Interview: Strung Out (USA) 'Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues' Tour of New Zealand

Veterans of California punk and Fat Mike's legendary Fat Wreck Chords imprint, Strung Out are returning to our shores this month, playing a whopper four date nationwide tour of Aotearoa New Zealand. Here celebrating the 30th anniversary of their landmark 1996 sophomore album Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues, Strung Out will play Suburban in its entirety, plus a short set of favourites from across their ever-expanding songbook (they released their 10th studio long player Dead Rebellion in 2024).

Bassist and now guitarist with the group since 1999, Chris Aiken chatted with UTR's Chris Cudby about the flood of memories that comes with revisiting Suburban, playing the all-star Warped Tour, his own punk rock origins, and more...

Strung Out (USA)

Friday 11th September - Last Place, Hamilton w/ The Vile Maxim, Drop Off Point, Two Skinner
Saturday 12th September - Whammy Bar, Auckland w/ The Vile Maxim, Tooms
Sunday 13th September - Valhalla, Wellington w/ The Vile Maxim, Ricky Bobby, No Sector
Monday 14th September - Loons, Lyttelton w/ Fastplant, Crisis

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Chris Cudby: I'm a Chris as well, interviewing on behalf on UnderTheRadar, we're a music website in New Zealand. You guys did the Warped Tour Montreal recently?

Chris Aiken: We did Warped Montreal a week ago. We flew up, there were two days of Warped Tour Montreal. We closed out the Saturday show on our stage.

Strung Out are veterans of the Warped Tour, right?

Yeah, since '96. When it was called Board in the South Bay, the original one was like Social Distortion, No Doubt, Face To Face... way back in the day. Right before I got in Strung Out, I saw Strung Out in Irvine, California on the '98 Warped Tour. It's funny because it was probably six months later I got in the band. Actually, they played early that day. They played first so I missed them, but I could hear them outside. I was waiting in line for my ticket and I could hear them playing. I'm like, "I think it's Strung Out. Fuck!" Then I come inside and yeah Strung Out played first. "Fuck!"

I saw a bunch of bands that day and it was great. Then I was leaving, I left early at some point, probably five or six that night, I just wanted to beat the traffic. I was walking through where all the busses were. I saw one of the guys from Strung Out, he was with that band, The Living End. So I went in the bus, and I saw some of the guys, and then I met The Living End, because they were sharing the bus with Strung Out. It was kind of funny, seven months later I get in the band and then we're touring. I remember we played New Orleans on my first tour, and we played with The Living End again. I was like, "Oh, I remember these guys. I met them like six months ago."

How was the festival this year? Do you end up catching up with friends doing that?

I think with any kind of show, depending on what bands are on and people you've known over the years — you build your fan base, which really turns into your family or friend base. The people that you've been seeing for years, all those familiar faces we have that we've been so lucky to connect with over the years. There's tonnes of band friends we've had throughout the years... It's kind of hard, because the band will play this time and then they're flying out, because they got to fly back to a tour or something. You try to do the best you can and catch up with people. Or you're at the airport and you run into people. I didn't even see you today, but you see them in the airport.

That makes sense. Were you playing your Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues set for the festival?

For the festival we played just a regular set list. We did do Suburban on the Canadian run that we just did, back in April and May. We did a full month in Canada with Belvedere... we were playing Suburban on that entire tour, but we didn't play Montreal because we were you know playing the Warped Tour.

You joined Strung out in 1999, which was after Suburban came out. How did you come to join the band, and what were you up to before you joined?

I joined right after Twisted By Design came out. Twisted came out in May of '98, and I joined in January of '99. So not long after. It was a lot of good timing, right place, right time. My friend Tyler (Rebbe), who plays bass in Pulley, me and my friends we lived in this neighbour town, over next to where Strung Out was from... Simi Valley. The neighbouring city called Thousand Oaks is where me and Tyler grew up. Then once we got out of high school, him and I and a few of our friends from Thousand Oaks migrated to Simi Valley. We were in the whole scene over there, and they were they were the talk of the town. This band Strung Out got signed to Fat Mike's label, woah! There was a big buzz about them.

We were all getting into that punk rock scene, as everybody was that we were growing up with at that time. Epitaph, Nitro, Fat Wreck Chords, you know all that stuff, all those bands. That second wave of punk rock was coming around, it was an exciting time. Tyler got in Pulley probably like two years earlier, and then it was around the middle of '98. I heard they were going to let Jim Cherry go out of the band, a rumour came around, I heard that. Tyler was like, "Hey, you should borrow my bass." Because I'm a guitar player. I was a guitar player first. He let me borrow his bass and I was learning those first three albums, learning those songs. And then I finally had a chance to jam with those guys.

We were going to all these shows, going to all the Strung Out shows, going to all the Pulley shows, going to Millencolin shows. Every band that came into town, we would always go to and just try to network and meet people, that's what you do. I had the bass, I knew the songs, and I finally jammed with Jake (Cruz), and then I jammed with the whole band. They were playing two shows (that weekend), and I showed up Thursday night. I jammed with them for the first time, and I knew their whole set list they had for the shows. They're like, "Fuck yeah, you want to play Saturday and Sunday?" I did those two shows, and then two weeks later we went on tour. That was my first tour. Then I just kind of fell into it, it's crazy.

Now you've been in Strung Out for 27 years and counting. So the dynamic is obviously working with you guys all together. How does everyone keep on good terms with each other, through being in the band for multiple decades?

Well you know, it's a challenge, as any relationship is with anybody. You are married to four other people. You have your moments, as any friendship does. You just try to communicate. I think the older you get, you get better about communicating and just trying to understand each other and let shit be. Or just understand not to be annoying today, or not to do this today. But it's an ongoing process really, of maintaining that. No one's perfect, but we try our best.

Strung Out are in a super interesting position as a band, where you're releasing new albums and celebrating the anniversaries of classic albums as well.

Yeah, we'll do Suburban, then we come back out. We play another six songs. It's always fun revisiting an album, as it transports you back to that time of, "Oh, I remember this. I was working at this pizza place." [Chris C laughs] Or, "I was dating her, I was living with my roommate here." We all have that. It's like a movie can do that to you. It's always cool.

We did Exile In Oblivion last year. We were playing Exile all year, and it was like, oh man, a lot of good memories. Relearning the songs that you forgot how to play. We have so many songs. It's always nice, because you kind of reflect back on your life of where you were at that time. I was, 28, 29 when we were doing Exile. Then right now doing Suburban, this makes me think of me and Tyler from Pulley hanging out and like driving his car and listening to Suburban... I couldn't believe that was Strung Out, how different it sounded from Another Day In Paradise. It sounded like a completely different band. I have a lot of memories that record, really going, "Wow! This band, they're my favourite band of all these bands."

They say you manifest things, you put something in the universe. I remember at one point being like, "Dude I'm gonna be in this band one day." Not like in an arrogant way, but it's a weird thing. I couldn't think of any other band I wanted to be in. The music I was playing, felt like the same kind of thing, or maybe I was just mimicking Strung Out. But I was like, "I'm kind of like a metal guy, but I'm kind of like this punk rock guy, but I'm also kind of a weirdo."

Strung Out music is physically intense music. How much prep and rehearsal is involved before you go on tour? How do you keep your skills sharp?

Well, the luxury that we used to have of all of us living in the same city, we don't have that anymore. That changed a lot in the last few years. We might jam sometimes before tour. We'll fly in and jam sometimes, or usually it's like now — everyone do your homework and show up and soundcheck is band practise pretty much. Pretty much everyone's good. Everyone does their chores. Everyone keeps up on stuff, that's pretty much what you got to do. All of us have other jobs or families or kids and stuff. But you got to make the time. It's a demanding band, it really is. It's a thing where I can't not play guitar. I have to touch it every day, I have to at least play a little bit. Earlier today, I played along to Suburban. I played the record from start to finish. I feel like for me, I've got to maintain it. I can't slack off. I got to keep up. Especially Suburban.

Suburban's such a very fast record, very continuously. It almost seems like one tempo for the entire record, even though it's not, it's very extreme. This record's very demanding, for drums, bass, guitar, vocals, everything. You have to treat yourself like an athlete. You got to keep up on your on your chops. I practice every day. I'm not sitting there being meticulous on scales, but I'm playing the songs, or I'm doing some metronome kind of things... I find things to work on. You got to maintain it.

What's your favourite song to play from Suburban?

There's a lot of fun songs that record. I like playing 'Six Feet' it's just a fun, fucking fast, quick song. I like playing 'Somnombulance'. 'Firecracker' was always fun. That's the first song I ever learned on bass, that was the first riff I learned. Tyler showed it to me back when he let me borrow his bass, when I thought I might have a chance to be in this band. There's always a soft spot for 'Firecracker', even though I'm playing it on guitar now. Jake showed me how to play it on guitar now, so now I learned it by Jake. I like playing 'Better Days'. That's a fun one, because it's songs that we don't play. But back in the day when I first got in the band, these were like all the songs we were playing. It's cool to go back and relive these songs.

Where is the favourite place you've ever played with Strung Out?

There's so many interesting ones that come to mind over the years... We went to Russia, we went to Moscow, we played there like in 2015. It was crazy to play there, even though we were only there for like 12 hours, but it's still amazing. It's always fun playing in Italy. We just played in Rome last month, and it was great to play there again. Always fun to play Tokyo. We used to always play, what's that club in Auckland? The King's Arms. We used to play there, always loved playing that place. The San Francisco Bathhouse in Wellington, always a good spot to play. The Metro in Sydney is always a fun place to play.

There's so many great memories. I feel so fortunate that we we still have this in our lives, and we've still been able to maintain this and still do this. There's so many that come to mind, it's hard to pinpoint one favourite place.

What's on the horizon for Strung Out?

We're going to record in November. We're doing a new record, so we've been demoing the last few months with Kyle Black. Kyle Black did Transmission.Alpha.Delta and he also did Black Out the Sky, the acoustic record right after that. We've been demoing songs with him the last three months. We were just there the other day, we're chipping away on it. It'll be the first thing we've done on Hopeless Records, with the whole Hopeless / Fat Wreck Chords merger that just happened. We've been on Fat Wreck Chords the entire time, it's our first time to put something out that's not on Fat — minus like the other compilations we put out.

A new era.

Yeah it's very exciting. Everyone on Hopeless is awesome, and the people from Fat Wreck Chords are still attached to it, so it's cool. This new chapter and the new songs that we're writing are rad, it's awesome. I'm excited to still have this opportunity that we all have, this late in our lives. In our career to still be doing it and still having fans care about us and still be able to go to New Zealand for our like, 15th time. That's crazy to say that. That I've gone there that many times, or Europe, and that we're still around as a band. We're so grateful for our fans and the ability to keep creating music. We're very happy for that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.