In Effect Hardcore is happy to bring you the full version of an interview that ran in the latest issue of Outsider Magazine which came out a few weeks ago. Contact Outsider Magazine to find out how you can get a print copy. This interview was originally conducted on March 29th 2025 by Johnny No-Keys from the Hudson Valley NY band Trouble Bound. Lead photo and all live photos by: Steven J Messina aka @HardcoreShutterBug, graphics by: Holly Outsider. Thank you to Alex Rodriguez from @HardcorePunkCartoons and Josh Hurst from @Hardcore_Legends_Trading_Cards for their contributions.
I recently had a chance to sit down and talk with a man who I consider a friend as well as a colleague. A man that has been playing in and around legendary bands since he was a teenager. Starting with the UK Subs and joining up with Rancid early on. This punk rocker has been around the world several times over with those great bands as well as Lars and the Bastards, The Old Firm Casuals, The Last Resort, and Stomper 98. I was able to chat with the “Streetwise Professor” himself, Lars Frederiksen. His bands and projects have influenced my own songwriting and continue to do so. I was beyond stoked to catch up with him and answer a few burning questions on a fine, crisp Saturday in March 2025…
Outsider: So how long has it been since you were interviewed for an actual in-print, physical fanzine?
Lars: I wouldn’t say that long. A fanzine… I don’t know, can you really call yourself a fanzine though? You’re like a newspaper and it’s pretty extensive if you look at it. It’s not… it doesn’t look like, it’s not Maximum Rock and Roll, which would suck anyways because fuck that magazine but…
Outsider: That’s just format. It’s just us. Yeah, I feel you on that.
Lars: But it’s a newspaper nonetheless, it doesn’t feel like a fanzine, like you’re making it in your garage or something, going to Kinko’s.
Outsider: Yeah, we’ve come a long way in the two and a half decades that we’ve been doing this.
Lars: That’s fair, that’s fair. It’s cool. I like it though. I do enjoy reading it because you guys have different kinds of things in there.
Outsider: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, we kind of operate the way we operate the shows. We put on like mixed bills and stuff. Just the love of everything.
Lars: That’s cool, yeah, it’s cool, I like it.
Outsider: Alright, so might as well start at the beginning here. What made you want to learn to play the guitar? Like what sparked that fire in you?
Lars: I don’t know. I think it was just music in general. I think that was the only thing that for me when I was a kid, I feel like really resonated with me. I loved baseball, loved pro wrestling and music, and I loved film too, but for some reason, music felt like it was part of me, you know? And I wanted to be part of it. And I think growing up in the punk scene and kind of going to shows and seeing bands, and you just kind of go, “I can be a part of that too.” It’s not that far of a reach for me, it’s not like Kiss or the Rolling Stones. The punk rock stuff for me made it feel more tangible in the sense where I could probably do it too, you know? And then as I sort of discovered that I could do it, of course that just motivated me to do it more.
Outsider: Yeah, I had that similar feeling when I started doing it. So you mentioned Kiss in your self-titled record that it was the first music you ever heard. What was it that grabbed and hooked you about Kiss and hearing it for the first time?
Lars: Well, I think it was a combination of everything. I think it was a combination of the look. A combination of the presentation, like looking at the record. And then it was kind of shocking, for the time anyway. Then it was the hooks, the music, the voices, the songs, they made sense to me. It was something that struck a chord with me. I think I was about four or five years old when I first heard it. Slade, T-Rex, Chickery Tip, Gary Glitter, obviously before anybody knew what Gary Glitter was doing. But you know what I’m saying? It was that sound. It was that big, bombastic, glammy, foot stomping kind of stuff that Oi was definitely influenced by. Kiss, obviously wanted to do that. So it made perfect sense. Now, if I was a scientist looking back, I’d go, well, that makes perfect sense why I fell in love with that band first.
Outsider: Yeah, yeah, because that’s where the roots were. All right, so speaking of records, what were the first records that, you maybe bought with your own money or what were your first records?
Lars: “Dressed To Kill” and “Love Gun” for my seventh birthday, sixth birthday. I got some money for my birthday. My dad took me to Tower Records. I remember I couldn’t decide if it was “Dressed To Kill” or “Love Gun.” And I remember being so fucking torn, because I think I had like seven or eight dollars worth of money and each record was three or 4.99, I can’t remember. And…my dad was a stickler and trying to teach us how to budget our money, so I didn’t obviously have enough money for two. So I ended up leaving with “Dressed To Kill” and then just being so bummed that I didn’t have enough for both. I don’t know what it was, but then my dad went back in and bought me “Love Gun” too, and I had to give him the rest of my money, but that was probably the only time my dad really did anything cool, but, point I’m trying to make is those were the two records that sort of set the tone for me. Other than, I mean, I got records for gifts, I got “Hotter Than Hell” for, I think for my sixth birthday. But like, I feel like, or my seventh birthday too… but I feel like with my own money though, “Dressed To Kill” and “Love Gun” were the records I bought.
Outsider: That’s awesome. Yeah, do you still have them?
Lars: Oh yeah. I think I even carved Lars into the covers of them.
Outsider: Really? That’s pretty cool. So they’re heirlooms now.
Lars: Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know. Hopefully I still have them. Because I cleaned out a lot of shit, you know, and I’ve been cleaning out a lot of shit just because I’ve been a collector my whole life pretty much. And so now I’m more of a minimalist. Go figure.
Outsider: Yeah, well, you know, there’s always a shift in things sometimes, once time goes by.
Lars: True, plus I’m not enjoying 99.9 % of this stuff, so it’s like, why? At this point it’s just hoarding, you know?
Outsider: Yeah, I hear you. I’m a collector as well…
Lars: Yeah, I know you’ve got half my collection!
Outsider: Ha, well I’m keeping them safe…
Lars: But that’s the thing. It’s like to me, like the fact that it’s going to someone that I know that truly loves it and truly appreciates it, that makes me feel like I haven’t lost it. So if I would just go to the record store with a pile of my records and just get rid of them all, but I’d feel like, weird about that. You know, cause there’s a lot of love that goes into it, you know?
Outsider: Most definitely. Last year Rancid did the stadium tours with Green Day, which were awesome. I’ve always wanted to see Rancid play with Green Day. There’s a lot of history between the bands, but not too many shows played together. How did this tour come about?
Lars: They just kind of asked us to go on this US run and they’re old friends. They’re from the same area. We’re in two totally different places as bands. Obviously, they’re in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. And, I wouldn’t necessarily really call them a punk rock band anymore, but you know, that’s where they come from. They come from that scene. So, I think that we mesh well because we’re different enough but close enough at the same time, and super honored and super stoked that they invited us along, you know? And I think there’s more similarities between us than differences. I mean, there’s a lot of history there. And I mean, I remember Billie was like, do you remember when we first met? And I was like, no. And he’s like, It was in Santa Cruz when we played the college there. So this is like ’88 or ’89, somewhere around there. And he goes, you were behind the dumpster drinking a 40 and I saw you and I went behind the dumpster too to smoke a joint. And I said, hey, you want to share your 40 ounce? He was like, I was a little intimidated because you had a huge mohawk. And I said, as long as you share some of your joint. And so that’s how we met, you know, and I forgot. He reminded me and it’s kind like, shit, we’ve known each other for fucking 40 years almost. That’s crazy. So, we’ve been in the same circles or whatever. So personally for me, I tell that story because it’s like, there’s been a history just with me. That’s before, Matt and Tim and Op Ivy and Billie Joe, when Rancid was figuring out they wanted another guitar player, Billie Joe playing a couple shows to see if it worked. And then I become the guy, you know? So, there’s a lot of history there, obviously.
Outsider: Yeah, think I remember reading an article back from when I was like 15, so it must have been ’96 or ’95. Whenever I saw you guys on a magazine, I’d pick it up and read it. I remember them saying that when you joined the band, that…when they said hey, you’re in Rancid, that you guys went to a Green Day show that night at Gilman Street. Is that true?
Lars: It wasn’t at Gilman Street, it was at Berkeley Square. It was Green Day and a band called Tilt. Yeah, basically what happened was that was after the first band practice, me and Matt started drinking at about 10 in the morning. So I thought, this is going to be great. So by the end of the night, it was a bad scene, because I don’t do anything half-assed. And when I drink, it doesn’t really work out the best. So at that point, that was part of my life that wasn’t really working out very well other than joining the band at this point.
Outsider: Speaking of live performances… A couple of years ago, you went out on a solo tour. Is it more nerve-racking playing on your own, or do you even ever get nervous taking the stage anymore?
Lars: You always get nervous. It’s different kinds of nerves at different times, because every gig is a little different, you know. With Rancid, you get nervous for a whole different reason, because there’s a lot of years there. The band’s been together 34 years or whatever at this point now. So it’s different nerves. It’s stuff that you tapped into when you were like, 21 or 22 years old. Cause that’s when you were originally doing it. With the Casuals or anything like that, it’s a whole other set of nerves, you know? And with the solo stuff, it was just more about like remembering to pace yourself. Cause you’re up there for an hour and a half, hour and 40 minutes. You’re telling stories and you’re talking a lot and that wears down your voice too, right? And then you’re talking about elements and sleep deprivation and other kinds of things that happen. It’s just different kinds of nerves for different kinds of situations. I’ve never gotten so nervous that I didn’t want to go on. That’s just not me. Well, I love playing the gig and stuff, but I’m happy that I’m home.
Outsider: Yeah, I could understand that. You got the family, you know?
Lars: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I got into music to get out of my fucking shitty neighborhood. I picked up a guitar out of survival. I didn’t do it to try to be like Eddie Van Halen. I didn’t do it to be a rock star. I did it so I could make some money and get out of the projects housing that I grew up in. To me, I don’t even necessarily know if I would even call myself a musician. This is my hustle, in a lot of ways. And I don’t mean that in like a negative context. I just mean it saved my life, you know, and I believe in it. But now it’s like, when I was able to feed my family as a result of it, fuck, I mean, that’s exactly what I set out to do. I never gave a fuck about rules about, you can’t do this if you’re punk or you can’t be this. And you know, for me, I’m not gonna do anything unless there’s something at the end of it. You know, I do things out of love for sure, but there’s also a goal. I’ve always been a very goal-orientated person. My mindset was always to make something out of myself. I’m not okay being stuck in this rut. I’m not okay about having a dead-end job or a dead-end life. Even though that might have been written for me, even though that might have been my existence or my reality at the time, I knew that I needed to break the fuck out of that. And damn if I’m gonna fucking apologize for being successful. For me, my hustle was to get the fuck out of not being able to provide for my family that I now have and to fucking stay alive. I didn’t have fucking nice parents and a college education and a good neighborhood. I had punk rock, a guitar, and a pack of cigarettes. So I made the best that I could and I did fucking great. So for me, I don’t even know if I can even call myself a musician.
Outsider: Yeah. I get what you mean.
Lars: I play guitar. I do, what I think I do, very well. If I modeled myself after anybody, it would have probably have been Malcolm Young and Ace Freely and I don’t know, Jake Burns from Stiff Little Fingers and Steve Whale from The Business and Mickey Geggus from The Cockney Rejects. And Charlie from The Last Resort. My goal was to make music that I loved and as it was kind of manifesting, I was like, shit, this actually can fucking put food on my table. Are you fucking kidding me?! Like, why wouldn’t I fucking take that opportunity? But that’s where my mind is, because I don’t take shit for granted. I don’t take anybody’s kindness for granted or anybody buying our records for granted or whatever it is. I realize how special that is because I’m the same fucking cunt that I’ve always been, you know?
Outsider: Well, it’s a good way to be and I think people recognize that. You know what mean? Somebody like myself identifies with the earnestness of your music and the writing. It’s all there. You don’t have to tell anybody it’s there. You can tell it’s there when you listen to it. And that’s why I identify with it, why it’s influenced me so much.
Lars: Much respect. Well look at Rancid. Rancid is bigger than any of the individuals in the band. Tim, Brandon, Lars, and Matt. They’re members of a band that’s no longer ours anymore. Rancid is bigger than any of us as individuals. It’s your guys’ at this point. Yeah, we still make records. Yeah, we still play shows and everything. But when you come to a Rancid show, you can tell it’s not just ours. You know what I’m saying?
Outsider: It’s a family gathering.
Lars: That’s what I’m saying. It’s everybody’s. And I know consciously that’s the way we’ve always felt about it.
Outsider: It’s something bigger. It’s like a family name. It’s like a collective. If you want to use that word. Kind of like we feel about Outsider Magazine. We do it for the love of it. We do it for the scene. We do it for, check out this band that’s… playing their ass off over here.
Lars: Correct. Well, then that’s the thing. I still go to local shows, buy the t-shirts, pay to get in, do that thing because that’s what keeps this thing alive. That’s what keeps me feeling young. That keeps me connected. And that’s where I come from. Because there are other people that are like minded. I didn’t join a band because it was like something I did on my college breaks. You know what mean? I dropped out of school when I was 15 years old. I had already been busted and been to juvenile hall. I was like, okay, maybe being a criminal is probably not gonna work out to my best, right? But I’m gonna do this other thing with the knowledge that I’ve taken and learned along the way. I can do THIS thing.
Outsider: Let’s talk music and recording a little bit here. One thing I love about Rancid is all the records are kind of different and unique and they’re all clearly the same band but they all have their own personality or identity. Like, “Life Won’t Wait” and like two years later, “Rancid V” comes out and it’s a very different pace and feel and they’re almost on like opposite sides of the scale. How does that come to be?
Lars: Well, I think that we always try to do what’s unexpected. And I don’t mean like what the audience expects or unexpects or the media- I don’t mean any of that. I feel like if it starts somewhere, it normally goes the opposite. So because you kind of get in there and you maybe have some ideas and we get in a circle and start spitting out ideas and then we get something that we think that we might like and then we go, and just record it. Boom, boom, boom. Even if it’s not a fully realized formula or a formalized song. You know, maybe it’s just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, done, whatever. Sometimes the song stays that way. Sometimes it doesn’t, right? So every record, I think for us, it’s just gonna happen because of maturity. And we’re always listening to new stuff, so there’s different influences coming in all the time, you know? So, I don’t really listen to a lot of punk now these days. It’s a lot of hardcore, it’s a lot of metal, it’s a lot of, like, thrash. But, a year from now, I guarantee I’ll be listening to a lot more punk, you know? Or maybe I’ll be on to skinhead reggae again.
Outsider: Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask was, what the writing process was like. Do you guys have songs written before you go in together or do you just write in the studio? Just get together and like, all right, we don’t have a plan. We’re just going to see what comes out when we get together and jam.
Lars: Again, yes. Sometimes. I mean, “Tomorrow Never Comes”. That was like… all three of us, just like, what should we do? Do this, do this, do this, do this. Okay, put it together. And then Matt goes, “(sings:) tomorrooooow, tomorrowwww.” You know, it was like, what?! There’s the hook, right?
Outsider: Yeah. It’s an awesome song, man.
Lars: You know what you know, and then like you take that part, I’ll take this part, you take this part. This is a rapid fire, so Tim, you’re the best at that. It’s like that’s how it kind of comes about. And a lot of those songs, like “New American”, I think I had that riff. And Brandon just started going, bam. Bam. Bam. And then everybody was just like, what key is that? D and A, okay, cool, and then boom. That’s kind of how it works. And then it’s like, well, where do we go from here? Or whatever. It’s something you can just feel. And that’s the other thing. We’ve been a band so long, you can kind of feel when somebody’s taking the lead. Even if you’re just writing the song, you kind of go, he’s going to stay on the A. Okay, he’s staying on the A. Now, what’s he going to do?
Outsider: Yeah, you read each other’s mind.
Lars: But we’ve been playing together for so fricking long, dude. Like, we don’t even need to practice. If you said here’s 29 songs that you guys need to play tomorrow night and fucking blah, blah, blah, here’s the set list. Can you do it? We’d probably all look at it and go, yep. Will we wanna do it like that? No, but could we? Yes. Yeah, I could probably do it tonight. I’m not even shitting you, without any review. But that’s how good we are, and I’m not saying that to be braggadocios or anything, but I feel like that’s where we’re at because we’ve played together for so fucking long.
Outsider: I believe it. That’s awesome. Yeah, you’re tuned in together. I’ve noticed that at the Citi Field show that you still have the Lars JCM 900 and the stack that, you changed the Marshall logo to your name “Lars.” And I first saw that at the first show I saw you guys at in ’96 at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. How did it come to say that?
Lars: That was Brett Reed. We were in the rehearsal studio and we were playing and he goes, hang on a second. And he just goes over there and he took a razor blade and he did it to my head first. I was like, what’s he fucking doing? Brett Reed saw it. Brett Reed did it. I cannot claim any credit, and now it’s like so like part of me, like it’s so funny. But yeah, that was Brett Reed.
Outsider: That’s awesome. One of your songs that I wanted to ask about was “Eternal City.” It’s a very atmospheric song. It’s my favorite Old Firm Casuals song. It’s like a good old horror movie, – with the fog around the graveyard, with the ghostly backing vocals. It’s sounds like the voice of the fallen warriors on a battlefield and it just makes me picture like a bloodstained battlefield with splintered shields and broken swords and the burnt landscape. And of course vultures picking at a field of dead bodies that are littered everywhere. It sparks the imagination which is pretty amazing and it’s a very simple sounding song. Where did this song come from? Like how did it come about?
Lars: We were… in Salt Lake City at Brandon’s house doing demos for I guess it would have been “Dominoes”. Yeah, would’ve been “Let The Dominoes Fall” and I came up with it and it didn’t seem like it was going to gel with what we were doing. And I can’t remember who wasn’t really high on it, but I was like, okay… somebody commented something. I can’t remember what it was, but sometimes that happens. When you’re making stuff up or whatever. You’re putting out your ideas and everybody’s not into it, that’s hard to create, right? And when you’re a team like we are, it’s never anything personal. It’s just like, okay. Like “Little Rude Girl,” that was written in 1994. That was demoed with “Roots Radicals” before “Roots Radicals” came out. So that might’ve been even ’93. Point I’m trying to make is it was recorded for … “And Out Come the Wolves”, didn’t make it. It was recorded for “Life Won’t Wait”, it didn’t make it. And then it ended up on a Lars and the Bastards record. It’s like “Maggots.” Another one that was a “Life Won’t Wait” outtake. No, “Maggots” was “Rancid V”, I think. But that’s what I’m saying. We always kind of kept going back to it. There’s a couple other songs out there that are, relatively newer songs that we’ve released, but they’re sometimes 25 years old, or at least parts of it anyway. So I just kind of kept it in my back pocket and then we were in the studio and I was warming up with it. I was like, yeah, I forgot about this one. And the way I was fretting it, hang on. (Goes to grab his guitar.) Because it’s a different kind of like fretting. It’s because you’re going (playing “Eternal City”)… You can see that. So I’m going… (continues playing)… So I’m like this, and then I’m sliding it down, right?
Outsider: Uh huh. Yup.
Lars: And I was just making noise to kind of like get everything warmed up. And I believe Paul goes, what is that? And I said, it’s a song that I sort of tried to realize way back. And he’s like, well, let’s realize it now. And so as I started playing it, Paul just kind of went in there and I said, just do as little as you can, keep it simple. Paul’s a really good songwriting partner because he understands where I try to go and he’ll join me there at times. But long story short, Paul was the one that really said, OK, let’s make this something. And I’m glad that he did. And then it was so foreign because, that was like on the first Old Firm Casuals record and we’d been going 100 miles an hour with songwriting, releasing records and everything else. So for that song to kind of come when it did was so opposite of what we were doing and how we were writing and everything. Because we were just talking about that synchronicity or that unspoken stuff that we have with our songwriting partners or whatever. I have that with those guys too. I can kind of guess where they’re going. For me, I’m lucky because I can honestly say that lightning has struck three different times for me. And that was with obviously Rancid, The Bastards and The Casuals. I’m very lucky in that sense, and even with that last, Last Resort record I did, right? “Skinhead Anthems Four”. We recorded that record in a day and a half. We had ideas of songs, but we didn’t really know what they were going to be. Like we literally went in there and we would just go, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Record. Everybody was kind of going, did we spend enough time on this? Did we do this the right way? Like that’s how fast and how easy it came together. I was like, shouldn’t this be a lot harder work? And it’s like, well, no, no, it shouldn’t. Sometimes it can be, and that’s not fun either. “Life Won’t Wait” was a fucking sentence, man. Trying to get that record.
Outsider: Holy shit.
Lars: There was like 110 reel to reel tapes. There was fucking 200 songs that we sifted through. That was fucking ridiculous. That’s why we’ve never produced a record ever since because we need somebody to manage us. Because me and Tim are fucking crazy when it comes to writing songs. We won’t stop. And when you need a producer to stop you and say, no, that’s good. You know?
Outsider: Wow. Yeah. Like Brett Gurewitz. He’ll do that for you.
Lars: Yes. Yes. But yeah, so that song, thank you for pointing that out. It was also like something for me, there was a lot of change that was happening in the Bay Area, a lot of like these kind of types of people who start moving into the Bay Area. They’re always from out of state and they always think that they have this idea that like, this is how we’re supposed to be now that we live in California. And it was like another gold rush, and what happens, is eventually it all crashes and they all fucking move away, right? And so that’s kind of where we’re at now with the (San Francisco) Bay Area. And they’re always the motherfuckers that ain’t from here. That song is a reflection of that as well. Because it’s talking about, “It’s the end of Eternal City. It’s the end of the golden road. It’s the end of all prosperity. The end of an empire, the fall of Rome.” What I’m basically saying is now that these vultures have moved in. The growth will stop. Now everybody’s gonna become pushed into poverty. Which fucking happened. Because, my wife was paying $3,000 for a studio apartment. You get what I’m saying? And you got fucking these big companies like coming in and forcing everybody out. So anything that was cool, everybody wanted to move to San Francisco because it was fucking cool. Yes, I’m talking about war. Yes, I’m talking about desperation. I’m talking about the battle. Yes, there is that imagery, but behind that, you know how you described it, yes, 100% that is there, but it’s also this other thing that’s there, that’s fueling that. Because it is a fucking wasteland, you know? Is it where I’m at today… like I don’t give a shit to be brutally honest. Where I was at that time, it concerned me a lot. But I also had a lot of other things to be angry about.
Outsider: I was flipping through my seven inches and I found my Forgotten “Class Separation” seven inch and The Forgotten is one of my favorite bands. And I know you did some producing on Swingin’ Utters as well as that seven inch for the for Agnostic Front and the first Forgotten record.
Lars: Yeah, absolutely. Great record. First two Dropkick Murphy’s records too.
Outsider: Yeah! So I know recently you did some work on the last Bewitcher record. Do you still do a lot of producing or any producing nowadays?
Lars: I did, yeah. It really has to be something that I really want to do. It has to be a band I really, really like. If I don’t like your band, I won’t do it. If I don’t love your band… let me rephrase that. If I don’t love your band and secretly fantasize about being in your band, I won’t do it. You know what I mean?
Outsider: It makes a lot of sense, because how are you going to do your best work and put your heart and soul into it if you’re not really into it, you know?
Lars: Some people, that’s their job. That’s not my job. When I was in my 20’s and I was producing every fucking band underneath the sun and giving bands a sound, and whether it was The Business and the whole street punk thing coming out after that, with the Truth record, I mean, that record changed everything, the way everything sounded. And as a result of doing the Truth, record by The Business and “Streets Of San Francisco” by The Swingin’ Utters. Doing those two records which dynamically and sonically and just the tones are so, like dynamically and sonically, both of those records are very similar. Tone-wise, completely opposite ends to me. So now, for me, I really have to love you… like I’ll do Powerhouse. Because I LOVE them. It’s a great band. A hardcore band. I did their last EP. We worked together 25 years ago for the first time. I did Bewitcher because I saw Bewitcher and I went; these guys are incredible. I love this fucking band. And I knew that we could do something special and I think that we did. I’ll work with Charger if they ask me. I’ll work with other thrash bands that maybe are local. To me that’s where I need to be to produce. Because I don’t really wanna do it anymore.
Outsider: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Great talking with you.
Lars: Yeah, no, my pleasure. Happy to do it.