An interview with Shred Scare
We talk to the local thrash punk band
Shred Scare from left to right: Scott Livingston, Chris Seymour, Lonnie Dominguez and Jason Schelp
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Fresh off a three-week tour, KC thrash punk band, Shred Scare, sits down with KC Free Press to talk about their inspiration, how they met and some very memorable experiences. Self described as “loud and fast” and once called “pizza metal,” Shred Scare can most accurately be compared to bands like DRI and Suicidal Tendencies. Making up Shred Scare is Chris Seymour on vocals, Jason Schelp on bass, Lonnie Dominguez on guitar and Scott Livingston on drums. Here's what they had to say.
Photo Gallery
Shred Scare / Witchreign / Trasher / Razormaze
Local bands Witchreign and Shred Scare with Trasher from Pennsylvania and Razormaze from Massachusetts played at the Riot Room, Tuesday, July 27.
Audio clip
"Bred to Shred" by Shred Scare
How did you guys form your band?
Jason: I met Lonnie at JCCC, in Mr. Rowlands composition class. We formed the band Time Bomb first.
Lonnie: Jason used to wear only Rancid and Anthrax t-shirts to class all the time. So I figured we had similar taste in music and decided to talk to him. I was jamming with an old friend and invited Jason to come play with us and formed Time Bomb.
Jason: It was punk ska band then we started playing thrash punk and just stuck with it.
Scott: I was playing in Idiot Box and their drummer quit so I joined.
Jason: We needed a vocalist and I introduced them to Chris and he joined.
How would you describe your band to someone who has never heard your music before?
Jason: That's always weird to try and describe to somebody.
Scott: I just say it's thrash punk and when they say “What?” I just tell them it's loud and fast.
Lonnie: We always get compared to three bands, Suicidal Tendencies, DRI, and Municipal Waste.
Jason: Someone called us pizza metal once...
Scott: And I'm okay with that.
What inspires your music?
Scott: Beer.
Jason: Beer and to have fun, we have a great time in this band.
Scott: Beer and parties.
Jason: No but really, we just like to write fun music.
Scott: We don't take it too seriously.
Lonnie: It's fun to be in a band that you don't see a lot of that type of band in an area that you live in.
Scott: I like being in a band that isn't worried about having a cause. There's no obligation, if you're a political band you have to worry about pleasing the people that listen and if you don't have a mission statement it doesn't matter. If people dig your tunes, they dig your tunes.
Tell us about your day jobs.
Lonnie: I work with pizza. I manage Joe's Pizza in Westport.
Jason: I'm a mechanical drafter with Kiewit Power Engineers. I design power plants.
Scott: I wait tables at Accurso's Italian restaurant, it's tasty.
Chris: I'm an electrician, as of yesterday.
What do you like best about the Kansas City music scene?
Lonnie: I don't. But its fun hanging out with some of the metal bands but we're not really accepted in the punk and hardcore circle.
Jason: The scene is very divided, but our friends bands are pretty cool.
Scott: The metal crowd likes us way more than the punk crowd.
What is your favorite Kansas City venue to perform in?
Jason, Scott: House shows.
Jason: And we play at the Riot Room a lot, which is okay.
How do you feel about your Kansas City fan base?
Scott: We have our one asian guy, Taischi from Japan who fucking loves our band.
Jason: And then we have our friends who come out and our friends who are in bands that come out. We do better out of the state.
Lonnie: It gets a lot more apparent when we play with bigger bands and they start getting into the music that we actually have fans.
Tell us about an interesting experience you've had as a band.
Jason: We played under an overpass that turned out to be a bum camp in Virginia Beach on our East Coast tour last Summer. The bums actually ended up being pretty cool.
Chris: Our show got canceled at the venue so they moved it under a bridge. But a lot of people showed up, besides bums, surprisingly. It was cool.
What's your most memorable experience as a band?
Scott: FDR, definitely.
What's FDR?
Lonnie: We played the FDR Skatepark in Philadelphia for the Fourth of July last year.
Chris: We pretty much owned every band there. They got tired of all of the emo bands there and heard we were thrash punk so they told us to play on the edge of the bowl while they had a best trick contest going on. It was killer.
What are you plans for the future?
Chris: Probably breaking up.
Jason: Writing more music, putting out another album.
Scott: Having a proper CD release and a 7-inch vinyl.
Lonnie: Hopefully going to tour more out of the country, maybe Europe.
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