Quadiliacha - The Truth Can Now Be Told

Here is the download: Quadiliacha Discography

1-4: from Butt Nasty Business Starring Nasty Ronnie split 7" with Tres Kids
5-16: from Es Muerto CD/10"
17: from Totally Fucking the 80's Compilation
18: from Bllleeeaaauuurrrggghhh A Music War 7"
19-47: from S/T CD (The Purple CD)
48-58: from Surprise and Vamanos A La Playa demos

7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 also appeared on Keeper of the Seven Bassplayers Japanese 7"
19, 25, 39 also appeared on We Can Never Die split 7" with Levelhead
34, 35, 36 also appeared on A Boy And His Car split 7" with Broken
21 also appeared on Unforeseen Disasters compliation 7"
20, 23 also appeared on Youth For Justice compilation CD
27 also appeared on Dead Fred: It was me that did it! compilation CD
30 also appeared on Kamikaze attacked America, Yankee bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki compilation CD
31 also appeared on Attaining the Supreme compilation CD
32 also appeared on ABC's of Punk Rock compilation CD
37, 38 also appeared on Surprise demo

Quadiliacha is the proverbial elephant in the room if you are talking about Atlanta music in the nineties. These guys took their lumps, played more shitty shows, drove more miles, and pushed harder than almost every band in this town. They also played amazing shows, and had a great time doing it, which is all we can hope to do. I won't go on and on about Quadiliacha, because I will leave it to everyone else and their comments, but I conducted an interview with Will Greene back on October 1 about Quadiliacha and their legacy. I hope you enjoy it, and keep in mind this was about 1:00 in the morning after a show, so he was a little drunk by this point. He wanted me to let everyone know that in case he comes off sounding like a dick. Also, it can be difficult to translate Will's conversational style into words, as there are a lot of random sound effects and slang thrown in everywhere, but I did my best:

The discussion begins around the various Quadiliacha releases:

WG: The 10” was recorded at Morris Sound in Tampa – Steve Heritage from Assuck said “come down here to record” and he was becoming a good friend of mine, Greg’s and everybody’s.

At the time, I booked them a couple of times in Athens and in Atlanta, actually at your old house (the Driverdome).

JJ: Yeah, I saw them there.

WG: I booked that show with Phoofer (sp.), which was me, Greg and Greg’s little brother, and Meir.

JJ: It seems like it was always you, Greg and Clay in these bands and projects, like when I first saw the Carbonas play.

WG: Actually it was BJ and Greg, he had started the Carbonas with Greg and Dave and Jeremy, but two months later I moved to Atlanta before I went to Japan, and they were like “we’re booting BJ and you’re in the band”. It was like “whatever, just teach me the songs” so I ended up writing stuff and helping them out and enjoying it and we put out that first LP of Carbonas stuff, and then I quit and Clay took my place.

(we start talking a little about the various Quadiliacha releases). The Tres Kids split 7” - that was the last thing we put out.


Basically everything before 1995 is on that CD (the purple CD).

There’s a couple of songs from the demos that didn’t make it onto the purple CD, and there’s a couple of songs on the purple CD that aren’t on anything else, and it’s just stupid fucking shit, Dag Nasty cover, there’s a bunch of dumb shit we did like a joke.

JJ: I remember all the end stuff. It was like a side project.

WG: Yeah, Dead Ewok, it’s all just jokes. And there was Catastrophe, which did Catastrophic Thrash Dismemberment, which is about banging your head so hard it explodes. That was written by Greg and Clay. Mat Hunter was obsessed with doing a Danzig cover, so we did a Samhain cover “Kiss of Steel” mixed with “We” by Misfits which is totally gay. Then we did a Dag Nasty cover, which is the worst. Justin actually chose that one. Justin McNoot.

JJ: The original bass player.

WG: All of the purple CD was recorded with Issa Diao, between the old one (Sleepless Nights Studios) in Candler Park and the one in Decatur that’s now a fancy restaurant.

JJ: Actually, the building is gone.

WG: What was the other band that was there?

JJ: I don’t remember, but they were making music for commercials that they would sell, like little jingles.

WG: That was a weird place.

JJ: So it was always you and Greg and Clay, and I know of four bassplayers, is that true?

WG: We had, of course the Japanese 7” is called “keeper of the seven bassplayers” because there were actually seven people that rolled through.

At this point now it’s eight because in Richmond where we did that last show for ever and ever, we got hoodwinked into doing that fest up there and a guy named Jesse who plays in the Bukkake Boys, he played in the Frantic, he’s a younger guy but he picked up the baton as number eight. But seven – who are the four you know of?

JJ: Justin (McNeight), Mathis (Hunter), Mark (Walters), I didn’t know him at the time, but he emailed me with technical stuff, and the guy from Tres Kids right? No, the guy from Pink Panties?

WG: No, who are you thinking about?

JJ: I thought you got one guy to tour with.

WG: The guy you were thinking of was Robbie from Five by Nine, that was 1995. So it was Justin, Mat Hunter, Ken Saluzzi for one show, Matt Monroe, I played bass on recording, Mark Walters, I’m wondering who the other one was. I played bass for the Tres Kids, because their bassplayer was popping too many pills and they told him to go away.

So we (Tres Kids) were up in Binghamton, NY, 3rd show in after taking over for bass and we show up, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Binghamton, it’s a big piece of crap on a mountain in New York state. It’s a town nestled in these mountains and Tres Kids show up. Quadiliacha and Tres Kids played the night before in Syracuse, and Quadiliacha went home and I stayed on with Tres Kids to finish up, and we end up at this kid’s house booking the show, and it was totally the worst horrible tour story you can think of. It’s not even a club, it’s not even a space, it’s some guy’s house who lives with his mom and he’s like “uhhhh…” but he’s not even gonna have the balls to say the show is off, he’s says “well, I guess you can play in my basement”. In his mom’s basement, and it’s this new house on top of this mountain, so we already see it and we’re like “fuuuck”. So we go buy some cases of beer and sit on top of this mountain and drink until this kid is like “go ahead and play” in front of him and his sister, and like two of his friends that he called. Tres Kids go, and they start getting naked, crazy naked, weird naked, and his mom comes down while we were all naked running around, and his mom freaks out and goes “I’m calling the police!” So we had to run, and it’s so stupid because we weren’t doing anything bad, like taking a crap in somebody’s hand, we were just running around like “bloooolooooloooo!” (Will Greene sound effect), so we had to pack the van real quick and leave, just because his mom came down to witness her son’s debacle and seeing a band they didn’t know get naked in his basement. That was Tres Kids, but no Tres Kids were ever in Quadiliacha.

JJ: Did you ever leave a show after you got there, and just bailed without playing?

WG: We did that in Cleveland once, we showed up and they were fucking weird, it was a weird scene and we left. In Seattle we showed up once, and it was another band that had set it up for us, and their van broke down in Idaho and they had to go home and they were going to meet us in California. So there were about two shows that they weren’t going to be able to make and they said “go on and go”, so we went and they were crap. We showed up to one and it was at this horrible/nasty/doo doo infested punk house, and it’s like “ughhhhh”. I’m not turning my nose up, but these guys are like “uh…yeah I guess there’s a show”. See ya – I’d rather sit at Kenny Rogers Roasters, or whatever.

JJ: Would you even tell them, or would you just say “yeah, we’ll be back in a minute” and just leave?

WG: That’s what we would do, you know us. What are you going to do? Cause you’re going to get in some kind of confrontation. The first time we toured was out of high school, it was ’95 and we had met you in ’93. It was ’95 and we had graduated Senior year, Justin had quit and we brought Robbie from Five by Nine.

JJ: That was after Mathis.

WG: That was after Mathis – you know what, that was not true. Mathis was recording with us when I was in UGA.

JJ: I think it was in ’96 because I remember going to his last show with you guys at BLTs, and I remember Jeff J. Jawk pegged you with a cup or something, and there was this really intense moment where you saw him peg you, and you just dropped your guitar in the middle of the song and went straight out into the audience to beat the shit out of him, and Jeff bolted or something, and there was this classic moment when you got up on stage, got on the mic and went into this rant about Jeff, just screaming at him, which is always so entertaining when the singer will go into a rant in the middle of a song. I thought it was hilarious.

WG: He needed it. He grew up with us, but he could pick the fight, man. That’s what he could do. That’s the funny thing about tonight, watching our old buddies play, watching Gray play with you. That’s amazing to see our dumb fat assess up there still playing.

JJ: I don’t know how much longer it can go. I guess as long as somebody will give us a show. That’s cool, otherwise I will just be playing your house or something.

WG: That’s how I see it. I’d rather do that anyway, fuck that bunch of bullshit. I don’t need a bunch of club shows anyway.

So, we did the first tour. The first tour was with Levelhead, and it was a complete bomb. We had a couple of records out, we just took our balls out and went on tour. We love Levelhead, we used to play half our shows, total of everything with Levelhead.

JJ: Levelhead, to me they were more like, really good, but more traditional pop punk band.

WG: Yeah, but they ripped it up. It wasn’t this kind of Screeching Weasel-ey kind of stuff, I don’t know, I hate to use names. Jay Neubert did it his own way, in such a good way, the way he played guitar, and they fit in with all of our stuff. We had a great mix of things going on, I think, back even in Somber Reptile times.

JJ: What I was saying was, when you listen to Levelhead, you hear some Jawbreaker, and other stuff, but when you listen to Quadiliacha, you hear Quadiliacha. It’s like you were melodic but at the same time you brought in all these crazy bands. You were on comps with Blownapart Bastards, and In-Humanity, so you’re taking those kind of influences, and making it melodic and not being dramatic (I start rambling).

WG: Greg started putting out a fanzine about grindcore when he was in fifth grade. He was big into demo trading. They were friends (Greg and Justin) before I met them. I met them in 10th grade, when I moved to the school we all went to. We got to be friends, and I was already getting into a lot of DIY stuff, I had bought copies of Maximum Rock n’ Roll but I got into that and then Greg just blew my mind. We got into a whole bunch of stuff together. Greg, Clay and Justin were playing in this heavy, heavy-metal band, Carcass style metal when they were in 10th grade called Precosthemus (sp.). Then we started doing the stuff that Quadiliacha was doing. But as it grew, we fell into a lot of different arenas because I was listening to DIY, Citizens Arrest, Gorilla Biscuits but at the same time I was listening to Wedding Present and Samiam and stuff like that. Which Greg disdains, he really doesn’t like that kind of stuff. Even though he likes pop, of course, now. He is just very particular, honestly, and I like the grind and I like the aggressive music and I like the melodic and that’s how I would introduce the songs. Greg is an aggressive player, period, especially on drums. Clay is hyper melodic, but really metal-y, of course with his guitaring and that’s what we could take advantage from him. The combination of the four fucking weirdos. The bassplayer Mark actually, the problem is, if you can’t tell, is not that the bassplayers didn’t have their own input or whatever, but the bassplayers rotated, and they just needed to figure out what they were comfortable with playing. I don’t think, I hope I never treated them that way. Justin wrote several of the earlier songs, but of course he just lost interest and then of course went into Thenceforward. Which was it’s own little beast. That’s a funny thing, I think if anything makes Justin cringe, it might be that.

JJ: I’ll have to ask him sometime.

WG: Yeah, but the thing about the band, it just petered out, you know, because I was disinterested in writing songs for that band anymore.

JJ: You did it like, four years into college? How far into college?

WG: Started in ’93 and ended in January ’99.

JJ: So you graduated college by that time?

WG: No, I didn’t graduate from college until 2000. I was on the five year plan too. But that’s when it started getting bigger and bigger, and that’s when we really stopped playing Atlanta. And we only toured. Starting in ’95, we did Summer of ’95 and we did a week or two in the wintertime. That following winter I think we did a week with Hickey in the Southeast, and then the following Spring we did two weeks. We went on one with Mathis – I’ve got dirty stories about Mathis. Something dirty happened to Mathis the same night I was sleeping in the bed with Greg in the back room, and I had my first and only wet dream (laughter), in the bed, with Greg King. And it embarrasses him. I don’t know if it embarrassed me or not, because I wasn’t dreaming about him so it doesn’t bother me. But I woke up and I had to confess, and to this day it really scares the shit out of him.

JJ: Gives him the chills.

WG: Gives him the Wills.

JJ: I have this theory about bands in high school. It’s very difficult to have a band in high school and make it last through college. There is a difference between a high school band and a college band.

WG: You know what was happening to us when we were in high school, we already had a comp out in Kentucky that was a CD with 10 bands from Japan and 10 bands from the US put out by MCR and Sound Pollution. We had the comp out in Savannah that had In-Humanity, Blownapart Bastards, Passive Fist comp. We were on Attaining the Supreme with you guys. You guys were doing that.

JJ: It was right as we were graduating high school that Car Vs. Driver started, but I look at the Midget Farmers, that was my high school band.

WG: We were on the level of Car Vs. Driver while we were in high school, as how I would put it, if we were talking about the two of us. We were already putting out national stuff at the time, and we were already doing out of town shows before we graduated high school. And then when we graduated high school, we already had a record coming out in Japan, and then in Germany. Following in ’95, when I went to college that first year. That’s why I studied Japanese, and when you end up looking at it, that’s why I went to Japan. We were just going at it by the fucking throat, and Car vs. Driver was as well, that’s why you guys are still a household name around here. Because you guys killed it, and I guess that’s what I was going for.

JJ: It was always US tours that you did.

WG: We went into Canada once, for a couple of days. We were planning a serious Japanese tour in ’98 when I was just … fuck it. I just started working.

JJ: It’s hard to keep the inertia.

WG: Well, there were just several things coming down at once for me, and it was no skin off anyone else’s back, really. Well Clay, I think Clay was pretty bummed out. If anything, you should really talk to Clay, he has got a lot to say I’m sure. And stories. Clay picked up strays a lot, on tour. We picked up Sloth – you remember him. He was my buddy, and that’s how we met up with him, that’s a crazy story.

We had gotten in touch with Sloth, and he was living at his grandmother’s house in Terry Hill outside of Lancaster in the middle of Amish banana land. It is what you see in the movies, it is fucking Witness. They’re raising barns out there and shit. So we show up and Sloth is like “Hey!!!”, and we’re just standing by the car and this short school bus shows up, and this Asian dude gets out and Sloth goes “we’re taking you guys to dinner – Get In”. His Asian buddy is like a motorcycle racer, and this van is reconfigured for his bikes. So we are like “all right”, and we get in there and it’s Sloth and this dude and that’s all that’s in there, and we’re driving hauling ass down these really narrow old Dutch Pennsylvanian weirdo roads. It’s like 5 or 6 in the evening, and these Amish men and women are out on their bikes. We’re hauling down this road and they’re like “Weeieigh!” (unintelligible screaming) Sloth is crazier than shit, and there was like an emergency hatch, and he’s hanging out and they’d come up on these Amish guys and he’d go like “blaalala!” screaming at them, and they would fall off, and Clay was dying. I was just like “uhhh” (in shock). We weren’t even 21 yet, I was 19 and thinking “is this for real?” So we end up at the Olive Garden, and there’s a whole car full of his other friends, and they’re grabbing each others asses and being silly. At that point in my age, I was pretty silly, but I wasn’t silly like that, like just didn’t give a shit whatsoever. We get into this Olive Garden, and they’re like “seat us in the middle!” So they put us in the middle, and the bread and salad starts coming, and they’re just fucking throwing it everywhere, and we’re like “what, fuck, what’s going on?”, and it’s a funny lesson to me in how much I don’t give a fuck, and it didn’t like a couple years later, not just to be stupid, and it’s not disrespectfulness, but it’s just – have a fucking good time! You know, and these guys are laughing, being silly, and the pasta starts coming out and it’s going all over the fucking walls. And they start chucking water at each other, and they’re like shooting their cokes at each other, and I can’t remember exactly who it was, and I would say it was Sloth but I don’t know, but somebody took one of their glasses and throws the water across the table, and the glass slips out of their hand, hits the table, breaks, lands on the guy’s leg and cuts a gash literally an inch and a half, two inches long, and he stood up and it just opened, like in slow motion. And he gets up and looks at it and the blood starts gushing, and he goes “waaahaaahaaa”, and starts laughing. We’re like “oh my fucking god”, and he goes “I don’t even have health insurance, you gotta be fucking kidding me”. And the motorcycle guy says “don’t worry, I got a first aid kit”. So they take him out, and while everybody is skateboarding in the parking lot, he just stitches this guys’ leg up right in the fucking parking lot in this dirty old motorcycle bus. And that was awesome.

That was like our second year of touring, and by the fourth year I was a much better man, I could be stitching up Clay’s leg, we were being dumbasses. You know, it’s just funny to Greg and their stories about touring now in the Carbonas, it’s so horrible some of the shit they end up doing. We were kids – we were little! Think of Car vs. Driver, if you look at it now, you guys were kids then. The fact that we were able to get that done then, at that age is even still to me, people go “that was impressive”. It was what we were doing, and in our hearts, it was what we had to do. And it sounds cheesy to say it that way, but that’s what we had, that was the time. I don’t think I need to get that back or whatever, but it’s funny to see people who have that time nowadays, and they’re able to go out and tour, and they’re hitting it hard, and it’s more business. To them it means “we’ve gotta do this” or something, but we didn’t have that feeling. We really did get to do it DIY.

JJ: Bands back then, that’s all you did, and that was all you could hope for. There are bands now that are around for six months and all of a sudden they can become the biggest thing in the world. With the information available, and everything, it’s totally different. You can go out there, and in the back of your head you can think “this band could blow up”. When we were in bands, nothing was going to fucking blow up. You just drive to the next town, you have a good time, and that was your summer vacation. It’s better than working at the fucking movie theater. Or Pizza Hut.

WG: I worked at the movie theater, so did you. Me and Greg worked at that General Cinema at Parkside for like 2 years… The funny thing about the reunion stuff – it wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about nothing, it was kind of a combination of all the above, but I tell you what, before we stopped playing if we played a show anywhere in Georgia it would have been nothing. If we played a show in Albany, New York it would have been like the show that was our reunion show. When we played in different cities back then it would be big, and that’s why we stopped playing Atlanta. We play Atlanta like nine years later and it’s like crazy, you know? I’m really happy about it, it was great, and people were saying “you should keep playing”. But the thing is, I want to do new things, you know, and to rehash on some old energy is a lot of fun for one night. You’ve done that before with Car Vs. Driver, the reunion.

JJ: Yeah, but it was almost like there was this pressure, like you know you only have this one chance to play it right.

WG: I feel good about what happened in Atlanta. We did one in Florida and that one went well as well, but then we did this one in Richmond, and I broke six strings, but we didn’t get grumpy, I just jumped out in the middle of the crowd and went, like nuts, and played basically half of a full set. I felt like I ripped people off, people came up to me and were like “I flew from New York to see it” and I’m like “I’m so sorry”, and they were like “no, it was good to see you”, but there’s no way I can take that for legit, but then I can’t worry about it because when you boil it all down, and it sounds kind of nasty or whatever, but it is kind of a weird ego trip, and I should be happy that that person is still happy and just say “thank you, I appreciate that”. Because I shouldn’t be doing this anyway, because this band doesn’t even exist anymore. We were just invited to play because they guy doing kind of talked us into doing it. It’s that teetering edge of feeling like you just ripped somebody off and going “well, thanks. I appreciate it”. You feel like an old crap for breaking six strings, and that person flew from wherever they flew from. But the thing is, what I learned about doing it is that you can’t worry about it. It’s fucking fun, and that’s one of the hardest things I think about when playing music again, and I’ve seen it bite me in the face with the recent band I was playing with. If you start taking things too fucking seriously, it will boil up on you. And you know what, I would much rather be playing someone’s house, than being the next big thing or whatever. I want to be getting into different types of music, and it’s good for all of us, for you playing in the different bands you’ve played in, for me playing in different bands. Greg – Carbonas have been around for six years and he’s starting a new project, and I’m like “good, good, good!”

Lastly, Mark Walters, the final bassplayer from Quadiliacha, had the following stories, etc. to relate:

One of my favorite stories was from tour, I think summer of '96 but I'm not positive, when we were driving and Clay started getting really antsy in the back.You could tell something was bothering him, but wasn't exactly sure what. Finally he just blurted out... "pull over!... hurry!". We're in the middle of absolutely no where in the woods. Greg pulls to the side and Clay jumps out of the van before we've even pulled to a complete stop. We end up next to a hill and Clay goes running as fast as possible down the hill and hides behind a bush near the bottom. Will ends up throwing him zines so that he can "clean up". We even had a picture (I hope Will still has it) of Clay's arm coming up above a bush with a zine in his hand.

We've played some great shows... I'm sure Will can fill you in more on our Goat Farm show with Greg and Clay chasing a goat around.

I'll definitely try to think of some more. Its been so long, but I think the memories will be there forever.

Here is the artwork for the Es Muerto CD/10":

This is the artwork from the self-titled CD, which was a compilation of many different odds and ends that they had recorded up to that point:

Here is the artwork from the split 7" with Tres Kids, which was their last release:



Here is the artwork from the Japanese 7", which has several different inserts for some reason:


Here is the artwork from the split 7" with Levelhead:

Here is the artwork from the split 7" with Broken:

Here is the artwork from the Bllleeeeaaauuurrrrgghhh! 7" compilation:

Here is the artwork from the Unforeseen Disasters compilation 7":

Finally, here is the artwork from their first two demos: