Photo by Ben Cook
Looking Stupid: Hey man, is it too far off 11? Or is now a good time?
Ben Cook: Now’s good
LS: Awesome, apologies for the late start. Tonight’s a hometown show in Toronto, correct?
BC: Yezzir
It’s a 6ix ting tonite
LS: How have the nature of gigs back home changed as you move through life? You’re Los Angeles based at the moment, right?
Or does it shift project to project, by the circumstances
BC: Yeah, I’m LA mostly these days.
Still have a spot in Lisbon but l’m rarely there. Music life calls for LA living it seems.
In terms of Toronto I guess it depends on the project l’m playing with. I’ve played Toronto a lot in my life obvs but I can probably count on one hand the amount of shows I’ve actually enjoyed playing there. It’s my home but the city doesn’t always treat artists or bands like their own sometimes. It’s a lot of side ways hater shit. But I still love it. Looking forward to some oxtail later.
Like, when No Warning played La recently with high vis it almost felt like a hometown show. Bunch of us live there, we’re fuckin Canadians, but it’s about community and there’s a strong one there. I don’t feel that in Toronto and rarely did growing up as a musician there.
LS: Interesting. I don’t think Toronto’s alone in giving that feeling to some of its hometown artists
BC: Ya def not. It’s weird to be a musician no matter where you live. Expectations are always a little off and we’re all sensitive crazy people. Don’t even listen to me.
LS: I feel like punk/hardcore can foster that, the idea that your community is where you chose to be at and who you chose to be with, not necessarily chaining yourself to your hometown and living or dying with it, although people choose that also
BC: Yeah – we are blessed by this.
After living in so many places and being on the road for so many vears I can definitely say community really is everything.
LS: What would you say vou need from community in your life at this point? What is the most important thing you think you give?
BC: Good question. I think it’s more just knowing it’s there and feeling supported by that. I mean obviously useful to have friends everywhere if you need a hand but you know we live in such a twisted ass world it would be a horrible feeling to feel alone in it.
No one deserves that.
Do normies have community? Or do they just go to work and have a few friends?
Curious about them
LS: I think when their communities erode we get this ever worsening situation lmao
We gotta get these people back in pubs and on bowling teams and going out dancing before we all get killed
BC: Yes lonely ass men are dangerous
Let’s get back to bowling
LS: They closed down all the normal regulation lanes in the east bay it breaks my heart
The new Guv record displays an evolving sound. Now that you’re touring it, do you find it hitting in different cities than the project has before?
BC: Yea I switched it up a bit on this one and literally only playing songs from a brand new LP like two weeks after it’s dropped. It’s kind of a whack move but also a dope one.
It’s hitting in all these cities cuz all these cities rock
LS: I feel comfortable saying you’re good at making strong decisions and going with them, like only playing the new shit. How often have you thought these plans out and how often are you allowing your impulses to take the wheel then just committing,
BC: l’m more or less just guided by
impulse when it comes to my own music.
LS: What do you find guides your impulses the most these days?
BC: I dunno. God? Lol
LS: Everybody does seem more lonely now, right? People on tour are part of a shrinking contingent of society who are continually interacting with new sets of society who are continually interacting with new sets of people on the daily
BC: Yeah it’s amazing in this way.
Truly nothing like it. But on the flip side that can be toxic and unhealthy and I miss my gym. I’m constantly torn between being a grown ass man still in a band and it being some cringe shit and just focusing on my work life and real job (which is also touring lol I work in music mgmt too) or just accepting the fact I am a lifer artist
Photo by Ben Cook
LS: It’s serious because it’s your one life and a big choice but either way you slice it, the big choice has been made, right? You’re a lifer
BC: Can’t deny it. Let’s go.
LS: If your latest record had a call to action, it might be to drink dance and screw, would you say there could be an undercurrent of what we are talking about?
Trying to fight the lonely that’s getting to everyone?
BC: Yea that’s a good take for real. I Wanted to make something for the pub a bit more on this one. Might have gone too far in the baggy direction. Someone yelled “Play champagne supernova” at me last night in Montreal. But don’t worry I hit back with “this casual music listener only reference to this set is his oasis summer Spotify algorithm playlist, shut the fuck up bitch”
LS: I’m glad you’re working in music beyond your work as an artist.
We talked a bit over quar about how dire the situation with streaming is for artists, you were looking for creative solutions.
Where’d you end up, and what’d you learn? Obviously you started playing this project out a couple short years before quar and then got shot out the other end. Must make the differences a bit more pronounced?
BC: Yeah I got into day to day mgmt for artists after covid and that shot me into the touring world as a logistics and coordinator type person. I enjoy what I do.\
I crashed out after covid p hard still just being an artist so I made moves to build something else for myself.
It’s so twisted to be an artist in 2026 I would lay down in traffic for every single one of them
LS: I think a lot of people are crashing out pretty hard, normie and otherwise right now. What are some fundamental steps you took to assess the situation that helped you make the moves you needed to make and start to build something of your own outside of your art?
I was watching a swords-and-shields ass show last night and a bard came onscreen and I thought “we are circling back up to traveling singer with a lute aren’t we”
BC: I went to a hospital hahaha
I got diagnosed with some bad depression and all that shit. I got all the meds. I didn’t take any of them though. But yeah I really hit a super low point emotionally. It needed to happen eventually guess. Not to sound like a biohacker gym bro podcaster but I opted for a few guided psychedelic sessions and it got me over the hump enough that I could get out of bed and start plotting what was next. We have to remember that it does get better eventually.
LS: Getting back up to try seems pretty crucial to the whole thing.
You mentioned the bio hacker gym bro podcaster archetype, and earlier we were talking about community and loneliness, so obviously the outside world is permeating the walls of the touring van. What are you guys listening to and reading while you travel? What is it like talking to different people every night in this chaotic moment? Same as always? A bit different?
BC: I drove to Coltrane for 7 hours two days ago like a psychopath but we’re running various forms of headiness in the GUV van at all times. Marley is blasting The Pretty Things at the moment enroute to Toronto.
lust finished A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews. Pretty sick shit.
Talking to people i guess feels the same as it ever did.
It’s just a blur, you forget it immediately, and move on to the next place. And then suddenly you’re back to a place you’ve been before and what you thought you forgot it all comes back.
LS: Is the rest of your year planned out? Or are you waiting for the next transmission from God?
What’s on deck?
BC: Yeah I have a full vear on the road more or less mapped out with touring clients and I think more to be added. I’m hoping to find time to do GUV shit in between. Touring GUV is punk touring so unfortunately I gotta focus on stacking bread as priority but I always make room for the soulful shit.
Photo by Ben Cook