By Eric The Red
In recent days, we’ve been honored by a number of amazing bands, who in their own right can be considered punk rock royalty. This next week, our valley has the privilege of hosting a show with 2 amazing bands; Riverside’s Voodoo Glow Skulls and Simi Valley’s Strung Out. I had the pleasure of speaking with Jordan Burns, the drummer for Strung out, and got the lowdown on what the band is working on, his opinion of social media and what he’s working on aside from the band.
While speaking with Jordan, I wanted to find out what it was like on the road with Voodoo Glow Skulls. He stated, “Well, it’s funny because other people mention that it’s a tour or whatever and it’s funny, because I don’t even look at it as a tour, because a tour is going out [on the road] for like, a month. So I look at it like we’re just doing these three shows together, but we’ve done some shows together with Voodoo [Glow Skulls] and we’ve known those guys for a long time.” Good buddies, just out to have a good time and rock out. That sounds like a recipe for a good time, if you ask me. He continued by stating, “They’ve been around since we have, pretty much, and it’s fun to play with them. I think it’s a good package and in today’s times I think it’s important to try and team up with other good bands that people are still caring about to make a good show for the fans that are going to buy tickets.”
On the subject of social media, Jordan had an interesting view on its use, as well as how bands can improve their fan base. Jordan said, “I think when you look at social media, it’s really hard to grasp what it really means. Some bands have a huge amount of “likes” on their Facebook page, but they don’t draw that many people. Then there are other bands that are gigantic and they don’t have that many likes. It’s an interesting thing, you know? I don’t know how it gets measured.” He continued by adding, “It’s like a machine that you’ve gotta keep feeding and give info to the people, and always constantly posting information. It’s time consuming, but then again, it’s part of the times. I think a lot of new bands try to do it, and the problem is that there are so many bands out there that try to use social media to promote themselves that I think people kinda get on overload and are quick to blow things off instead of taking a listen. I come from that old school and I think it’s interesting when you see the bands that are working hard handing out flyers and posting on billboards. It almost seems to be non-existent these days.”
Continuing our conversation, I asked Jordan if he could let me know if the band was getting ready for a new album. “Yeah,” stated Burns, “that’s actually what we’re fully focusing on right now. We’ve been doing quite a bit with that, rehearsing every day and a bunch of preproduction. We’re shooting to start recording at the beginning of January, so we definitely will have a new release for 2014. It’s been quite a while since we did a new record and everyone’s getting excited about it. It’s a lot of work. We’ve been busting ass trying to put all the material together and get everything sorted out.”
That is some amazing news for Strung Out fans worldwide! New tunes to come in 2014! To finish out our discussion, I asked Jordan what his dream show would be. He says, “It’d be fun to do something like a NoFX, Lagwagon, Millencolin, Propagandhi, Pennywise, Bad Religion, some sort of festival like that and let’s put it in Russia, cause we’ve never been there.” That would be an insane festival, to say the least.
Make sure to catch Strung Out, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Assuming We Survive and Drop The World this Saturday, December 21 at The Hood in Palm Desert. Doors open at 8pm. This show is 18 and up and is $15 at the door. Also, make sure to check out MotoXXX.com, Jordan’s motocross company, which he’s been running since 1994.
