Ripping yet thoughtful hardcore. That's the way I would describe Count Me Out's musical approach.
The Richmond, Virginia band's pair of studio albums—110 (2000) and Permanent (2002)—get as much play at No Echo HQ, aka my house in sunny Sherman Oaks, California, as they did when they originally came out. Speedy. Moshy. Urgent. You can't go wrong with Count Me Out.
How could I have done 2000s Hardcore Week without a Count Me Out piece? I interviewed vocalist Jason Mazzola to get that mission done.
Tell me a bit about your upbringing. Where were you raised?
My Dad was in the military so we moved around a lot when I was younger. I was born in California and we lived in San Diego, Tucson, San Antonio, maybe some more moves in there but I can’t remember. I was in Colorado for middle school and my first year of high school, Alabama for one year and then Alexandria, Virginia outside of DC where I finished my junior and senior years of high school.
With your dad being a military guy, were your parents strict?
My parents were great. Not too strict but wouldn’t let us run too wild. I just wanted to skate all day and night so I would spend a lot of time doing that. I never really got into too much trouble, just skated a lot and the trouble that goes a long with that.
Was skateboarding your entryway to discovering hardcore?
Oh yes! I can’t stress enough how important skate videos and their soundtracks were for exposing me to punk which led me to hardcore. Hearing Descendents, Dinosaur Jr., Misfits in those videos and seeing the artwork for bands in the back of Thrasher in the shirt ads was very formative. Looking at The Crimson Ghost, Dead Kennedys, and The Cramps logos I couldn’t help but love punk just based off the art.
A friend in middle school played me Joy Division, LARD, 7 Seconds, Dead Milkmen, and Minor Threat. I heard Gorilla Biscuits a bit after that but didn’t get into true hardcore until moving to Virginia in 1992. Peter Tsouras from Be Well went to my high school and took me to my first show. I was handed down a dubbed mix tape of the 'Rebuilding' compilation with BURN, No Escape, and Turning Point at some point and I think Worlds Collide was on the other side. It was all over after that.
I’m pretty sure Peter’s friend loaned me that tape, but Peter was the source. You had to know someone to hear hardcore back then, it was a different time. There was a lot more gate keeping before you could get your hands on a tape like that.
What were some of the hardcore bands that you saw during that early period? Did you find your local scene to be welcoming to you as a young kid getting into it?
DC, it’s hard to say. People would say hello if they recognized you but shows were intimidating and fights would happen a lot. There were just as many close calls to being jumped over bumping into the wrong person as there were to people saying hello.
My first show was Resurrection, Lifetime, and Grip from Richmond. 4 Walls Falling, I think, was my second show in DC and I still love them. Outspoken, Battery, 108, Mouthpiece, Unbroken, Integrity, and Jasta 14 were all bands I loved and was lucky to see when I did. I just loved the energy of shows at that time when it was all new and exciting. Mouthpiece shows in DC were always the best.
At what point did you claim straight edge and what were the circumstances around it? Were most of your friends straight edge back then?
At 18, I moved out of my parents' house and moved outside of Dallas for a year and I missed DC and shows and being closer to hardcore so I decided to be straight edge. This is embarrassing now but I would smoke in high school. Not drink really but just smoke cigarettes. I thought I need to quit smoking and be straight edge. So that’s what I did.
I had a tape of Project X I would play over and over back then. I loved how straight edge seemed to be intertwined with hardcore and I never liked drinking anyways but always liked hanging out. My friends I skated with were not straight edge at that time and if they were they didn’t want to label themselves. I didn’t really find straight edge friends until moving to Richmond around 1997.
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Tell me about the formation of Count Me Out. Were you guys already friends from the hardcore scene in Richmond? There’s that Time Flies connection. Also, tell me a bit about the influences that informed the songwriting/ethos during that early stage of the band.
We became friends at VCU here in Richmond. We would hang out on campus, eat lunch and dinner together, skate together and all hang around a central spot here called Schafer Court. They did shows at Schafer Court from time to time. Fugazi, Rocket From the Crypt, Biz Markie, and Jets to Brazil all played there. I really got along with Charlie Flexon and Garth Petrie and their taste was very Youth Crew-influenced at the time like mine.
Richmond was more of a 25 ta Life, Madball city which I did like but I loved Fastbreak, Ten Yard Fight, Floorpunch, and all the bands that influenced them: Youth of Today, Judge, and of course, Chain.
Early on, I think the direction was more Atari or Fastbreak-influenced we just didn’t know what we were doing. We just wanted to be a straight edge band and to play fast. In my mind I always wanted to be where we ended up. Harsh, melodic hardcore.
The Time Flies connection happened a little bit later. They were from Virginia Beach a couple hours from here. Time Flies I looked up to so much. They wrote amazing songs and I would see them as much as I could when they played.
The Teamwork 7” songs I especially loved. Charlie, who played bass for us joined up with them on bass after we did the EP and then eventually Colin from Time Flies started playing with CMO on drums when he moved to Richmond so Pete could move to guitar. That was around 2000 after [Count Me Out's debut album] 110 was released.
Time Flies were absolutely an inspiration and our brother band. We shared members as fill-ins when it was needed so we could make tours happen. Kurtis who sang for them played with us on a West Coast tour and Curtis Williams played guitar with us for a full US tour. There was even a Richmond show Kurt broke down on the way to or for some reason couldn’t make it to so I sang for them.
You mentioned 25 ta Life being popular there at the time, so how would you describe the Richmond hardcore scene during the time that Count Me Out started?
Richmond at the time was just a very tough city, musically everyone was more into beat down and just moshing hard and we didn’t fit into that. Virginia Beach had Bladecrasher and Time Flies and I felt way more connected to those bands.
There wasn’t really DIY in touch kids booking shows here out of love for the bands yet it was more of a local club that was our CBGB’s called Twisters booking shows through their owner.
What were some of the band’s first shows like? Did you feel that the local scene got behind you from the start?
There were some people that got behind the demo for sure. We had people sing along at I think the second show so that felt great but at the time we didn’t really fit in with what was happening locally all the way.
We would play at house shows and did things that were considered more on the punkish side when we first started just playing with friends bands. After a bit, we just naturally fell into a path where shows were being booked by friends and we naturally formed our own kind of circle with them. After we caught on, then we were asked to play with more touring bands when they came through.
How do you feel about the two Count Me Out demos? Did you feel comfortable in the vocal booth or did that come later as you got more recording experience?
Oh man, the first one I am not proud of which is really the only true demo we had. I think the sincerity of the lyrics is cringe but hey that’s hardcore sometimes. There’s also something beautiful about that. Not having anything in life to focus on but your love for hardcore.
I didn’t really find my voice until later. The 110 demos that Dave Mandel released for United Blood, that session just didn’t feel right. It felt off. There was something missing in the comfort level and intensity on that one and I hated it.
A friend of Garth’s was apprenticing at a studio and recorded that for us. It just wasn’t us but something cool as a novelty to have archived for the reunion shows we played.
That brings us to the Few and Far Between 7” that you recorded with Brian McTernan behind the boards.
That release I was proud of. I thought that my voice got to almost where it needed to be and having Brian work with us was validating and just working with him encouraged us to do our best in the studio. He had already done Texas Is the Reason, Ten Yard Fight, and Time Files. We were all amped to work with him and just in general our friends were excited.
For the backups I think we had 20 people in the studio. I was very happy with the song What We Built when we recorded that one. That’s where I could see where we were going.
READ MORE: 2021 interview with Brian McTernan (Battery, Ashes, Miltown, Be Well, Producer)
Few and Far Between was released by Ambassador Records, a label owned by Chain of Strength’s Ryan Hoffman. That must have been a big deal for you guys since you were big fans of that band. How did you connect with him, and what do you remember about the reception the record was met with when it initially came out?
That was huge to me. Ambassador put out Circle Storm and Statue and I loved those releases. Ambassador was Ryan Hoffman and Steve Hertz (Frosty’s brother, sorry Steve it’s for context). We met Steve on tour with his band Collision also on Ambassador and I think we sent them the record after we recorded it and they agreed to put it out.
I just remember reading the e-mail saying they would do it and being so pumped. We were really all about West Coast hardcore, and Chain specifically, so that was a big deal to us. The response was good on that release.
There was a local record store called Soundhole and they had a dry erase board for top sales and the week they got in the CD we were number one above some pretty big named bands, that was probably 10 people that bought it that week but that was awesome to see (laughs). It was an exciting time.
Count Me Out was on the bill in DC for No Justice’s infamous last show. What do you remember about that gig? Mouthpiece also played but the No Justice video footage is what is definitely most talked about all these years later.
I remember watching from behind the stage and thinking how are they going to finish the set it was one song in and the drums were gone. I don’t actually know how they got them back haha it was an awesome set. It was definitely authentic and magical.
Timmy is the best front person I’ve ever seen on stage. Complete abandonment but not in a check me out way just real. We had a good set but just normal show good.
The flyer for that show drawn up by Linas Garsys turned into the artwork for a Shelter release, The Purpose, The Passion, and there was a show poster Linas also did that was a rework of the 110 record release show flyer. Darkest Hour played after us and before No Justice but yeah that set was legendary for good reason.
You guys toured the US with Death By Stereo and Time Flies in the summer of 1999. I remember being a particularly strong time for hardcore but what were your impressions of the different scenes around the country during that run?
We only made it to Texas on those shows and broke down on the way to California. We were devastated. We spent a week in Midland Texas waiting for van repairs. It was a bummer but that also fueled us to want to make the West Coast shows happen even more. The shows we did play in Texas were great. We were so excited to be playing out of town and everyone was cool to us. In 2000, we made it to the West Coast to play with Carry On and then later we made it back with Death By Stereo and those shows were very pro and mainly at bigger venues.
The scenes were just slightly different than Richmond back then but mainly the same for who would come see us. Fast hardcore or Youth Crew revival fans were very similar across the country. We would mainly play with similar style bands. I can say it was cool to see what some of those people that came to the shows went on to do. Far From Breaking to Iron Age and Carry On to Terror and Nails.
Music geeks love to talk about sophomore slumps, but as someone who has been listening to hardcore since the late ‘80s, I think countless bands have swung and missed on their debut albums. Not to blow smoke up your ass, but that isn’t the case with 110.
Oh man, thank you! I am very proud people still like the records we did. I think a lot of that is Brian McTernan. He did a great job with the recording on both records, and they have this kind of timeless quality that might be due to being recorded to tape so they sound warm and punchy.
Lyrically, I was just putting down what was happening around me and in life at the time. It was a transitional period, You’re in your 20s and people are dropping out of hardcore, breaking edge. It was just documenting my thoughts at the time. I really tried to not say the words "straight edge" and would use a lot of abstract “I, you, we” in an effort for people to see themselves in the lyrics. I always loved that about Turning Point, Dag Nasty, and Chain. There are straight edge songs of course, but I didn’t want to spell it out for people.
What were some of the musical influences you guys were pulling from?
Musically, I can say the influences were heavy on Inside Out, Turning Point, and Chain of Strength as a whole, and Texas is the Reason. Pete played drums at the time before switching to guitar and would write the songs with Charlie.
I remember Pete wanting to do some Chris Daly-inspired drum fills with Chris Bratton also in mind for how hard he played. Garth would add all the octaves and flavor to the songs and the way we sounded just came out the way it did.
Did many labels hit the band up before you recorded the album about possibly releasing it? How did the CMO and Indecision Records union happen?
Mike Phyte [Phyte Records, Good Clean Fun] was going to do 110 at first. We were talking to him a lot about it. Time Flies was on Indecision and that was our brother band so we wanted to work with Mandel on it bad. I called up Dave and told him we want to be part of Indecision and would tour as much as possible to promote the record.
He bought us a van and we got a huge Indecision sticker printed on both sides or Dave sent us them I can’t remember but we would rep them everywhere we went. We told Mike Phyte that Mandel was down to do the record and he even agreed that it was a better way to go for our band.
In a genre of music with pointed lyrics, there’s a song on 110 called “Right for You” that always stuck out for me in its truly pointedness.
That is insightful and yes that song was about someone combined with a general feeling of frustration with friends going hard on drinking and experimenting back then after breaking edge. Someone I am still friends with and I don’t think of as the person the song was written for.
24 years later I understand better that to be a good friend sometimes you have to be there for someone even when you’re disappointed by their actions but that anger was genuine at the time. Nothing too much more I want to say about that but I always loved that song and the In My Eyes-influenced break in the middle.
Do you feel that Count Me Out toured enough behind 110? Did your work schedules get in the way of that?
I wish we did more. We wanted to tour as much as we could but never did as much as I would have liked to. We were able to get to Canada a couple times and the West Coast a couple of times after 110 was released but I wanted to go full time.
The tours just didn’t get offered to us then. Oddly enough, I turned down full-time employment just to keep the door open in case something did come our way.
Describe the vibe within the band going into the recording of the Permanent album. Did the experiences you had on tour color any of your lyrics in that material?
The vibe going into 'Permanent' was kind of let’s do something different. Let’s still be a straight edge hardcore band but let’s not be confined to that sound or anything considered generic. Lyrically, I really just focused on disappointment and pain. I had gone through a couple of bad relationships and lyrically a lot of those songs focus on that. It also felt like it would be the last time we recorded to me.
I like how the last song "Dear You" has the lyrics “now that it’s over I’m ready to begin,” which closes out the record. I learned a lot about friendships and learning from your mistakes including our band and goals so it seems appropriate.
It was kind of a heavy time with everyone’s interests going different directions. Garth with Strike Anywhere touring a lot, Colin was touring with American Nightmare, and Pete was writing what would become Renee Heartfelt. I was growing tired over the rehashed sound of Youth Crew at the time so felt disconnected from hardcore to a degree myself.
At that point, what did Brian McTernan mean to Count Me Out? Was he a taskmaster in the studio? Describe the relationship.
Brian was a coach that we didn’t want to disappoint. We were all ready to record the songs so we were focused. I just remember having fun. It was a heavy time but it’s still recording a record it’s awesome we got to do that and Brian always had great ideas.
I really like the way that record sounds still. We stayed at Brian’s in a band loft and he worked long hours on that record. It always felt good to get the thumbs up from Brian on a song.
Our band wouldn’t be the same without him and I very much consider him a member of the band. He made us sound great and even encouraged us to go full time after its release. Something I knew couldn’t happen. We would have been a much different band without him.
There’s a song on Permanent called “Against the World” has a powerful set of lyrics. They read like poetry. What are your thoughts on that song today?
That’s hands down my favorite CMO song. I love the lyrics to that one and thank you. I think it’s just an honest introspective reflection on why you feel the way you do and then those feelings of confusion were echoed back to me. It’s a very coming of age song.
Playing that song live was always very moving especially when people sang the words back to me. We once played a garage show in Texas and the cops showed up so it was decided we could play three songs fast before they officially shut us down and that was the third song we played which at the time felt like a chance since it was so melodic and we thought not well known but everyone flipped and cheered when it started.
I have a lot of great memories from playing and recording that song.
It was said that Count Me Out decided to break up while on tour in Europe. Was it a longtime coming or was it a more sudden sort of situation?
It seemed like it was bound to happen with everyone’s interests and other bands starting to go strong. At the time, every Youth Crew band would tour Europe and break up. So that was the goal, like the finish line. Looking back, we should have tried to go back one more time. We were just not thinking about that at all and didn’t want to do anything false. I was the only one fully invested at the time and didn’t want to be the hanger on.
What do you remember the most about the final Count Me Out show? Were you pissed off it ended or relieved when it happened?
It was honestly kind of amazing and a confusing time. It was an unannounced show and the plan was it was just for the people that would be there but word got out and there was a huge line down the street for the show. That was fulfilling to see.
I just remember feeling grateful to everyone there. It felt special. I slept a lot the days after the show and looking back I think I was depressed over the life change.
What’s your relationship with the other Count Me Out dudes like these days?
I hang with Garth weekly and he’s one of my best friends, Colin is also and I’m still lucky to be playing with him with Cloak/Dagger. Pete lives down the street from me and I don’t see him as much as I’d like to, and he is my dentist. Kind of wild to go to the dentist office and to be happy to see them. Charlie lives in New York, so I see him when I can. I very much love them all and consider them family.
Yeah, you and Colin have gone on to play in Cloak/Dagger together. How did that band come together? I remember it being a side project at first, or am I off?
It definitely was. Colin and Collin Barth were playing in Renee Heartfelt at the time and would write the Cloak/Dagger songs for fun. Real short, fast punk songs, which is where our interests were at the time. After we recorded the demo, it just kind of took off. People liked it, we loved to play live and we are still going today.
I always have dug the rock ’n’ roll-ed vibes that you guys have in some of your riffs and rhythms. How do you usually describe Cloak/Dagger to someone who has never heard you before?
I would say it’s punkish garage rock heavily influenced by Black Flag and Hot Snakes. The direction it’s going in now is more Rocket From the Crypt and Drive Like Jehu musically, but still heavy on the Hot Snakes vibe.
What is Cloak/Dagger up to now? I enjoyed the Temp Life EP that came out a couple of years ago. I remember one Friday morning it just showed up in Release Radar on Spotify.
Thanks! We have so many songs written now. We’ve been practicing weekly again and just writing songs. That 7” took two years to press. Insane. It’s good things are back to normal again and hopefully it won’t be two more years before the latest songs are recorded.
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You are one of the hosts on the Where It Went podcast that centers around Revelation Records. So, what is your favorite Revelation Records release or band from the 2000s?
The 2000s is kind of when I lost interest in Rev and their output, to be honest. But I love This Time Next Year by The Movielife, which is sort of cheating since I did guest vocals on that one (laughs). That or Days of the White Owl by The Nerve Agents. The Last Great Sea by BURN, of course, but that’s also cheating since it was recorded in the '90s.
How closely do you follow hardcore these days compared to back in the Count Me Out days? I can’t remember it being as popular as it is right now.
Very true! Honestly, when Count Me Out was going strong, I would listen to anything but hardcore. Now with so much information and sites like No Echo out there, it’s easy to keep up on new bands. 185 Miles South does an awesome job of plugging new bands. Bands like Split System that aren’t hardcore but new, I’ve learned from them.
I still love hardcore but it has to speak to me. All the three letter bands I love. That blown-out hardcore with a trashy sound but with good songwriting appeals to me now. BIB is my favorite playing that style right now. I stay pretty active for someone close to 50.
Count Me Out played with a ton of bands back in the 2000s. Which one did you feel the closest kinship with?
Absolutely Time Flies. That was our brother band and we shared members. That’s our number one. Striking Distance we also loved to play with and hang out with.
It was just a cool time to see all your friends bands that worked so hard finally catching on and to find your place among them. Ex-members of bands weren’t our thing, we were very involved in what was happening around us.
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Tagged: 2000s hardcore week, cloakdagger, count me out
