One Man Army is not just your average punk band. This ferocious San Francisco-based three piece blends infectious melodies and gruff vocals to brew up an original brew that makes them stand apart from the crowd. After releasing their first EP on the upstart TKO Records, the band moved over to Adeline, a label run by Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day fame. After years on the road and in the studio, I had a chance to meet up with vocalist/guitarist Jack and bass player Heiko during their U.S. tour with No Use For A Name and the Swingin’ Utters. Here’s what went down:
Jack — I moved up from Arizona and met Brandon the drummer. We took the first six shitty songs we had and made a record —Shooting Blanks. That was it. We played the shit out in San Francisco until they got tired of us. Our first bass player quit, our second bass player was a fireman, we found Frankie [Heiko] right here, and he's been with us ever since.
Heiko — They found me. I was playing with the band United Blood for awhile. I quit the band because of different ideas about stuff. I'm not much of a political person but this band was, and they were into hardcore Oi!. Don't get me wrong, I love hardcore Oi!, but I don't want to be in an Oi! band. Everyone in the band were "working class skins" or regular skins, and, well, I try to work as little as possible. Don't get me wrong, I work, but I'm not too happy about it. Trust me! I'd rather be taking long walks.
J — We were trying out guys…new bass players and he collapses a lung and he's in the hospital. I'm thinking to myself, how's this guy gonna work, is he going to be playing onstage and just drop (gasp for air).
H — That would be great…a great show right. Just keel over. You want to see the scars? They're really gruesome.
Fat City — Yuck…
H— They screwed up the first time.
J — You should be able to get money for that…I'm telling you.
H— If I had done it before hand, I would of, but it's been like two years.
H — It happens to people who are very tall and skinny. It's a common thing.
J — (Heiko lights a cigarette) That's why you collapsed a lung.
H — It wasn't from smoking I guarantee it.
H — What it is, see, people who are tall and skinny, their body grows faster. Your walls around your lungs are very thin, so if you're very out of shape, which I was, I was skateboarding, I haven't skated in five years and I was skating my ass off hardcore all day long eating food and drinking beers having a good time. I didn't really know I was exhausted though, I was taking my pads off at the end of the day, I was breathing pretty hard. I inhaled a super big breath and all of a sudden I got this sharp pain and my lung collapsed.
H — I was in the hospital for two weeks and I should have been out of there in three days. What happened was I went to the emergency room and they screwed up. They didn't know where the hole in my lung was at. I go through this horrible procedure of them slicing me open and I'm on morphine looking at the nurses.
Fat — YOU WERE AWAKE!
H — Yeah, the whole time. I was like dozing off and they were putting this iodine on me and this nurse was sitting at the end of the room and says to me "Heiko, how do you feel?" I was like, how the hell am I supposed to feel I'm about to get sliced up here. They got all this shit on me and I'm think I'm bleeding, but I'm so doped up on morphine. I look down and they make the incision they take this little tube and…ahhh… it was so horrible. They just gouged me out .
The senior doctor came in a week later and looked at my chart, looks at me and said this guy should be out of here. They open up the patches where the tube is at and said it's in the wrong spot, we have to redo it. So they get all the surgeons back in there, and I go through the whole procedure again. And I have this guy next to me with this gunshot wound
J — You gotta love Oakland.
Fat — Tell us about the Warped Tour
J — It was fun, it was really cool. It was like boot camp though. We played at like 11:30 in the morning, but your playing at one stage over here and NOFX are playing to 50,000 over there.
Fat — It's like the luck of the draw.
J — Definitely. It's a draw every day…but I'd do it again, it was fun.
H— It was nerve racking. Then we got bigger bands saying we don't want One Man Army playing against us, they were really nice, very generous. We had some good main stage dates. It was nice.
H — The Dickies were on the third stage. Twenty years of hard rock. I was in shock.
J — First half of the tour, I never really listened to them a lot, but Weezer, they were like The Beatles. Everyone was freaking out about them. I liked them a lot.
Fat — What about the catering?
H — The catering was alright.
J — No.
H— The food was good.
J — No.
H — You're out there in 105-degree weather...
J — Awful chili.
H— They try to make it good, really artsy fine dinning food, which is nice. I'm grateful for that, but when you're out there losing like 10 pounds a day and drinking so much water, the food that you eat right before you go on goes right through you.
J — Me and him were on a boot regimen, every time you eat that stuff you gotta go.
H— Nothing that comes out of you is solid, through the whole Warped Tour, it's like water. I never gave any lip to the catering people because I know they're busting their ass, and then you start getting skimped on food.
Fat — Did they have any of those after show barbeques?
J — Hands down to the Deviates for barbequing every night. They've been doing it for two years in a row. They said that's it, they are never doing it again. NOFX barbequed a lot. Green Day barbequed a lot.
Fat — Speaking of Green Day and NOFX did you lose any money to them in the infamous c-lo games?
J — I lost about $120 then I quit playing.
H— I did alright.
J — That guy Fat Mike, man, he's the banker. He's got a huge wad of cash. The Long Beach Dub All-Stars, man, they were pretty scary at first, but they are sweethearts.
H — They're really nice, but they are so intense. They are so nice, but they come up to you like HEY! I had fun with the singer. We roamed the streets of New York one night looking for papers. It was really funny. If he reads this he'll get it. We were so completely wasted.
J — There was a fight at Niagra that night.
Fat — OOOOHHHH!
H— Oh yeah, they didn't fight but there was this guy laid out and everyone thought one of the guys from Long Beach did it.
J — Everywhere we go there's trouble.
H — If something goes wrong and the LBDA are around, people are like, it's them, they did it. They are definitely sweetheart guys, but I would never want to get in trouble with them.
J — We love them.
Fat — I think they’re missing teeth for a reason.
H- They're hardcore.
J— I've got the only two real front teeth in One Man Army.
H— All my teeth are bad.
Fat — Is your silver tooth a conscious thing or…
H— I got in a fight about six years ago and I finally got it fixed about three years ago. It just kind of died out, cracked on the inside and it turned grey. I thought it looked gross and I couldn't afford to get porcelain. Silver is way cheaper. So I was like fuck it, give me the silver. I look like I just got out of prison. I say how are you doing (smiling) and they're like ah…take my money, here's my wallet. My car's over there.
Fat — When you opened up for Joe Strummer, tell us about that.
J — It was amazing. I don't usually get star struck, but he's coming in with his trench coat...
The doors were about to open, but he made them wait so we could play to some people. He said, “I don't want you fuckers playing to three scum bags and a dog out there.”
H— The people who usually go to see Joe Strummer are a lot older, and I was getting ready to start ducking tomatoes, but actually it was great…a really, really great response.
J — I thought we were going to go over like a fart in church, but it was alright.
Fat — Did Joe talk your ear off?
H — No, not really. After the show.
J — He bought some shirts.
H — No, he stole a shirt. After the show, Brandon [One Man Army drummer] walks by and Joe's sitting on a couch with his glasses on and it looked like he was sleeping. And Joe yells "Hey!," and Brandon peeps in and Joe says "Yeah, you. Come here, I got to show you something." Joe unbuttons his shirt and he has a red One Man Army stencil. Joe said, "Yeah, look at this. I wore in during an in-store." Brandon's like, "Man, great. Where did you get that?" Joe said, "I fuckin' nicked it from your table." Hands down, he was the sweetest guy.
Fat — What do you do when your not on the road?
J — He answers phones.
H — I do telemarketing or landscaping. Mainly odd jobs 'till I go back on the road.
J — Someone told me they saw you mowing lawns.
H — Awww, that's bullshit.
J — No, Mike Dirnt said he saw you mowing lawns on the top of 5th Avenue.
H— I was laying sod and new grass.
J — So you didn't have a lawn mower at all?
H — No I don't have a lawnmower.
J — So Mike's a liar.
H — I was laying mulch around plants.
K — Honestly, if you like music definitely support it. There are a lot of shitty bands out there and they're making a mockery of punk rock and rock n' roll. People are getting a bad idea of what it is, really.
I think you should support your local bands. Punk rock has really changed. To be honest, I'm 25 years old. I never lived the punk life of the early '80s or '70s, but I really wish I could have been there to see it just because it was real.
J — I can't believe your 25, you look like your 46.
H — Hard livin', man. But you go to New York and you party all night, you'd look like you were 40 at 20.
Fat — What was the weirdest thing you guys have ever seen on the road?
H — The cow story.
J — So we're driving behind this semi, you know those cattle semis.
H — Where were we at?
J — It was on the way to Pittsburgh and there was this accident and cattle were flying everywhere.
H — It was so crazy.
J — I got it all on video, too.
Fat — OH SHUT UP!
H — We missed the accident by five seconds.
J — There were cows hobbling and steaming, so we stop and are on a carcass.
H— We open the side door and carcasses are steaming, blood and guts
J — It's 3:30 in the morning so from 3:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. we were there. I got it all on video. Cows with broken jaws coming out. Cops coming out and shooting them.
Fat — OHHHH!
H— Forty something cows and only like five lived. Those cows had broken legs and they had to shoot them. All Angus cows.
J — It was all over the freeway, so for 30 miles back and 30 miles in front they had to close off everything. Cows were going up into the woods.
H— It was sad. We were thankful that we didn't get hit by a cow. What happened was the truck driver fell asleep and ran into the mountain. And everything opened up….
J — Cows everywhere…it was carnage. Bulldozers…I got it on tape. The next morning just blood and guts everywhere…it was bad.
H— Yeah, it was really, really sad.
J — By 8 in the morning the smell was horrendous.
Fat — What did you do? Did you guys have to stay there?
J — Yeah, they wouldn't let anyone move. Cows were all over the highway, they didn't want anyone driving around and smacking into cattle.
H— Truckers were coming out and saying I wish I had some BBQ sauce….get that campfire going…
J — You could see intestines and feet and hooves.
H— Everything was steaming…some cows have been dragged 40 - 50 yards.
J — We were like that is it! No more hamburgers, no more McDonalds, no more quarter pounders. But [Heiko] later that day, "Yeah, give me a quarter pounder and a Big Mac ...
H — I had one bite and I couldn't…I freaked out. The smell, I couldn't take it.
Fat — Yeah, that’s pretty traumatic.
J — The one with the broken jaw on the video is pretty traumatic.
H — He had no jaw, blood was just pouring out and he's like mooooooo swaying from loss of blood.
Fat — Do you have anything final to add?
H — I believe kill your heroes and become one of your own. No, destroy your heroes and become one of your own. I don’t wanna kill anybody.
Robyn and Jack — We liked kill!