Speaker 1: I didn't want to talk over the end there. I
love that. I love that so much.
Speaker 2: That is working Class Punk and the band is Jersey Calling,
and that was released officially on Labor Day, very very appropriate,
and we played.
Speaker 1: It on the show.
Speaker 2: I think we might have been the first American radio
station to play it. But let's see here, so we've
got I believe we have Josh and Victoria with us
via Microsoft Teams.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi hear us? Yes, yes, can you hear me? Okay? Yes, awesome, perfect, welcome.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful to It's wonderful to have you on again.
Of course you're with us. I think it was two
or three months ago when you were in the area.
But then you release a song and Jenny and I
were like, well, we gotta have them on to talk
about this because this is this is so good, you know,
and we're fans anyway, but I love that song. I
think it's very relatable. I think it's extraordinarily appropriate that
you released it for Labor Day. Obviously, working Class Punk,
the newest single from a Jersey Calling. So very excited
to have you both on the show today. And we
should tell we should tell our listeners so you can
uh can each of you explain your roles in the band,
what you do in the band for people who might
not be familiar or perhaps didn't hear our previous conversation
when you were on the show.
Speaker 3: All Right, we'll go best foot forward, go for it.
Speaker 4: So I'm Victoria and I sing and helping recent stuff
and the help do stuff. Yeah, okay, that's the best
one that.
Speaker 3: I'm Josh.
Speaker 5: I'm also a co lead singer, and I played rhythm guitar,
and uh, I write some songs.
Speaker 2: To absolutely no great stuff. Uh So can you tell
us about the inspiration? I mean, you know, probably kind
of obvious, but can you tell us about the inspiration
behind the song working class Punk and why you decided
to write that? And it's such a great track by
the way, I mean, you know, even if people don't
understand or uh, you know, vibe with the meaning behind
it and whatnot and what it's trying to say, it's
also just really really catchy. Uh So you probably can't
help it sing along to it. But can you tell
us about the inspiration for that song?
Speaker 3: Yeah? For sure. You know what's funny is.
Speaker 5: Our friend Brian Mulhern from Jackson and the pharmacist, like
a local local radio thing in our area. He was
talking this morning. As he put he posted something on
Facebook this morning about how like, you know, it's really
hard to be working class right now, that like wages
of stagnated and they've been stagnating for years.
Speaker 3: And everything is more expensive.
Speaker 5: You know, inflation is out of control, rent is up,
the price of buying a house is up, groceries are
more expensive, and like, you know, we're really feeling a
squeeze right now.
Speaker 3: And I wrote this.
Speaker 5: Song a year ago and it's only gotten worse than
the last year.
Speaker 3: The song has only gotten more relatable.
Speaker 5: And I think when I wrote it, it was right
in that period. I'm a teacher, so in February and March,
those are days or months when like teachers really don't
there's no like there's no break, and it's right in
the middle of the year. There's no days off, and
the kids are feeling it, the teachers are feeling it,
and it's just like it's it's kind of an endless
grind and I don't know, man, it's you know, I
feel like there are other cultures in the world where
they work to live, and it feels like we have backwards.
Speaker 3: We're living to work, and it just gets it just
gets frustrating. Man. I was doing another interview the other day,
and you know.
Speaker 5: Like the problem the American dream is like, you know,
you work for like thirty years and then you get
to retire with your white picket fence in your house
and your family whatever.
Speaker 3: I am forty three years old. I've never owned a house.
We're living it. We're coming to you live from our
apartment this morning. And I've been working since i was
like fifteen years old. Yeah, so I'm not great at math,
but that that's almost thirty years.
Speaker 5: And I'm definitely not going to retire at forty five,
you know, right, Like I'll be lucky if I can
get out at sixty or sixty five.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll see.
Speaker 5: And man, like I know some people like there's a
there's a maintenance guy at my job. I mean he's
seventy five years old.
Speaker 3: And he is no intention of quitting.
Speaker 5: You know, Like we're we we we make dark jokes
about like one day we're gonna walk in and we're
just gonna find him down on the floor and hopefully
it's us and not one of the like kindergarten kids
that we have at the school, right, it's you know, it's.
Speaker 3: It's frustrating, and we wanted to write a song that like.
Speaker 5: Vented that frustration, but in like a catchy, fun kind
of way.
Speaker 3: We didn't want it to seem like a downer. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like like a lot of the songs that I write,
the lyrics are super down, but the uh, you know,
we try and keep the tempo up beat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Have you had a chance to play I know it's
a new song, have you had a chance to play
it out live?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So we played it a couple of times at eight
and Sand, which is.
Speaker 3: A local brewery in our area.
Speaker 5: It's eight and Sand Brewing Company, and it's in Woodbury,
New Jersey. So we played that there because you know,
it's like our hometown.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, we we know that even.
Speaker 5: If we even if we mess it up, our friends
and family are not going to judge us.
Speaker 3: Plus, you know, it's a brand new song. How are
you going to know if we messed it up?
Speaker 2: That's true, that's a good point. I was curious because
I just imagine it's such a it's a song that's
so easy to sing along to that, I would imagine
it gets yeah, pretty good response from the crowd.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've actually got We've we've gotten a couple of
cool clips where like there are a couple of people
singing along in the crowd and it's like their first
time hearing the song, and I'm like, that's that's a
good sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's validation, right, I mean, that's like, uh,
you know, when you see people reacting to it in
real time the first time they're hearing it, that's that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Anything that can make my fragile ego just a little
bit big.
Speaker 2: I'm curious if if the two of you have I mean,
I'm curious about influences. And I know we you know,
we talked about influences the last time you were here,
But are there are there other punk bands? I mean
I can certainly think of some, but I'm curious about
are there other bands that even not necessarily punk bands,
but bands that you kind of look to for inspiration
when you're writing a song like working class punk? Are
there are there bands you can think of that might
have influenced you that also address these types of issues
and concerns.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Specifically when I was writing working class punk. I
was listening to a lot of Larger and Grace. She's
the singer for.
Speaker 3: The Against Me and Against Me.
Speaker 5: I don't think is playing shows any longer, Okay, but
Large and Grace wrote all those songs, so she still
performs them live with her band.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then I mean, you know, like.
Speaker 5: Dropkick Murphy's have been been all over the news and
social media lately for their outspoken, you know, defense of
the working class and critique of the current administration.
Speaker 3: In the US.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So yeah, there's I mean, I feel like, you know,
punk music has always been a you know, one outlet
for the working class. I mean, it's certainly not the
only music that speaks to the working class, but it's
always been there. I mean, you know, you think of
bands like, you know, like Reagan, Youth, the Dead Kennedy's.
You know, these are some of the old school punk
bands that always always talked about like punching up, fighting
against the oppression and the oppressive forces that really keep
us all down and try and divide us up into
you know, red team, blue team, when really it's like
it's the top team versus the bottom team.
Speaker 3: And I like to think of all of us as
power bottoms.
Speaker 1: Right, honey. The Sex Pistols also come to mind.
Speaker 2: Obviously not an American band, but but you know, a
lot of their their stuff also really addressed, uh, you know,
things going on in the UK. God Save the Queen
is one of my favorite punk songs of all time.
Speaker 5: But so I like the Sex Pistols, like I like
some of their music, and I like the message, but
for me, it's like tainted by the disingenuousness of the
fact that like they were they were put together as
like they were put together as a boy band.
Speaker 3: Man. They were like they.
Speaker 5: Were to promote the like there was a store out
there called sex I think, and the idea was the
band was basically a big commercial, a live commercial, if
you will, for that store.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that, about that part of it. Yeah,
oh that's interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's almost like it's it's like a it's like
an astroturfed punk and like, you know, like I do
appreciate some of their songs, I mean, yeah, God Save
the Queen, Anarchy in the UK, these are all classics.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I also like like the like.
Speaker 3: Anarchy in the UK.
Speaker 5: Bothers me a little bit, just because like I I
like a lot of the ideas of anarchism, like the
socio political movement specifically, that anarchism is actually just opposing hierarchy,
Like it's it's an opposition to hierarchy.
Speaker 3: It's not chaos, right.
Speaker 5: And it often gets conflated with chaos, and it's like, no,
that's not what anarchists are fighting for. They're just fighting
for a you know, to get rid of that class division.
We should all be equal. It shouldn't be some people
are you know, to quote animal farms, some people are
more equal than others.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I agree.
Speaker 2: Now this is so this came out on Labor Day obviously,
and that's was that kind of the plan all along,
Like like when you first because the song been around
for a little while, right, you said you would you
had written it last year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was definitely not the plan. So right now
we're kind of on a show break. I mean, we're
doing that. We have a show with Marky Ramone coming
up September twenty twenty fourth at our More Music Hall,
and that's gonna be that's gonna be super rad. But
that kind of like that kind of fell into our laps.
We got offered that show, and you know, despite the
fact that we're on a show break until twenty twenty six,
we were like, all right, well, I mean we have
to take that, right, it's one of the Ramones. Yeah,
it's a really cool venue, Like, we can't turn that down.
So we're doing We're doing that one as an exception
to the little break that we're taking because for a while,
we were, like for two years straight, we were pretty
much playing out constantly. Yeah, right, now we're focused on
like writing more music and then you know, trying to
do that that life balance, man, Like we've all got families,
we've all got careers, and trying to focus on that,
give that a little bit extra love. So the original
plan was we released ex Americana right before we were
on your show the first time, and we were gonna
hold off on working We recorded it at the same
time as Working Class Punk and Working Class Punk. We
were going to release in twenty twenty six when we started.
Speaker 3: Playing out again.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, but yeah, but like, I don't know.
Speaker 5: The idea came to us to that, like Labor Day
was right around the corner, and we're like that would
actually be kind of a perfect time to release a
song called working class Punk.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: That kind of speaks to.
Speaker 5: The idea of the labor movement and you know, the
idea of the owner class versus the working class. So
we we we went ahead and pulled the trigger on it.
You know, we came to that decision probably.
Speaker 3: Two weeks before Labor Day.
Speaker 5: So you know, I got on my computer and rushed
out the distribution and made a bunch of promo and
stuff like that, and we and we got and I'm
happy we did outstanding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad. Yeah, No, it's it's such a great track.
So the so the show break other than you know,
you mentioned the Marquis Ramone show. But but that's that's
going to be it for the rest of twenty twenty five,
Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Again, unless we get something that's like, you know, just
too sweet to refuse.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like like if if if the Descendants decide that they
that they want us to open for them, I am
I'm not going to turn that down. If a Windota
Fighter decides that they want an opening band, We're not
going to turn that down. We need to pay for
you know, we're we're planning on recording an album in
twenty twenty six, releasing that will be our uh our
fourth album on streaming and our I don't know how
many times we've been in the studio because like you know,
like before Jersey Calling, Sean and I were in another
band called burn Kate, I've played in other bands well
during during Jersey Callings Hiatus. I don't know, it's like
we're gonna go with like, you know, our double digit
time in the studio, maybe like twelve or something like that. Yeah,
we're really looking forward to doing a full length and yeah,
we're kind of we're kind of focused on that and
trying to save money for that.
Speaker 3: So you know, if if a gig falls into.
Speaker 5: Our lap where they're like, oh we're gonna pay you
you know, X amount of dollars and it's and it's
money that we can put toward that record, then you know, yeah,
all available, Why wouldn't you take it?
Speaker 1: You know, right right, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where do you record? Because obviously you're in an
area where you know there's a lot of music, Like
where where did you record a working class punk? Because
it sounds great too? You know, I'm a trained audio engineer,
and I pay a lot of attention to you know,
not everyone pays attention to production, but I do. And
I love the production. I love everything about it. But
it just sounds so good. So I'm curious where you
recorded it.
Speaker 5: So Working Class Punk and X we're both recorded at
Montgomery County Community College.
Speaker 3: We got this offer from.
Speaker 5: Randy's sister's friend's kid. So I thought originally that this
this this guy Noah, I say kid.
Speaker 3: He's like twenty two, twenty three years old.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but he's a student at Montgomery Co Montco Community College.
That's just easier to say it that way. Montgomery County Community.
Speaker 3: College out in PI.
Speaker 5: And he is is a you know, music engineering major,
and he wanted to record a band, and he knew
of our band from Randy's sister, and he asked if
he could record us for his final project, and you know,
we said yes, and he yeah, he tracks both ex
Americana and Working Class Punk with us.
Speaker 3: And you know, it was a different.
Speaker 5: Experience because usually we record at the Gradwill House recording
studio and had in Heights, New Jersey. Okay, I mean
those guys have been doing it forever. They know what
they're doing. They like they've been nominated for Grammys, like
they their their pros. And Noah is a student, you know,
he's just getting started with this.
Speaker 3: So it was a very different experience.
Speaker 5: But still enjoyable, and it kind of challenged us some
Sean pointed out in a recent interview, we did that,
like it kind of challenged us to like make sure
that we know our parts, because you know, studio magic
can be done when someone knows what they're doing, Like, hey,
you messed up a guitar part, Hey, no problem, we
can copy and paste that from another take that you did.
But Noah was a little more inexperienced, so it was like,
if you don't get it right, then it's just not
going to be right on the on the track.
Speaker 3: And he did an amazing job. And then what we did.
Speaker 5: After that was we took Noah's rough mix and we
sent it to the Gradwell house for like a little
remix makeover, just so they could like put some put
their hands on it, put some love to it, and
they did what they usually did, and they and they
took our music, which you know is what I honestly,
Noah's mix was great, but grad well just makes it
sound so much more professional, just because they know what
they're doing. Oh yeah, they've been doing it for so long.
Yeah yeah, so yeah, they mixed it, they mastered it,
and uh, once we got that track, we you know,
we we even sent it over to Know and we're like, hey,
here's what they did with it, and that way he
can learn more from it. He did get an A
on his final project, though, so I'm really happy about that.
Speaker 3: I was like, Man, if this kid doesn't get an
A for.
Speaker 5: All the hours he put into recording us, that's really awful.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Well, it's cool too that it came out so well,
because obviously in a scenario like that, you know, you're
you're used to working with pros, and then this this
opportunity comes up, and I mean, I don't know, I
just know in my mind, i'd be thinking, Okay, we'll
try this, but a student, I don't know, we'll we'll
see what happens, you know, and and then uh, and
then it came out great.
Speaker 1: So that's that's awesome.
Speaker 3: I'll thing too that Noah.
Speaker 5: Noah came up with some really cool ideas too, like
the end of working class punk, you mentioned that you
didn't want to talk over the ending because you love
the like little out take part at the end.
Speaker 3: That was Noah's idea. He was like, oh my god,
you guys should keep that in the song somewhere.
Speaker 5: It would be kind of fun. And I was like,
oh yeah, like like maybe at the end, and we,
you know, we kept it at the end because he
had originally suggested it, because you know, otherwise and mess
ups usually get deleted, right right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, that's that's very cool, And I'm glad you
got an a well well well deserved. That's that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, is exactly rocks.
Speaker 1: I didn't think to look, is there a video for that?
Have you? Have you made a video for that song?
Speaker 3: Or I did? I did? I did this. I did
the same thing that I did with Working Class or sorry,
I did the same thing that I did with ex Americana. Yeah,
and I made the video on my phone.
Speaker 5: This this is like, this is probably the last video
that I'll make on my phone, just because I feel
like i'm kind of you know.
Speaker 3: I I don't want to.
Speaker 5: I don't want our all of our videos to look
exactly the same. But it's another very similar video to
x Americana, where where I took pictures of the band
stills of the band and I crudely animated them south
Park style too to the music, and I think it's
really fun. It's got lyrics in the video, which is
something a little bit different from working from x Americana's video.
Speaker 3: It does have some throwbacks.
Speaker 5: To x Americana's video, because I mean, I think the
two songs do have a little bit of common messaging
with like being anti billionaire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know X style.
Speaker 5: Elon Musk absolutely makes an appearance in the video.
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice, Yeah, yeah, oh that's very cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I encourage people to check out the Jersey calling UH
YouTube page and oh yeah, you got lyrics in there too,
very very nice.
Speaker 1: So what's so, what's kind of the future?
Speaker 2: Well, we should mentioned again too, especially for people who
might be UH in your area. I assume that's where
the Marqui Ramone show is where you guys are, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 5: It's at Ardmore Music Hall, which is it's just outside
of Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: It's on the main Line.
Speaker 5: I would say if you're in the city, it's probably
a twenty minute drive something like that.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you're where we live.
Speaker 5: It's about forty five minutes to an hour, but well
worth it because the Ardmore Music Hall is a it's
it's a big venue, it's legitimate, like and there's sound.
Their sound systems amazing. Plus, like, you know, after you
see our set, which is pretty substantial, I thought maybe
like for a for an act like MARKI Ramone, they
would give us like twenty minutes or something, but like
we're getting a full forty five minute set.
Speaker 3: Oh good, And then after us you get to see yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm pretty I'm pretty excited about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And then uh, right after we're done, you get to
see MARKI Ramone play some classic Ramone songs and that's
that's rat.
Speaker 1: Oh oh that's very cool. That's very cool. Boy. How
old is sa now? He's got to be in his
seventies right, Oh yeah?
Speaker 5: I would imagine yeah, and hopefully hopefully he's still got
it because I remember a few years.
Speaker 3: Ago I saw Aggy Pop.
Speaker 5: He was doing like a reunion show with the Stooges,
and I was like, all right, this guy's like, you know,
seven hundred years old. There's no way he's going to
have the energy out he was running around like a
maniac with no shirt on. You know, he's got that
like his skin looks like old leather, but like he is,
he was rocking, man like. I couldn't believe that Iggy
Pop still had all that energy. I don't think I
have as much energy as he Pop does when he's
on stage, like.
Speaker 3: And I like to think I'm pretty active on stage.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, Iggy.
Speaker 3: Pop is on a different level. He really was.
Speaker 2: It actually doesn't surprise me just because of I've never
seen Iggy Pop live, but just from what I've heard,
you know, over over the decades that, yeah, there's just
something about him. He just has endless energy no matter
how old he gets. That's one thing that never changes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm guessing it's like residual drugs flowing through his bloodstream, like,
you know, like there's that guy's done so much that
like he's never going to come.
Speaker 1: Down, right, Maybe that's what it is, And.
Speaker 3: That's what that's my guess. The only thing keep keeping
Keith Richards alive, That's what I'm sure of.
Speaker 1: That, right, Yeah, he's gonna outlive us all I think. Yeah, well,
very good, very good.
Speaker 2: So where should uh, where should people go online to
keep up with everything that Jersey Colin is doing.
Speaker 3: So I mean our social media.
Speaker 5: We're on uh, we're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, threads, and
it's just at Jersey Calling. It's just at and then
the band name okay, and then we have a YouTube
channel that's also at Jersey Calling. We have a website
and that is Jersey Calling Music dot com.
Speaker 2: Very good, very good now in a moment, So we're
gonna when we end our conversation, I want to play
x Americana because that I love that song as well,
and I think I even told you both when when
you were here in studio that time that that's my
favorite of the songs that you sent us. So we'll
end the segment with that. I'll probably play Uh, I'll
probably play Working Class Punk though again later in the
show in the second or third hour somewhere else sneaking
in because I love that song too, and we want
to keep pushing that that's such a great track.
Speaker 1: But what should we know about ex Americana?
Speaker 2: And again, I know, I know we talked all about
it when you were here in studio with us, But
for for people who are new listeners or people who
are not familiar with Jersey calling, what can you tell
us about this song that we should know?
Speaker 5: So ex Americana, I mean, even though we were recording at
the same times working class Punk, it was like the
opposite with the writing process. Sean sent me some lyrics
he had scribbled down on the train on the way
to work, and it were, you know, we are about
Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: And it was right when he had been you know,
appointed to the position of the head of DOGE.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, right right after Trump was elected to
a second term. And UH, like, I love the lyrics,
and I was like, yeah, I think I can work
this into something, man. And I had a progression that
I like, a guitar a chord progression that I was
that was gonna that was saving for something.
Speaker 3: I wanted to use it for something I didn't know
what yet. Yeah, So I took Sean's lyrics, I took
my progression.
Speaker 5: I kind of fused them together, and uh came up
with came up with the basic structure of the song,
and then we rushed that out because I was like,
you know.
Speaker 3: What, we need to get this out before it's irrelevant.
Speaker 5: Because Trump and Musk like there's no way that those
two egos are going to last. There there's gonna yeah,
there's I was like, there's gonna there's gonna be a
falling out. Yeah, there's gonna be an excommunication. We need
to you know, no no pun intended with that, right and.
Speaker 3: Like I'm like, we need to get it out.
Speaker 5: Before before this is completely irrelevant, and they're like okay,
And that's when, you know, we got the opportunity to
record with Noah at Monco and uh, you know, we
had practiced that song I think like twice before going
into the studio. So like that one was particularly rough
recording it because we were like we were still learning
it while we were recording it.
Speaker 3: But I'm really happy with how it turned out.
Speaker 5: And we couldn't have time to release more perfectly, man,
because we released it like a day after Trump and
Elon had that falling out, Like it was perfect perfect
it was and and and it came out a day
before Trump's birthday, so.
Speaker 3: Like it was, oh man, it was. It was. Honestly,
I got lucky.
Speaker 5: It was a cool idea, but it could have it
could have gone wrong, you know, they could have like
the Trump Elon break up the divorce could have happened earlier,
but it also happened.
Speaker 4: At like a great time because that's when the chatter
was really high about him online.
Speaker 3: So then when you made the the post, oh yeah,
that was.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: We we we made a we made a Trump tweet.
Speaker 3: We we we we made it well.
Speaker 5: We made it look like he was insulting the band
on truth social and uh. And that post went viral
because everyone thought it was real.
Speaker 1: Oh that is so smart, that is that is genius.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe how many people thought it was.
Speaker 5: Really like, it's still getting traction to this day. It's
got almost like a million views.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 5: And I mean I think I I basically attribute that
to the fact that, like ex Americana in the you
know one, in the first month it was released.
Speaker 3: Became our number one song.
Speaker 1: Yeah like it.
Speaker 5: It boosted our numbers by a lot and working class punk,
you know, I'm like looking at it, I'm like, yep,
we're back to normal.
Speaker 3: We're just back to regular numbers again.
Speaker 5: But but you know, like it's tough to get lightning
to strike twice. It is what it is, you know,
And I'm still proud of the music that we make,
and we've always made it for us, not necessarily for accolades.
Speaker 2: You know, sure, sure, well, very good. Well listen, Josh
and Victoria, thank you both so much. Always wonderful to
talk with you, and I look forward to the next time.
And again working class Punk, great track. We were very
happy to play it here and and of course, well,
like I said, I'll probably sneak it in again later
in the show and we're gonna end the segment with
this track again. I love this song so much, x Americana.
But we'll let you go, but thank you both for
joining us this morning. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks man, appreciate you man.
Speaker 1: You got it, you got it, Okay, take care, bye bye.
All right.
Speaker 2: So that was Josh and Victoria from a Jersey calling
such a great band and I love this song. Let's
give this a spin. If you haven't heard this one yet,
this is ex Americana.