallen apart. So many people talk about Revolution Summer as being this big event that happened after a disjointed period. And people noticed, like “There are no new bands coming out, what’s going on? This has been a five year steady burn of a new music scene that kind of became legitimate and then stopped. But now it’s just more confused.
Mark: I live in San Francisco, I’ve lived there for eleven years now and whenever I come to DC I always go by Dischord and say hello to everyone. It seems like people are very much the same.
Dante A lot of people from that time period are still friends and still around.
Geoff: The community is comforting, and the fact that our records are still available is amazing. DC’s not supposed to change. Even if everything else changes in every imaginable way, of course Dischord still has the same house.

BYT: Is that what it was about more than the more strict rules of hardcore, the community?
Dante Absolutely, it wasn’t about that it was…people were friends they did things in a certain way and everybody related to each other. It was a music scene, not a bunch of people trying to get big in their bands. Nobody was focused on “Let’s sound like something.” People didn’t even have that much direction when it came to doing something with the band, like going on tour, or…
Geoff: That’s why all the bands broke up, there was no goal of making it, getting famous, “We’re going to take this all the way,” You played music for yourself and for your friends to hear.
Steve: A minor argument could split up a band, because there was no greater purpose. “I can’t deal with you right now, let’s split up.”
Dante They’re just like relationships.
Steve: We’ll be in another band in 6 months anyway.

BYT: Was this kind of family thing ever a hindrance in that way if you had certain ambitions that went beyond just…playing to your buddies?
Steve: Maybe, but if I think about it that’s a sensibility that, especially because I’m in LA, I miss it. I was telling somebody today, they were asking me about my contract with Dischord. And I went what? [Laughter] There’s no contact! It’s a handshake deal you ever hear of that? You know? People keeping their word?
Geoff: Yeah I lived in LA for a couple years and I would meet musicians and we’d go oh you like this band you like that band you have a rehearsal space let’s get together. But then they’d be like “Ok, we need to sign a contract before this conversation continues.”
Mark: I couldn’t believe it when I got the first $100 check from Dischord for the itunes profits or whatever but, they actually divide that up between everybody, it’s just…there’s so much integrity.
Steve: All just a handshake deal.

BYT: It seems like its much easier to NOT live by the kinds of idealistic tenets that one had as a teenager though…but you guys have mostly been involved in the arts your whole lives. What goes through your mind when you see a guy who used to be, I don’t know, raging for one cause or another, and he’s a lawyer or a lobbyist or…
Geoff: There’s a lot of people…
DF: You want us to call out specific names? [Laughter]
Steve: Yeah fuck {unintelligible}!
Dante I was a bit surprised when Kenny Inouye became the chairman of local National White People’s association. [More laughter]
Dante It’s a real mix. Working here I see all kinds of people like John Stabb, who still does music stuff, who might pop in for a bit and do a show, and some people who might never see who show up out of the blue. It’s all over the place in terms of people who’ve gone off to do something totally different, or those who went away, but incorporated what they did back then into their current work.
Steve: I certainly try to incorporate it into everything I do. And it just pisses people off left and right. That’s how I can tell I’m doing it.

BYT: It’s weird that there’s never been a really great movie about 80s hardcore.
Steve: I know! I’m working with the guys from Swindle magazine right now. I found all of my old tour notebooks, so we might start running a comic in the back, see if a storycomes out of that. And you know what, I’ve tried to do stuff like that but the hardest part is, you can’t show the music. You can’t show fake live performances.
Geoff: I thought American Hardcore was pretty good.

BYT: That was the documentary right?
Steve: That was OK. Better than Salt Lake City Punk.
Dante I think it’s hard because each city had it’s own thing going. You watch American Hardcore and, different people identify with different cities and you go, “Yeah I remember I really liked the guys from that city,” and “Oh fuck, the rest of the country sucked!”
Geoff: Yeah I forgot how much I hated New York Hardcore.
Mark: [Cracking up] Or Boston…
Dante Oh don’t get me started…
Mark: WALK IN NIGHT. HIT WITH STICK. [Laughter]

BYT: So I know that the Black Cat has been one of the staunch defenders of having shows remain all ages, even as it gets harder and harder for clubs to do so…do you still feel a connection to that cause?
Dante Oh yeah, it’s really important. It’s part of DC’s history. And kids are what put energy into the music, if you look at a band like the Beatles or the Stones. Most rock and roll comes from teenagers.
Mark: Absolutely, I mean, that was one of things that made the community so great back then…there were these older people who, while they were pretty sketchy themselves, they were looking out for you. They didn’t show you that they were doing heroin or something. It’s just the way it worked.

BYT: Even when some drunk fourteen year old steps on your foot at show, you’re not like, “Damn we weren’t that way when we were that age. Darn whippersnappers!”
Dante I’m just happy to see any fourteen year old at a show. Now if he’s drunk, and at my club, that’s another story. But really I can’t imagine what I’d be doing if I couldn’t have gone to shows. I’d probably be a drug addict or something.
Steve: Oh, you’d be fine.
Geoff: But it is interesting that you went on to open this club, because you had access to stuff like this, and Eric became an underground publisher and…

BYT: Is that the kind of thing you think you took away from hardcore, that shaped your life after being a musician?
Steve: Oh yeah. I mean, it’s like a gut level of fairness that’s very easy to follow in any creative venture. I learned that here, doing this, and now I try to apply it as much as I can to what I do now. But it’s a little bit of a fight. People don’t understand not wanting to stab each other in the back to get rich.

BYT: So if it’s so great playing together and everything, you guys should get back together!
DanteWe did!
Geoff: If we were all in the same city I bet we would.
Steve: It really was incredible how fast it came back.

BYT: You’re promising an incredible spectacle for all ages?
Steve: Oh no, I’ll probably totally fuck it up.
Dante It’ll be an all-ages show though!

I probably could have kept them talking all night because they barely noticed I was there after a while but had to cut them off here or this would be 100 pages long. I know this is isn’t terribly professional but if you read this far you must like this band as much as I do, so maybe you’ll dig hearing this: Having this conversation, with these dudes, was among the greatest things that has ever happened to me, not only because they’re such great musicians, but because it reminded me of what really matters in life: We’re all brothers, Punk Rock is the best, and Fuck New York City. DC UNITED BITCHES.

Go to the show. The Shirks are awesome too.

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