It’s the end of 2014 and also the end of Shambles, someone’s favorite pop punk band from Allston. Guitarist Rob Spearin moving out west, so the guys are calling it quits. Allston Pudding interviewed Jeremy Hertz, bassist for the band, ahead of their last Shambles show on 12/23 at O’Briens with Yale, Massachusetts, Burglary Years, Travis Alexander, and Rachel Hael. Since the show’s on Christmas Eve Eve, we threw together a few ~holiday themed questions~ for him:
Allston Pudding: If there was one holiday that you could celebrate every month, which holiday would you choose and why?
Jeremy Hertz: My first thought went to Thanksgiving, because I love gorging myself on ridiculous food, but then I realized that since I am a grown-ass man, I can stuff myself full of sweet potato pie any day I want. I think I’d probably go with the Fourth Of July. I’m not a big fan of patriotism or nationalism, but I definitely am into not going to work, drinking a ton of beer and fireworks. Probably that.
AP: It’s 1994 and they’ve cast you instead of Tim Allen for The Santa Clause movie. How would you handle the fact that you killed Santa and now have to take over his job?
JH: Great question. I’ve thought about this a lot, but never had the medium in which to properly express my thoughts on it. First of all, let me say that no one can truly replace Tim Allen, but if I had to try, there are a few things I’d do. First thing I would do is get an official Santa facebook page and make a checklist of anyone who has posted anything excruciatingly stupid or self aggrandizing. Second, I’d remove ALL of those people from my “nice” list and they’d get no presents. That way, I’d have a ridiculously small workload on Christmas night and I’d get to go hang out and party and stuff.
AP: Was there ever a gift you asked for for Christmas (or your birthday or whenever) that you just never got? Still harboring any anger or disappointment about it?
JH: Actually, I’m not so much bitter or anything about it, but one time I was dating this really sweet girl and my birthday was coming up, so she asked my roommate what he thought I’d like. He suggested that she try to find a copy of Curses by the band Ringers on vinyl for me. We broke up right before my birthday and I never got the present! She was in no way whatsoever a girl who would listen to a band like Ringers, so I like to imagine that she just kept the record anyway, and now her record collection is, like, Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac, Emmy Lou Harris, and Boston Punk’s own Ringers.
AP: You are now a law-making city leader. What holiday would you create and why?
JH: If I, for some idiotic reason, was given the power to create any holiday, it would DEFINITELY be something like “Pet A Cute Animal Day” and everyone would be given work off to go to a city created pop-up petting zoo with tons of baby goats and llamas and other weird animals. After 7 PM, no kids would be allowed at the petting zoo and they’d have an open bar too.
AP: If you were forced to listen to one holiday song on repeat the whole year, which one would you maybe be able tolerate?
JH: “Merry Christmas, I Fucked Your Snowman” by Showcase Showdown. That’s the only answer I can give for this one.
AP: What were some of Shambles’ highlights of 2014?
JH: Shambles highlights. Hmmm. Well, there have been almost too many to count. One of the definite highlights was our friend Pat digging up a video of me getting “dumped” by some girl mid-set a couple of years ago. It was hilarious, embarrassing, and really embodied what Shambles is all about. Other than that, we were blessed enough to get to play a show with one of our favorite bands, Rebuilder, which was great. Another highlight was definitely getting made fun of by Al from Great Lakes (you really know you’ve made it when that happens). We tried really hard to get onto “crabcore” show with a bunch of screaming long haired teenagers at the HARD ROCK CAFE by lying about what we sounded like, but they figured it out and didn’t let us play, so that was ALMOST a highlight. Antique Records, an AWESOME local record label put out our EP Move Away on tape, which was super rad of them (we still have some left, so people should come to the show and buy them!). Oh, and someone reviewed our record by saying “it sounds like it should be on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack”, so we really loved that. I wish we had gotten to tour a little bit more and release another record, but you know how these things go.
AP: What’s in store for 2015, especially since it will be the dawn of a Post-Shambles world?
JH: I’m not sure there will be a 2015… I mean, after all, how could the world possibly go on after the break-up of everyone’s favorite “old guys whining about girls pop punk” band? But in all seriousness, we’re all really looking forward to starting new projects, hopefully ones that feature slightly less whining about ex-girlfriends. Rob is moving out west and is definitely going to start something rad out there. PJ, Ben and I have been in a few bands together, so I’m sure inevitably we’ll all get together and start a new iteration of this nonsense.
Check out the show on Tuesday!
