Punks used the word rabid a lot back in the ’90s to describe over-enthusiastic live crowds, but it was often an exaggeration. Avail was the exception. Avail shows were the only concerts I attended where I feared for my life, especially if I had to photograph them. Their fans had no regard for their well being. That, combined with Avail’s love of playing in small clubs with no barriers and songs that begged for a sing-a-long pile-on, meant there was no place to hide. As such, I have hardly any images of the band that aren’t out 0f focus or just garbage. Luckily, I got a few minutes with Tim Barry while he was supporting the Avail’s final record Front Porch Stories in 2006. If I knew then that the band wasn’t long for this world, I probably would have tried harder to photograph them, but that’s life.
This interview originally appeared in Life In A Bungalo on February 19, 2006
George: Avail is hitting some pretty small places right now. Was this planned? Did you want to do a string of smaller venues?
Tim: We just wanted to go out and have fun. Our drummer Ed [Trask] has a kid on the way. His first kid is due in December, and we had just finished up five months of touring with Ensign here in the States and overseas. When we got word that the kid was coming we figured we would go out and do one more short tour. We had anticipated leaving in September for a five week U.S. tour, but instead we thought we should hit some new places and do a blowout, and then lay low for a little bit.
George: Your last album, Front Porch Stories came out a few months ago. Are there any plans for new music in the near future or are you guys taking a real break?
Tim: We are constantly writing. The thing that is a little bit unforeseen about the whole baby thing is figuring out when to actually start touring again. You just can’t tour when you have a newborn.
George: No Avail paternity leave?
Tim: No (laughter). What I think we are going to do is play these shows and finish up the year. Once Ed and his wife Kelly are a little more settled, then we’ll start doing weekend runs for the next six months. I think the plan is to play shows where we won’t go any further than a night’s drive home. We’ll go as North as Boston, and as far South as Tallahassee.
George: On Front Porch Stories and Once Wrench you added some new elements to the traditional Avail sound. There’s a lot more musicianship on the records. Was that something that you purposely tried to do?
Tim: Everybody is so contradictory when they talk about these records. Some people think they’re straightforward, so it’s hard to gauge. We simply write by feel and that’s it. We’ve taken the same approach to being in the studio as we have on every record that we’ve done, except this time we had more of a budget. It’s really simple for us. We start writing songs at home and on the road, and whatever we like we keep. Eventually we have 15 songs and we record them. As far as added elements, there is some slide guitar on Front Porch Stories that you don’t usually hear on hardcore punk rock songs.
George: By new elements, I meant that there is definitely a change in tempo and more melodies on the new songs. These are not minute and a half-long punk rock songs.
Tim: That totally makes sense. Our early albums like Dixie were much more straight forward; not a lot of layering of vocals. We didn’t really know how to harmonize back then. Albums were recorded and mixed in four days. We spent three weeks on Front Porch Stories. Luckily, we really haven’t progressed as musicians over the years. Bands that originate as punk bands tend to turn into metal bands when they start learning how to play better. For us, if a song has a mood, we’re good with it.
George: When you guys were on Lookout! Avail was the token hardcore punk band amongst a sea of pop-punk groups, but you guys lasted a while before leaving the label for Fat Wreck Chords. Why did you leave?
Tim: We left Lookout strictly because Fat has better record distribution. When we made the decision to split, we had already been to Australia, Japan, Europe and across the States and our records weren’t in the places we were playing. I’m talking our hometown — it was really becoming difficult. It was really hard to leave, because Lookout is a tremendous record label and has always been really good to us. I approached Fat Mike and he said he would love for us to be on his label as long as we made it clear to Lookout that he didn’t contact us trying to scoop their band up.
George: You are still hammering home the fact that Avail is from Richmond, VA — It’s in your DNA. Why so much loyalty?
Tim: All of us grew up outside Richmond, which is a clusterfuck of suburbia, but there is still woods and farms. It’s an odd place that goes through changes just like everywhere else. We watched it turn from complete urban decay to tobacco warehouses that have been abandoned for as long as I can remember. Now they are becoming yuppie apartments for $1,500 a month. It’s like a lot of towns in the South, in the sense that the drug war actually worked in the late ’80s. All the white people fled the city with all the money and now they are coming back and it’s changing.
George: When Avail plays home what’s it like?
Tim: We try to find smaller clubs to do real shows rather than big rock concerts, kind of like the Bloomfield Avenue show. Our shows here are just fun — they’re a fucking blast. When we play Richmond we generally play clubs for $5 door price and the money always goes to Food Not Bombs Richmond, which is a substantial organization here in the community.
George: You had a line-up change with One Wrench. What happened?
Tim: That was two albums ago when Ed joined the band on drums. It added a new drive to the band. Erik [Larson], our old drummer, is still a great friend of ours and he can admit it as well that he just wasn’t there any more. And there is nothing worse than writing music with a group of people that are really going for it and one person is just not feeling it. He left on great terms to go make metal music and we back him on it. He started a band called Alabama Thunderpussy. We’ve known Ed for 11 years and he worked out perfectly.
George: Do you think this is the final incarnation of Avail?
Tim: There have been so many incarnations of the band. Joe, Beau and myself are the only original members. Basically, everyone in our high school bounced around from band to band. I was actually the drummer for Avail until ’91, when I started singing. I was playing drums at the time and Joe was playing guitar and we had two other people in the band that left us to travel cross country. When we were 19, Joe and I decided to record our own record. I was playing drums and singing and he was on bass and guitar. That was what Satiate was becoming. The other people living with us just started picking up the drums and bass while I was singing, and after two weeks we figured we might as well all just form a real line-up. It was a total accident.
George: When can the fans expect a new album?
Tim: I don’t know yet. Let’s just leave it at: we are going to do this short tour and we will all be writing songs and try to come up with something while Ed and his wife take care of their kid. It could be mid to the end of next year before we have a new record. People have to remember that as soon as the record comes out, we are going to tour for six months without a break.
George: When you first started out, Avail was considered a hardcore band, even though your music was accessible to a wider crowd. Today, your style of music would be considered tame compared to the metal-style hardcore. Where do you think Avail fits into the present punk/hardcore scene?
Tim: I have no idea what punk, hardcore and emo are nowadays and I don’t even bother trying. In a unique way, when we play shows we are lucky enough to draw a really diverse crowd. We’ve got kids with the latest emo band shirts, hardcore kids windmilling, mall punks and people who aren’t so young and hired babysitters to be able to come out to the show. The energy is still there, and that’s our passion. Although if you are at Joe’s [Banks, guitar] house, he’s probably listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Ed’s probably listening to country records. Although we might not listen to much punk rock anymore, that is where our heart is.
