Welcome to Before You Were Punk, an interview feature here on Punks in Vegas where we ask your favorite musicians and music biz aficionados one simple question: what made you the music fan you are today?
This installment comes from Matt Medina, owner of Animal Style Records. Find out how rollerblading videos and Pennywise turned him on to punk rock.
I don’t think my story is all that different from anyone else. Like 10 million other people, I bought Dookie on cassette in 1994 and it was easily the first music that really resonated with me. However, being 10 years old I don’t think I understood the concept of genre and didn’t know that Green Day was playing punk rock. Still, I don’t really attribute Dookie or Green Day for continuing down this journey.
To really bring this back I started rollerblading when I was 11. Skate culture was huge in Southern California and that played a major role in the mid 90s. I learned far too quickly that I just wasn’t coordinated enough to skateboard so somehow rollerblading was my substitute. At one point I bought my first rollerblading VHS and heard all this fast and aggressive music I hadn’t heard before. It was then that I first heard the song “Searching” and discovered Pennywise.
I know, I know, Pennywise gets a ton of flack. Warranted or not, that was the band for me. A few weeks later I found myself in a Virgin Megastore in Costa Mesa with my dad. I was wandering around the store and came upon the listening station where they had the album About Time. From the opening riff of “Peaceful Day” I was pretty floored. 12 songs sped through in just a half hour and I was immediately hooked. I somehow convinced my dad to buy it for me and I never looked back.
From that same rollerblading video I first heard Millencolin, The Descendents, and The Suicide Machines. This also led me to scour stores for comps. I remember rummaging at Wherehouse and finding Punk-O-Rama 2. It was around $4 and had 3 of those bands I already knew. From there I went on to hear the other Epitaph staples like Bad Religion, NOFX, and Rancid. Between Punk Bites and Cinema Beer Nuts I pretty much found what would become the soundtrack to my middle school years.
Other than Pennywise I think the other band to spring me into things early on was Home Grown. It was the first band that I heard that didn’t take itself seriously and I think I latched on to the fact that they were also from Southern California. They were immature kids like me who wanted to have fun. At that point I think most of the bands I had been listening to took themselves a little too seriously so Home Grown seemed like the antithesis of all that. They were the first pop-punk band I really got behind and they led me to want to start going to shows.
It’s weird to think and trace things back because of a random hobby. Maybe I would have figured out Green Day wasn’t just some band I heard on the radio. Instead I’ll take my Bro Hymn and fall flat on my face trying to grind some rail.
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