Erik Sandin

EriK Sandin

Erik "Smelly" Sandin (born July 29, 1966 ) is the drummer of the US punk rock band NOFX .

Career

When Erik Sandin was eight years old, he received guitar lessons for a year, but was unable to develop any significant skills on this instrument. Erik Sandin discovered his weakness for the records Ummagumma from Pink Floyd and Tommy from The Who through the well-stocked record collection of his father, an old fan of jazz, blues and rock'n'roll . However, his love of punk rock began when Sandin stole the 1977 album Young, Loud & Snotty from the Dead Boys as a music cassette at a flea market at the age of 13 . With summer vacation jobs like delivering newspapers, sweeping with a broom in a woodworking factory, as a porter and assembly line worker assembling vitamin bottles, and dealing in drugs, Erik Sandin financed his first used drum kit worth $ 200. From then on, Sandin practiced on the drums in the laundry room at home by playing the rhythms of rock and pop songs that were broadcast on the then new music television station MTV . Since Erik Sandin did not initially have a cymbal stand, he stretched several ropes in the laundry room between the floor and ceiling, to which he fastened his crash and hi-hat cymbals in the middle at knots. When Erik Sandin hit the cymbals with his drumsticks, they flew back and forth, so that he had to constantly avoid the cymbals during the game.

Before he co-founded NOFX with Mike Burkett and Eric Melvin in 1983 , he played in the band Caustic Cause . In this band all other members were significantly older than Eric Sandin, who was able to improve his skills on the drums through the experience of his band colleagues at Caustic Cause . He left NOFX in 1985 when he moved to Santa Barbara . The reason for his temporary exit from the punk band was the fact that Erik Sandin wanted to travel with his parents while the second self-organized tour by NOFX was planned at the same time, which is why Sandin decided not to go on tour, although he would be behind intended family vacation did not take place. In addition, an internal dispute broke out over the first EP release by NOFX, on the back of which he was named, but could not be seen on the collective band photos on the back cover, but a temporary replacement drummer named Scott. He rejoined the band in 1986 and has since appeared on every album and EP. After Erik Sandin became a member of NOFX again, guitarist Eric Melvin and his girlfriend Iris moved to him in Santa Barbara, where they rented a house with a workshop together with friends and lived in it as an alternative flat share. From then on, this building was known in the punk scene as the NOFX house .

His nickname Smelly comes from drug-related flatulence, with which Sandin made the tour trips in the first used van from NOFX difficult to bear, but occasionally he also uses pseudonyms such as Erik Ghint or Herb Reath Stinks (Her Breath Stinks, their breath stinks ). From 1986 to 1992, Sandin was heavily addicted to alcohol and, above all, heroin, and was often de facto homeless. For a long time Erik Sandin had tried to hide his addiction to heroin from the other band members. Because of these problems he was given an ultimatum by the band in 1992, which is why he has been following an abstinent lifestyle, unlike his other band colleagues - especially Fat Mike - since a subsequent successful withdrawal.

The NOFX songs The Moron Brothers (on Ribbed , 1991) and Six Years On Dope (on First Ditch Effort , 2016) deal with Sandin's time as a drug addict. "Moron Brothers" was the nickname for Sandin and the NOFX roadie DJ at the time, as they were notorious for chaos and devastation at aftershow parties, Six Years On Dope - although not sung by him - describes it the first-person perspective of Sandin's life marked by drug addiction. On some evenings, Erik Sandin injected himself with 200 doses of liquefied cocaine one after the other in order to keep feeling that intoxicating elation, which usually lasted only a few seconds and which was often followed by serious side effects such as panic attacks or damaged veins in the arms from which blood was flowing. Meanwhile as a cured ex-junkie who was able to overcome his extreme addiction, the smell of heroin alone gives him a strong nausea. In chapter 41 of the official autobiography " The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories " by the punk rock band NOFX, which was published in German translation, Erik Sandin explains in detail in six lessons how a heroin user can find a drug transshipment point in every city. how to transport heroin, for example in small balloons in your mouth, how to react to an overdose, what a cold turkey feels like with sweats, muscle cramps, tremors and insomnia, and how you ultimately perish physically and mentally from this dangerous substance. Sandin and Roadie DJ, who received his first dose of heroin from Sandin, financed their drug use by jointly stealing and reselling expensive art books from local bookstores. Guitarist Eric Melvin came up with the nickname and song title The Moron Brothers through the 1984 feature film Splash , in which the term moron twins is used in a film dialogue between the two actors Tom Hanks and Eugene Levy , referring to two incompetent twins Assistants. Every single line in the authentic song The Moron Brothers lyrically documents events actually experienced with the chaos-creating duo Erik "Smelly" Sandin and stagehands DJ. For example, the line of the song " Their company is something you won't miss when your ice trays are filled with piss " refers to the fact that Sandin and DJ occasionally allowed themselves the evil adolescent joke of urinating in empty ice cube containers at house parties in strange apartments put them back in the freezer. At another party, the duo wrapped the legs of a drunken guest in damp plaster of paris tape with the intention of immobilizing the man's legs, but failed because the person concerned woke up irritated before the plaster of paris dried and hardened. The song line “ Just try to move your leg they've put you in a cast ” refers to this prank .

The band Dogpiss dedicated a song to Erik Sandin called Erik Sandin's Stand In (German: Erik Sandin's substitute or temporary worker ) on the Fat Wreck Chords compilation album Short Music for Short People .

In the early 1990s he was in a relationship with Jennifer Finch, the bassist of L7 , and befriended rock musician Courtney Love , who temporarily lived in the same apartment building in Hollywood as Erik Sandin and tried to recruit him for her then newly formed band Hole , without success . Sandin rejected her because of her inadequate skills as a musician at the time. Courtney Love also called Sandin "the worst junkie she has ever seen". Love was referring to the fact that Sandin vomited several times a day due to the massive drug abuse, not the amount of heroin he consumed. During the 1992 European tour to promote the EP The Longest Line , Erik Sandin went to the milieu around the main train station in Frankfurt am Main one morning to get heroin there. He met two shady Turks who gave him a bag of white powder for a fee. In a subway station in Frankfurt, some homeless people then tried to rob him, but Erik Sandin was able to escape. Back at the hotel, Sandin found that the two Turkish dealers had sold him ordinary baking powder, not heroin . To finance this unsuccessful drug purchase, he had previously stolen 40 dollars from the band's coffers without consulting his band mates. In 1999 Erik Sandin was diagnosed with hepatitis C , but the infectious disease is in remission . Since he had lived in an unsanitary community with several drug addicts with hepatic disease in the previous years, it can be assumed that Sandin contracted the hepatitis C virus there. The toilet did not work in this drug flat, which is why the drug addicts urinated in the bathtub, relieved their bowels and then swung their excrement with water down the drain. The title of the 2017 German NOFX autobiography “ The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories ” is derived from this story . In addition, Sandin often used previously used and contaminated needles when injecting heroin. Immediately after completing the recordings for the album White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean , which was released in 1992, Sandin went to drug therapy for two months at The Ranch rehab in the city of Desert Hot Springs , in the middle of a desert wasteland far from civilization, so as not to be tempted advising to get drugs somewhere. Sandin got the therapy place there through Buddy Arnold , a jazz saxophonist who used to hang on the needle himself and who had started the social aid program Musician's Assistance Program (MAP). At the beginning of the withdrawal, Sandin had a body weight of a meager 57 kilograms, which he was able to increase to 75 kilograms in the course of the two healing months, with a height of 1.86 meters. During the tough stay at The Ranch clinic , Sandin managed to detox and overcome his heroin addiction. In the NOFX autobiography “ The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories ” there is a full-page black and white photo in which Erik Sandin sticks a heroin syringe into his tied left arm. This photo was taken before his final withdrawal and was originally published as part of a report on the subject of heroin in the music industry in the American music magazine Rolling Stone , in the September 17, 1992 issue, when the NOFX drummer was in the rehab clinic. Sandin had received $ 350 from the photographer for staging this photograph so that he could buy heroin from it and shoot himself authentically in front of the camera lens. Sandin considered bringing Rolling Stone to court because you can see his face in the photo, but held back. Erik Sandin currently lives in Los Angeles .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 18
2. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. P. 38 ff.
3. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 38–40
4. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 56–59
5. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 94
6. ↑ ^{a b} Jeff Alulis, NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub And Other Stories . Da Capo Press, Boston 2016.
7. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 102
8. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 150
9. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 226 f.
10. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 125 + 118 f.
11. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. P. 94 f.
12. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 119–125
13. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 148
14. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 136
15. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 136 f. + 144
16. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 163–165
17. ↑ NOFX : The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. P. 222 f.
18. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 168
19. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 167
20. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. p. 231
21. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 228–232
22. ↑ NOFX: The hepatitis bathtub and other stories . Autobiography of the punk rock band NOFX written with co-author Jeff Alulis, Verlag Edel (Optimal Media GmbH), Röbel / Müritz , 1st edition, February 2017. pp. 237–239