Takin' A Ride

This is part 4 of my 4 part interview with Kenny Mochikoshi-Horne of the Bronx.

Part 1 is here where talked about learning guitar, Japan, and his first band M-80.

Part 2 is here where we talk about The Dragons.

Part 3 is here where we talk about joining the Bronx, the formation of Mariachi El Bronx, and playing late night television.

In part 4, we talk about band dynamics, how they get things done, and some tour stories.

Audio in in the youtube link. Transcript right below it.

Ted: So before I paused it, we were talking about album sales and stuff like that.

Kenny: Yeah, so it’s the same, you know, vinyl. Yeah, you’re gonna say something about vinyl.

Ted: Well, uh, yeah… It’s such a tough market today to be in a band. You make all your money being on the road, right?

Kenny: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ted: I mean, you don’t make it from albums.

Kenny: No, no, no, no, no. And so, it’s like, you know, I was like, you buy a burrito, you know.

Ted: Yeah. So, wow. I mean, I mean, I mean, you’re getting ready to do a new album, right? For the Bronx. But you know, I almost want to say why bother, but as a musician/band, you always want to create new songs.

Kenny: Every time we do an album, I always go, I wonder if this is the last time, you know, we get to experience the whole album process. Because the guys write, you know, we all write demos, you know. First it starts off with someone’s idea as a demo. Then we send it to each other, Matt sings on it, comes back, and everyone kind of knows, learns, adds to the song, and then we’ll get together. And then we’ll jam it out, and then go back and do more.

Ted: And you’re all in different states while this is happening. So it’s all through files and Zoom?

Kenny: Yeah. And then we’ll get together a couple of times. And then we’ll do a pre-production. We’ll choose a producer, and then the studio. But that… we actually go to a real studio. I always wonder, oh man, I wonder if this is the last time we do this.

Ted: So you’re relishing in it, though. “I better remember this”

Kenny: Yeah, yeah. When we did the last Bronx album… the last two Bronx albums, I really had a good time recording.  Bronx V and VI. It was like, we did that, the whole process, like we said, but then the two producers we worked with… I really like working with those two producers. So it was, it was super fun doing that. But then it’s like, oh man, you know, I wonder if this is the last time you go. Because you never know that those guys might not have a studio in three years, you know. Though the guys we work with will, but there’s (other) people might be like, “shit, I’m just going to do it with a laptop”, you know.

Ted: Yeah, well, I mean, there’s like the Hatchet Brothers, Gregory Page and Frank Drennen, they recorded a perfect sounding album, in a closet in their house. And that was 15 years ago! (actually I think it was Frank’s band Loam that did that, but the Hatchet Brothers albums also sound amazingly well produced and were done in a living room)

Kenny: Some of our demos, it sounds rad. Because it sounds raw, and it’s like we don’t know the songs that well, but you know, it sounds really good!

Ted:  Do you think you’ll ever release those?

Kenny: Yeah, we have. There’s two albums, two double albums, with all the b-sides, demos, and covers. (Dead Tracks, volumes 1 & 2).

Kenny: But there’s more, more raw demos than that. Those are like kind of like the good demos. There’s like the demos that aren’t even up to that. But you know, there, we do have a lot of songs we haven’t recorded, or it was just demos or just ideas, you know. So I kind of been enjoying like the process of like, oh man, this might be… because, you know, like back in the day, in the 70’s you go to the studio and you spent three months in the studio.  You don’t do that anymore.

Ted: So if you need an idea for an album title, could you call it “seven”?

Kenny: Bronx doesn’t do album titles.

Ted: Yeah, seven, call it VII.

Kenny: Well, next one is seven.

Ted: Yeah, yeah, there you go. You’re taking my idea. (laughs)

Kenny: The next Bronx is seven and next Mariachi is four.

Ted: There you go. Now why do you do that? You don’t have to think about it?

Kenny: Exactly. You know, someone has come up with a title. It’s going to be a discussion, you know. Bronx kind of started out as kind of Joby’s brainchild and he’s a graphic designer. He worked at Vagrant. He’s done shit loads of album covers that you probably know.

Ted: What are some?

Kenny: He’s done like Dashboard Confessional, Rocket From The Crypt. He’s done a lot of stuff. He does artwork. He does shit for KISS! It was kind of his brainchild where it was like the songs and like the artwork kind of went a little, you know, it was like two of one. The Bronx albums don’t have a title, but they have a distinct artwork for it. Like the first one, everyone says it’s the blood. Second one is a swami blowing up the world. Third one, flamingos. Four is the tiger. Five is, I don’t even remember the fifth album cover… the five is five (it’s a skull). Six is the orange dripping logo. So each one is like a color (and a theme). That’s kind of the mindset.

Ted: Yeah, yeah, that’s cool.

Kenny: The first Mariachi is the crab. The second Mariachi is the hip hop guy, you know.

Ted: A lot of bands hit perfection like AC/DC, Slayer, Motorhead. They hit perfection. They don’t need to change their sound. Do you ever feel there needs to be a change in the sound for the Bronx? Or does Mariachi cover that?

Kenny: You’d think since we have another outlet of band (Mariachi) that’s so different, but Bronx’s every album has the fast songs with the stop and gos, we have kind of the rock and roll swagger song. We have kind of the, not a stoner, but like a slower song. We have like a kind of a metallic song. We have, you know, every album… an alternative, you know, ‘90s alternative type, you know, with, if you listen to the whole Bronx catalog, it’s pretty crazy how much we’ve come up with that’s different.

Ted: So there’s no need to do lite jazz or something.

Kenny: No.  You know, it’s cool when like Motorhead and Ramones… they’re pretty… Ramones kind of changed, but, you know, kind of the same all the way through, but I think Bronx isn’t that type of band. I think Bronx has a distinct sound. Distinct voice with a little bit of a change up in the songs.

Ted: So before you go into the studio, I’m assuming you somehow get together and rehearse the songs together live?

Kenny: Yeah.

Ted: Is it together in a room or is it on Zoom?

Kenny: Together in a room. So what we do, everyone’s sending in the files to each other and it gets to a point. And if there’s a time we could get together, we spend like a week in the studio just kind of playing the songs. Because it’s hard to go… but sometimes there was like, there’s probably a couple songs in there that we’ve never even played together. We just kind of thought of it in the studio and then wrote it and recorded it without jamming, you know?

Ted: So like the first time you ever played that song is actually on the album.

Kenny: Yeah. Yeah.

Ted: Well, okay, so let’s talk about touring. You’ve played some big shows, you play a lot of festivals. I guess the festivals is where you kind of do pretty well.

Kenny: We do well in England. We do well in Australia, and the major cities in major cities in the US, obviously, just like all touring bands. We do well in Scandinavia, Sweden, you know, but yeah, festivals? you know, I’ve never played festivals in the Dragons. It was playing street fairs, street scene was probably the most closest to a festival like that. But you know, it’s like, you know, Mariachi were playing fucking Glastonbury! That’s like the biggest festival. But we’ve done every other year, we did Reading, Leeds, and there’s so many European festivals. I don’t even remember half of them, you know?

Ted: I was going to say, do you remember most shows? Or do they blend in together after a time?

Kenny: I wish I would have kept that like a little better of a log, you know, like a Henry Rollins journal type thing. I start, but then I was like, I don’t remember this shit. And then two years later, it’s like “I don’t remember anything”. We did Roskilde Day, which is like a super famous one.

Ted: With the Hellacopters?

Kenny: No, that was Hellfest. Hellfest is huge. Hellfest is a week long now. And it’s like in France, and it’s like, it’s a huge ground.

Ted: Do you stay for the whole thing?

Kenny: No, we were there for two days.

Ted: You’ve got to get in and get out…

Kenny: Yeah. But the one, we played it, I think twice. And, you know, one year it was, it was like Lords of Altamont, some other band, us, Backyard Babies, Hellacopters, and Turbonegro on the same stage.

Ted: Oh, wow!

Kenny: And when we played, it happened to be like when no other bands were really playing. So we had like one of those crowds that went all the way to the back.

Ted: As a being a fan of all those bands, do you sit there and watch them all on the side of the stage?

Kenny: Yeah, I watch them! But by now, you know, a lot of band guys are fans of Bronx too. A lot of the crew guys, those guys love the Bronx. So, you know, we become, you know, pretty good friends with a lot of bands. And the Hellacopters remember me…

Ted: The Dragons opened up for them.

Kenny: Yeah. So, you know, they remember me and, you know, we’d hung out for all those… and then every once in a while the Backyard Babies will be on a festival here, you know. But yeah, there’s so many festivals. We fly in, get in the van, get to the festival, play, get back in the van and go somewhere else. So that’s kind of hard to remember. But yeah, we played every little festival, big ones, small ones. We played a fucking yoga festival in the northeast.

Ted: You opened up for the Foo Fighters.

Kenny: Foo Fighters are cool.

Ted: How many shows was that?

Kenny: It was two legs. And I think each leg was about two, three weeks. Because they don’t play… well they were playing pretty often, but you know, those arena bands don’t play every night, you know.

Ted: Yeah, which is, good in a way.

Kenny: Yeah, you know, if it works out, we’ll play our own show if it works out, you know. But yeah, it was like, yeah, we played probably two, three weeks on each one. Yeah, that’s cool.

Ted: So Dave Grohl and all the guys are pretty cool? I don’t know if you want to tell me the stories you were telling me about this last year.

Kenny: At the time, you know, our drummer was friends with him. So we started out doing the secret shows. We did Troubadour and we did Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara. You know and Dave was already… everyone’s cool from the get go. And then we got on the tour and they were ALL awesome. The guys. The crew was awesome.

Ted: Do they have a bar backstage where they all hang out at?

Kenny: Yeah. It’s for like family, not super close, but it’s like radio station winners…

Ted: And they all sit and they’re drinking before the show?

Kenny: No, they go there after. It’s like an afterparty, you know, like people that like won something on a radio or some web thing. So it was called the Rock Box at the time. I think it’s different now, but you go in there. There’s like food, chips, a big boombox, beers. So we’d always hang out in there. Yeah. And sometimes the guys from Foo Fighters will go in there and hang out. One time we went in there and we were the only ones in there and we all had our shirts off.  And then like, you know, they’re like, oh my God, you guys are in here with your shirts off. We’re listening to the Hellacopters because they have this big old boom box, Doritos… and then the people that were supposed to be in Rock Box, the guests, were like lookin’ in. They’re like, “oh my God!”, you know, so no one’s coming in! But Dave, to make us feel comfortable or not feel bad, he came in, took his shirt off, hung out with us and had a beer. He’s a cool guy like that. So then there’s us, a couple of the Bronx guys, Dave, and then there’s this one kid… I was like, “this guy must work here or he must be a radio station winner”. So whatever. He was just hanging out, took his shirt off. And then he was like, “Hey man, I like both of your bands, but your security sucks”. And he slams down a CD and he goes, this is my band. Listen to it. He goes, “your security sucks. Cause I got in here all the way”.  (laughs)  He didn’t pay. Didn’t have a ticket. Didn’t work for anyone. He just, he just came to the show. He just came to the show, watched us. And after the show, he went into the Rock Box, the beer room, party room, and just hung out. He didn’t say anything. This takes another twist. So that was that. This was 2011 or whatever, right? So then last year, 2023, we’re on a European tour, Bronx European tour, and we played… I can’t remember… It was like, it was Austria. So we play Austria and it was opening up for Rancid. So on our days off, we’re playing like some super small clubs and the place we played in Austria was super small. It was like people on top of each other, you know? It was like playing Grannies, smaller, maybe. Ah, it was about Grannies (a club in San Diego we talked about in part 2 that held about maybe 80 people). So then this guy comes up to me and gives me a letter and he goes, “don’t read it”. Like right before I play. So I either gave it to Matt or I put it in the guitar box. We play the show. Later on we read the letter and it was the kid that snuck into the Foo Fighters show! But he wrote, “so remember when I was in the Foo Fighters backstage party room?” That was me. But he was like, “you guys are so cool. That was awesome. You know, you guys didn’t even give a shit who I was, you know, didn’t kick me out or whatever.” But then he was like, “I had cancer” or like someone died in this family or… He had one of those stories, you know? And then he was like, “I came over here to meet a girl or something…” But he traveled over to Europe and he was like, “I saw that you guys are playing and I fucking came”. And I was like, oh man, that’s so crazy.

Ted: You know, I thought he was going to say your security is much better now.

(laughs)

Kenny: You should have said “your security sucks”. I remember he gave me a letter. He goes, don’t read it! And I was like, “what?” But yeah. And then like, like in Minnesota for the Foo Fighters, Grant from Husker Du was there.

Ted: Yeah. So that’s how you met him.

Kenny: Krist Novoselic was there for a couple of shows.

Ted: Yeah. So you talked to him for a little while and he was pretty cool? I always fuck up whenever I’m around him. I think it’s nerves.

Kenny: He was super cool! He plays accordion. So he had a he saw us. He saw me just playing with my guitar and he goes, “hey, you guys have an accordion”. And I go, “yeah”. And he goes, “Can I use it?” And I was like, “Of course!” And then he played our accordion for one of the songs. Foo Fighters had a new song with an accordion on it. Then he just handed back to me. “Here. Thank you!”. And then he hung out with us in the room, you know… and then we played a random show in Portland. And then he came to that too. He came after we were done though. But yeah, someone was connected. Someone was friends with him. But yeah. So yeah, Mariachi brings rare opportunities like that… We opened up for the Killers. That was that was our first show in an arena.

Ted: You find that arenas better to play?

Kenny: No, because when we play arenas, it’s not our shows. So it’s not like crazy packed or it’s not likeso immediate…

Ted: and you can’t do the thing where Matt jumps into the pit?

Kenny: He does. Oh, he does. It’s cool. And sometimes it’s kind of distant. I kick myself sometimes because I walk into an arena, you know, we’ll play all the arena tours. And then we play Cox Arena or whatever and I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, this is like this is like one of the smaller arenas. “  And then I’m like, “What am I saying? I’m playing in a fucking arena!” I’m trying to fucking grade arenas? I was like, “Wake up!” (laughs)

Ted: That’s funny! So did you ever play with Motorhead?

Kenny: You know, we played the Riot Fest 2016. It was right before… Because Lemmy was already sick. There were cancelling shows. And they played that Riot Fest. And they ended up playing. And I was like, I’m going to fucking watch this! That was the last show. It might have even been the last show he played….

Ted: That was in Germany, the last show.

Kenny: So that was like September 2016. Yes, I watched them. And then we got in the car and went to see Drive Like Jehu.

Ted: Oh, really? So wow. Jeez. And now Lemmy and Rick aren’t around anymore.

Kenny: I have a lot of that same festivals all the time.

Ted: You got a story about Slayer?

Kenny: We were playing Australia. And we were playing kind of later… We’re like on a different stage. But we’re playing way later, you know, nighttime. And then Slayer was playing on a big stage kind of earlier, afternoon, like late afternoon. But then they said something was wrong with Tom Araya. He had like a neck thing or an ear thing. So they were like, “hey, can the Bronx play?” (instead of Slayer) And we’re like, “all right”. So we get over there. Our stuff’s already over there. But then you look out into the crowd and it’s not a good vibe. You know?

Ted: yeah, they want Slayer.

Kenny: They would have probably fucking lit us on fire or something. So it ended up there “oh, we won’t fucking do that to the Bronx.” You know, so we ended up not playing. That was my our Slayer story.

Ted: OK, what other any other bands you want to talk about?

Kenny: You know, I don’t know. I don’t know. You got I can’t remember. You gotta… I can’t.

Ted: Michael Monroe? Have you seen him lately or have you played with him?

Kenny: I saw I saw solo stuff.

Ted: I think the solo stuff is better than Hanoi Rocks!

Kenny: You can’t say that to me!

Ted: Well, I can’t say it to you, but I can say it to me! (laughs).

Kenny: I just saw him! I went back to Japan in February and he played two shows. One was “Two Steps from the Move” and then the second night was “Dead Jail Or Rock ‘n Roll”, which was the show/tour that M-80 opened up. That was cool.

Ted: Did you get to meet him and say “hi” and all that?

Kenny: Rich Jones (formerly of the Black Halos, a band the Dragons have played with) plays in the band.

Ted:  Oh, yeah, that’s right. You know him!

Kenny: So yeah, we had a good… ad then, you know, I’ve gotten to know Sami (Yaffa) pretty good.

Ted: Did you know him when he lived in San Diego? Did you get to hang out with him when he lived here?

Kenny: I wasn’t here. That was my Japan years!

Ted: Oh, that’s right!

Kenny: I missed the Sami San Diego years.

Ted: Steve Rodriguez (bassist for the Dragons) got to hang out with him. (and played in one of his bands)

Kenny: I’ve got to be friends with him after that.

Ted: Tim Armstrong directed your video for “Breaking News”.

Kenny: Yep.

Ted: What was that like?

Kenny: That was awesome. Tim’s awesome. Tim’s super cool. Tim’s like Dave Grohl. He’s friendly to everyone. Helps everyone out. Our drummer, Joey, was friends with him. And he’s doing like a new project with him. And then we did the monthly seven inches and we decided we’re going to collaborate with not a musician, mostly, to do all the artwork. And then Tim did the artwork. But this this was our third single. So we had one photographer, took the pictures, made a video. Another skateboard guy directed a video. And then this was the last single and he did our work and directed the video and did it out of studio. And he filmed it. He sent us the rough copy and it was a normal video. And we’re like, “No! We want it like the Rancid! The high res!” And he’s like, “Really?” So we sent it back. He sent it back in and did it up. But it happened that that’s a song I wrote.

Ted: Oh, really? Oh, cool.

Kenny: And then every seven inch, so 11 songs was just one song. Side one side. Well it was both sides but one song. But that one had the studio recorded version. And the side B was recorded live at Tim’s studio. And then they took us out on tour.

Ted: Oh, cool! Rancid did?

Kenny: Yeah. Yeah. He’s super cool.

Ted: Oh. That must have been a big one!

Kenny: Yeah, that was 2021. So it was the first tour back from COVID. First shows coming back from COVID for everyone. But it was all outside amphitheaters.

Ted: So he’s a big wrestling fan, too, I think. Or is it the other guy?

Kenny: Lars. Lars. He does. I think “Ruby Soho”’s used in wrestling. Some chick uses it (as entrance music). He’s really into it.

Ted: What was the Lucha Underground thing like?

Kenny: Oh, it’s cool. We did it, what, two or three times? We just like and sit on the stage and they fight and we play for two minutes. And then that’s it. And we wait there for two hours.

Ted: Oh, really? For some reason, I thought you played like an hour set and then they edited it in.

Kenny: No. We play like, you know, we start playing songs and like they break for something and we…

Ted: Oh, wow.

Kenny: Yeah. So it was very live. It was a long day. It’s like noon to midnight type shit.

Ted: You got paid well for it, I hope.

Kenny: Probably. Yeah, I don’t remember. That was like five years ago already. But yeah, those TV stuff pays pretty good. You know, good like catering type stuff.

Ted: How much did COVID fuck up the Bronx?

Kenny: Not much. We actually got lucky. It’s funny because at 2019, December, our album was done. Then we played a couple of shows in January and we’re supposed to do this huge, you know, support the album tour. The album was supposed to come out like early summer or something like that. Well, sometime early 2020, but COVID happened. And then the record label was like, well, you guys could release it at any time you want. We didn’t want to do like a 2020 release and say, hey, we got a record and then tour goes away. So we hung on to it until 2021, but we had the idea of…  So every month we release a seven inch with a different artist. And we fucking did it 20. You know, we did it from, I think, March, February, March, and we did it. It wasn’t late. We didn’t have anything late. And we did it every freaking month. And then in the middle of it, in August, we released the album. Yeah, we didn’t want to do the streaming where we just stuck and stood in an empty room or like an empty club. You know, that’s why we did the streaming where we kind of made it into like a movie with both bands. Yeah, we, yeah. Man, we just kind of survived off of merch. A couple drops. We did the best like the B sides and the covers. We just kind of did it little by little. It was so in early 2020, we’re going to release it in early 2020, but the record label was like, “hey, let’s push it back to the summertime”, which was a blessing in disguise. Because like, just think if we went along with the February release, we would have been screwed. Yeah. They’re like, “oh, you know what? Let’s do it later in the, you know, mid-year”. And then we’re like, OK. And then that was our blessing in disguise where COVID happened. They’re like, well, you could release it anytime you want. They’re cool about that. We all talk to each other every month or every day, we, you know, we have our thread, text thread. And we talk, you know, every day joking around or like, you know, almost every day. We didn’t see each other for six months. And then we did that streaming thing. We recorded a Motorhead cover and then that was it.

Ted: Which Motorhead song?

Kenny: Oh, it’s fucking rad. “Over The Top”.