Don’t Fix What Ain’t Broke

Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media

Jared Gomes leans forward, clutching an old-school condenser microphone with both hands like a shock jock. The wall behind him is a black & white collage of old punk rock gig posters – BLACK FLAG, BAD RELIGION, T.S.O.L.. Some people wear their influences on their sleeves – Jared evidently took it a step further and made it his wallpaper.

The (HED) P.E. frontman doesn’t look 52. The distinctive tattoos might have faded a little, but he still crackles with restless energy, shifting endlessly in his high-backed gamer’s chair. He doesn’t like to sit still. It took a pandemic to stop him. This is the first time he has stopped being a touring musician in twenty-five years. (HED) P.E. were only two weeks into a seven-week jaunt when COVID erupted across the United States, and the band could only watch in horror as the cancellations came one after another. 

“We were in Rhode Island … I was like, “Oh wow, this tour is imploding.” We started making our way back home. Of course, Rhode Island is all the way on the east coast, and I live on the west coast … In an effort to turn lemons into lemonade, as soon as I got home I started working on this Class of 2020 record. I’m so stoked that I can put it out.”

A lot of records coming out this year have gone out of their way to not acknowledge the pandemic. Not this one. Class of 2020 isn’t just a product of COVID – it addresses it directly. Nothing Lasts 4ever (The Ballad of C19) is a DROPKICK MURPHYS-style pub singalong depicting a hopeful future when the virus is defeated, the world is opened back up, and we can get back to the things that really matter (gigs).

We the People is a seething call to action, sampling JFK’s inaugural address over a malevolent, brooding guitar riff. “The writing’s on the wall / Now we ready to take the power back” Jared sneers. Class of 2020 will be looked back on as very much a product of its time, reflecting the turbulence, rage and uncertainty gripping the United States as it barrels towards the election in November.

Black Lives Matter. Donald Trump. COVID. With all the chaos, what does it mean to be an American these days?

“It’s crazy times, and I think that the pendulum swings back and forth … You have to take in a bigger picture of what’s going on here. What’s happening is that the pendulum has been swinging ever since the days of colonialism, you know? Ever since this country was founded … The consciousness that birthed America no longer even really exists. You can no longer just take over a piece of land because you have the force to do it. That’s how this country was born, right? We’ve got the force, we want this piece of land, it’s ours now. That’s what the English did, right? That consciousness is gone now … Everyone is trying to adjust to a post-colonial world … You know me – I’m positive [that] it’s going to get better.”

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This year also marks the 20th anniversary of (HED) P.E.’s landmark album, Broke. Like Class of 2020, it is absolutely a product of its time. Seemingly the antithesis to the tortured angst of bands like KORN and LINKIN PARK, (HED) P.E. were cocksure bad boys, rapping about sex, drugs and excess. Rolling Stone described them as nu metal’s MOTLEY CRUE, but in hindsight that comparison does them a bit of a disservice. Granted, songs like Bartender and Crazy Legs tread familiar bitches-and-hoes lyrical terrain, but Broke also offered up moments of darkness and vulnerability, like the aching Pac Bell, which sounds like the last voicemail of a suicidal ex-boyfriend. As for a song like Swan Dive, let’s just say it’s not a song about birds. The title Broke wasn’t just referring to the state of their bank accounts. “We were broken people at the time, abusing life and chemicals. You know what’s really a trip, Tom? At the time when I wrote Broke, I was definitely not in a good place in terms of abuse and as a man, but after that record came out, the success was so tangible, it changed my life, for sure.”

Signing a seven-figure record deal will do that. “When you refer to a million-dollar deal, I’m not sure if people know what that means. That just means that they’re going to spend a million dollars total – making the record, supporting your tour, give you some pocket change. But that money does not last forever,” he laughs. “We didn’t get rich, like DEFTONES or KORN or LINKIN PARK or all of those peers at the time, but of course, it’s always easy to point out people that are ahead of you. There are tons of local bands who never got signed, you know what I mean?”

“The first record sold 30,000 in five years, OK? Broke sold 30,000 in the first week. Bartender was on KROQ … It was a huge station in town. My mom was talking to the DJ live on air. It really felt like we had made it for a second there, but you know what? As quick as we went up, it went down, and we did not have another single to follow up with off of Broke.” The label went with Killing Time, a caustic, gnarly banger that would feature on the soundtrack to pulp actioner 3000 Miles to Graceland, but it didn’t repeat the success of Bartender. Jared isn’t exactly mad about it. “It was a pretty rude awakening pretty quick, but it was a good enough plunge [that it] got me a career for the last twenty fucking years!”

Last month, original guitarist Chad “Chizad” Benekos released Touring for Broke: A (Hed) P.E. Film, his video diary of the 2000 tour cycle. It’s an interesting snapshot of a time in history where technology was barrelling forward (and no one knew quite what it was going to mean for music), and the height of fashion was JNCOs and a wallet chain. “It’s been a great experience to relive what went on twenty years ago,” Jared says with a smile, “because I really never gave myself a chance to take it all in!”

Broke featured guest appearances from others who would become nu metal luminaries – Serj Tankian from SYSTEM OF A DOWN (who were just about to release a little album called Toxicity and become one of the early 2000s most peculiar success stories), and Morgan Lander from KITTIE, the Canadian all-female nu metal crew who were playing Ozzfest while still teenagers. “What a different time in music,” reflects Jared. “It was pretty exciting. In the middle of it, I didn’t realise that we were a part of a certain scene of music that people would look back on – “nu metal” or whatever …”

“It’s just a fleeting experience,” he laughs. “I guess that’s just how life is.

****

A lot has happened since 2000. Band members came and went over the next nine albums, leaving Jared the sole original member. “I’ve got my own reason why I’m still here,” he laughs, “because I’ve written 150 fucking songs, and I don’t take “no” for an answer! I’m going to try and make money off of music for as long as I can … seems like I might have to pivot right now!”

(HED) PE fell in and out of favour with the Juggalo crowd – the face-paint-wearing fan base of the INSANE CLOWN POSSE, whose raucous annual music festival, The Gathering of the Juggalos, was vividly documented by Sean Dunne’s American Juggalo. Fanatically loyal to ICP and associated acts in the Psychopathic Records family, the subculture is often ridiculed, and was even declared a criminal gang by the FBI in 2011 – a label they pushed back against strongly, even marching on Washington to protest. (HED) PE played the Gathering numerous times, but from the fan-shot videos available online, it’s clear that they didn’t win everyone over. “We’ve had love and hate from the Juggalos,” Jared explains. “At first it was mostly love, now it seems to be mostly hate.” They were first introduced to the scene through tours with rapper TECH N9NE and the KOTTONMOUTH KINGS. Regardless of whether or not they will play there again, Jared is happy to espouse the positive aspects of The Gathering. “Everybody needs a place to fit in, and, definitely, the Juggalos provide a place for somebody to go.”

The biggest change of the last twenty years came when Jared became a father to a son, who is now thirteen. Given (HED) PE’s relationship with weed (they released a single, Pay Me, bundled with a joint), what did legalisation mean to him? “It’s a loaded question, because now I’m a father, and so I don’t look at it the same way. I don’t need it to be too legal, because I don’t want my son dabbling in it at all. My views on the topic have evolved through the years. Speaking as a father, that’s what I have to say. As a citizen, definitely, people should not be going to frickin’ prison over it, OK? That’s ridiculous – it should be the same as alcohol.” He is speaking from experience – he was arrested on the Broke tour in 2000 for possession of marijuana. Nowadays, dispensaries are considered essential services in certain parts of the U.S. He can’t help laughing at how times change. “It’s amazing … [in the Broke days] I’d have to go to Amsterdam and all this. Now, Amsterdam is an hour away. Amsterdam is every other state. It’s amazing, and it’s as it should be.”

I mention my own experiences as a drug-fuelled music writer back in my early twenties, and one particularly vivid episode listening to 2006’s Back 2 Base X album while sleep-deprived and annihilated on psychedelics, Jared’s voice swirling around my head. It seems like another lifetime. He looks back at that period with a similar disconnect. “I could never write a song like Novus Ordos Clitorus again,” he explains, referring to the swivel-eyed paranoia of lyrics that spoke of everything from the Illuminati and 9/11 to the Skull & Bones Society and the Freemasons. “The conspiracy lyrics that I used to write … I just could not do that. That’s so corny to me now,” he laughs. “But at the time, that was my whole life!”

“Being a dad changes your perspectives … I matured in terms of my writing … When my son was born, I really brought the focus in on myself as a human being, and found it more challenging to write personal music.”

Did fatherhood also mean curbing his weed consumption? “There’s no comparison, dude. It’s not even a part of his reality … As far as he’s concerned, either I’ve never done it, or I only did it before I met his mom – that’s the reality I’ve constructed for him.” Not a metalhead, his son is more a LIL PEEP and XXXTENTACION kid. Hopefully he doesn’t think to plug his old man’s name into Google. “Of course, some day he’ll realise I’m full of shit, because it’s documented all over the internet. I’m just trying to create a foundation for him that he can use to succeed from.”

Far from yearning for the days of old, Jared is happy where he is now, living with his family in Eagle, a picturesque, quiet slice of suburbia nestled in the Boise Foothills of Idaho. Red state. The streets are neat, the lawns blindingly green. It’s a long way from Huntington Beach, California. “When I think about the old Jared, and all the shit that he used to do, it’s like, woah, dude. That’s gnarly. I’m not proud of it. Some people live a life where they’re like, “No regrets! No regrets!” I have a million regrets, dude!”

How did a left-leaning guy like him wind up in Trump country? “I met my wife in Boise, Idaho, almost twenty years ago. She lived with me in Huntington for a while, but then, she was like, “Fuck this”, and moved back. I was heartbroken. She said, “You can have me if you marry me and move to Idaho.” That was about seventeen years ago.”

When I ask him what he’s grateful for, he jumps at the question. “Oh wow, that’s so easy! I’m so grateful that I was able to make a career out of this music thing, bro. I was thirty-two when I signed that million-dollar deal, you know? It’s been an amazing ride for me. I’m so grateful for (HED) P.E. … Through that I met my wife, through her I have my son, I’ve travelled the whole world. Tom, it’s just been a great ride, you know? I’m grateful for this music and everybody who’s listened to even one song of mine.”

He laughs. “You know what it did, too? All the attention [of] the past twenty years burned away all of my insecurities that I had growing up as a darkie amongst all the palefaces. It’s been a great experience for me.”

I must have planted a seed, because half an hour after our Zoom call ended, he posted the video to Bartender on Facebook with this comment: “I thank each and every one of ya for co-creating this amazing fucking life I'm blessed with. CHEERS!”

Talking to Jared, with his infectious enthusiasm, I’m reminded why I’m 34 years old and still hero-worshipping musicians. It’s because part of me is still the bullied teenager who saw people like Jared, KORN’s Jonathan Davis and DEFTONES’ Chino Moreno as larger-than-life, remarkable, magnetic talents who made music that made me feel alive. They were the faces who stared down at me from the posters on my bedroom walls and threw shapes in music videos I’d tape off Rage. Listening to (HED) P.E. in 2020 is comfortingly familiar

Who is going to say “no” to comfort right now?

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