454 Big Block
Your Jesus (Century Media)
An interview with vocalist Nathan Elgin James
by Scott Hefflon
That’s a powerful image on the cover; where did it come from?
All the religious stuff on the album wasn’t really intentional. I grew up in foster homes. The one I predominantly lived in, my father was a minister, so there are a lot of Biblical references in the lyrics that I wasn’t even aware of until I was able to sit back and read them while we were the studio. All of us were on the same vibe with it and came up with different images that we wanted, including the girl on the back with the gun. We were originally going to use that as the cover, but we decided to go ahead with the gun on the Bible as the cover. Everyone can get from it what they want, but the whole album is, for me, lyric-wise, looking for salvation – looking for a way to deal with your demons. The gun is one way out.
And the Bible is another?
Right. As a salvation.
“Your Jesus” is a lyrically potent tune. The other songs seem to reference back to that one. Is there any one song that you would say is your autobiography?
All those songs are based on my journal entries. Ralph and Dean would have the music, and I would just bring out my journal entries and put them into song form later. Out of it all, “Your Jesus” was the first song I wrote. It does bring out the recurring themes throughout the album: One being my brother getting shot in the face, the other my mother being a heroin addict.
The album never really says, in the end, what happened to your mother.
She was around 15 or 16 when she had me, living in the South Bronx. She was pretty messed up; she was a junky. There’s a reference to her in “Your Jesus,” and in another song, “Cold,” it says, “Arms that never held me will never let me go.” Basically, going from her arms as an infant, straight to the state or the system, if you will, that raised me the rest of the way through – whether it was in foster homes or in juvenile hall.
That was the end of contact right there?
Yeah, she supposedly died when I was an infant.
So, you never knew her?
No, I never knew her. She overdosed when I was just a baby, but I had been taken from her beforehand.
Fucked up. What about the song “Home”? No lyrics, no nothing – the words could be anything, it’s just the sentiment of domestic abuse that’s right in your face. You want to elaborate?
Actually, I played that song for my foster mother…
The minister’s wife? I mean, did you have specific foster parents, or were you just bounced around?
There was a lot of bouncing around, but then there were the one’s that I was adopted by, the minister and his wife, where I spent most of my time until I was around 14 when I was put in juvenile hall, and they gave custody of me back to the state. I still keep in touch with her. He ended up getting kicked out of the church, homeless in Houston, Texas.
Where was that when you were living with them?
Back and forth between Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, and Bridgeport, CT, and New Haven for a while. And Newark, NJ, and Trenton, NJ, and all over the place.
Some great towns, huh?
Yeah, right? So I sent my foster mother the disc once it came out, ’cause that’s what I grew up in. Just that. Hearing that. I think a lot of people can relate to it.
Was that actually what you heard in your own home, or what you heard everywhere around you?
That’s what I heard in my own house. I grew up seeing that as what relationships were supposed to be and how people treated each other. Everyone was either a monster or a victim. Basically, that’s what my whole angle of the album was. Everyone has their musical part of it, but my whole thing was, this is my way, this is what saved me. This is what makes me sane, that I have this release – whether it’s through the live show or through recording. It was crazy to sit in the studio and have all my demons playing back playing at me with the playback. I think I got to know myself pretty well.
How did actually record “Home”?
A friend of mine and his girlfriend were on the verge of breaking up and come in and ad lib. I told them basic vibe, and they just went for it.
How did they feel about it, after that?
Everyone got a chill while we did it, definitely.
What about them?
They may have felt a little bit better. They got to vent with each other. But they broke up a few days later. So, we got them at a good time, at least for us.
One of the songs, “Noah,” who’s Noah?
That’s basically how I felt growing up.
Noah’s not a specific reference or person?
No, I just always just like that image. When I was small, I grew up with a minister for a father and was in church all the time. Noah was an image I could always relate to because I felt so isolated from everybody else and just so alone. And here was this one person, the one good person, the one pure person who is going to be saved while everyone else, hence the chorus, is just washed away. And everyone laughed at him and spit on him or whatever – they victimized Noah, but he’s the one who made it through.
Great image, but what about you? Most people think more of, like, Footloose, when they think of minister dads. Yours is an uglier depiction.
My foster dad was a minister, but he was a drug addict and extremely abusive. I grew up getting the shit kicked out of me every day, and watching my foster mother get the shit kicked out of her. I saw both her arms get broken, her nose get broken. I’d be getting the shit kicked out of me by this huge, obese guy – he was like 350 pounds – he was this monster, and I was just a small child only eight or nine years old, and there was nothing she could do. She was a victim herself; she was caught up in her own demons, and she couldn’t protect me or the other children that lived with us. I was crying myself sleep every night, and she would try to do what she could – she’d tell me she wouldn’t let it happen again, she wouldn’t let it happen again, and that she was gonna save me and get us out of the situation. And the next day, we’d be back to square one, she couldn’t do anything.
… OK, let’s not talk about the pain anymore, let’s talk about dealing with the pain… Hesitant topic… From juvi hall to life on the streets with a gang, FSU, how do you want to get into this?
That stuff’s already gone on record, and it’s a bum-out for it to keep coming up. It’s nothing I’m ashamed of or try to hide – gang culture is a serious part of me. I’ve been in gangs since I was a kid. It’s all part of a cycle, it’s always going to be there, whether it’s FSU, or other gangs, or other cliques of people that everyone gets to point the finger at. You have people that didn’t really grow up in the hardcore scene, but grew up in the fringes of in, and they’re coming into power now. Whether they’re playing in a popular hardcore band now, or putting out a hardcore fanzine now, but they were always on the outside of it then, and they’re trying to assimilate now. It’s never been that way. It’ll never be that way. Conflict is good. Conflict makes you strong. I believe myself to be standing testimony of that.
So how did you get beyond that lifestyle?
It took years for me to figure out who I was, all the good and all the bad. You can spit in my face, but it’s not going to change who I am. You can’t disrespect me. It took a lot of time. When I was 14 or 15 years old, all fucked up on drugs and involved in all this violence, I thought I was showing the system and fucking everyone off. I was just falling into their hands, being exactly what they wanted. Everyone wants to be thought of as a hero, or a martyr, but it’s so easy to cross that line so that you’re the one causing the problem, you’re the one looking for it or setting up the problem to happen in the first place. All so you can solve it and be a hero.
OK, present time. You weren’t the original lead singer with 454 Big Block. That was Mike Cullen. How did that transition happen? You were the singer for Wrecking Crew before that, with Keith Bennett on bass?
Yeah, he’s the singer with Bitter. A lot of people get it confused. Some European magazines think I’m the singer for both. We were all in Wrecking Crew together…
So Wrecking Crew was everyone in 454 Big Block, plus Keith?
Yeah, everyone in 454 who recorded the album used to be in Wrecking Crew. Our bassist now is Kevin Norton, who used to be in Eye for an Eye, and our drummer is Alex Garcia-Rivera, who used to be in Shelter. He’s on tour with Shelter in Europe now.
So things have changed since the recording?
Yeah, in a good way. Eye for an Eye and Wrecking Crew were like brother bands, so we snatched him up. And Alex was from Kingpin, then Shelter.
I saw old 454 Big Block back when they had Mike Cullen singing…
Yeah, back when they were a grunge band.
How do you keep the name and change the style that much? It must have been a conscious effort. How did they go from Wrecking Crew to grunge rock?
Those guys had been playing in hardcore band for years. They started Wrecking Crew when they were like 15 or 16 years old. I think everyone at that time, like Big Red Crush, they had E.K. from Sick Of It All, and Kevin from Eye For An Eye, and they were doing the rock ‘n’ roll thing. 454 was doing the same thing. All these kids who’d played hardcore all these years were sorta like gettin’ their chops together, and showing that they had a little more talent than what they’d been doing. That lasted a while, and then everyone came right back around to their roots – which is hardcore. And that’s why, all of a sudden, Mike just couldn’t kick it anymore, not for what they wanted.
What did you do between Wrecking Crew and this?
I sat in my room, in the dark, and meditated and tried to get some blood off my hands. Tried to piece myself together. It was just perfect timing – they needed me, and I was ready.
So now 454 is definitely NOT a grunge or powermetal band, so what do you call it?
It’s always a bum-out when people ask me what kind of music I play, and I have to say I don’t know. We’re in the metal section, I guess, but we don’t sound like Warrant or Winger. The Foundation Forum was completely wasted on me. I met King Diamond and Rob Halford, but I’ve always hated metal. I listen to Earth Crisis, I listened to the Integrity album, but I didn’t like it. It sounded like metal to me. I liked the sentiment. Most people like the music, but can’t stand what they’re saying. I like what they’re saying, but can’t stand the music.
You’re straight-edge vegan like Earth Crisis, right?
Yeah, I’m straight-edge and I’m a vegan, but it’s just not my trip to write about it. I do what I do.
Yeah, you don’t even mention it on a single song, do you?
No.
I guess you don’t have any demons about that, huh?
Actually, it’s funny because I do. I lived on a farm as a foster home. There I was, an 11-year-old kid in this bad ugly world, getting up at five o’clock in the morning going to feed these animals. I was from the city, and I moved to this isolated farm, and totally bonded with these animals. And six months down the road, they’re being slaughtered in front of me. It didn’t take long before I made that connection, I think I was 15 or 16, and I stopped eating meat.
Were you a vegan when you were involved with a gang-related lifestyle?
Definitely. During my most violent time, I was a vegan.
Most of the straight-edge vegans I know are really mellow.
I think the mellow people and the kids who are sort of like misfits look for those things, rather than not eating meat in itself makes you less aggressive.
It’s kind of like having a faith, and the community thing based on a similar faith.
Yeah, like I’ve studied a lot of different beliefs and I don’t consider myself a Buddhist, even though I engage in a lot Buddhist practices. I’m just here, myself. It’s about accepting responsibility. I don’t like religions, whether it’s Christianity or Krishnaism, I don’t think that’s a word, but it is at four o’clock in the morning, right? Those are things that take the responsibility away from you. All of a sudden, there’s this higher being, so I can sin and I can fuck up, but I can come back for forgiveness. I’m more into, OK, I fucked up, this is my bag, all right, let me get my shit together.
So you take the responsibility upon yourself?
Yeah, the thing is to bring yourself away from the system, whatever that might be. That’s why I don’t need police, I need don’t laws, because I have no interest in breaking laws anymore. I don’t steal. I grew up stealing – I was the worst little fuckin’ little junky thief when I was 14. But now I don’t steal – not because I’m afraid of jail or not going to heaven, but just because I have no desire, because it’s not right. That’s when people can control themselves, and that’s what real anarchism is. Not just written on some punk rocker’s back with a red magic marker, but for real. That way you don’t have any use for that shit, because your moral system is so intact. You don’t need someone with their foot on your neck saying, don’t do this, don’t do that.
Great, do we all have to experience extreme pain before we reach that point?
Well, I had to, definitely. The thing is turning your demons into your angels.
Or saviors?
Into your saviors? Yeah, they’re not as flighty as angels. Yeah, we’ll go with that; turn your demons into your saviors.
