Formed in 1979, The Detonators were a part of the early hardcore scene in Los Angeles. Based in Redondo Beach, The Detonators were founded by life-long friends Bruce Hartnell and Juan Camacho. After several records and tours of the North American and European continents, the band relocated to Eugene, Oregon in 1987, and released their landmark LP “Balls To You”.
Several other tours and records followed, and then the band took a financially induced hiatus---playing their last live gig in 1997. Hartnell went on to start a Mexican/spaghetti western band called Los Mex Pistols Del Norte, and sold his interest in his club, (John Henry’s,) to work as a audio engineer at Eugene’s Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Camacho ran several versions of a latino restaurant called Sandino’s, and currently fronts a band called The Crimes Of Ambition.
In 2003, drummer Sean Schock, who had seen the band in Ohio in 1992, and had recently moved to Eugene, found Hartnell and convinced him to release some of the music the Detonators had not released to date. These tracks were from a cassette tape -only release called “A Thousand Points Of Punk” that was supposed to come out in 1992 on vinyl, but the idea was scrapped due to lack of funds.
The band played a reunion gig at John Henry’s in 2003 to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of their first LP, “Emergency Broadcast Systems” with a line up of Hartnell, Camacho, Kirk Black on bass, and Scott Adamo on drums. After the show, Black had expressed an interest in pursuing the band further, and it was decided by Hartnell to carry on without Camacho.
Schock was added on drums, and the other guitar spot was taken up by first Robin McDougall, and finally Will Lindsay-both from the Eugene band Human Certainty.
Schock and bass player Saxon (from another Eugene band, the Happy Bastards) formed NFN records, and soon re-issued “Balls To You” on CD The label has grown to include several releases from other Eugene acts, and has also released some of the “Thousand Points” material on two 7” EPs, “Live in Hope, Die in Despair” and “Sonic Manifesto”, which were released in late 2004.

Chris Hubert interviews Bruce Hartnell

MRR : So, what’s it like to be back in the hardcore scene? You’ve been away for a while-what’s changed the most, and what made you leave the scene and what brought you back?
BH: I felt like I never left in the first place-I always had the same ideals and convictions that drew me into it in the first place, but the harsh realities of the burden of pursuing this particular form of music was wearing very thin, and I wasn’t getting any younger. You start a band like that because you almost have to-when you sit around and watch a lot of shitty bands tell you what rock and roll is sort of forces you to take it very seriously, so you almost have a desperate need to start a band that doesn’t suck. The only audience that took our band as seriously as we did was the hardcore scene, but the scene is at times just as fickle and not as open minded as they like to think they are, and besides that, there isn’t enough money in the scene to sustain a band playing to those audiences for a long time. We were lucky that we were able to tour as much as we did, because it was a huge financial drain on not only us as a band but relatives and who ever could help us out. For example, if you’re playing basements or clubs and the turnout is low, all you’d need is a mechanical failure to devour any money you were supposed to survive on to complete the tour. Even if you had great turnouts at gigs, you never knew when there would be a cancellation or something equally stupid like gas prices going through the roof to put you back in the hole.
On top of all that, we always felt like outsiders because we never looked the part of punk rockers-aside from leather jackets, we never had the “trimmings”-the Mohawks or tattoos. A lot of punks couldn’t see through that and didn’t consider us a hardcore band because of it. That’s some of the close-mindedness of the scene I’m talking about.
I think the thing that’s changed the most is how its pretty mainstream nowadays. Green Day just won a grammy, for fuck’s sake! The grunge movement sorta had a lot to do with helping make the scene more mainstream, and I saw through it. It was like, after the eighties and all that shitty electronica stuff, guitars were suddenly cool again, which was great, but only if you “played nice”. Grunge was sorta either watered down metal or “safe punk”, however you look at it. I put the whole East Bay and Southern California skate scene and ska-punk in that boat too.
The current political climate sure as hell makes it easier to have a band like the Detonators, and I really hate the republicans with a passion. I grew up in a very poor family, and as a parent I feel that the least I could do is speak out against them and the band gives me that opportunity to do so.
I also must say that I was impressed that Fat Mike of NoFX did that tour against Bush last year trying to get punks to vote, and that Green Day did a whole LP based on the idiocy of the current president. For those bands to do something like that --make a political statement, sorta gave me hope that I might actually be able to reach some folks myself.

MRR : Are you saying that you’re into it for the money?
BH: First off, THERE IS NO MONEY to be had. The amount of overhead it takes to operate a band at any level is staggering when you put it into perspective. Most punk bands make their money from live performances, and most of those gigs are sketchy at best. You basically live hand to mouth. If you were able to attain some success, then you have to deal with all the middlemen-the agents, lawyers, A and R guys, etc., who need to push you even harder to increase their percentage of your act. Add in the traveling expenses, and promotional costs-plus figure on the gig as a 24-hour-a day-job with all the trappings of being around a bunch of other smelly guys in the band and crew, and whatever money you make isn’t worth it.
Punk bands put a “glass ceiling” on themselves by sticking to a sort of unspoken code of ethics and morals that only enhances the thickness of that glass ceiling .By playing to only to the hardcore scene, you not only limit your earnings by ”preaching to the converted”, you also run the risk of depleting your audience, which only has a certain amount of income available to them-they can’t afford to see everybody.
The only thing I see changing all of that is the emergence of more punks in society, and if the assholes who keep putting the republicans in office keep at it there will be no shortage of punk rockers.

MRR : How did you reach the conclusion that there’s a glass ceiling? Isn’t it a good thing that bands don’t sell out?
BH: I guess its how you define “selling out”. If the band stays on the road and keeps making enough money to sustain itself, is that selling out?
I work as an audio engineer in a performing arts center. I’ve worked with many top-tier acts; I’ve done about six Bob Dylan concerts for example. I also used to own a rock club, and I play in a Mexican band that does really well financially and gigs with bands like Los Lobos and the Neville Brothers. The thing I learned from all that is that everything about show business IS business-from the basement shows to arena gigs. The acts that succeed take steps to take care of business, whether it’s a small hardcore band trying to get a record out or a huge act that plays arenas, they all take care of business. The ones who don’t succeed get the business done to them. Promoters don’t give a fuck how good you are, just how much money they can make off of you. If you’re not the headliner, they’ll tell you in no short terms how lucky you are and how big of a favor they’re doing for you-you’re just a headache to them. If you can make them any money at all, they’re just as quick to suck your cock. So I guess the job of every band is to get as much head given to you as you can without giving any back. There are a lot of bands that suck way too much cock out there, and have no problem doing so, so to them selling out isn’t even an issue, just a fact of life in this business. They just don’t care, and you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t think it happens at the hardcore scene level too.
Because I have this experience of working backstage at major concerts, I’ve become even more cynical of the business. I have no idols or heroes, and I don’t have a lot of respect for most of the acts I work with. A lot of acts are so bitter that they completely lock themselves away, or ban stagehands from the stage. What rock bands do is act like “rock stars”, even ones at the lowest level of the business, like some hardcore bands I can name. I’m just not that fucking impressed anymore.
I spend a lot of time polishing the turd of the show these “sellouts” bring, and you know what? No matter how hard you polish it, its still a turd. And the bigger the turd, the more willing the public will buy into it. As a booking agent in my own club, I had to deal with guys from William Morris Agency or CMA trying to shove the next big thing down my throat and have them tell me the whole time how lucky I was. I blew up once at a guy from William Morris Agency for trying to get me to book Jimmy Eat World for a two hundred dollar guarantee. They had played there several times before and couldn’t draw flies if they were covered with shit. I told him that no one wanted to see them-next thing you know they sell a kajillion cds!! The band didn’t get any better; they just got their business done.
My Mexican band can play to anyone-schools, baseball games, etc, not just in clubs -- its sort of gratifying because people treat me as an actual talented musician. The hardcore scene’s never treated me like that, and I’ve seen bands that have succeeded like Bad Religion get respect from punk rockers only after they charge 25 bucks a gig. Look at how low Social Distortion had to go to become “stars”. (I never liked them anyway.) The Detonators have been treated like dogs for the most part; regardless of how good a record we put out because we don’t or can’t or won’t make money for a middleman.

MRR : Some people would think that you playing mexican music is a sellout; that you should only play hardcore.
BH: My point is that the rock scene is a small part of a much wider world, but folks in the hardcore or underground scene ONLY want success on their terms, whether its what the magazines expect of you or your fans. Some bands are more willing to conform to that than others.
There are a lot of similarities in Mexican music and hardcore, especially in the rancheras and corridos that the norteno groups and bandas play, lyrically. Its basically looked down upon by more “educated” latinos, or the more professional types-a lot like hardcore is in this society. You also have to not give a fuck about what other people think about you when you’re playing it, just like hardcore. I don’t think of it as a sellout; being closed minded and one-dimensional is though.

MRR : Let’s talk about the Detonators-what happened to all the old guys in the band, like Juan Camacho?
BH: Juan still lives in Eugene. He has a new band that’s made up of him and his girlfriend and two other women. He’s concentrating on that. Eric Capucci lives in Bend, about two hours away from here in the Cascades. After we started releasing records again I heard from Mike Mooney, who sang on the first LP, “Emergency Broadcast Systems” after about twenty years. He had some issues with some of my opinions of him and his time in the band that I had on our website. He went as far as to threaten us with a fake letter to his lawyer, which we all had a laugh at. He pretty much proved how big of an asshole he still is, and why I’m glad to be rid of him in the first place. Maybe he noticed the attention we’re getting with the new releases and wants back in! (Laughter)

MRR : Are you surprised by the way the new records are being received?
BH: I’m glad that they’re going over well, and I thought that the original idea of “A Thousand Points Of Punk” would’ve been a great record, too. We just couldn’t afford to go deeper into debt, and we couldn’t find anybody who wanted to release it without screwing us out of any money we’d make off of it. Since the “Balls to You” CD came out, we’ve received a lot of emails and interest from a lot of people I haven’t heard from in a long, long time. That’s been nice, and we’ve played some shows and gone over well. We’re definitely a different breed of hardcore band that what the younger bands are doing today, and I think people find that refreshing-it also sets us apart from them too.

MRR : Are you going to do any more gigging? And what are the plans in the future?
BH: I think we’re going to Europe in the fall, but that’s up in the air as of today. We’re still trying to see how much demand there is for the band, and whether its practical from a financial standpoint to undertake a tour or not. I have a family to support, and I have obligations at work to attend to. We’re still going to release some records and keep the name out there, and maybe do some smaller regional trips, but the glory of touring has definitely lost its luster for me. Its one thing to have everybody rave about your band, but another thing to get promoters to give you the money to pursue it, and at 44 years of age I don’t need my ego stroked that bad to lose money at it myself. If there were a realistic chance of breaking even on a big tour, I’d go in a heartbeat. We did about 14 tours in the old days, and eventually we had to stop. There is no retirement plan in rock and roll, so if you couldn’t sustain the costs you had to accept defeat and find decent jobs-which I’ve been lucky enough to do.
One thing I REALLY hate doing is calling booking agents and talent buyers and begging for gigs. I really think that the whole process is demeaning, and it just takes whatever joy I get out of playing out of it. I’d much rather deal with a gig in somebody’s basement that subject myself to the whims of some hipster booking agent who doesn’t have a clue, and doesn’t care.
I’ve lost a lot of friends to drugs and stupidity over the years because they’ve bought into the romanticism of the underground scene, and I’ve always tried to be more practical than that. Looking back at it, I’m lucky I survived.

The Detonators can be found on the web at:
http://www.freewebs.com/thedetonatorshc