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.
Mario: What can I say? It’s my other half. Music and skating saved my life and took it in such a better direction and made it a whole lot more fun, too. The sound of grinding pool coping or a heavy lien to tail smack is just as satisfying as a dual snare/cymbal-crash crack!!! Both are easily improvised activities; you decide where ya wanna go and that’s it. I started puttin’ around when I was six or so, using my uncle’s decks and making them my own. Pretty soon you start setting up makeshift banks and quarter pipes and learning little kid stunts. Then you start gettin hurt; it gets addicting. All of it. When I used skate for Alva, I was about 16 through 18 years old. That crew of dudes was 10 years older than I was. They would take me to skate all of the pools and also to all of the parties that would ensue after a long day of shredding. There would always be music in the picture. That’s actually how I got to see Redd Kross for the first time. I was a metal kid at the time and all of the Newport Beach pool skaters wanted to go see Redd Kross later. I went along and then I see these freaked-out, super-long-haired, glam, power-pop punkers with a psych touch to it. Steven looked crazy! It’s a trip that we are a rhythm section now and a fuckin good one too at that, ha ha. But back to the skating: The feeling of just cruising or the adrenaline of skating the mega ramp and grinding a 27-foot-tall quarter pipe (which I have) is just beyond words. I’ll always love ya, even when my body doesn’t.
