In the latest episode of Zero Platoon, frontman of The Movielife, I Am The Avalanche, Peace’d Out, and Constant Elevation, Vinnie Caruana takes us through a punk rock career that spans over two decades and is still going strong, complete with stories of the key players in his journey like Taking Back Sunday founder Eddie Reyes, Bayside’s Anthony Raneri, and Glassjaw and Head Automatica frontman Daryl Palumbo. Sure, we’ve all heard stories about the Long Island, New York punk and hardcore basement show scene, but there’s just something about hearing them from someone who was there in the earliest of that scene’s days.
It’s been a long road for Caruana, who has pretty consistently delivered solid contributions to the punk and hardcore scenes for more than 20 years, while simultaneously showing that he can hold his own with a few solo records under his belt.
And while that long road can take its toll on even those strong enough to last as long as Caruana has, in his interview with Zero Platoon, he credits two things for giving him the strength to keep going, not just in his career but in his day to day life: Music and Marriage.
“The older you get, the realer life gets,” says Caruana. “And the more you have to write about, because you’re not just thinking about relationships, and love, and loss, and things like that…I don’t know how I’d be able to deal with that stuff if I didn’t have music. That’s how I cope with it, that’s part of how I deal with it, and that’s part of how I get it out, and why I’m not drawing the shades every day and drinking myself to death.”
In a video dropped earlier this week, Caruana performs an acoustic version of the song “Tex ‘The Rock’ Johnson,” off his latest solo release Aging Frontman, and describes the song as “as love song in a way that, she’s the one that kinda evens me out, levels me out, helps me get through…alright, my brain’s not working the right way today, I feel fuckin’ sick, I feel mentally sick. And generally, it’s go and see your wife…”
You can catch some clips of the performance in this latest video as the song prefaces Caruana elaborating on how his wife has helped him.
“I’m married to a woman who I’ve been friends with since 2003. We didn’t start dating until 2009, and now we’ve been together for over 10 years. And that’s GREAT! That’s the really great part of my life. But also, I’m human, the world is a fucking nightmare, inside [my head] is a nightmare sometimes…having my wife is a huge thing.”
In the 15-minute episode, Caruana gives one of the most in-depth and open interviews that Zero Platoon has ever had. And it was trimmed down from over an hour of conversation, which you’ll be able to hear on the Berger Media podcast that will be launching soon.
Follow Zero Platoon’s Facebook, Berger Media’s Facebook, or sign up on the Zero Platoon email list to find out when the podcast drops. Along with Caruana’s interview, you’ll be able to hear the long form interviews with Mayday Parade’s Derek Sanders, Sincere Engineer, and hundreds of other missing minutes from Zero Platoon interviews that have been trimmed down into the short videos that exist now.
