I met Calvin when I was in
middle school. We were on the same pop warner football team. But I didn’t start
talking to him until high school, and it wasn’t really until we were in college
that we became friends. Up until a certain point he was always more Riley’s
friend than mine. The first night Roman Candles recorded, Calvin played three
songs from the demo on his radio show on KSDT. Six months later, Calvin came on
the first Roman Candles tour playing bass, and when Riley quit, Calvin learned
all the songs on guitar and offered to help finish the tour. When we got back
from tour, Calvin helped me record three new Roman Candles songs for an
upcoming demo. Later, he painted the artwork for the Last Exit to Berkeley tape, and he recently just put out his first
full length album, and came on tour with me for three weeks. I got to watch him
confuse a lot of people on a nightly basis, and blow people’s minds with his
undeniable ability to play the guitar. In this interview we talk about New
Found Glory, high school football, breaking edge, Jimmy Hendrix, The Beatles,
and art. This was recorded live to tape in Calvin’s backyard Friday, August 1,
2014.
Can you talk about when you first started playing guitar and how you
first got into music?
Sure, I first started
playing the guitar when I was 7 years old, but before that my mom forced me to
take piano lessons, so I’d say I was about 5 years old, and I really disliked
having to take lessons with my teacher. She would come to the house, and I
would cry when she would come over because I just wanted to play with my toys,
or I’d pretend that I was asleep when it was like 6:00 p.m. So I’d have these
like grueling piano lessons that I didn’t want to take, but that definitely set
a foundation of music that I’m now grateful for. And then when I was 7, my
sister had an acoustic guitar laying around the house, and I just started
plucking the strings, and I immediately felt some sort of resonance with it,
and I just felt like immediately, I told my mom that I wanted to take lessons.
So
I took guitar lessons at a music center for a few years. And I did like
recitals for little kids. Then after that, I was just practicing on my own, and
then in middle school I played in the jazz band, so that was really helpful for
me learning how to solo, and how to improvise, and then I took more personal
lessons with Brett, who is my older sister’s friend, and he was really
influential in showing me how to really maneuver around the guitar, and then in
eighth grade he showed me Megadeth, and everything went wild from there. I
wanted to learn how to solo like that, and since then I went through periods
where I was super depressed and would barely play at all, and then in college I
was really finding who I really am, and I realized the guitar is the main thing
I want to do, and I always had those past experiences even though I wasn’t
practicing as much, but recently in the last few years I picked it up again.
And then in 2011 I decided to start doing my solo project.
When I first started hanging out with you was when you joined Media
Blitz in high school, and I was wondering if you talk about how you first got
into punk, and kind of take us through your bands chronologically?
Yeah, so when I was 14, well
actually back in middle school I was getting into hardcore music – anything
straight edge like youth of today, earth crisis. I would wear all these
hardcore shirts as a middle schooler, and no one would have any idea what they
were. So at that age, I was getting into straight edge, and I know that
hardcore was a counterculture within punk, and researching and learning more
about it that opened up punk to me, and I started to meet other punk kids in
high school. From there I met Riley and Jason, and they needed a new member for
their band, and I ended up playing the guitar for them. Those were really
important experiences for me too that I’m really grateful for. Learning how to
perform in front of people with my electric guitar. And my first show was at
the Masonic Lodge in San Diego, so Media Blitz drove down there, and we were
like 16 years old. Then when I was 18 I was in the band Thought Process, and
that was the first time I had ever recorded music in a studio. And Ditch was
our frontman, and he’s one of the most respectable guys I’ve met in the punk
scene, and Jeff Salisbury was our drummer, who is an amazing guy, so I had a
lot of fun with that.
And didn’t you also play in Break the Chain?
Oh yeah uh I played a few
shows with Break the Chain. That was when I was still straight edge, but then I
got into college, and I really needed to explore all the things that life had
to offer. I only played a few shows with them.
What did you go to school for?
I studied visual arts. Specifically
studio arts. So, you could choose what to focus on like drawing or painting,
and then we had classes on theory and history. That was at U.C.S.D., the same
location as the Che Café. And I use to have a radio show that played hardcore
and punk on KSDT, and it was called 2 Hour Revenge Therapy, and it was
influenced by the Jawbreaker album, and that was during my first year of
college.
Could you talk about what your influences for art are?
As far as art, huge influences for me number one Marcel Duchamp, he was a surrealist, he really flipped the idea of what art could be, and in a sense access a whole new level of freedom in art. And Salvador Dali. He’s one of the few artists that I feel like had full integrity all the way up until he died. You know, there’s some artists and musicians that start to have a downfall in their music, and you kind of can only remember them for their past, but Salvador Dali, if you look at his paintings through the progression of his life, they only got better and better. That’s how I would like to carry on with my art is to always make it better and better all the way until I die. Andy Warhol, he’s another influence on me, and then anyone who is a performance artist, so there’s Maria Abramovic. U.C.S.D. was a really they were more of a conceptualized art school as opposed to honing certain skills, and they had a really good performance art program, so that helped to expand my mind also.
Well I remember when you were living in the dorms, you were still
straight edge for most of the year, at what point did you decide it wasn’t for
you anymore? What was your tipping point?
I just felt like I didn’t
need to hold on to self imposed rules and regulations just to impress a crowd
of people that don’t know me at all. I felt trapped into having to represent
myself to a scene of people that in the end don’t personally know me, and don’t
know the kind of life that I live, and I feel like you can maintain a balance
with life, and not have to go to such extremes like partying every night or
telling everyone to fuck off. So, I just I felt like it was becoming more
limited than freeing for me, and that’s why I stopped doing it. But I still
really respect those bands for helping me to grow up into the right person. And
I’m grateful that I was straight edge because I do think that it helps you when
you’re younger because for my personal opinion I really think you should wait
awhile before you do that stuff because I guess for me it gave me such a better
perception of reality, but each person is different, so I understand, but I
respect it for people that need it, and I’m really grateful for all those bands
in the past because they all still influence my music nowadays.
What did you listen to or what was responsible for your change in
direction that you went from playing in hardcore and punk bands to playing very
experimental music.
I’d say the number one band
that kind of led to a change in experiment was The Beatles. And obviously you
always hear about The Beatles your whole life, but it wasn’t until I got older
that I could really understand what they were doing with their music. And I was
amazed at how narrow my spectrum of music listening was, and then I started
listening to them and to Radiohead, and those really set a new standard for me
as far as people that take music to a progressive standard. And I see The
Beatles, I felt like they were more artists behind an instrument as opposed to
just musicians, and I know John Lennon when to school for art, and that’s kind
of one of the reasons why I decided I could major in art also, and kind of just
let it filter into my music now. I personally feel like the top 3 things that had the greatest effect
on human culture so far were Jesus, the Beatles, and the Internet. World War II
could have been in there among other things, but the Beatles came out of WWII's
aftermath.
So how you describe your music now?
I would say my music is
experimental in the sense that I’m creating a synthesis of all the different
types of music that I’ve ever liked with the electric guitar, and not limiting
myself to any one type of music, but rather whatever feeling I want to express
at that moment, and the words I want to communicate I’ll use a certain type of
riff, so I just take from everything that I like, but the main things that I
really like are Jimmy Hendrix and the band SLEEP, and I really like mixing
those together, but also The Beatles, and just from anything I like to listen
to, and I always just want to keep people on their toes. My music strives to have no limitations.
Can you describe growing up in a Filipino household where both of you
parents are immigrants and expected you to major in biology? How did you go
about telling them that that wasn’t was going to happen?
That was actually a huge
struggle for a long time. I’m actually surprised because nowadays I really
enjoy hanging out with them, and I spend a lot of time with them, but in the
past they were sort of a terror. Growing up in a Filipino family, like my parents
worked really hard to get to America using a certain structure, and using
certain guidelines that they feel are secure, but in reality aren’t there
anymore because the world changes so much. And so they really wanted me to go
into the medical career, but I would be living the life of a completely
different person, and I’d be miserable on the inside because that’s not who I
am, and their minds kind of started to change because my older sister would
talk to them a lot, and explain to them how I need to do what’s best for me,
and how I’m going be happy and get fulfillment for my life as opposed to having
to torture myself into studying for something that I didn’t want to. It took a
really long time, but slowly they were more and more accepting of what I do, and
they were less and less trying to tell me to change what I had to do. Now at
this point they’re supportive. And maybe they don’t fully understand everything
I do, but they understand that it’s what I love to do, so they let me do it.
So what do you do now, are you working?
I work at GNC, the vitamin
store. I learn about nutrition everyday, and when I’m not there, I’m working on
music. I want to play more shows and just spread my music out there.
What was your favorite album ten years ago?
I’m twenty-four, and ten
years ago I was fourteen, the real honest answer to this question is “sticks
and stones” by New Found Glory. I’m pretty much showing you my nudity right
now.
When I first met you, this is something that maybe not a lot of people
know, is that you were playing varsity football, and your favorite band was Ten
Yard Fight.
Oh the varsity Football
Days.
Can you explain to the readers how playing high school football influenced
you.
Well my brothers played
varsity football, and they were All-Stars honestly. My cousin was an All-Star.
I was still really confused in high school. Everyone is confused in high
school, and they don’t know what to do, so they group up in something. And I
just felt like oh my brothers did it, and I’ll give it a shot also, and to be
honest I went through a lot of miserable experiences. I really just didn’t
enjoy being yelled at and treated like a piece of scum. But on the positive
side I really know how to take care of my body in the sense of exercise, and I
gained a level of discipline for myself that I still take with me in everything
that I do. And also, nowadays, if I’m going through a tough situation I ask
myself, ‘was this worse than high school football?’ And the answer is always
‘No.’ And I carry on that torch [laughing]
FUCK YEAH! [laughing]
Yeah, even though it was miserable, I'm still
glad I played. If I could go back in time and change it, I wouldn't. It gave me
an iron skin.
Can you just let people know where to find your music, and what your
future plans are?
You can listen to my music
on calvinjalandoni.bandcamp.com and you can look at my art on calvinj.info
which is my online art portfolio. I recently released my first music album.
It’s self titled, and it’s a concept album about the existence of the soul.
It’s actually going to be the first part in a three part music trilogy and
they’re all connected with the same theme, but they have a different focus. So
this first album is about the exploration of the soul, and the second album
which I’m going to work on and will be out next year is going to be about the
psychology of the soul, and I hope to go on tour again in March, that’s my
plan, so we’ll see what happens.
Well thanks a bunch.
Yeah thanks a lot. This is
really awesome. I’m really stoked to get to do this.
