First time I met Chad we played with The Outdoosmen at the Ghost Ship and after the show was over he started taking beer bottles out of the trash and punting them against the wall. No one told him to stop so he just kept punting them. Colin (R.I.P.) Outdoorsmen drummer also gave us a big nug of weed that night, which was immediately lost in the van. We got pulled out of the van at every border checkpoint in Southern California on that tour, but even the border agents couldn't find it! I found it in an Outdoorsmen tape case under my seat about six months later.
Outdoorsmen were one of the first bands I released on TOTAL PUNK, and due to Chad’s art I had a really hard time finding someone willing to make the stamp for the cover. I got four disgusted rejections. I ended up putting out the first Life Stinks single and two more later. We played some shows with them at SXSW and they blew me away each time. I probably saw LIFE STINKS about 10 times during their existence and Chad was always finding new and interesting ways to piss off sound people, and it was generally in some low key mischievous child kind of way.
Every band he started was better than the last and I really loved that SPIRAL DUB LP, and was happy to get to put out a fifth 7" for one of his bands. I only got to see them once, but Chad pissed off the sound guy. He could be a real sweet soft spoken guy one moment, then a whirlwind of chaos the next. Sad he's. Have a lot of good memories with him and the whole Life Stinks crew.
Here's two videos I shot of them at SXSW. I'm glad I got t him trying to hit a pint glass with a mic on film because that moment along with him punting those beer bottles are always the first thing to come to mind when I think of Chad.
