THE BONELESS ONES
Featuring Max Fox, Troy Takaki, Craig Locicero, and Chris Kontos
Worldwide Debut Of “Back to the Grind” VideoÂ
Drop Two New Singles Midnight April 29th
Back To The Grind dropping Friday, May 13th
via Thunder and Lightning Records
 “Back to the Grind” and “Crossing Over The Bridge” Â
Two new singles dropping April 29thÂ
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Bay Area skate punk/thrash/crossover band BONELESS ONES is back.  After a 35 year hiatus the guys said,â Hey-what the fuck!!!â â¦Thatâs three-plus decades of sonic dominance and counter-culture benefaction. Now, The Boneless Ones find their contumacious voice again on Back to the Grind via their own label, Thunder & Lightning Records.
Troy Takaki says “Lower Bobs is an amazing DIY skatepark in Oakland. When I first went there I said, ‘we have to shoot a video here’. Throw in a new song and some awesome skaters, the video shoots itself. Actually, thank you Adam and Donovan for shooting it. Our first video with an actually director and cameraman.”
Watch “Back to the Grind” here:Â https://youtu.be/5OMLkrwcYgs
“Back to the Grind” – Troy Takaki says âThe name of the album was Chrisâ idea. Max wrote a song about skating with your friends after a long time off. The first lyric to the song is ‘Iâm back on board with my friends’. We named the song ‘Back to the Grind’ because it is just better than ‘Back on Board’. Well, we are back! After 36 years we are playing again!”
“Crossing Over the Bridge” – Chris Kontos says âThis song is about Crossover. Do you know what that is? This song is owed to the Ruthieâs Inn moment and what the Bay Area created blending punk rock, metal, thrash, Rock ân Roll.”
The Boneless Ones reunite! And what a long time coming â¦
“heavy, punk and trashy”– Craig Locicero (Forbidden, Dress The Dead))
“kick-ass metal/punk/crossover music”– Chris Kontos (Machine Head)
The Boneless Onescelebrate their much-anticipated return with new album,Back to the Grind.Featuring founding membersMax Fox(vocals) andTroy Takaki(bass) with erstwhile drummerChris Kontos(ex-Attitude Adjustment, ex-Machine Head) and new guitaristCraig Locicero(Dress the Dead, ex-Forbidden), and after 35 years, still – the Bay Area quartet breathe present-day life into the sounds/customs that crucially bridged punk, hardcore, metal, and skateboarding. In fact, it was appearances on pivotal compilationsThem Boners Be Poppinâ(Boner) andSkate Rock Volume 3 – Wild Riders of Boards(Thrasher) that set up debut albumSkate for the Devilfor near-continuous reverence from the day of its release in 1986 to its most recent re-issue via Beer City Records in 2020.
Pre-order Here:https://bonelessones.bandcamp.
photo by Timi Devlin
photo by Timi Devlin
About THE BONELESS ONES:
Formed in Berkeley, California, in 1984. Initially, they werenât even a musical groupâmore a cadre of Pro-Am aspiring punks aligned to a single skate-or-die goal. The genesis of the moniker goes back to Fox and cohort Takaki pilfering boneless stickers from grocery store meat departments. They plastered the âbonelessâ red decals everywhere. Then, still, without a band, they designed a logo. When a skate photo of Fox, Takaki, and ripper Joel Chavez appeared in East Bay fanzine Cometbus, they were mistaken for a real-life band. Naturally, Chavezâs trickâcalled a âbonelessââcombined with youthful guerilla marketing tactics had paid off. The Boneless Ones were officially born. Obligatory lineup changes eventually coalesced into Fox and Takaki bringing in Joe Satriani-educated guitarist Luke Skeels and Fang drummer Tim Stilletto. Not long after, the quartet wrote and recorded Skate for the Devil with Kevin Army. The rest, the adage goes, is history.
Skate for the Devil was constructed with spontaneous spirit, fresh-faced grit, and a middle-finger attitude. Whatever was to come after classics like âKeg Kept a Flowinâ,â âLove to Hate,â âMiss Fresno,â and âSkate for the Devilâ had to have the same impetus, a similar tongue-in-cheek constitution, and above all, continued adoration for all things skateboarding. Not for nothing but Thrasher Magazine called âSkate for the Devilâ one of the greatest skate rock songs of all time. So, high bars had been set. With heavy hearts from the passing of Skeels (R.I.P. October 26, 2020) and good friend Eddie Jennings and palpable nostalgia in their minds, The Boneless Ones reconvened not as a reunion band but as an entity driven to create anew. Indeed, Kontos (originally in the band’s â86 and â87 configurations) and Locicero provided indispensable firepower and aptitude to the overall songwriting sessions. The Boneless Ones pulled four unreleased tracks (âTied to a Stake,â âChurch of Violence,â âIn the Cold,â and âFaces of Deathâ) from a long-lost â87 demo while the band minted up-to-date songs in âBack to the Grind,â âWe Ride the Night,â âBlood on the Streets,â and âI Wish You Were a Beer,â the follow-up to âMiss Fresno.â Back to the Grind is real, and it surpasses all expectations.
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Back to the Grind is an album steeped in Bay Area rootsâthe vibrant Berkeley scene, Ruthieâs Inn, et al.âbut itâs not a retread musically. Yes, old songs have been retooled. Yet, itâs the new songs where The Boneless Ones overwhelmingly shine rebellious, wax dynamic (fast and slow), and hit harder than metal to concrete. The guitar hero antics of Skeel are still imbued in Lociceroâs contributions, and the tongue-in-cheek humor of the groupâs formative years remains intact. Thereâs no confusion in direction, however. This is skate rock/cross-over music, as poignant today as it was in the mid-â80s. Thatâs evident from the old-school gallop of âChurch of Violenceâ and the shout-out grind of âCrossing Overâ to the launch-ramp pulse of âGood Friendsâ and the Vanishing Point-informed âBlood on the Streets.â For a bunch of guys with miles on their backs and stories to tell, Back to the Grind illustrates that itâs never too late to resurrect and persist once more that which matters most.
“We wrote the whole record in the spare bedroom at my house,” says drummer Chris Kontos. “I was on electric drums. I kept it caveman. I didn’t want a Machine Head or Gojira-level drumming style on this record. The record needed to be played on a steering wheelâlike air drums. Craig was really hitting on some Rikk Agnew [Christian Death, Adolescents] moments on this record. He also understood the skate theme that we were going for. The modern [recording] tech going straight into my computer really helped our playbacks. We finally had a quality pre-production from that. We all had our parts down by the time we were ready to go in and record.“
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The Boneless Ones are, if anything, chroniclers. Musically, thatâs tangible throughout Back to the Grind. Lyrically, Fox has lived a life, and all that comes with it. Themes of brotherhood, lost love, reflection, and skateboardingâa scene in which the vocalist remains very activeâare woven throughout the lyrical outlay. Indeed, âBack to the Grindâ hits on never letting go, while âBones of Rockâ pays homage to rock ânâ roll; heartbreak is tackled on âIn the Cold,“ and âGood Friendsâ honors the unfortunate passing of a friend; âCrossing Overâ takes on the tenets of Bay Area cross-over music, and the bands that inspired it. Back to the Grind is a testament to the last 35 years of Foxâs life.
âThereâs two different styles I write in,â Fox says. âThereâs storytelling songs and songs that tell a story. I wrote a lot of the new songs from the heartâthings that have happened in my life. Theyâre âlife songs.â Iâve lived my life, and I have stories to tell. Iâm conscious that not every song needs to be a long and drawn-out novella. Some of the songs are playful, fun, and joyful. But thereâs a very serious side to us, too. Both sides are important to us, and I think they define what The Boneless Ones were and are now.â
Kevin Army and his trusty 8-track recorder did the job on Skate for the Devil in â86. The Boneless Ones (and technology) have moved on, however. The group enlisted producer Zack âThe Wizardâ Ohren (Machine Head, Fallujah) and Oakland-based Sharkbite Studios to properly capture Back to the Grind. The sessions were rigorous yet productive. On the first day, Kontos got through 10 of the 13 songs, while Fox nailed the vocals in two days. The Boneless Ones then brought on Grammy Award-winning mixing engineer Matt Winegar (Fantastic Negrito, Primus) and mastering guru Ed Littman for Ed Littman Mastering to ensure Back to the Grind would boom and grind from loudspeakers at skateparks to streaming playback.
âZack was good,â says Takaki. âHe was there with us from the get-go. You always know where you stand with Zackâhe speaks his thoughts. So, he helped us clean up our act. Chris was incredible. His playing is so physical. After the drums, we did bass and rhythm guitar. Now, we record everything individually. I work in movies, so I understand the theory, but this is the first time I recorded the bass by myself. The recording was so much different from the first album. We definitely pulled favors to get the music recorded 1,000 times better than it shouldâve been.â
Where The Boneless Ones go from here is determined by fun and feels. That’s how they started, and that’s how they’ll continue on. Certainly, the years of covert marketing via Hollywood movies (Diary of a Wimpy Kid [as Löded Diper], The Bounty Hunter), skate videos (Monster Energy Drink and Thrasher Magazine âMagic Maka Busâ with pro Grant Taylor), and appearances in other mediums have helped The Boneless Ones stay front and center. The tradition carries on with music spots in downhill skater documentary Nick Broms: Whatâs the Rush? and HBO Max series Dead Boy Detectives. Renowned artist Mark DeVito (Metallica, Motörhead) completes the Bay Area circle with a raging cover piece and a cool new slime-green logo design. The kegs keep flowinâ, the partyâs never dull, and most importantly, the grinds are always gnarly with The Boneless Onesâs Back to the Grind.
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BONELESS ONES online:
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