Interview: Bob Wilson (FYA Fest/Rebirth Records/Philly XXX)
In Philadelphia Hardcore (and hardcore in general if we are being honest), there are few names as legendary as Bob Wilson. From being an absolute mad man on stage with Let Down and Mother Of Mercy, to booking countless shows in both PA and FL including the Rebirth Records Showcase and FYA respectively, and to putting out tons of records with Rebirth Records, there are few people who embody hardcore like he does. Recently I’ve had the pleasure of being able to interview him about everything I just mentioned and more. So without anymore stalling lets get right into it.
Shadowtalkers: Let’s go way back, why are you into hardcore?
Bob Wilson: I was a kid with a lot of anger and depression issues and didn't know where to direct it and it's the first thing I found that made sense. I had previously liked what I thought was heavy shit and when I first heard hardcore everything clicked and it made the other stuff look pathetic in comparison, which is why things like kids crowd surfing or trying to emulate what they think a "rocker" consists of makes me disgusted when I see it at a show. Being at shows early on was an insane experience and I loved watching people mosh/dive etc and seeing the singer of the first band go off for the next band, all that "there's no separation between the bands and the crowd" stuff really stuck with me and makes hardcore way cooler than any other music.
S: When did you find the edge?
B: Both sides of my family have bad drug and alcohol problems, specifically my dad who was a maniac which lead to things like cops smashing windows to get in the house to break up fights/coming around looking for him/just ruining his life with that bullshit and in turn fucking my life up so I had no interest ever in doing any of that. When I was 13 a kid named Kyle Miller came to our school and had giant x's on his hands and wore cool Sick Of It All/GB hoodies etc and I asked what the x's meant, he told me and I said oh so there's a name for this i'm that too. Claimed edge that day in 1999 probably in the lunch room or something and have been straight edge ever since
S: How did Let Down form?
B: LD was basically the three of us that went to every show and all loved bands like Striking Distance Tear It Up No Justice etc and were obsessed with hardcore and wanted to bring straight edge abrasive hardcore to where we lived, we corrupted Kyle who was only 15 or 16 at the time but was the sickest drummer around and already had a Misfits tattoo and a devil lock and got him involved. I did a band that had 1 song and played a house party called FUCK THIS and the bassist Justin was in a band called RIP IT so we combined forces to be called FUCK IT, which lasted for a month or so until we realized how stupid that name is so we took LD from a song I had on the demo already. None of us minus Kyle knew what we were doing especially me but we were just motivated to bring some chaos to our town and just play as many things as possible to piss people off.
S: What was the writing process like when writing for Let Down?
B: At first we'd practice in Kyle's basement and record the songs on a 4 track or whatever, I'd make up lyrics and run around the basement screaming my head off seeing what made sense. Then I'd take the tape home and listen to the songs over and over again until I had them good to go. It was mostly just Drew and Kyle getting together once or twice a week from what I remember, it got to a point where I hated being at practice so I wouldn't hear the songs until they were done. I was a procrastinator so the LP I wrote all 11 songs or however many it was the night before I had to record which was miserable. Every Let Down song is about a different specific person so it was pretty easy to figure lyrics out
S: You did guest vocals on one of the first records I remember hearing as a very young kid (Get Stoked On It by The Wonder Years), what was that experience like?
B: When they started they were a joke band that sounded like Reggie And The Full Effect or something and would cover the Get Up Kids, they thought it would be funny to have this angry straight edge guy sing a goofy song. My payment was a hoagie from Wawa and I hung out in the studio with my friend John Bowes all day so no complaints. Would love to get some streaming revenue so they need to put that shit online
S: Favorite tour story from Let Down?
B: To be honest touring was pretty rough with LD, we alienated a lot of the places/bands we would go to and play with and really stuck with our own selves, i'd leave for tour with literally 5 dollars to my name and just steal stuff or bring old shirts and records to sell and get through the shows. Every night I would either hurt myself somehow or we'd get into some shit with the show or both. I will say whenever shit popped off we would all band together and have each others backs no matter what. I guess a "good" story is we were playing my favorite venue, the tower, in clevo. We all loved clevo bands everything from Integ to h100s Gordon Solie Upstab In Cold Blood and so getting to play out there was the most siked we were at the time. Kids brought a ton of fireworks someone set off a mortar in the pit you couldn't see anything because there was so much smoke in the room. At one point I dove off a table and cut my leg on a bottle without realizing it, then dove off a giant filing cabinet or something and looked down and I could see through my leg to the bone cuz I had torn it open. After the show one of the people we were on tour with tried to superglue it shut, which made me wanna kill myself and then someone said yo that's gonna get infected you should stitch it instead. So we had to re open the wound and then he used dental floss (did not know it was mint flavored until I felt it) and closed it up. That was the first day of the fucking tour and I was paranoid I would accidently make it worse but I somehow made it through until I got home and had to cut out the floss myself which was easily one of the most painful things of all time. Not necessarily a favorite story but kind of just sums up how stupid we all were specifically me and it was always some bullshit going on. Getting to meet up with the Iron Age guys early on in texas and them getting us on multiple shows was really cool to us as superfans in 2005 or whenever it was so that's a favorite part for sure.
S: How did Mother Of Mercy form?
B: LD was doing so much and I was a little burnt out on it, Kyle and I were really into Only Living Witness, Ringworm, Dmize, Unbroken, and other shit and wanted to switch things up so there was another band to do local shows since a lot of kids had dropped out around then. We never thought we'd do more than just opening some shows but Joe and Vince were crazy musicians and where LD was fueled by spite and less about being technically good MOM guys were insane. I think we didn't even have a name at first and our first show got put on the flyer as BARBARA which made no sense but we played and the entire room was moshing the second we started with no tracks besides people coming to a couple practices and hearing them.
S: What was the writing process like for I and II?
B: Joe Vince and Kyle just going hard in Vince's basement honestly. The songs were put together pretty quick which is why they're a little all over the place and we didn't really know what the band should sound like at first. They were originally the No Eden Ep and the Passing Through The Fire ep, I have no idea why we named the LP III at first so it kind of retroactively made those releases change names. This Is Hardcore 2007 I handed out demos to give to labels and friends and didn't realize there was no music on them/i wrote the website name as "www.myspace.com/motherofmercyhc.com" which also didn't help
S: How did that writing process change for III?
B: I honestly don't think it did, the band just got better at writing songs. I remember hearing the riffs for Back To The Agony and some others and being like damn these mf are cookin
S: Any good stories from recording III?
B: I did it all in a day I think which is moronic, same with the LD LP i was up all night the night before writing all the songs, googling danzig lyrics Ringworm and Undertow lyrics trying to find something for inspiration. We were stuck on a part to put in the song SUFFER and me and Kyle were really into No Trend at the time and he was like dude just say SUFFER THE AGONY and it fit perfectly. I'll say this everytime but Kyle is a genius and without him none of the bands I did until I moved would have done shit.
S: What’s your favorite tour story from the III era?
B: Our first tour ever was with The Mongoloids down the east coast and back, that was one of my favorite tours ever and the shows were sick. New years eve in Ybor City we were all just running around breaking shit running on cars being idiots
S: How did touring with legacy acts like SOIA and AF differ from touring with other bands at the time?
B: In theory those tours are cool but then you do them and it's like 50 people watching you and by the time the headliner comes on the rooms packed. Nobody is there to check out a new young hardcore band so it's kind of pointless, Roger from AF was awesome to tour with and Craig from SOIA for sure. I didn't really like the tours overall and would much rather have been out with contemporaries, pretty much just touring to pay the bills for a couple months until the next one. Obviously as someone who loved both those bands as a kid it was surreal but the actual touring was not something I liked really at all. A funny part of those tours is someone in one of the bands the last day of the tour as everyone was saying goodbye thanked me for coming out to the show aka he had no recollection of me even though we played 28 shows in a row together. Very humbling
S: How did it feel to get signed to Bridge 9? Were there any pros to signing there vs being on smaller HC labels?
B: We had only ever released records with friends at that time in my bands, Jamie Double Decker did the first LD ep, Redcheeks resurrected Dead By 23 for Crossed Off, Dave and SFU did the LD LP and III, Bob Shedd did the MOM eps, so it was definitely bizarre. Funny enough LD had tried to be on B9 before and were very quickly turned down haha. But yeah we asked Dave Sausage if it was ok, I never wanted to be the band that just bailed on their friends label when something bigger comes along. I told him point blank if he feels anyway about it i'll say no but he said fuck it who cares do it it'll help sell the prior releases. Chris and the B9 squad was great to work with and I feel bad we didn't exist very long to push the LP. I do wish we stuck with SFU in retrospect
S: Did the writing process change for IV?
B: I think there was more pressure for sure being on a "bigger" label. I personally was just fucked at this point, my dad had just died,my sister had just stolen $15,000 from me, i didn't wanna be home or around philly at all and I used it as an excuse to bail on recording all the time, I couldn't focus on getting lyrics done or id show up with two lines of a song and ask Joe to take me back home and everyone would be pissed I was wasting their time. That's the only record where someone else wrote some lyrics, I think there's 3 songs I didn't write which makes me feel like a loser but we needed to get something goin and not waste Will Yips time. The music on that record is great and everyone besides me crushed it I just definitely feel like I wasn't in the right space mentally to deliver and it's embarrassing to look back on
S: Favorite tour story from the IV era?
B: We honestly I think only did some small tours on the record, one was us foundation and stick together which in theory should have been a big deal but it was trash and broke us up. love both those bands but for some reason it just didn't do well at all.
S: Tell me about MOM’s last show, what was that like? Was it planned to be the last show?
B: it wasn't planned but we hadn't been doing much and Joe Hxc asked us to play a show with IGNITE on a random thursday at this spot the barbary. We were pretty over it and all decided to go on hiatus after that, there was no big announcement just kind of a word of mouth if you wanna see us come out cuz I don't know when well play again.We played a year later with Strife and Soul Search also there almost exactly a year later, and then a memorial show for our friend JDK with Bad Seed in wilkes barre a year after that. Another year or two and we played the Blind Justice record release in NJ, and our last actual show was december 2015 with ALL OUT WAR at ortelibs, again not planned but just nothing has happened since. That show and set were great
S: Will there ever be a MOM reunion?
B: I'm always open to it, I still love the songs I just don't know if there's interest which is understandable. Everyone has their own lives but if something comes along I always at least put it out there to see if they wanna do it. I did a benefit show for this piece of shit I regret helping out now but I did a few MOM songs at that and that's the closest it's come in the last decade, it was fun but I'd never wanna do it again unless it was the actual band... with any luck the show will be a celebration of the kid I did the last songs at dying
S: How did Beware form?
B: The same way MOM formed kind of, there was a lack of the kind of bands I like that in the area and I missed being in a straight edge band after Let Down. I wanted to switch up the lineup so I got younger straight edge kids to do it and it was called STOLEN MIND at first-we had an ok demo but before the first show I actually had to bail because we got the sick of it all tour. By the time I got back the drummer had broken edge so we started from scratch, I got Kyle in the band yet again and went to work.
S: How did the writing process for Beware differ from MOM and Let Down respectively?
B: It was cool honestly, I just would send Chain songs to Jake and say "do something like this" and he's such a good musician he figured it out right away and wrote some sick songs.The goal was just Chain 2.0 with Right Brigade mosh, no idea if that came close but that was the idea.
S: How was revisiting Beware for the Rebirth Showcase? What went into that decision?
B: We had played a few years ago in Deleware randomly and it went surprisingly well, we only did Rebirth because a bunch of bands fell through and i was like well this will be free and no risk, if it's good it's good if not i'll be fine. I forgot this is why I don't play shows I book though because I was too focused on other stuff and definitely didn't do great but I love the songs still and had fun during it. Anytime I get to be onstage with my brother Dave Jannes life is good.
S: When did you start booking shows?
B: The first one I ever did I was 14 I think, had no idea what me and my friend were doing and it was a disaster. I have no idea how we didn't get beat up by the bands because maybe 15 people paid. I was pretty shell shocked since that and didn't until maybe 2006 or so officially again? it was pretty infequent at first and then I just wanted to bring bands like Step Forward or New Lows to the area and started putting more time and effort into doing it. I wish i was better with keeping track of when I did what so I usually just round it to 20 years of doing shows to make it easy.
S: How did FYA start?
B: I moved down to Pensacola in 2013 and was bored/missed seeing my friends and seeing shows all the time. Thankfully Sam BBB had also just moved home to Orlando and felt the same so we talked and got it going. We booked the first one in like three weeks at a 400 cap venue which is hilarious to think about now.
S: What is your biggest booking achievement so far?
B: I was thinking about this recently when Excessive Force and Hatebreed were playing. I've gotten to do Floorpunch/Rival Mob/the first world war 4 and bad seed shows/YOT/Foundation reunion etc, but I think honestly doing the Blacklisted reunions is my proudest thing. Just because of the Philly connection and them meaning so much to me to be the one that got to do it meant a lot and is something i'll always feel good about.
S: Whats your favorite show you booked?
B: Honestly I think it has to be the joe benefit show
FLOORPUNCH
COLD WORLD
WRONG SIDE FIRST PHILLY SHOW
PEGASUS FIRST SHOW
FACE REALITY
AGITATOR
S: How did Rebirth Records start?
B: Covid boredom/challenging myself. Xavier from Grid had a rap thing he did and I was like this is actually sick let's do tapes and from there I kind of figured out what I wanted to actually do with the label eventually leading to taking the leap and doing vinyl
S: What’s the most special release from the Rebirth catalogue?
B: I truly do love every record I put out but I think putting the first SCARAB ep out kind of put me on the map and set the tone for everything after, they're my favorite philly band in forever and i'm just siked I get to be a part of their legacy because if I was a kid i'd have all their shit hanging on my wall
S: How can the average person with a baseline interest in punk/hc make a difference in their local scene?
B: It sounds corny but everyone that shows up is important, just being in the room makes a difference. Not everyone needs to be in a band or do a label but if you're consistently supporting the small shows and the big shows you're invaluable in my opinion. On the flip side as porter said "get the fuck out if you have nothing positive to give"
S: Any underrated Philly HC bands you want to shout out?
B: Older ones-Brickhouse, All Else Failed (for younger kids), Christ, Prema, I Hate You, The Crossbearer (played one show was horror show with Joe singing), STARKWEATHER, No Rights, there was a band called RISK (early 00s) that put out the best demo nobodys ever heard
S: Plans for 2026?
B: More shows more records more hardcore
S: Anything else you’d like to add?
B: Thanks for asking me to do this, hopefully it's not a waste of anyone's time reading it. Philly straight edge till I'm dead.
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