For as far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a punk rocker. Well, not really, but sounds cool like in “Goodfellas”, “for as far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster”.

Anyways, I started getting into punk music in the 6th grade. My favorite bands were Nirvana and Green Day. I began listening to The Clash as well, though not as much as the next year. I didn’t even live in Lancaster during this period. I lived out near Thornville and Rushville, which is about a thirty-minute drive from Lancaster. I moved in town in January of 6th grade and started going to Lancaster schools.

Around this time I was fully dedicated to punk music and with the help of an old friend of mine, I was going to start a punk band. Joe Hiles had an Ibanez guitar and my father bought me a Peavey T-40 bass for Christmas. I never took real lessons, I would just bring CDs into my guitar teacher, Kevin Cromley, and he’d teach me how to play the songs. So I learned real quick how to play by ear. I did learn tablature before my lessons began. O I went on the Internet and printed out some easy Clash songs. “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”and “The Magnificent Seven” were the first songs I learned. Once Joe and me decided to start practicing, we never took it seriously and just screwed around too much to come up with any songs. We were in 7th grade and I guess I didn’t really expect much anyway. The lack of a drummer didn’t help either. So by the time 8th grade ended I dropped the idea of a band.

Now there was this punk band in town called White Trash. I was never able to go to any of their shows, but I knew what they were all about. That was my dream – to do what they did and play punk music in town only to show the other kids that we didn’t give a damn about anything.

When I went to Stanbery freshman school I was the ONLY kid there who listened to punk music. As far as I knew, there was no punk scene. Joe had gone off to be home schooled and any other kid who once listened to punk music – probably only because Joe and myself did – was now listening to Snoop Dogg and Ludicrous. There may have been a few other kids who were into Blink-182 and MxPx (future Winklers and Fat Tones) but I was into the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Rancid and the Last Resort… real punk rock (not punk rawk. I fucking hate that.)

A friend of mine gave my phone number to some kids who were trying to start a punk band. They went to Fisher Catholic high school so I didn’t know them. This was around January 2001. They called me and invited me to a practice later that week. ON that evening my mom was an hour and a half late getting home and I didn’t drive. So I left to go to the drummer’s house. His name was Brock Ailes and by the time I got there, Kenny Rutter, the guitarist had already left for his home in Logan. When Brock came to the door I expected someone to look a little more punk. He was fat with semi-long greasy hair and was wearing an Ethnies shirt with blue Dickies slacks and Etnies shoes. This was a very common look in Lancaster at this time. Kids sportin skate brand clothing listening to 311 and skating in Church parking lots. Later I learned that Brock’s first impression of me was quite different. He told me I scared the shit out of him. My hair was sticking out all over the place, I had an Operation Ivy T-shirt full of holes, tight faded blue jeans (something Brock never wears even to this day) and a pair of torn up chucks with my toes sticking out of the holes and writing all over them. And I wasn’t fat at the time. And when you’re the fat kid, you’re scared of everyone who isn’t. And that’s how S.B.C. got started.

As tie passed we practiced and came up with some really bad songs – which were cool at the time. Once we had some songs down I decided to save up some money and we’d record a demo. I got a hold of my old guitar teacher who owned his own music store at the time called Cromley Music. He recorded bands with his pro-tools equipment for $35 an hour. So we went in there and recorded our three songs in two days.

Day 1 : music and vocals
Day 2 : mixing and mastering.

As time went on we wrote better songs, started playing shows and eventually recorded again at the same place. There really wasn’t a punk scene at the time in Lancaster. White Trash was gone, emo was popular and the only punk kids in town were the kids who were far too punk for their own good. Mohawks, leather jackets, combat books and all that fashion shit. Too cool to listen to us. We didn’t dress up all punk and fix our hair or say cool catch phrases they got from listening to the Casualties.

Well, it’s now a year later and we’ve recorded numerous times since then. Kenny also built his own studio so we can record ourselves for free. We have a new name, The Freedom Fries. It makes me happy. It says everything about this strange time in which we live. It’s also the perfect name to represent the sarcasm and humor in our music and at our shows. Today there is also more of a scene. More bands and more kids. I’ve noticed some of the kids talking about starting bands of their own. And my plan for how we’re going to do that is go beyond the boundaries of local punk music, open our minds and be original. Be inspiring. Punk music is on a forever-long journey that’s headed down a tunner that gets narrower and narrower with every songs.

-Jared Allen

The Freedom Fries.

Rating : 7.4/10