Punk can be political and aggressive but also be fast and fun; offering us refuge in its high-speed, three-chord tunes. Toronto's self-proclaimed surf-punk upstarts Hobo Lord do this fun kind of punk very well: think Ramones but on a garbage wave, riding across Lake Ontario. The video for the band's lead single "Someone Is Coming" is an homage, or more accurately a parody, of The Replacements anti-video for "Bastards of Young." The Replacements iconic black and white video doesn't show a singular face, but does give us a middle finger, a person relaxing and generally just living. In Hobo Lord's video, we have the opposite: the band—comprised of bassist Dan Scarfone, drummer Adam Kolubinski, and vocalist and guitarist Sebastian Freeman—is revealed one by one in a classic next day hangover situation via one long continuous shot. It was filmed on a camcorder instead of a digital camera and features hazy commercial text jutting through a scene that steadily pulls back to reveal the chaos. The video's meaning is in its meaninglessness.Hobo Lord's debut record, the aptly titled Sweaty Already, drops Oct. 7 via Talking Skull Records. Watch the greasy mess below and read our interview with the band:Noisey: What is about The Replacements that made you want to pay homage?Adam Kolubinski:It's kinda funny because none of us are huge Replacements fans, but we all really love that video in particular. It's clean, simple, cheap as fuck, and we always considered it sort of an "anti-video." It came out around the time MTV was just getting off the ground and artists were producing these big budget, blockbuster, technicolour music videos. Then this thing comes around and basically shows a dude having a smoke on his couch, blasting the tune. No faces. No choreographed dancing. Just a big middle finger to the establishment. But I think by us parodying it, we've attempted to make a sort of "anti-anti-video." We're not making any kind of comment or statement about the music world in 2016. We don't take ourselves seriously enough to do something like that.Using a 20-year-old camcorder is an interesting tech choice for this. Does that suggest anything about the kind of style or era of your music or personalities?
Kolubinski: Not necessarily. We're not really into crafting a "thing" for ourselves that's tied to any specific style or era. We just "do us" as much as we possibly can. The reasons we shot direct to video tape were 1) We had a camcorder at our disposal via our director, Tim Moore and 2) we didn't want our video to look polished and shiny because we are anything but polished and shiny.
Dan Scarfone: VHS tapes look like garbage and we love garbage.Do we know what happened the night before that led to this messy, hungover morning?
Scarfone: A level 12 Trash Tsunami caused by a band of debaucherous revellers washed over our crash pad (i.e. Adam's own house he willingly trashed to bring this baby to life.)Can you tell us a bit about your debut record coming out in a couple of weeks? You're a brand new. What are your hopes and dreams for this garbage wave?
Kolubinski: We are super stoked about our debut record. We took a year or so to write it and three days to record it. 11 songs in three days. That's exactly what we're about: keeping things unfussy, fast, and furious. The result is 26 minutes of exceptionally catchy and twitchy Trash Thrash. We like making up our own genre terms because it keeps us cool and hip with the youths. We just want the kids to have a good time and to play loud, smarmy music for loud, smarmy people. Our live show goes over pretty well and people seem to dig what we're up to, so if anything hopefully this gem of a record gets us on more stages.Hobo Lord's release show is Oct. 7 at the Silver Dollar Room in Toronto. Sarah MacDonald does not ride a garbage wave. Follow her on Twitter.
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Kolubinski: Not necessarily. We're not really into crafting a "thing" for ourselves that's tied to any specific style or era. We just "do us" as much as we possibly can. The reasons we shot direct to video tape were 1) We had a camcorder at our disposal via our director, Tim Moore and 2) we didn't want our video to look polished and shiny because we are anything but polished and shiny.
Dan Scarfone: VHS tapes look like garbage and we love garbage.Do we know what happened the night before that led to this messy, hungover morning?
Scarfone: A level 12 Trash Tsunami caused by a band of debaucherous revellers washed over our crash pad (i.e. Adam's own house he willingly trashed to bring this baby to life.)Can you tell us a bit about your debut record coming out in a couple of weeks? You're a brand new. What are your hopes and dreams for this garbage wave?
Kolubinski: We are super stoked about our debut record. We took a year or so to write it and three days to record it. 11 songs in three days. That's exactly what we're about: keeping things unfussy, fast, and furious. The result is 26 minutes of exceptionally catchy and twitchy Trash Thrash. We like making up our own genre terms because it keeps us cool and hip with the youths. We just want the kids to have a good time and to play loud, smarmy music for loud, smarmy people. Our live show goes over pretty well and people seem to dig what we're up to, so if anything hopefully this gem of a record gets us on more stages.Hobo Lord's release show is Oct. 7 at the Silver Dollar Room in Toronto. Sarah MacDonald does not ride a garbage wave. Follow her on Twitter.