Eric Stenman has spent three decades on the other side of the glass, quietly shaping records for Deftones, Weezer, Thrice, Dashboard Confessional, and Senses Fail, while building AWOLNATION's entire catalog alongside Aaron Bruno since 2011. Before any of that, he was a teenager in Sacramento, self-funding vinyl pressings on his own credit card inside a scene that also produced Deftones, Far, Will Haven, and Death Grips.

Now he's finally the one holding the guitar. The Barbarians of California, his band with Bruno, released their debut album And Now I'm Just Gnashing My Teeth and is about to open a couple of dates on Guns N' Roses' 2026 tour, a long way from a home studio with barely any gear in it.

We get into the Sacramento scene that shaped him, the reunion with Bruno after a decade apart, his stories from recording Cake, what it means to walk onto a stadium stage after thirty years of building other people's.

PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  [https://lnk.to/100words]



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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

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Eric Stenman from The Barbarians of California & Tinfed

Mike Morales grew up skateboarding and playing in a power violence band in Lompoc, a small Central Coast town far from any real scene, before those friendships pulled him into Initiate. We trace that path into the band, into writing Cerebral Circus (the record where Initiate let acoustic guitars and huge choruses sit next to their heaviest material), and into what it's like touring with a band now spread across three states. Mike also gets into the gap between what a band looks like online and what it actually feels like from inside the van, plus watching hardcore grow up around Initiate since 2016.

Long Live Andy Williams [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/100-words-or-less-the-podcast/id394647425?i=1000357382223]

PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  [https://lnk.to/100words]



Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed

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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike Morales from Initiate

Christine Goodwyne has been building Pool Kids since she was two people short of a band, booking backyard shows in Tallahassee before there was even a name on the flyer. Nearly a decade later, the group has a Hayley Williams cosign, a flooded studio they somehow saved, a hardcore alter ego born as an April Fool's joke, and three albums that trace a path from math-rock tangents to pop hooks, most recently Easier Said Than Done on Epitaph Records.

This episode, Christine sits down to talk through the parts of the story that don't usually make the press cycle: what it actually takes to survive as an independent band inside the modern music business, what made Florida's DIY scene both a launchpad and a complicated place to come up in, and yes, an honest attempt at ranking math rock bands, because someone had to ask.

PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  [https://lnk.to/100words]



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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Christine Goodwyne from Pool Kids

Robin Staps started The Ocean in Berlin in 2000 as a revolving cast of musicians before locking into the band's most stable lineup in 2009. Twenty plus years and seven albums later, the group's blend of post metal, prog, and sludge has taken them from Siberian squats to European festival mainstages, and Staps runs Pelagic Records, the label he built alongside the band that's become one of Europe's key homes for post metal and post rock.

In this conversation, Robin talks through The Ocean's first ever full US tour, what it's like bringing a band built on European infrastructure and audiences into American rooms for the first time, and how the reception compares to what he expected. He also runs down his all time top five European hardcore bands, tracing the records and scenes that shaped him before The Ocean existed. And he gets into creative balance, how he manages songwriting, running a label, and touring without losing the thread on any of it.

A look at two decades of restless work from one of European heavy music's most consistent architects.

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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Robin Staps from The Ocean

Brian Gorsegner has spent his life circling the same scene from every angle. He fronted Night Birds until the band's final show at the end of 2022, books tours for acts like Alice Bag Band, Career Suicide, and Generacion Suicida through his company Wired Booking, and sits on the town council in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. But most people know him as the guy behind Ancient Artifax [https://www.instagram.com/ancientartifax/], the Instagram account turned archive turned book that's been unearthing punk history since a single Big Boys 7" post back in December 2016.

In this conversation, Brian talks about booking bands for a living versus collecting the artifacts of a scene that existed decades before he could buy a ticket to it, the strange economics of Discogs and what a first pressing is actually worth once nostalgia and scarcity collide, and what's sitting in his "fire box," the small stack of records he'd grab first if the house was going up in flames. He also opens up about the human side of building the Ancient Artifax book, tracking down items through people like John Brannon and Nathan Strejcek and hearing the stories behind them firsthand.

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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brian Gorsegner from Ancient Artifax & Wired Booking 

Before Springfield, Illinois had much of a scene to speak of, Ladd Mitchell was already building one, first with Park, then Tiger Tank, logging years on the road during the golden run of early-2000s midwest emo. We talk about joining Park mid-formation and becoming the one constant across four lineups, chasing a deal all the way to a small Santa Barbara label, and what a yearlong nonstop tour actually does to a band. We also get into the breakup, the return, and how the same restlessness that wrote songs on tour eventually turned into his first novel. This one's about staying creative no matter what circumstance you're handed: van breakdowns, lineup changes, or a blank page twenty years later.

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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ladd Mitchell from Park

Adam Rubenstein has been making music since he was a teenager in Indianapolis, when he and his bandmates formed Split Lip on Christmas Day, 1989. Drawing early influence from Burn, Youth of Today, and Endpoint, the band became a cornerstone of the Midwestern hardcore scene. They released records on Doghouse before most of them could drive, and landing a track on the landmark 1996 Anti-Matter compilation alongside Quicksand, Farside, Snapcase, Strife, Lifetime, and Mouthpiece which was and is a document of everything that mattered in that moment.

By 1995, Split Lip became Chamberlain, and the band pivoted toward a rootsier, more expansive sound that would go on to influence a generation of bands from Dashboard Confessional to Rise Against to The Gaslight Anthem. After Chamberlain went on hiatus in 2000, Rubenstein built a parallel career as a film composer, scoring acclaimed documentaries including Night School, 9-Man, Kid Danny, By Sidney Lumet, and Medora.

After more than two decades in New York, Rubenstein made the decision to leave the city and relocate to Ohio — a move that became the emotional backbone of his new album Firebreak, his first solo record in a decade. We talk about where it all started, what it meant to be on that Anti-Matter comp, the long road from hardcore basements to film scoring, and what it looks like to start over when you've already built something.

Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed

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Spotify  [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/11xMpD6cIu08GmE3PWpypA?si=83094abaefe04105]



Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEVERSLEEP (for a limited time only) [https://evilgreed.com/]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Rubenstein from Chamberlain and Solo Work

Kevin Hart has been yelling in hardcore bands since he was a teenager, but Public Opinion is something different — louder in some ways, quieter in others. His dad was a DJ, which means music was never just background noise growing up. These days Kevin processes the hard stuff through songs instead of burdening the people around him, and it shows as Painted On Smile is one of the most genuinely self-reflective punk records in recent memory.

Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed

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Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEWVINYL (for a limited time only) [https://evilgreed.com/]



See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevin Hart from Public Opinion 

Rich Gaccione built Providence Vegan Deli into something rare; a business that functions less like a restaurant and more like a community hub, where free sandwiches go to anyone who needs one, touring bands eat for nothing, and the line between customer and neighbor gets blurry fast. We talk about how that philosophy took shape, the hardcore and punk roots that inform everything he does, and the seitan operation that started it all. We also get into his time touring with My Chemical Romance and the sandwich on his menu that is his most popular one. Come for the food, stay for the conversation.

Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed

Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/100-words-weekly-reccos/pl.u-WMy3UB4N43]

Spotify  [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/11xMpD6cIu08GmE3PWpypA?si=83094abaefe04105]



Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEWVINYL (for a limited time only) [https://evilgreed.com/]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rich Gaccione from Providence Vegan Deli

This week I sit down with Anthony Lemus, the voice behind Southern California's Stateside. What started as a warehouse job friendship and a shared love of 2000s emo has turned into one of the more exciting bands to emerge from the current hardcore-adjacent scene — and Lemus is the emotional engine at the center of it. We get into how growing up in Southern California's hardcore world shaped him, the deeply personal lyrics behind Where You Found Me, and what it actually feels like when the band that started it all asks you to open for them. It's a conversation about where music comes from, what it costs you, and the surreal moment when your heroes treat you like a peer.

Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed

Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/100-words-weekly-reccos/pl.u-WMy3UB4N43]

Spotify  [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/11xMpD6cIu08GmE3PWpypA?si=83094abaefe04105]



Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akI_b6HY7yrc2Zc1ciBvw]

Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order. [https://rockabilia.com/] 

Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEWVINYL (for a limited time only) [https://evilgreed.com/]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anthony Lemus from Stateside

Ray Harkins (@xpurposex) · Zencastr

Ray Harkins (@xpurposex)

Host Ray Harkins dives deep with creators of independent culture from musicians, artists and other interesting people to find out what inspires them, how they came to be and many other unexpected places.

100 Words Or Less: The Podcast