Five for Five with Pat & Ray of The Decline

Pat & Ray are in a band. The Decline, to be specific. If you listen to skate-punk like Millencolin & No Use For A Name & Pop-Punk like The Descendents & Teenage Bottlerocket, and haven't heard of The Decline, you've been living under a (punk) rock. Pun(k) intended! They are a solid bunch of guys who have a new single out  and they are about to go on tour in support of it. You can check them out here while reading their answers to my questions. 

P.S - Ray, i'll give you ten bucks and a t-shirt for your Nitro Years collection, cool?

1. If you were to be locked in a room for the rest of your life with endless food, water & a turntable and were only allowed FIVE records, what are they?

Pat: This is really hard, cause I dunno, will I wanna listen to fast punk records all the time? Probably? Okay, let's go with that. 

1. Descendents - Milo Goes To College

2. Bad Religion - No Control

3. NOFX - So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes (bit more diverse than Punk In Drublic for the long haul)

4.  Frenzal Rhomb - Sans Souci

5. Yotam Ben-Horin - California Sounds (okay, so maybe I'll wanna chill a bit)

Ray:

1. Weezer - Blue Album

2. AFI - The Art Of Drowning

3. Fenix Tx - Lechuza

4. Bodyjar - No Touch Red

5. Hall & Oates - Voices

2. Have you got a "White Whale"? Have you found it or are you still looking for it?

Pat: I've got a copy of Into The Unknown by Bad Religion, I think that's my white whale. I'm still searching for the Frenzal Rhomb radio promos of Punisher, Nothing's Wrong, Looking Good, and a few others. 

Ray: AFI - The Nitro Years

I own it!

3. Are there any current artists you wish more people knew about?

Pat: Definitely! Nerdlinger, Fair Do's, Not On Tour, Burnout, The Murderburgers, so many!

Ray: Castle Bravo, Not On Tour, Super Duper, Baggage

4. a) best show you've ever played?

    b) worst show you've ever played?

Pat: Best show is probably the Sydney show we did with A Wilhelm Scream in 2016, that was the first time we played Start Again live on tour and the crowd sang the quiet bit louder than us, still gives me chills. As for a worst show I dunno, we played a show in Los Angeles a few years ago that I think was the worst we've ever played as a band, it was one of those shows where everything goes wrong on stage and you can't hear anything, but it's always a different experience being in the crowd than being in the band, so I hope no one knew how hard we were struggling, haha!

Ray:

a) I have a few but one I'll never forget is a show in Barcelona with Violets. Tiny venue, big crowd, best vibe. After the show we just hung out with everyone.

b) We played a show with Darko in Sydney. We arrived so early in the day we just started drinking so by the time we had to play I wasn't really capable. To this day, I still feel bad about it.

5. What's the rest of 2019 looking like for The Decline?

Pat: Oooo for the rest of 2019 I reckon as many shows as we can fit in in as many places as possible, and hopefully some exciting new tunes for everyone!

Ray: What Pat said.

Thanks so much dude!

Pat and Ray!