Interview: The Casualties Guitarist Jake Kolatis Talks About Headline Shows, Loyal Fans and Metal Bands

The Casualties, a New York-based punk rock outfit, have been doing their thing for more than 20 years now, having started out in 1990.

They underwent quite a few lineup changes, but all of those came about in their early years, leading up to the debut full-length album, For The Punx, which was released in 1997.

Since then, the lineup of Jorge Herrera on vocals, Rick Lopez on bass, Meggers on drums and Jake Kolatis on guitar has been solid and unseparated, allowing them to release albums on a much more consistent basis, and they have entertained audiences with their incredibly high-energy shows not only in the US but also internationally in Europe, South America, Japan and other territories.

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Their most recent album, We Are All We Have, was released in 2009, and the band has been hugely active on the road in the two years since, doing two-month long treks across the North American continent firstly on the Vans Warped Tour 2010 and then as direct support to GWAR in November of the same year.

Because of tours like these, they been able to open themselves up to newer and more diverse types of crowds in addition to their ever-loyal punk fan base.

And now, just as they are getting ready to work on the next studio album, they are back doing a few of their own headline shows, including a massively popular gig at the House of Blues here in Hollywood. A few hours before they took the stage and tore the venue apart, I got a chance to sit down with Jake to talk about this run of dates, touring plans for the near future, and the kind of set lists the band has put together for these shows.

We also talked about topics like Facebook, overpriced tickets, LA crowds, and of course, metal bands.

Watch the 14-minute conversation below, and make sure you check out The Casualties' official Facebook page to stay up to date with everything that's going on in Casualties land.

Andrew is a Los Angeles-based writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, reviews and pictures on his website -- with the help of a small group of people. Besides being hugely passionate about heavy metal, he is an avid follower of jazz music and recently started a blog called Jazz Explorer to pursue that interest.