Yet, Avail seems to be the band that
crosses all boundaries of punk in terms
of audience. What is that all about?
I didn't think it was more melodic, but
the production was smoother.
AVAIL
You wouldn't think that a band
thrilled by big rock like Lynyrd Skynyrd
or even medium-sized rock like John
Cougar Mellencamp could emerge as a
punk rock force. But, Avail is its own
society with its own rules," says the
band's singer, Tim Barry. Own society.
huh? Sharing a six-bedroom house in
Richmond, VA. with three dogs, gul-
tarist Joe Bank's diapered toddler run-
ning around, and a couple more room-
mates, it seems to be much more of a
family affair for the five members of
Avail-which includes bassist Rob
Kelshian, drummer Erik Larson, and
Beau Beau (the band's cheerleader.
back-up singer and go-go dancer)-than
a full blown society. But, with constant
touring and their new record 4AM
Friday, Avail has earned quite
extended family.
What's the big fascination with metal?
Tim Barry: I've seen Dio three times and
Ozzy and Iron Maiden a million times..
That's what we grew up on. But Lynyrd
Skynyrd is the most widely loved band on a
common ground for this band.
To think, kids at shows call for
"Freebird" as a joke.
But we will play it, that is the thing. I
don't know if it's an infatuation or just some-
thing that we've always loved and aren't
afraid to admit. A lot of punk bands Just
want to say they listen to punk bands, but
that is absolutely not true with us. We listen
to a lot of DC punk and West Coast bands
like Black Flag, but we all listen to John
Cougar Mellencamp, and that shit is not a
joke when we put that on.
88 THRASHER
I don't understand why. We grew up in the
suburbs of DC, and when we started out.
we played shows th DC like Positive Force
shows. As we started to play more shows and
moved onto Richmond in 1991 somehow
we got to play with a lot of straight-edge
bands and some people thought that we
were straight-edge because maybe "Avail"
and the logo sort of look straight-edge. In the
carly 90's, all the bands had names like Bold
and Judge, so we might have gotten a follow-
ing of straight-edge people, but that has just
kind of evolved. But that's awesome that we
can play shows, and I can look in the audi-
ence and see crusty punk rockers, straight-
edge kids, and just completely normal MTV
sort of people all getting along and not really
seeing a lot of fights. That is a rare thing.
because when you get those sorts of people
together, there are usually confrontations.
The new record, how does it differ from
your previous releases?
It definitely differs from other records as
we have grown as a group of people. With
our first record, the music on it was really
good when it was written, but it was an obvi-
ous learning experience when it came to the
quality of the recording. It was our first real
studio experience, and it shows, totally. And
then with Dixie, I guess we started progress-
Ing as a band when it comes to under-
standing recording and writing. With 4AM
Friday, a lot of people think it's more melod-
ic. People ask if that's intentional, and I say,
"Absolutely not."
Yeah, smoother. But nothing is ever inten-
tional with us. It literally is whatever the
fuck comes out.
What does the record's title mean?
We were leaving on a Friday morning for
a tour, and a friend of ours, Bob XXX. who
was in a band called Maximilian Colby...
at 4AM Friday we received a call from the
hospital saying that he had died. It was
kind of weird. I wrote a song about the
whole situation and that is the song
"FCA." It stands for "For Christy and Al."
who are two people in our small communi-
ty that were really close to him. It really
struck us at a strange time. It may seem
kind of morbid to name a record after a time
of such loss, but it's more than just a dedi
cation on a record. It's more of a dedica-
tion to him and the people that were close
to him. He really left an impact with a lot of
people and was a totally beautiful person.
With the success that Avall have, ever
entertain thoughts of signing with a
major label!
We try not to think of the future. We'll
do it as long as we think it's working. That
means we can keep going for five years or
we can decide as a group of happy people to
end it in a week. But we are very comfort-
able with where we're at and the ethics that
we run the business aspect of it with: run-
ning low door prices, selling our stuff as
cheap as possible, not fucking people over.
not doing guarantees.
-Joseph Epstein
PAUL ZUANICH
MENICA