Violent Change have been consistently one of the most interesting, shape-shiftingly amorphous and strange rock bands of the past decade. Drugged and hazy, sure, but you never know if these abstractions will express themselves through English foppery, post-punk attack, noisy pop or something crude, raw and unusual of their own making. That’s why we love ’em here at Dynamite Hemorrhage, and why you love ’em too.

We sat down and conducted an electronic exchange with Matt Bleyle, Violent Change founder and frontman, and are reprinting it in its entirety for you here.

Dynamite Hemorrhage: I believe you live in Novato, CA or at least grew up there. How proud are you to be part of the great lineage of Marin County rock and rollers, from Huey Lewis to The Fleshapoids (“Nuke The Whales”) to yourself?

Matt Bleyle: I grew up in Mill Valley, CA – home of Quicksilver Messenger Service. 

DH: Tell me what young Matt Bleyle was like, and how you discovered the sort of music that ultimately set you on your path.  

Matt Bleyle: Growing up I definitely was seeking out any punk ancestry based out of Marin, which seems like a hilarious venture. I was very excited to find out about UXB off of the Not So Quiet comp. I was into stuff that was marketed to me at first. From C and C Music Factory to Nirvana, but then something happened. I think Clear Channel bought all the radio stations and I remember thinking… why do they play Beastie Boys but not Tupac – and I knew I had to find a better world. I remember trying to find an audial connection to my state of being, and there I found punk and hardcore.

DH: You mentioned in a different interview that you recorded the song “Violent Change” even before your band name was decided, and that “it was an attempt at recreating a UK82 / disorder type of vibe”. Was that for the song or the band? 

Matt Bleyle: “Violent Change” the song was written and recorded in a few hours. It was a fictional theme song for a fictional band. I wanted the band, whatever it’d actually be called, to be versatile. There is a sense of an alter ego within each album, I’d say… the Abductors track on Celebration of Taste was marketed to each other as a side project, for example, during the recording process. 

DH: When did you make the leap from making your own music to actually recording and distributing it, and who helped along the way?

Matt Bleyle: I started recording Violent Change songs and distributing them around 2012 via hand-dubbed demo tapes. In 2020 I put out the VC Squandered 7”, and since then I’d say I feel like I’ve been actually distributing and feeling the joy in it. 

DH: What can you tell me about the Violent Change band members who played on the earliest records, as well as their current whereabouts?

Matt Bleyle: Specifically Tony Molina and Sterling Mackinnon (original members) pushed me to take the VC recordings live, and eventually we’d put out an LP. Mike Harkin who put out the first s/t lp was also an influential and supportive piece of the puzzle, along with original drummer Rohit Rao who I’d been practicing with before the band’s inception. 

DH: Who is Gladys Bleyle?

Matt Bleyle: My grandmother Gladys went to Mission High School around the time of WW2. I used her name as a moniker for a few albums. She was a musical person and a very inspirational force. 

DH: Earlier records had, to my ears, more of a heavily distorted, lo-fi pop sound, and I think the very first time I heard you around 2014 I’d thought Guided By Voices were a major influence. But I’m not sure that’s actually true.

Matt Bleyle:The early VC days definitely were a trying combination of KBD/Back to Front collector punk, as well as GBV. The lo-fi quality of these contexts made for a versatile palette. 

DH: Tell me about the Melters label and the guys behind it, and how you came to work with them on earlier records.

Matt Bleyle: I met Thomas Rubinstein, who would go on to start Melters with Eli Wald, while I was working as a cashier at Amoeba Records SF. He was shopping in the store one day and recognized me from some bands I’d been in and we just kinda became friends. They released the Suck on the Gun 7” and the Celebration of Taste record, and with It Takes Two records, they co-released VC3.

DH: Through all your time in the trenches of San Francisco Bay Area underground music, what bands have impressed you the most and that you’ve called compatriots to Violent Change?

Matt Bleyle: Life Stinks was a great band. The Mantles, who we never played with but really liked, were impressive. The Lavender Flu are also a great band. There’s a lot of bands that I’m forgetting. The Beat Offs.

DH: Hard to believe but there was a 7 year gap between your third and fourth records (2016 to 2023), although I know you were playing live regularly up until the pandemic. How would you describe those years for Violent Change?

Matt Bleyle: The years between VC3 and Starcastle was very much a live experience. We released the Squandered 7” in 2020 and the Honey Radar split in 2022, I think, but I had a series of surgeries and general drunken brokenness that got in the way. I was also playing drums in The Beatniks, which was rewarding and fun. 

DH: The past few records have truly veered off into a sound of your own making, which I love. There’s some English 70s pop abstractions in there, almost a 10cc or Wings vibe at times, as well a general wiry and raw post-punk thing going on. But every song’s a totally different animal. What do you make of it all? 

Matt Bleyle: I love 10cc. They are a versatile band. That’s always been an accent to the VC records, I’d say. 

DH: What’s your recording and editing process that makes Violent Change records come out sounding so dissociative and at times incredibly surreal?

Matt Bleyle: Starcastle as a recording was mainly Stanley’s arena. He really pulled through and made that record what it is, and I couldn’t have been happier with the quality. I didn’t hate it afterward!. All of the records of this decade that we have made have been directed, if not completely recorded, by him. Stanley and I are on the same page about recording VC. We create a context thru agreeing on aesthetic sensibilities and move from there to utilize malleable realms.

DH: Who is currently in Violent Change when you play out and when you record?

Matt Bleyle: Currently Violent Change is Stanley on guitar; Oli Lipton on drums, and Vinnie Barrett on bass.

DH: If you had the gumption to pull together a dream bill for Violent Change to play on, past or present, who would be on that bill?

Matt Bleyle: A dream bill would be opening for Hanoi Rocks on a US tour.

DH: What’s your aesthetic, would you say, for your own Slothmate Recordings label? Are you running this solo or with Stanley Martinez? And maybe say a bit about what you’ve put out and what’s coming?

Matt Bleyle: Slothmate as a label became very much an operation of Stanley and mine. Sterling, whom I recorded the Cuneiform Tabs record with, has also helped a great deal. I have a Dan Melchior record coming out soon that’s just been mastered. I’m very excited about it – it’s called Danny and the Jupps. A record by my good friend and amazing songwriter Spencer o Karma and some new Now songs have been sounding amazing as they come down the pipeline. 

DH: What’s happening in the next year for Violent Change, if you’re planning that far ahead?Matt Bleyle: I think next for Violent Change is to record another LP with the current line up. It’s a very solid and creative crew.