Organizing Our Neighborhood
We were looking for a drummer again when it came to writing Organizing our Neighborhood. Greg was too busy and we played with four different guys, until I talked Richie who had been playing bass, into playing drums. Ritchie played drums in my first band in AZ called 187Crew and I knew he was going to really help us evolve into the direction I wanted to take the band.
Ritchie surprised everyone and we literally wrote this album over two months. That equaled around ten band practices. We all really vibed together well. We needed a new bass player and Luke suggested Tommy Quiet who at the time was playing in his old band Hillbilly Devilspeak. Tom hit it off with us immediately and we crushed it together. He is such a pro and the greatest guy you could ever wish to be in a band with.
Crazy as it sounds, there was no thought put into this album, we just did what came natural to us and the end result is my favorite NSK record. We had such a mix of influences coming from Luke’s street punk background, Tom’s old school AZ skate punk rock style and my metal influences.
Keith Jackson came back and did some more guitar work and one of my best buddies, Matt Strangways, sang on the track “Holding On.” Matt and I were in a band together called Eightfold which ended up becoming North Side Kings so I was excited to have him on the record. Matt had a great stoner rock band in Phoenix called Greenhaven, but his roots were in NYHC and I always wanted to start another hardcore band with him. That didn’t happen so I’m glad he was on this.
We decided to change up the style of the artwork for Organizing our Neighborhood and we had my friend and tattoo artist, Aaron Coleman, draw up that crazy cartoon inspired album cover. I ended up getting a tattoo of that booger wearing converse from the cover on my arm. I’m really proud of this album.
