I rejected the beach, pot, and bad music.

—Tony Cadena, quoted by Steven Blush in the oral history American Hardcore.

             I grew up in the dark shadow of Disneyland, in Katella and Magnolia, three miles from Disneyland," Tony Reflex of the Adolescents says. "The big hope they gave us kids when we were growing up was, 'Maybe someday you too could work at Disneyland!' Like that was the very most you could hope for. 'I could be a Mouseketeer!' That's a big career, this would be really uplifting.... I had to step out of that shadow.

             "Once I was taking my children to Disneyland, at a hotel not too far away, and we were actually underneath the shadow of the ears," the 42-year-old singer of one of the very first American hardcore bands explains. "That's where the title track of the record comes from."

             The album OC Confidential is a spare, fast, hard but melodic collection of clear-voiced punk pop anthems against war, materialism, and despair. It is the band's first new one since the late 80s; and the first of the band's core primary members—Steve Soto, also a legend for his bass work with Agent Orange and other Orange County bands, and influential guitarist Frank Agnew—since 1982. It was recently lauded on National Public Radio for its positivism and encouraging spirit to the legions of new punks making music today.

             Reflex once used the name Tony Cadena when the Adolescents began in the late 70s, then went by a couple other monikers as his musical career went through changes (but always stayed true to its Orange County punk seed). Now he is a public grade school teacher. Encountering him, even if you weren't thinking punk rock, Joey Ramone would probably come to mind—that same awkward lankiness, the shy, fervent intelligence. This is a natural punk rocker—the older version of the kid who didn't want to grow up, because the world of adults was filled with sadistic exploitation, political terror, and needless conflict.

In St. Petersburg, a fight broke out during a song, and we would have played for twenty minutes more—but we stopped. If that's what they want to do, then they can fight, we don't need to play music for that. It's that alcoholic, jock mentality, all about acting macho. It's all about, 'This is my show, this my favorite, my scene.' It's stupid.

             Reflex was a stage diver at early North Orange County punk shows, and ended up the lead singer of the Adolescents when there weren't many punk bands in that part of California (or in America, period). He'd met Soto, an older Mexican-Irish lad, when he was combining surf and punk in the band Agent Orange (who hated surf music).

             Among other players behind the band would be Christian Death founder Rikk Agnew and his sibling Frank Agnew—and then eventually Frank's own son playing guitars as well in one of the line-ups.  Social Distortion's Derek O'Brien plays drums on OC Confidential, which is not only shocking old-timers with its primal energy, but inspiring younger music lovers with its self-awareness and timeless energy. It's spinning out of the stores like a poseur out of the pit from where I write in the Pacific NW.

             "You're in Seattle?" Reflex asks. "I love Washington because it's green. I live in Pasadena, in the San Gabriel valley, in the mountains. It's the closest to Mayberry RFD I could find in this area. Maybe 10,000 people. Don't get me wrong, the city's great—but there are those times when you're too busy, it's too hard to move around. You have to deal with the cruel effects of poverty that most cities have. For example, I couldn't live in certain parts of Portland (Oregon). I'm a sensitive person, I can't respond to those feelings of hopelessness."

             Reflex grew up the oldest son of five kids in a single parent welfare family, in a neighborhood that was entry-level class-wise—"People would buy houses, build them up and sell them, and then move on to a higher socio-economic status. " (About this, Reflex was quoted in the book American Hardcore as saying, "It gave me a chance to reject everything I couldn't have anyway.")

             "My upbringing wasn't a positive thing, being from a divorced household—but the point is, once it's happened, how do we grapple with it?" Reflex queries. "One of the first decisions I made when I got married was that divorce would never be an option. Once I got married and had children I was determined to work through any problems, finding solutions. When we run into a crisis, we have to fix it. I have three kids—nine, six, and two—and getting a divorce and walking away from problems is not an option."

             This makes a lot of sense, considering that Reflex would often stop shows the Adolescents played at whenever a fight broke out and someone was getting hurt.

             "I seek peace," he asserts. "I was never really keen on fighting, for example the fighting aspect at shows. I'm still not. If someone's being particularly bothersome ... for example, if I get spit on, I'll shut everything down. In St. Petersburg, a fight broke out during a song, and we would have played for twenty minutes more—but we stopped. If that's what they want to do, then they can fight, we don't need to play music for that. It's that alcoholic, jock mentality, all about acting macho. It's all about, 'This is my show, this my favorite, my scene.' It's stupid."

             Reflex didn't fit in with the cliques of Fullerton, CA. "I skated, but I was never a skater. I went to the beach, but I didn't swim much. I carry myself droop by droop, I have low muscle tone, always have." He found his identity and community in music instead of the rigorous physical interaction popular in Orange County.

For one song, I sing about how Troy had been riding home from school and was chased and beat up in our front yard by a gang of skinheads. And this is what is going on in the United States, the idea of violence and war used as a solution to the crisis. My belief system won't buy into this as a process.

             "The Ramones was the first important band to me—my first punk rock band," he admits, excitedly. "Well, I was into Cheap Trick, too, and then came the Ramones. I loved the Beatles and the Kinks and so forth first—as my musical tastes formed themselves it was about these bands that could write great pop albums. The first four Cheap Trick albums are amazing. The Ramones are just perfect pop. I bought the Ramones first record in December 1977 at a swap meet."

             The fact that the Ramones lived in an urban environment, but not in downtown New York City, was important to him—reflecting his own downwardly mobile suburban status.

             "You look at them—they lived out in the sticks, they had that detachment," he says. "They had garages. 'Can you make the noise you need to make?' They were always presented as city kids, but they had to live in a place where you could make a lot of noise. The Ramones lived in New York, but out in the country, not in the core of the city."

             Reflex says that Los Angeles is defined as a city, "but it's so sprawling, what defines a city? Isn't it a certain amount of density? What really defines a city as opposed to the suburbs? If you look at LA—it's a spread out urban setting. Go to San Pedro, where a whole lot of people are bunched up—that's REALLY a city."

             It was living out where there were garages and the space necessary to make noise that helped the Adolescents to form their aggressive, loud sound. They were probably the first American punk rock band to feature two guitar players.

             "We originally asked Rikk Agnew of Social Distortion and the Detours to play with us, and he hooked us up with his little brother Frank. (Steve Soto and I loved 'Give 'Em Enough Rope' because of the two guitars on it. It's one of the few records we agree on. It was our first Clash record, so it's our favorite.) OC Confidential was the first time Frank, Steve, and I had worked together since 1982. We've done a couple of shows, a demo in '86 that was never finished (but was released on a recent anthology collecting all of their demos)."

             The phoenix of the new Adolescents truly was raised from ashes—ashes from an intense spiritual meltdown.

             "Right before we did those two reunions, my brother Troy walked into his backyard and shot himself twice through the heart with a derringer. Then a couple of months later, my youngest brother Tim was murdered in Mexico. He was almost completely decapitated—his wife's brother attacked him from behind with a machete. These violent deaths happened close together, while Steve and Frank and I were starting to work together. So we worked together through this grieving process. And out of it, new songs started to come together."

             OC Confidential is filled with first-person accounts of daily life-and-death struggle—against 'this heart of darkness that consumes me' ("California Sun").

             "For one song, I sing about how Troy had been riding home from school and was chased and beat up in our front yard by a gang of skinheads. And this is what is going on in the United States, the idea of violence and war used as a solution to the crisis. My belief system won't buy into this as a process. We did a lot of material for this album, it was really paired down—the album came out of all this death and healing.

             "The important thing people need to know is that the song 'Pointless Teenage Anthem' isn't making fun of today's scene—it's about (older) people who cry for something that they lost.," he insists, referring to lines such as 'A pointless teenage anthem / is what they expect from me / to hold on to the youth they lost in 1983.' "I think the kids are doing alright (these days). The scene today is perfect."

             I ask him about the song "Guns of September," which seems very specific. "It is about the LA riots, partly—but more specifically about the murder of a child, a father who drove down the wrong alley, and a group of gang members fired into the car and killed a young girl," he replies. "We can sit and cry about this, but the solution is believing in people, and encouraging the hope that we're higher and better than this. I really believe that human beings are good—that we are born with good qualities. It takes personal responsibility and a moral obligation to change things, which we can do, which we can find in other people.

             "I am a Catholic—a converted Catholic," Reflex confesses. "My roots are Baptist, which I'd thoroughly rejected. Frank was raised Catholic, and Steve was raised a Quaker. That's what I loved about Steve, and the Quakers, was that they were staunchly anti-violence. As a practicing Catholic, I've found a quality in the Catholic church I hadn't found in church in my teenage years. I felt called, and it totally made me feel better in the middle of all the terrible things that had been happening in my life.

             "Now really, I'm not a big church kind of guy, going to Mass all the time kind of guy, but I believe that we have the capacity on any level—whether you believe in metaphysics or not—people have a quality, even if you're an atheist, to create a better place to raise each other, to lift ourselves up," Reflex asserts. "As horrible as things have been in the Catholic church, they have helped the community, with housing and feeding the poor."

I went and sat down with a priest—and I ended up going to RCIA meetings, learning how to become a Catholic. Then my brother Troy killed himself, and Tim was murdered. I don't think that this was accidental, I'm not hearing things, and I'm not some kind of prophet, not clairvoyant. I told my wife, bless her heart, she thought I was off my rocker.

             Reflex's conversion story to Roman Catholicism has some eerie overtones.

             "This happened as I was driving in my truck—I don't hallucinate, I know it was real," he insists. "My grandfather had left the church when he got married to my Protestant grandmother. He was ex-communicated for it. He died two months after she did. There's something metaphysical in the relationship of marriage, I think. Well, my grandfather had been dead for three months—and he talked to me in my truck, about how heavy stuff is going to happen, so start your journey back to the church.

             "I went and sat down with a priest—and I ended up going to RCIA meetings, learning how to become a Catholic. Then my brother Troy killed himself, and Tim was murdered. I don't think that this was accidental, I'm not hearing things, and I'm not some kind of prophet, not clairvoyant. I told my wife, bless her heart, she thought I was off my rocker. I don't drink—not then, and not even now, I don't even take wine for communion.

             "I've been able to cope with it due to belief in an afterlife, and a realm beyond our comprehension. I believe."

             Reflex describes himself as a perfectionist with his lyrics (the album will be re-released with some of the lyrics changed to reflect what was recorded). One of the art forms that ministers to Reflex's spirit are movies that people have spent a lot of work on creating. "I love movies it looks like people worked on till they're perfect in themselves: Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove, and Eraserhead," he says.

             "If my own life were a movie, it would be Stand and Deliver, though," he says. "I really love that and Mr. Holland's Opus too. Movies where people overcome their odds and make sacrifices for people's problems that they could never handle alone. In Opus he's stuck in this job, even though he hates being a teacher. What he did was a second choice as his reason for being. His one passion, music, his son can't absorb it. My middle son has autism, so I understand that.

             "I'm a 4th and 5th grade teacher now—I used to be a special ed teacher," he says. "I fell into it by accident. Music wasn't bringing in enough money. There's something a lot more important about that job. It's more than just being a poet, singer, lyricist."

             The week I interviewed Reflex, was several days after Madame Wong had died. "I'm bringing a letter to the funeral tomorrow," he says. "Rik L. Rik (Negative Trend) brought my wife and I together at Madame Wong's. He knew both of us and introduced us to each other in front of the club. Rik recently died from a brain tumor. He had a son about the same age as our daughter. I've brought my kids to Madame Wong's, and I'll always go back there—it was at that location I fell in love with my wife.

             "These weren't accidental meetings."

             Because of the person he is, Reflex asks me about my own life, if I've ever been in a band or anything, and I tell him that I'd only actually just worked at a record label, Tooth & Nail, which was MxPx's label at one time (assuming he might have heard of them).

             "Oh yeah! I loved their first one," he enthuses. "Pokinatcha was a fine record—I actually wrote a review of it when it came out—that it was truly opposed to all of that negativism that had been going on. I said nothing this bold had been recorded since the first U2 album. I really listened to it a lot. That spirit is really refreshing and necessary to today's times. Not to buy into the great negative lie. Your voice can be heard. Don't give up. Your voice can be heard."