CKY haven’t always had it easy. Drummer Jess Margera and guitarist/singer Chad I. Ginsberg have consistently been the engine behind the genre’less endeavor, a band with humble and unique beginnings as well as a catalog full of bangers, iconic riffs, and timeless lyrics. Few bands have successfully navigated the ever-changing tides of the music industry, let alone done so while enduring some very public and dramatic member changes.
The two creative forces couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. Margera is laid back, quick to laugh and nerd out about the band’s history, his new endeavor of scoring a horror film, and ghost hunting. Ginsberg feels more serious, more ethereal, with a dryer wit and boundless creative energy.
Today, it’s apparent that Ginsberg and Margera are more sure-footed than ever. The duo work as a well-oiled machine, dropping songs periodically (some of their biggest and best to date) and doing small regional runs while remaining intensely dedicated to taking their once-in-a-lifetime collaboration into a fourth decade.
Watching scattered clips of your interviews today, I came across a few where you’re talking about Phil as a dad and how you’re trying to be that for your kids now. Lightning struck for you and your brother, so it’s not like you can tell your kids no.
I have big shoes to fill, literally.
What are your kids getting into?
Jess Margera: My son is getting into modeling (laughs); he’s a handsome dude. Here’s a picture of him towering over The Mandalorian. Me and Bam skipped the Jackass premiere, but my kids went. I lent him my Gucci shoes, so you know I meant business. I was hoping Spike Jonze would be like, “Hey man, I got this role, Where the Wild Things Are 2 starring London Margera (laughs).” I’m actually scoring this horror film right now, and I think London has a part in it. It’s a super low-budget horror film about haunted tunnels in the town I live in. There’s so much shit that went on there, like the pagans and The Hells Angels; that was their dumping spot for dead bodies.
And you have a ton of Civil War history in your area.
JM: I’ve been hanging out with the Ghost Hunters guys a lot, and I went to one of their events, and Rikki Rockett from Poison was there; I guess he’s getting into that.
Are you a believer?
JM: I’ve never seen anything, like an apparition or anything, but I’ve had crazy shit happen to me.
Something you can’t explain at least.
JM: There’s 300-year-old buildings all over the West Chester area. I was at this party at this super old tavern. Someone’s in the bathroom for way too long, so I go to the third floor; no one goes to the third floor of this tavern. I’m pissing in the dark and it went from about 80 to about 60, I’d say, in about 20 seconds; then I feel poking as I’m pissing. I’ve had at least eight or nine instances like that.
What’d you think of Obsession?
JM: I didn’t see it yet, but again, here’s a picture of my kids with the girl from Obsession. Paramount was losing their shit with the first Jackass movie; we had a 5 million budget, and it made, like, 200 million or whatever. I hear Obsession had less than a million-dollar budget.
750k.
JM: And it’s lik—It just hit 400 million. It’s nuts.
Imagine the pressure on that kid, Curry Barker; he’s 26.
JM: Yeah, everyone is calling him.
He’s doing the next Texas Chainsaw installment.
JM: No shit? Whoa. I haven’t had any time because I’ve been trying to rehab my shoulder.
What do you guys still love about touring? You got four kids at home. It can’t be the way it was even a decade ago.
JM: We can’t really do the two-month-long tours anymore; it’s just too crazy. We just do these quick runs, and it’s working out great. I enjoy it more because you don’t get burned out.
Do you still get nervous?
JM: I do because I quit drinking. Well, I mean, I’ll have a beer with dinner. Compared to 10 years ago when I wouldn’t hit the stage unless I had a dozen beers by then.
I always thought that was wild when you hear about bands being drunk or on drugs before playing. It makes you think, “Are you just that good?”
JM: I mean, how many times have I played these songs? I think if I got hit by a bus and I was in a coma and when I came out someone said “Play ‘Flesh Into Gear,’” I could probably get it.
I remember talking to a drummer at Warped Tour who described what it was like playing on ketamine and he said he felt like he was 100 feet tall and everything in front of him was massive.
JM: I can’t imagine fucking with shit like that. In our crazy days it was just booze and maybe an Adderall here and there.
What does that do?
JM: ou can drink more. It’s ADD medicine for kids, but you can drink twice as much and stay up until four in the morning.
So, without drinking, your nerves are what?
JM: Theres gonna be a few hundred people staring at me for an hour.
Gilbert Gottfried, who did comedy for decades, said that there was never a night where he didn’t wish the electricity would go out.
JM: (Laughs) Being a comedian is probably a lot of pressure. If you bomb, you bomb. It’s just you up there.
You two have been the constants. We’ve gotten to watch you guys grow up and grow as a band. You can Chad have been the core. You’ve said that as long as you’re alive then CKY is going.
JM: We both just understand how fucking lucky we are that we get to do this as our jobs; why fuck it up? I’ve been in a ton of bands and seen people who fall apart from addiction. We’re very conscious of not letting that happen to us. We want to do this as long as we can.
Originally, I was going to follow this up with “What’s the closest you’ve come to breaking up?” Then I saw you’ve definitely already broken up.
JM: Twice!
What keeps you going now? You could survive without this.
JM: Hearing people’s stories; I’m sure I’ll hear a bunch tonight. Everyone has a great story. I don’t’ even know where to begin, stuff like, ‘I didn’t talk to my dad for 10 years; then we bonded over CKY videos and he finally texted me and sent a video of Raab pissing on the electric fence, and that reconnected us,” just shit like that. I really don’t know what to say when people tell me this stuff. I know what they’re talking about; like, there are records that got me through fucking dark times. When someone says one of our albums got them through a rough patch, I don’t know what to say. I’m just like that’s amazing; thanks for the compliment. I don’t know how to put into words, “I understand.”
I think that’s great; it means you’re still a music nerd.
JM: I’ve been that guy, like I saw Roger Waters at the Mexico City airport, what do I say to Roger Waters?
I saw this old picture today of you guys with Ozzy. I love seeing my heroes meet their heroes. What is that moment like?
JM: It’s unreal. I’ve seen Lars and James air-drumming side-stage to “96” and that’s just, like, what is happening? You look at your drumsticks, and your whole life passes before your eyes. I was playing “Master of Puppets” when I was 9, and here I am.
What is it about Chad that you’ve been able to continue on with him in spite of so many changes?
JM: I think I talked about this before, but the first day I met Chad, it was the ‘90’s, so you had to spend a fortune to get any kind of decent recording. If you did get into a really good studio, since you’re small potatoes, we went to a bunch of good studios; the coffee guy is recording you, and you’re playing top dollar. I asked for some reverb on the snare, and they’re like, “pfft.” So, we play this gig in North East Philly; you swap demo tapes.
Chad Ginsberg: Surge.
JM: We’re driving home from the gig, and I put this Surge tape in, and it sounded huge. In the ‘90’s, you’d have to spend $50k for production like that. I’m also wrecking because I’m looking at the tape like, where did they record this? We went there and met Chad.
CG: I was an engineer and producer there, recording bands all the time. We had a two-inch studio in Bucks County. I was living there and doing really cheap work for the guy. When they came in, I was really impressed with one of the projects, they were trying to do two of them, I said lets combine ‘em and we just had a great time playing around with the gear. I didn’t realize how willing these guys were to create a sound, so they really utilized the studio, Jess especially gave me a lot of liberties.
JM: That was my main frustration going into studios was this meat and potatoes dry drum sound. I wanna experiment! I meet Chad and he’s like let’s spray aerosol cans doing that cymbal bit. This is my guy! Let’s put the mic in the corner and see what that sounds like.
You guys know Circa Survive?
JM: I’ve done some tracks with Anthony.
CG: I recorded Anthony when he was a kid at Groundhog studios. We used to put on shows. You ask Anthony; I gave him one of his early opportunities to perform. He played drums in my noise band Army of the Forks. We’d book shows at skateparks.
That dude is a crazy genius.
JM: I admire that he can turn from like Nick Cave to almost Coheed and Cambria bright singing. I heard him do a Nirvana cover and he sounds just like Kurt Cobain.
He told me once about being on the beach at night with some friends, and they’d hit record on their phones then chuck them as far as they could and use the sound on recordings.
JM: A lot of good bands came out of Bucks County. When we were recording Volume 1, The Disco Biscuits were recording next door. What a weird combo.
Chad, you touched on this. You’ve been recording bands since you were 13.
CG: Well for money since I was 13, probably before that too.
As CKY was forming, you said that if what they were making already sounded like something, then scrap it.
CG: Oh yeah that was our thing, even if it was something we liked. We would be like, oh that sounds like Korn, anything that was current. If it sounded like anything current, we’d stray away from that. What happened was they couldn’t fit us in anywhere because we intentionally tried to not fit in anywhere. We’d purposely do it different so it wouldn’t fit with current music.
JM: And is this timeless? Is this record going to be as good in 30 years as it is right now?
CG: You didn’t plan that. You can’t tell me you planned to make a record that sounds good in 30 years, that’s not how it works. I planned to make a record that sounded good that moment, that sounded different enough.
JM: What I’m saying is when you sound like a trendy thing that’s happening, you die with the trend.
CG: I wasn’t aware of that. We literally just did what sounded good. I don’t think we were thinking about the future.
What a great accident.
JM: You came up with the tone. We were listening to a lot of Fu Man Chu.
CG: We wanted to make it as thick as possible, fat and thick, very textural, ethereal here and there. Production has changed so much through the years, but the first two albums, Volume 1 was all over the map, IDR was kind of a consistent sound where we really understood what we were doing. We learned from that first album, which was more experimental, how to make the second album.
JM: I just remember fucking around with pedals, like an octave pedal with your old Marshall,;it was like, “Woah what is that?”
I was listening to The Phoenix today; it’s so good. Even though you were with the band forever, were you scared to step into that role at all?
CG: I’ve sang in other bands. I’ve sang in this band even. Before The Phoenix, we put out a song called “Afterworld;” I sang that song too. It wasn’t a full album, but it was a song. The writing was pretty much on the wall.
JM: It was the genesis.
CG: Regarding me having to sing in this band, why did I have to do that? No one was around to do it. I never wanted the job; I still don’t want the job. I’m not gonna let the band die. Anytime we try to put anyone else in the band, they just don’t understand it. Jess and I are the only ones who have been here forever. Jess kind of talked me into it because we happened to be doing a benefit for Ryan Dunn, and it’s hard to say no when everyone is getting together to celebrate Ryan.
it wasn’t about my singing; I would’ve done it no matter what. We did that, I really wanted Daniel Davies to stay in the band, but he became busy with John Carpenter, and he’s still busy with John Carpenter ,and he was a genius, and we worked together amazingly. I played bass in this band to start because we got rid of the bass player. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the band together ,so that’s why I have to sing now. Was I scared? I don’t sing exactly like Darron; I sing an octave lower. I’m not scared; it’s other people that might be worried more so.
The fans knew you and your voice.
CG: We thought of that too. That’s why we stuck with me too instead of finding another guy after Daniel. That’s why we got (Matt) Deis back in the band; we thought we needed an original member.
JM: As fun as it was working with Daniel, people don’t want to see a new guy.
CG: There was so much shit he didn’t need.
JM: Fans were harassing him online (laughs).
CG: He’s a majorly talented super awesome individual, and they’re giving him all this shit, and he’s like, I don’t need this.
I’ve seen stuff about people going to Darron’s shows and bothering him, but I’ve never heard of this stuff with Daniel.
CG: I don’t read the internet anymore for any social comments. If you’re commenting on the internet, you lost me there. You can tell me. We did huge shit with Daniel. There was a picture online where he had the words in front of him, and people were like, he doesn’t even know the lyrics! You know how many legends we’ve toured with, and I consider them legends too, but they still don’t know the fuckin’ lyrics?
Like who? Just kidding.
(Laughs)
JM: We’ve been on some big tours, and there’s teleprompters all over the place.
I know you guys are doing some songs live that come from records that maybe weren’t your favorite times. Does playing these songs night after night lessen or change those memories at all? I saw something with Jess where you said you didn’t even remember recording certain songs.
CG: Are you saying why don’t we play certain songs in a setlist?
More so, how do you feel about playing them since they have some bad memories attached to them?
CG: Memories really have nothing to do with the songs. Memories are created every night; there’s a new memory to the song every night. We recreate what they mean to us every night.
JM: We really go by the crowd. We’ll play a song the internet said to do; then the crowd will be like, what the fuck? I’m getting a beer and taking a piss.
CG: We know our catalog of songs very well, and we have taste too. We care what we play or not. We don’t play all the songs just for the audience. I would play random or weird songs if I thought they were better songs. I don’t want to take great songs out of a setlist to replace it with something that’s a weird b-cut. We could do a show that’s all b-cuts, but the ticket prices are gonna be high, and the audience is gonna be small (laughs).
JM: There are songs we don’t play often, but we’ll play it because the crowd is yelling it. If there’s a chunk of the crowd yelling “Familiar Realm,” then we’ll play it.
CG: I’ve been trying to put “Familiar Realm” in the set, but I think we have to put it much earlier.
JM: A bunch of people were shouting “Knee Deep” the other night.
CG: That’s the most simple song we have; it’s not complexities or riffs. It’s one line and three notes at 72bpm.
Do you still play the GG Allin cover?
CG: I can’t get it out of the set list; people beg for it. I could be an asshole and say here’s “Old Carver’s Bones”.
JM: And they’d say, “What’s that?”
CG: And they’ll say “Play ‘Bite It.’” Its “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” for us (laughs).
Is there any update on the new album?
JM: We’re just kinda dropping songs. We’ll drop another soonish.
CG: Here’s the deal, we have so many songs. Since the pandemic I’ve written hundreds of songs that are full songs, we’ve recorded at least 15. We put out “Can’t Stop Running” in August and were reminded that it was a year since our friend Brent passed away. Brent played a solo on a song we recorded called “Beware of the Heartless” and I thought why would I leave this on my computer? Brent took the time to play on it and we loved him and in honor of his passing we were too bummed out in the moment to think about that shit but I want to throw it out there because I don’t want to hold onto forever, I want to let go of it and give it to everyone.
We’re gonna put it up and maybe not tell anyone, it’ll just be there. It’s a different style than anything you’ve heard from us in a long time. That’s more on the “Knee Deep” side of things. Regarding albums, I’m not sure if anyone wants one other than some purists. It’s a lot of work to waste a lot of songs when a lot of people literally don’t get to the end of the record anymore or it’s just on shuffle.
JM: You were talking about The Phoenix, the singles got attention.
I miss diving into why an album was laid out the way it was, this is why this song goes here etc.
JM: My kids listen to music, and if they last for a four-minute song all the way throug,h I’m impressed.
CG: Touring used to be based on album sales, and it has nothing to do with it at this moment. Two or three years ago, they used to ask if we had a new album and if not, we can’t book them. No one has said that since.
JM: It’s an outdated dinosaur industry move.
CG: Now they just want you to tour your old albums instead.
Or anniversary tours. I remember going to bands like Taking Back Sunday’s ten year for a certain album and it blowing my mind it’d been ten years and now I’m attending 20 and 25 year anniversary shows.
JM: Its great Fred is back in the band. I hung out with him back in West Chester a few months ago.
He’s a good dude. I’m curious what’s currently feeding into your inspiration. Jess, you mentioned you’re scoring a movie.
JM: I’ve just been stoked to do stuff like that on the side. I’ve never scored a film before. So far, I’ve only scored about three clips but it’s fun as shit. I’ve been actually calling Daniel Davies a lot because he does that stuff.
CG: I’ve been scoring French bread. I slice it diagonally which looks cooler then I bake it. At the end it comes out scored and beautiful.
