HEADS TALKING is an interview series where a shared love of music bridges divides and starts friendly conversations about the world around us. They are dialogues between musicians and their fans [via Facebook Live] meant to inspire participation beyond the ballot box. Bouncing Souls joined us this winter.
The full conversation can be viewed here and the highlights are written below. Please note that the views expressed by artists are live and uncensored and do not necessarily reflect the views of the HeadCount organization.
HeadCount: What do you wish more people were talking about?
Greg Attonito (Bouncing Souls): I think everything is already being said, really crazy shit is being said and a lot of stuff that makes a lot of sense is being said. But we still need to talk about our human rights and we definitely need to keep talking about how important they are for everyone. So I guess we need to keep talking about those things and not stop talking about them.
Is there something in your community immediately that you can think of that you wish was getting more focus on etc etc is there something that hits home for you?
GA: We recently were pretty moved by the events at Standing Rock over the course of last year and we were inspired by a friend who went up to help winterize in December, to write a song and have the proceeds go towards Indigenous Environmental Network. So we recorded a song called Battleground which we released a couple weeks. On a bigger scale we feel like our rights are kind of teetering in a way that I’ve not seen in my lifetime, I don’t know. We might all just be crying wolf, but it’s hard to say right now so we'll see but we felt like we needed to do what we can do which is write songs and release them.
Any fun stories about meeting famous people at festivals?
Bryan Kienlen (Bouncing Souls): Johnny Two Bags from Social Distortion and myself snuck onto the Cure’s stage, just full mind melded our way on, and got as close to the band as possible while they were playing. We ended up sitting next to their family, it was like their family, me, and Johnny Two Bags all just thick as thieves watching the Cure show and that was pretty cool
What do you think the future holds for either your fans or millennials, young people. You guys have been touring for a long time, you have a lot of fans, what would you encourage young people to do who are just starting to get into punk rock and tour and get active now that this election has grabbed everyone by the horns
GA: I feel like i don’t know shit about what's gonna happen in the future and the older I get the less I know. From the very beginning we really didn't know what was gonna happen and we just went with what feels right so even though its real cliche, super cliche, for anyone that has a feeling to do something, something they care about, something they love, follow that.
Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls): Find something to believe and fucking believe in it, all the way
GA: It’s not easy and you never know, you really never know what the future holds, ever
BK: And find some good friends and keep em because that makes everything better. You can do more together!