And here we have it, my final interview transcription from This is Hardcore Festival. This time it was one with a good old friend of mine, Mike Arellano, a dude who I had previousy hung out with back in France. In the interview we got to talk a lot about MOD, and also Mike's own career as a musician.Arellano was at the festival as a replacement for Die Young's drummer as part of a one off. It was really interesting to find out a lot more about the drummer in one of metal's most legendary acts.
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How the hell have you been Mike?
I've been great man, life is good, I can't complain. Everything is just going so perfect right now man. Doing the whole tour with MOD and doing Hellfest... and now I'm here, back to helping out Texas hardcore bands. I'm here with Die Young, we play tomorrow, it's badass man. Life is good.
You've found a sense of balance between real life and getting to do awesome shit like this.
Right. I've got a job back home man. I'm just thankful when I come back it's their. I work in the food service industry. Coming to do this is awesome. That's the whole beauty of it, doing what you love to do and then coming back to reality and working like everybody else.
Do you feel like if you didn't work like everybody else you wouldn't be as connected in the music? Do you think it would hurt the music?
In a way maybe because staying connected with the people at work with is important. But if I was doing music full time I'd be even more focused on it. Not having to worry about getting early to go to work or anything else.
There's a guy over there wearing an SOD shirt, how does that feel, to be one of the few people who can play SOD songs live and to see that kind of shirt at a festival?
It's not weird at all, it's badass. Growing up and getting introduced to all the different levels of metal and then getting into punk, hardcore, and thrash and finding out that SOD was the band that mixed it all together... Billy too. He created something so special. In high school I used to watch SOD videos like Live At Budokan with my friends. Being connected in that is cool When I got my first drum set back in 2000 I was all over the place. When I heard Billy moved to Austin I was like "Wow, that's cool" Then they went on tour with Bitter End from San Antonio and Billy asked the guys about finding a good drummer and they told him about me. Now I'm jamming with the guy, I would never think that I would be on stage playing with that guy. It's a dream come true. It's any metal, hardcore, or punk kids dream come true to be on stage with a guy like that. After playing Hellfest with thousands of people, where it's just incredible.
Do you have a sort of comedown effect after Hellfest, being like, "I played in front of 40,000 people and now I'm down to 400"?
Not at all man. Now I can say I did it. When I come back and do this it's kind of like a relief. I know I can do something big like that again if the opportunity came again. Before Hellfest I thought something like this festival with a few hundred people was the biggest thing that I could do. You've got great hardcore bands from all over the States. Going overseas and doing that, that was unreal.
Are you going to try to do the European festival circuit again next year?
That's all in the air. We'll see what happens. It's all up to Billy. Personally, I would love to go back. We'll see what this world brings upon us. People are saying there's going to be a world war three, I don't know how it's going to be next year. We'll see...
This could be the last summer.
It could be man, that's why Billy wanted to go out on tour. I'm not a political guy at all. That's all Billy. He's right though. He wanted to tour Europe before something bad happens.
You say you're not a political guy, but you play in hardcore punk bands, isn't that kind of a oxymoron?
It's all in the music man. I love the music and the aggression. I love playing abrasive music, it gets my blood flowing. Hardcore got me where I am right now. When I joined Will to Live back in 2005 that opened up the doors to going on my first tour and then introducing me to the rest of the hardcore scene throughout the states and getting my bands up there. I had a band called In Disgust and we did pretty well. I'm really thankful for everything the scene has done for me. It's about making the right decisions too. For me it's all about music and the scene. Everybody's so close to each other, it's like friends and family, that's what it's all about.
What do you love so much about music?
Ever since my Dad first introduced me to it when I was little I just fell in love with it. He's the reason why I'm doing this. He took me to my first concert when I was three years old, Cinderella and Judas Priest. It went on from there with Van Halen. I even saw Pink Floyd in 94. I was like, I'm going to do something like that, I want to be involved with music. I knew I wanted to play guitar or drums. When I first got on the drum set I felt like I knew what I was doing, I knew it was a gift and I had to do something with it and do something with it. I grew up in a trailer. When we first moved into a house in 2000 I got my first drum set and we got going. I played my first show in 2002, I was 16. Here I am 14 years later touring all over the world, taking all of the opportunities coming towards me, that's what it's all about. Life's too short man.
Last words of wisdom?
Be there for your friends and family when they need you the most, go with your guy and your heart, that's what life's all about.
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