Bill Stevenson

But we saw Kiss a couple of times, but they were my first introduction to, like, to live music and performance.

And, I mean, those guys kind of set the standard in terms of at least, like... how important you could say whatever you want about them but how important showmanship is in what you do um and that really carried over to not only what we do but like the things that i the other types of music and other bands that i enjoy like like he said with bill stevenson you know i remember very vividly hearing the ramones for the first time when i was a kid like small and uh It stuck with me forever.

And, you know, as I got a little older and I started to play, I would come home from school every day and I would play along to those first three or four records that they did every day just to build up my my speed playing and to build it up for what I didn't know.

But all I knew is that that was what I wanted to do.

And they came through Montclair, New Jersey at the Wilmot Theater.

And.

you know, that year, and like, maybe like a little like the fall, the previous year, rather 2024, I had been doing like, you know, covers, drum covers on Instagram, you know, just covering like, classic hardcore punk songs the way that like, they're supposed to be played, you know, and me being like a big, like, Bill Stevenson head and like descendants nerd, like I'm like, covering all their songs, and I'm making sure that I learned them note for note, you know, and like, I remember we were on tour in like August of 2024.

It was like a 15 day East Coast run and they reposted two of my reels on their story.

But super important part of that band keeping the lineup legitimate.

Bill Stevenson and Descendants, Pete Sandoval and Terrorizer, Carl Palmer, arguably Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

It's not that,

you know, he keeps the legacy alive, but he's not called Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but he's Always been a he's a delightful interview as well.

But it's so natural to them.

I mean, Bill Stevenson, the drummer, I mean, I don't know much about drumming.

I know you do.

He makes it look so easy.

But so they make this record, you know, they pay for it pretty much out of pocket and they do it in the blasting room, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

It's Bill Stevenson from the Descendants.

And Fort Collins, Colorado.

Yeah.

Yeah, I

think Bill Stevenson did a good job on the later, you know, the classic fat bands like No Use and Good Riddance and stuff.

They all sort of seemed to migrate to the blasting room, didn't they?

Yeah,

So you must have been mesmerized.

Bill Stevenson, that must have been where you locked in and kind of saw what they were doing and even apply that to this day.

Is that...

Yeah,

And their new record came out this year.

It's out called Harsh Reality, which was recorded at the Blasting Room with Bill Stevenson and mixed by Jason Livermore.

We did a record there a couple of years ago with those guys.

Good, good dudes.

I always say like personally, and I don't think either of these drummers will be here this year, but they're fest regulars.

My style of drumming is, or what I, uh, what I try to do is just Bill Stevenson meets, uh, George Rebello.

So Bill Stevenson is descendants, black flag all, and then George Rebello is, uh, hot water music and, uh, uh, bouncing souls now.

But, um, and if you know that watching me play, I think it's pretty apparent.

Um, uh, we opened up for hot water in Jacksonville once and, uh, George, uh, came up and told me how much he liked my drumming.

He had a band called Wretch Like Me, who were incredible band, and we knew him as the Kid.

And so we would watch them rehearse, and just all Matt would do is he lived in Bill Stevenson's basement at the time.

They would rehearse, and that's all he would do.

He was just there to play music, period.