An Interview With The Foleys

A new album from The Foleys breaks out a killer punk rock wrestling combination that hits the sweet spot for any fans of classic punk music complete with crew vocals, a crazy and addictive energy, and a thrashing vibe to brighten up anyone's day.
The Cheap Pops and Hard Knocks album is packed to the brim with wrestling references for fans of the sport and gigantic hooks for the pop punk lover in all of us.
The record is invasively fun and manages to blend several subgenres of punk into one great release.
One of the best parts about this record is that there are really great pop hooks involved in almost all the songs and each song has to do with a wrestler or a particular match or just something about the love of wrestling in general.
So it's cool because you get these two different worlds that collide here and it works so well you're kind of blown Away that it hasn't happened a thousand times already.
You can hear those classic punk influences shoving their way through and you get glimpses of everything from the Misfits to Minor Threat, fear, and so much more.
This is the kind of record you sing along to with your fists in the air and jump around the living room with your friends.
As far as good punk rock goes this is outlandishly satiating and it really shows such a great heart for both wrestling and punk in one shot.
These are the kinds of things you don't get all the time so when it happens it's really easy to fall in love with right off the bat.
The other thing of course is that you can hear their love for the craft and how their energies are feeding off of each other the entire time so it kind of makes you want to see them play live really badly.
You just want to see if that great energy is there in a live setting which I bet it's even better than on the recording but even still, The energy they have on the album is really tough to capture.
These guys portray such great character and vibrancy with just the right amount of positive edge to get you sucked right in and hooked.
I think we need more records like this one. It is indeed a concept record obviously but it's a bit of a fresh idea and it's done from just having such a passion for certain things.
I love when things are born or created because of a group of people's love for something. This is an absolute perfect example of just that and that's probably why it's so damn good.
Wrestling fans are going to love the crap out of this.
With such a well woven album, we wanted to have a sit down with The Foleys to find out exactly how this record was inspired and what may be coming up next for the band.
Here's what went down.
TSWS: Okay guys, let's start with the Cheap Pops and Hard Knocks album! This record had such a classic punk rock feel and loads of wrestling references! How did this album come about?
Professor Pain - It came from our love of punk music and professional wrestling. The world needed this album and The Foleys delivered.
Manny - I think our main focus is to capture the nostalgia of growing up being fans of punk rock and professional wrestling. For me personally, when we decided to be a Wrestling Punk band, I wanted to pay homage to growing up in the 80s and going to WWF events with my dad and the excitement that I had back then and all of the excitement of watching Wrestling Every Monday Night during the late 90s and early 2000s. Micky gave us the Album name for Cheap Pops and Hard Knocks, which is a play on Mick Foley’s Hard Knocks and Cheap Pops DVD from 2001, and Professor Pain really has a way with the way he writes lyrics. Really, I cant think of a better pairing than wrestling and punk. All of us have been in many different punk bands throughout our lives, and this was just kind of a fun way for us to do something different. Professor Pain and I were in a couple “serious” bands that seemed more like work than anything. With the Foleys, its pretty much just all fun all the time. We spend a lot of time thinking up ways to entertain the crowd, much like our favorite wrestlers and favorite bands have.
Jacky- A lot of emotion went into this for me. It was the first Album I have been a part of in about 15 years. Prior to starting the writing process my Dad passed. The Hitman is kind of an ode to him as well. I remember sitting on my couch emotional as heck writing that song. We all put our mark on this album. From the bass to the drums. It was a love child for all of us.
TSWS: How did this all start for you as a band?
Manny - Micky(Bass), Manny(Guitar), Jackie (guitar) and Duder (Drums) all were recruited to be in another band so we met through that. We decided that particular band wasn’t a good fit for us so we started The Foleys. We needed a singer so we reached out to Professor Pain, who had been in previous projects with Manny. We wrestled with what we wanted to do for a bit and settled on something we all love, Professional wrestling and we’re all huge fans of Mick Foley. We decided that we’d each portray one of the faces of Foley. Once we decided on that, the songs started coming pretty naturally. Unfortunately Duder fell in a death match, so Professor Pain recruited The Baron to play drums.
I think the way Professor Pain tells it is way more interesting so I’ll let him give the better version.
Professor Pain - After getting tired of training the Cream of the Crop, Professor Pain left the confines of his gym and set off on a quest to find the most face melting sound ever. His goal was to cripple his foes! He searched far and wide. From every gym-based sparring match to barroom brawl his thirst for perfection remained unquenched and he always left victorious yet unfulfilled. Then, when all hope seemed to be lost, he stumbled upon the fragmented pieces of the dissociative identify disorder of Mick Foley rendered in flesh -golems of mayhem incarnate. Like Michelangelo’s “David” each were a perfect work of art. There was Manny, who although thought himself ugly and disfigured, never realized his true musical potential beauty until enlightened by the Professor. Manny was coaxed out of the depths of his boiler room for his true calling. Next, the bloodthirsty Jacky who is a physical brawler from a time long gone who can articulate himself just as well with a guitar as he can with barbed wire, sharp objects, an “ol’ six-shooter” or a trash can. Jacky instantly answered the call when he heard tales of scores of fans putting life and limb in peril in a “pit” and hungrily yearned to be the catalyst to set off such chaos. Then, Duder was found at a hippie commune where he spent his days dabbling in hallucinogens, screen-printing, and doling out pain and justice against those who were hurting the environment and the “love movement with his percussive forces. The Professor was able to wax existentialism with Duder and won his trust and allegiance. The last piece of the puzzle came as Micky. Micky, the author, sage, the one who can try to keep all the other Foleys in balance. The four strings of his bass representing the four sides to the Foleys that are strummed and plucked in perfect harmony. The stage was set and The Foleys, led by Professor Pain, embarked on their maiden journey of training and enlightenment. This consisted of venturing far and wide -sometimes, many times, putting themselves in harm’s way. In one such encounter, the group was far behind enemy lines, fighting for chaos, peace, normality, intellectualism, and rationality when in a firefight with the forces of evil, Duder was struck down in front of Mickey and the rest of this band of heroes were captured by the Axis of the Absurd led by Professor Pain’s long time rival and nemesis, World-Ender. This fiend, hellbent on ridding the world of any traces of professional wrestling and punk rock, amassed an army of mindless drones as foot soldiers, officers, and politicians to erase all memory of America’s most coveted pastime from the minds of all they conquered. The days of starvation, isolation, and torture for these four remaining brave souls turned into weeks, and those weeks into months. In time, the whereabouts of each of them was unknown to the others as they were scattered throughout the globe. Professor Pain was housed in a high security POW (Prisoners of Wrestling) camp where he was forced to do battle with the other inmates in deathmatches whose grotesque details would make a maggot vomit! He rose in the ranks, and he had one fight left before he would be coveted the King of the Ring. Inmates were not allowed to know who they were facing prior to their Championship match. When that day came, Professor Pain stepped into the ring with his toughest opponent ever! A mountain of a man, clad in leather, and wearing the color crimson with the strength of ten Mark Henrys. He was known as “The Baron”. Legend has it that he was a flying ace who has over one-hundred confirmed kills in dogfights. He takes no prisoners and would riddle the bodies of his parachuting opponents with percussive fire after immobilizing their planes in the sky. The Baron continued to show the same amount of mercy to his new opponent in the ring as he and Professor Pain clashed. Those who witnessed the bout wrote that the “earth shook, and the air pulsed” as these two behemoths attempted to rip apart one another. For many hours the battle waged on, and it seemed as if there would be no end in sight. To the onlookers and guards it would seem that these two gladiators were filled with hate towards one another, but inside the ring something else was afoot. With each tight clench that was entered into plans were whispered with one goal -Escape. They both knew that they didn’t stand a chance against the entirety of the camp’s forces alone, but combined they would be unstoppable. When the time was right, both The Baron and Professor Pain put their plan into action. They leapt from the ring, and decimated the camp’s forces while they made their way to the runway to fly out of that hellhole. As they made their way to the airfield, they saw the General standing before them with a bit of cloth clutched in one of his hands and motioning them into a bout of “winner takes all” combat. After this brief, but fierce encounter, The General was hewn down by the likes of Professor Pain, the Baron, and the duo commandeered an aircraft and made their escape. Professor Pain and The Baron, once fierce adversaries, now formed a strong alliance. From there, they spent many moons hunting down and finding the rest of The Foleys. Manny was found first in an interment camp where he was forced to keep the great furnaces going for the World Ender’s war effort. Once liberated, the three of them made their way across the land, picking up bits of information along the way, to rescue Jacky who was in a forced-labor munitions factory churning out arms for the World Ender. Many foot soldiers met their end at the hands of Manny, Jacky, The Baron and Professor Pain that day. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle was discovered with the last words of a dying officer at the factory describing a propaganda camp that housed Micky. The group fearlessly fought hard and long, sending scores of men to their graves to make their way to Micky’s cell where he was chained to his press. The group tore the door from its hinges and as The Baron and Professor Pain grabbed the heavy chain that bound Micky to the press, Micky looked at the group and exclaimed, “I lost my brother. I saw him fall! I couldn’t save him! I am not worthy!” Upon hearing these words, The Baron reaches into his bomber jacket and pulls out the tattered cloth that the General was clutching on to at the time of his escape and reveals it as the tie-dyed shirt of Duder. Professor Pain drops the chain, looks at Micky, nods and says, “For him”. Micky grabs the garment and shouts, “Our Brother did not fall in vain. From this moment forward, I will honor him. I will be known as “Micky Love” - The Mellow and Fun-Loving Babyface that will continue to be the voice of reason for my brothers and will continue to carry the torch for the fallen! Micky slides the shirt over his chest and, imbued by the power of two Foleys, grabs the chain that binds him to the machine of lies and snaps it in-twain. The Foleys paired with Professor Pain and The Baron are now working tirelessly to rid the world of the worst heels as they seek to bring down the World Ender and to avenge the fall of Duder by bringing their face melting sounds to you! THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!! Join our fight! Be one of the few, the insane, the Foleys!!!!
TSWS: Each track on this record is about a particular wrestler or match right?
Professor Pain - Yes. That's the jist of it. Whether the wrestlers or matches are fictitious or if they really happened, we tried to keep an ongoing theme of wrestling or wrestlers in our tracks.
This album has some great styles combinations on it! Can you give us some of your biggest influences musically?
Manny - Nofx, Teenage BottleRocket, Bane, Descendants and Bad Religion… a good mix of punk and hardcore really.
Micky - Ramones, Rancid, Against Me!, Iron Maiden. I’m sure there are a lot more, but those are the first that come to mind for me.
Jacky- I have to start with NOFX, I remember being introduced to them at the age of like 11. The Ramones for sure, the way they preformed live! We feel that we fall in that better live area as well. Professor Pain really knows how to work that crowd. And of course for me classic bands like The Talking Heads, X, Fear, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, Alkaline trio, and so many more.
TSWS: What are you guys doing when you're NOT working on music?
Manny - When Im not working on music, Im working on getting Wrecked Hooligan going in full swing. Wrecked is a mix of indie label/apparel and entertainment company. I also spend a lot of time traveling and doing photography.
Micky - I’m the nerd. I’m into a lot of gaming, from tabletop games like Pathfinder, D&D and Magic the Gathering to video games from NES onward. Same stuff I did when I was a kid – wrestling, music and games.
Professor Pain - Higher learning, technology, automobiles, motorcycles, and fitness.
Jacky- I am a big guitar nerd. I’m normally buying another guitar I don’t need and fixing it up. I love getting instruments that are about dead and bringing them back to life. I also volunteer at our home base The Well coffee shop and basement. It is one of the only all age venues in the area.
TSWS: Who's in your headphones right now?
Manny - Right now its the Codefendants This is Crime Wave, and Bouncing Souls Ten Stories High. Both albums are bangers! The Codefendants album is so unique with its mix of hip hop and punk its hard to not love it.
Micky - That depends on my mood everyday, but I’m bouncing between Tejon Street Corner Thieves, Against Me!, Gunship and a lot of Cobra Skulls.
Professor Pain - Bouncing Souls, Slaughter to Prevail, Slayer, and The Misfits.
Jacky- right now Bad Cop Bad Cop, Masked Intruder, Jawny, Arch Rivals, The Old Breed (Ohio) and Mastodon. And NOFX is always in there somewhere.
TSWS: Are you doing any live performances right now?
We have some shows lined up In Grand Rapids, MI on April 7th and South Bend, IN on April 8th. Then we are taking some time to prepare for a few sets at Supreme Pro Wrestling’s A little Mayhem Event on May 13th in Goshen, IN.
TSWS: Did you record yourself or hit a big studio for this?
We did this 100% DIY. Professor Pain has his own studio called Pocket Change Studios in South Bend so he and Manny recorded, mixed and mastered the entire EP.
TSWS: What can your fans expect from you in the near future?
Manny - More shows, more songs about wrestling, hopefully a music video soon and more collaborations with some of the local Pro Wrestling Promotions around the area. We are also working on our second annual Pride Pizza Party in June at the Well Basement in South Bend.
TSWS: Before we go, what would you like to say to fans of the music?
Manny - Stay tuned we’re just getting started… Unlike Vince McMahon we’ll never leave you disappointed. HAVE A NICE DAY!
Jacky- You guys are why we do this. Thank you for your support in everything we do! And keep an eye out big things slated for the future.
http://wreckedhooligan.com