Connect with us

Alternative/Rock

Purely Provocative: Wild Once Discuss the More Outrageous Side of Life in a Rock Band

Published

on

Things have moved quickly for Wild Once ever since they took the stage for the first time ever on February 1st of last year at Mister Goodbar in their native Buffalo, New York. Over the span of the last 20 months or so, the band has worked hard at creating their own honest form of dramatic alternative rock with some hints of indie rock thrown in for good measure.

In August, the band released their sophomore EP, We Did It Anyway, recorded in late 2019 with the help of producer Jay Zubricky whose previous credits include Beach Slang, Every Time I Die, and Pentimento. The EP was originally set for release in the first quarter of 2020 but then you know what happened… Fortunately, We Did It Anyway is with us now and is a very worthy follow up to the down to earth emo charm of Wild Once’s debut EP, Perennials.

We put the topic of music aside for our recent conversation with the members of Wild Once. In our latest edition of Purely Provocative, we spoke with the band about.. the more disgusting side of life? Get to know Wild Once like you never thought you ever would.

Most public situation you’ve projectile vomited?

Anthony Granica: “Walking down Allen Street in Buffalo on a Friday night, going from Nietzsches to Frizzy’s, puking behind myself as we’re walking, and slamming a beer and a shot of rumple minze as a breath mint after the projectiles.”

Jay Fritzius: “I was at a strip club my ex was bartending at and this hardo with a Tapout shirt asked me if I wanted to do a shot with him. I said sure, then guy orders up eight shots of Jameson and puts four in front of me. I got through three of them and when the fourth hit my lips I puked all over him, myself and the bar. Know your limits.”

Weirdest place you’ve ever taken a shit?

Fritzius: “In a hole on a famous golf course. We had a friend that would put us up in these amazing golf villas in North Carolina while passing through on tour. The course was right in the backyard. So I got drunk and wild and decided it would be a good idea to drop one in a hole.”

Tom Mayer: “I’ve shit on the shore of the Atlantic and the Pacific. After shitting on an Atlantic beach, it only made sense to do the same on a Pacific one. I also shit off of a bridge into a pond and off of the roof of a second story hotel balcony with a pool. Great plopping noise. I was probably 18 or 19 and thought I was hilarious. All of the great ones have their calling card. Wet bandits, sticky bandits, shitting bandits etc. Gross! Sorry world. Thanks for making me look normal, Jay.”

Purely Provocative: Wild Once Discuss the More Outrageous Side of Life in a Rock Band

Grossest person you’ve ever hooked up with?

Mayer: “Everyone is beautiful in their own way.”

Sonic Diarrhea – frustrating or fun? How are the shits while touring?

Mayer: “Diarrhea is disgusting and painful. Who in their right mind would consider this fun? I’ve gotten really used to dropping the trousers in any stall I can find and building a nice large TP nest to sit on. It’s a skill you have to learn early on.”

Do you bathe on tour? Is it regular? Do you take what you can get and do a wet- nap wipe if there’s no shower?

Mayer: “Gotta have the flip flops. Itchy feet are no joke. One time after a really bad show in urban New Jersey, we slept in the van outside of the show. It had been a few days for us and we were feeling grimy. We woke up in the morning and saw a hose outside. We took turns holding the hose up over each other’s heads off of the back deck. Only a few people drove by while our dingies were out.”

What scares the absolute shit out of you?

Fritzius: “Quicksand… not the band because they rule but actual quicksand. That shit is so scary, did you see what happened to the horse in The Neverending Story? That scared me for life as a kid.”

You find someone’s wallet in the street. It contains a ton of cash and/or a winning lottery ticket inside and their ID. What do you do?

Mayer: “I’d like to think that I would return what did not belong to me. Even if I wanted to be a bad ass(hole) and steal their lottery money, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering if every bad thing that happened to me was a result of that awful karma. Do the right thing. If you’re lucky the lottery winner will tip you. If not, well, get over it. It’s not yours. From my experience, doing the right thing feel good.”

Have you ever been too wasted to play live? What happened?

Mayer: “I’ve never been too wasted to play live, but Shreddy Krüger (Anthony) has not once, but twice, asked us via group text the next morning if we loaded out after a show. He helped us.”

Your instrument/gear (drums, guitar, etc.) has a catastrophic failure on-stage and you have no back-up, what do you do?

Granica: “I guess I’d just prance around stage like Iggy Pop shaking a tambourine and chugging beers, air thrusting the crowd and Tom’s leg.”

Artwork for ‘We Did It Anyway’ by Wild Once

Name some of your biggest pet peeves. You know… that ones that make you want to wreck shit!

Mayer: “That lane in the middle of the road, with the paint that specifically shows you can only go left if you enter it from either direction… Well that, my friend, is not a merge lane. Wait your fucking turn before pulling out. I don’t really get that mad while driving anymore though. My pet peeves these day are more like cops assaulting or murdering people and getting away with it, people sharing memes that aren’t true and then 50 of their ‘friends’ also sharing it, and greedy corporations that don’t give a fuck about the planet, who never have and never will.”

What is your stance on the legalization of marijuana?

Matt Bratcher: “I don’t see any questions that I really want to answer. For the legalization question, my boy says it best. (Sends URL to the lyrics of ‘Legalize It’ by the late Bob Marley).”

Describe when and how you lost your virginity.

Granica: “Just before early graduation of my senior year, watching the credits of The Parent Trap. I had to sit all the way through that fucking movie for a solid seven strokes. Best thing being a band ever gave to me.”

Does God exist – why yes/no/who the fuck cares?

Mayer: “I went to a catholic school until I was ten. I got kicked out for my sister (who was in kindergarten mind you) and I not being able to ‘display the proper Christian attitude.’ Then I went to religion class on the side until 10th grade, which I quit right before my confirmation to go to a show. Our teacher was telling us how it was fucked up that modern television shows were making it seem like its ok to be gay. Some short time after that, I was riding shotgun in the car with my dad and decided to ask him if he even believes in God. He said he thinks he is probably agnostic. I was like hell yeah, Agnostic Front rules, but also, what the fuck does that mean? He said, ‘I think it means that I don’t know if there’s god and I don’t really care.’

Long story no longer shot, I am going to go with who gives a fuck. Even if there is, I can’t wrap my head around worshiping it as some sort of a perfect being when perfect seems to be a man made ideology with a lot of room for grey area.”

Groupies. Totally awesome, want to bang them all. What the hell is a groupie? Give us the scoop!

Mayer: “From my experience, tour is just a really sometimes fun vacation. Murphy’s Law consistently applies. Sometimes you get enough money to fill the tank and enough hot n’ ready Little Caesars to fill the body, but even when you get up on dollars you’ll probably break down or blow five tires in one day. One time after a show, we were settling up with a promoter who arranged a typically shitty door deal for the tour package. When the message was being relayed to me on how much we would be paid that night, I responded, ‘welp, I guess I might as well suck my own dick.’ Since then, we’ve mostly referred to touring as ‘sucking your own.’ So yeah, we suck our own. We have no idea what groupies are like.”

Describe your wildest drug experience.

Granica: “Myself and three other guys took some acid, and there was a stretch where we were all telepathically communicating. Not one word was spoken during the peak, but we were having a legitimate conversation, and after we had all come down we talked about the whole thing and we all agreed on what was being said through that part. It was THE wildest shit I’ve ever experienced.”

Born in 2003, V13 was a socio-political website that, in 2005, morphed into PureGrainAudio and spent 15 years developing into one of Canada's (and the world’s) leading music sites. On the eve of the site’s 15th anniversary, a full re-launch and rebrand takes us back to our roots and opens the door to a full suite of Music, Film, TV, and Cultural content.

Trending