#especially when we've so recently heard the same concept done so well

[jakeperalta]

tbh if i was taylor i would've taken imgonnagetyouback off the album once olivia rodrigo did it first (and better) with get him back

[greensparty]

Talking with Pete Stahl

I feel like after this year, I should publish a book about punk rock legends! Earlier this year I got to interview Glen Matlock and then Exene Cervenka, both of whom did legendary work decades ago and are still doing some great work today. Same can be said for Pete Stahl, singer with D.C. hardcore punk veterans Scream. In addition to his work with Scream, he has been a part of Wool, Earthlings?, and Goatsnake. But last month, Pete and Scream released their first album in over thirty years. I got to review DC Special and I gave it 4 out of 5 stars (check it out). I recently caught up with Mr. Stahl via zoom where he actually showed me his home in the California desert (I was jealous based on the Northeast weather) and we talked about the new Scream album, the current tour and more.

Pete Stahl...and a dog

Me: Let's talk about the new Scream album DC Special. It's the first new album in 30 years, technically more than that, but first to be released in 30 years. How did this new album come about?

PS: Well, we'd been wanting to do a new record for quite some time, but because we're all over the country and everyone's involved with their day to day lives with work and family, it's so difficult. We get together and play shows occasionally and little short tours. But we just hadn't been able to do a proper recording session. We planned on it around 2015-2017, but our last EP came out in 2011 and we never got around to a new one and then the pandemic happened. It was during the pandemic that I heard that the studio was closing[Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA], so I thought, man we need to get back in there. We had all begun working on the record remotely and having written songs and we booked some dates there in September of 2021. Then I had a concept but I couldn't quite wrap my head around it, so I made like a vision book and shared it with my band and with people we wanted to collaborate on this album with. We wanted to celebrate our town and our band's story through the record and everything that kind of shaped us. Something that spoke to the past but was about now and then and moving forward. So it was the studio closing that lit a fire under our ass and we went in there and did it.

DC Special album cover

Me: After the album was recorded, drummer Kent Stax passed away in September. Sorry for you and your bandmates' loss.

PS: It's trippy, because we had been in a band for over 40 years together. Kent left for a few years to raise his family. Other than that, we've always been in a band. Enoch [bassist Skeeter Thompson] has known Kent since he was in second grade. My brother [guitarist Franz Stahl] has known him since after elementary school. I met Kent in my early 20s when we first formed the band. We're a tight knit family even though we go years without hanging, you know how it is, you just pick up right where you left off. So it's trippy especially to have this record come out that he is a big part of. The core of that record is me, Franz, Enoch and Kent. So it's really bittersweet to carry on, but it's also awesome to have this document of us one last time with him - thank God because he's a really great drummer. But it's great to be able to travel around, have people hear the record and now that he's passed away he's still alive though the music.

Kent Stax

Scream circa late 80s with Thompson, Franz, young Dave Grohl, and Pete

Me: Yes, it feels like this beautiful full circle moment for the band that you had one last album with original drummer Kent Stax and you also have a guest appearance from Stax's replacement Dave Grohl as well [NOTE: Grohl joined Scream in 1986 as a teenager and was with them until their 1990 breakup just before he joined Nirvana].

PS: Yeah a lot of people came to hang out at the recording studio. Dave had done a television episode [of Sonic Highways] about that studio. That studio is really important to a lot of people. Dave, of course, is a past member of the band, and I reached out to him. I reached out to Harley Robert Davidson, who had been with us for a number of years. But people like Harley didn't make it, but Dave kind of surprised us by showing up at the last minute and then he spent a few days there. But a lot of people came out of the woodwork because we were there and because they knew it was the last time there. So Dave came and hanged, but he really just played percussion on one song. I wished we had gotten a song with him on drums but we Just kind of ran out of time. But that is true that we got both of those drummers on the same record which is great.

We also got Scott Garrett on the record too, he's a drummer we played with last Summer. He's an old friend of ours, he played in Dag Nasty for a while. Also Jerry Busher plays on the record, a lot of people might know he was in Fidelity Jones and he was with Fugazi. That's who is playing with us now. We just finished this whole Side Scream Tour up and down the West Coast and we'll continue on to the East Coast in December. TheN hopefully we'll take it to Europe. We also have Derrick Decker on the record too, who the previous Summer we went to Europe and did some shows in Poland and a show in Prague, and Derrick played with us on that tour. That was just a few months after Kent was diagnosed. But he was already starting to go through chemo. We had always planned on doing these shows with Kent and we always hoped he'd get through the treatment and bounce back and had glimmers of hope through this process and I'm sure a lot of people who had family or friends who have gone through cancer know that cycle.

So all those drummers are on that. There's also this drummer Mark Cisneros, who actually plays bass on the record too. People might know him from the Hammered Hulls, but he's really a multi-instrumentalist. Great musician, plays with a lot of different bands. There's a lot of great drummers on this! We've been blessed as a band to have had two of the greatest drummers that ever came out. I can't tell you how great as a drummer Kent Stax was. Maybe someday you'll interview Dave Grohl sometime [NOTE: I would love that] but he will tell you about Kent's finesse. He came from a background of marching cymbals and a love of jazz and different styles. He taught me a lot about drums. I learned so much from him and I really miss him. I want to honor him by talking about him and keeping him close by playing his music. I think that's what he would want. He had a trio in town and he'd play with them every week, right up until he couldn't stand anymore. He was a working man musician.

Me: Since Scream's initial break up in 1990, you and Dave Grohl have overlapped on numerous projects. You mentioned the episode of Sonic Highways, but Grohl played with your band Earthlings?, you were both in the Teenage Time Killers, you sang with Foo Fighters on their Sonic Highways album, and just earlier this year you joined them at Atlantis in D.C. Not to mention Scream's EP Complete Control Recording Sessions was recorded at Grohl's 606 Studio. Grohl, himself, has spoken very fondly about Scream and how his experience in the band paved the way for everything that came after. Could there be another collaboration with Dave Grohl sometime soon?

PS: You know, he has become such a huge force in music. He's very busy, I can't even imagine all of the things that he does. You know, I don't know. You never know what will happen, but I hope so. I like playing with him. Everyone does [laughs], it's kind of a running joke, like you saw Lionel Ritchie playing "Easy" and this guitar solo as Dave walks on. He does a damn solo for that song and he does it perfectly, of course.

I mean that's what we need to do as people is help each other out when you have the opportunity to. He has his 606 Studio and gave us the opportunity to go in there and record. I'm glad we had that opportunity and I'll jump at any opportunity to play with Dave. I've been so lucky in my life and my brother's life to be able to play with a wide variety of musicians that are just amazing. When Scream ended around that time, when Dave joined Nirvana and Franz and I decided to stay in L.A. and start a new band - it really opened up a new chapter in our lives and also musically we fell into a new music community in Los Angeles. There was this whole group of friends who became our community who we played with. I met a few people I'm still friends with and work with, like L7 I work with them and they are dear friends of mine.

Pete singing with Foo Fighters at Atlantis in May 2023

Me: You were actually a featured interviewee in my friend Scott Crawford's documentary Salad Days about the D.C. punk scene in the 80s. One of the big themes of that doc is how the Reagan administration inspired so much rebellion at that time. Based on the state of the world right now, what do you think is punk music's place in commenting on all of the injustices that we're seeing right now?

PS: Well that hasn't changed. I think we as individuals have a responsibility and especially if you have a platform like being in a band to incorporate your point of view in what you're doing - it's just how you do things and when it's appropriate, but it's crucial to us to speak power through storytelling and songwriting. That's what we do as a band. Everyone has their own approach to things.

As far as punk rock it's always been about being an individual and nonconformity. But also in a wider sense also speaking against injustice and the powers that be that control systems that we all have to live in and work in. So addressing politics has always been a big part of Scream in our consciousness and we live it. We all run into it all the time. We continue to try to find ways to get my point of view out there. I always try to write a little bit of tongue in cheek or a little bit of humor through stories. But I think it's a responsibility that we as people have to teach each other and help each other. That's when the perfect storm happens when you're doing a show, because we're looking at you, you're all looking at us. We're singing to you, you're all screaming back at us!

Lyrically every album we have has political moments, because we're living through moments in time that are important to sing about, speak about and reflect upon. We're living through this transformation with what's happening with social media, the fragmentation of our culture and the polarization of our culture, the massive swing to the right in politics that's happening, what's happening in Israel and Gaza. These are moments in time that we are all living in together. And we're so caught up with our phones and our tablets and computers, but there's all this stuff going on around us that can be overwhelming and I think that's why some people don't deal with it. But these are all really important things that affect so many different people. As a band like Scream it's important to communicate to the people around us. There's all kind of injustices going on in the world and we need to figure out ways to work together, live together and progress as a society.

Me: You mentioned Scream is going on a tour, including Deep Cuts in Medford, MA on December 9. Tell me about playing these songs with Franz and Enoch again.

PS: Well we never stopped even when we were in Wool or other bands, we'd still get together especially when we'd all go back home to the D.C. area. My Mom still lives there. A lot of us still have family still there. So we would go there and maybe play the occasional show. We're always struggling to find that thing. That's the problem when you have drummers like Kent and Dave, now with Kent gone we have to start over. So we're kind of going through that process right now, playing with different drummers right now. Jerry has been amazing and we're really looking forward to playing with him.

I wish we had more time, we're all older now. We used to practice three or four times a week. We all lived in the same house - it was a whole different kind of thing. Now we just kind of get together when we can, rehearse for three or four days real quickly, and then go play a show. Because we can't really afford to play much more than that. It's really hard to do justice to the things you want to do, but we just go for it and put everything we have into it. And hopefully you come see us on a good night. [laughs]

Me: In addition to Scream, you've kept very busy with a number of bands including Wool and Goatsnake, you've also been and are a tour manager as well. In addition to this new Scream album and tour, do you have additional musical endeavors coming up, solo or side projects?

PS: I've always played around with that. I've always had songs that don't seem to fit with the bands I'm in. So yeah - I have a group of songs that I don't know if I'd ever have a chance to put it all together. Right now I'm working on a project right here in Joshua Tree called the Rancho, it's the 30th anniversary of the studio. There's a project being put together by Dave Catching and Paul Frasier, celebrating that studio and its impact on music. So a lot of people are coming out who have recorded here over the years. A really cool mix mosh of people playing together. That project will ultimately be a record, a film and a concert. Other than that, I've been talking to some other people about doing stuff. So we'll see what happens!

For info on Scream

For tickets and info for Scream's show at Deep Cuts on Dec. 9, 2023