IE: So Jo-Jo, what’s good? How is life treating you and what are you up to these days?

Joe: Well, I guess you could say I'm all grown up now (except for my immature brain). In the late 90's this NYC boy met a California girl and the rest, as they say, is history. We're blessed with two wonderful kids and the whole family and parenthood gig gives us clarity on the expression "fighting the good fight".

IE: So way back in 1988 in issue #1 of In Effect I interviewed you and you mentioned that Outburst started when you all went on a senior ski trip in high school. Thinking back to that ski trip what do you remember as far as the band and you as friends coming together?

Joe: It's funny because I hung out with Jay and George in high school (St. John's Prep in Astoria, Queens) but we knew there were other kids in our year who were down with hardcore. By senior year Anthony (Raw Deal) and AJ (Leeway) had graduated but we knew Chris (Bruno) and Brian (Donohue) because they hung out with some of the hardcore girls. It wasn't until the ski trip when we were introduced that we talked about the common bands we all enjoyed like Cro Mags, Crumbsuckers, Murphy's Law, Ludichrist, Agnostic Front - all the great local bands that had dropped records during our junior and senior years. For the rest of our senior year, we started to hang out a lot more and by the time graduation rolled around, we decided to give the band thing a shot.

IE: Once you got together and started practicing how easy or hard was it to formulate your own songs and how quickly did the songs to your now legendary demo come about? You mentioned in my initial interview that the Cro-Mags and Attitude Adjustment covers got boring and “Learn To Care” was the first Outburst song.

Joe: Honestly, I remember those early rehearsals being such a great time. Everybody pretty much liked what we were coming up with. George wrote the first original and Brian added lyrics about the messed up environment and that became "Learn To Care". I remember an early recording of this from my garage made the rounds and Chris said one  day that Kevin from The NY Hoods heard it and said my "hi-hat 1-2-3-snare hit" to lead into the mosh on "Learn To Care" was me ripping him off on their song "Mirrors Of Reality". That certainly wasn't my intention although it did sound very similar, so I changed it to that tom roll that you hear on the demo. Kevin, if you're reading this, I hope you still don't think I was trying to rip you off! Ha ha ha! Next up was "True", which Brian wrote about one of the preciously mentioned hardcore girls from high school and their falling out. "Mad At The World" was the last song Brian wrote lyrics for. They were short but those were my favorite lyrics of his because he just basically said "Fuck off if you don't like me" and sung them over and over. I also remember there were jokes about George's guitar lead in the intro sounding like snake charmer music! I gave the lyric-writing a try for "Mission Impossible" and "Think For Yourself", which was Jay's original. That was one of my favs because it was kind of fast. I still don't know if Brian was blowing sunshine up my ass but he would be like "Hey man, you keep writing and just tell me how you want me to sing them. You're better at this than I am." And so, I wrote the lyrics from that point on. Somewhere in there, George wrote the "Intro" which at one point was actually titled "Outburst". We wanted to have an instrumental to open live shows with because that's what a lot of the bands at the time were doing. Once we had these songs in the can, we were ready to hit Don Fury's to lay them down for a demo tape.

IE: That demo was Outburst in its rawest form and in my opinion and was the best thing you put out aside from the production/recording you got on it. For 1988 standards it was ok but looking back now about 25 years later what are your feelings on that particular recording?

Joe: Man, thanks for the nice words about the demo. We were just a bunch of kids in a recording studio for the very first time so we really didn't know our way around the board. Luckily, Don Fury kind of showed us the ropes before we started laying down takes of all the songs. You're spot on about the rawness of it. You can hear us landing out of synch in some spots, me not hitting spots that I should've been hitting, George saying "Good!" after we finally nailed takes that we'd been working 3-4 times to get down pat. Looking back, the raw feel and the energy are what stand out about that session to me. Personally speaking, I'm proud of the demo. It reminds me of those fun early days when we were finding our chemistry. I wish we had found a way to put "True" on one of our future recordings. I also love that we found time in between takes to play our Bad Brains homage and the Gorilla Biscuits "fool around" (with Chris singing).

IE: Once the demo hit people took to it pretty fast and the next thing you know Outburst was playing a lot of shows around NYC and Long Island.  Were you surprised how fast you guys went from being virtually unknown to being considered one of the better bands within the rising NYHC scene?

Joe: It was definitely a pleasant surprise, considering how many new bands were coming up at the time. We had the good fortune to be friends with the guys in Leeway, Gorilla Biscuits, Raw Deal, etc from around the way in Queens, too. We were following the "make a demo/start playing live shows" blueprint just like everyone else but some of our early shows were opening for bands that were already a big draw like Token Entry, Warzone, Rest In Pieces and Krakdown, so that definitely helped our visibility quite a bit.

IE: The rest of Outburst’s recordings included compilation appearances on the "New Breed" comp as well as the “Where the Wild Things Are” comp and of course the “Miles To Go” 7”. Care to comment on these 3 efforts and out of these which one was your favorite and why?

Joe: By this point we had several new songs in the bag and I was writing the lyrics. I remember us being totally psyched when we were asked by Freddy Alva to be a part of the New Breed Compilation. We went back to Don Fury's to do "The Hardway" and "Thin Ice" but this time we brought AJ (Leeway) with us so he could work the board and get us a better sound than we got on the demo. You'll notice a more crisp sound on the drums and guitars for the two New Breed tracks. I think Freddy selected "Controlled" off of one of our CBGB off-the-board tapes to be the third song. That's with Brian's hilarious intro asking the crowd to dance because he liked the song. Classic.

Soon after, Bill Wilson asked us if we'd like to contribute to "Where The Wild Things Are" as he was starting up Blackout! Records. We had gotten to know Bill mostly through our shows and hangouts with Raw Deal and he was awesome so of course we were all about it. We hit Legend Studios out in East Setauket (Long Island) to do different versions of "The Hardway" and "Controlled". I remember Bob Vandermark adding the reverb to that break before the chorus in "The Hardway" and we were all in agreement on how ridiculously cool that sounded! As fate would have it, Bill chose to open side A of the comp with "The Hardway" and it's something I'm still grateful about. The whole record was incredible, so having the privilege of kicking it off was an honor.

When Bill approached us about doing a record for Blackout! we didn't think twice, that's how excited we were. We had newer songs like "Misunderstood", "When Things Go Wrong" and "Miles To Go" and we were eager to have a record out. It was so much fun working with Bill on the graphics and layout, BJ Papas' photography, Jay's now-famous logo...so many good memories. 

I wish I could remember how we decided to call the record "Miles To Go". I remember getting the lyrical idea from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". As much as you'd like to take a break sometimes, you've got all these obligations so you pretty much can't. And you're in this game of life whether you like it or not. "Miles to go before I sleep." Mike was really playing his ass off, throwing bass riffs all over the place. George and Jay were really playing well together and if you notice Brian's vocal progression from the demo to the record, he's pretty much spitting fire! My favorite cut from the record was "Misunderstood" because of that off-beat tempo break that we closed the song out with. That sounds worlds away from the early demo stuff like "Learn To Care".

I'm taking the cheap way out, Chris. I can't choose a favorite because each recording represents a different period of the band, complete with great memories to go along with them. I'm proud of all of them.

IE: Fast forward to 2012 and I am listening to the BNB Radio Takeover show and there is an announcement that Outburst was going to be re-uniting with the original lineup at the 2012 BNB Bowl in NYC. Things seemed to be moving along well and then Jay your guitar player drops out being replaced by Mike Dijan (Crown Of Thornz, Breakdown, Sai-Nam and more). Then after that your singer Brian drops out as well. Can you take us through exactly what happened and were Brian and Jay originally on board to play and what made them change their minds as far as you recall?

Joe: Brian was on board as early as summer 2011. When I approached Jay about playing the BNB Bowl, he didn't waste any time and declined. Nothing serious or harsh. Just a "nah, it's cool" type of response. No false pretenses there, so respect given. He was up front. My guess is he didn't really care for the last reunion show in 2006 where we played CBGB one last time before they closed up that fall, but I can't really speak for him. That's when George and I approached Mike Dijan. We'd been friends with Mike since we were kids from Astoria Park, before anybody was in any bands. I think somewhere along the way, Jay even saw Mike and Jay gave him his blessing, so there was respect all around.

Brian was a different story. When BNB announced us around February 2012, I told him we got a big pop on the web and he didn't seem as excited as I thought he'd be. That was our first red flag. We told him rehearsals should start in March. That's when Brian started to mention his tight work schedule and his first kid on the way. That's when George and I started to tread carefully. The show was months away and the chances of Brian sticking to his commitment were literally on "thin ice". Then in early April, George and I finally asked him to let us know one way or the other if he was going to be in or be out. It was hard to tell from one conversation to the next where his head was at. That was so frustrating. We started rehearsals on the music - George, Mike, Dijan and me - without Brian, just to shake the rust off and work on our chops. It got to the point where we were saying to Brian "Dude, we know you know the stuff, just come down the day of the show and that'll be it. No rehearsals needed." At this point, we were announced on the BNB Bowl lineup, shirts were printed up and we were rehearsing the set list. We still held out hope that all this stuff would sway him into playing, but it wasn't meant to be. With 3 weeks to show time, he said he was sorry and backed out for good. Not a lot of time to react. We'd been here before. Too late to pull out, so we had to talk replacement singer.

IE: So you ended up using (James) Vitalo, Backtrack’s singer for that BNB Bowl show. How hectic/crazy/nuts was it leading up to the BNB show using him as your singer considering Brian didn’t really back out towards the very end?

Joe: Don't know if you've seen that video of Backtrack in China in February 2012 where one of the crew takes a video of Vitalo reacting to the news that Outburst was playing the BNB Bowl. It's very funny. Cut to mid-April and Dijan emailed Vitalo and I tweeted him immediately and he thought he was being fucked with, naturally. He was also out on the road with Backtrack. When he finally responded to me (after I told him it really was us), we're emailing back and forth about his interest to front Outburst at the show. Of course he was crazy interested but the logistics were tricky. Backtrack was in the midwest doing shows. George and I told him that we'd handle his airfare to and from if he could swing it. After consulting with the rest of his bandmates, they rescheduled a date in Chicago so Vitalo could come out to NYC and perform with us. We were very relieved that we had someone with the charisma and energy of Vitalo to front the band and it was great that he was actually an Outburst fan. We thanked him profusely before and after the show and I thought he came through like a champ, considering we had no rehearsal time with him. James, if you're reading this - thank you to Backtrack for the loan and thanks again to you for joining us on stage that day!

IE: Were there any other names thrown out there as possible replacements for Brian before you got Vitalo?

Joe: As soon as we came to grips with having to find a replacement, Dijan thought to ask Justice from Trapped Under Ice because they were doing Sai Nam together. He was down for it but actually suggested Vitalo because he knew what an Outburst fan he was. I had thought of Jay Pepito from Reign Supreme. He and I exchanged some funny pleasantries on the comments section of a Double Crossed piece on his band a few years ago. As it turned out, the Vitalo angle developed quickly, but I did bring up Jay. It would've been pretty hilarious to have a Filipino named Jay play with us after all.

IE: Best memories from that 2012 BNB show?

Joe: Even though we had all the Brian drama, there were definitely some great memories. Spending time with the guys again was nice. George and I still see each other a lot but we hadn’t seen Mike Welles and Dijan in person in forever. We rehearsed the last couple of times at Astoria Soundworks, where AJ from Leeway (and now Cro Mags) works. The final rehearsal was a cool hang with AJ, Lou Medina, Tony (Show of Force) all coming in and out of the room as we tightened up our set. 

Mike Welles, Dijan and I also had the privilege of joining the Black N’ Blue Takeover on East Village Radio a week before the Bowl. We got to speak a little about band history and prep the masses for Vitalo. Spending time with the Takeover crew was a lot of fun – Buske, Laurens, Damian, Cuz’n Joe – all super cool guys. Just hanging outside the radio station with the other guests like John Joseph and Paul Bearer took me back to the days of socializing in front of CBGB back in the day.

There’s a really good friend of mine – Gretchen Baria - who’s a professional photographer from Chicago. She used to lament not knowing me when I was in Outburst and how she wished she could’ve seen us back in the day. When the BNB Bowl opportunity came up, I asked her if she’d be down to come to New York and take pictures of the band. She took us up on the offer, finally got to see us and worked a paying gig! She did a fantastic job.

The day of the show was hectic but very organized. There were lots of old familiar faces (and some new) that I had some nice chats with including Todd H (Warzone), Walter (Rotting Out), Nick B (Cold Front) and Eddie (Leeway) throughout the course of the day. As far as the performance, I’m just glad Vitalo made it to bust out the vocals and that we all played a fairly tight, mistake-free set. It felt great to be up on stage playing again.

IE: A few months back a blog called Vinyl Noize kind of called some of you guys out for your attire on the “Miles To Go” 7”. Do you know this guy and can you tell us what he actually said?

Joe: I don’t know him but I sent it to the guys and we all were very amused by it. He referred to the “Miles To Go” cover and said:

“…you can then stare at the cover and wonder for hours, where the hell they got some of the gear they’re wearing, with the striped engineered borderline half shirts and John Lennon glasses being the biggest points of wonder. Well… it’s safe to assume the glasses were purchased on St. Mark’s, but their appearance is still puzzling.”

George commented on the post that we should do a new Outburst t-shirt that pays homage to his “striped engineered borderline half shirt”. There have been plenty of other “guido-core” comments over the years about that record cover, which we all find hysterical. Nobody was trying to wear anything funny on purpose!  Plus, we weren’t trying to be part of any NYHC fashion show. Doesn’t anyone remember “Can’t you act and be yourself? Not another character in a hardcore handbook?”

IE: A big trend within the hardcore community is the “rip” t-shirt/logo design where a band usually takes an old school bands logo and changes the font around to read their name. Cali’s Soul Search did this with one of your old logos as well as replicating your “Miles To Go” 7” cover almost perfectly. I think you were pretty flattered when you saw this, correct?

Joe: It was that old saying about “the sincerest form of flattery” multiplied by a thousand! Soul Search nailed the front AND back covers all the way down to the font! They also ripped one of our early logos done by original bassist Chris – the one with the Red Skull pointing his gun. Just amazing stuff from them! Speaking of Cali and flattery, I definitely want to take a minute to offer our heartfelt props to all the awesome new-generation California hardcore bands who have covered our songs. Through the wonders of the internet and social media, we’ve seen some great covers by Soul Search, Deadlined, Violation, Minus and Plead The Fifth. You guys don’t know cool that makes us feel! Thanks for the California love, seriously.

IE: So what does Joe from Outburst listen to these days? Any newer hardcore, still listen to the oldies, what about other types of music?

Joe: Through the kindness of our friend Lou, AJ from Leeway delivered his new band Future Fables 7” to me just the other day. That’s AJ, Arthur (Gorilla Biscuits) and Pokey (Leeway, Agnostic Front) playing really melodic rock. Can’t wait to brush off my turntable to play it! As far as any newer hardcore, Sai Nam put out that incredible record. I’ve gone back and checked out the catalogs for a lot of the Cali HC bands that I mentioned. Backtrack is great. Rotting Out is also awesome. I still manage to find time to listen to the hardcore and punk that I grew up on. As far as metal, I’ll always be into the Big 4 stuff. “Worship Music” from Anthrax was great. So was “13” by Megadeth. I listened to a lot of Black Sabbath’s new album over the summer, too. (Also titled “13”) As far as hip hop, either it’s changed or I’ve changed but from the newer generation, I like J Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco. I’m also glad Eminem is back. I really like his new album. I drive two kids around a lot so I listen to a lot of Top 40 radio in the car, so from the pop music family, I enjoy Bruno Mars, Paramore and pretty any EDM song that brings a nice vocal melody.  

IE: So that’s about it Joe, thanks for doing this. Do you think we will ever get a chance to see Outburst again or was BNB last year really it?

Joe: Well, I’ll just say it like this: We never say never, but we never know when, either.

IE: Anything else that you would like to add?

Joe: Hey, thank you for having me back for a second Outburst interview 25 years later! You know, one of your questions in that first issue of In Effect asked about me being a piano player and if there was “any chance you would use them in the band?” I was like “I doubt that Outburst will ever find room for keyboards…” Fast forward to the Miles To Go sessions and oh, hello there “S.G.I.” Hahahaha!!!

I promised a mutual friend of ours that I'd find a way to work a mention of her into this interview just for laughs, so hello to Kristine Carranceja Gurski - a former classmate of mine at St. John's University -  from Chris In Effect and Joe Outburst! It's a small world after all...

I’d like to add a note of gratitude to the Outburst family – George D’errico, Jay Rufino, Brian Donohue, Mike Welles, Chris Bruno, Chris Benetos, Walter Schriefels (played bass with us at our first CBGB show!)  Mike Dijan, James Vitalo – thanks so much for being part of the band’s history. To quote the cello player on the deck of the Titanic, “Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you.”

Lastly, a note of thanks to the entire New York Hardcore scene - past and present – for allowing 5 high school seniors an opportunity and a forum to express ourselves. We played with many great bands and made many great memories. Now, we’re lucky enough to see bands with kids half our age covering our songs at shows where kids are singing along like it was 1990. The whole thing has been one very cool experience!