#audio interview

Geoff Rickly: 'Cos whenever we would have a big band through, I'd make sure I'd route through a few other just really unknown bands that were on tour, so that they would have a show to play where they'd actually have people there. And I'd have seven bands on, like, every bill. And it would be all donations, and I would just try and be fair, and if I didn't—if nobody came, I would cover it out of my pocket, you know? Steven Smith: How'd you get the— GR: I would…uhhh…this is actually really funny. I had a course at Rutgers where I was in the honors program, that made it so you didn't have to have a major—not a major, you didn't have to have any core curriculum. You just picked your major and started working on it, and anything that you thought was interesting, you took. And, so, I had all these great classes about postmodern literature, and my favorite one was Poetry, Dance, and the Body. And my professor for that…wrote porn on the side, and he hooked me up with, like, Penthouse Letters and Hustler and…I would write smut, uh, after hours for a ton of money. It paid so well. And it was mostly letters from the point of view of women, like, who are writing into Penthouse Forums about the dirty encounters they had that week. And he just hooked me up doing it, and, you know, it's, like…I was writing so much at the time for class that it was so easy to adopt the voice of the other letters' columns and just make up some stupid story, some never-in-a-million-years-would-you-believe-it story about wild sex in a bathroom. And…it was great. I made a ton of money doing it, and I was able to pay bands out of it… SS: You funded…the hardcore scene…in New Jersey... GR: In New Brunswick for a couple of years, yeah. SS: …by writing porn. GR: Yeah. By writing porn. SS: This is a story that people have only dreamed of. GR: Well, you know, the funny thing, is that at the time, uh…Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, uh, was playing in her goth bands with, like, chelsea haircuts, and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they'd bring out people and stuff, and I'd put touring bands on that show, and so it's funny to me, like, how weirdly DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird, like, associations then. And the porn thing I always hated—I never told anyone I was doing that because it was embarrassing and I thought it was, like, anti-feminist and horrible. But I really also needed to make a living at the time, and, you know, get through college and do…set up some money to tour with and, uh…so, it was just a weird thing that I was doing. But, uh… SS: I think that's great! That's inventive and smart and you put it towards, you know, something cool, you put something out there. And as, you know, as a supporter of porn myself, well done! GR: Haha, thank you. SS: Did you ever have a band come through carrying a Penthouse that had one of your letters in it? GR: No, I wish I did.