Hardcore will never die, at least while Keith Morris is still alive and kicking. The 55-year-old Morris co-founded the legendary Black Flag with Greg Ginn before leaving the band three years later to start the equally seminal Circle Jerks with future Bad Religion guitarist Greg Hetson. That band lasted a decade, though since 1994, the Circle Jerks have continued to tour sporadically but haven’t released a new album since 1995. That was going to change when the band convened last year with producer Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) to work on new material. The result, however, was Morris quitting the CJs and forming OFF!, a new hardcore supergroup with Coats on guitar, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes) on drums. OFF! recorded four EPs that will be released as a vinyl boxed set, First Four EPs (Vice), on December 14. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with Morris.
Steven: Sometime a couple years ago, just before my wife Anna became pregnant with our son, I noticed for the first time in my life that I began to take an interest in celestial objects. Maybe it’s just because it’s our closest celestial object here on earth or that I live in a brightly lit city, but I found myself very interested in the different stages of the moon and its orientation to earth in the night sky. I also got really into watching any kind of programming I could find about stargazing and the study of the universe in general. There’s a great podcast on iTunes that comes from the NASA ESA space station called the Hubblecast. Absolutely brilliant photos of deep space. I particularly like photos of nebulae, also known as stellar nurseries. They’re photos of stars being born. Everyone’s seen these dazzling displays of dust, colors and lights. I just don’t think I ever realized that these weren’t sci-fi, heavy-metal, stoner-fantasy renderings, but real-life photos of stuff that’s out there in deep space. Super humbling and somewhat connecting, I suppose this interest is directly linked to my becoming a breeder. It’s not really rocket science now, is it?
Video after the jump.
