Filmage: The Story of Descendents\All Page #2

BILL:
Yeah, we really hit it off

and we would go fishing every day.

I was in awe of all these

great songs he'd written, and

he would play them on the

acoustic guitar really hard,

Johnny Ramone style,

all six strings.

He had this bitter resentment

that just drenched

every step he took and

every word that he spoke.

His songs were just filled

with that envy of people

that are better looking

and more successful.

It was just really inspiring

to just be around someone

that just hated everything

that much. It was just great.

BILL:
It was not that long

afterward where it was trash

day and I was bringing my

trash out to the curb.

And one or two houses down,

somebody had stuffed this

bass guitar, it was sticking

up out of their trash can.

And at that point I had

only played drums, and I

was like, "Whoa!" And I

went and I got that bass.

And I wrote "Myage" on that.

I thought, "Well, Frank can write

songs, so f*** it, I can write songs."

DAVE:
Soon after that,

we were rehearsing

in Frank's brother's

garage in Long Beach.

TONY LOMBARDO:
I lived on

Walnut Street in Long Beach.

Frank's brother lived on

Walnut Street in Long Beach.

I played in my garage. I

played the bass by myself.

BILL:
I guess Frank had heard

somebody playing bass down the alley,

and he's like, "Dude, I think..."

... Frank has a really high

voice, so when I do Frank I

gotta go into the Frank voice:

"Dude, I think there's some dude

down there that plays bass.

Let's walk down there and see."

Sure enough, Tony...

TONY:
They came over when

they heard me, and they were

standing there and asked if

I wanted to jam with them.

BILL:
He appeared to be

somewhat older than us, but I

have to say he looked and

acted very young for his age.

TONY:
I was in the band

when it was '79. I was

34 years old when I

started the Descendents.

And they were 15.

Now he looks at me

like, "Oh my god,

this guy's a f***ing freak.

Beep!"

BILL:
It all worked out.

There's me and Frank

being completely

ridiculous and asinine,

and Tony was in some ways the voice

of reason or the elder ambassador

that would yield a

modicum of propriety or

reasonableness to our

stupid arguments.

JOE:
What happened with Dave and

Descendents, he was

playing in two bands.

So he couldn't commit

to practicing with

the Descendents, so

they kicked him out.

DAVE:
It's not really the

Descendents as you know it today.

But I was there just

before it happened.

JOE:
The birth of the

Descendents as a live entity

corresponds with the epiphanal

birth of the Minutemen.

MIKE WATT:
We were called Reactionaries

then, we weren't Minutemen yet.

And the opening band was

somebody from Hermosa Beach.

One guy was kinda our age or even older,

but the other two were really young.

Their guitar man had fishing

boots, rubber f***ing...

I hadn't seen cats like

that in other bands.

BILL:
Milo was the

biggest Descendents fan.

At a certain point he would make me

pick him up and drive him to practice,

and he would just sit and watch us practice.

I mean I would pick him up every day.

MILO AUKERMAN:
I think one day I was

watching them practice and I said,

"I think I could probably sing

'It's a Hectic World.'" And

they said, "Okay. Just go and

do it. The mic's all set up."

BILL:
We were just in there, and

in between two songs Frank just

goes, "F*** it! Let's just get Milo

to sing these f***in' things!"

And we were like, "yeah!"

So Milo just got out of

his chair and started

singing and that was it.

It was like Frank saw the obvious

that none of us could see.

MIKE:
One thing about

the old days was that

the people involved

were very individual.

They were all characters.

Frank's image was kinda neat.

It was kinda

A-frame, with his legs

and his guitar up high.

And he was kind of a shorter

man, but he was a hard-charger.

GREG CAMERON:
The second

show I ever saw of the

Descendents was at the

Dancing Waters in San Pedro.

They broke into the set

and he was playing guitar

so hard and so angry that

his pants fell down.

He was an odd

character, for sure.

I can remember standing in

line at a Misfits show,

and all of a sudden he just

sat down on the ground

and started holding his head like

his ears were ringing or something.

And said something to the effect like,

"What am I doing here? Where am I?"

So that was Frank.

BILL:
Oh, to understand Frank.

I don't know. I know he had a

rough familial thing growing up.

Just a lot of familial discord.

And I think that can

fuel a fire pretty well.

I never sat and went, "Wow,

what made this guys so weird?"

I mean, I didn't really

have any familial discord,

I just didn't have

any familial at all.

MIKE:
Tony was a really good bass

player. Intense about opinion.

CHUCK DUKOWSKI:
Tony brings a

unique style of bass playing.

Every time their on a

chord, it's a run.

ROBERT HECKER:
He was such

a solid monster, you know?

He had that kill bass tone.

That growling bass sound.

It was just kill.

Kill!

MARK HOPPUS:
Tony Lombardo, his

bass playing on those albums of

the Descendents is only entirely

influential on my playing.

Just that eighth-note downstroke

powerful foundation of the melody.

His playing is phenomenal.

TONY:
This is duct tape

with fishing weights.

I used to wrap this

around my wrist,

and I would play... all

downstrokes, mind you.

After you took those weights off,

you felt lighter, you felt faster.

Might've been psychological,

might've been a little bit to it.

Oh, cool. Headband.

MIKE:
They all had an image,

but Milo, his image especially

I guess people didn't

expect of a dude in a band.

MILO:
"While I'm writing

songs about girls, I'm also

having these things where I

need to rip things apart."

"So I have to write these songs about girls,

but I also have to, like, rip it up."

MIKE:
He just became this

thing that was powerful.

The hand in the back pocket and

sing. This intense projection.

I don't think he thought about it.

He just was what he was,

but it came of being kind

of a "thing" that I loved.

DAVE:
Most other singers

were macho or whatever,

or put on some vibe like,

"I'm a f***ing weirdo."

But it wasn't that way. So kids

could relate to it. I did.

None of us were f***ing getting laid... we

were listening to hardcore, you know?

Milo was like our spokesperson.

MILO:
We were starting

to get into faster

paced music and drinking

a lot of coffee.

BILL:
Give me my coffee.

TONY:
Caffeine. It

makes you hyper.

BILL:
Come to Stevenson.

TONY:
In general, it makes

you want to play faster.

BILL:
My glasses are fogging

up just thinking about it.

People have it easy

now, because you can

get killer espresso

on every corner.

They don't realize what it was

like back in the day to try to be

overly caffeinated. You had to

want it. You had to work for it.

Ten spoons of instant coffee

into water, so it was like mud.

And then put a bunch of sugar

in there. It would give

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