Public service announcement to every out of state drunk hipster at a party that thinks they "know real punk", “used to listen to good punk “ or have “real punk friends back home”: stop being condescending to young street punks.  You will get your ass knocked out by a 16 year-old in a Casualties shirt.  True story.

You heard New York was dead?

You heard punk was dead?

Fuck what you heard! This is THRILLER!


Chief Magazine: Introduce yourselves.

Soren: I’m Soren from Brooklyn, and I'm the singer in Thriller.

Keegan: My name's Keegan, I’m from the Lower East Side and I play guitar.

Chris: Hey, I'm Chris Pogo, or Big Chris, and I play with myself.

Mikki C:  What's up?  I'm Mikki C. I was born and raised in Queens, and I fuckin' love it. I play guitar.

...(Ian, Emil and Eugine are playing drums).

How did you guys first start playing? How did you guys meet up?

Keegan: We've all been friends for a while. It's hard to say exactly how we started. At the time, a lot of New York punk bands were breaking up and a lot of new bands were forming. I think we just knew that we wanted to start a band and things sort of fell into place. It originally started with just Mikki, Big Chris, Soren and Brian. Soren had a connection to a recording studio so we would get free practice time, which helped kick things off. After practicing for a while and playing a couple shows, we decided our sound would be better with two guitarists, and Keegan just seemed to fit into the equation. Brian passed away about one year ago and after that we weren't really sure what to do, but we knew we wanted to keep the band alive so a bunch of our friends jumped in to support us and play drums.

How did you get into punk?

C: Through my cousin. He used to be a hardcore kid in the 80’s. I stole some of his CDs once and I really dug it.

S: I think every kid in New York gets into punk at some point in their life. Some kids stick with it, but I think it was seeing bands like Zombie Vandals, Treason and Eyes Of Hate that really got me into it.

MC: I got into punk through some friends I knew at school.
St. Marks was a spot where kids would just meet up everyday to hang out and drink 'n shit, and that’s where I met pretty much everyone I know today. It’s crazy 'cause now you cant even fuckin' stand around anywhere on that street without getting a ticket or getting arrested. It was there that I heard Zombie Vandals for the first time, and I thought it was the craziest shit I ever heard.

K: Through my family.

Keegan, what was it like being raised punk on the Lower East Side? People have been saying that neighborhood ain't the same since the 80’s, but its really changed.

K: It wasn’t so much being raised ‘punk’ as much as being raised by people who had a part in the punk movement and who had punk ideals. I used to be in Tompkins Square Park almost everyday as a child, but now I rarely even step foot there because it always feels crowded and overused.  The Lower East Side has changed a lot, even in the short amount of years I’ve been alive.  On 3rd St, where I grew up for most of my life, there have been at least five or six newly constructed buildings within the last few years.  And there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

Most of you were all in previous bands. Care to share about them?

M: Yeah, I used to play in the Cro-mags, Black Uniform and Van Halen, but they all kicked me out because I was too good... so now I play in Thriller.

S: I was in a band called the Infuckted when I was, like, thirteen. We only really played one show, at the Free Store, which is now Passout Records. 

C: I played in a few bands before this band, but I've never felt right in any of them besides Thriller.

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What influences you?

S: Musically, I think our biggest influences are bands like English Dogs and G.B.H., along with NYHC bands like the Cro-mags, who we like to cover, and Warzone, which I think is shown in our breakdowns. Lyrically, I'm influenced a lot by just life in New York and all the shit that goes on. I don't like to write songs too much about things that I don't know, or things that have been written about before. I also leave politics alone.

MC: I concur.

The first time you guys played after August was unannounced.  I didn’t even know you guys were playing! How did it feel to start playing again?

S: The idea of us getting back together had already been floating around. During a show at 6th street, at the last second we just decided to jump on the bill and play. We hadn't practiced in probably 10 months. We played like shit but it was fun as hell, and it got us and everybody else excited for our official reunion show. I don't want to say that it was emotional, but it definitely brought back old memories of playing with Brian.
 
The first two shows were awesome but chaotic when I booked you guys at Galapagos. It was the first time you ever played on a stage; the whole crowd was pretty blown away. What was that show like for you?

C: I was amazed at how many people showed up. Even my dad came  unannounced and said it was one of the most intense shows he's seen, which meant a lot to me cause he’s seen a lot of bands in his life, like Guns 'n Roses and the New York Dolls way back in the day.

S: I don't think any of us expected the show to go that well. I remember lugging Keegan's amp over to the club asking myself if it was even really worth it, but I think it was probably one of the most intense shows we’ve played. Playing on an actual stage is weird when you're used to just playing on the ground. The crowd interacts and interferes with us a lot when we play, so I thought it would feel a little awkward playing on a stage, but in the end I think it worked out really cool.

MC: I just liked it 'cause there weren't kids smashing into my amp every five seconds unplugging my guitar... and I got to play on a 5150.

Your reunion show was nuts! That set must have gone on for an hour or so, with random covers and bands forming in the middle of the set. What did you think of that show as a whole?

S: It was definitely one of the most intense shows I've been to, thanks to all the kids that came out. I was glad that it was a house show, 'cause those are very rare in New York nowadays, and shit always gets crazier at a house than at a club. Thanks to all the kids that live at North 4th and Kent for letting us have that show there.

MC: There must have been like two hundred, three hundred heads there. It was crazy; people were going nuts. I was glad with the turnout, considering we had not played in over ten months. It was great because people got a sense of the way old shows were in the past. The only thing I hated was my amp 'cause you couldn’t hear shit coming out. Besides that, it was definitely the craziest show we’ve had to date. I only wish our brother Brian was there to see it. He would have loved it.