Hell Bent

Time for the Vans Warped Tour. 

And as the annual music festival makes the first stop of its nationwide journey at the Fairplex in Pomona, you and the those rowdy young pup punkers in attendance won’t be the only “teens” present in the pit. The tour itself, which has become a SoCal institution, turns 15 years old this year, marking the traveling punk circus’ evolution from DIY start-up to corporate-backed rite of passage.

Tour founder (as well as the mastermind behind Warped’s screamo spin-off Taste of Chaos tour and its metal-minded sibling, the Mayhem Fest) Kevin Lyman reminisced with the Weekly recently regarding Warped’s more-than-modest beginnings. At the same time, the gnarled punk vets on this year’s roster help to celebrate 15 years of live music, skate and punk culture and extreme sports by reminding us that they’re old-school-ier than thou.

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Warped didn’t start out as a tour. It was just sort of thrown together.

“Back in 1995, I was ready to give up and be a teacher,” says 48-year-old Lyman, who is from Claremont and attended Cal Poly Pomona.

“While at school in Pomona, I started to get turned on to the L.A. music scene and eventually I got hooked up with Goldenvoice, and worked shows for them for 12 years, sometimes 2 gigs a day,” he recalls.

“I just ended up doing a tour for fun, with a bunch of bands we knew; we brought out a half pipe for the skaters, and had bands like Sublime and No Doubt,” Lyman says. “But it was just the ‘Warped Tour’ not the ‘Vans Warped Tour’ at that time,” he said. 

Lyman said that after the first year, he barely broke even, but still opted to continue the tour due to his contacts in the local music scene, the skating industry and music business.  

“I barely got past the first year and I was broke,” he remembers. “Then, after meeting with Vans, they wanted me to help them with their skating contests so we threw together the ‘Vans Warped Tour.’”  

Although it is oriented around a stratified bedrock of punk music, the festival stands out for its diverse roster of artists, which includes various genres such as metal, ska, hardcore, rockabilly and even hip-hop. This year, punk rock icons NOFX and Bad Religion will headline the all-day music juggernaut, each playing 40-minute sets.

Lyman  is indeed a fan of punk rock, both old and new, but he has an open ear for music of all styles. “I listen to all kinds of music, really, and now more than ever the tour is more reflective of that,” he says. 

“The Warped Tour lineup is pretty diverse and we’ve got bands ranging from ska, electronica and even funk/soul,” Lyman says. 

This year, sprinkled among the punk packs, fans will get an earful of variety, with bands like ska favorites Big D and the Kids Table, the ’70s funk and ’80s pop sounds of Cash Cash and even electronica DJ/MySpace model/gender-bender Jeffree Star. 

Longhairs are also represented at the fest with acts like the young, heavily Iron Maiden-influenced Black Tide, and Underoath, a metallic Christian-core band from Florida that has made several Warped appearances.  

“We are just excited and amazed it’s been 15 years,” comments Underoath lead singer Spencer Chamberlain. “It really is a great tour, it will be lots of fun and we look forward to seeing our fans and friends on the road.”

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A highlight of this year’s show will be the Old School Stage, which showcases some of the early practitioners of punk’s nascent years—some who were bashing out their first chords before some tour-goers had outgrown their Hot Topic onesies. From TSOL and the Dickies, to the Adolescents and D.I., the Old School Stage will be pretty, well, old school.

“The Old School Stage is something I created,” Lyman says. “It’s good because we can tie the roots of where this all came from and show kids the first generation of punk bands.”

“Its kinda fun for me to be able to get these bands on our tour. A lot of these bands were playing before a lot of the kids at the shows were even born.”

Arguably, The Dickies are among the oldest surviving punk bands to emerge from the L.A. scene—and the band is still playing and making new music. From the band’s inception in 1977 in the San Fernando Valley, the Dickies distinguished themselves for their witty, humorous blend of harmonies, and angst-ridden three-chord aggression done in an upbeat fashion. It is said that the band mixed the sounds of The Ramones with L.A. hardcore influences. 

“We’re among the only original punk bands in L.A. left,” says guitarist “Lil” Dave Teague, who joined the band 15 years ago. “What happened with the Dickies, the history of it all, just went so fast. [The band] signed to a major label, at the same time as the underground L.A. hardcore scene was coming up, with bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks.”

Teague said that many of the more aggressive and nihilistic bands of the early to mid ’80s looked down on the Dickies because of their major label deal.

“But, hey, it’s all good,” Teague says. “For them, it was all about DIY, but the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Blondie—they were all on major labels at the time too.”

With age comes wisdom, but that old school punk rock spirit never dies, says founding Dickies member and guitarist Stan Lee. And sometimes the simple things are what end up immortalized.

“I think the reason our music has endured over the years is because we have some catchy tunes that have a lot of harmonies as well.”

Lee admits the band was clueless regarding how influential and important fans and a future generation of bands would regard the Dickies.

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Casey Royer just might be the most underrated punk rock icon of the late ’70s/early ’80s L.A. scene, and he’s still going strong with his band, underground fave D.I.

Royer’s cred is based on his years writing and performing for two essential punk bands, Social Distortion and the Adolescents—aside from D.I. of course.

“I’m not a rich guy,” says Royer. “But in punk rock I’m a household name because I persevered through the years. I’ve seen 30 years of punk, and in  ’77 I invented Social Distortion.”

“Then a few years later I went on to play with the Adolescents. And let me tell you, that L.A. hardcore scene was more violent, intense, crazy and full of drugs.”

Royer laid out the true philosophy behind punk rock.

“What we were doing back then was an outlet for expression and angst against government, our parents and authority.”

“I think all the stuff we said back in the day is pertinent with what’s happening in society today,” he says. “The masses of people are being taken advantage of by an authoritarian government and bureaucratic manipulation—really it’s just insanity.”

Royer says he’s lucky to have lived the punk lifestyle and still remain relatively healthy 30 years later: “[Fear guitarist] Lee Ving is 61, I’m 50, so in 10 years I’ll probably be doing the same thing.”

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Yet another punk veteran playing this year’s tour is TSOL, a staple of the early L.A./OC punk scene. The band has played the tour about three other times, original lead singer Jack Grisham says.

“I’m sure [the Old School Stage] will be off in the corner somewhere, where half the people can’t even find it or see where we’re playing,” Grisham jokes. “But really, I’m always stoked seeing friends we know, we’ve know many of the bands and we can’t wait to play for the fans.”

Punk is less about a style of music and more about an attitude, Grisham says.

“I know it sounds like a cliché, but really, nowadays, there are guys that are commercial musicians that make punk rock-sounding songs for soft drink commercials.”

“The early punks were out of control, artistic, crazy and fun,” he says. “The minute it becomes a job is when you cease being a punk. A true punk is someone irresponsible and creative, who destroys themselves; van Gogh was a punk.”

Though they are not on the Old School Stage, headliners Bad Religion definitely have paid their old school dues and earned the respect of their peers. 

Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman chimes in, “I can speak on behalf of the band and say that we’re all proud and honored to be part of this traveling circus. As far as the Old School Stage, it will be great, because for younger kids it’s good to be exposed to the roots of their current bands.”

Fans can expect the band to play a wide mix of old favorites and new songs when Bad Religion take the stage. “We have 40 minutes this year to play, and there are so many songs in our catalog, but we are capable of mixing up our set list so it should be fun,” Wackerman says.

Warped shows at the Fairplex can get ferociously hot so, as with any all-day outdoor summer fest, drink lots of water, wear sunscreen, limit your intake of alcohol (if that’s even possible) and party—and dress—responsibly.

“We definitely want all our fans to come out and say ‘What’s up’ to us at these shows,” Grisham says. “But leave your leather jacket at home.”

Vans Warped Tour at Pomona Fairplex, Fri., June 26, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona, (909) 623-3111; www.fairplex.com, www.warpedtour.com. 11AM-8:30PM. $33.