Utter Trash--Hank Jones

By the Way, Which One’s Hank?

An Interview with Mike Torti of Hank Jones

By Bob Ignizio

It's disturbing to think about, but to a lot of people punk rock means Green Day and Blink 182. Lucky for me there's still a few bands like Erie, PA's Hank Jones (Mike Torti - vocals, Nick Warren - guitar, Chris Bencivenga - drums, Shayne Moreland - bass, and Seth Pacileo - guitar) out there who know better. These guys manage to stay true to punk's roots while adding enough modern touches to avoid sounding like a lame trip through nostalgia. Just pick up their Undecided Records' debut 'Saturday Nights of Thunder' and you'll hear what I'm talking about.

Utter Trash: Okay, I gotta’ start with the obvious one. Is there a real “Hank Jones” that you named the band after?
Mike Torti: Nah, there is no real person that we named the band after. All that I can say is that we got it from the Simpsons. It'll take a little detective work to figure out the rest!

UT: You recently added a second guitar player to your band, Seth. What made you decide you needed another six string, and what has Seth added to the band that wasn’t there before?
MT: Well, we just thought that adding a 2nd guitarist would just fill out our sound and that’s exactly what it did. We are also going to be able to expand our song writing with a 2nd guitarist, so that is going to be pretty exciting. Mainly though he just adds a whole new dimension of fun to the band. the rest of us are all older and its good to have someone young in the band who can keep us on the tips of our toes!

UT: With so many hardcore bands these days coming off as mach assholes playing mediocre metal, it’s refreshing that you don’t go that route. Do you see yourselves as spearheading a return to the roots (Minor Threat, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, etc) of the genre?
MT: In a way, yes. We grew up listening to Operation Ivy, Rancid, Minor Threat, Bad Religion, bands like that, and we don’t really think of ourselves as a "hardcore" band because we don’t sound like many of the bands that get classified as "hardcore" these days. We are just doing what we feel represents our musical interests. Its a faster record, 13 songs in 20 minutes, its more punk than hardcore.

UT: How did an Erie, PA band wind up on a little indie label out of Florida? Anything in particular about Undecided Records that made you go with them?
MT: It’s kinda funny. We never really expected the band to get signed. Bands in our area seem to only ever release demos and EP's and we just wanted to step out of that running trend and release a full record. So when we finished recording one of our good friends from Erie was going to school in Florida and had interned at Undecided for the summer. We sent him a copy of the record to listen to because he was always supporting us at every show when he was home, so when he asked if he could give it to Alex at Undecided to listen to, we said what the hell, why not? Alex called me up the next day and said that he really liked the record and that they were in the process of signing a couple bands and it just went from there. We never sent the record out to any other labels, so who knows if anyone else would have been interested or not, its just one of those things we will always think, that "what if" question that haunts you, hahaha. We are happy with Undecided, so we are definitely not regretting how things progressed.

UT: Unfortunately I’ve only heard your most recent album, so could you describe for me how Hank Jones has changed and progressed from your previous album?
MT: We released a 5 song demo back in February of 2004. That demo was us just trying to write songs that we thought kids would like, it wasn’t really a good representation of us as individuals and not really a good representation of our musical tastes. There are things on that record that are kinda excluded from our record, mostly breakdowns and lame ass lyrics. Not saying that I have improved in my writing, but the topics I feel that I tackle on the record are just way more important than what tried to say on the demo.

UT: Aside from music, what sort of things do the members of the band like to do? Are you politically active at all? Any unusual hobbies?
MT: What do we like to do? Seth is big into skating, Nick and Chris are both art majors so they do screen printing and work with that a lot. Nick also is into comics a lot! I book shows in the Erie area, but besides those things, there really are not any unusual hobbies.

UT: Do you enjoy touring and being on the road, or is it just a necessary evil to get your music out to people?
MT: We enjoy touring and being on the road but we do miss home and that does wear down on us as time goes on. It is a necessary evil for bands to tour, but you make it what you want it to be. If you want to have fun on the road you will, but if you go into touring thinking "man this is going to blow" then yeah, it’s going to suck. You just have to keep a positive outlook on everything while you go. I personally love going to places I’ve never been to before and meeting amazing people! On our last tour we played in Chattanooga, Tennessee at this place called The Green Martian and we had a real pizza party at the show, it was amazing! Some of the places we've played we went in thinking “man, they have shows here? Where are we?” Those shows usually end up being some of the most fun times on tour!

UT: What do you hope the future holds for Hank Jones?
MT: To tour, tour, tour and to be able to come home and not be broke! We plan to start writing some new songs and recording a couple in the fall, so you can all keep an eye out for those songs!

UT: Anything else you want to add that I didn’t ask about?
MT: Go check out this band This Is Hell on State Of Mind Recordings! One of the best new bands out in hardcore right now! We've played a bunch of shows with them and they're fucking incredible!