You kind of touch on the same kind of paranoia and technophobia that Radiohead does at least on Weapons but Frodus and the Black Sea seem more than that. It's not just technology that's scary, I guess, it's kind of business, politics, war even commodification economy. All that stuff.
Jason: Technology's not scary, it's gooood.

In the wrong hands though.
Shelby: Yeah but in the right hands, it's a very powerful tool to help grow independent community and help grow ideas. [Roadie enters van and begins playing Tetris] Or play Tetris in Murph's case, Murph our Roadie.

Murph: Hidy hoe.

Shelby: Man of few words.

Why are you so interested in the subject of apocalyptic imagry?
Shelby: I don't think our new stuff's very apocalyptic at all. If anything, it's just about the present, the possibility of things getting worse. Basically, my lyrics -- if anything -- a lot of times are just introducing thoughts that authors and different people have in the past -- sci-fi authors -- and reintroducing it in this medium of music and punk rock. But less of a sci-fi aspect with this band and more of a present-time reality aspect. I don't we're very apocalyptic right now, as we used to be.

Jason: We're the new wave of reality audio.

Now is that because it's more real now than it was before?
Shelby: Yeah I think so, it's a little more apparent.

What kind of goals and ideas do you think these themes and imagery accomplish?
Shelby: I just hope that people think. I think personally, it's very scary when a lot of musicians that were more popular would retract what they said against the president and against the war just in fear of their careers, where in the '60s, you know the hippie movement … it wasn't the greatest movement but there was actually some sort of change and cultural implication that they brought out upon the world. If anything, we just want to introduce these ideas of DIY again and introduce the things that inspired us too.

Jason: For me, I know somewhere there has to be another group of people doing what we did when we were younger, I just don't know cause I'm older and I don't have any connection. But with all of us and all of our friends, very few of us are still DIY. You know what I mean? And it's kind of like it's more apparent now when you have to take to some booking agent about on your friend to attend your show. So for me it's kind of reintroducing the idea of just doing things for a cause and not … for trying to capture the attention of a 16-year-old in the mall. Which is fine, I think kids in the mall are cool. I was a kid in the mall.

Were you?
Jason: Yeah man, I was totally in the mall. Fifth-grade I was in the mall all the time.





Has the demographic moved up?
Jason: You can actually buy legitimate music in the mall now. I grew up in Florida. In Camelot music you could find Sick of It All and Youth of Today and stuff like and Minor Threat and Fugazi, you know? But now because of Hot Topic you can actually find real music in there, real bands. I've never been inside that store until a couple months ago. I was actually really impressed. There's very little difference between Hot Topic in the mall and then DC's punk staple Smashed, the only difference is the owner is different. Pretty much the same place, they had old records. There's definitely an audience of kids that I think could benefit from a new message and not just of like a generic … I think everything's getting more generic now. It happens all the time. Everybody starts to sing about the same things, same topics, different lyrics. Know what I mean? People just get conditioned to expect those topics and lyrics and all that kind of stuff.

Hair-metal all over again?
Shelby: In a sense, but it just has white belts and different accoutrements. I mean, faux-hawks. You know, pick up a Spin magazine and there's no difference between the image rock of today than there was in the 80s really, it's just updated. What we're singing I think is what a lot of people believe. A lot of people do feel they've been lied to and they feel there's a lot of falsity in the world and they can't connect to things. Our whole album is just about that. We just want to reach people with that and people who don't know about it, maybe we can be the gateway band for people to find out about DIY and things that influenced us. It seems to be more forgotten as the days go by. Kids thinking you shouldn't put out your own stuff, you just need to get a manager and then sign to 'insert f-indie label here' and have a lot of t-shirts and then be on MTV.

So is the hair-metal syndrome more underground now then it was even in the '80s? As far as pop-punk bands and emo bands and …
Shelby: I don't think that's more underground.

No no, has it effected what's supposed to be underground, instead of being a mainstream phenomenon?
Jason: It's definitely effected … well, our culture is now pop culture. That's just a fact, you know what I mean? That's just what we have to deal with. It's weird, we kind of have to go and play the game to some degree to get heard, to get shows. It's easier but it's not as easy like it used to be. It's weird being out of for like four years to come back into it and be like, "Oh, I have to do this now, ok." Kind of realizing it -- I don't know, it's interesting -- what we do is not unique anymore, in general. The style of music is not unique. It used to be, a long time ago. You know what I mean? I'm not talking about Decahedron/Frodus, I'm just talking about like…

Shelby: The general post-punk whatever-you-want-to-call-it…

Jason: Yeah, like everyone and their mom is familiar with it or whatever. It's like there's nothing super-new and I don't think you have to reinvent the guitar chord to get someone's attention but …I don't know, it's interesting to me because tonight's like our sixth show ever. I'm just kind of interested to see how this all plays out.





So you try to convey DIY ideals through apocalyptic imagry?
Shelby: No, I think if anything -- things will be more understandable when the album comes out -- the fact that we did the album ourselves. You know, I did the artwork, Jason and I recorded it. If anything I think the call to arms is also just the call to … you need embrace technology, embrace the internet, embrace all this stuff and really make a difference and create a whole underground scene that's apart from the bull crap that you see in mainstream media. So if anything, it's things that people feel and have always felt but we're just stating it a little more obviously. And also, me being a little pro-open source and … you know, just a sense of digital anarchy, I like that. I think it's interesting to see what that does: file-sharing and just the state of the world. And its interesting how the RIAA and all these large companies try to shut it down and how's there's just this great imbalance growing, even in the mainstream. I went and saw a movie and there was a public service announcement of a guy saying he's losing his job because people are downloading movies or something, and the whole crowd was laughing. Now the revolution's going to start, the regular people are even laughing. So … it's just time to start lighting things on fire. This is Decahedron, we're hear and we're saying what you feel and let's just start the digital destruction right now.

Jason: When you press 'enter' it sets off digital napalm. I love smelling napalm while downloading in the morning.

So, was that the theme of the web design where everything was twitching?
Shelby: The whole web design is just everything that connects throughout all of our stuff. Just the fact of disconnecting: people disconnecting from society. They see like we live in a country and it's just waging wars and people don't really understand it and they don't know what to think. There's just a great divide happening.

Jason: People are made to think that if they don't agree with the war they are bad Americans. That's what they think.

Shelby: And so it goes on every level, even the media, the music that's pushed on you. Clear Channel is just commodification of media.

Jason: Look at that thing that happened with Bill Maher. That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. It was around September 11th and he was just like, "You have to respect that if somebody has the balls to fly two planes into a building," just recognizing the fact that … do you know what I'm talking about, Murph?

Murph: Yeah, cause everyone was saying that was a cowardly thing to do and he was like, "These guys knew they were going to die." They flew a plane into a building realizing they were going to kill themselves and everyone on the plane. You may think that's horrible but it's not cowardly, it took a hell of a lot of balls to commit yourself to something so greatly. Not that that's necessarily respect.

Jason: And his show got pulled. His reputation went down the tubes.

Murph: He wasn't saying that was something to respect but he was saying that cowardly isn't the word for it. It takes … a lot of stones.

Jason: Right, right, right. Yeah, but like when that happened his show got pulled and he had to make a formal apology on network television. It's just like … it's insane.





He should go back to Comedy Central.
Jason: [laughing] Yeah.

Shelby: And it's crazy to me because it seems like a lot of bands that come from the mid-90s punk scene, I'm surprised people aren't saying things. It's just like, "Oh, we're going to keep on going our way." This is the time to say things. Us being older, or the bands that kids are starting to discover, it's just like now is the time you've got to say things. If this is your time, if you're in the limelight or whatever, but like they're just told not too or don't know what to think and it just scares me. It's like, here it comes. It could get police state, or it could not.

I've been noticing a weird trend, among I guess punk rock kids I guess, is just this weird streak of conservatism, pro-Bush conservatism. There's even a conservativepunk.com now, which was just so strange to me.
Jason: Really? Do they have free downloads?

It just started up I think. It's was just bizarre to me.
Shelby: It's interesting too because I think in the '90s, the US and European scenes were a little more connected but now it seems like -- not in reaction to the war and stuff -- Europe is starting to create its own thing now. I talked to European kids, they haven't heard of any of this emo stuff and they're just like, "Oh that's bad American emo crap that's big over there." They are just not regarding it anymore, where in the past it was like if you're an American band and you go to Europe it's a big deal. There's just a lot of division happening, like everywhere. But if anything I think the European DIY scene, from my experience, is still a lot like how it was when we were in Frodus back in '97, '98. It's still thriving pretty strong there.

That was actually another thing to ask, you guys all seem to have your hands in a lot of different projects. How do you support yourselves?
Shelby: I mean, I do graphic design and play in this band. Johnathon plays in Unwed Sailor and this band. And Jason, massage and this band. But I think right now we're all focused on this band before our other careers.

And you pull in enough to make rent and everything?
Jason: On this? Hell no. I mean, this is only our first tour, we'll see what goes on. In April, people seem to be interested in the band and once the record goes to radio and stuff like that, I think we'll be alright. I think we'll do ok.