SCATTERBOX - Idaho Punk Going Full Throttle ! (USA - HardCore/Punk - Interview with Scott, Ryan, Sean, Tom & Mark).

Hello ! Can you introduce yourself and tell us how it all began for you - your encounter with this musical universe, what appealed to you, what fascinated you and what made you want to get into music? 
Scott: Hi, I’m Scott and I play drums. My parents were heavily into music as a kid.  I basically just listened to what they had in their music collection, a lot of top-40 radio stuff and jazz music. When I moved from Portland to Idaho when I was around 10 years old, my cousin introduced me to punk rock and thrash metal. I was hooked and never looked back.  I always was fascinated with drums and have ADD, so I spent a lot of time in class constantly tapping on my desk with headphones on. I would constantly annoy my classmates, trying to decipher the drum parts of songs by Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, and others. I didn’t even have my own drum set until I was 18. 
Tom: I’m Tom.  I grew up on classic rock, and listened to it throughout my younger years. The new stuff I was hearing on the radio just wasn’t appealing to me and the internet didn’t exist. As I got into middle school, I started hearing more punk and hardcore music and it just kinda grabbed me. It was high energy, it was honest, and it felt like it had something important to say that you couldn’t hear anywhere else.
Mark: My name is Mark and I play guitar in Scatterbox. There was always music in my house and once I got into high school, local bands started popping up. Watching bands was fun, but It looked way more fun being on the stage.
Sean: I’m Sean, as long as I can remember my dad was always listening to music. In the car, playing records at home, there was always something playing. I got a Walkman for my birthday one year and would stay up late listening to music and recording songs off the radio. I went to my first local show at 15 and was instantly hooked. I started playing guitar a few years later and have been doing it ever since.
Ryan: Hi, I’m Ryan,  bassist for scatterbox. I remember in grade school my mom would always play music while she cleaned the house. Crosby stills nash and young, the eagles, Pink Floyd etc. I think it helped her deal with the mundane tasks of adulthood. That always stuck with me, it’s like a cheat to get you through the days, no matter how shitty they can be. In the car, we listened to an am radio station that played nothing but old doo wop and rock and roll from the 50s. I loved that stuff way more than the cleaning music my mom would put on lol. That’s where my love for rock and roll began. I played a few different instruments in grade school and middle school, then in high school I discovered punk rock, it was perfect. It was like that 50s music on steroids. I knew I wanted to play it and i remember in middle school band, we had a bass player that played a really nice fender jazz and thought it was the coolest thing. Soon after I was able to get a squire bass and a small cab and just started jamming.     

 
 
What if I told you that you have to leave for a desert island in 5 minutes—you have no choice… except to take three albums with you… which ones, and why? Would you say that these were game-changers at some point in your life?
Tom:
NOMEANSNO "Wrong" : This album is fantastic throughout. Almost a blend of Jazz and Punk. Some of the most creative musical phrasing, unique harmonies and amazing lyrics. This band really showed me that the rules don’t apply.
THE POGUES "Hell’s Ditch" : Sure, "Rum Sodomy and the Lash" is arguably a better album, but this was my first introduction to the band. Shane’s vocals immediately caught my attention and his lyrics/songwriting won me over.
THE AGGROLITES "Dirty Reggae" : Im not going to a desert island without some Reggae, and these guys kill it.
Scott:
BAD BRAINS “I Against I” – I had the self-titled album and the “Rock for Light” and was a fan, but this record was a game-changer for me.  Bad Brains were already great musicians, but in my opinion this was a huge leap as far as more technical song writing goes, and really gave me a different perspective on how you could approach punk music. Amazing record.
FAITH NO MORE – “Angel Dust” – I head heard of them with that “Epic” video they did a couple of years prior and wasn’t really into it. I found Angel Dust in a cut-out bin on cassette at a record store for $3 and was intrigued by the album title and the cover art. I was blown away by how much different it was than they Faith No More I had heard before.  Not a punk record by any means, but there’s some hints of it here and there.  Just a dark and really well-written alternative record. Patton’s voice is all over the place on it too.
SKINNY PUPPY – “VIVI Sect VI” – I was always kind of interested in electronic music, but at the time I had really only heard mostly straight-forward dance stuff. This was my introduction to the band, and it really  opened my eyes to what was possible with electronic music. Bizarre, complicated, avant-garde multi-textural stuff with social and political lyrics. Such a great record.
Mark :
SLAYER "South Of Heaven",
UNIFORM CHOICE's "Screaming For Change"
and just pick a FUGAZI record at random. 
I was lucky to get to see all three.
Sean :
I would have to go with
THE CLASH "Combat Rock". It was one of the first records I really connected with and just listened to over and over.   
DESCENDENTS - "Somary". It was one of the first punk albums I ever heard. Skateboarding with friends and one of their older brothers had a boombox on the platform of the 1/2 pipe that was always playing music. I instantly took to the lyrics and the melodic poppy punk songs. This record was a huge influence on me in my teenage years.
Finally I have to go with JAWBREAKER "Unfun". I had heard a few of their 7” records and liked them, then got to see them play when I was 17 and it changed my life. I was just starting to teach myself how to play guitar and I would sit and listen to this record for hours trying to learn the songs.
Ryan : 
Oh man, kind of in a weird kick right now. Ask me this question in another month and this list would change!
I’m gonna cheat ever so slightly with the first one. 
SYMARIP¨SEVEN LETTERS & THE PYRAMIDS :  As far as I know, they released a bunch of singles under different names, all with seven letters. Just good, catchy, dirty reggae !
"3 Gnossienes And 3 Gymnopedies" by ERIK SATIE and IKUYO KAMIYA : I dunno what it is but it’s calming and soothing and something about it makes me curious and inquisitive.
BLOOD FOR BLOOD "Outlaw Anthems" : 'Cause sometimes you just gotta fuck shit up!


 
Tell me about the band... How you met - the current line-up - past experiences - and above all - WHY the need to form THIS band?
Tom: I had been back in town for a couple months after 4 years in the Marine Corps. Ryan and I were living together and he was wanting to start a band. The story goes pretty much the way Scott described. However, I had no intentions of being a permanent member. I thought I was just place holding until they found someone better. Apparently they didn’t, and hopefully they stopped looking.
Scott: Tom, Ryan and I are all original members.  We met back in middle and high school. Tom’s a couple of years older than Ryan and I graduated high school with Ryan.  Tom and Ryan were looking to start a band back in 2000.  I worked with a guy who was a mutual friend at a books/music/video store at the time. He told me that a couple of guys he knew were trying to get a punk band started and he knew I played drums.  He gave me Ryan and Tom’s number (they are brothers, it was their landline number).  I called it and realized it was Ryan and Tom, who I already knew.  I had no idea it was their phone number. Sean and Mark were long-time friends of ours, and they joined after a few of our friends who played guitar in previous years had been in the band before.  They’ve been the longest standing guitarists we’ve had in the band since. 
 After 25 years of doing this, we’ve had some great experiences, as well as some not-so-great ones.  Although a lot of them are kind of a blur to me as life comes at you fast and trying to also navigate normal day to day life, kids, day jobs, and so on. What I can definitely say though it that the good experiences definitely outweigh the bad. 
 As far as the need to form the band goes…we initially started this out of boredom and the need to express ourselves in some sort of constructive way.  We are in Idaho. If you are familiar with this state, the majority of it is pretty rural. We had, and still have, frustrations and plenty to say about whatever is happening on a local and global scale. This has always been a great way to get that out.  Besides that, we all grew up on and love punk rock and the DIY ethos behind it.  The first time we got into a room together to practice, we had our first two songs basically fully down that first night. It worked, and it worked well.  We knew that this isn’t something that happens that easily and well, so we ran with it.
Mark: I remember seeing the first show and Tom blowing fire in a very old and flammable building. Though mutual friends, I met the rest of the guys and after a few guitarists later I was asked to join the band. 
Sean: I met everyone in the fall of 2004, they were opening for a band (I think it was Zeke) that I was going to see and a mutual friend introduced us because Tom and Ryan both had old Vespas and so did I. We quickly became friends and a little over a year later they asked me to be in the band.
 
Describe your sound and explain why I should listen to YOUR band at all cost ?
Scott: It’s always been weird to have to describe this. I’ve always thought that if you are telling people that you sound like “this band or that band” that you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. When it boils down to it, we’re just a hardcore punk band with some thrash tendencies because we like to play fast.  We’ve just put all our influences into a blender and this is what came out of it. None of us are trained musicians, so we try to just put the ideas together until we are happy with it and hope other people like it too. We’re not saying that you HAVE to listen to our band, but you SHOULD listen to our band because you might find some differences between what we do apart from other bands. It’s possible you might find something that you like somewhere in there.
Tom: When we first started I would just tell everyone that we were simply a punk band. I really didn’t like the limitations of all the sub-genres but I am aware that we lean pretty far into the hardcore and thrash aspect of it. We really just enjoy going full throttle. Every song is a colab, and everyone has input and a voice.
Ryan: This one is hard to pin down for me. I’m not saying we have a completely unique style but I think all of us growing up with different tastes but all within the punk rock umbrella. I myself listened to mostly British street punk and oi like cocksparrer, blitz, gbh and the business. Blend that with west coast punk, skate punk and hardcore/grindcore which a few of the other guys really dig, and we have a pretty cool sound.
Sean: This is always a tough question for me to answer. We write fast usually short songs that get right to the point. We all like a lot of the same music but also have different influences. We blend all of that together in a way that just works really well.

 
 
Lyrical and musical inspirations/influences ? How important are the lyrics for you ? Are there any specific messages or thoughts you try to develop and share through your lyrics ? 
Scott: Musical inspirations are mostly the punk and metal bands I grew up listening to, along with studying drummers for hours on how they do their thing.  People like Josh Freese, Richard Hoak, Gene Krupa, Stewart Copeland, Ken Owen… so many drummers.
Lyrics are huge to me. I co-write some of the lyrics with Tom.  They help me get things out of my brain so I can clear my head.  It helps me get my concerns and worries on paper, and from there I just hope that it connects with other people. I mostly just write about things that stress me out on a social or personal level.  I pull a lot from current events and real-life scenarios, and how they apply to the rest of the world, either positively or negatively.
Mark: Lyrics Schmyrics, It's all about two loud ass SG's in your face.
Tom: Mostly punk for me, but I listen to a ton of different genres. I’m always going to appreciate a good story and well written lyrics. Lyrics are extremely important to me. (its my job to deliver them) I tend to sway towards more dystopian writing, with an emphasis on what social, political, and economic origins of that kind of world.
Sean: My musical influences are all over the place. I hear parts of songs that aren’t even close to anything we play and think, if we sped up something like this chord progression it could make a great chorus or bridge in one of our songs. As far as messages in our lyrics, I’ll have to defer to Tom on that one.
Ryan: I listed some of my in my answer to question 4 but I should state that Lol Proctors work with the business was some of my favorite bass work in the punk genre. He had a really bluesy style, which I love and that may be in part to growing up listening to old rock and roll. I started listening and playing a lot of jump blues/ post war jazz about 12 years or so ago and that really taught me just how much emotion you can portray with just an instrument and I try the best I can to that now.
There’s a lot of music I listen to that I love the music and hate the lyrics and vice versa lol. I’m not the best at writing lyrics, I have a hard time putting my thoughts in to words most of the time. Tom and Scott do a fantastic job with them though. They’re becoming more and more important to me now. I feel there’s a lot of shit going on in the world and a lot of it isn’t good. There’s a lot of kids that need to feel recognized, need to feel like they’re not alone and need to feel some sort of belonging and I hope that our music and message can help that happen.
 
About the band's discography... Imagine someone who doesn't know your band at all and wants to get interested in.. Which release would you recommend to start with, and why? 
Ryan: I would say "Enemies" then "Ritual". I think these albums both represent the current line up pretty well and kinda gives you an idea of our future work.
Sean: I would have them start with the newly re-released album "Enemies". We just had it re-mixed and mastered. It sounds great and is the best representation of the band as it is now. 
Mark: It was "Ritual", but now that "Enemies" got remixed/remastered, it's kind of a toss-up.
Scott: If I had to pick, I’d say it’s a draw between the "Enemies" record or the "Ritual" record. I feel like those are proably the best representations of what we do live as we play a lot of those songs.  If you were wanting to hear older stuff, maybe the Sudden Movements record.  That’s a hard question to answer.
Tom: I’ll agree with Scott.

 
 
About your latest release ? 
Sean: As mentioned, or "Enemies" record. We recorded it in 2007, sadly the producer was killed before the recording was done so we had to finish it at a different studio with people who just didn’t care. That came through in the way it was mixed and mastered so we were never really happy with how it came out. Having it re-mixed and mastered by someone who was excited about doing it really comes through when you listen to it.
Scott: The music for "Enemies" was originally recorded in 2009 at The Tank Studios in Seattle, Washington.  The vocals were mostly recorded at Bayside Studios in Bellingham, Washington.  The cover art for the album was an art print I had made. It was originally going to just be something I was going to frame and hang up in my house, but it ended up being the cover of the record.  If you do enough digging, you can probably find original CD copies of the album from when it first came out back in 2010 online, however they’ve been out of circulation for a long time.  For this remixed/remastered version, it’s available on vinyl and digital formats.  It will be on all streaming platforms on 9/9/2026, and you can order the limited run vinyl at our label, Blackhouse Ltd .
 
Future plans ? 
Mark: Writing a new album
Scott: Working on a new record with plans for a 2027 release. Besides that, more touring (planning on Europe in 2027), and working on that work-life balance.
Sean: We are playing a handful of shows throughout the rest of the year and are also working on a new album.
 
Your most insane dream with the band would be?
Tom: It would be pretty bad ass if one of our songs was used by the CIA to torture people.
Scott: This band has never had any expectations with this band, so we’ve been happy to have any and all opportunities to do cool shit. I guess it’d be pretty cool to be in a film, like in a movie scene where a band is playing in the background or something. Sorry if that’s a boring answer haha!
Mark: Playing another 20 years
Ryan: I’ve always just wanted to be able to maybe hit the east coast and just have people know who we are. Nothing huge or spectacular. I would love to hit the road out side of the country at least once or twice. We’ve always just treated this as kind of a hobby and we’ve been able to do some pretty cool things  so anything outside of what we’re doing now is just icing on the cake.
Sean: To do a tour in Europe or South America. I’ve heard nothing but great things about the enthusiasm for music and touring bands in both of those places.


 
Your BEST & WORST concert - as a band - and why ? 
Tom: Best Show : So many…. The Cove Bowl days were super fun. They would have live shows after hours, and had no idea how to run a music venue. Shit got WILD.
Worst Show: The Rock Joint. Got unplugged after 2 or 3 songs because the crowd got wild and they weren’t expecting that. There comment was “We didn’t sign up for punk”
The crowd was pissed and started trashing the place. Someone unhooked the main lines in the bathroom sink and flooded the joint, The police were called and the owners were accusing us of inciting a riot. (no charges were filed) .. Come to think of it, that was pretty fun though. Lol
Mark: Playing with the Misfits was pretty cool.
Scott: Best Show: There have been a lot of great ones. One of the most fun shows I think I’ve personally ever played was back in like the 2010’s in a basement in our hometown where a bunch of punkers and hippies lived.  It was a house that was known to locals as the Hanging Dcuk (yes, Dcuk is spelled right), and it was insane. They had basement shows all the time. A cramped space, just filled way too full with people, going apeshit in there. Everyone was having a blast that night. Those are my absolute favorite shows to play. 
Worst show: We played a show at a tattoo shop years ago where some crusty punk stabbed another guy.  A fight had also broken out before that happened because a pregnant lady had been shoved (intentionally) into the edge of the stage on the floor where she had been watching the band by some drunk asshole.  The venue shortly shut down afterwards. The whole night was a bummer. Totally unnecessary for that shit to go down at any show.
Sean: My favorite concert with the band so far was a house show at a friend’s place in Portland Oregon. We were on tour and had a night off so I called him as we were getting close to town. He happened to be having a party with other bands playing that night. We played a great set in his basement while people were shooting off bottle rockets from the middle of the crowd. 
My favorite places to play are very short or no stages when the crowd is right there in your face to whole time.
Worst show? That’s a tough one, we’ve definitely had some frustrating shows with equipment issues or mostly problems with the PA where no one can hear Tom. But I can’t think of one in particular that I would consider our worst show.
Ryan: Best- The downstairs garage at Patrick’s house in Portland !

 
 
Next live-appearance(s) ?
Scott: We have various tour dates happening in September all the way through December in both the United States and Canada.  We are planning to head over to Europe and possibly South America next year.
 
Some words on your local scene - bands you're friends with and you'd like to name ? 
Sean: The local scene in Spokane/Coeur d’Alene is always evolving. It will be great for a few years and then places to play will shut down or bands break up. Then things start happening again new places open, people start new bands and things get good again. 
Scatterbox has been going for more than 20 years, we’ve seen a lot of bands come and go in that time. A few of the ones that come to mind that we’re friends with and played together a lot are The Creeps and The Dilrods
Scott: A majority of the bands in this area exist in Spokane, Washington, which is the city right next to us, about 15-20 minutes away. This area has just become one big metropolitan area nowdays.  So many great bands coming out of the area right now. Like probably others, this area tends to be cursed with bands forming that are really great, but then they break up way too soon.  Some really solid bands that are thriving here in the immediate area right now are bands like Blacktracks, Lich, Willing Hands, Absent Cardinal, Skunk, Dazer, It’s a Setup, P.O.T.U.S, Proleterror, Astro Cobra, Curbside Carnage, Wicked Issue, Bent Outta Shape, Kurb, Skin Slicing Horse, Poise, Psychic Death, Blunt Skulls, and a ton more. The great thing is that sound-wise, they are all over the place as far as genre goes, but it makes for a lot of cool shows where it’s a mixed bag which is really cool.
Tom: We recently had an all ages venue open up (Blacklodge, maybe 3 years ago?) They have done a ton to expand the scene, especially with the younger generation. We’re seeing more bands forming, zines being published and more acts coming through. 
 
What’s the question you’ve always dreamed of answering but have never been asked? Just a heads-up: I’m also waiting for the answer that goes with it...
Tom: 
Q:If you could be any kind of animal, what would it be?
A; Oh, go fuck yourself.
Ryan: 
Q: What are your other hobbies?
Gardening and landscaping! We spend a lot of time in the backyard as a family. Might as well make it comfy as shit! And video games. I have a borderline unhealthy addiction to games lol. 


 
Well, the interview is coming to an end… Is there anything else you’d like to add? Anything I didn’t think of? Something important, funny, silly… It doesn’t matter!
Ryan: Have fun. It’s not a business. Keep a good sense of humor about things. The friends you meet along the way, you may not realize it then but some of them are going to be the best people you’ll ever meet in your life.
Tom: Never pay premium prices for a crossbow at a convenience store. Shop around, be an educated consumer.
Scott: If you’re a band and on the road, wash your hands and use hand sanitizer! Best way to keep from getting sick out there.  Also try not to take yourselves too seriously. Life’s too short !