Barely Eagle’s new record is laden with hatred which is ironic because the Barely Eagle guys are some of the chummiest people.
  I don’t think it’s fake.

  They’ve been friends since grade school, and have made music together since the age of 18.

  You have possibly seen one or many of them perform in Go Evol Shiki!, Deerhead, Church of the Red Museum, Muscle Puzzle or Nick Toldford & Co. over the years.

  Tom Butler, who pens many of their misanthropic anthems, is a friendly radio personality on CD102.5 who hosts speciality radio programs Frontstage and the Independent Playground

  Their album will be released on the 1980 Records imprint based in Chicago.

  Barely Eagle has two release parties scheduled.

  One at Carabar June 13th.The other at Spacebar June 27th.

  Although, Barely Eagle are pleasant in person, musically one could reference the Murder City Devils or Shellac when describing their music.

  So I figured with so much hate in the air, why not have a polite banter regarding gang murders, and other moments of hostility.

The situation in Waco. Do you think people should have been arrested?

Tom Butler: I think some of them should have been arrested. Absolutely.

Ricky Thompson: Everyone likes a gang-fight.

Tom: Everyone does like a gang fight.

   I read an interview on Vice interviewing a gang expert who was kinda astounded that there were over 100 weapons recovered. You had 170 some people arrested. If this had happened in some major metropolitan area with two or three separate groups that were not fat white dudes; people would’ve been Buggin’ Out.

  I think there would be mass panic.

  With these guys.. bikers are more of a curiosity. People are like ‘bikers shooting each other in Waco.’

B   ut that being said;  I think there were dudes, that were just pulling up, that were swept up because they were wearing the patch. I don’t know what you do.

  Someone should have gotten arrested you shouldn’t shoot people in public. Or shoot at other people in public.

I agree.

If you found out they were playing a Barely Eagle song played during a murder such as that: How would you feel?

Bill Jankowski: If we found out it was on the jukebox while this big biker gang fight was going down? I guess, good?! I mean, somebody was playing our record.

Ricky: We don’t make pretty music. There is nothing happy about it. It seems fitting to me.

If you had to release an official statement. What would you say?

Bill: Wow?

Tom: WTF is going in Waco, Texas.

Bill: How does someone in Waco, Texas know about us would be my official statement.

Tom: I would be psyched that our record was on a jukebox in Waco, Texas.

Bill: It’s tragic that went down but somebody bought our record and put it on the jukebox.

You guys have played in a lot of bands. Is there your first full length released on record format.

Bill: Full length vinyl? Yeah. We’ve put out a couple seven inches.

Tom: A seven inch. Some cassettes. A couple of CDs back there. This would be out first piece of vinyl.

Is this your best?

Tom: This is the music I am most stoked on. We have been playing music together since I was 18. We are all in out late 30’s now. As corny and cliche as it is. This is the best music we have made.

When did you like each other the least?

Tom: Right now. There were times in the Church of the Red Museum I wanted to kill everybody. I would say around then.

Bill: We’ve pretty much hated each other equal since.

It comes through in the music.

Tom: Those guys are my family. In general, we always get along. There is always one guy who is pissed off about something. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong.

  But there is always one guy.

You have a song about wanting to kill the kids in California. Which kids: young black kids in Compton?

Tom: No, No. That song is about a guy named Mike Copeland that I used to go to High School with. Most of the songs we write are about something that pissed me off one day or another. That particular song. I got into a dumb facebook argument like everyone other facebook argument you get in.

  This is a guy I went to high school with. He was just being unreasonable.

I got pissed off about it. I can’t go kill him in real life because I am not a biker. But I can kill him in a song.

  That’s what I do. I kill Motherfuckers in songs

Your name is Ricky, That song by Skid Row: “Ricky was a young boy..”

18 and life. How influential is that on your music.

Ricky. That’s really good question. It hits me right there (touches heart.)

I started talking about myself in the third person when I was in Muscle Puzzle...

  I think there is a lyric in one of the songs, that says “I am the child.”

  I don’t say I am the child anymore. I saw Ricky as the child.

It made me like myself a little more.