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As co-founders of melodic punk outfits Slap of Reality and Balance, guitarist Joe Kiser and singer Frank Lacatena spent most of the Nineties building a devoted following in the US and Europe through constant roadwork and some seriously underrated releases. Exhaustion and friction caused them to split, but a more mature perspective and the desire to express brought the two back together last year. Along with fellow Slap alum/ex-Trip2Go bassist Angus Barrs and current Bite Size beater Ed Swain, Kiser and Lacatena are now working it with a newfound sense of freedom and enjoyment as Closure.
Focus: So what happened with the end of Balance?
Frank: Well, it ended a little bit differently for me than for everybody else. We got back from Europe around May of ’93, and wrote a couple more songs, and then – I was asked to leave the band. I think they played one more show after that but – Joe would have to explain what happened next, I was at home watching football.
Joe: It was really only a couple of weeks later that the old drummer from Slap of Reality called us up about getting that band back together. Balance fizzled out, and we started doing Slap again.
Focus: Is that when Angus was in Slap?
Frank: We got an offer to do a showcase in New York, so we went and played, and got a wild hair and decided to move up there. So we moved up there for a year, where our original bass player lived, so we asked him to join the band again. Angus was with us for, I don’t know, four or five months. But we hated New York, so we came back to Florida. Some of us did [laughter]. We didn’t all come back. Two people stayed behind.
Focus: Did you start working on what would become Closure immediately?
Frank: No, um, I pretty much didn’t do anything for two and a half years. Joe did some stuff.
Joe: I was playing in a band called Murder-Suicide Pact.
Focus: What was the sound?
Joe: Reminiscent of early 80’s hardcore stuff. Sort of Black Flag, Poison Idea, Capital Punishment-type stuff.
Focus: Frank, what made you decide to play music again?
Frank: Well, I always wanted to, and I tried to do a couple of things here and there with some other people, but it never really panned out. Me and Joe were always, ‘Yeah, at some point we’ll do something again’. I don’t know, we just one day decided it was time.
Joe: One of the things that really brought it to a head was when we went to see Shades Apart at Masquerade, a band we’re really into, and we happened to run into Angus there. We hadn’t seen him since, uh, threw him out of Slap of Reality [laughter].
Frank: Since we moved out Baltimore Colts style, in the middle of the night [laughter].
Joe: He mentioned wanting to get together and play, and me and Frank had been talking about it, so it seemed like within a matter of days, we were jamming.
Frank: Angus put an ad on [Florida music website] Coffeestain, and like in a day, Ed answered it, so it all came together.
Focus: Who does most of the writing?
Joe: That would be me, as far as music goes.
Frank: And I do the lyrics.
Focus: Joe, were you writing any of the Closure stuff while doing other bands, like Murder-Suicide?
Joe: No. It’s all been kind of spontaneous, really. Everything up to this point, every song we’ve written, has come together jam-style. I’ll just come to practice with a riff here and there, Angus will throw something behind it, and before you know it it’s a song.
Focus: It’s weird to me to hear that you were doing something so different between Slap and Balance and Closure, because the bands seem like a very logical musical progression, everything was fast and melodic, and now you’re incorporating more ideas. It sounds like a natural growth curve.
Joe: I’ve kind of always been writing stuff that’s like what I’m listening to at the time, like back when we were first doing Slap of Reality, we were all pretty much inspired by the same bands.
Frank: A lot of Dagnasty, Seven Seconds.
Joe: Samiam, stuff like that. With Balance it was a bit more of a progression, and now even more so.
Focus: I know there are a couple of mp3 tracks up; is that all the recording you’ve done?
Frank: Yeah, so far that’s it. We did four songs, coming up on a year ago, and we’re going back in the first weekend in July. We’re gonna do two new ones, and maybe pull one or two from the first session and try to put out a three or four song, I don’t know, tape or burn our own CD’s, try to get something out there.
Focus: Are you guys are intent on working it as hard as you did in Slap, extended touring, the whole deal, or now is more of a fun thing?
Frank: Speaking for myself, I’d like to. It’s a little harder now. Personally, we’re all in different situations that we were before. My mom would keep my room ready when I went out of town for months on end [laughter], but unfortunately Mom’s not here anymore.
[silence]
Frank: No, no, I don’t mean it that way, Mom’s still with us, I just don’t live with her anymore. If the opportunity was good, I would give a shot.
Joe: I’m in the same boat. Me and Frank and Ed are all married, and I have two kids. But if it made sense, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Frank: I would still rather play music than play around on computers, which is what we both do for a living now.
Focus: How has your perspective on making music changed? As you said, you were all kids when you first got into it.
Joe: I’ll say for me, it hasn’t changed one bit. When I’m not playing, I miss it. When I am playing, I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else.
Frank: I would say, this band, it’s hard to say that it’s been the most fun, but it’s been the easiest. Everything has just come together really well, and I think I may be having a little more fun that I had back then, because we were touring and were around each other all the time, and I think it kinda got a little old, a couple of us got under each other’s skin, but now it’s a little more relaxed.
Joe: And we’re more mature now, too.
Frank: Yeah. When it stops being fun, I think we’ll know that that’s when it’s time to stop doing it.
Focus: It seems like when I was younger, and just starting to play in bands, the drive was focused on other things than the music, and it was hard to enjoy the moment, and have a good time expressing yourself. Other stuff was a priority. And now, it’s more just for what it is.
Joe: Exactly.
Frank: And I think that also, it’s easier to – some of the songs we’re playing now, we may have had some of the same ideas then, but there was no way in the world we’d go out and play some of that stuff, even though we may have wanted to. Now, we’re just writing songs that we like, and we want people to like them, but I don’t think that we try to cater to a particular audience, like we may have at that time. If it didn’t fit into this little peg, we weren’t doing it. And now, whatever we like, we’re going to play.
Focus: Do you think with that the way that indie music has broken open and evolved, it’s easier to express yourself because there’s less pressure to sound a certain way?
Frank: I think it’s a whole lot easier now. Some of the stuff we’re playing now, if we had played seven or eight years ago, even to the same people we’re playing for now, forget it. They would not have liked it. People are a lot more receptive to all kinds of stuff.
Joe: Back in the day, there was punk, hardcore, metal, and there were serious lines drawn down the middle. Now, there are so many sub-genres, for every kind of music, you hear a new one every day. Yeah, we’re shoegazer, we’re metal-core.
Frank: The lines aren’t as clearly drawn as they were before.
Focus: And who’s making up the names? You know bands aren’t sitting around looking for a catchy name to call what they do.
Frank: I don’t know where they’re coming from.
Joe: I’m gonna come up with one for what we do. I’m gonna work hard on that [laughter].
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