Walter Schreifels (Quicksand, Rival Schools, Gorilla Biscuits, etc)

It’s hard to present a musician as accomplished as Walter Schreifels in a short paragraph without diving into hyperboles, but for the types of music that we listen to the most here, at The Thanks List, we have to say that he truly possesses one of most impressive résumés of any musician of our generation. He not only played in some of the most important hardcore bands of the late 80’s, including but not limited to Gorilla Biscuits, Youth Of Today and Warzone (take a moment to think about that trio for a second), but also consistently kept writing and putting out music, in a variety of genres, during the last three decades.

He did so through various projects like Rival Schools, Dead Heavens and the very influential Post-Hardcore act Quicksand. The latter released a new record just this week, Distant Populations, their fourth album and second since their 2012 reunion. Distant Populations follows a similar direction as the sound that was instated with 2017’s Interiors, albeit in a slightly more refined way. If you’ve enjoyed any of their past material, it is truly worth listening to.

Pick up Quicksand’s Distant Populations through Epitaph Records and visit https://www.quicksandnyc.com/ for the upcoming fall tour dates!

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What have you been listening to the mostly lately?
I’ve been going through a lot of ALICE COLTRANE and SUN RA, kind of expansive stuff. I’ve also been listening to my wife’s playlist, which has been a lot of this band SALT from England. They have a disco kind of feeling, but it’s sounds out of time in a way. Really interesting stuff, and fun songs. That’s followed by a pretty heavy, modern Hardcore phase, I’m doing this Hardcore show for Vans and listening to a lot of recent, up and coming Hardcore bands, like ANXIOUS or ONE STEP CLOSER. A band called NARROW HEAD that are coming out with Quicksand on tour. I guess I have a wide range of stuff I’m listening to.

In terms of Hardcore, of course, you’ve been around for years, so what keeps you interested? What strikes you when you listen to a new band? I’m asking for hardcore, but that could apply to any music, I guess.
For Hardcore, it’s more about how this thing keep regenerating itself, and how is this placed in the story of what Hardcore is. I was into it very intensely for a few years, then it’s like, you just kind of hear them. I’m not actively like, in the pit. But since I’ve been doing the show, it was a cool opportunity for me to re-educate myself. Really, it just connects with the same reasons that I got into it for first place. I think is really suits the time now, this sort of DIY aesthetic, and that people are creating their band, and their scene through their own active involvement. That’s what gets me stoked on it. These up and coming generations just keep re-discovering things that I relate to, and also reconfiguring them in a way that suits them. I think that a hardcore kid now has way more eclectic tastes. I had eclectic tastes when I was listening to hardcore, even though the majority of my listening at that time was, I wanted to know everything about the genre, but at the same time, I was listening to other stuff and I think that’s what helped me as a musician in that field and also allowed me to grow.

Do you remember the first time that music as an impact on you? The moment when you really discovered your interest in music.
First memory that comes to mind is, I was a little kid, it was July 4th. I had a sparkler and I don’t know why the hell I did this, but I think I put my finger on the tip of the sparkler. You know, the kind of dumb kid things to do, just to see what it would do, and I burned my finger really bad. I remember going into my friend’s apartment, and Yellow Submarine was on. I was sitting there watching Yellow Submarine with ice on my finger. The pain of the burn with the cooling of the ice and this incredible cartoon with these really cool songs, like Nowhere Man, or Lucy In The Sky, these incredible songs that everyone knows and I just fell in love with the BEATLES. I guess this is kind of a good place to start. I also loved the BEACH BOYS and eventually discovered ROLLING STONES and you know, whatever, it’s not so unusual.

From that point, can you name five key, milestone records in your music discovery along the years?
RAMONES End Of The Century was a big one for me. I got it when it came out and that was huge. Got into JOY DIVISION Closer. I got that and I didn’t even know what the hell it was. I wasn’t sure if the band was called Joy Division or Closer. But the dark sounds of that was like nothing else I’ve ever heard, and it’s just haunting. I guess I was probably like 12 years old listening to that. And Hatful Of Hollow by the SMITHS. Similar kind of effect, because nothing ever sounded like that before. I was a fan of REM early on. I love Murmur and Chronic Town. U2 were huge. I love Boy and especially War, and they made great records after that too. Then Hardcore was probably the MINOR THREAT seven inches. Again, Joy Division, the Smiths, Minor Threat, you’re just hearing something that you have no frame of reference for. I think behind Minor Threat was the fact that it looked like it had been recorded 100 years ago, but it was only a couple years old at the time I heard it. And that these people made their own records, that it wasn’t on like Columbia Records, there was some sort of underground network of people making seven inches of this music that sounded crazy, but was really really cool, and faster than the Ramones. Those were big ones. I mean, later on, it gets lesser than your great loves, you know, but FUGAZI really was an incredible band. I was at a good age to go see many of their early shows. Obviously, it was Ian MacKaye’s new band, and everyone was crazy about it, but it was still an underground phenomenon. That’s kind of a virtue of being alive at that time, and being young and all that was really cool. So much great music. NIRVANA was fucking awesome. I mean, again, I’m not citing anybody that you never heard of, really! *haha*

It’s all right. It’s not always about obscure discoveries. There’s always someone who’s heard the name but never looked into it. It’s just about sharing music, you know?
Yeah, and these things were obscure at the time, too. Like, no one in my high school was listening to Joy Division or REM or even U2, to be honest. At one point, these bands, like the Smiths or Fugazi, no one had heard of them. All these bands were obscure at one point. The feeling of hearing something that you’ve just never heard before. You know, all has been put together in a way that’s strangely pleasing to you, but just surprising. It happens every once in a while.

What’s the last time that you remember discovering something that blew your mind? Either a record or a live performance?
Most recently, I really love ALICE COLTRANE. It’s taken a while, I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten into her sooner. She creates these super expansive soundscapes, and it’s kind of what I want to listen to right now. That’s really blown my mind, although that’s been sitting around for so long. I guess in the time that we live now, with access to all recorded music of all time, that’s one of the nice things, that something can grab you that’s been sitting there the whole time, waiting for you to find it. There are references to Alice Coltrane, but I’m just really digging into how deep her catalogue is and, you know, she’s an interesting person. She was prolific in a very cool time as well.

Can you name three songs that you would consider to be perfect and explain why, and what makes them so special to you?
First one that comes to mind is There She Goes by The LA’S. It’s a perfect Pop song. I mean, there’s just so many perfect Pop songs from the 60’s. I’m thinking of like Waterloo Sunset, by the KINKS. 90% of The BEATLES catalog? What is another perfect one, that’s maybe more weird…I could say Since U Been Gone by KELLY CLARKSON. I don’t know that she wrote it, but it’s perfect. That song gets me fucking psyched. I mean, that’s not even my favorite one, there’s shitloads of perfect songs. I guess, it’s when you’re bringing someone into getting an emotion and kind of getting out in life. Not a second wasted.

When you listen to something new, is there anything that will make or break your listening experience? Specific sounds, or the production, or the playing?
Yeah, of course, anything throws you off the plot. It could be a lyric, it could be a note choice, where you want to give them a 10 but now, they’ve got a 9.2 because they just made some slight thing that threw you off the plot and took you out of this heavenly perfection of the song. But you know, 9.2 is still a good score!

I’ll take the a 9.2 anytime! Is there anything that you’re a sucker for, that reels you in every time?
I guess I’m kind of a sucker for that kind of happy/sad feeling? You know, that you find in a FLAMING LIPS song or something like that, where it’s this sort of winds the coolness, but there’s a sadness to it underneath. Like MY BLOODY VALENTINE, When you sleep. It’s got this happy/sad quality to it. I guess I’m a sucker for that but I get into all kinds of stuff. When I learned the guitar, my favorite band was AC/DC, so I think I have a very no bullshit rock and roll sensibility. But yet, I’ll listen to the Kelly Clarkson song and I’ll be like, “Fuck, this is a badass song.”

No boundaries.
No, I try not to. If I find myself rubbing up against the boundary, it could be because I associate that song with a click of people that I just don’t relate to or it could be something about my own uptightness. Or it just could be it’s not my thing. I’m not there yet. That’s not the kind of music that speaks to me, because not everybody’s the same, you know? People have their tastes and their kind of things that appeal to them.  Some people don’t even really care about music that much. I think a lot of times, what you like can also be defined by what you don’t like. But I try not to put too much energy into what I don’t like, I’m more hoping that I can be open to liking whatever.

Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Something that you really truly love, but that can hardly find anyone to agree with you on that.
I don’t have an extreme example of that, but I do feel like I’d mentioned U2 and REM. I think U2 are obviously hugely popular and hugely successful, and everything’s fine with U2, but I think in some ways, they get sold a little short in the kind of cool musician world, or maybe cool journalism world. When I think, there’s no U2, there’s no RADIOHEAD. And no Radiohead, no all this other shit. Or even FUGAZI, you can hear U2 in Fugazi. Maybe there’s something about it because they got so popular, that people are not wearing that on their sleeve. It’s hard. REM might be similar. Because they got so popular, and the songs that are popular are maybe not as representative how interesting they were, especially the first few albums that they put out. They were just so cool, it kind of created the idea of college rock and laid the ground really for like, NIRVANA and The REPLACEMENTS. You know, I think no REM, no Nirvana. I don’t think people are name checking REM, but I think both U2 and REM are absolutely fine without people name checking them! They’re good.

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