![](\"\/images\/tonycouch.jpg\")
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br><\/p>\n
Now that Spring is here and your allergies are back in full swing, it’s time to bust
\nout the happy, poppy, sunshine-y punk rock! Or better yet, check out something new for
\n2013, like Tony Molina’s album Dissed And Dismissed<\/i>. Molina truly has the knack
\nfor what makes guitar-heavy pop music great: the hooks are memorable and bountiful, his
\nsinging is tunefully simple, the guitars explode with confetti at just the right time,
\nand no song ever overstays its welcome. As his group Ovens has been dishing it out for
\nyears, Tony Molina proudly contributes to the Bay Area’s wellspring of catchy, anthemic
\n punk music both on his own and with the variety of groups he claims membership. I was
\nable to catch up with him while he was working his night job (movie theater projectionist)
\n and we talked about music, of all things.<\/p>\n
You just released an album under your own name. Does that mean you played all the instruments,
\nor just wrote all the music and lyrics, or what? Was it weird having your own name instead of
\na band name on the front cover?<\/b>
\nYeah, I wrote all the songs and played all the instruments on that record. It was very weird,
\nbecause none of my bands have ever done an LP, this is my first one, and it has my full name
\nand a big-ass picture of my face on it! I was a little bit nervous about doing that at first,
\nbut now I don’t really care.<\/p>\n
Who had the idea? I presume you are more than just business partners with the Melters folks…
\nDid you have the record done, and they asked to release it, or was the idea established before
\nyou recorded it?<\/b>
\nIt was my idea. That record was originally going to be an Ovens record, but since half of that
\nband is scattered around the country and doing their own thing, I decided to do it by myself.
\nThe Melters dudes are my friends and hit me up about doing an LP of my earlier solo stuff, and
\ndidn’t know that I had recorded Dissed And Dismissed<\/i> yet. So I played it for them and they were really
\n stoked on it and wanted to release it.<\/p>\n
Will this forever be a studio-only thing? Have you gotten together some folks to play
\nthese songs live, and put together a Tony Molina band?<\/b>
\nI finally started to put a band together with Andrew from Ovens, Spencer from the band Baader
\n Brains and my friend Anthony who does a project called Swanox. Right now it’s just me and
\ngetting the riffs down. It’s going to be awhile, but I do plan on playing shows and touring
\nand whatever. I am nervous about playing this shit live though.<\/p>\n
You’re playing in other bands too, right?<\/b>
\nYeah I sing in a hardcore band called Caged Animal. And up until like a week ago, I was playing
\nguitar in this band Violent Change. Both bands put out records this year. My main band Ovens
\nisn’t very active anymore, but that band will never break up. We actually have two records
\n coming out this year!<\/p>\n
Why’d you do these songs under Tony Molina instead of Ovens, then? Is there any fundamental difference?<\/b>
\nIt’s only because those guys didn’t play on the tracks. The music is pretty much exactly
\nthe same, but those dudes are my best friends and we’ve been in that band for like eleven
\nyears or something now. If they didn’t play on it, it can’t be called an Ovens record.<\/p>\n
So about the record: the title Dissed And Dismissed<\/i>, along with some of the lyrics… do
\npeople really not want you around? The lyrics can be kind of a downer, especially when compared
\nwith the upbeat melodies and poppy riffs.<\/b>
\nAll I can say is the last couple of years was a pretty rough time in my life and I think some
\nof the lyrics describe how I felt at the time. The title is a Breakdown song though.<\/p>\n
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br>
<\/br><\/p>\n
You’re really into heavy, thuggish hardcore, for my lack of a better term right now. Does
\nthat have any influence in your solo material? Are they just two very separate entities in your brain?<\/b>
\nI think it influences my guitar style\/tone a lot. Most of the ideas I have for my guitar
\nplaying come from heavier, more riff-oriented bands, but it probably doesn’t influence my
\nsongwriting very much.<\/p>\n
What does influence your songwriting? Is it annoying when people say you remind them of Weezer?<\/b>
\nProbably just a lot of the bands I listen to. I think Thin Lizzy, Guided By Voices, Big Star,
\nTeenage Fanclub and The Fastbacks are bands that are a big influence. It doesn’t bother me at
\nall when people bring up Weezer because they are one of my favorite bands. I get a lot of
\nguitar ideas from bands like Crowbar, Obituary, and heavier stuff like that. <\/p>\n
What kind of ideas?<\/b>
\nJust like, how those bands approach writing riffs and the tones they get is what I also
\ntry to do myself. I want my music to be very riff oriented like those bands, even though
\n I play pop music.<\/p>\n
Isn’t pop music riff-oriented? Or is that hook-oriented? What’s the difference anyway?<\/b>
\nI think it can be both, but I guess I think hooks when I think of pop music, and when I
\nthink riffs I just think of Merauder. Or something. <\/p>\n
Which matters most? If you were exiled to an island and allowed only hardcore\/metal or
\n pop, what would you grab on your way out?<\/b>
\nThat’s a really tough question! I’d probably grab my Big Star and Teenage Fanclub albums,
\nand then be very sad knowing I could never jam E-Town Concrete or Suffocation ever again.
\nIt’s bumming me out just thinking about that right now. I really hate this question.<\/p>\n
Thankfully that is a fictional situation that will never exist. I’ll change the subject…
\nwhat’s the Bay Area scene like these days? From my East Coast point of view, there’s a bunch
\nof cool bands springing up, doing skewed takes on indie rock and punk and hardcore and what-have-you…
\nis it really just like, five different people in a handful of bands and a bunch of internet
\npraise, or are there really lots of different bands and cool things going on?<\/b>
\nThere’s lots of different bands doing cool shit in the Bay. I’ve seen a lot of cool hardcore
\nbands, and made a lot of friends from playing shows with Caged Animal. I’m still mourning the
\nloss of the great bands like Ecoli, Yadokai, Sopors, and Jump Off A Building, who are important
\nbands for me. Thankfully I can still see Violent Change, Synthetic ID and Culture Kids though!<\/p>\n
That’s great. What’s next? More Tony Molina records? Something by Ovens? Caged Animal
\ndouble LP on Lockin’ Out?<\/b>
\nFor the solo stuff, I got an unreleased eight-song EP from 2009 that I want to come out as a 7″.
\nI’m also going to the studio soon to record four songs for a split 7″ with Swiftumz. There are
\ntwo Ovens 7″s that are coming out on Melters and Catholic Guilt, both were recorded years ago.
\nCaged Animal is going to the studio soon to record our second 7″, which is going to be released by
\nVideo Disease. Also I’m starting a new hardcore band with Blaine from Violent Change that’s going
\nto straight up sound like Biohazard. I think that’s everything, haha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that Spring is here and your allergies are back in full swing, it’s time to bust out the happy, poppy, sunshine-y punk rock! Or better yet, check out something new for 2013, like Tony Molina’s album Dissed And Dismissed. Molina truly has the knack for what makes guitar-heavy pop music great: the hooks are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6595"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6610,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions\/6610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}