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It’s been a little over two years since Apiary crashed onto the scene. Rising from the ashes of a number of acclaimed local acts, the slate was wiped clean and a new beginning was at hand. Shortly after forming, the members’ previous contacts helped them land a deal with Ironclad/Metal Blade, ensuring that their first strike, Lost in Focus, would be felt far beyond the confines of their home base. As time wore on, all but one of the original members exited the group, but Apiary soldiered on, with some familiar faces stepping in as the band toured relentlessly across the country. The band has finally taken some time off the road to work on their sophomore album with acclaimed producer Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) at his Nashville studio. Before heading out to record, vocalist Makh Daniels allowed us to subject him to a brief interrogation.

Zero Magazine: Apiary released Lost in Focus when they were still a relatively new band, although most of the members had played together in previous bands. Looking back, how do you feel about that album?

Makh Daniels: I wasn't on the record, but I was already familiar with half the songs because they were originally Clearing Autumn Skies (pre-Apiary band featuring Daniels, guitarists Mike McClatchey and Peter Layman, and bassist Dave Small) songs. I would never have joined Apiary if the record wasn't good, you know? It's kinda funny because I train at Fight and Fitness, (one of the best mixed martial arts gyms in San Francisco) and I played Lost in Focus for some of our top fighters. They don't really listen to a lot of metal, but one of the dudes, Evan Esguerra, said "Damn son, this shit is crazy!! The vocals are so hyped I don't even understand them!! So like, when people listen to this, are they on drugs?" That shit was so fuckin funny. Overall, though, I think it gets a little repetitive at times and the overall production really isn't my bag, but there are definitely some shining moments on that record. “Bliss in Vain” is great to play live when you are super, super hammered.

ZM: What has it been like working with Ironclad/Metal Blade?

MD: You know, I don't have a fucking clue. Chris Brock, one of our guitarists, deals with them directly, so for the most part, I have no idea. I think they got bummed out about some of the decisions we have made previously, but they give us money to record and they make the albums appear in record stores in China and Siberia, so that's pretty cool.

I met Trevor (Phipps, Ironclad owner and Unearth vocalist) once when we played with Unearth in Sacramento, and he seemed like a cool guy. He did some whiskey shots with us and … well, I don't really remember much after that — except one of our band members having sex with some broad behind a dumpster or some shit.
Ryan, the A&R dude for Ironclad, bought us a bunch of beers and let us make macaroni at his house in Boston once. He didn't want us to wake up his wife but, ya know, we got really drunk and started playing air guitar to Slayer and Coalesce. Sorry Ryan (even though it was awesome).

ZM: What have been some of the highlights of touring the country?

MD: Dude, hella shit happened! We toured nearly seven months between the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007. It was the first time I have ever toured the U.S. and it was soooo fucked up, like in a good way.

We spun out on the road in Arkansas and this weird dude who had eyes like Sloth in “Goonies” pulled us out of the ditch for $50. We got snowed in at Wilkes-Barr, Pa., where our van also nearly blew up on us and we had to get a new one. We were broke in North Carolina and had to siphon gas from this church van, and Dan accidentally swallowed some and threw up everywhere. We didn't even take him to the doctor or anything! We just gave him some whiskey instead. He was fine, and by fine I mean, not dead.

Mostly we played with a lot of toy-ass bands, some awesome ones, hollered at some broads, drank a lot, and I snorted some pills off of a car hood in Denver, Colo. in exchange for an Apiary shirt. I had the time of my life, and can't wait to see what happens next. Maybe Europe? I heard you can just do drugs at coffee shops and shit. That's tight.

ZM: There have been a number of lineup changes since then — can you summarize?

MD: Oh yeah, that's easy. Mike, our other guitarist, is the only original member. Dave left after the last tour and I was really bummed out about it because we used to party and get drunk and say all this screwed up shit all the time. We'd call up people back home at like 4 a.m. and yell "BOOOOMMM!!!" into the phone and then everyone else would text them “Booooommm!!” so it was like a double whammy. Our friends back home fucking hated us. Dave was a real homie, but I understand that when you're done with touring and your time is up, you’ve got to move on, you know?

So I've been in the band for about a year. So has Chris, and we now got my friend Dan (Sneddon) playing drums. He's awesome. All he listens to is The Crown, The Melvins and The Bronx. We just got this dude Tyler (Jensen) to play bass, and he rules, too. Me and Chris were talking about it and we liked the fact that he's like 8’ 4” and has a big face. He's gonna do great.

ZM: How is the next album coming along and what can we expect from it?

MD: Chris does a lot of the writing, and the guy writes like a maniac. He seriously calls me up every day and is like "Yo Makh, I wrote 527,893.469,364 songs today. Which one do you want to use?" What an asshole, right? I'm always like "Fuck you dude! I haven't even finished the lyrics for the last two!!" Mike has also written a few that are just fucked up and real eerie, so I'm excited about his songs, as well. Also, the singer of Oxbow, Eugene Robinson, is scheduled to appear on a song called "Here There Be Monsters" and it's probably going to make people shoot themselves in the head. The song is way fucked up; the dude is way fucked up. It's perfect.

The main thing is, most of us have been playing in bands for a decade or more, and I think this is the culmination of all those years of trying to make something work. We just wanted to write a punk record with a “fuck you” attitude, you know? Fuck all this whack tech metal/fake death metal bullshit. If I want to listen to death metal I'll listen to Morbid Angel or Suffocation. A lot of our new songs are faster, taking cues from Napalm Death, Discharge, Slayer, Black Flag, His Hero Is Gone and Entombed. I love the new songs. The album will either destroy everything or people will fucking hate it. No middle ground on that one. Either way, it's gonna be a fucking story.

ZM: Finally, what is your opinion of the music scene locally and the state of the underground on a national level?

MD: It's an ever-evolving thing. As far as locally goes, San Francisco/Oakland is the Seattle of the ’90s. We got so many great fuckin’ bands from all over the spectrum doing awesome shit: Vetiver, Hella, Two Gallants, Trainwreck Riders, Lemonade, Walken, All Shall Perish, The Magic Bullets, Animosity, Saviours, High On Fire, Om, California Love, Warkrime — all these bands are making waves in their respective scenes and I'm honored to be a part of that.
As far as the national level goes, there always has and always will be great shit out there. I think there are certain levels of it, though. It depends how much you care about music. Are you willing to look and strive to find bands that break boundaries and are musically unconventional? Or do you listen to whatever your friends listen to? Most people are fuckin’ lazy and a lot of people in the "underground" scene (if that even exists anymore) generally don't like to hear anything outside of what they are used to hearing. They are fine with listening to the same bullshit bands with the same bullshit fashions doing the same bullshit poses. I remember my old drum instructor once said to me, "Music is never ahead of it's time, it just takes time for people to catch up to it," which I think pretty much hits the nail on the head about how most people's musical tastes are.

As far as bands go, most bands in general would much rather hop on whatever bandwagon is the fastest route to stardom or whatever. People are fuckin’ lazy, man, and they would rather just bite whatever the leading fad band is — you know, bands that go, "Dude check out my band and ask for us on the radio in your city! I know you've never met us or heard of us but yeah dude, help us get onto the battle of the bands that's being sponsored by who-gives-a-fuck records! Help us get a record deal and we'll send you a signed copy of our CD bro!!" Fuck that toy bullshit. Every great band that I've ever listened to was by word of mouth from a friend or I saw them live and dug their live set. That's how it's always been. But in the end, trend bands rise and set with the same everyday cycle as the sun. In the wise words of my good friend John Strachan (Prosthetic Records,) "It's not about who is selling 10,000 records a week or who has the top selling album of the year, it's about who is there to stick it out year after goddamn year. It's not about who has the hits. It's about who has longevity."

San Francisco’s Hot Lunch have been creating quite a buzz in the local scene — playing shows at Bottom of the Hill and Slim’s within their first few months of inception. The band’s music is a perfect blend of Jimi Hendrix, early Black Sabbath and MC5 with a ’70s punk edge. Zero had the chance to chat with their lead singer Eric Shea where he had a chance to elaborate on the Summer of Lunch.

Zero Magazine: Who is in the band and what bands have they played in?

Lunch: Bass player Charlie was in Harold Ray Live in Concert, Aaron our guitar player played in Mensclub, Rob our drummer played in The Fells and I used to sing for Parchman Farm.

ZM: How did you come up with the name?

HL: R.E.O. Chuckwagon was already taken.

ZM:How would you describe your sound?

HL:Well, you know how that dead dude from The Creation said that his sound was red with purple flashes? I've always thought our sound was big and round and looks like a Star Wars figure.

ZM:When did you form?

HL:I think we got together about half a year ago. I've always wanted to be in a band with these guys. I like to make mix tapes in my head of bands with dudes I've always wanted to play with and this is one of those rare things where it actually came to life.

ZM:How did it come about?

HL:I've always wanted to be in a band with Aaron on guitar so after Parchman Farm broke up he was the first guy I thought would be rad to play with. Then I ran into Rob and asked what he was up to and we talked. I told him that I was trying to put something together and he seemed into it. The funny thing is that I didn't even realize until then that Rob and Aaron play together in Cheetah Speed, but in that band it's reversed, Rob plays guitar and Aaron plays drums. My friend Solana told me that Charlie played bass and I always thought that dude was rad anyways, so I just asked him to play without ever having heard him on bass and lucky for all of us that he fully rips.

ZM:What big bands have you shared the stage with?

HL:Earthless, Apache, The Impediments, Johnny Rad And The Air Jordans, Epic Sessions, The Jump Ramp Bandits, The Curb Waxers, The Magnetboards, The Worst Dudes Ever, Steve Bacon & The Sex Offenders, Sweat Tims, and The Duds.

ZM:Whoa, there's a band called Steve Bacon & the Sex Offenders? Gnarly! Who's in that band?

HL:If I told you, I'd have to pull the coping off your favorite pool, crudely re-pour the shallow and then pull magnetic methods over the tile.

ZM: What are your influences?

HL:Coloured Balls, Buffalo, Blue Ash, Grand Funk Railroad, Black Flag, Crushed Butler, ELP, Devo, Alice Cooper, John Felice, The Move, Granite Path and that first Ace Frehley record is pretty rad.

ZM:Tell us about the summer of lunch. What effect did that movement have on your lives?

HL:The Summer Of Lunch seemed like it was never going to end. Those were long, hot days when we all lived inside the same ice cream truck and tooled for spud in the back of Taco Bravo at closing time. We all thought that the folks who worked there were king kong crazy. But then, we had a lot of growing up to do.

ZM:Wow, you tooled for spud? What's that dude?

HL:Ask Andy Goldfarb the Slow Poisoner. He tooled for spud and died for our sins. Now who's going to return the favor? (Editors note: Tooling for Spud was Andy’s D.I.Y. fanzine back then)

ZM:That was quite a time, it seems like yesterday. Everyone was going around spreading free lunch, I haven't eaten like that in years! How did you feel when everyone had to go back to paying for food?

HL: Paying for food rules because then you don't have to say grace before you eat it. But if you get free food all you have to know is "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub." Now, what most people don't realize is that there was so much innovation that came out of the Summer Of Lunch that is still being perpetuated today. At the time there were no standards set. We set standards and pushed limits every day. And we weren't doing it because there was a future in it. We did it for the pure love of it all. Before the Summer Of Lunch, the Happy Hound in Los Gatos had no such thing as a Mexi-Dog. It was during that ill fated July when an inspired Dave Mackin and I suggested to the Hounds’ menu architects that they should try to slide a foot long frank into a burrito, not for sexy results mind you, but for a ballpark meets a south-of-the-border hybrid flavor. Until that moment the closest thing you could eat was a Frank-N-Stuff, which was just a sad, skinny hotdog bored out in the middle and filled in with some bland chili paste. As far as I know, the Happy Hound still pedals our Mexi-Dog and Dave and I have yet to see one red cent of royalties in our bank accounts. But that's the industry, man. It's as thankless as it is delicious and you have to love it or leave it. And to a large extent that's how Hot Lunch views our music. Knowing what we now know about the biz, we're not looking to get anything out of this but smiles on our faces and free food backstage.

ZM:Lots of diseases were being passed with all of that free lunch going around, ever get any?

HL:No man, we went to school. We learned about preventative measures to take by remembering verbatim mnemonic rhymes like this one: “A sailor travels to distant lands/ And anywhere he pleases/ But he always remembers to wash his hands/ So he don't get no diseases.”

And you know, a lot of casualties from the Summer Of Lunch stemmed from just taking it too far, eating like gluttons in lavish situations akin to the Banquet of Trimalchio from the Satyricon. I mean, Trimalchio was not a rich man by Petronian standards. Opimian wine was not the popular drink in 66 A.D. by any means. And don't get me started on how pointless it is to eat boiled veal, steamed lamb and Patina de Piris (Pear Souffle) as a mere appetizer only to have to pay the vomitorium a visit six times in one meal! Admittedly, we may cram food when starved or pressed for time, but we do it responsibly and frugally. We cram econo.

ZM:You just bought a sampler trio from Jack in the Box. What order do you eat the 3 items? You have chicken nuggets, cheese sticks and stuffed jalapenos, but be careful, some of these are too hot to eat at first.

HL:The only thing good about Jack in the Box are those deep fried tacos, man. But you can't look at them while you're chomping or else it will blow your appetite. Bravo's better. You south bay people don't know how fucking sweet you have it with your Taco Bravo. We San Francisco locals have to eat this homemade crap that everyone champions when the bitter truth is that Taco Bravo kicks seven layers of ass. I once knew this guy who pretty much taught me how to play music back in the '80s. His name is Rob Cancellieri, and we'd climb into his big brown van and lug a generator inside so we could plug in a small bass rig, a guitar amp and a P.A. with mics. And he provided a scaled down drum set too. This was like in 1987 or 1988. Then we'd charge it over to Taco Bravo on a weekend night, throw open the doors and "Van Jam" to the delight of many a Bravo patron, trying to dilute the night's beers with all meat burritos, tostadas and super tacos. That's when I knew that the Summer of Lunch could happen anywhere, any time. You have to want it to live it, man. Rob had this cat named Sambo and he'd bring home some tacos for his cat and tape record Sambo growling and grubbing at the same time. Then he'd plug the cassette into his van and blast Sambo's session through his van speakers. We all thought he was crazy, but then we had some growing up to do.

ZM:What's your favorite Hot Lunch?

HL:I like Katz's pastrami sandwich better than anything in the whole world except for this one time Parchman Farm played in North Carolina and that dude Paul from Birds of Avalon brought over some pulled pork sandwiches and damn they were the best BBQ sandwiches I ever had in my life. But in San Francisco, I have to say that my favorite hot lunch is a steamed crab on the wharf with a thing of melted butter and a sourdough bowl full of clam chowder. Failing that, you can't go wrong with a Mission Street bacon dog.

ZM:Do you have any shows coming up in March and April?

HL: We got invited to open for AC/DShe at Slim's on March 1, and we're pretty stoked on that. Andy from The Cuts and Ray from The Impediments have a rad new band called Buzzer and we're playing with them at the Knockout on April 4.