If you search No Fraud on YouTube, you’ll find a varied assortment of videos from their shows, some stemming back from the 80s. These Florida hardcore punks have released numerous records, and shared the stage with almost every punk band that comes to mind.
At the forefront is frontman, Dan Destructo, a Florida native who has been involved with a variety of scenes and bands from Venice, FL to Venice, CA, for almost 30 years. From helping Florida bands in the 80s hit the road and tour, to being involved with the Recess Records crew in the late 90s, to at one point housing Woah Hunx singer Kathleen Peterson and comedian Jonah Ray.
Dan is the type of guy you seldom come across nowadays. He isn’t that old punk rattling off by the bar about how it used to be “back in the day.” He is the guy who wholeheartedly makes an effort to check out emerging bands bringing something new to the table. When you talk to him, there are astounding stories within a story. He’s a true punk rock lifer with no plans of slowing down.
In town for a day recording some tracks for the new No Fraud album at Digital Insight Studios with our pal, Laser Lavin, I sat down with Dan to talk about his 30 year love affair with punk rock, why he stopped pursuing recognition, and what’s changed for him through all these years.
There are different documentaries on YouTube about the Florida punk and hardcore scene in the 80s, what were some of the differences compared to New York and D.C.?
Initially, [in] Florida itself, there were more bands than just us playing hardcore in ‘82, ‘83. So, a lot of Florida bands were punk, but a handful of us started playing hardcore that early. The one thing that happened with the Florida bands, one — they were poor. Two, there just was no structure here. Like, if you were in D.C. or New York, there were record labels and people in the business. You kinda had a clue of what was going on, but in Florida there was no framework for you to operate in, so you didn’t really know like, “oh, we should put out a record.” It didn’t dawn on us to try to make a record until we made the demo. It didn’t dawn on us to record, because we were playing shows.
Consistently hitting the road set you apart from your peers at the time. What motivated you to tour in a place where bands really didn’t?
Well, in our mind, we were just gonna play shows all the time. It wasn’t about making records. So touring was on our minds. And we realized as we kinda got out what it took to be a functioning, operative band. It was harder in Florida cause in Florida there wasn’t as much money, there weren’t enough clubs, and it wasn’t as tight. Like, when people talk about California they’re really just talking about the San Francisco and L.A. area. Those scenes, even though they cover a large amount of distance, they’re really tight. Whereas in Florida, there was no major center besides like Miami. Especially in the late 70s and early 80s. Some of the college towns weren’t even raging yet as far as punk music, or venues that would let punk bands play. Most of what we did was backyard shows. When people would start to ask us to play bigger shows they’d want a demo, and we’re like, “what the fucks a demo?”
So touring is how you learned what you need to be a band?
I mean, to some extent. Starting to play shows out of your own hometown. I mean, I’d rather play a house show, that would be preferable to play some giant stupid gig. That’s another thing you realize once you start touring: backyard shows are fun but sometimes they don’t even pay the gas money. It’s a double-edged sword, you want to play those cool underground shows, but then at the same time, if you want to play underground shows all the time, you have to get paid.
How was it transitioning from the laidback vibe of house shows into big venue shows with obligations?
There are many horrible things about it, but it’s part of the learning process. If you choose to maybe always be in tune, and maybe always have gear that’s not breaking down, you quickly learn what it takes to do that when you start playing bigger venues. Because you’re dealing with people that, maybe some of them anyway, are music professionals. They base their whole reality on music as far as income. So it needs to be something kinda consistent.
No Fraud has an extensive catalogue on different labels. Was finding the right label something you had to battle with during the early years?
Well, after the demo tape came out, the first thing we ever actually put out into the world, it got really good reviews in Maximum Rock-N-Roll [The E.P., 1985], and a bunch of different labels came around. By then, we were kinda on the back end of that California curve, we knew some of the people from California, so we asked them about the labels. Most of the people really didn’t have anything good to say, cause at that time there actually started to be a bit of money involved so people were getting weird. So we decided that we were gonna put it out ourselves. Then, the local record store/promoter, Daddy Cool, decide to help us. That’s why the first 1,000 pressings of that first 7” is on their label, No Clubs, and the second 2,500, that was on our label, Truth Records.
Did other bands follow suit after seeing you guys hit the road, putting out recordings and getting noticed?
As far as hardcore, before us there were hardcore bands that we’re doing okay, but most of them either broke up real quick, which was fairly common, or they just didn’t tour and just didn’t get out of say Gainesville, or they didn’t put out a record. So, we were the band that seem to kinda, not really intentionally, we kinda just followed the little progressions. We started playing out of town a lot. People started to hear about us. We got asked to do recording, we started doing recordings, and then the records got reviewed okay, then we started getting more gigs, then you start getting out of town gigs. Like, before we even put out the first 7”, we were already booked to play in Canada. Our first real tour, we went out of the country. And this is before the Internet, this is like people writing or getting your phone number and calling you up and asking you to play.
Did the extensive touring effect the band in any way?
That tour almost was really the end…within a year that lineup was pretty much done. The drummer, he went to college. He was still in the state of Florida, so he could’ve kept playing, but he basically decide to focus on his thing. We’d already found another drummer, but within six months of that, the guitar player left so we had to find another one. That lineup stayed steady for awhile.
Has finding people willing to tour consistently been the hardest thing through the years?
Yeah, or even just playing, really. I think part of what broke up the first version is a common problem – I didn’t really want it to be commercial. From what I could see, most professional bands were pretty fucking horrible – as far as people that had to tour to survive. No Fraud isn’t like a pop band, so it’s not gonna make a lot of money. But that broke the band up. Some of those guys wanted it to be something they could make a living at. Once they realized that wasn’t gonna happen, they peeled off.
In all the band’s touring, what did you notice about other groups that you wanted to avoid?
Part of it, when you get into that world, you’re trying so hard to make something to please somebody else, you know? Like, you’re saying, “if we just turn the guitars down a little it won’t be so scary for some people.” Or, “we’ll put more harmonies in there because people could sing along.” Well, now you’re a pop band. Not that all my friends did that, but some of them surely have, a lot of them that became somewhat popular. That’s something you try to avoid. When you think of being a consumable good instead of just being good.
Have you noticed your fan base change with time?
Uh, a lot of them have died off [laughs]. We’ve been around so long it’s kinda weird. Like, we have a good size crowd built up from just playing for so long. We’ve been playing so fucking long there’s people that are just getting into it that are like 16 years old, and then there’s people that are like 46 fucking years old. Or people that show up with their kids that used to come see us when they were little, and their kids are getting into it. So that’s fucking weird, but it’s kinda cool that it has some kind of staying power and that the lyrics still are valid. Which is good and bad. When you write songs about bad political scenarios and those scenarios are as bad or worse than they were, good for me, I wrote a song that has staying power. But, bad for me, I’m still living in that reality.
How did you get involved with the Recess Records scene in San Pedro? Did you find they had the same integrity you tried to keep alive?
I knew Todd [Congelliere, Recess Records owner/founder] and the boys — Sean Cole and everybody, from No Fraud touring, and from them coming out to us as well. We toured with them a little up and down California as well. Todd was like, “come on out!” I was in between gigs and didn’t know what I wanted to do so I came out. Yeah, it was definitely different, but the same idea, the same energy. People wanted to have fun. At that time, I’d say, there was a little bit more diversity in that part of Southern California than there were in other parts.
At that time was No Fraud touring still or a part of the Recess Records family?
Not really, we’d slowed down. We’d done some touring right before that. We were gonna put out a record and we didn’t finish it, still in limbo, that one. It’s considered the lost 10”, it was gonna come out on Recess. We never released anything on Recess apart from some songs on a couple comps, but never anything on Recess per se. That record, who knows, it might come out someday. We found the recordings.
How has the Florida scene changed now?
Florida was already starting to turn into like the pop-punk capitol via Gainesville, where all the fucking bands sounded the same. We were doing okay because we had our following, but that’s not to say that we wouldn’t show up to play a show there and it’d be like nine pop-punk bands and us. Like Hot Water [Music] or ska, like Less than Jake. The drummer of Less than Jake tried out for No Fraud and we didn’t take him. We know those guys because most of them came to see No Fraud. I like those bands, but the problem was the next generation of kids that were coming up with them, they weren’t really into what we were doing. Like the guys in the bands obviously liked us still, which often happens in bands, you’ll like some bands that maybe people in your genre of music wouldn’t be into. So when you try and play together it can be really good. I like it when the bands are all different cause than the show’s not boring to me, but sometimes it can really suck for the bands.
In the age of nostalgia, have The Fest organizers approached you to do a gig?
Yeah, Fest has tried to get us to play a couple of times. I know the people who put it on to some degree, so do most of the guys in our band, but it just didn’t seem like we wanted to do it. We did play a Fest “technically” but we didn’t play at The Fest. We played an outdoor show at our friend’s restaurant, The Lunch Box and a bigger band played. It was actually pretty out of control, we had like 12 bands, and kegs of beer. It was almost like a house show, but in the middle of The Fest, and it was free so a lot of people came. To me, that was worthy of playing The Fest but I don’t think I would play it on the normal stages. I’m not against festivals at all, but usually that one doesn’t have too many bands that I would go see.
When you look back on No Fraud’s career up to now, are you happy the way it went?
Yeah. When people say “live your life with no regrets,” that’s kinda bullshit because that means you never did anything so crazy and wild that you didn’t have any regrets. Sure, there’s stuff we did, maybe some people we pissed off. Sure, there’s things that I would say are regrets, but in general, yeah, I’m pretty stoked with the way it turned out. There’s still some integrity to it.
You can get more information about No Fraud via their Facebook page.
-Alan Madrigal
No Comments