Bremerton, WASH — For more than 25 years, the Bremerton boys of MXPX have been performing songs about the trials of the teenage years.
“I spent a lot of my childhood writing songs about confusion and about trying to get it, trying to understand what's really going on,” said songwriter Mike Herrera.
Originally called Magnified Plaid, bassist Herrera, drummer Yuri Ruley and guitarist Tom Wisniewski started playing together as students at Central Kitsap High School.
“Graduation was on Monday,” remembered Wisniewski. “We shot our first video for a song called “Want Ad” in Seattle on a Tuesday. And on Wednesday we jumped in the van and didn't come back for two months, just touring the country playing shows .”
And so began a 15 year cycle of touring, writing and recording, selling millions of albums, and building a fan base that will meet MXPX whenever and wherever they play.
“From the time I was 15 until the time I was in my early 30s all I did, all we did, was tour or make records, “ said Ruley. “I mean we really lived this pretty incredible life and, honestly, I took a lot of it for granted because I didn't know anything else.”
But even punk rockers have to grow up some time.
More than 25 years later both Herrera and Ruley are dads, and both Ruley and Wisniewski have full time jobs at the Naval Shipyard.
Still, get them together, and it's almost like they're teenagers again. The band has added guitarist Chris Adkins.
“I think the key is we are always trying to get back to where we were years ago,” said Herrera. “That feeling of youth, that feeling of childhood, and that's what music kind of does for us. We've always been kids because we've always been doing music.”
They may look a little different, but this is the same MXPX , giving it all at the punk rock show.
“We have changed over the years for sure but I think our core mission is to uplift people, be positive, be truthful, be real and be authentic,” said Herrera. “That's so important to us and in that respect we haven't changed.”
MXPX will be playing a show in Seattle this Summer and look for a new album coming out in the near future.
