Interview with Local Punk Rock Sensation: Officer Down

By Rachel M.

Okay, let me just preface this interview by saying that A) I'm not a music writer; B) music writing is boring; and C) I'm not even a journalist...

So why the hell interview a local band then? Well, for starters, there are tons of musicians in the Tenderloin/Greater Downtown Area. Plus, let's face it: musicians are hot. If there were underwear models in the neighborhood I'd probably interview them, too.

Imagine my surprise, however, to learn that in addition to being totally sexy, Officer Down is a talented band! You've got Johnny Law—the surprisingly intelligent, smoking hot front man; Tommy Gun—his adorable little brother; Ed¹—their new bass player (who literally swept me off of my feet and carried me out of the Alpha Bar like a rag doll); and Marshall Law—the cute purple haired drummer who (last time I counted) has grabbed my ass like 5 or 6 times since I met him. I mean, really, what more could a girl ask for?

R: [to Johnny] So you're the one who started the band?

JL: Yeah, me and Tommy.

R: Your brother?

JL: Yeah...

R: How long have you guys been doing this?

JL: I don't know. It's hard to establish. Probably early 2003?

R: For awhile—

JL: It's a blur. I mean, I think we practiced for a long time before we played a show.

R: I’m sure if it's a "blur" that means it's fun, right?

JL: It's always fun.

R: How long have you been in the city?

JL: I don't know... Three or four years now...?

R: Mostly in this neighborhood?

JL: ALL in this neighborhood.

R: Awesome.

JL: I still don't have the urge to move. I moved from the mountains [Tahoe] to my first big city, so it just seemed ridiculous to go and live in like the suburbs or whatever [by "suburbs" I assumed he meant the Mission], so I found an apartment down here and now I watch the Tenderloin go by...
R: Yeah, it's like watching a movie really.

JL: Exactly. You watch crackheads falling asleep, you watch people shooting up. I’ve watched people get mugged. I’ve seen a guy get stabbed... R: So you were first in Tahoe?

JL: Yeah, that's where most of my family is; it's where I grew up. I'd only been playing the guitar for maybe a year—
R: REALLY?

JL: Well, not NOW. I mean, back then when I started. And you know, you can only practice with power chords for so long before you wanna hear some drums, some bass—

ML: He and Tommy are really the core of the band. How many bass players have you been through?

R: Yeah, how many incarnations have you had?

JL: Hand me that CD and I'll tell you.

R: [I handed over a freshly unwrapped CD]

JL: I wrote a little section that says "Officers Down". It's kind of ridiculous actually... [He counted the number of ex-band members.] I guess six...or actually seven because our last bass player recorded some stuff on this album so I didn't include him. Only one left because of "issues" though...

ML: I like the age variety... Tommy's like what? 21? 22?

JL: Ed tips the scales now. I had to get an older guy so I wasn't the old man in the band anymore.

All: [Laughter]

R: So, uh... [after a short beat] I guess I'm supposed to ask you about your influences?

ED: The newspaper.

JL: You mean music influences?

ED: There's a lot of stuff to get pissed off about.

ML: Johnny's pretty political. So am I. That's one thing we have in common.

ED: There's a lot to get mad about in the news, man...

ML: Ed was tipping cars in '91 or '92. Cop cars.

ED: The first Gulf War. There's all kinds of stuff that didn't get reported that was going on and it just blew me away, and that was the real start of my political war. When the federal employees had barricaded themselves in the federal building because there were cars burning—

R: Are you local? [I admit I rather rudely interrupted him.]

ED: Yeah, I was born here.

R: Wow, a native. High-five, dude!

ED: Yeah, I'm a Ross Mirkarimi supporter, too.

ML: My last band really sucks. Don't tell them that. But they were really political as well.

R: Don't worry I'll edit that out.

JL: Musical influences for me were like mixed tapes I got—like Southern Cal hardcore. Black Flag, Social Distortion, Circle Jerks...

R: The classics.

JL: Yeah, I mean, it was a small town. We didn’t have a "scene" or anything. A couple of skate kids. Then somebody came up with this mixed tape.

R: How about your non-punk influences? Everyone expects you to say "Circle Jerks"—

ED: Black Sabbath.

ML: Faith No More. Mr. Bungle.

ED: Early AC/DC.

ML: I don't know. I like Ween.

JL: I'm more like singer/song writers. Like Bob Dylan. Billy Bragg. I like acoustic guitar. Lucinda Williams.

ML: Bukowski.

JL: Yeah, for writers Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson...

R: I think the best bands are the ones with diverse influences.

JL: Yeah, my younger brother—I wish he was here—he lives in a house in Santa Cruz with dirty, smelly hippies and music majors. He started this whole trip where he plays down there sometimes and they just have a bunch of people come over and smoke weed and they got a gut bucket, banjo, piano—

R: A "gut bucket"?

JL: Gut bucket. It’s like a bass. Like a box with a wooden handle... [Here they began to talk over each other to explain to me what a "gut bucket" was. As a result, I have no idea what they were talking about. Judging by their enthusiasm though, it sounds interesting.]
JL: It's as basic as you come in bass.

ML: I'm into folk music, too. I like old classic country and shit.

ED: The last couple of bands I've been in have been these really speedy post-hardcore things where you're lucky to get four riffs in 30 seconds.
ML: Most of my bands have been metal bands—

R: Not to cut you off, but that’s another good question. What other bands have you been in?

JL: Uh... I’ve been in Officer Down.

ED: Yeah, it’s amazing.

JL: Yeah... "Amazing"...

All: [Laughter]

ML: In Colorado I was in a band called "Yar", which was a metal band with like a keyboard player and sequencers and electronics—

JL: Ed’s a band whore.

ED: Well, I’ve been playing for a long fucking time. I played with Gary Floyd from the Dicks for a long time. I even got to do a half-assed Dicks reunion thing. That was a lot of fun. The last band I fronted was called "All About Evil."

ML: For being a rock star he's really humble.

ED: I'm not a rock star. Rock stars either made some money and retired or they're dead by now.

ML: You're a rock star!

ED: ’'m just a parasite on the backs of other musicians. Here [in the city] we’ve got bunch of half-assed clowns with home studios who have no idea what they’re doing. They want to be rock stars. They don’t want to be musicians. They don’t want to put the work in and they think no one understands them because they’re "geniuses".

JL: It seems like these days there's so many people out there trying to get into a project where they can just write four or five songs and get picked up by a label. Then if it doesn't work, instead of trying to become better they all jump to different bands. The next thing you know they're in another band and they're trying to make it with that band. Then they're in another band...

ML: I play music for myself—not so I can get signed to a label. Free beer and attention from the ladies... That's enough.

At this point I got up to refresh our drinks, but I left the recorder going in the hopes that they’d say something fucked up while I was away. Alas...nothing.

ML: Yeah so we recorded this thing like a year ago...

R: You're not happy with the CD?

JL: No, it's just the next one is not going to take a fucking year. We actually recorded it last December.

ML: We're already ready for another album.

R: So this is like old news?

ML: It kind of is...

JL: I like all the songs on it. We still play them all live. "Blah" was the first song we ever wrote. We’re almost ready to record again.

ML: Yeah, we're gonna have a bonus secret track that's like track number 99.

R: Dude. I hate that. Don't do that.

ML: The first band to do it was The Cure on Boys Don’t Cry. You wait like 15 seconds and it goes "Aaaaahhh!!!!" It's fucking horrible.

JL: Are we talking about The Cure now?

ED: Why do you have to do that?

R: Oh, come on. We all listened to The Cure.

JL: Yeah, like at a high school dance.

ML: I've got nothing to hide. As long as I play well and show up at the studio, I can be as dorky and lame as I want.

JL: Yeah, you pretty much pull that off!

ML: [to me] I'm pretty much the whipping boy of the band.

Here they went on to talk about their stage names and the original inspiration for the band, which naturally stemmed from their hatred of police officers. Ironically, it turned out that several years after starting the band, one of Johnn’s brothers had become a police officer, although he eventually quit and went on to less fascist pastures. We also discussed religion, various other bands named "Officer Down", why we hate George Bush, and who has outstanding warrants...

JL: Well, I'm probably the only one who had a federal warrant at any time. Just ’cause I joined the army and then I decided that it didn't work for me. I just packed a backpack and left.

R: Hey, so which one of you is the one writing a book?

JL: I'm trying. I'm about halfway done.

ED: Yeah, I'm illustrating it.

R: [confused] An illustrated book?

ED: Well, I've been drawing all over the pages.

JL: It's fiction based on the year I was homeless—when I went AWOL. I talked to my parents that Christmas and my dad said if I came home they'd call the police, so I figured that going home was out of the question... It's something I've always wanted to do. I'm like 60,000 words into it.

R: Wow.

JL: I'm kind of shooting for 100 to 150, but that's before somebody sits down with a big red fucking pen. It’s just a goal. It's a time of my life when I'm starting to do things that I've always wanted to do. And it's just like music. If nobody wants to publish it, I’ll fucking publish it myself.

ML: I've always been of that mindset. Even when I was in high school playing music. So many people are myopic in that they think they're going to be some rock star someday. I play music on the side and I figure if it works out, great.

ED: I played music for a living for awhile, and I’m never going to do it again because I hated what I was playing. You go home and you don’t want to look at your instrument until you have to go to "work."

ML: Like the sex trade. I don't think you could enjoy sex if that was your job. It's more of a hobby I guess...

R: Sex?

JL: It's like what you want to do inside. At this point we talked about a variety of things until we came to the idiotic SF phenomenon where people go to shows and stand around like morons, staring at the band. P.S. everybody: It's retarded.

ED: If you're gonna just stand there, go home and watch television!

JL: This city is notorious for that. It usually just takes one person to start something and then once it starts... You'll notice the elevation of our delivery. If I turn around and all the sudden there's a circle pit we'll go fucking ape shit!

R: Totally! That's half the fun!

JL: One of my favorite things is when we're playing somewhere like the Lipo Lounge. There's no barrier between you and the crowd—

R: What's the Lipo Lounge?

JL: Oh, you've gotta go to a show at the Lipo someday. It’s like an old opium den. You go downstairs and it’s like a concrete basement. There's no stage or anything. One of the last times we played there, we hit the first chord and some guy came flying out of the crowd into the mic. If at least one time during the show I can get the mic knocked into my face...it feels good...

R: Yeah, I noticed you play with the mic right up to your face.

JL: Yeah, I think I watched somebody do it once...

ML: He likes to have the mic right about down here, too. [He gestured to somewhere a few feet above the floor, and we all laughed.]

JL: If you saw them set up my mic you'd think a midget was going to come out. I just like having my legs spread... I don't know...

R: [loudly] WHOA!!! True confessions with Officer Down!!!

At this point Ed had to go to yet another band practice with a totally different kind of band, and Marshall, Johnny, and I sat around bullshitting for like another hour and a half. Honestly, these guys were so fun I could barely bring myself to wrap up the interview! If you haven't seen Officer Down, check them out: www.officerdownsf.com

1 Ed's official stage name has yet to be determined.