You never graduated high school, but it all
worked out pretty well for you, eh?
“I know, right! I’ve actually just been invited
to my high school’s 30-year reunion, but
unfortunately I’m gonna miss it. I did go to the
20th anniversary, though, which was a lot of fun.
You don’t actually realise how many people
you’ve lost touch with until you see them again,
all in one place. And because the people who
go to those kinds of things tend to be in a
good place in their lives, they’re usually happy
occasions. I had a great time.”What were your musical awakenings?
“I was lucky because I had older brothers who
had record collections. So my older brother
Mike would play The Beatles and the Stones,
and in the mid ‘70s I started getting into
KISS, and then Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin,
Aerosmith, Iron Maiden and the Scorpions. So
that’s what I grew up listening to. But oddly,
the big one for me was [Finnish rockers] Hanoi
Rocks, who I actually think I heard about in
Kerrang!. They were the game-changer.”So you were a suburban heavy-
metal-parking-lot kind of kid?
“Oh, definitely. One hundred per cent.”How did punk rock make its way into
the mix?
“Well, punk rock came my way in
junior high. I started hanging out with a
different group of kids, some of whom
I’m still pretty good friends with. We
started skateboarding and I remember
hearing Black Flag’s My War at my buddy
Luke’s house. To a rock kid like me, this
seemed pretty exotic. And from that
I got turned on to Social Distortion, JFA
[Jodie Foster’s Army], the Descendents,
Agent Orange. But at the time it seemed
like punk rock was this thing that I’d
missed, because until Bad Religion
released Suffer [in 1988] the scene was
kind of dead. So I was never really a
‘punk’, as such.”And yet punk rock was the first type of
music for which you were known...
“Yeah. It’s funny ‘cause NOFX actually
used to live in Santa Barbara for a while,
and the first time I played in a club was
with this band Legion Of Doom that
I was in. The bill also included Rat Pack,
another local punk band, NOFX – who weren’t
even headlining – and a Venice band called
Excel. And I had a great time during those
years. We would go down to LA all the time and
see all these bands who would become famous
but hadn’t yet even got record deals.”It’s been reported that around this time you
faced the choice of either music or playing
football. Is this actually true?
“Not at all! I don’t know who started the
rumour that I could have been a professional
soccer player, but it’s simply not true. I’m such a
shit footballer. I mean, I love to play, but anyone
who’s seen me in action would laugh out loud
at the idea that I could have been a professional
player. But I did get to play with [Iron Maiden
bassist] Steve Harris, and he is great.”The first ‘proper’ band you joined was No Use
For A Name. How did that come about?
“After school I moved to LA and found that the
rock’n’roll scene had fucking died. At a certain
point a friend of mine helped me get a job at[punk label] Fat Wreck Chords, which is owned
by [NOFX’s] Fat Mike. So I’d been working there
for a few weeks when No Use For A Name
walked in, talking about how their guitar player
had quit. They were literally going on tour the
next week. They were asking if anyone knew
a guitar player, and I bit my tongue because
I didn’t want Fatty to get mad at me. I’d only
just got the job there. But when they left, he
came over and told me that I should go play
with them. So I learned a bunch of their songs
and went and auditioned. It was actually very
similar to when I joined the Foo Fighters –
I played with them and then more or less
immediately left to go on tour.”What are your memories of touring at the DIY
end of the market?
“For years, I’d heard about punk rock squats
from bands that had toured in Europe, so
I knew how great the scene was. But my first
tour with No Use For A Name came after
they’d kind of had a small radio hit. This wasthe beginning of 1995 when major labels
were signing punk rock bands because of the
success of Green Day and The Offspring. So
their success was what got me my job, and
then I was on the road with them. But the
tour was a month of dates, half of which were
radio festivals; so we’d be playing at noon in
these 20-seat sheds that only had a couple of
hundred people in them at the time that we
were onstage. And then in between those we’d
play a club date. We were touring in a van, a
Ford Econoline, which they actually don’t make
anymore. But I remember I brought along, like,
three pairs of shoes, several jackets and a ton of
stuff. I quickly realised that you’ve got to pack
light. There’s not a lot of room in a van.”Not exactly two nights at Wembley Stadium
with the Foo Fighters, then?
“No! And then the second tour I did was the
first Warped Tour, which was a disaster. It was so
badly organised and no-one came. But we were
on a tour bus, so that was a change. But we
shared it with L7 and a bunch of skaters. Everyinch of space was occupied, but I loved those
early tours because everyone is so open. I was,
like, ‘Hey, I can’t believe I’m in Buffalo! This
is amazing!’”When you were playing in No Use For A
Name, did you always have your eyes on a
bigger prize?
“No, not at all. For one thing, we didn’t run
like a normal band. Tony [Sly], the singer, who
is dead now, had a severe fear of flying, so we
didn’t go to all of the countries that we could
have done. We’d get off tour and he wouldn’t
want to do anything for the next six months. So
when I ran out of money, I’d have to get a job
delivering pizzas. I also enrolled in city college
‘cause I hadn’t graduated high school, which
was something I wanted to do. Punk rock was
changing and our scene was kind of fizzling out,
so I thought that maybe my time in music had
come to an end. I’d made a couple of records
and I’d been to Buffalo – what more could I
want? So when the Foo Fighters came along, it
really did come up out of the blue.”How, exactly?
“In the summer of ’99 I had a
conversation with a buddy of mine
who was connected, about how the
guitarist in the Foo Fighters had
quit. I asked him if he could get
me an audition, ‘cause he knows
everyone. So a couple of months go
by and I get a phone call from our
tour manager, who’s still our tour
manager, saying, ‘Hey, this is Gus
from the Foo Fighters. We’re having
auditions in LA, why don’t you come
down and try out?’ And I’m, like,
‘Excuse me?’ Despite having just
made a new record with No Use
For A Name, of course I jumped at
the chance. I went home and for a
week straight I woodshedded Foo
Fighters songs in my bedroom,
before I went and auditioned.
I was living in San Francisco at the
time, so I went back and played the
songs for another week, and then
I went back and played with them
for a second time, and I got the gig.
I then went home for, like, a day,
grabbed my clothes and headed
out on tour.”Was that as big a change as it seems from the
outside looking in?
“Yeah, totally; it was completely radical. It
was such a different level, and such a radically
different organisation. It was a really well-oiled
machine. Everything about it was so different.
Plus, I didn’t know the guys. They were just
about to put out the third record [1999’s There
Is Nothing Left To Lose], which of course
I hadn’t played on, so I joined for what we
lovingly refer to as a promo tour, where you
do interviews all day long. And I had nothing
to add because I was brand new. So I sat there
and listened to those guys talk in hotel rooms
all over the world for a month. And then we’d
play weird little club shows, but that was all. This
went on for quite a while. Every single night I’d
be going out for dinner with important people
from the record label, staying in a much nicer
class of hotel, and flying in a much nicer style –
everything was different. Not only that; at shows
I’d hand my guitar to this guy [a technician] and
I didn’t have to tune it, or set my amp up. It was
fucking nuts. But I was the guy in No Use For AKERRANG! 43Don’t cross the
riff streams!
GETTYKELLY DUNN