Casey Shaw
IG: @casedgod.hc
Could you introduce yourself to anyone who doesn’t already know you?
Hey guys Casey here. I've been in bands in the NW since I was a little kid, touring as much as I possibly could as soon as I could possibly make it work. I've also been a filthy weeb since even before I was a HC nerd and that really influenced how I grew up as a sweaty fat nerd. HC and manga, games, tcg's, and movies keep me going. I also have a beautiful wife and an awesome dog.
What was your introduction to punk and hardcore?
My first CD that I bought on my own was Green Day's American Idiot. I was in 6th grade and I remember going to a friend's birthday party the day that I bought the CD. I spent most of the party sitting in the corner with my headphones plugged into my off-brand portable CD player listening to American Idiot and thinking about how nobody would ever understand me... The second half of the party was going to a public swimming pool nearby where I came out of my shell more and had a good time with my friends at the party until the birthday boy drowned and had to be resuscitated. My second CD was the Final Fantasy X soundtrack that a friend gave me. There's a song on there called "Otherworld" that's just sounds like the most stock metal song of all time. But it has chugs and guitar solos and a guy saying lyrics like "bite the hand that feeds you" in an evil voice. I listened to that song 9,000,000 times and lost my mind every time. When I heard that I knew there had to be more shit out there that would get me way more jacked than Green Day, and there was. I found my way into like gore and porno grind before any actual hardcore, just trolling MySpace for the most gruesome, brutal, outsider shit I could find, some of my middle school favorites were SikFuk, Cock and Ball Torture, Prostitute Disfigurement, Circle of Dead Children. But then I learned about Terror and my entire life changed. I was instantly obsessed and never looked back.
You’ve played in a million bands since i remember meeting you in like 2010 or 2011. (Reality Check, The Scare, Gag, Apex Predator, OMO, Crawl Space, and probably more that im forgetting). You want to give a run down of those and what you like most between playing bass and also doing vocals?
Reality Check... that band sucked ass pretty bad but it did play a huge part in me meeting everyone who I now consider my friends and family. There are about 20 or 30 more but I can't really remember, or don't want to remember some of them. I didn't write or record with Lower Species at all but that's probably my favorite out of the bands I played in the past. Red Scare was really important too, that was the first band I toured with and I met so many people who are important in my life especially outside of the NW through that band. My favorite position in a band is guitar, honestly. I started out playing bass then eventually sang in a bunch of bands, Red Scare, Instant Death, now Apex Predator (also my solo project Gorehicular Slamicide). But I fucking suck at bass, everyone thinks bass is easier than guitar but it is so much harder, the strings are gigantic and they're so hard to strum. And singing makes my head feel like it's going to explode but it feels so good and it's the most fun I've ever had, especially now with Apex Predator where I really get to interact with the kids. An electric guitar is just the coolest item on the entire planet, it feels so badass to just rip a fat solo even if it sucks or chug a fat break.
Apex Predator has done some pretty cool tours/played some out of state fests recently. Whats been your favorite ones so far?
My favorite Apex Predator tour was definitely the one we did this last spring with our best friends in Witness Chamber. Every show was awesome and the friendship vibes and fucking around was absolutely immaculate. We had a nerf battle that lasted multiple hours outside the venue on like the main live music and comedy street in Austin after our show. We played a matinee and were going to go to the movies but then just started shooting nerf guns and never stopped. We were getting people on the street involved and like shooting nerds in their rental Lamborghinis that were driving by. We would ask someone if they wanted to shoot a nerf gun and if they said yes, we either instantly started ganging up on them saying they're in the game now it's fair play to shoot them, or one of us would immediately get on our knees with hands behind the head and wait for them to shoot us execution style. We're almost all 30 years old and older. Just Another Gig isn't supposed to be a fest but that's the most fun sets I've ever played in my entire life is Apex at JAG every single time. LDB was cool too, and felt amazing that people there cared about us at all but it was the biggest room I've ever been in and even though there were a couple hundred people at the front going ham, there was another like 4,000 people standing behind them with their arms crossed it's so crazy.
Odd Man Out and Gag seem to be the bands that travel internationally the most of all the ones you're in. Whats your experience been like playing in other countries, getting to travel via hardcore and whats the coolest place youve played outside the US?
The first show that I ever played with Odd Man Out that wasn't in the United States was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. We played a little warmup secret show in a practice space in Bogota, Colombia before the tour really started and it was packed out with kids moshing. But the thing that really affected me was seeing Colombian kids passionately sing along to the songs. They lived a million miles away but they knew the words and loved the songs. If you've heard Odd Man Out, you know how much of a dedication that is. Those lyrics are unintelligible, I honestly don't know a single word from an Odd Man Out song. Since then we've been lucky enough with both Odd Man Out and Gag to play all across Europe, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines, Australia, Puerto Rico, ummmmm... Canada. Getting to go to Japan through hardcore was an absolute dream come true. That's absolutely the best place in the world. The shows in Indonesia though were the best I've ever played. Just like millions of kids going absolutely ballistic nonstop.
I love how you live your life completely as your own person and just being you. It brings a very cool and funny energy to all of your bands. From taking your pants off at the Blood for Blood show to the Scare set at Rainfest in 2016, there's few times i've laughed harder watching a band. What was going through your head when both those sets were going on and maybe any other goofy happenings while playing other shows? How does it feel to be a viral sensation?
I actually met Hannah, my beautiful wife, at that Blood for Blood show. My thought process was pretty simple actually, I ripped my pants jumping around, and when you rip your pants, you take them off. So I took them off... I didn't have anything to change into and that ended up breaking up the band, but it's all good. The horse story though was completely planned out and rehearsed... I remember practicing it at Red Scare practices so that they'd start the song at just the right moment. I never expected that to become such a big thing, nearly 10 years later. Going viral is dope when you can use it to promote your projects, Hawk Tuah style, but when it's 10 years after the relevant project is dead, it's kind of a pain in the ass. Almost everybody besides me who's in the video, David and Tynan especially though have told me stories of their coworkers and people they know peripherally showing them the video and asking if they've seen it, and they're just like "yeah, that's me playing bass right there."
Who are some of your all time favorite nwhc bands?
Obviously Brotherhood is our legend. But that was long ago. Ill Intent, Wreck, Oblivion were the big dogs when I was coming up. I still listen to Ill Intent and Wreck pretty often. Black Breath was absolutely a metal band, but with that Entombed style that's just so close to hardcore anyways. The NWHC from the ancient days that I listen to the most today though is Furious Styles. Shatterproof is so gangster. Iron Lung, Sidetracked, Sojourner, Power, Sunset Riders, fuck there were so many badass bands from here.
Who are your favorite current locals or bands you think people are sleeping on?
I think the rest of the world is currently sleeping on almost all of NWHC. But End of Dayz obviously are the goats. Spurr is working harder than any other band out there right now, busting their asses playing an insane amount of shows and just straight up holding it down. Adipocere is our most brutal, evil band and their new record is going to change the current face of society. Witness Chamber is putting in work from Boise as well. They're all absolute legends and they tour hard and play insanely well is doing the death metal hardcore thing insanely well. Tay's vibe as a frontman is so lowkey evil it's awesome. From Oregon, Slime is fucking badass and I guarantee are about to hit the brutal hc/slam circuit HARD. Boltcutter, Misery Whip, Tolls. From Vancouver, Juice, A Mourning Star, Cleaver, a bunch more. It's awesome seeing bands with some of the new young kids pop up too. Juji Gatame (hope I spelled that right), Impertinence, Paperclip, Dulzura.
Every Movie Is Good, is one of the podcasts i look forward to hearing when i get a chance to listen. The bumper stickers are S Tier. How did you and Joey decide to come up with the pod and what are some of your favorite episodes so far?
We knew we wanted to do some sort of movie podcast, because our close friendship really developed out of a love for movies and just talking about them. I was actually doing a blog called "I've Loved Every Movie I've Ever Seen," where I was rating movies out of 1,000 and doing my very best to find the good in every movie I was reviewing. That idea just turned into the podcast although its more penis and boob jokes than actual movie talk. My favorite episodes are The Eternals episode where I wrote a script of a better version of the movie and we got some of our friends to do a cold read on the podcast. We did a few later on where we ran with the script idea and were writing little scripts to cold read on the episodes and those were all really fun and funny. Also if you subscribe to the patreon, you can hear the audiobook of my novel, Trinity Cycle.
Whats on the horizon for Apex Predator? Any goals, things youre excited about coming up?
We've started working on songs for our next record. I have a lot of goals for that, mostly making it as good but as insane and big as possible. That comes with as much touring as possible and just working as much as we can to make it happen. We're working on a Japan tour next summer, and hopefully some more international stuff. A couple fest appearances in the works too but I'm not sure what's been announced and what we can say yet. We're about to leave on a tour in a little over a week as I'm writing this. The first half of that is with Sunami, Ingrown, and Torena and we'll be touring out to Minneapolis for Snow and Flurry fest, which looks like it's going to be a great time. Then we head home on our own with another couple weeks of tour down the midwest, through the south, and up the west coast. Tour, tour, tour, tour. It's everything. To those reading this, take your band on tour!!!! Well, release more than a demo, then take your band on tour. It's hard work, it's extremely financially risky and/or expensive, you never get more than a couple hours of sleep, you have to drive 8+ hours every day, it's impossible to eat well or exercise properly, and chances are higher than not that at least two people will get in a giant fight over something trivial because you've spent every waking moment with them for a month straight. BUT it's the most fun you'll ever have, it feels like playing music is your job, you get to see a million bands that kick ass (and some of the worst crap you'll see in your life), you get to meet all sorts of people who will become your best friends for life, and you get to show off your music to thousands of people who would have never heard it otherwise. We can't all get super lucky with a viral hit or a tik tok audio. You have to tour to get your band out there and make it happen.
Non hardcore related, whats your favorite anime? Why is Gohan the G.O.A.T and where do you find all the boots and anime shirts you have. I think you own more than anyone i know.
Secretly I'm much more of a manga nerd than anime. But my favorite is absolutely Yu-Yu Hakusho, both for manga and for anime. Yusuke Urameshi is the coolest character in all of fiction. He's such a badass and doesn't give a fart about the rules. The Toguro Brothers are the coolest villains of all time, even down to them losing when you learn that they're not actually evil, they're just looking for the greatest fighting challenge they could find. I also love death game stuff, like the original Yugioh, before the card game stuff starts, it's just weird little games that people gamble their lives on and the story is revealing the weird secret or cheat that they're going to do in order to win. There's a modern series called Kakegurui that I really like that's along the same lines, but it's high school students who control the shadow government (via their student council) that's pulling all the strings in Japan. The main part of the series is that it's kids at school who are just always gambling with millions of dollars on the line, and it ruins their lives constantly. The stakes are pretty high and it's really exciting. The two currently running series that I think everyone should watch or read are Chainsaw Man and Dan Da Dan. Chainsaw Man is finished with its first season of the anime, and it looks like they're going to make a movie to finish the first half of the series. It's about a world where devils are embodiments of concepts that humans fear. There's a kid who's working for a mafia and they end up killing him and his pet dog who is the Chainsaw Devil goes into his body to become his heart to save his life and that makes him turn into Chainsaw Man whose goal in life is to feel boobs. Dan Da Dan is about a kid who's nuts get stolen by a ghost, and he and his friends have to fight a bunch of ghosts and aliens to get them back. The anime is about to start I think in October but the manga is one of the coolest, weirdest series I've ever read.
Gohan was the only one who could beat Cell. He has infinite potential as a human/saiyan hybrid but he chooses to be a fucking nerd who goes to school and let his dad take care of the fights. If Gohan focused his potential on fighting rather than academics, he would level that whole universe.
I get a lot of my anime shirts just off of instagram ads lol... There's one guy that I spent like $100 bucks on his shirts because they have a bunch of niche characters that you don't see on anyone else's designs and he hasn't shipped them yet and it's been close to a year. I've been in contact and he's constantly like "yeah this next week I'll finally ship them." I should just get a refund but honestly, I really want the shirts...
Also Hypland makes really sick stuff, Yu-Yu Hakusho, DBZ, Yugioih, so many more now.
What would you like to see from the scene currently?
I'm really pleased with how our scene is going right now. We have a ton of new kids, and they all have the spirit. I know it's really important to start new bands, book shows, do zines, do art, flyers, whatever. But I also think it's really important to just show up. If you want to start a band, please, absolutely do. I'm always around and I'm always happy to help in any way I can and advise you in any way I can. But just showing up, being up in the front, moshing, buying merch, stagediving, just being there, is absolutely incredible, and every person in every band appreciates it so much more than they can ever express.
We're doing a great job of putting on for each other and hyping ourselves up out here in the northwest. I would like to see more NW bands going on extensive tours. I know it's tough, I outlined a bunch of the burdens earlier, but it really is how we make a name for ourselves and show the rest of the world that we really have what it takes.
This is kind of more on the professional side, but it's something that's important that I'm starting to try to infiltrate. I want to see the bigger side of booking shows go more into hardcore hands. Bigger tours that come through El Corazon, Neumo's, etc. are so often booked by people that have little to nothing to do with the hc scene and have no awareness of the bands that should be supporting those shows. If Sick of It All or Agnostic Front, for instance, hell, even like the big metalcore stuff, if The Acacia Strain comes to town, the local support should absolutely be one of our hardcore bands. Instead it's whatever shitty sludge band that has a booking agent and a bartender in the band who knows the mystery promoter. And those touring bands only get to see that portion of the northwest, which is just jaded bartenders. Not the actual spirit of NWHC, which is absolutely on fire. I guarantee if Adipocere were to support an Acacia Strain package at Neumo's or End of Dayz were to support Sick of It All at El Corazon, we would thrive so much more as a scene because those bigger bands would see what we truly have to offer. They would then talk about how sick the northwest is and more bands would come out here, get to know us and our bands more, and take them on tours and we would thrive. But the people who book those shows are so separated from the actual scene so they'll never get real HC support unless the touring band specifically asks for a band. What I want to see is us either taking that sector of booking over and making it HC for HC, or at the very least getting in with those promoters for the good of the scene.
Is there anything you’d like to leave people with? (This can be anything really, hardcore related or not. Like if I answered it, id put something about supporting local businesses ran by other hardcore kids)
Listen to hardcore. All of it. Hit me up in real life or on ig and we can talk about hardcore. If you want a list of bands to check out or to steal riffs from, I would love to talk about it and share my favorite things in the world with you.
Get on stage, steal the mic, stagedive, mosh. We're no different on stage than you on the dancefloor. If you want to do it, you absolutely can. If you want to do a band, you absolutely can. I'll do whatever I can do help and advise you. It's hard work but it's the absolute greatest thing in the entire world.
HC.