Never Act Your Age - The Return of The Kings of Pop with Home Grown
Episode Summary:
Join host Isaac Kuhlman as he dives deep with John Tran and Adam Lohrbach from the legendary Orange County pop-punk band, Homegrown.
From their rise in the 90s punk scene alongside bands like Blink 182 and Good Charlotte to their reunion after nearly two decades, this episode is a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Discover the band's early inspirations, the trials and tribulations they faced during their career, and the joyous experience of reuniting for a much-anticipated live performance.
The episode opens with a reflection on Homegrown's early years, highlighting their quick rise to fame with the release of "That's Business" in 1995.
John and Adam talk about their influences, such as NOFX and Green Day, and share anecdotes from their first tours.
Transitioning to their second album, "Act Your Age," they discuss the highs and lows of working with a major label and the impact of their drummer's health issues on their journey. Despite challenges, their dedication to music remained unwavering.
As the band navigated through label changes and personal transformations, Adam reveals reasons behind his departure and the eventual hiatus of Homegrown. However, the episode crescendos with excitement as the band members discuss their recent reunion show.
The camaraderie, the rapport with fans, and the vigor of performing together again after 19 years are reminisced upon with enthusiasm.
Tune in to get a behind-the-scenes look at their plans for the future and how they are actively working on new music and upcoming shows.
Intro Music: "Colorado" by Birds Love Filters Outro Music: "Snail Mail" by Speedway Sleeper
Please consider purchasing some cool merch or some musical instrument accessories at our site - https://poweredbyrock.com
Indie Musicians - check out the FREE DIY Rock Career Playlist here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_2jRJsJubw&list=PL465-TazTQf5tZ9zGHitfmWQpYsbVlF99
You can also learn more at https://diyrockcareer.com
Key Takeaways:
Homegrown's initial success was fueled by their unique blend of pop-punk and a strong DIY ethic, gaining momentum through compilations like Punk Sucks.
The band's transition to major label status came with both opportunities and challenges, including high production standards and financial instability within the label.
Personal struggles and life changes led to the band's hiatus, showcasing how the pressures of the music industry can impact personal relationships and mental health.
The reunion of Homegrown after 19 years has reinvigorated both the band members and their fan base, highlighting the timeless connection they share with their music.
Their upcoming plans include more live performances and potential new music, signaling a promising new chapter for the band.
About the Guest(s):
John Tran and Adam Lohrbach are core members of the iconic Southern California pop-punk band, Homegrown. The band, known for its energetic performances and catchy punk tunes, was a mainstay in the punk scene during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Homegrown produced several influential albums, including "That’s Business", "Act Your Age", and the fan-favorite "Kings of Pop".
After disbanding in the early 2000s, the band recently reunited, thrilling fans with their return to the stage.
Resources:homegrownsucks.com - Limited Merch and other cool Home Grown stuff
Home Grown on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/homegrownkingsofpop/
The Death of Rock Music episode - https://youtu.be/5MTrSWEenQc?si=jsOI1UluqHruFoC6
Timeline:
00:00 - Episode Introduction
01:13 - Homegrown Rises from the Underground with That’s Business
11:28 - The Ascent of Home Grown - Act Your Age Changes Things
22:32 - The Kings of Pop: The Next Level
30:30 - The Breakup: Adam Leaves Home Grown
39:13 - The Reunion
44:22 - Where Does Home Grown Go Now?
Transcript:
0:00:00 - (Isaac Kuhlman): In the mid to late 1990s, there was an incredible pop punk band out of southern California that played shows with bands like Blink 182, Good Charlotte, the Ataris, Limbeck, Newfound Glory, MxPx, less than Jake, and so many other well established pop punk and punk adjacent bands. And they played warp tour with high energy shows that got crowds gassed up. They put out one of the most anticipated and well known drive Thru records releases in 2002, known as Kings of Pop, which took their nineties popularity to a whole new level.
0:00:27 - (Isaac Kuhlman): They put in a decade's worth of great music together. And then as the pop punk bubble burst in the early two thousands, the band went their separate ways and remained on hiatus for 19 long years. That is, until the band decided to get back together for a reunion show in June of 2024, opening for longtime friends, the starting line. I've been a personal fan of this band since I picked up a copy of their cd for their second album, act your age, at a Sam Ash store in Bismarck, North Dakota back in 1998. And after playing the holy hell out of this album, most of my friends in high school also became huge fans of this band as well. If you haven't figured out who I'm talking about now, then you may have missed the boat on this absolutely epic Orange county band called Homegrown.
0:01:04 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And I actually have the privilege of talking with both John and Adam from the band on this episode of the Power by Rock podcast. So, hey, guys, welcome to the show.
0:01:33 - (John Tran): Hey.
0:01:36 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Let'S go back to the beginning because you guys built up this popularity, and it's kind of like you were on this kind of rise, right? So you were one of, like, like I said, soCal's rising pop hung bands. You released that. That's business. In 1995, which had some of your still fan favorite songs like Surfer Girl, get a job, the hearing song, and facing the crowd, to name a few. And one thing I want to note about this album is that there is a definite hardcore tone in some of the songs, especially towards the end of the album. So first thing I want to ask is, were these songs built from your influences, like in a hardcore space, or did you play, guys kind of play shows with hardcore bands at the time, or were you just writing different styles that you liked?
0:02:13 - (John Tran): I mean, we came out of high school originally. Homegrown was a cover, bandaid, and I wasn't in the band either. With Adam, the guitar player quit, so I filled in, and then the bass player quit, and that's when Adam filled in and we decided to start writing our own songs. And then, I don't know, it was crazy. It was really fast, like, 94. And we literally got signed within a year. Put out an album. I don't know. I think.
0:02:41 - (John Tran): How many albums. How many songs that album have about him for, like, 1516.
0:02:44 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, it's about. Right.
0:02:46 - (John Tran): I think we were just young and we didn't really have any structure. We had a lot of the same influences, but I think we just decided just to write in palpable and just do it.
0:02:55 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, there's. There's, like. Right. Some, like, early. I'm trying to think, like, all the early, like, metal, like slayer and all, like. So I remember you guys always jamming on that stuff and learning that. Learning all the metallica and slayer riffs and jamming way back in the day. So it might have been a little bit there in some of those, like, harder songs, but I feel like we're just like, hey, here's the song. And then we, like, play John's song. Like, that's cool. And, you know, and then I was barely starting to write songs or whatever back then, and I have a song, and then I don't even remember why I sang, or I don't even remember how that happened, but I was like, I think I can sing it or something. And then just started singing.
0:03:36 - (Adam Lohrbach): I don't know if we really had any plans. We're just like, wow, someone else is sinus. This is cool. And it just kept snowballing.
0:03:42 - (John Tran): Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Like, I don't know. That first year, we played a lot of dance clubs. I think I felt a popularity. Like, we somehow had a manager that was involved in the Orange county dance club, and we just kept playing and playing, and all of a sudden we got on festivals and our first big show was with face to face at the ice house. I mean, that was like a real show. And I think that was very frightening.
0:04:06 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. What year would that be? Like 94 then, probably. Or 95. Early 95.
0:04:10 - (John Tran): Probably 95. Early 95, for sure.
0:04:13 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. Yeah, because I just remember, like, obviously going back through the catalog and I remember hearing songs like worthless and even some of the stuff on, like, surfer girl, and you got. When you guys redid it for accurate, it's like this heavier thing. It's like you're adding, like, this heavier element. And I was like, are they playing with, like, hardcore kids or, like, are they just, like, throwing stuff in there? I mean, you had a lot of different stuff going on in some of those songs, which I thought was great because I hated listening to the same poppy, you know, pop punk song that's like two and a half minutes long, straight, like, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, whatever. And then it just ends, right? You guys did all sorts of stuff here, like record scratching. You had weird noises in there. You had heavy guitar riffs, lead guitar.
0:04:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Most bands in that pop punk range didn't even have lead guitars. So I was just kind of interested as to, like, were you guys planning this stuff out together or was it like, hey, I think we're in the studio. We got enough timeless. Throw some stuff in here.
0:05:05 - (John Tran): No, I think cuz we, we did all of our. We didn't write any songs in the studio. All of our other songs were written inside of our old drummer's garage. And I think. I think Adam and I. Vegas influence at the time with probably no effect. No effect. You know, if you listen to all their first outfit, earlier albums, it was a straight up heavy guitar. If you had a lot of leads and then like that, religion had a lot of good solos and their songs too.
0:05:29 - (Adam Lohrbach): Lot of screeching weasel. Remember way back, like early and a lot of screeching weasel. Operation Ivy Racing IV, some of that early, like pin and gunpowder, some of that. I mean, I even thought of these bands and forever.
0:05:43 - (John Tran): But green day, I mean, honestly, Green Day was big and fully hours.
0:05:49 - (Adam Lohrbach): It was a lot of fun artists. We were just like learning. We're just figuring out, like chords. Like, I remember we listen to some band or, you know, and you'd be like, with no effects, you'd be like, oh, you could do a chord that way you could throw a major third on there or something. Or you could do an octave over this minor and it sounds like, you know what I mean? Like, at least I remember just hearing bands and going, oh, you can do that. And so you just keep going and adding, oh, you can do that. Oh, you can do that.
0:06:14 - (Adam Lohrbach): And whether it was like heavy stuff or like clock punk, you just kept going, oh, you can do that. I don't know. We just kept adding.
0:06:22 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And that's pretty typical. I mean, especially with a band that has no, like, no production, people telling them what to do and what not to do. Right. Like you just kind of just make your own music and see what sounds good to you first and then if people like it, that's great, right?
0:06:35 - (John Tran): Yeah, I mean, yeah, honestly, it all together. And next thing you know, we, after that business came out, one of the a and our assistant actually had helped post records, like with a big fan, found our first album and literally shot this to the guy we got signed in, like, 97. It was crazy. Yeah, wild.
0:06:58 - (Adam Lohrbach): Remember, remember John? We toured. We toured with the us bombs off of that sink or face of the crowd on the compilation.
0:07:06 - (John Tran): Oh, yeah.
0:07:07 - (Adam Lohrbach): And we just went out on our first tour. And, like, that was a crazy tour.
0:07:12 - (John Tran): But I think I was at 1996.
0:07:14 - (Isaac Kuhlman): We went on our first tour ever.
0:07:15 - (John Tran): I think I was, like, only 20. We weren't even old enough to go to the bars.
0:07:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah.
0:07:22 - (John Tran): Then we got in the van. We didn't know what to do. We had a van, no trailer, and at that time, no cell phone, no Internet. I think Internet was around, right? I think so. I don't know.
0:07:35 - (Adam Lohrbach): We were answering fan mail, remember in Huntington beach? We'd be, like, answering the fan mail back. And remember someone mailed us like crap.
0:07:44 - (John Tran): Yeah, yeah. So weird.
0:07:46 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah.
0:07:47 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Now, like, chronological kind of retrospective for people who are trying to think of, like, well, what's going on around, like, 96. 97, right? So, like, you know, Dookie just came out in 94. I think it was 94. 95 somewhere in there. So, like, this is shortly after, like, pop punk is really starting to even blossom and become a mega thing, right? Like, yeah, you know, Smash came out. I think offspring Smash came out that same year. Blink just released Cheshire Cat around, like, 19. 95.
0:08:16 - (Isaac Kuhlman): 96, something like that. It's like dude Ranch hadn't even been released yet in 97. So, you know, they're talking about, like, before Blink got big, but, like, kind of in this lull, you know, Scott bands were kind of coming up in this time, and Rancid was kind of coming up in this time, like, post dookie post, but before, you know, blink. Right. So was there any point during the first couple of years that you guys started to have, like, visions, grand visions of becoming successful rock stars, as mentioned in the song facing the crowd?
0:08:42 - (John Tran): I don't know if we actually had a vision. We did. I mean, to me back then, I just thought we were just going to keep going, you know, like, we did aspire. Blake was one of our really good friends at the time, and we saw how successful they were doing, like, doing their shows and doing their thing. I'm like, yeah, we want to be like that. Like, just do our thing. And people, like, as they like, I don't think we actually had a formula. Like, all right, we're going to write songs for the radio. We're going to get sign. Like, I don't think we ever had that ever, like, in our head. Like, of course. Oh, yeah, it would be nice to be big, but I don't think we actually intentionally try to be big.
0:09:15 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, I'd agree with that. I felt like we just. Things just kept coming our way and we kept saying, yeah, that's a good idea, you know, or not. Most of the time it was just a. Yeah, that's. That sounds great, you know?
0:09:29 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, that's a good problem to have too, because if you had nobody asking you questions, you'd probably be like, well, maybe we shouldn't do this anymore. Right?
0:09:37 - (John Tran): Yeah, but Adam mentioned that the punk sense compilation like that definitely got us on the map for sure in Orange county. Like that. I don't. They had all these cool bands that were on there and it just got. It just took off. And that song literally got it ideal and then snowballed into a major label. And then.
0:09:57 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And now you guys are millionaires.
0:09:59 - (Adam Lohrbach): That's right.
0:10:00 - (John Tran): Yep.
0:10:01 - (Adam Lohrbach): Billionaires.
0:10:03 - (John Tran): After that last show, I can retire now or dire.
0:10:08 - (Adam Lohrbach): Plus, people have to remember too. Like, like Dom was saying about the compilation. It sounds like, oh, a compilation. You know, but in retrospect, if you think at that time it was. It was pretty novel. Like it was a new idea. I remember, like, oh, a punk compilation. You know, you might have seen like the tv ones, the best of hits or whatever, and they'd scroll.
0:10:29 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Parton and Jimmy Rogers and stuff.
0:10:31 - (Adam Lohrbach): You can almost see, like, the names of them. And then they'd pick. They'd highlight one, like, in yellow, and it play the song. I mean, like, in the punk world, to have a compilation, that's what. When that one came out, it was a big deal. It was. People are like, whoa. Like, that's. That's a great idea, you know?
0:10:46 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, I mean, I think Punkarama might have been the first one that I ever heard. And that was probably around that exact same time. Like 95, 96, something like that. And then it was like, obviously Fat records did it and a bunch other bands or other ladies did it. But it was fairly new. And for me, living in the midwest at the time, it was impossible to find new music unless it was from those comp albums. Because it was like, who's gonna tell you about these other bands that, yeah, you may have never heard of? Like, yeah, I actually heard of Rancid through Punkarama one, I think. And I was like, that's crazy that you have to hear rancid from a compilation album when they're like, obviously one of the bigger bands in all of California at the time.
0:11:19 - (Isaac Kuhlman): But that's how I figured out who they were. Yeah, that's insane.
0:11:23 - (John Tran): Yeah, Rancid another bigger full of divorce for sure.
0:11:40 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So let's fast forward a couple of years and then you guys released act your age, which to this day is still considered one of my absolute favorite albums of all time. And I know I've listened to that album well over 300 times in my life. So what kind of success and issues did you start to see once this album came out?
0:11:55 - (Adam Lohrbach): Oh, boy.
0:11:58 - (John Tran): Well, mean, we saw. We saw the side of major label and it's definitely, I mean, especially now I work at a corporate company where my last company, we got acquired like three times. So seeing that now, back then with the major label, same exact thing. You know, when label runs out of money, they get bought out and then they downsize. And bands that didn't sell them, like a couple hundred thousand or gold or platinum, they drop.
0:12:28 - (Adam Lohrbach): So, I mean, we didn't even have a chance. If I think about the timing, it was like by the time we signed and got the record done, they were already in the midst of being absorbed or whatever. Yeah, because I remember them saying like, Dave Crowley, right. He was John didn't. What is it that, like, well, we got this much tour support, but then it's gone because they're like, they're shelving you. It's kind of like, oh, I think we got like tourist port maybe for kind of one tour or something like that. And then we just had to buckle up and make it work, you know?
0:12:58 - (John Tran): Yeah, it was a weird time. Like, we were like buddy buddies with the. In our guy, and she was the first one to go. And then, you know, we started dealing with the actual label on her, and that's when we started going to, like, negotiations and getting bought out. And so, yeah, that was a little, that was a little bloated ego, for sure, you know, because we were, we were pretty set. We had a bunch of tort. 98 was one of our biggest years where we tore. Nice shot. But so many vans.
0:13:27 - (John Tran): And also that year, our drummer ended up having brain cancer. So our brain tumor. So that was the tough time. It's like we went to a whole ring of different drummers, and it was definitely, uh, that was definitely one of our rockiest times, for sure. Yeah, leading up to. That was great.
0:13:45 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, we worked. We worked hard, though, like, not to tie ourselves on the shoulder, but we, I remember us, like, having conversations, like, well, we got to do what we got to do. Like, let's just go get on the road and tour and just like, make it work, you know, because we love the record. It just kind of got his legs cut out from underneath. Underneath it, you know. So we're watching everyone else who get in the deals and things like that, you know, under lob link, all them. We're like, oh, here we go. Us too. And it's like, man, we thought we were poised for this. And then it just got.
0:14:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): It got shelved. The record basically got. They dropped support for it, so we just. We just worked, you know, I was.
0:14:25 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Gonna say thinking at the time, I was like, how is this not as big as, like, a blink album right now? Because it was, like, in my high school, it was like, those two albums, dude ranch and, you know, actor age, were, like, equally, like, played within my friend group. Like, there was, like, everybody loved both of those albums. It was like, how are these guys not, like, on the same, like, MTV and all this other stuff? It was crazy because I was like, you know, obviously, I know the ins and outs of what was going on with you guys as business side of it at the time, but it was like, this just doesn't make sense. Like, how could they not get the same support, knowing full well that they have very similar styles, they're making great music. The album sounds great, and then it's like, you know, just because one. One band gets it doesn't mean always mean that another bandaid and gets it as well. It's weird like that.
0:15:08 - (John Tran): So just, like, our first album title, that is it.
0:15:16 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Well, one thing I want to mention about the. From going from that business to act your age is the production level and the engineering. Recording, mixing, mastering was, like, a huge jump in, you know, improvement. Right? So, like, when you guys put this album together was like, when you thought, like, hey, you know, we got this thing ready to go. I don't know how long it was, like, before you guys put it out between, you know, recording it and then, you know, putting it out. But did you guys have, like, buzz around you or within your guys's group of friends or anything like that where you're like, we did this. Here we go. Like, we're on. We're on the way, right?
0:15:51 - (Adam Lohrbach): We literally.
0:15:52 - (John Tran): So the biggest difference between production, obviously, for first album, Sackett album, our first album was. That was the first time we were an actual professional studio. We had no idea. I remember driving up the west beach for Adam, and he's like, wait, where are we? Where's the studio? Like, oh, yeah, it's off the sunset. Yeah, but it was called West beach.
0:16:14 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, West beach.
0:16:16 - (John Tran): It was crazy, man. It was our first time in this. You're like, 19. Never, ever recorded in a professional studio before. Like, we did demos at some really cheap studio, like, for. Or, like, for the daft business stuff. Like, we just literally recorded demos to gift out the shows. You know, those are all recorded live. That's been. This was, like, actually tracked in real studio. And I think after that, we actually went into pre production for actor age, which is crazy. We didn't know. We're like, oh, we're gonna actually practice in a real studio and record it and then go record again.
0:16:53 - (John Tran): Yeah, a lot of work.
0:16:55 - (Adam Lohrbach): A lot of work.
0:16:57 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.
0:16:57 - (Adam Lohrbach): I do remember we were very, very well practiced before we went in. Like, we, like, everything fills every single little part that we had to play because drums were tracked first or whatever. We're kind of, like, playing, I think, or something like that. Playing along to give, like, a feel or playing guitar or something, because it's all. It was all the tape, too. Like, today's kind of the home studio area. You can come in and leave a recording every want.
0:17:22 - (Adam Lohrbach): We were at Ocean way at that point with, you know, producer Cliff Darrell. Like, this was real studio money, you know, label money, label time.
0:17:31 - (John Tran): So it's like $2,000 a day at Ocean Way. That's crazy.
0:17:37 - (Adam Lohrbach): Remember, like, slayers in the room next door recording? Like, I mean, it was like, we were like, with the big boys, you know? It's like, we have to.
0:17:44 - (John Tran): Yeah.
0:17:45 - (Adam Lohrbach): We had to be really good because it was all the tape. It was like, get it right in one take or start over, you know?
0:17:52 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. You don't see those guys out there cutting the tape and splicing it together, right? Like, no, no. Most of the.
0:17:58 - (John Tran): Most of the studios are gone now. Like, even sound city, it's like, we did half of actuaries. Sound city, that city is, I think, a parking lot now. Or maybe an apartment complex.
0:18:09 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah.
0:18:10 - (John Tran): Crazy.
0:18:11 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Well, that goes to show you what music industry is like these days, right? It's like, we make more money by putting this into a parking lot. Now, I got a question for you guys. There's going to be songs that you've released that maybe, like, I don't know if I should have released that song. I do remember, obviously, when, like, she's anti. Started to get some backlash because Columbine came out. Like, the shooting happened around that same time, so people were kind of having some issue with that. Obviously, it wasn't meant in any way, shape, or form to be offensive for that kind of reason. But, you know, there's. There's, you know, songs in there about masturbation, calling girls the b word, you know, bitch. But all this stuff, like, all this other stuff. He was time, right? I was like that myself, but I was wondering, I'm not. I never got kind of even close to famous. So, like, that shit is all in the shadows. Like, people have to dig that up. But they can go, look at these songs from you guys. You ever, like, look back and go, oh, man, that song, that didn't really work out, you know, 30 years later, we're not listening to that song anymore. I don't like that song. But do you guys ever regret ever releasing any of those songs?
0:19:13 - (John Tran): See, I have a struggle with the word regret.
0:19:16 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.
0:19:16 - (John Tran): Obviously, I wouldn't write anything that down because I am 48 years old, turning 49 this year. You know what I mean? And I'm also, like, better. I have a pretty good job and also my kid, you know, me. But it was a time, you know, I mean, like, we were young. We didn't know. We literally did not know anything. We were literally four boys growing up out of Orange county that loved playing music and just wanted to play music.
0:19:41 - (Adam Lohrbach): We're goofing off. Honestly, it was. And I know it's probably hard in today's day and age. Maybe people older like us can understand. It just wasn't on the radar to necessarily even be like, wow, that's really offensive now. I obviously, the timing, like, she's the anti. That was, like, fun, too, and that the tragedy happened, like, right after the release. Like, the timing was just terrible. Like, who could have known? But it wasn't, you know, I mean, it's. It was just all kind of fun, like in jazz, like, kind of goofy, you know, you watch the blank shows nowadays. Like, I've watched a few on YouTube, and I'm like, they're. They're still doing it. You know, I'm like, they're still doing it.
0:20:19 - (John Tran): I was like, wow.
0:20:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): Like, I was like, oh, my gosh, they're. They're right there. Yeah, but it was just like that, you know, it just. It wasn't scrutinized, I guess, the same way. But I'm the same boat as John. We're older. It's not like I'd be, you know, writing about some things that you. That I did and saying things I did, you know? It's like, yeah, you change. You just change.
0:20:39 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And then the only reason I bring that up, obviously, is because I don't give two shits about cancel culture. Like, if somebody does something wrong, absolutely. Like, take, you know, let them know, like, bring. Blow them up or whatever. But I think when somebody just says something and, like, people are so offended by it that, like, they have to, like, try to get somebody canceled, it's like, that is absolutely absurd. Like, there's context, there's jokes, there's, you know, timing. Like, I'm just saying, people reverse engineer, cancel culture to make it seem like every. Every white guy who ever existed or anybody who's ever a male who ever had any sort of opinion should be canceled. I'm like, that's not really how it works. I just kind of. Kind of balancing that out with, like, you know, obviously you've seen stuff like that happen in your lifetime with your band, and I was just wondering if, like, you ever were like, man, you know what?
0:21:27 - (Adam Lohrbach): Maybe we.
0:21:27 - (Isaac Kuhlman): We would have thought about that one a second time had we thought about the future. But again, 1920, you don't think about that stuff, right?
0:21:33 - (John Tran): Well, obviously. And also at 1920 or 21, when I wrote to them, they're like, I don't think we've ever had a school shooting. We didn't think, like, we came out of Orange county. We live in the bus sheltered bubble. Possible thinking. Everything's always happy.
0:21:47 - (Adam Lohrbach): I mean, dude, look at this.
0:21:49 - (John Tran): These palm trees, man. Yeah. And they said would not ever think someone actually would. I mean, still to this day, I'm still blown away about what's going on. This world, man. It's crazy.
0:22:03 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, and it's pretty sad. I mean, just to put it in more context, you guys did have songs about, you know, jocks bullying, you know, musicians are, you know, art creative people in your song that. So it was like, it wasn't like you just dropped this bombshell of like, hey, we're getting bullied. Here's what we're going to do about it. That was actually a song kind of in that realm, right? So it was like, yeah, here's a song from a female's perspective about doing the exact same thing we've talked about in other songs.
0:22:27 - (John Tran): I mean, they made movies about it, you know, I mean, back in the seventies.
0:22:44 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So let's move on to the next level. You guys are doing festivals and kings of pop comes out. So after four long years of waiting for a third full length album, fans finally got smacked in the mouth with kings of pop. And I remember being on homegrown foreign boards during this time, wondering what the music would sound like. And it felt like an eternity for that third album to come out. But when it did, you guys actually did reach a reasonably high level of kind of notoriety with its release. So, you know, I guess when we're looking at kings of pop, you know, in my opinion, every song was just excellent. Like, the production value, everything was just, like, what you would expect from a really, really high level album at the time.
0:23:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You know, it was a good mix of pop, punk and emo as well, because, you know, after the turn of the century, things wasn't just pop punk anymore. You know, blinks doing, like, Adam song and other stuff like that was starting to meld in there. And then you guys started, obviously, doing some. Some support and touring more for that. What do you guys remember about this time of your careers most? And what changed for you when kings of pop came out?
0:23:42 - (John Tran): Well, the toughest time was when we were labelists, so leading up to kings of pop, we did have a period where we were shopping for, I think, almost two years, like, literally going. Making demos inside a flower shop off of Melrose, like, in some terrible studio that smell like Bo. Remember that studio, Adam?
0:24:05 - (Adam Lohrbach): Now that you say it, I remember it was terrible. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.
0:24:14 - (John Tran): Inside of a flower shop at someone's studio that was recording us for free. And it smells so bad and terrible. But, yeah, we were literally trying to find it. Wait, we didn't have it. We didn't have a drummer. And we finally found Darren. And I remember one day, I. Because we were still. We were friends with Richard and Stephanie from drive through, from all the bands that we're friends with. And I literally called him up and said, hey, you guys want to sign us? And they're like, absolutely.
0:24:43 - (John Tran): And then got that ball rolling, and we just. And I just started working.
0:24:48 - (Adam Lohrbach): Well, yeah, I mean, like John said, it was. It was a little deflating reading up to it, but I. But, you know, we're still touring, and I remember, you know, you said you make the rounds around, you know, the United States, there's certain routes you do and things like that, and once you've kind of got a few times and a few times again, you know, you can feel that sense of fatigue. You know, it's a little bit of fatigue from the audience, too. They've heard, you know, I mean, you want. You want to give something new?
0:25:16 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah. I can't remember when the eps came out between then or whatever, but, yeah, kings of pop. Kings of pop was like a breath of fresh air. And we had all that time, like, to be writing and working on things and, you know, coming up with songs, and it just felt. It just felt good. It just felt good to have someone behind us. And they. I mean, to their credit, they're always very enthusiastic about the bands. They signed it. You know, they made a good point to be a fan.
0:25:43 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.
0:25:44 - (Adam Lohrbach): And that. That felt good, too. I remember at the time, like, oh, they're. They're seeing in the demos, they're. They're excited about this, you know? And I was like, wow, okay.
0:25:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. And from my perspective as a fan, I remember drive thru Records basically snatching up pretty much every good band that wasn't on a major label at the time or on fat records. Right. And I was like, holy hell. They're doing big things over there. And then all of a sudden, you know, it starts to kind of unravel later on. But, you know, when I saw it was drive thru, I was like, holy shit. Like, this is. This is great. Because all the other bands that pretty much I liked at the time were signing through drive thru. So what was that kind of relationship like with Drivethru records during that time? Were you guys constantly talking? Was it just a sign and release time kind of thing, or what. What kind of things happened because of that signing?
0:26:34 - (John Tran): We got on a bunch of tours because of them. You know, we, like, I think the first. The first tour we did, they set us up with Alistair in Japan, so we just signed with them. They're like, hey, we're okay for you guys to go to Japan with Alistair? We're like, absolutely. And honestly, I've never heard of Alice before. At that time, I didn't know one single draft, two band liked. The only band I knew was Phoenix, TX.
0:26:55 - (John Tran): That's it. And after that, we just. They threw us on the warp tour. We were on main stage on the warp tour after that. And then we did, like, the drive through Invasion tour, like, all over the US in 2003. That was insane. And then we did, like, my drive through innovation, like, in the UK, twice. It was awesome.
0:27:18 - (Adam Lohrbach): They had a culture of pick up the. Pick up the band below you type thing. So if a band had a release, it was. It was pretty much expected. Not in a heavy handed way, but almost like a. This is how we do things at drive thru. It's like, you know, steel train comes out with some. Whatever. It's like, who's taking them? You know? So everyone who kind of came up behind the different bands that were rising would always sort of pop in on the tour, so they would get a shot to sort of come up and see. See what worked and what didn't.
0:27:49 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So, you know, what's crazy is that's how it still should be, but it's not.
0:27:53 - (John Tran): Oh, no. Now it's like, okay, how much money can your label give us?
0:27:57 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, yeah.
0:27:58 - (John Tran): Oh, you're gonna pay. You gotta pay for our marketing. What? Yeah. That's crazy.
0:28:01 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I even had an episode about the death of rock and roll, right? So, like, the death of rock and roll had many contributing factors, but one of the big. And it's not like rock music's dead. It's just kind of like one of those subjects everyone wants to talk about. But one of the contributing factors that I always say is, like, these big bands never really want to bring up new bands. They're like, sure, we'll put them on, you know, a road, like a tour or whatever, but it's not like they're really going to give them any spotlight.
0:28:25 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You know, most of the time back then, it was like, we'll co headline with you, or we'll do, you know, a full us tour. It wasn't just like, hey, you're going to three shows or four shows here and there, like a regional show around you, or playing one show for us, your hometown, it was like you'd go on a full us tour, you know, southwest tour or whatever it was, Pacific Northwest. It'd be like, you know, ten to twelve spots. So it was like a full tour.
0:28:49 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And that's how, again, you heard of more bands that you never heard of, right. I was like, I don't know how there's. How it's possible. There's so many good bands in the world, but at the time, it just seemed like there was an endless amount of good bands. I'm glad.
0:29:01 - (John Tran): It's a lot different. I mean, honestly, though, when you said death of rock and roll, it's true. So I have a really good friend. She's like, the director of, like, artist development at Warner Brothers. And she's been telling me last few years, like, no, rock is dead. Like, there's no market for rock anymore, but literally hip hop, country, it's buff crazy. I mean, even with the resurgence of resurgence of Blade 22, who's absolutely killing it right now, they're killing it like they're making.
0:29:29 - (John Tran): That's the only exception that I can't really see other new rock band coming out.
0:29:35 - (Isaac Kuhlman): If you weren't a platinum selling artist before the year 2001, you probably aren't a platinum selling artist in rock genre right now. It's pretty much like that. It's so very rare that, you know, somebody tops the charts these days in rock.
0:29:49 - (John Tran): Yeah.
0:29:49 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah. The only other one I can think of is, and I'm sure there's others, but, like, turnstile, I feel, like, got good alternative rock radio sort of play.
0:29:58 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And they probably got gold. Like, they probably got, like, gold, but I don't think they ever went platinum.
0:30:03 - (Adam Lohrbach): But, yeah, a little bit of mainstream. Yeah, yeah. But doing very well, you know, so.
0:30:07 - (John Tran): For sure, like, I see my. We have a friend that's touring with right now, and I see his videos and they're just playing, like, yeah. Like, wow.
0:30:16 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Their shows are, like, being in, like, a jazzer size video, but to, like, kind of, like, heavy, hardcore kind of music, kind of with, like, some of this light music in between to, like, mix things up. It's like, it's. It's pretty insane. People go nuts. Speaking of the death of rock and roll, let's talk about the breakup of the band. Adam leaves homegrown, right? So obviously the band had some lineup changes over the years, and I remember being bummed out when Bob got, you know, brain tumor. He had to leave the band.
0:30:55 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Thankfully, he's recovered, and I think he actually even played in another band since then. There were a couple of guitars that left the bands over the years, but the court was always you two guys, right? Like, I mean, obviously not from the very beginning of homegrown, but, like, once you guys started recording and putting out records, like, it was always you two guys. So let's get all the way real now. I'm sure you guys have talked about this plenty of times between yourselves, but, you know, it's probably not widely known as to, like, what exactly happened. I've talked to you about it, Adam, a little bit here and there, but you guys are probably as close as any non related brothers any two humans can possibly be at this point. What were some of the catalysts for you doing that and what basically ended up making the band break up in the end?
0:31:35 - (Adam Lohrbach): I mean, you always start to say, I left for another band. Wouldn't be to say it, right? I mean, in all honesty, New Year's Day was. New Year's Day was announced for me to write and me figuring I don't have any employment skills and I'm trying to make money for, you know, being newly married and trying to pay rent and all these different things and doing drywall, it felt like a good opportunity and the right time to, like, try and make some money off of publishing and stuff like that and get them, like, a start.
0:32:08 - (Adam Lohrbach): Like I said, I'd help them a little bit, and then I was going to leave. Long story short, I think I just had a real low spot life. And, you know, I used to have. I used to be involved in my faith and stuff like that, christian faith when I was, like, younger and then just kind of sort of gave it up or whatever. I hit a low spot, like in a relationship and in life. And then, I don't know, just after, you know, that kind of spot, something just.
0:32:34 - (Adam Lohrbach): I just felt like a callback. Like I gotta, like, change my life. I gotta do something and they could change. It was. It was hard, man. It was. It was. It was a really tough time because we talked about this a little bit or whatever, and I said some things in interviews. If maybe you've seen John, I don't know, but it was very hard because that decision of me leaving has such an impact on everybody.
0:32:58 - (Adam Lohrbach): I mean, this is like, what. This is our identity is what we're doing. This is how we're making money. This is our next steps. And so, I mean, it has nothing to do with any of the members or, like, anything that they would have done, said wrong, anything like that. It's just a decision I felt like was right for me, you know, at the time and I needed to take. And unfortunately, because band is like family, that hurts family, you know what I mean? So, I mean, nothing but love. Like, I mean, here we are today or whatever, but.
0:33:30 - (Adam Lohrbach): And that's kind of. Kind of my side, but, oops. Yeah, it was hard. And it's hard to. It's hard to put. To bring them into that, too, because ultimately all our decisions, each one of ours is going to affect the other.
0:33:41 - (John Tran): I think at that time, I don't know if. Right, like, we've been playing, we've been. I mean, we were in preparations for a new album, so I was actually very excited for that part because we did have a european tour with Newfoundland and hot water music lined up and I was super excited about that. But leading up to that, we did have, I think, from touring for so long. And it's, you know, like, I knew. I met Adam to a mutual friend and we were going to christian hardcore shows. So I knew where Adam's FARpL has always been, you know, which is the church and being a good boy and all that stuff.
0:34:17 - (John Tran): And, you know, like, honestly, the road does a lot of crazy stuff to you, man. Like, it got. It got me into, like, I started partying a lot on the road, doing a lot of bad shit and something that definitely set a disconnection with all the members because we were all kind of spinning out of control a little bit, you know, on the road. Yeah, yeah. But then when he. When Adam told us about it, I was like, oh, I was sad, of course.
0:34:44 - (John Tran): Disappointed, of course. But I understood. I'm like, yeah, I get it. But right when he told me, I was like, all right, I can't do the band without. So I decided to get a job. I didn't want to be that band where, like, okay, guys, I'm taking over. You know, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna sing all of adam's songs. No, we're not gonna do that. We had a bunch of shows still lined up for the rest of the year. I'm like, all right, we'll just finish it off, and then our last show will be october on my birthday.
0:35:09 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Isn't like a pink Floyd thing where David gilmore and Roger waters are fighting over who keeps the name. It's like a, you know, divorce, split up, like all that stuff.
0:35:18 - (John Tran): No, adam. Adam straight up said, hey, guys, I'm just going to leave you guys. Keep the name, keep all my equipment. It's fine. We're like, oh, wow, are you sure? We just kept playing for a little bit, and we did have, like I said, we had, like, another, like, six shows lined up, and they called it quits.
0:35:40 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Looking back on it now, was there anything that you felt like you might have missed out on because, like, either from both of you guys that you guys, if you would have, you know, decided to keep the band together? Obviously, we'll talk about the reunion and stuff, but do you ever look back on it and go, you know what? Maybe we could have found a different way to do this, but still kept going? Is there ever that thought in your guys mind at all?
0:36:00 - (Adam Lohrbach): I could say. I could say, you know, without disclosing names, there was. We were going to do the newfound tour, like, as the last kind of thing, I thought. I remember saying, well, this is a big deal. Sorry, whatever. And then we were going to keep it, like, private that, you know, leaving or whatever. And then somebody had said something to somebody who need drive through when they shouldn't have, and that got out, and then they asked questions later, you guys done whatever, and they're like, oh, then let's pull it and we'll get someone else on who's not done.
0:36:33 - (Adam Lohrbach): I didn't have control of the, you know, the person that, you know, said some things they shouldn't have, and that was. That was. I would say that's disappointing. It had been much nicer to go out on a high, like, that. But I was like, it's like, once it happened, it's like, what can you do, you know? It's like. It just. It just sucked.
0:36:52 - (John Tran): I mean, of course, you know, you can't turn back time and change things. Otherwise, things would probably be a lot different now if that happened. You know what I mean? I probably wouldn't be here. Yeah, I probably wouldn't be here.
0:37:04 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Money was pouring into musicians, right? Like, it still is, but it just. In a different way now.
0:37:08 - (John Tran): But it's like, oh, man, we were so rich. We were getting paid $1,000. What? A month? Adam.
0:37:16 - (Adam Lohrbach): Dude, we're spending, like, do we come. We come home with money? Like, I feel like I'd spend, like. Like three or four grand on nothing in, like, two weeks and be like, well, back on the road. Like, it was the dumbest thing I could have. I could have saved enough money to put a down payment on a house. I could. There's so many things I could have done, but I was just like, whoo. You know? It's like living like an eternal kid, you know?
0:37:42 - (John Tran): Our first. Our first paycheck from our. From. What was it? What's our second now? Actor aid. When we first got. When we first got our advance, I think we each got, like, 50 grand after, like, our recording stuff. And I. My mom. I told my mom, this is, like, I was 22 at the time. Mom, I just got paid. She's like, okay, you want to go invest and buy a house? Like, you know, these houses only $100,000. You just put down a down payment on two.
0:38:07 - (John Tran): And I'm like, no, I'm gonna buy a car. So I walked into Toyota and paid 38,000 cash for four runner.
0:38:19 - (Adam Lohrbach): And I went in, and I got a Mitsubishi Montero.
0:38:25 - (John Tran): You're so stupid. No, I wouldn't change the thing.
0:38:29 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah. For the record. For the record, his. His. His truck was better than mine. Yeah, I remember I got mine, and I saw John's, and I'm like, dang it.
0:38:41 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Four runners are a lot better than Montero's, for sure. Mitsubishi. But I will say you guys are in good company. I think it was Ben Affleck who said he got paid something like 150 grand or 80 grand. But then after. For this, for goodwill hunting, and then, like, after all the taxes and stuff, you know, like, $50,000, he went and bought a Jeep Wrangler. And then that was all of his money gone.
0:39:02 - (John Tran): Wow.
0:39:03 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So he was, like, broke, but he was like a movie star still. It was, like, crazy.
0:39:07 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah. I mean, he's been out.
0:39:08 - (John Tran): Yeah. Yeah. I think he's. I think he's doing fine.
0:39:25 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So let's talk about something that's more. More happy, right? Like, you guys got back together. You guys obviously did a reunion show last month. So what were some of the conversations that took place to finally get you guys back in a room together to play homegrown songs? Was it just Adam? Come on. Come on. Come on. Let's go play it. Come on.
0:39:44 - (John Tran): No, you know, I think the person that was starting to was trying to spark it up was Darren. Like, he's been kind of messaging us, sending group texts for the past couple years, but, dude, I'm, like, so deep in my. My life, you know, my family life, I'm like, no, I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready yet. And then, honestly, I think we got approached with, like, a couple tours, like, something corporate wanted to go on tour with us, and I just said, you know what?
0:40:13 - (John Tran): Let's meet, guys. And then we did, and then that was it. We literally met up at PF Chang's, of all places. Yep.
0:40:23 - (Adam Lohrbach): The Irvine spectrum.
0:40:25 - (John Tran): Spectrum. And, yeah, we just hung out, and I think we're there for, like, 3 hours and decided try to get on the same page. I did tell everyone. I'm like, I want to make sure we're. I don't want anyone to get, like, strong arm to do anything they don't want to do, you know? Like, I want to do this right. We're all. We're all in this together. Like, we're all adults. Like, what is all of our visions for the band? So, still trying to figure that out. Like, we just played one show.
0:40:52 - (John Tran): You know, Adam's got three kids. I have one. Darren has one and a half. Two. Two.
0:40:58 - (Adam Lohrbach): You two, right?
0:41:00 - (John Tran): Yeah. Dan has. Dan has nothing but his golf clubs. Yeah, but it's good, man. Like, that. That last show was amazing.
0:41:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I was gonna say, like, can you. After 19 long years of not playing together, like, can you articulate what it was like to play that reunion show?
0:41:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): It was, man, I still get happy about it. I still. I mean, I go, I've been watching YouTube videos get uploaded, and I felt like all of us were right in the moment. And the cool thing was, is, I mean, the crowd was all in. I mean, it was just, like, everything. And we'd worked hard. We'd had, like, four or five practices, like, to really get it. Like, to dial it in. Like, dial in our parts, like, shake off the rust, figure out, like, our, you know, get our vocal chops up and all that type of stuff, like, working the set list, thinking through transitions, like John said, like, kind of like, whatever. Like, hey, let's do this right type thing or whatever. And, like, you know, and it just. I felt like everything came together exactly how it should have been.
0:42:08 - (John Tran): Except for my back.
0:42:10 - (Adam Lohrbach): Except for his back. He was having some back troubles. But you still did it.
0:42:14 - (John Tran): I did, but I literally threw my back out, like, a week before and back brace on stage, and it was terrible. Meanwhile, Adams doing backflips on stage, so.
0:42:25 - (Adam Lohrbach): After getting super winded. Yeah, I really impressed. Yeah. But you know what? I was like, second song in, or. Yeah, second song. And I was like, it's getting hard to sing. All right, I'm. And in my head, I'm strategizing that night. I'm all, okay. When John songs plays, take a break. Don't jump around as much. Kind of bob around. Move the stage left and right. Stay moving but relaxed, because I realize I'm like, oh, I'm losing range because I'm like this, you know?
0:42:58 - (Adam Lohrbach): So, you know, we're getting. We're not. We're not young guns anymore, so.
0:43:02 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, yeah, it is interesting because, you know, there you still see, you know, 60 year old punk rockers out there, you know, trying to put on good show, and you're like, I can't even hear them. I can't sing. They can't do anything because, like, they're trying to do too much. So what you just said is actually a pretty good, you know, pro tip for somebody. You know, I'm 42. Like, I want to start playing again, and I'm like, you know, I also want to, like, perform. I don't want to just stand there in one place and sing, but at the same time was like, yeah, like, you.
0:43:30 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Your actual breath isn't as. It's not as quickly to recover as it was when you were 22 years old.
0:43:38 - (Adam Lohrbach): Well, John told me, and I. And I actually did it because I run in the foothills here in my city, like, a few days, a week, whatever. And he was saying, john's very physically fit and active or whatever, and he was saying he was running and singing, and I was like, oh, that's a good idea. For the last three weeks or something like that, I'm out there running in the hills. Maybe tomorrow, literally, because no one's out there. I didn't care.
0:44:11 - (John Tran): I, you know, yeah, I do it all the time. I try it.
0:44:14 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, yeah. Just trying to build up stamina for it. You know, I still got a ways to go, but we're, you know, getting there.
0:44:34 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Well, let's talk about where you guys go from here. So obviously you got another show lined up. I think it's on, like, September 10. No, 2020 something. September.
0:44:43 - (John Tran): September 20.
0:44:44 - (Isaac Kuhlman): 20Th. Yeah.
0:44:45 - (John Tran): Yeah. The glass house. Our ticket sales, John, we're at 90% sold out.
0:44:50 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Nice.
0:44:53 - (Adam Lohrbach): I mean. I mean, yeah.
0:44:57 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So it's pretty good.
0:44:58 - (John Tran): Pretty good.
0:44:59 - (Adam Lohrbach): We don't even have any openers yet.
0:45:01 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, I know. I was gonna say, even announced the opener because all I've seen is home grown up at glass house, which is crazy. And it's already 90.
0:45:07 - (John Tran): Yeah, honestly, we're still working that out right now. Still have some ideas for that. But honestly, at this point, it doesn't really matter. Like, we could just have. We can have Adam's kids learn some songs and then come up on stage.
0:45:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I'll go out there with a banjo, and I've never played banjo before, and I'll just be like, hey, guys. And then I'll get hit with all the tomato cans. So that way you guys don't get hit with any at the.
0:45:29 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, but you know what? If someone's gonna hear this interview and now we're gonna get, like, even more DM's john about because I'm getting so many. Are you getting a ton? I'm getting. I mean, cool. I would do the same thing. I would be reaching out, like, not throwing any, you know, shade at anyone for asking, like, kudos to them. Like, I would ask, and I would keep asking, too, until I got an answer. But there has been a lot of people asking to play.
0:45:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): She gets.
0:45:58 - (Adam Lohrbach): We're trying to figure it out, you know, like, we're also trying to, like, we're figuring out, like, different, like, roles, like, how we do this. Like, John's opening dbas, you know, how we're setting up merch. Merch stores, marketing, online, website. Like, all the things we're having to all sort of find our spot because we're all busy. We're all living busy lives, and, like, how do we communicate? How do we take something and support someone else and, like, we're still figuring things out. You know.
0:46:32 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I don't know if I heard this or if you guys mentioned it or somehow, but is there new music being written?
0:46:39 - (John Tran): I mean, there's something. There's always something in the vault, you know, post, homegrown. I mean, I didn't stop writing. Like, I did my solo thing for a little bit, and then I got a. I got a lot of kids songs. I could put out for sure. In, like, late 2004, we were in the studio for a little bit, like, recording demos. Like, we have. We do have some. We have. Do have six right now that we have, but I don't know. We're.
0:47:07 - (John Tran): We're still. We're still trying to figure it out. We're still. We're still enjoying the last show, you know? I mean, and then are we gonna start practicing for the next show, Adam, or are we gonna wait till September?
0:47:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): We already practiced too much, so.
0:47:22 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I think you just said you're busy, right? Yeah, I do.
0:47:25 - (Adam Lohrbach): Like, practice is pretty fun. Well, we got to get deep, too. That's that. The thing is, is, like, we. I think we played a lot of songs we thought people would want to hear, but now we're going to have a lot longer set, so we're. We're going to be getting into some deep cuts, you know?
0:47:39 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.
0:47:40 - (Adam Lohrbach): Which I think will be really fun. It'll. It's going to be fun to get. Go back into stuff. Go back into eps for, you know, for the glass house. Like, we got to do it, right?
0:47:50 - (Isaac Kuhlman): No, I thought it was funny how you were saying that you guys worked really hard to, like, get ready for this, and you're like, we practiced four times. I was, like, four times.
0:48:00 - (Adam Lohrbach): Those.
0:48:00 - (John Tran): Those are five heart. I think we did five practices, but we did five. We did five in three months. All right. All right. Those are five hard practices.
0:48:08 - (Adam Lohrbach): No, that first one, we were making fun of ourselves because we never practiced back in the day. Yeah, like, we practice too much.
0:48:19 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I mean, but when you make the songs, you just know them, right? So, like, you don't have to practice them as much as, like, for example, like, if you're trying to play, like, a really hardcover song, you got to learn, like, an intricate lead part. You got to practice the shit out of that. But when you play it yourself, it's like second nature. You kind of know it, right? So, like, you play it so many times, you don't really need to memorize it. I still remember songs that I wrote when I was, like, 16 years old. I'm like, I don't know why. I know, but it's just, like, one of those songs that, like, it fits into what I can figure out, so it's just always in my memory bank.
0:48:47 - (John Tran): I haven't played homegrown songs in quite a long time until we started talking about reuniting. And I'm like, oh, wow, okay. I need to get. I need to get serious, and I actually pull all my electrics out of my garage and start playing. And I remember Hiromi was like, my wife was like, wow, you can play all those songs. I'm like, yeah, I played it for like eleven years. But yeah, it was pretty fast to pick up and learn. But yeah, our first practice, it was a little rusty.
0:49:20 - (Adam Lohrbach): Little rusty. Little rusty.
0:49:22 - (John Tran): Little rusty. It was fun. It was great. And then by the time we got to our second throw practice, I was like, all right, we're good. Yeah, my big, my big ass with the band when we first got together, I'm like, all right, my big ass is, I want us to sound the best we've ever been for these people. Like, they've been waiting for 19 years. Like, I don't want to come out there and just sound like trash, you know, like people have been waiting.
0:49:46 - (John Tran): I don't want to disappoint.
0:49:47 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So you want to sound like Johnny trash but not trash?
0:49:50 - (John Tran): Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
0:49:53 - (Adam Lohrbach): You know what I think, honestly, that show John, I think that was probably the best we've ever sounded. I mean, we've had, we've had some pretty. We've definitely had some highlights, for sure. I mean, maybe, maybe he's good. I don't know. We played too many shows to count, but that was definitely, like top of our game. And I think. I think was really cool is we're, we're goofing off so much in practice, you know, like, we were taking everything seriously, obviously, but, like, I wasn't sure how the banter would go because, like, john and I would. And we'd always banter and it'd be just in the moment, you know, we never knew what we're gonna say. Just things would come out and we'd laugh and just keep joking and, you know, you don't know. And we haven't been up in the stage in 19 years and then it sure has rained. We get up there and we're just like, we just start talking and riffing off each other. I'm like, yep, this is us.
0:50:44 - (Adam Lohrbach): This is us.
0:50:45 - (John Tran): We picked, we definitely picked up where we left, you know.
0:50:53 - (Adam Lohrbach): And you got to make sure to use these cords right here.
0:50:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.
0:51:01 - (Adam Lohrbach): He gave me and I was supposed to promo and I totally sucked at it and didn't. And then I was like, recording in some live video and he's all, I didn't say anything about the chords. He's all, oh, those are nice chords. I'm like, sorry, bro.
0:51:14 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I just actually noticed. I only noticed him if it like, is like, prominently. It was. I think it was like, in front of something. It was like, in front of, like. Like a paddle board or something. I was like, oh, that's my cables.
0:51:26 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah.
0:51:28 - (John Tran): You make your own cables?
0:51:29 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, powered by rock, has, like, guitar accessories and some other stuff that we sell, so.
0:51:34 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, works great. I've been using it for recording for. Ever since you gave it to me. It's been great.
0:51:45 - (Isaac Kuhlman): When you guys. I'm sure you have a long list of bands that would love to play with you. I mean, you guys seem like the kind of guys that don't like to burn bridges, you know, I've known Adam for a couple years now, and he might forget to text back every once in a while, but he's never going to be like, hey, you're. Stop texting me, asshole.
0:52:02 - (John Tran): Don't worry. I dealt with him for 16 years. I know.
0:52:08 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah. He was like, hey, bro, I just aol mailed you. You didn't aol me back.
0:52:14 - (Isaac Kuhlman): That's funny. Well, that's all I got for you guys. I appreciate you guys being here and, you know, did you have anything you wanted to say before we go today or anything that you wanted to release out to the world that I didn't ask you about?
0:52:25 - (John Tran): Yeah, go buy our merchandise@homegrownsucks.com. that's for Darren.
0:52:30 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. Homegrown sucks.
0:52:34 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, you could probably put that in the front of the interview, too.
0:52:38 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Another paid ad.
0:52:40 - (Adam Lohrbach): Yeah, because, I mean, if you go to homegrownsucks.com, there's some great, like, limited merch, and then we're also doing. We're doing signature series merch, too, or where each of us are going to have our own, like, merchandise piece that we'll make. That's like, a limited run, too, which is kind of fun. That was Darren's.
0:52:59 - (John Tran): Wait, what? Wait, I wasn't aware of this one.
0:53:04 - (Adam Lohrbach): Get the work done.
0:53:09 - (John Tran): But, no, I mean, honestly, like, yeah, let's just keep checking our Instagram. Like, we do have updates coming up. Like, we're so. We just haven't really thought it all the way through yet. But, yeah, we. We are toying with possible, like, final releases and live recordings and stuff, so, yeah, we all have. We have all the access to it. We just haven't really, you know, come up with a game plan for it yet.
0:53:34 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, very cool. I'm excited to see what comes up. I'm obviously, like I said, I've been a fan since, you know, before I ever even had relations with a woman, so that's how long I've been a fan. Of your guys music. That's the show for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you learned anything or liked what you heard on the show today, please show us some support and subscribe to this channel and like comment and share this video with a friend or put it up on social media.
0:53:59 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I hate to keep asking, but without those small actions, the YouTube bots pretty much ignore this channel. Putting these videos out is a lot of work. If you want to show your appreciation, please consider purchasing some of our musical accessories or merch from our store@poweredbyrock.com. you can read our blog and follow us in the links below as well. Those are the plugs and that's all I have. I'll see you soon for the next episode. Until then, rock on.