Rich: The decision to move to Portland was the age old scenario… I met a girl. We had been long distance dating and at the tail end of 2019 I decided to move. I quit my job on New Year’s Eve, sold my van in the beginning of January, and started the painful process of breaking the news to my bandmates, my family, my roommate, my friends, and my partners in my wrestling promotion (Mayhem On Mills). I had lived in Florida for my entire life and was very involved in Orlando so it felt like breaking up with an entire town. It was hard but I was ready for a change. Golden Pelicans had an Australian tour booked for March 2020, April was going to be the big two year anniversary show for Mayhem on Mills, I was going to book a huge going away party at my neighborhood watering hole/ home venue Will’s Pub, and take a long road trip across the country visiting friends on my way to my new home. 2020 was gonna be my year. Haha! The day we landed in Australia Tom Hanks got covid (in Australia) and all my plans changed in a flash. We were two shows into our tour before we had to high tail it back to Melbourne and hop on the last planes before the world shut down. The anniversary and the going away bash were obviously canceled and instead of a grande exit I packed my car up, grabbed my dog and snuck off one morning in early May. It was hard leaving like that, especially because my parents are getting older and my dad has COPD. I didn’t know if I’d ever see them again. Rather than visiting friends I drove 13 hour days and tried to get across the country as fast as possible. Got lots of strange looks for wearing a mask at gas stations. I stayed in a hotel in South Dakota that had an open water park inside the hotel. I walked into a lobby full of sopping wet people eating pizza, and the front desk clerk told me I got a 10% discount at the buffet. Interesting times. Hahah. Neisha and I had big plans for lots of late nights and travelling, but instead we spent most of 2020 trapped in a house together both working from home, and by June she was pregnant!?!?! Not ideal circumstances for starting a life together but we made it through it and are now the proud parents of a crazy five year old named Della. This isn’t what I had planned for my big move but I couldn’t be happier.
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| Rich with the Retail Simps,west coast tour 2022 |
Rich: Thanks! Yeah Erik, Sammy, and I had a band called Slippery Slopes back in the late aughts/ early teens. Our guitarist abruptly decided to quit. News he failed to share with us. Looking back it’s not hard to understand why. We were pretty hard on him. We had a show booked so our friend Scott filled in. Turned out he is an insanely good guitarist. He completely changed our sound so we decided to start a new band… The Golden Pelicans. Golden Pelicans were the Rats rival gang from the Back From The Grave classic ‘Rat’s Revenge.’ We lasted 8 years, in which time we put out four LPs, four singles, and did a lot of driving around in a van. We all got along great, and those are some of my favorite memories of playing music. The Australia trip kind of robbed us of a send off, so last year we reformed one last time for the second Corporate Retreat. It was nice to get to play with the boys one last time.
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| Rich, his partner Neisha, and Itchy & The Nits: last night of the first Total Punk Corporate Retreat 2024 |
Shock Treatment: When starting Total Punk, were you influenced by any labels you grew up listening to?
Rich: I started Total Punk back in 2011, but the idea came about the year before. I decided to open a record store back in 2009 which happened to coincide with my first marriage falling apart. I had also lost my sister around the same time. It was a real dark period with a lot of bouncing around.. I was living on my shop couch and drinking way too much. At a certain point I was like I’ve got to get out of here. Some friends were nice enough to watch the shop while I was gone so I spent two months travelling around the country in the summer of 2010. I booked shows in different towns and sold records at them to finance the trip. I visited a bunch of friends, and Slippery Slopes met me on the west coast for a tour. Lots of long solitary drives gave me time to think and I came up with the idea for a joke label called Total Punk. I even wrote to a few bands, under the pseudonym Randall Cummings, about releasing singles. I think most people could smell bullshit so other than the Sleaze no one wrote me back. The trip was a great reset, but I still was feeling in a bit creatively adrift. I loved doing Floridas Dying but felt like I was just going through the motions. At the end of the year I got a call from Drew (Personal and the Pizzas). I had joked about the label with him while in San Francisco on the “Everyone Gets Rich” trip. He told me the Pizzas were doing an east coast tour and he wanted me to sell merch and do a Pizzas single on TOTAL PUNK.. Drew knew what I was going through and being a good friend decided to give me a push. A lot of the absurd theater attached to the original idea was abandoned but the crudely done DIY art part stuck around. Drew suggested hand stamped covers and the Total Punk look was born. I also never changed the name on the Total Punk email which leads people to still think my name is Randall. As far as influences they were Rip Off, Estrus, Boom Boom of Renton. I wanted the label to have a real cohesive aesthetic and to feel a bit haphazard.
Rich: I started Total Punk back in 2011, but the idea came about the year before. I decided to open a record store back in 2009 which happened to coincide with my first marriage falling apart. I had also lost my sister around the same time. It was a real dark period with a lot of bouncing around.. I was living on my shop couch and drinking way too much. At a certain point I was like I’ve got to get out of here. Some friends were nice enough to watch the shop while I was gone so I spent two months travelling around the country in the summer of 2010. I booked shows in different towns and sold records at them to finance the trip. I visited a bunch of friends, and Slippery Slopes met me on the west coast for a tour. Lots of long solitary drives gave me time to think and I came up with the idea for a joke label called Total Punk. I even wrote to a few bands, under the pseudonym Randall Cummings, about releasing singles. I think most people could smell bullshit so other than the Sleaze no one wrote me back. The trip was a great reset, but I still was feeling in a bit creatively adrift. I loved doing Floridas Dying but felt like I was just going through the motions. At the end of the year I got a call from Drew (Personal and the Pizzas). I had joked about the label with him while in San Francisco on the “Everyone Gets Rich” trip. He told me the Pizzas were doing an east coast tour and he wanted me to sell merch and do a Pizzas single on TOTAL PUNK.. Drew knew what I was going through and being a good friend decided to give me a push. A lot of the absurd theater attached to the original idea was abandoned but the crudely done DIY art part stuck around. Drew suggested hand stamped covers and the Total Punk look was born. I also never changed the name on the Total Punk email which leads people to still think my name is Randall. As far as influences they were Rip Off, Estrus, Boom Boom of Renton. I wanted the label to have a real cohesive aesthetic and to feel a bit haphazard.
Shock Treatment: Can you remember a point, maybe with a particular release, where you felt Total Punk really started to gain steam and maybe start going beyond what you thought it would originally become?
Rich: When Drew approached me about doing the first single I thought I would just do a few Total Punk singles. Right out the gate though Total Punk left me feeling really inspired and invigorated. It was a huge part of pulling me out of my depression and giving me back a voice. Plus people seemed really receptive to it, and by the third single I felt like I was really onto something. I went into it with zero expectations. I mean I called it Total Punk. I obviously wasn’t taking this very seriously. It’s crazy to me that this label is now 15 years old with over 120 releases.
Shock Treatment: Tell me about Sniffy Linings and what led to the decision to start that project?
Rich: After the 2024 election I felt a strong desire to move away from social media and mainstream digital living. I’ve been trying to communicate with small groups of friends through things like signal chats, having people over for dinner, and started the total punk message board so I could talk to like minded people away from the noise. Stepping away gave me a chance to think about things and talk to like minded people who share the same desires. I feel like there is a real thirst for something other than staring at a screen. Plus running a label its getting harder and harder to get word out to like minded people. Blog posts have a lifespan of about 36 hours and then *poof* they vanish to never be thought of again. With a magazine as long as its sitting on someone's coffee table/ back of their toilet there are opportunities for a new set of eyes. Also it’s nice to put words out there without the immediate response of likes, hearts, and angry faces. I feel like social media has all turned us into content creators catering our words to this audience of clickers. It’s gross! I’m finishing up the second issue of Sniffy Linings right now, and it’s been a real fun distraction from the horrors of the outside world.
Rich: After the 2024 election I felt a strong desire to move away from social media and mainstream digital living. I’ve been trying to communicate with small groups of friends through things like signal chats, having people over for dinner, and started the total punk message board so I could talk to like minded people away from the noise. Stepping away gave me a chance to think about things and talk to like minded people who share the same desires. I feel like there is a real thirst for something other than staring at a screen. Plus running a label its getting harder and harder to get word out to like minded people. Blog posts have a lifespan of about 36 hours and then *poof* they vanish to never be thought of again. With a magazine as long as its sitting on someone's coffee table/ back of their toilet there are opportunities for a new set of eyes. Also it’s nice to put words out there without the immediate response of likes, hearts, and angry faces. I feel like social media has all turned us into content creators catering our words to this audience of clickers. It’s gross! I’m finishing up the second issue of Sniffy Linings right now, and it’s been a real fun distraction from the horrors of the outside world.
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| Post 2025 Corporate Retreat BBQ w/ Geros, Retail Simps, Rich and Neisha |
Rich: Thanks! I’m really proud of this year’s line up. I tried to get Cheater Slicks last year and it didn’t work out. I have tried to get the Drags every year so it's really exciting to have both playing this year. I moved here during Covid followed by Neisha’ pregnancy so I was pretty removed from what was going on in Portland. I looked at booking the first retreat as a kind of announcement of my entrance into this community. The response was astounding. I love Orlando, but booking anything there it was always a ton of work to get anyone to show up. When the retreat sold out in under 48 hours I couldn’t comprehend it. This must be some type of mistake. Every year I expect my luck to change. This has to be some kind of fluke. The name is obviously a joke. I thought it would be funny to make it sound as lame as possible. I think the joke and the festival have run their course. It’s a ton of work and stress putting these together. A family, the magazine, the label, a day job, and the festival. Something has to give, so I don’t think I’ll do another retreat. Next party I’ll be throwing will most likely be my retirement party.
Rich: I think the most important thing for running a label, starting a band, making art… is to tune out the outside world and go into it with no expectations. You have to follow your gut. Just because people don’t buy something/ like something doesn’t make it a failure. Having your own voice is important. There are a ton of people taking the safe road and its incredibly boring.
Shock Treatment: What do you think about young kinds being so into vinyl? Were you surprised by its resurgence with this young generation or did you kind of see it coming?
Rich: Are a lot of young people buying vinyl? I feel like my audience continues to skew older. I think there are a lot of kids who are into music, but I’m not sure a lot of them are buying physical records. Whatever they are doing though I think its awesome that people are still hyped on rock n roll!
Shock Treatment: So Rich, I want to sincerely thank you for taking the time out and doing this interview with me. I really do appreciate it. What’s the rest of 2026 looking like for Total Punk?
Rich: Thanks for having me. It's fun to get to talk about this kind of stuff and take an occasional stroll down memory lane. We have a really packed 2026. At the plant right now we have THE DRAGS- Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up LP reissue! The final piece in THE DRAGS reissue campaign. We also have the third LP by CHERRY CHEEKS, and I think it’s their best yet. Kyle wrote a rock opera of sorts and it's really wild! I just turned in the sophomore THE CARP LP, and GLITTERING INSECTS second LP is about to be mastered for MIND MELD. I also have a 12” from DRAGNET about to head to the pressing plant. This is the newest project from Chad Booth (Gary Wrong, Wizzard Sleeve). It’s really exciting to see Chad back at it. Later in the year we have new 12”s by RETAIL SIMPS, and USELESS EATERS, and an LP by THE GEROS. I think after this year I’m gonna slow things down a bit, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop putting out records. There is a lot of awesome stuff going on here in Portland, and I want to start focusing on putting out more local bands. Way back in 2004 when I started my first label, Floridas Dying, the original concept was to put out mostly local bands. It didn’t work that way, but I think moving forward I’ll finally be able to put that idea to practice!
Go visit Total Punk and check out Rich's amazing catalog at the links below!
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