Inside the new Floorpunch book – interview with the NJ hardcore legends & authors

NJ hardcore band Floorpunch had a brief but influential run that lasted from 1995 to 2000 and helped spearhead a youth crew revival alongside bands like In My Eyes, Hands Tied, and Ten Yard Fight. They released one demo (1995’s Goal Line Stand), one EP (1996’s Division One Champs), one LP (1998’s Fast Times at the Jersey Shore), and a few compilation contributions, and they put on live shows that were the stuff of legend. In the time since their breakup, their legend has only grown, and increased interest in the band has helped result in some triumphant one-off reunions over the years. Now, their story has been immortalized in a new oral & visual history book from Shining Life Press, Floorpunch: No Exceptions 1995-2000. It’s a 340-page, full-color book that promises “every show, every story, and every rumor.” It’s available now in the BV shop.

The book description reads::

Floorpunch: No Exceptions 1995-2000 is the definitive oral history of the most important and coolest straight edge hardcore band since 1989—the one that goes in the time capsule. 340 pages containing interviews with every member and key individuals of the time—in their scene and others—the book also shakes out as an illuminating document of a revelatory time in hardcore, and describes the sea change in the scene in the 1990s which Floorpunch brought on. Effectively, No Exceptions gives the Robert A. Caro treatment to straight edge hardcore—finally—via thorough and lively coverage of the band’s formation and span, with lore on every show and recording, their growth, the scenes’ reactions, controversy, the Final Mosh, and all the stories… severe depth and context on a pivotal band the way they deserve to be seen.

Anyone who likes or knows about Floorpunch is likely already feet first on this book; No Exceptions is also recommended reading for individuals who are curious about what the hardcore scene—scenes—was really like in 1990s, or who were around then, and/or what it was like to be in the middle of something special. Throughout there are photos—live, everything else—an index with an exhaustive archive of the band’s T-shirts, as well as every show flier, selected graphics, logos and more.

The book contains interviews with everyone who was around during that time and involved. On the record are: Floorpunch’s Mark Porter, Chris Zusi, Bill Punch, Marc Zev and Mike Kingshott. Brett Beach of In My Blood Records, which put out the demo and 7”, Steve Reddy of NY Wolfpack whose Equal Vision Records released the band’s full length LP, Duncan Barlow, who was involved in an altercation with the band; all central members of FPC (Floorpunch Crew), including: Geoff D’agostino, Shark Attack’s Matt Summers and Matt Smith, Jesse Standhard of Follow Through, Dave Murphy (great stage diver); In My Eyes’ Anthony Pappalardo, Martin Castro, whose exploits cannot be described judiciously in a blurb, Ari Katz and Dan Yemin of Lifetime, Guav (designer for Cabal 315 Straight Edge clothing), Sean O’Donnell of Youngblood Records, Chris Kelly of 97a, West Coasts’ Todd Jones from Nails, the author Ray Lemoine and many more. If you think there is a voice missing here, trust me, they were asked to participate and either declined or just didn’t respond.

No Exceptions contains photography from Justine DeMetrick, Jess Humphrey, Carl Gunhouse, Traci McMahon, Danielle Dombrowski, Matt Summers, Casey Kulas, Christina Dong, Steve Larger, Erin Murphy, Nick Martinson, Donny Mutt, Sharon McCarthy, Christina Garcia, Katie Dance and many more.

No Exceptions contains a foreword and afterword by Brett Beach and T-shirt images courtesy of Ry Fillman. All interviews were conducted by Crucial John. Edited by Shivaun Watchorn and designed by Crucial John and Tom Bejgrowicz.

All the members of Floorpunch (except drummer Mike Kingshott, due to a death in the family) helped celebrate the book’s launch at Asbury Park’s Trinity Church on Saturday (3/29), and in the spirit of the first 7″ being pressed on gold vinyl and limited to 88 copies, there were 88 books that were printed in gold. The Q&A was hosted by Greg Falchetto of The Mongoloids, and it also featured Brett Beach (In My Blood Records, who as mentioned above wrote the book’s foreword and afterword) and stories by Geoff D’Agostino (friend of the band who created all of their merch). In attendance was longtime Floorpunch fan turned music industry veteran Paul Hanly, who said “topics included Rick Ta Life trying to bootleg the demo, the European and US tours, beefs with Earth Crisis, Lifetime, & BoySetsFire, what is better – The Raw Deal or Breakdown demos, how the limited gold vinyl of the 7″ was created, the infamous Ensign vs Floorpunch football game and of course The Final Mosh which was the last show @ CBGB in May 2000.”

Paul also interviewed authors/Shining Life Press owners John Scharbach and Zack Wuerthner and Floorpunch vocalist Mark Porter about the book for BrooklynVegan, and you can read on for that conversation, along with photos of the book and from the Asbury Park event.

Pick up the book here.

John, I know you have been working on this book for a long time. How did you first discover Floorpunch and your love for their music?

John: I discovered Floorpunch as a youth first getting into hardcore. It was during a time when the internet felt smaller and I would look for anything I could find that seemed close to my interests. I would go on Revelation Records and Equal Vision’s websites, hit the message boards and search their web stores for any bands that seemed straight edge or had record covers that had people with X-Fists on it or followed the classic band name with collegiate letters over a live photo format. I was looking for as many edge bands that leaned into the classic youth crew style as I could find and it was around that time that I heard about Floorpunch, prob late ‘97 or early ‘98. I think the first things I got were the Twin Killing CD and the grey shirt with the skinheads moshing illustration on the back in red ink. I bought it from someone off the Rev board and I wore it like every day for years. I was a just a straight edge youth crew kid from North Carolina and that’s what I gravitated towards and obviously, Floorpunch at that time were the kings of that scene. To my friends and I being from a small town far from the huge east coast cities, bands like Floorpunch, Ten Yard Fight and Hands Tied felt like huge titans – the contemporary Youth of Today, Side by Side or Gorilla Biscuits. What’s crazy about Floorpunch and I’ve talked to Mark about this before, is they’ve reunited multiple times and their allure has never seemed to go away. A lot of bands run their legacy into the ground and ruin their image, but Floorpunch have endured and are seemingly more popular than ever. I feel like this book is gonna make their legacy even bigger. 

You go into painstaking detail in this book about the entire history with the photos, shirts, shows, studio recordings. How crucial was it to take the oral history approach involving the band members, friends of the band, and many scene eyewitnesses? 

John: It was essential but it can also be really annoying because you gotta pester a ton of 40 and 50-year-old men constantly about talking about the past. I love hearing the stories, but dealing with that many people can always be a little daunting. To me, the oral history style was necessary for a book like this. So much of hardcore is kids hanging out and talking shit before or after a show in a parking lot so I wanted the book to try and reflect that. Floorpunch is a band with a lot of myth attached to them, there are a lot of classic stories that people still talk about and it was cool to have all of it gathered together and told first hand by the band members and the people that were there to detail exactly what happened. 

In putting this book together, what were some of the hardest and some of the most satisfying parts? 

John: With any project like this, step one is having all the band members agreeing to do it so I was really siked that they agreed to be involved and trusted us with helping to tell their story. Then once you start talking to everyone and gathering material, the flyers and old photos, we were getting so much cool stuff. That is always the most satisfying, knowing you are getting enough good stuff to put together a great document or getting a few key things that will serve as cornerstones for everything else to build off of. All the photos I’ve never seen before were especially great to see, Floorpunch always looked good in pictures. The way they dressed, how they looked on and off stage, and how the crowd reacted – the band was fortunate to excel in all those departments. This book is great because of the photographers and we can’t thank them enough for agreeing to be involved. There were four main photographers that provided us with a slew of pictures and they deserve special praise – Huge thanks to Justine DeMetrick, Carl Gunhouse, Jess Humphrey and Traci McMahon. 

Mark, when you were first contacted by John about doing a Floorpunch book, what the hell was your reaction? 

Mark: It was cool that people still cared. Paul, you’ve known me a long time and I’ve always been kind of like a self-deprecating guy. Floorpunch, while I do like the music, it’s not my favorite. I was always into the heavier stuff like Breakdown & Raw Deal but my musical tastes are different. Floorpunch was only a band for a couple of years and a lot that happened was compressed into a short time. I think it’s a story worth being told and I was really psyched that someone wanted to tell it. Like I said, being the self-deprecating guy, I never really could believe how big we were. Overall, I thought it was awesome. I know these guys by just reaching out and talking to them throughout the process left no stones unturned. I was like, you talked to him? You found this? You tracked that down? 

Was there any particular stone that was unturned that really resonated with you? 

Mark: There was just a bunch of random stuff. I remember sending them flyers and thinking they had everything, but they would respond that they had never seen that before. John, wasn’t there a flyer I found only a few months ago that you didn’t have? 

John: That US and European tour itinerary, I think you found it at your Dad’s house with some other undiscovered shit that we needed to add in the book. 

Zack: When you get this deep or obsessive about a band, you have a mental catalog of every photo and flyer so if you see just one new piece of ephemera that you have never seen before you instantly spot its significance and that is kind of cool. It’s like Christmas every single time a new thing comes in. I was driven to madness organizing a complete show list or tracking down a flyer for every single show because that’s the level of detail that we wanted. 

What do you want people to take away when they finally see this book?

Mark: I was 23 when the band started and I’m 52 now, so it’s that long ago. We were straight-edge kids who loved hardcore and it meant a lot to us. We wanted to play the kind of music we grew up listening to. That was our goal, and I think this book proves that in a way. 

John: I think for me, I just want to do a good job documenting a band that was really personally inspiring and I know a lot of other people have strong feelings for. I hope it motivates someone in some way, I want them to get psyched on hardcore, be creative, share with other people, start a band, nurture a scene, just enhance their life in whatever way suits them. 

Zack: I remember when we were first talking about this with Mark, we didn’t really know how much there was or how big it could be, and it just kept ballooning bigger and bigger, and it ended up at 340 pages. 

Last question. I interviewed Floorpunch on my high school radio show in the ’90s that I co-hosted with Matt Molnar of Uprise fame. Mark, how does it feel to be interviewed by me again and does this kind of feel like full circle in our friendship? 

Mark: I remember that interview in the radio station! It’s funny. I was going to say this before, but you might not realize that you and your crew were an integral part of this band. The Morris County Youth Crew was like a built-in crowd. You guys rolled so deep. We could go to a show and regardless of if anyone else was there, there would still be 30 kids going crazy. 

Thank you for saying such nice things, Mark. I appreciate that. 

John: Thank you to Mark and the band for trusting us to do the book. It is something super special and important to us. Right from the very first text, Mark was always down and super supportive. 

Zack: Mark has been extremely helpful and just super encouraging of doing this book. I also wanted to shout out Brett Beach. I feel like a lot of this wouldn’t have been possible without him and he’s just the coolest fucking dude ever. He’s the wealth of knowledge we needed. 

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Floorpunch: No Exceptions is available now in the BrooklynVegan shop.