Photo: Matthew Kadi
Last month, I discovered the music of Wet The Rope while making my way through the Bandcamp page for the recently resurrected Council Records. They struck me as an unconscious mishmash of elements as disparate as The Mob (UK), Wire, Bl’ast!, Joy Division, Girls Against Boys, and many others I could recall if there was a little more ginseng in my diet. Looking over the personnel of the band, I saw it contained members of such notable California bands from the 90s as Downcast and Pitchfork. And hey! wudda ya know, wudda ya say, the vocalist is Scott Torguson, formerly of Sinker and Amber Inn.
Sinker at Jon Hiltz’s. Westfield, N.J. 6/16/93. Rorschach also played that night kicking off their final U.S. tour.
I met Scott initially in the summer of 1993 when Sinker was touring the East Coast. Soon after returning from tour, they broke up with the guitarist and bass player going on to form Indian Summer. Somewhere in the fall of the same year, I asked Sinker/Indian Summer guitarist Adam Nanaa about releasing a seven-inch of two unreleased Sinker songs posthumously on my label at the time, Consequence. I quickly found out about the tension behind the break-up of Sinker, which resulted in calls to both Adam and Scott attempting to come to some sort of agreement for me to release the songs. When Scott allowed me as well as Rye Coalition to stay at his house in the summer of ‘94, we had a late-night talk where it was decided to let the project die on the vine. The two songs were eventually released on Scott’s label Sunney Sindicut a few years later, so no big whoop.
Fast forward 30 years later and here I am reaching out to Scott asking to interview him about his new band. Wudda whacky, small world of creative people we live in, right? Read the interview below to find out the origins of Wet The Rope, Scott’s punk rock history, and how a group of highly experienced 50 year-olds operate in the underground of today.
Tony Rettman: For the first question, let’s get the basics out of the way by asking the how and why of the band getting together.
Scott Torguson: In 2012, I was living in Ohio with my wife and kids. We were pretty isolated with almost no family in the area (I had one cousin) and no friends when we first moved there. I had last been in a band in 2004 when I lived in Philadelphia. For my 40th birthday, my wife flew my best friend, Chris Sanders (Bureau of the Glorious / Exhale / Death Valley High / Platypus Scourge), out as a surprise. He was still living back in Sacramento at the time. While he was out, we hatched a plan to start a band that could exist in different parts of the country. Easier to do that in 2012 than it was in the 90s. The original idea would be for it to just be the two of us and then add other people for recordings and short tours. Chris and I wanted to be able to write songs that appealed to us without worrying about what genre they fit into and give ourselves the freedom to make each record different than the last if we chose to do so. For the first set of songs, we wanted to make an angry hardcore record, realizing that we are who we are as musicians, so you would still be able to hear our past bands in what we made.
I already was planning a trip to California later that year, so we decided to try to play a show. We decided to ask our friends Nick Frederick (Pitchfork / Bureau of the Glorious / Exhale) and AJ Wilhelm (Amber Inn / Filibuster) to do the show with us. We wrote five songs in a couple of weeks and played the show. We talked on the sidewalk outside the venue and Nick and AJ wanted to make it an actual band with the four of us, and it seemed like a good idea, so we rolled with it. We recorded The Sum of Our Stars with this lineup in 2016.
I moved back to Northern California in 2019. We played one show, and then COVID hit and we were rendered mostly inactive. However, in late 2020, this lineup recorded six songs for a second LP. Chris and I continued to write songs during COVID and had an idea to just record some covers at home. That lineup made it to 2021, but during COVID Nick and AJ decided to retire to spend time on other pursuits. Chris had moved to the East Bay, and Nick would often have the make the up to 5-hour round trip drive to practice in San Francisco by himself. AJ’s wrist had trouble making it through a complete set.
Around this time, Brendan from Protagonist Records (whom I met when on tour with Sinker in 1993) had asked about releasing something. We suggested the songs we recorded at home for a 7”, and he asked if we wanted to do a few more and make it a split LP. Sounded like a good idea. We got our friend Ben Ruhl (my next-door neighbor as a kid) to replace the scratch-programmed drums with real drumming. Ben had played for years in the Blue Man Group live show in Vegas and nailed the tracks, playing to already finished songs.
In 2022, Verbal Assault reached out about playing a show in Sacramento, and Pete asked if we could play. I booked the show and then we set about finding a new rhythm section. Zach Minjack (Plaguestate) was in first. He is a few years younger than us but has been around in the Bay Area scene for a while. He is part owner of The Atomic Garden Studio in Oakland and Chris has known him for years.
Back in 2016 or so, I had heard Downcast was playing shows again and reached out to Kevin about setting up a show. We finally made it work and did a show together in 2017. I had seen Downcast during their original run and knew Kent McClard but didn’t really become friends with them until the next band, Not For The Lack of Trying, and then Jara and Born & Razed. The story I heard was that when Downcast got back from Europe in 1992, Brent Stephens packed his stuff up from the shared house and left and nobody thought they would ever talk to him again. So despite years of friendship with the rest of the members of Downcast, I never met Brent until that 2017 show. Brent ended up being the point of contact for Downcast, and we did another show together in 2018 and kept in touch. In 2022, he was asking how the band was doing. We were looking for a bassist, so I floated the idea of him playing bass with us (I had no idea if he even played bass, as he played/plays guitar in Downcast.) He was stoked, and so we started practicing with him. It all flowed well together, so he’s been playing with us four since then.
Although the themes and music of the band are undoubtedly in the present day, I feel there’s something innate that runs throughout both WTR and your previous bands. What do you think that ‘something’ is?
It’s an interesting question. The way we approach music hasn’t changed in that we are writing stuff that we would want to listen to. Ideally, every band would do it that way, but we all know that’s not the case. Given that, what we write probably remains somewhat consistent and identifiable because it represents who we are as people, and although we are older, our view of music (and life) is pretty similar to what it was when we discovered punk and hardcore in the 80s.
The band covered a song by the underrated Oklahoma band Angry Son. As the reissues of emo bands from the 90s keep piling up, I’m always thinking, “Where’s the Angry Son discography?” I feel there are a lot of groups from the 90s era of emo that owe them something. What was the decision to cover it? Were you friendly with the band during their time of existence?
Yes, someone do an Angry Son discography already. In the late 80s and the beginning of the 90s, Chris and I spent a lot of time driving from Sacramento to Berkeley to go to shows at Gilman. Sacramento had been overtaken by Nazis and we loved the vibe and “run by the people” aspect of Gilman. The bands were pretty varied, which was awesome. The ones that we felt the most kinship with and became friends with were the DC-influenced bands like Monsula, Fuel, Spitboy or the Vagrants. Sarah Kirsch became one of my best friends from the Bay Area and our bands played together and I booked her bands in the Sacramento area quite a bit. I bought all the records from all those bands, including the Fuel split seven-inch with Angry Son. I immediately fell in love with those two Angry Son songs, especially “Suffocation.” Angry Son came through town and played Gilman in 1991 and Chris and I went. Angry Son was amazing. Later, I found out that they had an argument outside Gilman and broke up. So this was their last show.
I always poked around in the early days of the internet to find more info, but it took me a long time to track anything down. Finally, in maybe 2006 I found the original drummer, David Lowther, in a YouTube comments section. He played on the split 7” but was out of the band by the time I saw them at Gilman. He sent some demos and live stuff, but the quality was pretty bad. I lost touch with him. When Chris and I decided to record some covers, I thought “Suffocation” would be an awesome song to do. First, because I just love the song. I remember maybe a Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll review of the record said something like, “The song just never gets going,” and thinking, “Yes, that’s the genius of the song.” This was the beginning of the soft/loud/soft/loud thing that lots of bands started doing and you expected the song to get loud, but it never does. After we recorded this, I tracked down their vocalist, Toby Lawrence, and sent him a copy (and later a copy of the record.) He seemed stoked that someone remembered and appreciated the song. We’ve stayed in touch. It’s one of those songs that is pretty obscure, overall, but that certain people will love. This is the first cover song I have released since the first Platypus Scourge demo tape that Chris and I did in 1989 (where we covered the 7Seconds version of Sham 69’s “If The Kids Are United.”)
Please tell me about the touring the band has done so far and what the response was like. From watching videos of the shows, it seems you fell right back into place as a frontman. Was there any difficulty stepping back into that role?
The original plan was to do a week or so per year of touring, given that we were spread out across the country. We mostly did that up to COVID and have just started to venture back out. We’ve been up and down the West Coast (up as far as Seattle and down as far as San Diego.) We did a couple of weeks in Europe in 2017. Honestly, we don’t draw big crowds. People our age don’t go out as much and kids mostly want to see their peers. Although it’s fun to play bigger shows, this has never been a big deal to me. My favorite shows have always been 30 people in a basement. Reaction? There always seem to be some people who are really stoked about what we are doing and are excited that we came through.
I wasn’t out of the game quite as long as it seems. Although there was a 20-year gap between Amber Inn’s All Roads Lead Home LP and Wet The Rope’s The Sum Of Our Scars, I played in a couple of bands that just never managed to release anything. When Amber Inn broke up in 1998, I quickly put together a new band called The Sweet Hereafter. We practiced for about a year, played three shows in 1999, and then broke up without recording anything. I moved to Philadelphia in 2001 and started a band with people from Policy of 3, Car Vs. Driver, Fields Lay Fallow, and Spirit Assembly. We recorded a couple of demos, one of which lived online for a short period of time. Nothing got released, though. We broke up in 2004 when I moved to Ohio. Wet The Rope started in 2012, so it was really just an 8-year break, as opposed to 20 years. For the most part, it’s just natural and was no issue. I do have to be more careful with my voice at this point in my life and try to do some vocal warmups and other tricks to keep it going when we have shows every day.
My first time hearing the band was on the split LP you did with Icepield. Again, I found the sound somewhat familiar but with weird elements – whether conscious or not – thrown in to keep things interesting. I then went back and listened to the Sum Of Our Scars LP LP and was shocked at how ‘hard’ it sounded. I dug it, but there seemed to be a contrast between the sound of the LP and the split LP. Do you agree?
Yes, 100%. For The Sum Of Our Scars, which was our first set of songs, we wanted to make an angry hardcore record. Of course, given how we make music and who we are, our version of a angry hardcore record was not going to end up sounding like say, Cro-Mags or DRI or Negative Approach. I think your analysis of The Sum of Our Scars is right on. It is consciously that way.
Similarly, the Icepield split LP, which was recorded at home during COVID, was written as a more contemplative, less angry record. I’m somewhat fascinated by the reviews of the split LP, which have compared us to the more obvious bands like Moss Icon and Soulside, but also bands like B’last!, Black Flag, Deadguy, and Crass Records. Some of those seem more appropriate for The Sum of Our Scars. I did want to do something, with the songs on the split, that was a bit more similar to some of the things that we did in the past. A bit slower; some quiet parts.
It seems there are a few bands these days being formed out of the remnants of bands from 30 years ago. There are even labels from the time frame being resurrected – Council Records who released the split LP for example. What are your feelings about this? Do you think these bands will work themselves into the present-day punk ‘scene’ or cocoon themselves into only playing and dealing with other ‘old’ bands and/or playing reunions? I guess the general question is: Where do you see an old punk's place in the present-day punk scene? Is it obnoxious to assume you have a place in it after inactivity?
It's not any sort of conscious decision, other than I want to make music with my friends and my friends happen to mostly be close to me in age. At this point, in our 50s, we have all been in other bands in the past. It is what it is. I met Matt from Council on that same 1993 tour where I met Brendan from Protagonist.
I’ve tried to avoid the “reunion circuit” as much as possible and just continue to make the music I want to make. We like to play shows with our fellow old-person friends, but also like to play with younger bands. I feel similarly about style or genre. I do miss the more mixed bills of the early 90s before punk became so segmented into different factions, where you would play with different types of bands all the time. So we try to play with younger and older bands and bands that don’t sound like whatever it is we sound like.
I get the question about assuming I have a place after inactivity, but I feel like I never really left. I mostly kept going to shows, even during the eight years I wasn’t in a band, but I moved around the country a bit. I try to go see punk shows as much as I can these days, especially the ones with newer, younger bands.
Please give me an idea of the lyrical themes of the band. I know the LP was something of a concept record about sexual abuse. What are the themes of the songs on the split or other unrecorded ones?
I always like the idea of an album being a unified piece of art, so I’ve tried to make the stuff I’ve done feel like more than just a random collection of songs. While The Sum of Our Scars was focused on a specific topic, I wanted the lyrics for the Icepield split LP to be more vague and paint a picture rather than hit at a specific issue. Generally, though, they deal with aging, moving, and figuring out what is important.
Lyrically, the next record is focused on the feelings of disappointment, anger, and sadness with what has been going on in the US over the last few years. To a certain extent, we are taught to feel like progress is ever moving forward, but it does not feel that way recently. At best, we are at a standstill and it’s hard to see things getting better in the next couple of decades. It’s especially depressing to see what’s happened to many older punks and hardcore kids, who have devolved into a dopey braindead version of alt-right conservatism.
With the bands you all were in during the 90s, social awareness was at the forefront of the music. How has that continued in both the band and your personal lives?
I think so. As a band, we still play benefits and take a DIY approach to our band business. I’ve never played a show with an age limit and still refuse to do so. I spent most of my “professional” career as a Legal Aid lawyer, representing the low-income community in a variety of civil cases. Brent is the superintendent of a school district. Chris brawled with Nazis recently. I think we have been pretty consistent in our ethical approach to the band and our personal lives.
I’m going to backtrack here and ask how you found out about hardcore punk and what lured you into it. Who were some of the bands that inspired you to make music, start a label, etc.
I had a friend from school who had older brothers who were part of the original Sacramento punk/hardcore scene. I remember going to the mall and coming back with the Ghostbusters soundtrack (this would have been 1984) and them laughing and throwing on the Exploited or Black Flag, which kinda blew my mind at the time. I started seeking out weird and different music, starting with PiL (which they insisted was “not punk”) and pretty quickly finding my own favorites like 7Seconds and the Circle Jerks.
Really, though, there was a show that was a turning point for me. In 1988, I discovered The Place in Davis. It was a small house in downtown Davis, CA that was owned by the City of Davis. They allowed punk shows to be booked there once a month. Up until that point, I had only been going to the “big” punk shows, which generally drew about 1,000 people at the time. The Place was different. Thirty people in a small room with newer, younger bands, close to my age (16 at the time.) There was a show in July of that year with Isocracy and The Vagrants, two bands from the East Bay. They were both late, and the UC Davis students who volunteered to help out all went home. We were still hanging out when they arrived, so the show was on, but they needed help to run it. I immediately volunteered to work the door. It was really the first time I felt a part of this, as opposed to just being a kid at a show. I was all in from there. My first band started that summer and played our first show later that year. When the woman who booked shows at The Place moved away in 1989, I took over. Started a record label in 1990. I just wanted to be a part of things and to help bands I liked get shows and records out there. There were not really any other small punk labels in Sacramento in 1990 and no way for bands to get records out. The 90s brought a slew of local labels and bands doing their own records, and I was really happy to be a part of that.
Photo: Anthony Bongco
What does the future hold for the band? How many new songs do you have? Is there a label you will be releasing a new record on?
We’ve been focusing on finishing the next record, so we haven’t been playing out too much. We have half of the next LP recorded and are going back into the studio in April 2024 to hopefully finish it out. We haven’t decided on a label at this point. After that, we want to be more active with touring. Would like to do some different parts of the US, back to Europe, and have some feelers out for other places.
Please recommend some present-day bands to check out…and if there’s a band from the past you feel doesn’t get the recognition they deserve, mention them as well.
Some of my favorite current new-ish bands that I’ve seen over the last couple of years: Soul Glo (Philadelphia), Hammered Hulls (DC), Adult Crash (San Diego), Oh Lonesome Ana (Sacramento), Vacancy (SoCal), Sick Burn (Sacramento), Sissyfit (Stockton). Also A big fan of Matt Weeks’s Wrong War (Chicago).
There was a band called the Popesmashers from Sacramento that I thought — and I’m not alone in this — was Sacramento’s best band ever. I released a 7” from them in 1995, but their unreleased stuff was even better. On a good night, they just destroyed live. I’m not sure anyone outside of Sacramento really appreciated what they were. Like an unholy mashup of The Fall, Sonic Youth, CopOut, and The Clash. I also always loved that Vine 7” from Kalamazoo, MI, that came out in 1992. They were smart enough to go record at WGNS in DC and it just sounds so much better than much of the other stuff at the time. They are finally getting some love with the new Council reissue.
If you are in a situation with ‘normal’ people, how do you describe Wet The Rope and/or your other bands?
I don’t even bother trying to describe the band at this point. With everything easily accessible online, if it comes up in conversation, I just give them the band name and they can figure it out themselves. I coach competitive soccer and I’ve had some soccer people and kids come out to a couple of our shows. They seemed to enjoy themselves.
My kids sometimes say things like, “She’s so emo,” talking about a classmate wearing black or something like that. They don’t really have any idea of how that all ties into my musical past. I think it’s pretty funny.
Photo: Oliver Torguson
Check out Wet The Rope on Bandcamp, Instagram and Facebook.