It's Casual

From The LA Weekly http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-05/music/red-line-fever/ Coming to An Off-Ramp Near You: It’s Casual By Caroline Ryder Like most Angelenos, Eddie Solis is pissed about the traffic on the 101. Unlike most Angelenos, Eddie Solis writes songs about being pissed about the traffic on the 101. Solis’ band, an impossibly loud punk/hardcore duo called It’s Casual, addresses transit issues with a bone-crushing urgency hitherto unmatched in the realm of urban planning. Imagine Henry Rollins at a City Council Transportation Committee meeting, all neck veins and municipal outrage, and you begin to get the picture. On stage, Solis’ eyes bulge amid a shock of curly hair, his throatemitting the collective war cry of a million frustrated commuters. “Los Angeles! There’s too many people! I want them to go away!” His isn’t the Los Angeles of Priuses, Pilates and brunch; his is the Los Angeles of undocumented immigrants, hardcore music, and waiting for the bus. Now, after nearly ten years of ceaseless yelling, looks like It’s Casual’s bus has finally arrived, with support slots on Fu Manchu’s North American tour, love from Amoeba records and possibilities of a European tour. “We’ve been working at it and believing in this kind of music—which I call LA hardcore or LA skate rock—every day,” says Solis. His gaze is unflinching, and his voice is smog-raspened. “We're LA's only two-piece hardcore band, and we bring the same energy whether we’re opening for Mastodon (they did, in Georgia) or playing in front of ten people at the Relax bar.” Clearly, It’s Casual is something Eddie Solis is not very casual about. “I don’t take it lightly,” he concurs. “It all comes from deep within.” It’s Casual formed in 2001, the name inspired by a line in Cameron Crowe's obscure follow-up to “Fast Times At Ridgemont High”, called “The Wild Life”. In it, a character played by the late Christopher Penn replies “it’s casual” every time he is asked a question. Behind It’s Casual’s drums is WCE, college professor by day, maniacal punk rhythmist by night. They met when Solis was working at a pop punk label. One day WCE walked in to the office while Solis was listening to a mix of Black Flag, the Melvins, Soundgarden and Black Sabbath. They immediately bonded, and bro’d out talking about the specs of The Melvins’ Dale Grovers’ drum sets. “We were talking about the kind of toms he uses and nerding out on the gear,” recalls Solis. “One day I sent him demos of my stuff and he was like ‘man…I like this’.” This was in late 2001/2002. It was WCE’s idea to play as a two-piece. “We kept trying to find a bassist, and they kept flaking,” says Solis. They’re an incredibly loud band, bearing in mind there are only two of them. The secret to their eardrum-shattering sound is a unique pedal and mic’ing system. Solis guitar is actually wired to two amps, for added punch. The results are so thunderous, fellow musicians have been known to come to shows early to watch Solis set up. “I'm really proud of our sound,” he says. “There is a special formula with different pedals. I am actually trying to register it as intellectual property.” Their current record, “The New Los Angeles”, was inspired by Solis’ commute from Pico Rivera to Hollywood. Tracks include “EZ Pass” (apaean to the monthly pass that’s good for 24 different public transit carriers in Greater Los Angeles), and “The Red Line” (the handy subway that connects North Hollywood with Union Station). Most of It’s Casual’s songs last around 2 minutes and contain no more than three or four lyrics, hammering home their message with a directness most public servants and council officials have yet to master. Even Councilman Bill Rosendahl, chair of Los Angeles’ Transportation Committee, was impressed. “Music is a good way to get transportation messages across,” he said, adding that he hoped It’s Casual were aware that plans for the Purple Line look set to go through. “They should write a song about the Purple Line!” he enthused, suggesting possible lyrics. “The Purple Line…in my lifetime!” he sang down the phone. It’s not all subways and off-ramps though— It’s Casual occasionally ventures in to other subject matter. “Cholas Are Loyal”, for example, is all about the advantages of dating Latinas. And their next album The New Los Angeles II: Less Violence, More Violins”, is inspired primarily by the California education budget deficit. “Do you think It’s Casual will translate in Europe?” he pondered, aware of his band’s distinctly local messages. But one senses that wherever there is a rush hour, there is be a home for Eddie Solis. * * * Born and raised in East Los Angeles County, Soils is “the result of basically growing up around a gang-infested area with lots of negativity.” He turned to music and skateboarding in 1987 as an escape, and was 15 when he started his first band—a Ramones cover band called Endless Vacation—that played shows in his parents’ living room. He got “the heaviness” from his father, who used to carry his young son around the house on his shoulders while listening to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and The Who records. “They weren’t handing me money to buy me instruments,” says Solis, “but they were like ‘hey listen…we know you wanna do this, so here’s our backyard and here's our living room’. Which is pretty punk.” His parents let him build a half-pipe in the backyard, and the young Solis would “put Slayer on the radio super loud” and learn tricks with his friends. “That would be Friday night and then Saturday we would have a show on the ramp and take donations to keep it refurbished.” Skate videos are what informed his music taste—the teenaged Solis would grab a pen and paper and pause the VCR to jot down names of bands like Black Flag, Dinosaur Junior, Husker Du…”all the good stuff on SST”. Fast-forward to 1993, when Solis started interning at a metal record label Century Media. Which is significant because it gave Solis his first taste of hardcore commuting. Taking the bus from Pico Rivera to the label’s headquarters in Santa Monica every day was a formative experience, and he lasted about a month (“well, you know, it was a long trek”). which led to a position at Priority Records down the street in the CNN building. That’s where he learned how to sell records, a job he still does today, as label manager at Southern Lord, the leading doom metal label where he has now worked for over six years. Before Southern Lord, however, Solis worked as a publicist for Black Flag at SST, under the label’s founder and Black Flag’s guitarist Greg Ginn. Basically it was the job of Eddie Solis’ 15-year-old wet dreams.“I took the job because I thought it would be great to work for an icon, a legend,” he says. It was there that he learned about the blood sweat and tears that went into doing things DIY. That job rolled in to the gig at Southern Lord and as such Solis feels like he has fully earned his punk rock, DIY and heavy music credibility. Three years ago, while strolling down the road from the Southern Lord offices in East Hollywood, Solis came upon the Relax Bar, the orange-awned, 150-person capacity Thai karaoke bar that Solis has single handedly transformed in to a hub for Los Angeles’ heavy music scene, booking more than 400 thrash, doom, noise and punk bands there in the last three years. “I was going to lunch and walking past the Relax Bar and the door was open. I saw a stage and it had this dark, musty kind of vibe. Kind of grim in terms of the atmosphere, but real positive in terms of what you could do there. I thought, if I could get these owners on the same page and book any format—whether its Satanic black metal or really avant-garde stuff—that would be great.” The Relax Bar’s owners, despite not being able to speak English, supported Solis’ vision, prompting the most unlikely cultural union since, well, Weezer recruited Kenny G. “They had a guy translating as I tried to describe the kinds of bands I wanted to book, using metal as my main focus. I said ‘Ozzfest, no—not those kinds of bands. Stuff that’s a little more creative, full of more soul, and more organic.” He played them some It’s Casual and High on Fire and a selection of punk and grindcore CDs, and they seemed to like it. Turns out the ballad-loving Thai karaoke bar owners, like Solis, possessed an their unyielding passion in the DIY ethic—“they know how much work it is to bring your gear out, record your own stuff, and self-release records” says Solis. “They are all musicians themselves.” And it’s been a happy union ever since, with some of the gnarliest underground bands in LA—from Municipal Waste to Chingalera—rocking the Relax bar’s tiny stage amid the perpetual aroma of green curry and ginger. Dave Gibney, Chingalera’s frontman met Solis through Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks. The band was looking for a place to play and Morris advised him to call on Solis. “He said ‘Eddie Solis, you gotta call this guy—he’s got his fingers in every pie.” Gibney sent Solis an email and “within four minutes” received a response with three possible gig dates at the Relax Bar. “Eddie Solis is about the hardest working man in the doom metal Southern Lord underground,” adds Gibney. “He will put a show together on a roof with an AM radio. And most important—he gives everyone a chance.” "The New Los Angeles," from the band's album of the same name. Their third, The New Los Angeles offers no bullshit guitar rock, the kind that lives in the space where metal and punk converge, where Black Flag's My War, Motorhead's Ace of Spades and Discharge's Why? collide and explode into a fireball. Solis and his bandmate, who goes by the name of W.C.E. ( and plays "drums/bass/guitar/headaches"), accomplish more with two than most bands accomplish with five. -Randall Roberts taken from the LA WEEKLY http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-05/music/red-line-fever/ Eddie Solis Uses The Following! EXCLUSIVELY FERNANDES GUITARS http://www.fernandesguitars.com/ ORANGE AMPLIFIERS http://www.orangeamps.com KERLY STRINGS http://www.kerlymusic.com/ MTA.net