In May of 2010, my former band found ourselves playing a show at Chain Reaction with Disembodied, The Mistake, Monuments To Thieves, and Mourningside. Since it was a band I was involved with, we were going to need to borrow a substantial amount of gear to play the show. Javier (of The Mistake) put me in touch with The Mistake’s new guitar player, Adrian Castillo, about working out the finer details of what gear we were going to need to use. Jav told me that in addition to being in The Mistake, Adrian fronted another band called Children Of God that would totally blow me away. Needless to say, I was intrigued...

As I got to know Adrian, it turns out I had met him years ago when The Mistake had played a show at his house with Goodbye Forever. Due to poor life decision-making skills, I had absolutely no recollection of any of this. Luckily, Adrian was forgiving of my dumb choices, and we have since become great friends. He sent me the Children Of God demo and Javier was absolutely right (there, I said it for once, dude): I fucking LOVED their demo. Children Of God are a rare band that makes music so incredibly dark, angry, and ugly that one can’t helped but be moved while listening to it. Their breakneck fast rhythms and chaotic guitars when paired with Castillo’s visceral, anguish laden vocals take one to place that only bands like Black Flag, Swing Kids, or Born Against can. I recently caught up with Adrian and badgered him regarding all things Children Of God. Read on if you enjoy interesting interviews.  

EP:  How did Children of God come to exist?

AC:  COG came to exist when I felt the need to have a different outlet besides my  previous band at the time (xSeven Generationsx). I wanted this band to be more personal as far as subject matter goes. Sina (drummer) and I had always wanted to do a band together but we could never get the wheels turning and I finally showed him the first song I wrote and it just went from there.

EP: What exactly about your experience in xSeven Generationsx lead you to getting  COG off the ground?

AC: I think a lot of internal anger and frustration really made me need to do this  project. I couldn’t really show it by just playing guitar to another person’s lyrics. I  wanted to control the outcome of the entire writing process. As far as experiences  that led me to be angry and feel resentful towards the whole “xvx” scene, I just  hated seeing people pick apart other people’s politics and lifestyles. People in that  whole scene wanted to politicize everything they did, whether it was dumpster  diving, stealing stuff from their friends houses, and even relationships that didn’t  concern them. There was always someone that “wasn’t doing enough” or  someone who’s “more privileged” or someone who’s “too macho” for people to  the point where it made people in a room feel uncomfortable. It’s so tiring to  constantly be around that. I suppose people hate things in other people that they  see in themselves. I figured if everyone was going to constantly be on a witch  hunt for someone then I’ll just make it easier on myself and hate all of them.  Don’t get me wrong, though. I enjoyed some of the time I spent in xSeven  Generationsx. I still am on good terms with everyone in the band. I just hated the  community that surrounded the band.

EP: Politics, morals, and ethics have always had a place in underground music, but at  what point does pushing that via a band equate acting in the same manner of those  they are trying to fight against?

AC: I think it’s important for a band to be confrontational. There’s a difference between confrontational because you really feel angry about something and  confrontational because you just like stirring the pot. I think there are bands out there that legitimately feel compelled to talk about politics and ethics, but there  are also bands that feel obligated to talk about certain issues because it’s the thing to do. I’ll tell you this: I would rather listen to a band that feels strongly about  something as opposed to a band that doesn’t care about anything at all and sadly, there are too many of the latter. I think it’s important to note that there should be  an even keel of bands that want to just have fun and bands that want to bring  issues to the table. Too much of one thing never turns out good.

EP: Do you think that its more vital for hardcore and punk bands to hold themselves  accountable or to hold society at large accountable?

AC: Individuals should hold themselves accountable, people in every band should hold themselves accountable, and people in society should hold themselves  accountable. When people start doing that I feel like it would be taking a step in the right direction as far as making a better scene or a better society.

EP: There are so many different facets within punk/hardcore/metal: Warped Tour, Mayhem Fest, Sound and Fury, DIY, the regular touring circuit...where do you  think COG fits in?

AC: I think so far we have stuck with the DIY scene but I don’t want to limit ourselves  to just that faction of underground music. I think I speak for everyone in the band  when I say that we’ll play almost anything. We’ve only utilized the DIY scene  because it seems as though if your band doesn’t get enough attention from people  then you’re left to your own devices. I’d like to keep everything we do DIY all  while hitting different avenues. We book our shows, we sell and press our records,  we play our music, and it’s not because we feel like we have to stick to this kind  of ethic, but because it’s the way we feel comfortable doing things. But there  comes a standard that is placed on you if you say you’re DIY. If we got asked to  play a fest like Sound and Fury and we accepted, people would probably say that  isn’t DIY. What I’d say to them is that we are DIY because we more or less  have to be and we’ll do what we want, however we want, wherever we want with  our music.

I’d like to transcend any label or genre that we would fall into. We want to play with a wide variety of bands, whether it’s acoustic folk, shoegaze, thrash, punk, a choir, post punk, etc. etc. We don’t play music because we care who sees us and who doesn’t, we play it because we need to.

EP: Do you find it hard to fit in Southern California hardcore?

AC: As I stated before, I think it is hard but we make it work. I don’t really like to call  us hardcore: we’re anything and everything. We have elements of different styles  of music in our new stuff. We do have roots in the hardcore scene though, it just depends what kind of hardcore you like. There is a certain niche that is very easy  to fall into here and I’d like to avoid that.



EP: What are some other bands you're into these days?

AC: If you’re asking me personally then I can tell you that one of my newest favorite  bands is a band called Have A Nice Life. They incorporate shoegaze with  electronic drums and synths, the songs are well written, the lyrics are powerful, and the vocals are great. Aside from that, I have been listening to a lot of True  Widow, Neurosis, Grails, Jose Gonzalez, Tim Hecker, OM, and Morrissey. I’ve also really been into Godspeed You Black Emperor. I came around on this band late but after seeing them live, I can truly appreciate their art.

As for the other guys I really can’t say. From what I can tell, our bassist Kevin listens to a lot of black metal, grind, and hip hop. Shaun’s into performance art  and noise. Don’t be fooled though, the guy is a musical library. Sina listens to a lot of music. His 120 gig iPod is full. If I could guess what he has been listening  to lately it will probably be thrashy punk and “d-beat”. These are all speculations  though. I could be way off, but I wanted to include them. They’ll hate me for this probably.


EP: You guys just released a split 12 inch with Seven Sisters of Sleep. How did you hook up with A389 Recordings?

AC: Dom from A389 hit us up and said something to the effect of “let me put out a  record for you”. We all liked bands that were on his label and we have always  heard good things about him, so we said yes. The Seven Sisters guys came into play when Kevin recommended us doing a split with them. Kevin was a friend of  all those guys from a while back so we hashed details out, recorded, and waited on the test presses. We’re glad to be working with Dom. I can tell he puts a lot of  work into his releases and he genuinely likes the bands he puts out which is always good.

EP: What does the future hold for Children of God?

AC: Honestly, I think if you asked each of us we’d all have a different answer. The  great thing about this band is that we don’t really set deadlines on anything and  we don’t have a set practice or anything. We have gone months with out practicing and can come back into the room and pick up where we left off as if we  just practiced a day ago. This could be the downfall of this band but bands only experience downfalls when they set expectations for themselves. We don’t do that. Generally the song writing starts with an idea I have and I record a scratch track, send it to the guys, they usually like it or want to change some things and we get together and write the rest. The main problem with our whole approach to song writing is that it relies on a truly organic human emotion; one has to reach a dark place in order to get the ball rolling with a song. So in short; I don’t know what the future holds. Neither near nor far, I do not know.



EP: Any last words, shout outs, thank yous, disses?

AC: I want to thank you for the interview and our friend Javier Van Huss for  supporting us and getting us on shows. That’s all.

Children Of God’s split 12 inch with Seven Sisters Of Sleep was just released on A389 Recordings. Stop what you are doing, head to www.a389recordings.com, and cop this thing immediately. As Adrian stated, Children Of God are terrible planners, so who knows when they’ll be on tour, but if you live within a day’s drive of Southern California, do yourself a favor and go see them live.