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WILD IN THE STREETS
PHOTO BY ATIBA JEFFERSON
Legendary Circle Jerks vocalist Keith Morris hasn’t mellowed a bit as he celebrates 40 years of ‘Group Sex’ on stage BY IDA V. ESKAMANI
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Though the pandemic delayed their efforts, Circle Jerks o you know you’re making history while you’re making history? According to Keith Morris, frontman of are now embarking on their first North American tour in foundational American hardcore band Circle Jerks, 15 years to mark the four-decade milestone. Morris will be joined on stages around the country by band co-founder Greg “Oh, hell, no.” Hetson (also of Bad Religion), Zander Morris calls Orlando Weekly from his Schloss and Joey Castillo. home in Southern California while finCIRCLE JERKS “It was the blind leading the blind ishing up a lunch of rancheros nachos, … just being carefree and careless, and with half-joking concerns about indiNegative Approach, not worrying about anything, and just gestion. “It could be time for Tums. Municipal Waste blasting and making a bunch of noise,” And I hope that it’s not time for Pepto 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18 says Morris of making the record. “We Bismol. That would be disastrous … The Plaza Live were just playing the music that we love. we’re all leaving tomorrow morning to 425 N. Bumby Ave. And we were angry, we were frustrated, fly out to Baltimore. So it couldn’t be a plazaliveorlando.org we were depressed … we just wanted to worse time!” $29.50-$49.50 blow stuff up.” For better or for worse, it’s certainly Morris looks back at that period of the been a long time coming. 2020 marked Circle Jerks as the band having to make 40 years since the release of Circle Jerks’ debut album Group Sex, 15 minutes and 14 tracks of it all up as they went along, career-wise. “There’s a certain mentality where you just, you play it as pure, relentless, chaotic defiance. Social commentary paired with political overtones and sarcastic nihilism, tracks like it lays, you take it as it comes on,” reflects Morris. “We didn’t “Beverly Hills,” “World Up My Ass” and “Live Fast Die really have any kind of management, you know, telling us Young” are engraved in hardcore stone, anthems for misfits where we get to point B, starting at point A, you’ve got to do all of these things in-between. We had nobody telling us that of past and present.
… we learned everything that we were doing by doing it.” It’s not a term we use lightly, but Morris is a legend who has seen it all and lived to tell the tale(s). Morris is an original member of another influential punk band, Black Flag, cofounding the band with guitarist Greg Ginn. Morris left that band to form Circle Jerks with Hetson, and found sanctuary in what would later be recognized as a legendary SoCal punk scene. “We grew up in a community where we were eventually hated by just about everybody in our community. And a lot of them couldn’t wait until the police ran us out of town,” says Morris. “We were thought of as the guys that were ‘contributing to the delinquency’ of all the young people in our town.” Decades later, Morris is still the resolutely defiant, determined person that formed Circle Jerks. He jokes that he’s effectively a 10-year-old living in a 66-year-old’s body. “Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I have to like, follow all of the adult rules,” says Morris. On the politics of our times, he’s got clarity rooted in compassion: “The mask mandates and the vax cards. It’s just for protection. It’s just, it’s what you do for your fellow man.” Morris is also immunocompromised himself. Living with diabetes, the pandemic is personal to him; yet he also sees the macro powers at play. “Our government has us divided because they need us to be divided, so that they can pull off all of their bullshit,” seethes Morris. “All of this last-minute, creepy-ass bullshit. … Am I allowed to use adult language?” We assured him “ass” was OK in Orlando Weekly. We just tell them to get back when they tell us how to act.
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DEC. 15-21, 2021 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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