Generation of chaos: part 1

A tribute to Gonzo journalism.

The ground is littered with ice behind Lifestyle's Community Pavilion outside of The Used's tour bus as I search for the band to get the interview. The sound of drums and guitars roar through the open door leading backstage, a revived 80s hardcore sound I will soon come to know as the band Drive A. I follow my ears backstage and meet The Used's tour manager, Keith.

"You the guy doing the interview?" he says.

"That's me," I say.

"What's your name again?"

"Elias."

Keith shakes my hand and leads me to the dressing room as the members of Atreyu court past us, carrying equipment. The dressing room is equipped with a black leather sofa, flat screen television, bags of Doritos, bottles of water and soda, a cooler full of beer and an acoustic guitar. With a tape recorder and list of questions on deck for frontman Bert McCracken, I wait patiently for the band to arrive. I am eager to talk to McCracken about The Used and the army of punk rock musicians affiliated with the Taste of Chaos tour, callously known as the Generation of Chaos. First, the band's bassist, Jeph Howard, accompanies me in the dressing room and we shoot the breeze while waiting for the other band members to arrive.

He stands on the leather couch to flip through channels on the flat screen television. Finally, he settles on an old black and white film, which transitions into a discussion about movies and music. Still waiting, he picks up the acoustic guitar and plucks a simple melody.

"How long have you played guitar?" I say.

"I don't really know how to play guitar," he laughs. "But I've played bass for about 12 years."

After a few minutes of fruitless waiting, Howard and I begin the interview. I begin to think that I will only be interviewing Howard but he assures me that the band's guitarist, Quinn Allman, will be arriving shortly. I start with a few stock questions regarding the band's lyrical style.

"Ninety-nine point nine percent of the lyrics are written by Bert," Howard says. "They're his feelings. For this record (‘Artwork,' 2009), they're about digging a hole as deep as you can go and not even realizing what you're doing; you're just digging and digging."

He goes on about "Artwork," explaining that the record is about after digging oneself into holes, struggling to get out.

"It's about making wrong choices and even knowing you're making wrong choices," he says. "But I'm taking what I think [Bert] is writing lyrics about. It seems like Bert doesn't care, he'll do whatever he wants because he's Bert. I can't even explain it. He's the most punk rock person I've ever met in a way because he doesn't care. He cares about music."

Finally, Quinn joins the interview and it's clear that no other members of the band will be participating.

Despite the absence of the singer and songwriter, I am set on figuring out the origin of the pain found in The Used's lyrics such as, "My sad, sorry, selfish cry out to the cutter. I'm cutting, trying to picture your black, broken heart. Love is not like anything, especially a fucking knife."

"Bert's an artist," Allman says. "I think that [the pain] comes from an aggression with our ideas."

"Everybody has problems," Howard says. "Everybody has family problems, relationships problems, and everybody always will. We point out the dark so you can focus on the positive."

"You could look at it from death, love, or questioning your mortality," Allman says.

I point out the implications of masochism in McCracken's lyrics and ask how they feel about audience reception.

"That's them wanting to do it anyway," Howard says. "Guns don't kill people, that knife didn't stab the kid. It seems like [masochism] is sort of in them, already."

"There's poetry in the writing," Allman says. "There's a thirst for pain, for the moment, for something real. You can get that from the music, but as far as cutting yourself or being masochistic, you're fully aware; you're experiencing your pain; you're letting it go. I don't think that thought ever crossed our mind as far as how we write our songs. I don't see why people [hurt themselves]."

"It's just another outlet," Howard says. "They're feeling this pain inside. I don't think Bert meant it that way."

"It's not a literal point of view," Allman says.

"It's not like Bert was cutting himself," Howard says.

As well as Howard and Allman may know McCracken, it begins to feel as if they're speaking for him, so I change the subject to the generation of bands featured on past Taste of Chaos tours, such as My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail, 30 Seconds to Mars, Saosin and Chiodos.

"From our generation, there [were] a lot of things coming in and out," Allman says. "Grunge was going out and punk rock was coming up. I think that the way [our generation] affects the new generation is tricky because now there's a whole new playing field. There's a lot of emulation now. People are taking organic sounds like rock songs and blending them electronically."

"Things have changed," Howard says. "Labels are looking for the next Nirvana, the next The Rolling Stones. Now bands are putting whole records on the Internet and MySpace.com. Since this whole new media exists, it doesn't matter what they're doing to be huge on the Internet. It's a completely new market to completely different people. Back then, the only option was the radio. Bands like The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and The Beatles were huge because people were going to see them; there was nowhere else to go. Now, everybody has massive amounts of bands to listen to, there are so many to pick from."

Keith reenters the dressing room and cues me to leave because my 15 minutes are up. I have time for one last question, so I pry to figure out what the band has a collective faith in.

"Hope in humanity," Allman says. "Hope for peace. As for Bert, he has faith in everything."