Following the release of Seized Up’s three-song, Marching Down the Spiral EP (Cursed Blessings)—the band’s second drop and follow-up to 2020’s debut LP Brace Yourself’—we talked to vocalist Clifford Dinsmore (also of Bl’ast fame) about the EP and the Santa Cruz band’s history. Joined by Chuck Platt (Good Riddance), guitarist Danny B. (All You Can Eat), and Andy Granelli (the Distillers), who all three at one point played in Fast Asleep, the foursome play some seriously insane old-school hardcore punk.
In addition to talking all-things Seized Up, Dinsmore also gets into his enthralling experiences being a part of the late-’70s/early-’80s punk and hardcore scene in California.
So, you did this EP shortly after the first album came out, how has recording been?
Yeah, well we did the [first] Seized Up record before the COVID stuff happened so we flew down to Orange County to do it with Paul Miner and that was great. We’d done a lot of pre-recording, so we had the songs really dialed in. We were working with our friend Jesse LeBlanc who did a lot of that recording for us, so, when we got down to actually record the record, we all knew the songs, we knew the words, and it was really helpful to have these pre-recordings, so that went really smooth.
And then when we did the EP, we just went up and did it with Mike Ross and Kurt Schlegel up in south San Francisco at Lucky Recording Company, and that was great. It was just convenient to have it right there and close to home. That went pretty smooth, too. But we’re really looking forward to getting back down south and doing another record. We’re working on another record right now that will be another full-length that we plan on doing with Paul Miner again, possibly as early as May or June.
And then hopefully all the other stuff will lighten up soon with the COVID and all that so we can get back out there and play live shows. The real bummer is, we came out of the gates pretty strong, and it was just weird to put out a record and not be able to play shows and tour on it. Seized Up has only played three live shows—two in Santa Cruz and one in San Francisco. [Laughs] And then to have that record come out and not be able to play, it was pretty weird. This whole thing has just been really, really weird.
But that’s good to have the EP out in between so you could still put out new material.
Yeah, I think as a band right now, that’s the one thing you can do. You can stay productive in that way. You can make new songs, new music, record stuff, and just hope for the best with everything else. But, in the meantime, I think that’s the way to keep it all alive, to keep working on stuff and keep it happening.
Some bands are doing live streams but it’s not like in-person.
Yeah, the thing with the livestreaming, we’ve considered it, and we’ve just … with this whole thing surrounding the virus and just this whole “new normal” crap, we just don’t really buy it, and we don’t want to create some kind of bogus substitute for the real thing. And we don’t want people to give in to accepting livestreaming as a substitute for the real thing because there is no substitute for the real thing. And we all know that.
If people get too reduced in their thinking and decide this is OK to just have this be how we experience live music, we can’t get behind that. We’d rather just keep the intrigue of people wanting to see us live for real and playing a live show for real instead of— especially in the digital age with people’s attention spans being so short, it could just be, “Oh, I saw a livestream of Seized Up, they were all right.”
It’s just not going to have the same dynamic as playing a really crazy, in-your-face live show. And I think that’s what we’ve chosen to do—to hold out for the real thing and keep people wanting that instead of giving them some bogus substitute.
Yeah. Just record-wise you get a lot of the energy through and everything. But seeing it live must be nuts.
Yeah, it’s a really fun live band. Basically, the songs were designed to be played live and to be played aggressively and hard, and it just feels dumb to do stuff like that when there’s no one there, and you’re just doing the livestreaming thing. You need that crowd interaction, especially for hardcore punk and metal; it’s like the crowd is just as big of a part as the band is. It’s just part of the show.
Like you said, the first album, that was before all the restrictions and everything.
Yeah, that’s when we recorded it, so we were able to fly down there. That’s when the world was still how it used to be. Then we got signed with Pirates Press probably in about—we probably recorded that record in October [2019], so about a year before it got released, and then we got signed to Pirates Press, and they were pretty good with the release schedule and releasing it pretty fast.
We probably got signed in May, and then it got released in October. And then we were under the impression that when we did the EP that it was going to almost come out really shortly after the actual record, but just ran into the hang-ups of distribution and getting the vinyl pressed and all that stuff. It’ll be great to just have the vinyl seven-inches in our hands and let everyone else get ‘em, who ordered them.
Maybe you got a little lucky that you got the first album out before all this. I don’t know how to put it. That the band came together before all this.
Yeah, the really cool thing is, even though we only got to play three shows, at least we got to play those three shows. We got to experience what it was like to play in this band Seized Up that was a new band. When we recorded the record, we’d never played live, we just worked really hard on the songs and getting ready to record. And then once we signed to Pirates Press and started playing some shows, and just to have that live experience and to just be like, OK, this totally works live, was great.
Before we went into the seclusion of all this, we got to go out there and do it, we know that it works. It seems like things are kinda close to opening back up. I mean, we’ll see what happens, but it’s definitely when you think about how many people it’s affected, in terms of people that play music and work in the music industry, the clubs. Like, I bartend at The Catalyst, which is the club everyone plays at in Santa Cruz, and I haven’t worked since March, and we haven’t played since March, so when you think about how many people in bands when they’re not touring, they’re doing what I do—either bartending or at a concert venue or doing security or doing sound, doing something that’s at least related to live music and all that’s just gone.
Some bands are more introspective, but you definitely have a socio-political bent, so it seems fitting for the times.
Yeah, that’s the one thing. There was no shortage of songwriting material to draw from in these times, for sure, especially for a band like Seized Up that’s generally kind of pissed off music in general. There’s plenty of relevant lyrics to write at this point in time.
So, how did you guys all get together in the first place?
Chuck and Danny were in Fast Asleep together, and they’d gone through a lot of drummers. And Andy was actually the original drummer for Fast Asleep. He decided he didn’t want to do it early on, and they were just going in different musical directions and stuff like that. So, Fast Asleep was around for a long time, and they became one of my favorite bands to see and to listen to and the more I saw them, the more I think at one point I was just, like, I was joking around with them because they would all—Chuck and Danny would sing because they didn’t have an actual singer, they would just sing together and I started almost joking around, “Well, if you guys ever get a sore throat or anything.” [Laughs] “If you need me to sing …” At the time I didn’t know it, but that was at their last Santa Cruz show, and they were just like, “Hey, we need to talk to you about something after the show.”
So, after the show they come up to me and were just like, “Hey, this is what’s happening: our drummer’s leaving; we’re gonna find a new drummer, and we’re not gonna be called Fast Asleep, and the music is gonna be different than Fast Asleep, but we want you to sing.” I was just like, “OK, that sounds great. Let’s do it.” And it just evolved. There was a slight, little time period where we were starting to get things rolling, and then I had some health issues. I had something that they caught early, but I had to do a little bit of radiation and chemo, and that delayed things for a minute, but I got through that, and then shortly after that, they just started making songs.
I was going to practice, and I was sitting there and eventually singing. Before I was doing any other kind of exercise, I was doing two-hour practices with those guys. So, I think that really helped me integrate back in the world and getting healthy again. Then, once we got to that point where we were on it, we found Andy. He was super into it. He was really what made the band super possible. We could’ve went through drummers for months, and it probably wouldn’t have worked out. But the fact that we got Andy, he’s such an incredible drummer; he learns stuff so fast and he’s so good. The progress was so quick.
And it was just like the new songs started happening. What I really like about this band is that we were definitely very progressive in terms of getting stuff done; we were very efficient in terms of deciding what we wanted to do and making it happen. Which isn’t always the case in a lot of bands. [Laughs] So, just the fact that we were all equally into it and excited about it really helped out a lot.
I was wondering about how you guys went about writing. They had the band from before, was this all totally from scratch?
Yeah, everything was from scratch. Basically, the way I do it is, sometimes I’ll write stuff down when there’s no music or whatever, but for the most part, what I do is, I get the recordings of the songs they make, and I just listen to them over and over and over again until it just starts to gel, and then write the lyrics. It helps a lot if I’m out riding my bike or surfing or doing something and I always have the music in my head it tends to happen faster. And then just all the sudden, I’ll go through a lot of ideas, and then I’ll just get the idea. It might come from a song title, or Chuck is really good with, “This is what I kind of picture—picture this style,” and then I’ll go home and write the song.
We all have a lot of contribution in all the songwriting and the ideas. It tends to move pretty fast. Right now, we basically don’t have the guy, Jesse, that records us for these pre-recordings to record us right now, so we’re doing it all through crappy phone recordings and stuff, which just isn’t the same as having real stuff to listen to. If I could have a real recording that I could play loud, and it sounds like us more than just some tinny phone recording; it’s so much faster. We’re definitely still pushing along, but we definitely need to get Jesse back in there to help with the pre-recordings, and once that happens, I think it’ll just speed up the process so much that before we know it, we’ll be back down south working with Paul again and doing the actual record.
So, like you said they basically write the music, and you listen to it, and you get your…
Yeah, it’s almost like self-brainwashing. I get to the point where it’s just I wake up in the morning and it’s playing in my head. [Laughs] Eventually the lyrics are gonna happen.
I was going to say how you had the first record out and then you wrote this EP. They sound like they could be of a piece. Thematically, what do you think?
Those songs were fun to do, for sure. They seem slightly different than the songs on the record, but I think the stuff that we’re doing now, the new stuff for the new record, is going to be, like, a more realistic extension of the last record. It’s kind of like we’re using the last one as a formula basis for just going, “OK, we need a little of this, a little of that.”
The songs are really coming together where we’re really starting to get back on track and really, like you said, have a more thematic approach to the whole picture, the whole record. I think maybe these three songs for the EP might’ve been a little rushed in terms of the amount of thought that went into them. I think this next record is definitely going to be the logical extension of the last one.
I just was thinking of “Forum of Decay” and like on the first album…
Yeah, “Terminal Disarray” off the first record and “Forum of Decay” have a very similar—they’re definitely on the same page, it’s definitely about the same thing, how people are just a little bit too reduced by technology. When you think about it in terms of, depending on people’s ages, I mean some people have a little bit of both, they were around before all this existed and they’re involved in it as it’s happening. But then you get a lot of these kids, the really young people, that’s all they know.
They don’t know anything except that technology and it just seems like it’s definitely changed the world. In terms of convenience and stuff like that, it’s helped people with that. But at the same time, in terms of attention span and just staying tuned into reality, I think people just get a little bit too caught up in all the virtual shit and don’t really acknowledge reality for what it actually is at this point. It’s just kind of hectic how people are just bombarded with so much information all the time. Something about it seems a little weird.
[Longer conversation about that phenomenon and then changing topics…] That you experienced the initial hardcore and punk era in California is amazing.
Yeah, the ’80s were a very unique time period. The skate thing, the surf thing, and the punk thing all seemed to come together in this way that just created this wave of—especially the skate thing just integrated with punk rock from the very beginning because all the skaters were into it. It was such aggressive music to skate to, and then it just led to people making bands and making music, and it just blew up. The kind of shows they used to have, they’d just take any random hall they could; these promoters would get their hands on a venue and just do as many shows as they could there before people caught on and shut it down or whatever. [Laughs] When you think about how huge Goldenvoice is now, they started out just doing punk shows at small places, like Gary Tovar was just super cool, and Paul and this other guy Chris Williamson on the East Coast used to kinda pool all their money together and get all the English bands over here and just making that scene happen.
The shows they used to have, it was just insane. It was underground. You’d go to a place like Fender’s, which was 1100 legal capacity, and we were playing shows with 2500 to 3500 people in that building. [Laughs] And you just talk about out of control, and they have this like ingenious concept, I don’t know if they got it from Gimme Shelter or something from the movie where the Rolling Stones—I don’t know if he had the idea for integration and keeping the violence level down but he’d get all these people from different punk-rock gangs in the Southern California area to do the security at these shows. [Laughs]
Naturally, all the other people that were involved in those gangs would show up, too. You’d have all these rival factions. It was just a really wild time. It was just so lawless. Security was so limited, just kind of self-contained. I mean, it was really gnarly, really violent. There were a lot of parts of it that weren’t good, but at the same time, in terms of sheer insanity of what hardcore and all that is supposed to be about, it was just—that time period was the epitome of that. It was just out of control and so much fun but almost scary at times.
I’ve only heard about it but you mention “lawless,” did you ever play Iguanas [in Tijuana]?
You know, we never played Iguanas. I don’t know how or why we didn’t. It was always something we were going to do. But I heard that—in terms of what I’m talking about— that was all that on overdrive. That was even beyond. That was just like Mexico so it really, truly was lawless and insanity and you could get away with and drink if you were a minor and do whatever.
But, I can remember going to a lot of these shows in San Francisco and stuff and places like 10th St. Hall and stuff and I’m 16, 17 years old, but if you just pay a couple bucks, you can just go in this back area and drink off kegs. The kind of stuff you could get away with back then was pretty amazing. [Laughs]
What were the first bands you got into? How did you find punk and hardcore?
I remember I was riding with my dad; we were taking my brother to go over to the skate parks in San Jose which were the best at the time, and there was a radio station called KSJO, and all my local surfer friends would make fun of me for having a Valley radio station sticker on my surfboard. And I would listen to KSJO religiously, and this one time we were going over to go skate, and the Ramones came on. And it was the very first time I heard the Ramones, and I was just like, oh my god. It felt like I’d been waiting for that music my whole life. And then I think I heard the Ramones even before I heard the Sex Pistols and then that was great. Then the Clash, the Stooges, the Buzzcocks were incredible. KSJO eventually became a really commercial station that just turned generic, but back in those early days before there was really any definition of what punk and new wave were, all these different bands were just filed under this sort of punk thing.
This KSJO would play anything. The first time I heard the B-52’s was on KSJO. I remember at that time I was listening to tons of Sabbath, Zeppelin, all the hard rock that was going on in the ‘70s, David Bowie and stuff, Thin Lizzy, UFO. And then when these other bands came out, the Ramones, Sex Pistols, I just thought it was the best thing in the world. And I remember turning my high school friends onto it, junior high and high school friends, and them thinking I was weird for liking this music. It was so weird because I just liked everything that was new and heavy. I just thought, “Wait till these guys hear this,” and they were like, “What is this shit?” [Laughs] I remember being so tripped out that they were not into it. How could you not think the Ramones were the best band in the world? [Laughs] I probably saw Black Flag in ‘78 or something. With D.O.A. That was incredible. And then the Dead Kennedys and Social Unrest were another one of my first real shows of known hardcore bands. That was actually the day I cut my hair. That was back in the day if you had short hair, if you were a punk rocker in those early days, people just didn’t get it. They would chase you around school and want to beat you up.
When I came in with my hair cut short, there was a rumor going around that I got sent to some special camp, like they cut my hair. [Laughs] People just weren’t very accepting of that. And I just got more and more into it. […] We just became more and more obsessed with finding new stuff to listen to. Bands like Middle Class and U.X.A. and the Suburban Lawns and the Germs and X. It was before there was that definition of punk or hardcore or new wave. Everyone just went to see whatever was new. People might see the Go-Go’s one night and then go see the Germs or Black Flag the next and like it equally.
Yeah, a lot of different styles. But talking about cutting your hair, that was a big thing back then, like you said, you’d get harassed for that.
Yeah, and in the surf community, too. There used to be a heavy pecking order in the surf community, the older guys would dunk the young kids under the water, like, “Get the fuck out of here; you can’t surf here. Leave right now. Go over there!” I remember I paddled out at this place The River Mouth in Santa Cruz, and I had my head shaved, and this big guy, one of the heaviest locals just looked super mean and intimidating and he just started calling me “Cue Ball.” He’s like, “Hey, what’s up Cue Ball.”
[Laughs] I’m like, OK, I’m dead. But then he just started being super cool, and all my friends were like, “What?!” Like, “you should be getting more harassed because you’re the punker, and why are we getting harassed and they’re adopting you?” [Laughs] It was really funny a lot of the older guys got a weird kick out of it. They just thought it was so weird, they’re like, “This kid’s got some serious balls to have the audacity to do this and paddle out here in the middle of us all.” I’m definitely glad I grew up when I did.
[Laughs] It would be tough to be a kid now, especially with all this COVID stuff without the interaction of being around other kids and then people just getting too affected in a negative way by social media. Feeling like they have to be obligated to have a certain amount of friends on social media to be accepted or there’s no real interaction anymore. It seems like the kids are detached and probably even meaner than they were when we were kids.
Think of what you were doing, it wasn’t the norm…
Yeah, I’ve always known that I’d never want to be anything that resembles normal. [Laughs] I gravitated towards whatever pissed off normal people and conventional people. It’s like, if the bulk of the populace hates it, it’s probably something I would like.
Yes, definitely. It’s just so interesting hearing these stories.
And we were pretty close to San Francisco too, so basically the key to anything when you’re that age is having friends with cars. [Laughs] I didn’t have a car but we were always doing what we could do to scam rides up to see all these shows. We were going up there so much, there was one summer where Minor Threat played multiple shows in a week and MDC moved to San Francisco and Dead Kennedys, Crucifix, Sick Pleasure, plenty of great bands within the city but then all the touring bands coming through there.
And, every once in a while in Santa Cruz, we didn’t really have a punk rock venue until this guy Richie Walker opened a place called Club Culture in probably ‘83 or ‘84 through ‘85 or ‘86 before he got shut down, just basically harassed by the cops for having an all-ages venue. But he got everyone through there. The Catalyst, where I work now, was around but they wouldn’t really let those shows happen there. Bl’ast, when we really were around, we weren’t allowed to play there.
[Laughs] Now we do reunion shows and stuff like that there, and it’s great; that was totally different ownership, different time period, but basically the punk scene in Santa Cruz suffered from a lack of venues. But, like I said, we were close enough to San Francisco where we could just go up there and see everyone you could possibly want to see.
You mentioned MDC moving up there, did you ever play with D.R.I.?
Oh yeah. The first Bl’ast tour we did, I think it was Salt Lake through the Midwest to the East Coast with, as far as Ohio or somewhere like that, with JFA, and then we hooked up with D.R.I. and Corrosion of Conformity. Most of it was D.R.I., Corrosion. Corrosion was probably the band we played with the most. They were our really good friends. They still are. Like I said, the networking was so different. Before we left on that tour, as we were leaving the day before or whatever, we met the Cro-Mags for the first time, and I remember their record Age of Quarrel had just come out and Bl’ast The Power of Expression had just come out, everywhere we went across the country, people were listening to those two records.
Then, we’d be at CB’s and Harley [Flanagan] would be hanging out and we’d get stoned. I think that’s how we actually met them. It was at Gilman Street, and I think we scored them weed. [Laughter] We’ve known each other ever since. But it’s cool. That’s one thing I like about music is that I do have a lot friends that I still see from time to time. The fact that all these people from punk and hardcore bands, people you thought would just—I remember being a little kid if you were over 30 you were old, and now you’ve got all these people like us and people that are even older than me like Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, a lot of the English bands, we’re basically senior citizens that are still playing punk.
[Laughs] And the fact that we all get to still hang out with each other, like these friendships that have lasted so long over the years. You still get to see these people occasionally when they come through. Maybe not as much as you used to, but just the fact that everyone’s still doing it on some level and you still have all these people in your life is great.
No, that’s amazing. But one other thing you said about Seized Up—the first record came out with Pirates Press and then you got with Cursed Blessings. How’d that happen?
Cursed Blessings happened because a friend of ours, Al [Nolan], who’s a good friend of Chuck’s and Good Riddance and he was starting this little record label and asked us if we wanted to do it. It’s like, hell yeah. Paid for the recording and it’s just another cool little thing to do. Especially now because at that time the COVID thing was in full effect, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to do; I just felt like keeping busy with doing music seemed like—it was a great way to keep everyone inspired and just staying busy.
That’s so important for a band right now, to try and not get too frustrated and lose steam and momentum and just keep making stuff happen. At least making new music and do as much as you can to be in contact with people, interviews, whatever. That’s kind of what’s keeping the scene alive right now—just people supporting music and buying music and reading the magazines and staying in tune to what’s happening, despite the fact that you can’t go see live bands.
Listen to the Marching Down the Spiral EP below and pick up a physical copy on gold or clear vinyl here.
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Images courtesy of Seized Up. Live images credit: Alan Snodgrass.
