If there’s one thing clear about the OC based hardcore punk rock/ hip-hop, alternative fusion band Terminally Ill, it’s the fact that no one in the band takes themselves seriously. With a crew of musicians, hackers, song writers, lyricists, paranoid-yet-funny miscreants, beer sluts and stoners, Terminally Ill is composed of Ryan Risetter (aka Dank Nasty/Emcee Poseur), Chill Nye, Illuminatti(YungPrivileged), P-Town Skrillionaire, Twan Solo, Cody Snowden, Bryan, Clit, LessCroc’s, and last but not least, and break dancing dwarf named MiCro-Bro. The band’s melodic aggressive, in your face, humorous music is saturated with references to the Illuminati, and the typical millennial nostalgia for 1990s bands, TV shows and cartoons. Imagine wacky a hybrid of the Beastie Boys, ICP(with no make up), Sum 41, Ween and Limp Bizkit. This band loves to play music, get wasted and drink tall cans of PBR till they pass out. Not always necessarily in that order.
The Weekly recently did a collective speaker phone interview with the members of Terminally Ill from their home base somewhere in the OC, where a free for all session of replies came when questions were asked. The band has a new album out this month, and will be launching a tour as well.
“This whole album is really like our official first album, it’s called Giving Up, and the spirit of it is finding the peace in ruining everything,” shouted Risetter. “It’s hard to describe, but the best I can do is the feeling when everything is going wrong in your life but then you find $20 bucks; well our whole album is the musical representation of finding $20 bucks, Risetter says as laughter erupted among the Terminally Ill crew.
Now known among the OC music scene for its explosive performances and strange yet funny music videos, Terminally Ill’s music is catching on with people, but as the band openly admits, not all people enjoy what they do.
“50 percent of the reactions are negative at our shows, but it’s this dumb, confused negative,” says P-Town Skrillionaire. “They expect it to be a punk show, but it’s a little different, and it just throws their brain’s equilibrium off, and they get mad. This one time, two girls actually tried to sock me in the face because they thought we weren’t punk. One of them even screamed that shit from the the crowd, and even tried to fight Ryan, it was nuts,” he says.
“See the thing about Terminally Ill, is people always like us, or they think we totally suck it’s never in the middle,” says Snowden, the band’s bassist.
Collectively, the members of TI all agreed on musical influences, including Fred Durst, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, ACDC, and oddly enough, Buckethead. “Buckethead has recorded over 300 albums or something like that and as a band, we have a goal to make more albums than him. “ shouted one of the band members from the background.
Terminally Ill is definitely turning heads and making fans(and non-fans) each show they play. On the local music scene, they are one of the few odd bands with the advantages of being able to play almost any show, due to the nature of their music. “We’ve played with Guttermouth, Angry Samoans, Del the Funky Homosapien, Downtown Brown, Naked Aggression, 45 Grave and so many others.” says Risetter.
“The benefit of having the kind of band we have, is that we can do most shows and 15 to 20 percent of the time we’ll be on spot, but it doesn’t matter if we play a hip-hop, metal, or punk show most people will not like us,” he says.
Terminally Ill’s DIY and middle finger to a traditional approach is solid, and they refuse to release their music to I-Tunes. According to the band, the album will only be sold at shows, and be available on their own website, terminallyillband.com.
“If people actually give a shit they will either go to our website and buy our albums or come to our shows and get drunk with us,” P-Town says.
Terminally Ill will do a mini West Coast tour in August with Skull Drug, which starts August 3rd at the Canyon Inn in Yorba Linda, and ends Aug. 26th in Long Beach at DiPiazzas and Aug 27th at the Roadhouse in Lake Elsinore. For full info on the shows, check out the band’s Facebook page.
Alex Distefano is an established freelance writer and music blogger from the Los Angeles area. With over a dozen years under his belt as a published Journalist, he covers the worlds of heavy metal music, punk rock, current events, cannabis culture, comedy, radio, food, tattoos, the paranormal, and ‘conspiracy theories.’ He graduated from California State University Long Beach in 2012 with a Bachelor’s Degree in both Journalism and Ancient History. Aside from his professional writing endeavors, Distefano works as an Educator, and delivery/rideshare driver.
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