TonexViolence: Con Artist/Six Brew Bantha #38

Hey What's up everyone?? Happy New Years.. Im glad that 2020 is done but the ending with the Mf Doom and some people that pass may they Rest In Paradise. Any ways here I got request from Cesear so I reach out to Bryan and he talks bout Con Artist and other bands hes been here is the interview Enjoy!

State your name and what band do you play for??? How are you doing??

Bryan, guitar in Con Artist. Also guitar in Warpage, bass in Tactics, vocals in Six Brew Bantha, ex-Scum Human, Waste Away, Knivstukket and a few more. Doing good, tired from having been up for work at 5:00am but just chilling out on this rainy-ass Pacific Northwest evening.

How did you get into punk??

I was honestly into metal first. In high school I was bumping bands like Tool, Opeth, Strapping Young Lad, Children of Bodom and whatever other entry level shit an angsty “alternative” teen would have stumbled across on the internet in the early 00s. I didn’t really know anyone in real life who listened to heavy music and thought I was totally underground for being into those bands. I met the other two dudes I would go on to start my other band Six Brew Bantha with in a grade 12 photography class and they were into punk, we spent the entire class talking about bands and I really have to credit them with getting me into the genre. They also had a DIY band and introduced me to the scene here in Victoria. Learning about DIY ethics, the idea that anyone can start a band, it not mattering how good you are at your instrument, discovering the beauty in punk’s stripped down, no bullshit approach (at least compared to all the bloated metal bands I was into beforehand), being inspired by the politics of punk bands and getting to attend deadly local gigs being brought to town by bands like Iskra and Leper who were active at the time was all totally life changing to me. Almost 15 years later I’m still doing this stuff.

How did con artist start as a band??

I’m originally from Victoria but spent a few years living in “the big city” over in Vancouver. I moved back here in 2018 and was immediately hit up by my buds Ben and Jake about doing a fast band. I had been itching to pick up where my previous powerviolence band Waste Away had left off. I wrote three songs, Ben and Jake are way better musicians than I am and learned them pretty easily, we knew Audrey through the scene in town and invited them to do vocals and here we are.

Whats the line up??

Audrey (vocals), Bryan (guitar), Ben (bass), Jake (drums)

What are the influences for Con artist??

Lack of Interest, No Comment, Crossed Out, early Napalm Death, Sidetracked, Xbrainiax... bands with short, fast, crazy songs.

How did you guys get the name Con Artist???

No cool story to it, I think I stole it from a song on the Hatred Surge self-titled EP.

How did you guys get Tommy Wilson to do your Artwork???

Our artwork is actually done by Paul Van Trigt, a very sick collage artist here in Victoria. His instagram p.vantrigt has tons of his work on it and is extremely tight, check it out. Tommy helped us put together the tape layouts and made the inserts for both our releases. He’s one of my oldest punk friends, our bands have played a billion shows together. He’s been helping me with my artwork related needs for ages.

how did Six Brew start as a band??

As I mentioned before, I met Tyler and Mark in a high school photography class. They had been best friends since they were kids and had pretty much learned to play music together. SBB started out as just the two of them and was initially a lot more influenced by bands like Orchid, Jerome’s Dream and all that other OG “skramz” kinda shit, which we were all getting really into alongside grind and powerviolence. Some recordings of this era do exist, but none are available online. I joined a little while after my and Tyler’s other grind/PV band Cyborg Justice stopped, I was usually hanging around while they were jamming anyway and I had a drivers license and access to a vehicle, which I think was the main thing that got me in initially.

What was the line up when you started and when the band ended??

It was originally just Tyler and Mark, I joined and then our friend Jeff briefly joined on bass but left after flaking on our first tour in 2009. He was in it long enough to play on our demo from 2009, although we recorded it ourselves and you can't really hear him. Ever since then it’s just been the same three of us. The band hasn’t ended but we’re taking a break due to Tyler moving to Sweden for a year and Mark being busy studying classical composition at University because he's actually good at music.

I miss the show you guys played out here in Oxnard which I was bumped out...

Fuck man that was such a cool show, you definitely missed out. Generator shows like that are so much fun and it was so deadly to play with Sordo, Happy Pill Trauma and everyone else on that bill. I feel like I remember the cops showing up and somebody convincing them to let the show go on by saying “these guys drove all the way from Canada!” There are some photos from that gig I always smile when I see. Shoutout to Eddy from Sordo for setting that up, he's an awesome dude.

How long were you guys a band???

2008-Present, although the last few years haven’t been as active

then Scum Human... How did that band start???

what was the line up??
I know Tommy was in it.

Tommy was roommates with my girlfriend at the time in Vancouver. We were both not really jamming with anyone and itching to get a band going, so one day he texted me while I was at work saying “come over when you’re done, we’re starting a PV band”, set up his drum kit in the basement of their house and the two of us cranked out some insanely generic Crossed Out ripoff tracks. Jordan (vocals) lived in the same neighbourhood as us and we knew he didn’t have any bands on the go, he’s an awesome dude and I loved his vocals and stage presence in his old band Subsist so we invited him over under the guise of “trying out for this half-assed Crossed Out clone we just started" or something to that extent, he liked it and would go on to become the one consistent member besides Tommy. Looking back I would definitely say his vocals were the best part of the band. Connor (bass) was one of the few other people we knew in Vancouver at the time who was into fast shit, he was doing a band called Sickener with our homie Collin from Obacha/Shooting Spree/etc. and we knew he could play, none of us had ever done a project with him so we asked him to hop on and he accepted. This was the lineup that recorded our 2015 demo which ended up on a split 7'' with Concussive, I wrote a pretty good chunk of those songs and still to this day think it's a pretty sick recording. I don't think Tommy or I were in great places in our lives at the time, we ended up having conflict and I quit the band within less than 6 months of it starting, the first of several lineup changes it would go through. Eventually, well after I had left, Jake (the drummer of Con Artist) ended up also being in it and Tommy moved to guitar, that version with our friend Shawn playing bass was the lineup that toured the West Coast and played One Fest. Tommy and I obviously ended up resolving our beef and are still friends to this day, Scum Human officially called it quits when Jordan started developing tinnitus and couldn't really play or attend shows without making his already super fucked up hearing even worse (wear earplugs, kids).

How did you get the split with Depraved???

Tommy is in touch with those dudes, he has a pretty tight connection to the SoCal scene, I think if it weren't for the border and how fucked the U.S. is politically he would have probably moved there by now. I wasn't in the band anymore by the time that split happened but Depraved rips and it's a sick release.

I missed that show at One fest..

So did I, lol. I've seen some videos from it and it looked sick!

How did you get the name for the bands???

SBB was named pretty arbitrarily, I wasn't in the band yet but I think it was some kind of a compromise between two band names the others were kicking around. We had no idea the band would end up being such a huge part of our lives and have spent our entire existence as a project shaking our heads at ourselves whenever people ask what our stupid-ass name means. Scum Human was named in the classic way of naming hardcore bands in the 21st century: we stole it from the title of a No Comment song.