Rory and Greg interview Raph Copeland, who founded Knifetwister Records using the prize money he won in a pool tournament. Knifetwister is unique in that is works with bands from all across the hardcore, punk, and metal spectrum. In a fun throwback, Knifetwister is also a web-based fanzine with written interviews.

Raph and Knifetwister Records operate just outside of New York City. We hear a little bit about how Raph came to find punk music in the late 1980s and 90s. We discuss Knifetwister's recent release, a compilation benefiting the homeless called "Not In Our City." "Not In Our City" features tacks from bands in NYC including Rebelmatic, and No Call No Show among others.

Raph talks about how punk rock has influenced the trajectory of his life, his career working in the tech industry, his role as a parent, and his interest in lock picking.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mind of Magnus

Check out Mind of Magnus at magnusapollo.com, and leave him factoids at 585-310-2473! https://mind-of-magnus.captivate.fm

Lunchador Podcast Network

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If you want the 15 second overview.

Yeah, give it to me.

Give it to me.

That got me into music.

34 years later, I directed a music video for that band.

Nice.

I don't know if anybody.

Anybody can say that.

That is amazing.

It's nice when life comes full circle.

Yeah.

What.

What band?

By the.

The band was called White Trash, and they had a.

Well, I can get into it, you know, when we.

But so, so basically they.

They.

They were kind of like a metal band.

And, you know, as soon as Kurt Cobain came along, you know, they were all out of jobs.

They all got cut.

And then they started a new band.

Four of them started a new band called Butter Brain.

So it's really like kind of an offshoot.

Yeah.

Oh, that's awesome.

I might use that as our lead in.

I'll chop it up and chop out this part, too.

I. I had.

I had a. I had posters of these.

I had a poster of these guys on my wall in college in.

In.

And now three of them are friends of mine.

I just texted one of them earlier and I did a video for them.

So it's been the cool thing about this podcast because we.

We've gotten to interview some.

Some people who are really influential in my life, like Carl Buechner from Earth Crisis and this guy Greg Bennick, who is in a hardcore band called Trial in Seattle.

And, you know, if nothing else, you know, comes of this podcast, at least I got to talk to, like, two people who are really influential in helping me kind of develop my.

My worldview and my beliefs and the things that I think are most important.

Oh, it's.

It's great.

It's great stuff.

I just interviewed Dancehall crashers.

They were a huge influence on me.

Yeah, I saw that on your Instagram.

Yeah.

So let's.

Can you tell us, just kind of tell us a little bit about who you are, where you live, and kind of what's currently.

What is your life all about right now?

Okay, well, my name is Rafe Copeland.

I live in White Plains, New York, which is not quite the city.

I could be in the Bronx in 25 minutes.

But.

So that's a positive.

And the other positive is that there's a better than 50% chance that my car is going to be there when.

I go out in the mornings.

Are busy down in your part of New York State.

Oh, yeah.

No, if you live.

If you live anywhere near.

Near a highway on ramp, forget It.

Yeah, your shit's gonna get jacked all the time.

So.

Yeah, no, I, I, Basically my life is tech.

I'm a tech guy.

Music and, and pool.

Like.

Like shooting pool.

Shooting pool.

Nine ball.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Everything I know about pool comes from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode where Will.

Will got hustled and then, then his uncle comes in and hustles the hustler.

So if I ever get in trouble, I'll reach out to you and have you appear right up here and, and, and rescue me like Uncle Phil did.

Well, when, when we get to the formation of Night Twister Records is.

There is a pool element to that.

Oh, really?

So one of the, one of the things that you're, you know, really active in is Knife Twister Records.

And what I think is really cool about Knife Twister Records is it's also a web zine.

And I, you know, growing up, look, listening to punk and hardcore in the 90s, that was how I found out about a lot of stuff that was going on regionally from, like, zines from other cities or nationally through, like, Maximum Rock and Roll or Heart Attack or one of those, you know, bigger zines.

How did you get this label and zine started?

And what are some of the elements of Knife Twister that really make it unique or set it apart from other punk labels?

I think the main thing.

And so, for starters, I'm an idea guy.

I am the guy who, whose boss had to sit him down and say, look, stop texting the entire office at 3am with your ideas.

You know, we, we appreciate it, but, you know, knock it off.

So I'm an idea guy.

It's actually, honestly kind of debilitating at times.

They just, they just won't stop.

You know, tried pouring alcohol.

Nothing seems to work.

So my idea, and, you know, I had this idea for a long time, was start a record label.

I initially, I didn't realize how many record labels there were in the world until I started looking for a name.

About first 40, 50 names I looked at were taken.

Now these are, you know, tiny labels, you know, some in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg, you know, whatever.

But I'm not going to take somebody's name.

So I actually looked up how many record labels are there in the world?

And there are estimated to be about 100,000.

Now.

The big three have, you know, 85% of the market share, you know, Sony, the big guys, you know, the rest of them are, you know, run basically on a shoe string out of people's apartments, whatever.

So.

So how do My how do I set myself apart or how do I set us apart?

I could say us now from the other 999.

997, approximately.

Record labels.

And the idea was to be sort of a hybrid digital interview magazine.

And that had a, you know, it had a number of advantages.

It kind of, you know, starting to do interviews, kind of established in credibility.

It got our name out there, you know, when we were first starting out, you know, it kind of established a rapport with bands.

We've, you know, met a ton of bands at this point.

And so.

So the dual nature is really what sets us apart.

You've got a really.

You mentioned that you have a lot of interviews in.

In the digital zine and you've got an impressive catalog of interviews.

So if folks aren't familiar with Knife Twister, I'm going to link to your profile in the post on Instagram for this episode.

People can check out those interviews because regardless of what variety of punk or hardcore you like, you'll find somebody in there who's doing something, you know, in line with what you're all about.

You mentioned, too, you know, it's not just you anymore doing Knife Twister Records.

It's.

You've got a staff writer now.

Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how her role in Knife Twister Records and how it enhances what you do?

Well, yes.

So we.

We brought on Annie about a little over a month ago and, you know, initially the idea was to kind of have her take the load off of me a little bit because I've got like 20 in progress.

I just, you know, it's.

It's a lot.

And so that was kind of the idea, as it turns out, I'm actually continuing to move as fast as I am, and she's doing interviews on her own, so we're just growing about one and a half times faster than we would.

So.

But no, she's been.

She's been wonderful to work with and.

Yeah, no, really does.

Does a fantastic job.

Very, very bright.

Yeah.

And I was.

I was hopeful that she would be interested in maybe joining us on this interview, but you said she had a little bit of st.

Right.

You know, one of the things that.

She'll get over it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And people get nervous doing interviews, but I don't know, maybe.

I know there's something wrong with me, but one of the things that I like about doing interviews, it's the only time I get a chance to talk about the only thing on earth that I'M an expert in, and that's myself.

So whether it's a job interview or an interview for a band or, you know, like an interview for work, I'm like, all right, here we go.

It makes me sound really self absorbed, but I swear I'm not.

So how does, how does, I guess if you can't answer this question because it's for her to answer, that's totally fine, but you can say so.

But I'm curious, you know, I want to use this podcast and I want to do better on this podcast to have more diverse voices, to have more women.

There's more diversity in hardcore right now than there ever has been.

There's more women involved than there ever has been.

And it's, it's very, very much, you know, and I don't think it's exclusionary, but it's very much a male dominated space.

Yes.

And I think we've, we've, we've pushed to turn that around a little bit, you know, in our, in a small way, you know, to the extent that we can.

Yeah.

And I've noticed you have like very diverse lineups of bands that you've interviewed.

You know, how does, how does her role as a, you know, being in that role as a woman, do you feel that that helps enhance that?

You know, like, what are some of the benefits of, of embracing that diversity in the bands that you interview and support and, and, and with Annie's work writing the interviews?

Well, she's a, she's a fan of female fronted bands, so really she has carte blanche, you know, band that band that interests her, you know, she's, she's more than welcome to, to, to reach out.

I don't, I don't stage manage anything, so.

Yeah, no, I mean, we, you know, we've spoken extensively.

Our, our values align pretty much.

I think if you, I think if you take a good look at the interviews we've done, you probably get a pretty good sense of the, of the values that, that were founded on.

We've, you know, we, we've interviewed a lot of artists from, I guess what, what you could say are marginalized groups, you know, lgbtq.

We've, you know, at a certain point, you know, probably a few months ago, you know, was when I kind of realized I was like, hey, you know, I kind of have a platform here, you know, why don't I search out bands that are kind of doing something that might help get my message out.

Yeah.

And there was one Rory that you had mentioned that I checked out and I really dug because I hadn't really given it a listen before.

I was familiar with the band from social media, but that was, I think it's pronounced havoc.

Yeah, yeah, that was like.

It's a really cool female fronted hardcore punk band from Mexico.

Yeah.

Something, something.

Maybe you want to, you want to check out or maybe Annie wants to check out because they seem like, they seem like fairly political.

Yeah.

And the, I mean the political landscape and just your value landscape.

I mean, you put it out there on, even on your bio, on your Instagram account, you know, like it's not, you're not, you're drawing a line.

And that's much appreciated.

I think in this day and age of, of people wanting to know values and where people stand on certain, I.

Mean, you know, I'll give you an example.

I, I, I hate Spotify.

You know, they, they, they give massive amounts of money to the idf.

They run ICE recruitment ads, they, they screw over their artists.

I mean, let's, let's, let's be honest.

I don't think that's even up for debate.

I found a band in Pennsylvania that pulled all their music off of Spotify in protest.

You know, they were a small band.

Not a million people are going to read the interview.

But, you know, it was important to get that out.

I would say.

There's only been one interview that I ever bailed on and that was, I'm not going to name the band, but it was a band where they reached out, they were like, hey, you want to do an interview?

And I'm like, yeah, sure, why not?

They, they were, they were young kids we've interviewed.

I interviewed a band that was all 12 year olds.

I figured, hey, let's give them a shot.

You know, it would be, it'd be very gratifying to do an interview where, you know, they're going to be going in Monday morning showing, showing their friends, their, an interview on their phones.

Yeah, you know, a big band isn't, you know, big, big band isn't, you know, I do, if I do an interview with Metallica, you know, Lars isn't going to be running, running to show his mom with his Phone in his hand.

Yeah.

What was that band, what was that band's name?

The, the youth.

The 12 year old man.

Oh, they're called.

Still deciding out of California.

Cool.

Yeah.

And yeah, no, you know, I got a, I got a, I got an email from one of their moms who's.

It was very, you know, it was, it was very sweet.

It was very, very gratifying.

Yeah, I think it's cool when there's like young kids that do that and then the, the older folks in their life or maybe in the music scene help give them, give them a boost.

There was a, a band a couple years ago that they look like they're probably middle schoolers and they covered a Mad Ball song at like a school.

It looked like they were playing it at a school I.

Context of where they were performing it.

Wrong.

And they posted it on their, like social media, which I don't think probably had very many followers.

Then eventually it gained some steam and Mad Ball.

The band saw it and they like posted it, were like, all right, good job, kids.

So it's really cool when, when, when, when, when older folks give the, the really young kids, you know, a shot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, so just, just a circle back a few seconds, you know, so the band, you know, they're like, they're like young kids.

I'm like, all right, you know, the, the whole, the whole point of, of doing these interviews, you know, hey, look, it's great to interview the Dancehall Crashers.

They were huge influence on me.

But I mean, really, the, the, the point was to amplify voices that, you know, bands that aren't going to get any press right.

Otherwise.

And you know, it, you know, it's, it's great to interview a band with 60,000 followers.

It's great to interview a band with a hundred followers.

In this one case, I agreed to an interview, research them a little more, list, you know, then their pictures.

They're all given the finger.

The lyrics are all like variations of suck my dick, you know, that kind of stuff.

And I'm like, just.

Yeah, all right.

You know, the adolescent toxic masculinity, you can, you can leave that in the playground.

I'm not going to deal with that.

Right.

So what are like, what are some of the interviews that you've got in your, in your rep, in your catalog that people should check out?

You mentioned Dancehall Crashers.

Are there like a few others that just stand out either because the bands are cool or because it just turned out to be a really good a really good interview.

Yes.

And most of them are actually with women.

The best ones, honestly.

Let me see.

I just.

So, so, so one notable one was with a, A Washington state band called the Color Flies.

And I sent them out the questions and they sent back piss your pants funny answers.

And I mean, these, these, I, I, I, yeah, I, I consider myself funny, but these guys are next level.

And so I waited, I circled back with them, and I just did a new interview with them.

And instead of sending them serious questions where I would be the straight man and they could, I sent, I sent them ridiculous questions and they sent back even funnier answers.

So, yeah, definitely check out the Color Flies.

But I'll tell you the, the best interviews, I would say.

Probably the one with Pillow Biter.

So Pillow Biter is a, it's a Brooklyn hardcore queer core band.

The lead singer, Sasha, is trans.

And I reached out and I was like, hey, I would love to do an interview.

Are you comfortable, you know, speaking about, you know, your own personal identity and stuff?

Like she said?

Absolutely.

So she just wrote.

I mean, unless she's a writer, but she wrote the most fantastic, heartfelt things.

I just, I just read it and I was like, oh, man, it was really touching.

Also did one with, with Alison Moyer, who is the editor at Xing Magazine.

It's a feminist magazine up in Toronto.

She interviewed me, I interviewed her.

It was kind of a neat little reciprocal thing, but she's just a wonderful writer and.

Yeah, and that was really neat.

That's awesome.

And, you know, like, what, I mean, do you have.

If someone was coming to your website to look at these interviews?

What, what, what, what would you pick?

Maybe one Annie's done and then one you have done to, like, shine a light on what you all do.

I can't answer for her yet because she's got a few in progress.

Gotcha.

And I think she's just kind of warming up, getting the vibe a little bit.

I mean, interviewing people is an art.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not the kind of thing you could jump right into.

So the first few that I did or kind of look back on them and cringe a little bit.

Of course, there's a learning curve, for sure.

Very, very much want to redo them.

First view I did was we're very, very, you know, tell us about your latest release.

Right.

What do you have planned for the, you know, it wasn't really, like, I.

Had another podcast before there was like, a slightly different format where we did more of the, like, hey, what's the.

What's the latest tour dates and, and tell us, you know, when the new record comes out and tell us about the last one you recorded.

And that's like all good information to get out there.

But like, what Rory and I are doing with this podcast is very similar, I think, to what you're doing with some of the interviews that I did read on, on your website, where it's like, let's go a level deeper than that.

Like, how have the values of this music shaped your life in ways that, you know, go beyond just music and the music scene?

And, and I think I didn't, I haven't read any of what I think are probably your early interviews.

I read some of the, the more recent ones and it seems like that's kind of what you're getting at, you know, with, with your, your zine and the label.

Yeah, I mean, really the most gratifying thing I can, you know, when I get the answers back by email is to have somebody say, hey, those are great questions.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's huge.

Yeah.

I mean, asking questions people haven't thought about before, especially when you're dealing with maybe some legacy acts or then honestly receiving answers from younger bands that you're like, I was not expecting that.

That's also a really fun way of being challenged and challenging yourself, which is always exciting from, from an interviewee interviewer perspective.

In my opinion.

There, there are some fantastic quotes.

So I interviewed the band We Might Die and it leads, it's, you know, two guys and, you know, probably in their 40s and the guitar play, I'm sorry, the Drummer, it says 14 year old daughter on bass and vocals and she's, she's completely ferocious.

And I wound up interviewing her and the question I gave was if you could write a jingle for any product, what would it be?

And her answer was gas station boner pills.

And I, I left about that for two months.

So, yeah, so there, there is something that.

Excuse me, There is something about you know, just, just somehow nailing the right question with the right person.

You touched upon something that I've noticed kind of emerging in hardcore maybe over the last five or 10 years.

And that is like younger folks getting into the scene through their parents who are also in the scene.

You know, in Rochester we have a number of people who come out pretty regularly with their like teenage kids.

And I'm not gonna like force my kid to like punk and hardcore if they don't like punkin hardcore.

I want them to be their own person.

But there's like a Part of me that.

That sees that and hopes that I get to do something like that and share this music with my kids.

I noticed on.

And I think it's really cool that, that.

That We Might die is.

Is like that.

I just looked them up on Instagram and noticed a lot of people and bands that we follow are.

Are also following them.

I noticed on your website that.

That you have kids.

Are your kids into punk at all or is that just like, oh, this is like.

Like my dad was into like model trains and taking pictures of trains and I was like, yeah, it's his train thing.

Are they into it or are they just like.

That's it.

That's.

That's Dad's like, scre.

My daughters.

Yeah, no, not really.

My son is actually starting.

So I don't know if you're familiar with catch 22.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So the, The.

I. I love them and I really, you know, Tomas Kalnaki, the original frontman of, of.

Of both bands, I named my son after him.

So I have a son named Tomas.

He's 17 now.

And yeah, he's starting to get into Streetlight Manifesto and listening to that old stuff.

And, you know, if I, If I had named him Sydney, you know, I don't know if he would.

Yeah, I don't know if he would have gone in that direction.

You know, maybe there is a connection there.

But yeah, no, he seems to be getting into it and, you know, I try to try to pass bands his way.

You know, I don't know if you guys have kids, but it's, you know, having.

Having three teenagers, it's like, yeah, it's annoying.

I don't hear from them all that.

But then I look at it from their perspective.

Would I rather chat with my friends or with some old man so, you know, kind of get it.

So for, you know, for Greg and I, we both have kids.

I have two sons that are 10 and 7.

Right.

But so my sons are 8, 8 and 6.

So like Rory kind of in a similar place where we got two extremely energetic little boys, roughly the same age.

But.

So are they friends with each other?

Not yet.

I'm sure that'll come someday.

Yeah, when they want, you know, at times.

And they're also enemies with each other.

You know, it's.

They love and hate each other.

But I wanted to ask, like, speaking of, like, teenagers getting into music, how.

How have your kids found music, do you think?

Unfortunately, probably the Spotify algorithm, the all seeing algorithm, where you just kind of.

You put in a band and then Sends you down some rabbit hole, right.

And probably generally pushes you more towards profitable music, which is, you know, the, the dance.

Crappy dance music I hear at the pool hall, you know, that takes a day and a half to make and is like 75 AI and you know, that's unfortunately, that's what sells.

And you know, there's kind of a, a long history and I mean we, we touched on that a little earlier about, you know, how all of my favorite metal bands of the late 80s, early 90s, you know, a bunch of people sitting around a table saw smells like Teen Spirit saw, whatever that first Pole Jam, Pearl Jam video was.

And they were said, hey, this is what's profitable.

We're dropping that other bands, you know, so there's, there are people.

It's not just that they're identifying trends in music.

They're really kind of manuf.

They're manufacturing your tastes interesting.

So, I mean, yeah, I mean if you're, if you're Spotify and you just keep pushing out dance music and pushing out that lazy rap, you know, that, that kind of rap, that sound, you know, like background, the background music and for strip clubs and, and, and you just keep pushing it out.

And you know, people now in their 20s and 30s, this is what they get exposed to.

This is what they like now.

This is what I have to listen to when I play pool.

It's interesting because my, my son is starting to develop his own taste.

And.

I mean, I listen to guitar music.

He's like, I don't like your rock and guitar music.

And I'm like, okay, what?

You know, and it scares me how.

Few kids like guitar and like the typical four or five piece band music.

Seemed like that was all there was when I was at their age and now it's like it's gone.

Yeah.

And so he's finding music.

What I found is through the radio on the bus, but then also through Fortnite.

He plays a little bit of Fortnite.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like there was like an Eminem thing and a Snoop Dogg thing.

And so he really likes Eminem and he likes like certain elements of other types of music.

He's also a piano player and plays Beethoven and listens to like classical music too, which is really neat.

But I just find it very interesting how he's being, he's opening himself up to music and what he's influenced by.

So I'm always like interested, like to see how maybe kids are being influenced and how they're finding the music that they're interested in.

I tell you, I find that.

I find that fascinating because it's.

It's really, you know, a lot of it is.

Is when you come of age, kind of what is, you know, sort of blowing up.

You know, as an example, I. I started getting into music.

I was probably 13, right around 13.

And that was.

That was like an explosion of heavy metal.

You could name.

I could probably name two dozen bands who put out some of their best work that year.

From Scorpions to Def Leppard to Motley Crue to Slayer was just starting.

Yeah, of course, my mind's going blank now that I said two dozen, but.

But yeah, no, I mean, rat a lot.

This is our time.

And so, you know, it was.

It, you know, it was hard not to get drawn into that and that really just, you know, I've gone, I would say, much more in the direction of hardcore subsequently, but, you know, just to kind of get a love of loud, fast, heavy, aggressive music, you know, it's just.

It was like the perfect time.

Right.

So you.

I mean, you've.

All.

Throughout this interview, you've got a pretty eclectic taste in music.

And one of the things that I. I like about your label is it's not focused just on one style of, like, punk, hardcore metal.

You've got a variety of bands that you're supporting and promoting, you know, all the way through, like, ska, even.

You put out a compilation recently called not in Our City.

And I was checking out some of the bands from that.

That compilation.

And that's.

I think that really captures kind of the eclectic mix of bands involved with your label.

Can you tell us a little bit about that compilation?

You know, what it's all about, what it's trying to raise awareness about.

And then maybe some of the bands on the.

On the computer.

Sure.

Yeah.

So that was.

That was a stolen idea.

I was wandering around, I saw there was a punk organization in Las Vegas that was putting out a charitable cd.

And I said to myself, yeah, why not?

And so I made the decision at about 30, you know, the decision to go ahead and do it took about 30 seconds.

Later on, I really multiple times thought back and said, gee, I really should have thought about that a little longer.

But it got started.

So I put out, you know, so I had some bands in mind.

There are bands that I've worked with that, you know.

Butterbrain, Gift Shop, Manic, Chaka, Manic and Chaka.

I Managed them both.

So those were kind of no brainers.

Butter Brain.

I directed a video for them.

So, you know, so I already had it on ramp with a bunch of bands and I basically just put out a, an open call, you know, for, for New York bands who want to make a difference.

Probably the biggest band on there is Rebelmatic.

I put them first and they're, that's, that's a fantastic band.

They're a sort of like a hardcore reggae band from Brooklyn, Queens.

And they really helped push this compilation along.

Fortunately, I wish I had CD in front of me so I could kind of look over the, over the bands on there.

But yeah, no, I really discovered some, some fantastic, I mean the Lausketeers and, and they're, they're, they're pretty close.

They're from Westchester.

Here are really good.

RBNX are a little bit further up.

Not quite as far as you guys, but up, up to, up Hudson Valley.

Car Bomb Parade.

No call, no show.

Best, Best bones.

Yeah, Ill raised.

I mean these are all, these are all fantastic bands.

And it was, to be honest, it was kind of a bonding experience.

You know, there were bands on there that didn't really know each other.

Now they know each other.

You know, we had emails going back and forth, we posted updates and we tagged each other and it really kind of became a good community thing.

So the, the money raised goes to the Bowery Mission, which is a, a homeless shelter down in, down in the city.

Down in like a, as it happens, kind of a historically punk area, you know, not far from CBGB's and you know, close to Bauer Electric.

And so, so there is sort of a, a punk connection there.

But, and it seemed especially important just because, you know, the way political and economic systems are going now, the gap between I, I, I can't even say the haves and have nots.

The, the just the, the income inequality is getting worse and worse and worse.

You know, 30, 30 years ago we didn't, you know, we didn't have multi, multi billionaires, you know, things.

It's, it's, it's getting to the point where things are so heavily tilted economically that there are just a lot of people out there struggling.

And you know, I've done a lot of research.

It's really, it's kind of a passionate, something I'm passionate about.

And you know, give you an example.

I think most, most people don't even realize that a majority of homeless people actually have jobs they just cannot afford.

Yeah.

To, to, to, to, to, to, you know, to, to have a roof over their heads.

I, I was a part of an organization a while ago that would volunteer regularly at a homeless shelter in Rochester.

And we would make breakfast for people and then wash dishes.

And one of the things that really shocked me about that volunteer opportunity was how many people, and it was a men's shelter.

It was, it was just for men.

How many men came through the line and they were wearing like a nice outfit, it was a Verizon polo and, you know, khakis.

People working at Best Buy T Mobile, There were like just tons of people working in retail stores.

And they came and got their breakfast in their uniform because obviously they're on their way to work.

And it really surprised me, you know, how many people had jobs for major businesses and still needed to come to the homeless shelter?

And some, some of the folks lived at the home homeless shelter, some of the folks lived elsewhere, but they just could not afford food, whatever their circumstances were.

And you know, I, I, it made me wonder how many times have I walked in to like the AT&T store because I have a problem with my cell phone and I'm getting helped by a person who sleeps in their car or who, you know, who has to go to a homeless shelter, you know, multiple times a week to get, to get breakfast or lunch.

You know, the issue of homelessness, too, is one that I see.

And I feel like I have some degree to help in my line of work.

And so the compilation interested me just because I know that's a growing problem in major urban cities, but also in the suburbs where like the library that I work at is.

And there are a lot of folks that come to the library on a regular basis.

And some of them will tell us they live in their car or we can tell just from like kind of context clues that they're, they're living out of their car.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, if you, if you work full time for the current federal minimum wage, $7 and change, you cannot afford a one bedroom apartment in over two thirds of the counties in the entire country.

It's just, it's, it's, don't want to get off on a huge political and economic rant here.

But it's a, it's just, it's an unsustainable system.

It really is, it's, it's, it's brutal and it's, it's uncaring for, you know, a lot of people because, you know, and it's just, it's so predicated on a small number of people just saying more More, me, me, me.

More, more, more.

Mine, mine, mine.

I, I wanted to kind of change the subject just a little bit, if that's all right.

Yeah, of course.

No, no, I, I, I'm, and I'm glad we spoke to this issue because it's something that, you know, I try to, I think of myself as a progressive person and I've got a really open mind.

But I look back when I was younger, you know, in my 20s, and, and even though I wasn't judging, you know, homeless people harshly, I still made a lot of assumptions about what a homeless person was.

And then working in a public library in an urban environment and also in a suburban environment, I've seen homeless people utilize the library in both cases.

And you, you wouldn't know that they were homeless unless they told you.

You know, they're, they're going to work every day.

They're not addicted to drugs, they're not lazy.

They just have some circumstances.

And, and you know, yes, there are homeless people who are addicted to drugs.

You know, that's a huge problem in itself, you know, drug addiction.

But you would never know.

And it just, I, I, it really humbled me because I think how many times have I been just waiting in line impatient because the line's not moving fast enough?

And I think this is so intolerable.

And the person that's, that's helping me, you know, at the cash register or, or at the store is, they're really dealing with problems, you know, major problems.

But I, I wanted to ask a little bit kind of just about your, your work background and maybe how like, punk and hardcore values show up in that.

And I noticed on the, the Knife Twister website, you, you have degrees in psychology and education, but you wound up working in it.

Yes.

And you, it sounds like you actually had, from one of the interviews I read with you, it sounds like you actually have like a pretty prominent role or have had pretty prominent roles in, in it.

Can you speak to just maybe a little bit about how punk or in hard punk values, you know, like, shaped your trajectory through your education and then, and then in your work life?

Yes, I sure can, because there's 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 pretty obvious answer is I, I wound up starting my own company because I cannot work for somebody else.

And I, I, maybe it's kind of a punk cliche to have authority figure issues, but yeah, no, getting, getting, getting bossed around is, you know, I took it in my 20s and 30s, reached, reached a point where I have trouble with that.

I, I hear you about that.

I. Yeah, authority everywhere.

I'm immediately skeptical of.

I'm like.

And especially people who want to have authority over other people.

That's a huge red flag for me.

Yes.

And that's one of the reasons why.

Because I worked in a library, and I was just kind of, you know, a rank and file librarian, but eventually I worked my way up to director because I. I felt like, you know, I just feel like it's good for someone who's skeptical of authority to be an authority role.

Yes.

And then to never lose that.

Never lose that skepticism, even.

Even of your own motivations when you're, you know, when you're supervising people.

Right.

Yes.

I'll.

The only politician I'll vote for is one who doesn't want my vote.

Well, it's the empathy card.

Right.

Like, you know, how it's field to be talked down to or to be, you know, quote unquote bossed around.

So you have that lens when you're communicating with people, and that's such a valuable lens when you're leading a group of people or a team or a company.

Yeah.

Rory also started his own business and has, you know, been quite successful in that endeavor.

So I. I didn't start my own library, though.

I just.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way when you're in the public sector.

No.

Well, I mean, you could certainly do it, but it might not be all that profitable.

No, it wouldn't.

And it would running a free library.

So.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to get us off into the weeds there, but can.

Can you tell us just a little bit about, you know, how that shaped you, like how punk and your education and then your work, life at it kind of intertwined?

Yeah, no, It's hard to say.

I think the punk ethos would probably be the best answer in that.

I. I think there is a.

Now, you know, this doesn't apply.

Nothing is nothing is 100 applicable.

But generally speaking, you know, eight, nine out of 10 punks will.

Will tell you that, you know.

Yeah, no, we're not cool with misogyny.

You know, we're not cool with racism.

We're not cool with that kind of stuff.

So, you know, I was the chief technology officer for a private equity firm, and it was like Animal House there.

And, you know, I did the hiring for some of the support staff.

They told me, my boss told me, go out and get a secretary, no blacks.

And.

Yeah.

And.

And so that was, you know, that was kind of a punk moment because I went out and hired A black woman.

And actually she, she didn't do a really good job.

But, but, but, but the point was that's, you know, that's neither here nor there.

That was, that was the kind of thing and you know, it was, it was a lot of testosterone.

You know, it was the guys cold calling and, you know, throwing footballs back and forth and I don't know if you ever saw the movie Boiler Room or Wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah.

You know, it's just people with headsets pitching all day long, you know, pitching, pitching stuff that other people don't need and shouldn't need and shouldn't want.

And, and, and I think the, the punk ethos that I kind of came up with really rejected a lot of that and really pushed back against a lot of it.

Well, you've already like kind of touched upon my, my follow up question which is, you know, like punk, Punk and hardcore have been traditionally male spaces.

Kind of primarily male white spaces.

They're becoming more diverse.

But it is also kind of like that.

It seems like it's primarily a male space.

And it sounds like you made some moves to hire, you know, folks that would kind of disrupt that pattern where it's just men, men after men.

Do you, are you still able to like hire folks?

Do you have like a staff in, in your own company or is it more like a solo.

No, no.

Yeah, I'm a one man.

One man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, because I was gonna ask like, oh, you know, you get, if you get to hire, but I suppose even though you're not hiring folks for, for your, your, your business, you've, you've got, you know, a female staff writer on your zine, which is cool.

Yes.

And we may be bringing on another one.

Oh, awesome.

That's awesome.

My question is circling and back into that, within that IT culture, you know, do you feel like you get to pick and choose some of the folks that you work with for work and do values influence that decision?

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, it's, it's funny because it actually that's a great question because it does relate to Knife Twister records in that our original slogan.

And you know, it's funny, Google's original slogan was don't be evil.

Evil.

Yeah, they kind of abandoned that a.

Little bit, which is, yeah, kind of ironic given, given the misery that that company has inflicted upon the world.

And they, they did drop that kind of quietly.

But our initial slogan was we'll interview you as long as you're not dicks.

And we've more or less stuck to that.

Everybody we've, we've dealt with has been pretty chill.

But that one exception, and I, you know, I, I told them go scratch.

But yeah, no, kind of the same way in business.

I just don't want to, you know, I, I, I, life is too short to deal with.

I mean, you know, you have, you have to, even, you can't pick and choose every everything.

So I guess a question I have, you know, if, if it's all right, like Knife Twister is definitely a record label that you can tell just from a cursory glance makes an effort to be inclusive of women, of the LGBTQ community.

Is this something that you, you know, developed at a young age, like the open mindedness and willingness to support marginalized groups?

Is this something that, like, having daughters kind of influenced you towards, and, and how does that, how does that work?

How can that work benefit all of us in, in a more traditionally male space?

Yeah, good question.

Yeah, no, I, I definitely was.

I, I was, I was raised by parents who spoke their mind when they saw something that wasn't right.

And I learned that at a, at a very young age.

And, you know, you just, I don't like bullies.

You know, it's, it's not right.

And it's the kind of thing where, you know, I'll step in, I step in, I'll step in if I see something like that going on on the street.

And so, yeah, no, the natural outgrowth is really to amplify voices and not just, you know, another, another band.

Let me see.

I think we've interviewed three bands with trans Front people and Amy Harris of Bad Static.

Oh, she, she wrote another wonderful interview.

It's where I, I had a tear in my eye when I read that.

But it's not just, to me about giving marginalized people a voice to speak up about their music.

It's about giving them a voice to speak up about their experiences and to speak about what they want to talk about.

So, like, you know, I have a, I have a template that I send out when I interview people and, you know, it's a, you know, kind of a very general template that I include above the questions.

And it's your, you know, some of it is your standard sort of stuff.

You know, give us some photos and please give us the photo credits.

But I also encourage anybody I interview to add your own questions, skip any you don't want, feel free to modify them and answer in any way you want.

You know, be serious, be funny, be profane.

Go off on tangents and rants if you want.

I really want this to be their show, and I want them to be presented the way they want to be presented.

You know, if there's a band that had some acrimonious split with a band member, I'm not interested in, you know, delving into something that's going to make people uncomfortable.

I give questions that I think will be interesting, but I encourage people, and, you know, sometimes they do at their own questions or just, you know, modify them, and, you know, we're perfectly fine with that.

Yeah, I.

That.

That was an excellent, excellent, excellent sentiments, and I share those with you.

I'm.

I'm, you know, CIS white guy, you know, straight, but I have family, I have friends that are all different kinds of experience, different kinds of backgrounds.

And although I can't relate specifically to that path in life, I know how it feels to be different and to feel excluded, and I just hate that feeling so much.

The feeling of being not good enough or someone trying to make you feel not good enough and make you feel ashamed is one of the worst feelings that a person can experience.

And so I'm so.

I'm glad that there's labels like yours, you know, and venues.

We have a cool venue in Rochester called the Psychic Garden that's very supportive of LGBT youth and LGBT community.

And I think it's important to have places like that and folks like you vocalize, you know, your support, especially at a time like this, but.

Because I think after immigrants, trans people specifically.

But the LGBTQ community is, like, a primary target of the Trump administration.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's just.

It's.

It's not safe.

You know, I have.

I have trans friends, and, you know, you just have to keep your head down.

And that's why, honestly, I have a really, a huge amount of respect for the artists I've interviewed that are willing to call out the.

And say, hey, I'm a human being.

Yeah, it's.

It's.

It's wild to me that people really want to believe that folks living their authentic lives are doing it out of spite for something else, like, that they're welcoming all this, like, negative energy and hate unsolicited.

You know, I mean, like, that's really so crazy.

You.

You really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to.

To.

Logically speaking, to be able to feel that, you know, two people of the same gender getting married to each other is a threat to your way of life or is ruining your culture or, you know, sullying your Heritage or, or something like that.

I mean, it's really, I mean you really have to, have to, have to do some logical leaps of faith to get to that point.

Yeah, the mental doesn't make it.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, well, and I, and I think you kind of touched upon it in that, you know, these are human beings.

But so it's, so it's so easy on social media to reduce people to just a collection of labels and then just dismiss those labels one by one in some kind of unkind way.

But people, people are more than just a collection of labels and we forget that.

It's so easy to forget that on social media.

You see it all the time.

How many, how many times in the past year have I heard the phrase radical left lunatic?

Yeah, I couldn't even count.

I mean, talk about painting people with a broad brush.

But yeah, no, I mean it seems like anybody expressing a, you know, our, our beloved Senator Chuck Schumer who, who stands up there saying I stand with Israel and has corporate donors and as APAC donors and in any other, in any other country of the world would be a right of center politician and he gets called a radical left lunatic as if he's actually a leftist.

It's.

Yeah, it's cr.

It's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's mind boggling me to, to I think, you know, folks that have been involved and surrounded by hardcore and punk for so long that these things are radical.

You know, the caring for another human being is radical.

Like that is like the most radical thing you can do and it's deemed as something that is not okay.

Yeah.

And you know, I'm, look, I'm glad, I'm glad punk and hardcore is a big tent and that you can have bands out there that are writing songs about, you know, beer and getting laid and slicing people up with a box cutter and, and that kind of thing.

And you know, that's, that's fantastic.

It's great.

It's a big tent.

But I think, you know where, where, where punk and hardcore really shines is, is where it is making a statement when it is standing up for the marginalized.

And you know, when it's, when it's, when it's challenging authority, you know, authority that is, you know, authority is not self justifying.

You know, if, if you want to tell your kids, you know, don't drink the bleach under the sink, that's a valid use of authority, I would say.

But, but, but generally speaking, if somebody's Going to make a rule for you and, you know, you can't smoke pot, you can't marry somebody of your own gender.

I think there should be a valid reason why power shouldn't be self justifying.

And I think when I think hardcore is probably the one genre that challenges that notion the most.

Yeah, I think quite a bit about authority because I have such an aversion to it.

But I am also an authority figure at work, which makes me feel conflicted at times.

But me personally, the way I kind of resolve it and what I've settled on is I think the only authority that's actually valid is the authority that arises naturally when you make moves and make changes to alleviate actual human suffering.

Right.

I think any, any use of authority that perpetuates or increases suffering is an abuse of the authority.

And I think if we were, you know, truly allowed to live in our preferred natural state, authority would be something that is only invoked when there's a crisis, you know, for an individual or a group and, and they need, they, you know, need legitimately need support and help alleviating whatever suffering that they're going through.

Be careful.

You're starting to sound like a socialist.

Yeah, I mean, I hesitate to put labels on my own politics because I, I don't know why, but I.

That's what I, I try to tell myself when I'm in a situation at work where I've got to just like say, hey, this is how it's got to be.

Am I doing this to ultimately reduce the suffering of the, the people who use the library, the people who work at the library, you know, and I have to check at least one of those boxes.

Otherwise I feel like I'm just making moves and making changes in reality and ultimately in other people's life for my own personal comfort.

And I can live with discomfort.

Yeah.

I mean, I come from.

Similarly to you, Greg, is like, I work in service and hospitality, so it's like serving my team, serving my guests.

Like those are all, all encompassing moments that we can touch and we can have real impact in lives, you know, and it's these systems that we have over our heads, unfortunately, like, aren't always for us, the people that, you know, that we're supposed to be helping and supporting.

And that's super hard sometimes when you're in it.

Rafe?

Yeah.

Before we wrap up, I want to give you an opportunity.

Is there anything you want to speak about either with Knife Twister records or just personal experiences in life with music anyways, you know, have helped before we wrap.

Well, I was going to, let's see, I was going to mention that.

Oh, we spoke about, we spoke about pool a little bit earlier and I won't get started because I'll never stop.

But.

So the win, the, the initial formation for this record label came from the winnings from a pool tournament.

Oh, right on.

And I know this is an audio only podcast, but I, I do have this.

Black.

Yes.

First place.

That's awesome.

Congratulations.

So I walked out of there with a thousand dollars in my shoe and, and formed the LLC and bought the domain and, and, and that was it.

So, so yeah, so that's, that's how that started.

And the other thing.

Oh yeah, I was going to mention about, about the story I have.

So this is, this is a great story and I, I'd be surprised if anybody else has a, has a story quite like it.

So I was in, I was up in upstate New York, up in Binghamton where I went to college.

I love upstate New York, by the way.

And I was up there over the summer because I failed like three classes and I had to make them up.

And so a, a I was a.

Video for a song called Apple Pie by White Trash.

And you know, like, if I had sat down five minutes earlier, five minutes later, I would have missed it.

My life would be completely different.

I saw this video and it was like the greatest thing I had ever seen.

It was a pretty, you know, standard, extremely talented metal band with a three piece horn section.

And like 20 minutes later I was out at the music store buying the CD and I listened to that CD and then they put out another one three years later.

Twice a month for 30 years.

I had a poster.

There was an address in the liner notes of the CD for, you know, an address for Electric Records.

And I wrote to them, they sent me all this cool stuff and I just, I just love, I mean, White Trash, they, they.

Well, I guess they still are my favorite band.

And so four of the original members of White Trash formed a band called Butter Brain, which is a band on the compilation, I believe they are track seven.

And I became friends with them and.

Which is kind of weird, to be honest.

You know, I'm, I'm comfortable with these guys now.

But you know, maybe twice a month I'll be texting with them and I'll go back in time 30 years and I'll be like, wait a Second, I just got a text from the drummer of White Trash.

You know, it's.

It's funny when your heroes become your friends.

It was at a show.

We were hanging out after a show down at the Bowery Electric.

It was a great show.

Angela Moore from Fishbone had played with them, and he was about to produce their new album.

And so Aaron White Owl Collins was the bass player in White Trash, and now is really.

It's his band of.

On Her Brain asked me if I want to do a video for them, and I was like, oh.

So I. I wound up doing it.

I won't get into the nuts and bolts.

It was.

It was.

It was crazy.

I spent a lot of long nights.

I almost gave up a few times.

I mean, it was really a lot.

In December, he told me that Punk News had picked up the premiere on it.

Oh, cool.

So the pressure I was under, all of a sudden, it, like, doubled.

Because I'm thinking, this.

This thing is going to be on the Internet with my name on it long after I'm gone, when my kids are senior citizens.

You know, as long as the world doesn't blow up, which is starting to look kind of likely, but, you know, as long as the world doesn't blow up and YouTube still exists, this thing's going to be on there with my name forever.

Right.

And I'm like, oh, my God, you know, And I'm.

Every microsecond of the video I'm analyzing, and then finally I reached the point where it's just like, all right, I'm done.

And.

And I was done.

And I subsequently realized I made a few huge mistakes.

Showed a few clips twice.

I forgot the filtering on one of them.

These are mistakes only I would notice.

Nobody else would.

But anyway, the.

The.

The.

To kind of wrap up that story, I watched a video that changed my life, and 34 years later, I got to direct a video for three of those guys, which is.

I don't know.

It's a crazy story.

Well, hopefully.

Hopefully some kid sees that video and it changes their life.

And, you know, 34 years from now, they're.

They're going to do.

Do something with that memory.

Yeah, actually, you know, I hadn't.

I'd never thought of that.

But that's.

That's a fantastic way to look at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The cycle that exists.

Yeah.

It is up to 7,700 views, so.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So tell folks where you.

They can go to Check out Knife Twister records.

You know what social medias you got.

What website?

What's your website address?

Well, okay, so we can start with Instagram.

Because as much as I a tech guy, as much as I dislike social media, there's just no way.

Or.

Yeah, there's no way around.

You gotta do it.

You gotta pay the devil's due.

Yeah, there's no way around it.

So it's Knife Twister Records.

Unsurprisingly enough, that's what the Instagram is.

The website is www.knifetwisterrecords.com.

and then you can see everything that's up there.

The team and our values and then the about us.

If you want to just go straight to the interviews, you could just go to knife twister magazine.com.

they were offering a two for one on domain.

So.

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Keep it simple.

No Tick Tock, no Snapchat?

What else is there?

No Grinder.

We don't have any other social media.

That's basically it.

Yeah, just our website.

We do have a YouTube channel.

There you go.

It's got more view.

It's got a lot of viewers subscribers actually, because it used to be a lock picking channel that I had and then YouTube took them all down at some point.

But I still have some straggling.

Oh, weird subscribers.

I know there's that guy on the Internet, the lock picking lawyer who like picks locks with giant magnets.

Oh yeah.

No, I've never seen video or something.

Yeah, it was very arbitrary.

They just, they just kind of took them down at some point.

Well, the one thing that.

Were you the lock picker?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

So that's probably a whole podcast in itself.

But one thing, I've watched a fair amount of lock picking videos.

I don't know why.

I've watched a lot of videos of hydraulic presses crushing things.

Also don't know why.

It's just one of those things that's on, you know, like those videos, they're.

Just on the Internet.

Oh my God.

This is interesting.

I get sucked into the safe opening.

Videos like that, they can't unlock that.

They have to like smash and pry open happen.

Oh yeah, yeah, because it might be.

I'll send you, I'll send you guys a good one.

I did a commercial grade padlock in under two seconds.

Wow.

Those videos reveal that like most of those padlocks that you get, like they're not really going to protect anything.

Like they're pretty.

They're pretty.

If someone really wants to get in, they're going to get in and they're going to get in quickly.

Yes, yes.

Honestly, the.

If you, if you're talking about.

Well, you know, if somebody, somebody's got a bone saw, they're just going to cut through anything.

But if you, if you're talking about picking locks, also, those ACE locks are the hardest, which are like the bicycle locks.

I was going to ask you, what is your, what is your.

As a professional lock picker.

Yeah.

What's your recommendation for bike lock?

Oh, the, the, the ace locks, also called tubular locks.

So they've got that kind of circle with the notch.

They're the same ones that vending machines.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I know the ones you're talking about.

Yeah, forget it.

Those are, those are, those are damn near unpickable.

But, you know, anything that's got your standard sort of key that looks like your house key, you know, with the basic notches, you know, it's, it's, it's basically just four or five pins.

Yeah.

You put that you're pushing up with and you're turning a little tension wrench.

And you know, people, you know, if you get locked out and you call a locksmith.

Yeah.

Most of the time he's going to pick the lock.

But if you are, you know, if you have a nice bicycle and you're parking it in the city, nine times out of 11 they're just going to cut through.

Yeah.

Lock picking, it's more of an art than any anything practical.

Fair.

That is fair.

Common Thread is co hosted by Greg Benoit and Rory Van Grohl with creative support from Rob Antonucci.

Follow us on Instagram at Common Thread hxcpodcast.

For news and updates, contact us at commonthreadhxcpodcastmail.com Common Thread is a part of the Lunchadore podcast network.

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