The Big Collapse: "it's called being young and stupid.".

JOSH LOUKA IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL ATTENTION-STARVED, egomaniac lead-singer type--particularly in a city like Los Angeles, which has a glut of dirty-haired look-at-me-I-am-a-fucking-rock-star poodles. For a singer, he is actually pretty quiet, certainly shy, which is more than a little surprising considering he's been at this lead-guy-in-a-cool-hand thing for some time. New York native Louka was the lead singer of the overly earnest, melodic hardcore darlings Shift, who rode the first wave of New York hardcore bands signing to major labels during the mid-'90s, along with Quicksand, Orange 9mm, and Into Another. But Louka's clean cut, heartstring, pre-emo bullshit is behind him. In 2002, he packed up his downtown apartment and moved out west to restart The Big Collapse, a hand he and guitarist Matt Kane founded in 2000 but were only able to get going in fits and starts. Within weeks of moving cross-country, Louka hooked up with old friend Gavin Van Vlack, formerly of the almighty Burn, Die 116, and Absolution, as well as drummer Kyle Stevenson, who played in the band Flashpoint. While Louka and his mates individually and collectively have deep roots in the punk and hardcore scene, The Big Collapse's debut album, Prototype, combines traditional hardcore energy with traditional (read: slower, dirty, drunken) rock. Let's just say if you put Jawbox, Helmet and Eddie Money into a blender, The Big Collapse is what you'd get. It's retro without being rehash, good old-fashion, bad-ass rock and roll without the wink-wink hipster irony, which is refreshing.

Louka and I drank beers in my kitchen. Here's what he said about The Big Collapse and what it's like being in a hand on the rise for the second time around.

First things first--what's up with the "Rock Star" tattooed on your wrists?

Its called being young and stupid. When my old band got a deal on a major label I guess we sort of wanted to make an ironic statement about being a punk band signed to a major label. I grew up listening to big rock bands like Def Leppard and pre-Haggar Van Halen and idolized those bands and kind of wanted to be that.

For people in the scene, bands like that are the antithesis in aesthetics and politics of punk, but kind of closet affections. Is this what happens when punk rock kids get tired of playing punk rock?

I always had this vision of combining Def Leppard and Quicksand, or whatever, so the music in nay head is in the middle of all that and its sort of what we are doing with Big Collapse.

It is really interesting that you were in band that was in the first wave of smaller indie bands signed to major labels. Looking back on that experience, what did you learn?

I definitely learned that being on a major is not all that its cracked up to be. I think that a lot of the bands signed to major labels got huge heads and believed everything that they told them at the label. With The Big Collapse, I realize that you have to just do what you do and not write songs for any specific people--whether it's the hardcore scene or pop radio--just write songs that you like. So these are just the songs I wrote so if people like them, great, and if they don't, they can go listen to Dashboard Confessional.

"Success" in the scene was always defined a certain way, and I wonder whether success is defined the same way now?

With this band the goal is to get to a point where we can make a modest living just by being in the band. If that means selling a lot of records or just touring the country to make enough money to pay rent, either way, that is the goal.

Your next level of success can be through signing to a larger record label and becoming part of someone's development league. I wonder if that is what you are looking for.

At a major label, if you are not selling after two months they are going to start asking questions. And then at four months if it doesn't take off, they are going to say forget it and cut their losses. That is one thing I hated about being on Columbia, that you were so removed from the decision making process. If we don't sell 20,000 records in the first month, the Militia Group understands that we are out there working.

So Prototype, interestingly put. Sounds like it should be a model of something that should work. Is this a prototype of sorts?

It's a picture of what we sound like right now, and hopefully with the next one we will improve upon the model.