After 10 Years, All Casual Relapse Really Wants Is to Play ‘Puck Off’ at a Stars Game

Jake Relapse, singer of the punk band Casual Relapse, doesn’t come off as a punk rocker.

Standing outside of Double Wide on a gray afternoon, taking sips from a Montucky Cold Snack because the bar is all out of Lone Star, taking in the selections of the day’s karaoke singers, Relapse wears a slightly faded Dallas Stars cap and reflects on a decade in the North Texas music scene.

“The scene’s had its waves over the years,” he says. “There’s been good times and not as good times, but it’s always been pretty good to us.”

The band had played a few shows before Relapse joined, but with him at the helm, Casual Relapse began its rise to be one of the more recognizable bands in the local punk scene.

Over a decade ago, Relapse came together with bass player Q Morris and guitarist Dan Pedroza in Morris’ parents’ garage in Garland to bang out punk songs as fast as they could be played.

“We were just taking whatever shows we could take and playing as much as we could and meeting people, meeting bands,” Relapse says. “We’re really fast, just balls-to-the-wall fast. That’s what I think stands out about us. Sometimes I feel like we should slow it down a little more, but I don’t know. We’ve always said we’re too hardcore for punk and too punk for hardcore.”

As the band ages, the lyrics take on more depth. While a song like “Pizza Punx” from the band’s first EP, Imminent Threat, persists as a fun memory of its past, Casual Relapse has outgrown lyrics like, “Give me a slice of freedom, extra toppings, liberty pie.”

“I was young when I wrote that,” Relapse says with a smile. “I love it because it’s goofy. I’m a big comedy guy, so I like to throw some funny lyrics in every now and then. That song is about being broke, buying a Little Caesars pizza and that being dinner for the next few nights.”

Goofy as the song may be, “Pizza Punx” is an early iteration of the perspective the band has developed. While all of its songs have political undertones, Casual Relapse attempts to avoid overt political messages, giving a voice instead to the working class, regardless of its members’ political affiliations.

“We talk about a lot of socioeconomic stuff,” Relapse says. “The main theme has just been working and trying to get by and what it’s like to be a working-class American. We talk about all sorts of stuff. Nothing that’s too personal. Mostly it’s just talking about the world’s problems and how much life can suck sometimes.”

On its most recent release, Death to All Tyrants, Casual Relapse dives back into the same economic trenches as “Pizza Punx,” but on “Another Headache,” the snarky humor has given way to profound disillusionment: “The money comes, the money goes, Not much left in the end /Never enough, I feel so stuck. I’m spreading myself thin.”

“We’ve gotten more serious over the years, growing up and having real responsibilities becoming an actual adult,” Relapse says. “What I write about now is dealing with life and the struggle and working and busting your ass to just get by and have your rent paid and maybe go out on a Friday and have a beer. But you’re not living in luxury.”

Relapse pauses for a moment, a bit overwhelmed by the noise spilling out onto the patio from the karaoke singer inside. For all the anger and aggression found in Casual Relapse’s music, Relapse himself appears shy, almost hiding behind the bill of his Stars cap.

“A lot of people are surprised when they find out that I’m in a band, and they find out what kind of band and hear me yell,” he says. “I’m a very chill and quiet kind. I smoke a lot of weed, so that keeps me chill, I guess. I played hockey growing up and I was a big hitter and fighter, and I like the aggression. I guess that’s where I get it out now, through the band and yelling into a microphone.

“I notice whenever we go long periods of time without playing a show or practicing, I get more pint up and angry and shit. I’m mostly a pretty calm guy, but I can go crazy a little bit.”

Hockey Punks

The talk of hockey brings a gleam of the brightest to Relapse’s eyes. He says the Stars really seem to be trying to make a run at the Stanley Cup this year with the Mikko Rantanen trade, and with Tyler Seguin and Miro Heiskanen hopefully returning for the playoffs, they really have a shot.

“One of my dreams, because they’ll have bands play before the game sometimes, is to play at the Stars game,” Relapse says. “I want to cover ‘Puck Off’ by Pantera. I know Pantera is problematic, but I love the goal song. After that, I would probably want to play ‘Denial.’ That song’s about people living in denial – people that think America’s the greatest place to live in the world. For some people, it is, but life isn’t always great, and it’s not because you’re bad. People experience things differently.”

“I’m not one of those guys that’s like, you have to see things the same way as me or fuck you, but you do have to have challenging conversations with people sometimes.”

To celebrate 10 years of personal growth and development in North Texas, Casual Relapse will be hosting its very own festival, Casual Fest, on Saturday, April 12, at Growl Records in Arlington.

“We were just going to do a regular show, but we wanted to have it with bands that have been around over the years and friends that we’ve made,” Relapse says.”There were just so many bands that we wanted to play. So we were like, let’s do a little festival and do an all-day thing.”

For $15 at the door, fans can experience a full day of punk rock music from Dead Weight and Down Not Out from San Antonio, Nerve from Austin and Dogma from Lafayette, Louisiana. The show will also see nearly a dozen local punk acts, including Thyroids, Negative X Influence and Boof, with Casual Relapse set to headline. There will also be vendors, pizza and plenty of beer.

There’s no telling where exactly Casual Relapse will go from here, but it will definitely keep moving forward.

“I don’t know what we’re doing, I won’t lie,” Relapse says with a laugh. “I don’t know, just have fun with it. Don’t take it too seriously. There’s been times where we thought we were too cool and too serious, but it’s more fun if you just have fun.”