ROB TURNER - TORCH RUNNER
Name: Rob Turner
Band(s): Torch Runner and Pinto Brains (zombie themed power violence, with members of Torch Runner switching instruments around some)
Duties in the band(s):
After Torch Runner’s first tour, Scott named me tour mama. I feel like we all have our well defined roles in the band, and mine is everything that has to do with touring. routing tour, booking shows, keeping up with money, setting the alarm on my phone and waking everyone up, and all that fun shit.
On November 30, 2010, I had the opportunity of playing a show with the band, Torch Runner. Before this I really didn’t have any idea about who they were, what they were about, or pretty much anything besides the fact that they had come to El Paso once before. While watching them play…all that I could think was “these guys are really fast, brutal, and technical.” It was really a fresh breath of air to see a band’s different take on the combination of what I call “fast, heavy, brutal” head banging music. While they had their fast-paced sporadic moments, there were definitely some slow devastating sludgy movements that came in that fit just perfectly. In addition, all these dudes were all very humble. It’s always a plus when you truly enjoy a band and the guys in it are down to earth dudes that like to kick it. I had the opportunity of interviewing Rob Turner, vocalist/bassist of the band, and he definitely dished out some of the funniest answers I’ve read in a while. Here’s Rob’s take on some of his childhood cartoon obsessions, touring, religion, and much more. Enjoy.
Goofy
Favorite cartoon growing up?
When i was a kid i was absolutely OBSESSED with Tom and Jerry, and Scooby Doo, and when i got more into my combat training that all 7 year olds put themselves through i was a Ninja Turtle kind of guy. I still watch cartoons on a daily basis, and I love reading comic books- although I like to think my tastes have matured a little bit haha. Now I watch Flapjack or Studio Ghibli instead of Ninja Turtles. I love pretty much anything that makes me feel like a kid.
Cheerios or Lucky Charms?
Well, being vegan, I can’t have the Lucky Charms, but that doesn’t mean i still don’t lust over them. With the same reasoning as the cartoon question, I can’t help but have a guilty pleasure in little kid oriented cereal. Even though I have that weakness, I try to be really health conscious in my eating so i guess I fall right in the middle of the fence on the cereal debate. I usually have a box of Fruity Pebbles sitting right next to some kashi shit that doesn’t taste as good.
Broncos or Unicorns?
Unicorn for sure. I feel like they could take me more places I’d want to go.
Favorite team/s…that’s if you follow sports
My entire life I’ve honestly never really liked watching sports. I love playing them with my friends, but that’s about as far as i go.
Favorite breed of dog (if you like dogs)?
I’ve always been a cat person/had cats. Until not that long ago, I got a great dane on craigslist from a couple who didn’t want him anymore. Being a dog owner is the shit. I never knew what i was missing. My entire life I’ve had an affinity for big ass giant dogs, and definitely still feel that way.
Ninja Turtles or Street Sharks?
I just had to wikipedia street sharks. I feel deprived as shit right now.
If you were a X-Men who would you be?
Night fucking Crawler. Think of all the shit you could get away with if you were able to climb on walls with night vision and be invisible in shadows.
Personal
Can you recall the first show you ever attended? (When, Where, Who)
Well, I saw Mxpx in 2000… but the first real show I ever went to was in 2001 in Winston Salem, NC. I’m sure no one would recognize most of the bands that played- Amedeus, Aislinn, Aria, Xat War with Themx, and Beloved. That was the first time I saw real hardcore bands and got fucking stoked on it. From that point on I started going to shows on a regular basis.
Do you remember the first time playing a show? How did it go?
Haha yeah, the first show I ever played was early 2004 in the band I was in with all the dudes that lived in my neighborhood. We played at a local skatepark with some other smaller shitty bands. 4 songs, no vocals. We came up with our band name on the way to the show.
What was the turning point in your life that made you pursue the lifestyle of a musician?
When i was in 3rd grade my mom worked in a Christian book store and I just by chance happened to hear Mxpx for the first time when I was there with her and that’s what did it. My elementary school best friend and I became Mxpx super fans from that point on, got guitars, and started having sleepovers every weekend which consisted of us attempting to write Mxpx rip off songs. From the point that I was able to put it together in my head that bands went on tour, i knew that it was what i wanted to do.
Any type of music that you simply cannot stand listening to?
R&b and pop country seriously ruin my damn day if i hear it. Also this whole adult contemporary alternative rock jazz big band style shit. What the fuck? My boss listens to it at work and it makes my day go slower than anything else.
Any hobbies/obsessions besides rocking out?
I geek out pretty hard over movies (mostly campy pre-1990 horror movies), I love reading comic books and graphic novels as well as reading in general, I love being physically active, and I love cooking. My friends and I have cookouts/potlucks all the time and i fucking love it. Right now we’re on the Sunday brunch kick.
What would your favorite meal consist of?
Pretty much anything southern as fuck and vegan. Oddly enough, the best southern meal I’ve ever had was in Tucson, AZ on our last tour. We went to a vegan restaurant that had country friend chicken, steamed vegetables, stuffing, and corn bread. Goddamn that was so good. Corn bread is my absolute favorite food.
Any favorite bands that will always stick with you until the day you die?
As funny as it is I feel like most of the bands I’ll stick with forever are bands that I got into super young. The music I most consistently listen to is music that I first heard in middle school. Aside from that my absolute favorite band is Strike Anywhere. Other favorites are Neurosis, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Gillian Welch.
Are there any specific albums you can say changed you as a person/musician?
Mxpx - Life in General, Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come, Rotten Sound - Cycles, Neurosis - A Sun that Never Sets, Khanate - Things Viral
Are there any albums that are in constant rotation at the moment?
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood. I’m more stoked on this record than anything I’ve heard in a long long time. And if we’re being completely honest… Panic at the Disco - A Fever you Can’t Sweat Out, Wu-Tang - Enter the Wu-Tang, and Ke$ha - Animal.Hahaha, no bullshit.
Are there any albums that are going to be released in 2011 that you’re stoked about?
Some of my absolute best friends in the world are in a band called Braveyoung. They have a new record that came out at the beginning of the year that is unbelievable, and they just recorded another new album that is a collaboration with The Body. I haven’t heard anything off of it yet, but I know it’s going to be fucking insane. A band that we’ve toured with a bunch (and hang out with every chance we get to) from NC called Systems just recorded a new album. It’s absolutely incredible. I can’t wait to hear it pressed. Also some friends of ours in a band called Profits from Portland are putting out a 10" this year that I cannot fucking wait to hear. They’re one of the best sounding live bands I’ve ever seen.
Have there been any nightmare stories concerning any of your tours?
Honestly we have been insanely lucky with touring. There are always shitty situations with long drives and shows getting cancelled or not being good for this or that reason, but it’s all just part of touring. I feel like some of the funniest jokes/situations have come out of the shittiest show experiences, so it’s all worth it.
Funniest thing you can say that has happened to you while touring?
It’s hard to think of something on the spot… one time we did an entire tour shirtless. We weren’t even allowed to bring any shirts with us. That actually sucked really bad and by the end of it I couldn’t wait to be clothed haha. Needless to say, that brought about some pretty funny/incredibly awkward situations.
What should someone NOT do on tour to avoid an upset Rob Turner?
Haha honestly I’m extremely easy going. We all are, luckily. We don’t really ever get into fights or arguments. Scott and I will usually get in one spat per tour (usually over something about driving) but it’s done within 10 minutes and we kiss and make up. I’m not sure that i could tour so much with any other group of people. We’re all best friends and still hang out all the time while we’re at home (but luckily we don’t have to sleep in the same room every night)… but i guess if I HAD to pick one thing that got on my nerves on tour is when people are messy in the van. It’s just inconsiderate, you know? We all have to live in this thing for the next however many weeks, so don’t leave your stinky ass clothes everywhere. Luckily no one in Torch Runner is bad about being messy with personal stuff.
What’s the scene like up in Greensboro, NC? Anything that you would like to change about it?
Shows are so hit or miss here it’s ridiculous. Torch runner, along with our friends in Braveyoung, Resister, and our bud Kris Hilbert who runs a recording studio, help run a venue in Greensboro called Legitimate Business. We have shows fairly often and it’s like tossing a coin to figure out if people are going to attend. Sometimes we’ll be packed out, and sometimes our best shows will only have 5-10 people. Also, people in Greensboro don’t really like us. Our friends come out when we play, but that’s about it. I always feel really bad if a band does an awesome show for us on tour and then asks to play with us in Greensboro on their tour. Haha we’ll do it, but it probably won’t be that great. I usually try to book outside of greensboro when bands ask us for shows. I just wish Greensboro was more predictable and enjoyed coming out to see music.
I have some family on the borderline of NC/SC. Any venues you would like to recommend in the NC region?
There are a ton of awesome places in North Carolina/South Carolina to play. Rock Hill, South Carolina is one of my favorite places we’ve ever played. Every single time we’re there it’s better and better. Kids there are SO stoked on music and it’s great. We’ve made really good friends with some bands there like Bay of pigs and Narratives. Asheville, NC is the shit, too…as is Chapel Hill, NC. There are so many good bands in the eastern part of the state.
If you weren’t living in Greensboro, NC, where would you like to live?
One thing I’ve found out through touring is that there really isn’t a single city that is cool on its own. It’s all about who you’re around. I love Greensboro because I love my friends so much. Although, I am planning a mass exodus of Greensboro people to Asheville, NC. It’s a small city in the mountains that is the absolute shit. I believe the plan is that in about a year from now Torch Runner will move there as a band.
Any favorite cities/states you must have when touring?
The places that we’ve had the best responses are Pittsburgh PA, Rock Hill SC, Nashville TN, and Portland OR. I’m always floored by how awesome our shows are there. Other places we’ve had a shit ton of fun in are El Paso for sure, San Francisco CA, Seattle WA, Tallahassee FL, Atlanta GA, and Boise ID… gah there are so many the more I keep thinking about it. I love making friends on tour then coming back and seeing them again. I’m easy to please as far as cities go. Also, driving through the southwest, the pacific northwest, and the mountains/planes in the upper Midwest is so incredible. The scenery is so much different from North Carolina.
Any places that you would like to tour through that you haven’t already?
There are only a few small areas of the US we haven’t made it to yet… but more than anything i want to start doing international stuff. I’d love to start doing some Canada shows on our longer tours. Our plan is to do something overseas at the end of the year. Our options are looking like Europe, Australia, and Japan. I’ve got my sights on Japan, though. I’d love to get to visit there.
Torch Runner
When did Torch Runner begin?
Torch Runner became a full band in late 2007. Scott and Josh had been playing together for a while, but that’s when I joined the band and our first bass player joined.
How did Torch Runner’s name come about?
Haha that’s a good question. It was there when I got there. I’m pretty sure Josh came up with it, but there isn’t any meaning behind it. At the end of the day it’s just a name.
What would you say are Torch Runner’s main influences?
Ehh, that’s a hard one. We all listen to a lot of music, but we try to not pull too much from anything. Scott plays his guitar for hours every single day and churns out a ton or riffs. I feel like we end up keeping one out of every twenty haha. Scott is an incredible guitar player though and works really hard to try to make what we feel like is unique music.
If you could describe the band in one word, what would it be?
Haha well I have a couple words I hope people would choose to describe us… angry. loud. fast… if someone described us with any mix of that I’d be stoked and felt like we were getting across the right way.
You first went from fronting the band to now being the bassist/vocalist. How did that go down?
Well, Chuck used to play bass… but he’s a busy bee and tours with a few other bands. I originally learned all the songs on bass so that we could play as a 3 piece when chuck was gone. I’ve played bass in almost every other band I’ve been in, so it wasn’t really much of a jump. We ended up playing a few shows that way and I absolutely loved it. When Chuck got home from a really long tour we talked about it and decided to try switching him to second guitar and see how it worked. We were all really happy, so we’ve stuck with it. It gives us a lot more options with what we can play.
How many different lineups has the band gone through?
Well, our friend Matt Watson was the original bass player for the first couple years of the band. He did a couple tours with us then parted ways, and Chuck has been in the band since summer 2009. First playing bass, then switching to second guitar in the fall of 2010.
Comparing the Colony EP to the Locust Swarm 10”….I thought you guys got faster, grindier, doomier and more technical if that makes any damn sense. Are there any plans of recording new material in the works? How do you think the band in general/ the writing process has changed ever since you jumped on bass?
Thank you so much man, that really means so much to hear. I feel like we matured as a band a shit ton between our two releases and kind of found our niche. We actually just recorded 2 new songs for a split with another North Carolina band called Young and in the Way (incredible dudes, incredible music). One of the songs is kind of longer, and I feel like it’s the darkest song we’ve written, while the other song is probably the fastest song we’ve ever written. I don’t really feel like much has changed in the writing process since i went to bass… we all have always played a big role in writing every little thing.
I myself am a bassist and I would like to say that I love your style/tone. Since we’re on the topic of bass, can you say that there have been any influential bassists in your bass playing? (general sense/doesn’t have to be assimilated with Torch Runner’s style)
Again, i really appreciate the compliment… I don’t really know if I have any specific influences. If I’m writing bass i generally just try to think of what i can do to compliment the guitar in the meanest and darkest way possible. If I’m listening to a band and I can tell the bass player accomplishes that, I love it. A great example would be the bass playing on the heavier Neurosis albums. I also believe that the way to kill good bass is by overplaying it. Sometimes the most simple things work the best.
I’m a gear nerd so I guess I got to ask….what type of gear do you use to achieve your massive tone in the band? If it’s secret feel free to lie!
Haha not at all. I feel like the only secret is that you’ll have to sit alone with your set up for hours turning every knob and figuring out exactly what effect each thing has on your tone. I also love old gear. I think the aesthetic as well as the quality and sound can’t be beat. I play a 1975 gibson grabber 3, through a 1971 acoustic 320 head. I also tried about a million different distortion/overdrive/fuzz pedals but never found one i thought sounded better than a boss bass overdrive. It sounds so goddamn thick and crunchy, I love it.
Can you describe what lyrical influences drive the band? Like any band, I sense a great deal of personal subject matter, but more interestingly…anti-religion and humanity as a failure.
This is the second band that I’ve written lyrics for, and when we first started out over 3 years ago I decided that I wanted to make the words in each song extremely personal. In my previous band, all of the songs had a message, but I didn’t really have a great tie into any of them. One of my favorite things about Torch Runner is that I feel like we make angry music- so I try to surface all of my frustrations, anger, and hostilities through it. Even though I know a lot of what i write seems extremely negative, I look at every word and statement as being a positive outlet with a positive message. I still hold to making sure that every song has a point, and in one form or another I believe everything I write about can be boiled down to one thing- the absolute equality between every man and woman regardless of color, class, or sexual identity. My frustrations don’t lie within humanity itself being a failure, but rather humanity failing at many things. We’ve allowed so many things to take place that are so detrimental to so many people. I believe a lot (but not all, obviously) of this stems from institutionalized religion (and to some extent, spirituality in general). I firmly believe that the belief in a god holds us as humans back from accomplishing so many things- whether it be that we are too focused on our second life to worry about this one and the effect our actions have on the other people in it, or the fact that some kids are taught that science is wrong. Obviously I don’t hate all religious people…some of my best friends are religious. But it all boils down to being respectful. My lyrics regarding religion/god/spirituality all come from my personal experiences through internal struggles and growing up in an extremely religious home. Even though I am angry over it, it is not toward any peers. It is toward the people that sell inhumanity behind a pulpit, and toward myself for being deceived by it for so long.
There was a sample used in the song, Dead Eyed. It was Albert Camus’, A Happy Death, and it’s definitely an interesting choice that I think intertwines nicely with the theme of the album. inside him widened a great lake of solitude and silence, under which ran the sad song of his deliverance. How did you guys come about choosing this quote?
It was all by chance, honestly. I just happened to be reading A Happy Death when we were recording Locust Swarm and fell in love with that line. I felt like it fell in perfectly with the theme of most of the lyrics in the album. Dead Eyed is about feeling like all of my words and efforts that are for making the world a better place are unsubstantial and will be gone as soon as I am. March of Giants is about feeling overrun by the people that control the world to the point that it makes me lethargic. Total War Torn is about a close friend that was made to feel so guilty, to the point that she became almost suicidal, over the fact that she felt like maybe the lifestyle of the “American way” just wasn’t for her… Locust Swarm, Roads, and Discarded all deal with similar issues as well.
When distributing merchandise, I saw the “Zero-Work” patches. I sport one and have my own interpretation as to what it embodies but can you explain it a little more in your own words for the reader.
“Zero Work” is an abbreviation for “zero work for capital” …it can honestly have so many meanings. To me, personally, it represents dissent toward the mother fucker’s that are getting rich off of you having to survive. Whether that be you working for minimum wage, or you having to shop for food to eat. Fuck the fact that people are making money off of you just because they are in the position to. Steal from work, steal from the grocery store, scam shit, etc, etc, etc. (haha- I will throw in there that I don’t think stealing from a mom and pop/locally owned store and stealing from a corporation are the same thing. Fuck the big wigs. Support co-op’s and people that are trying to survive just like you.
Any specific bands Torch Runner would like to tour with?
I feel like I’ve gotten really heated through the last few questions haha… honestly we are down to tour with any nice, not macho, down to earth, cool people. We are all really friendly dudes that get along with most everyone, so we’re usually up to touring with any bands we meet if it can work out. We’ve made friends with so many great people and bands, and I’d love to go out with every one if the chance presents itself.
If ya’ll were to do a split with anyone, who would your top choices be?
I’d love to do a split with the band Children of God from southern CA. That was the first one that popped in my mind, but I’m sure the list could go on for hours. Dead in the Dirt from Atlanta… Profits from Portland… Black Flag in the Keith Morris era.
What does 2011 look like for the band?
Well, we got home from tour right at the end of 2010 and started writing a lot. Thrown in there was recording our split with Young and in the Way, and then more writing. We’re about to leave for tour from April 5th - May 18th. After that we’ll probably take it easy for a little while, write some more, do a smaller late summer tour, then hopefully another big on in august. After that our goal is do something international, but we haven’t really come to a consensus on what yet… then I’d love to round out the year with another big tour and maybe some new songs recorded on a split/release/something.
Guess that sums everything up! Anything else you would like to say about yourself, the band, me, the world, etc?
Whenever I do anything regarding Torch Runner I tend to get really sentimental haha. It means so much to me that you got in touch with me for this interview, and it means a shit ton for everyone who takes the time to read it. I feel like in situations like this (and especially when we play) I always say the most cliche things about being appreciative to how nice and loving everyone we’ve met can be, but I mean every damn word. I just can’t think of more original ways to put it. The sense of community within punk and hardcore is so great, and I think it’s something everyone in the world could learn from. The fact that some kid will work hard to book a show for some band coming through, the fact that people come out to shows and donate/buy merch, the fact that someone will work hard on a zine and put their own money into it so that people have a resource to learn from, and the fact that across the country there are so many people with the exact same mindset is extremely meaningful and humbling to me. So you know…that’s about it haha.
end.
Torch Runner tours constantly so check them out at a show near you. If you want to buy any of their merch go to http://www.page63.com/store/runner.php or http://www.indiemerchstore.com/b/torch-runner/. Heck, just private message them on any of the social networks and I’m pretty sure they will hit you up with any directions on how to get some of their merchandise. This was a long interview, but it’s truly heartwarming to see how some musicians are down to spend a huge chunk of their time to fill my goofy/serious questions out. Support ‘em!
See ya!
Chris
