Make Me A Mixtape Vol.7

Like many young punk bands, All Or Nothing have had their fair share of line-up changes, since their inception in 2004, having first come together through a mutual love for all things punk-rock and a passionate interest in local shows in and around their native Birmingham area. But 2010 is certainly the year they are making their mark! Now with more than half a dozen full UK tours under their belts, plus a bit of overseas exposure after their EP and vinyl releases All Or Nothing are ready to take on the world. The summer 2010 period has been spent writing their long awaited new full-length, with plans of an American release via No Sleep Records. Tim (bass) takes a few minutes out of his busy schedule to come over, have a cup of tea, and make a mix tape.

Opening Track - Your Theme Song.
DEAD RAMONES by Modern Life Is War My theme song huh? This is a tough one. Is this like a song to describe me, or like my theme song if I was a wrestler? I think it would be easier if Ii did it as my entrance music. I would want something hard and fast so I’ll go with that. It even has a bit of a clunk at the start which is a bit like the glass smashing when Stone Cold Steve Austin used to enter to give Vince McMahon the stunner. The song isn’t really about me because I wasn’t touring when I was 15, but I do identify with its themes of wanting to be on tour when you’re not on tour and then not wanting to be on tour when you’re actually touring and working hard to make something happen and it being worth it.

Favourite sing along.
Sink Florida Sink by Against Me! It’s such a simple song in terms of instruments (there’s only guitar) but the lyrics and vocals are fantastic – as they are with most Against Me! Songs and the heartfelt woah oh’s in the chorus just make you want to belt it out back to them. I’ve seen them live a bunch of times and it’s always a highlight of their set, especially when I’ve been down with a bunch of my friends and we’re screaming it back at them along with the rest of the crowd.

Song that reminds you of high school
In this Diary - The Ataris Wow, there are so many but not one sticks out in particular. I used to catch the train to school and take my discman (yes a discman) on it with me so I could listen to music as it was a pretty long trip so there are a lot of CD’s that are ingrained in my memory from that time: a lot of the drive thru bands, the ataris, alkaline trio, sum 41, blink 182, less than jake.....that kind of stuff. I guess I’ll go with the ataris as they are the quintessential high school band singing about falling in love with girls and hanging out with your buddies and having a good time. I guess ‘In this Diary’ sums up that whole mood pretty well of looking back on high school. It probably isn’t my favourite ataris song though, it does make me think about those days though. I think it came out just around the time I was finishing high school because I remember I saw them and Alkaline Trio play at Reading Festival on the Lock Up stage with a bunch of my friends and they played it.

Best band you have seen live
Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. This is probably another weird choice but I have been a big fan of Nine Inch Nails since my early teens but had never got the chance to see them live. I thought I’d wasted my chance when I saw they were doing a club tour (admittedly of 2500 capacity venues) when I was about 20 as it sold out in about a day but I luckily found a ticket on ebay a few days before that was less than face value. Wow huh. Anyway I went down on my own and I have never heard such good sound at a gig as I did at that gig - especially at the old Birmingham Academy which had notoriously bad sound. Even though I was on my own I still remember it as one of the best gigs I ever went to and Hurt in particular was ridiculously powerful.

Best Love Song
97 by alkaline trio. I used to love this song back when I was at school and I remember breaking up with my girlfriend and sitting on my bed listening to it on my stereo over and over again and probably crying a bunch about it too, thinking ‘yeah I don’t deserve this either matt skiba, I know what you mean’. It was only later that I found out that the song was about how matt skiba couldn’t smoke weed for 18 months whilst he was on probation, and how it wasn’t actually about a girl. This only made me like the song even more as it can quite easily be interpreted as a breakup song of a relationship. I also love smoking weed now so it’s taken on a different meaning for me since then as well. I can definitely understand matt skiba’s mindset in writing the song.

Song guaranteed to make you get up dance
‘Steal My Sunshine’ by Len. I used to love going out to clubs and getting wasted and dancing to my favourite punk songs in the club but I find it a lot harder to do that kind of stuff now so this is a harder question for me to answer. I think this is a song that I was into when I was growing up, along with a lot of my friends and whenever we actually manage to see each other these days we still always stick it on and if we’re hammered we’ll all probably get up and dance to it a bit. It’s just got a great laid back groove to it. I listen to it a lot on my own too and I’m still not bored of it. Great song. I found out recently that the male guy in the group used to be in Sum 41 too, which makes it even cooler.

Band you would most like to play a show with
Linoleum – NOFX. I always wanted to play a show with The Lawrence Arms but I did that this year so I guess now I would really like to play a show with NOFX. Everyone knows NOFX and although people will say they are one of those bands that gets more boring with each record, I still feel that their older material holds up, whereas there are a lot of bands from that era that I really have no time for anymore. Also, if I actually bother to check out their new records they’re usually fairly decent. Fat Mike is a great songwriter and has some snappy lyrics to match. Linoleum is my favourite because it sums up what NOFX are all about, fast, snotty, socio-political and PUNK ROCK.

Guilty Pleasure
Closer To The Edge by 30 Seconds To Mars There are so many stupid songs I listen to and love so this is a tough one. I really love this song which is really funny because I used to hate that band so much because I thought it was such a stupid idea but I guess Jared Leto proved me wrong. To me, this song is all about the video. I think it’s one of the best videos I’ve ever seen and makes 30STM look like the hugest band in the world. In the bridge where everyone is going ‘no no no no’ in different arenas looks SO GOOD. I hope one day I can make a video like that for my band but I guess it’s a long way off. The song is decent too, although it isn’t really the same without the video though.

Therapist in a Song
The Small Golden Eyed Dog by Andrew Wk. Most people think of partying when they think of Andrew WK but this song sums him up for me, and always, always makes me smile. We listen to it a lot on tour when we’re bummed out for whatever reason and it always makes us laugh. Not many people have heard it as it only features on his album ‘close calls with brick walls’ which I think was only released in Korea so I’ll explain it. Basically it’s just a bass guitar playing a couple of notes, not even a riff and Andrew WK sings over it ‘the small golden eyed dog......with a body shaped like a cat’ and that’s it. You have to hear it to believe it. It’s bizarre and I can’t believe he even bothered making it, but every time I hear it I can’t help but crack up.

Closing Track - The old faithful
self esteem by the offspring This is a tough one as I find music can often be so fleeting; there are very few songs that stay with you. Having said that, the song that really got me into punk rock was self esteem and I randomly heard that in a bar at the weekend (it came on on the jukebox!!) and I went back home and listened to the whole of the smash record and I still knew every word and I still thought it was awesome. I realised recently as well that that song was pretty much just the offspring writing a nirvana song.

Be sure to head on over and check out All or Nothing out. You know you want to!