Kamikaze Roadrunners

This is my first cover. I sang "We're Only Gonna Die" by @badreligionband in my first band, 'Revere', with friends I'd grown up with, Scott, Grant and Mark.

Out today on @bandcamp - just in time for #bandcampfridays

In the years since, Scott has died, now so has my brother. I recorded this cover the night before my brother died.

He got me into this band, along with many more. The first time he played them to me, he said they sounded like Iron Maiden. That band got him into guitar. Even though Jono got a doctorate in the 16th Century music of the Ottoman Court, he would also send me songs by Black Sabbath and the Satanic Surfers. He loved punk and metal as much as he loved middle eastern music. In some ways, metal gets ideas from that region. Certainly some of the modes they use.

Jono also funnily told me that the hijaz mode is one of 200 modes in Maqam music. That's the one The Offspring made famous in 'Come Out and Play.' He said how people called that the 'Arabic scale', but there are 200 modes, not just the one. I'll always remember that and many other music lessons from him. I might release a recording of a song he wrote that we used to play together one day. His latest band were performing it and likely still are. I hope so.

I've kept liking this song for its timeless condemnation of our violence and myopia as a species. They called it 'short-sighted arrogance' in another song too.

Thanks Greg Graffin for the amazing song.

Early Man walked away
As Modern Man took control
Their minds weren't all the same
To conquer was his goal
So he built his great empire
And he slaughtered his own kind
Then he died a confused man
Killed himself with his own 'mind'

We're only gonna die
From our own arrogance

#antiwar #worldpeacenow #protestpunk #punkandpolitics