During my trip to Bogota and Medellin, Colombia last December with The Casualties, I had tried to get the guys together for an “official” interview. Though I had captured lots of footage of them onstage, backstage and behind the scenes, I wanted to get their thoughts on the punk scene in Colombia, Latin America and the world but the concerts proved too hectic to get  a sit down interview with them.

Jake - Bogota, Colombia December 2009

As many places as these guys have seen in their 20 years as a band, as many punk scenes as they’ve experienced throughout the world and after observing their interactions with their fans in Colombia, I didn’t think there would be a more authentic point of view than these guys for my upcoming documentary “Punktology”.

Dan with Mercenary Management for The Casualties, and I had been exchanging voice and emails for sometime trying to find some time when both the guys and I were in our respective hometowns in the NYC area to set up an interview.  Last weekend, we finally decided I should just head across the Hudson over to Jersey City, NJ to interview Jake, (lead guitar) at his tattoo shop, the appropriately named Jersey City Tattoo Company.

Jake from The Casualties @ Jersey City Tattoo Co.

After reminiscing about Colombia, we got down to the interview and Jake, whose probably done this a few hundred times, was not shy. We touched on everything from the history and latest music of The Casualties to Jake’s own personal musical influences and thoughts on the philosophy of punk to the best punk scenes in the world.

I’ll put up a web segment here in a couple weeks so I won’t ruin it now by spilling too much information but I will say that not surprisingly, Jake says that Latin America has one of the most exciting punk scenes in the world right now and he has some great stories to tell about their last stops in Costa Rica, El Salvador & Mexico City.

They are also heading to Russia after the Warped Tour and I’m considering jumping along for that ride and expanding Punktology’s footprint to other parts of the world.

Jake was as cool as ever and I left the tattoo shop thinking I had just interviewed a truly talented and  authentic punk artist who really believes in the ideals of punk music.

The only thing I like better than the Casualties music is the guys in the band themselves.

I think they really do a great job of striking that balance between a big time punk band and regular dudes you can drink a beer with after the show, whether that show be in front of thousand of people at the Warped Tour or a few hundred in Latin America.

Stay tuned for the web segment coming up soon.

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