CONTINUED.....
After the new CD arrived in the mail, I popped it into my CD player and listened to the album while cleaning my apartment. NON’s latest album, “From Buckeye To Beardsley”, was outstanding. After listening to the CD a few times, I started to wonder why the band hadn’t reunited to play any live shows. I went online and read several interviews with the band, and became frustrated because I couldn’t find answers for the questions that I had. After a few months, I considered contacting the band and interviewing them myself.
I emailed Numbers On Napkins in late December of 2019 and asked them if they would consider doing an interview in the near future. After waiting a couple weeks for a reply, I tried again. I had almost just given up, but finally got a response from Chase Stain in early February. Stain told me that it would be nearly imposible to interview all of the members together, but that he was willing to do an interview, and said that I was free to contact NON’s drummer, Tad Gurthman, and NON’s guitarist, Moe Money, and perform three seperate interviews if I wanted. He went on to say that he wasn’t sure if Gurthman or Money would agree to an interview, but that I was welcome to try.
I decided to interview Stain, and go from there. Unfortunately, Stain was hospitalized a few days later and had to have emergency surgery and have his gall bladder removed. By the time Stain was released from the hospital, the COVID-19 pandemic had started to effect the nation, and a week later the state put the stay at home order into effect.
I asked Stain if he was comfortable doing an interview during the pandemic, but he told me that he felt that it was important to trust our leaders in this crisis, and did not want to do a face to face interview. I contemplated doing a Facetime interview, or phone interview, but decided against it. I wanted to take my time with the interview, and really get to know Stain as a person, and felt that I needed to be able to interact with him in order to achieve the results that I was hoping for. So the interview was put on hold, and Stain asked me to email him in a few weeks.
After several emails between Stain and I, we finally made plans to meet up face to face, although he told me that he had a few conditions about the interview. Stain was very clear that he was willing to answer any questions about him, but stated that he would not answer any personal questions about Tad Gurthman, Moe Money, or NON’s former guitarist, Matt Martini. He claimed that he was not trying to hide any details, but that he felt that it was not his place to speak for them. I agreed not to ask any personal questions about Gurthman, Money, or Martini, and we made plans to meet up on a Sunday in May at a locally owned pizza restaurant in Northwest Phoenix.
I walked into the restaurant ten minutes early and took a seat at a booth. A few seconds later I heard a voice asking me if I was Ashley. I looked behind me and saw Chase Stain sitting at a table. It was hard to recognize him at first, as it had been a decade since I last saw the musician. Stain’s hair was cut short, and had several spots of grey scattered throughout it, and his face had developed a few more wrinkles over the years. Stain was still tall and lanky, and it’s not that he had become unattractive, he had just gotten older. Stain was wearing a pair of jeans and a shirt with the words, “Worlds Goodest Teecher” printed across the front.
I introduced myself and he asked me to step outside so he could smoke a cigarette. The cashier and cooks all proceeded to say goodbye to Stain as we walked out the door, and he thanked them and wished them well.
Once outside, Stain lit a cigarette and we engaged in small talk for a few minutes before I finally officially started my interview.
ASHLEY: For starters, why hasn’t Numbers On Napkins done any touring to promote your last album? Or, why haven’t you guys even played any local shows?
STAIN: Well, it’s actually a couple of things. I really want to maintain all of my focus on my daughter for the time being. I mean, she’s sixteen now, and really starting her life, so I’ll probably be up to fully restarting my music in the next year or two, but want to focus on her for now. Although to be honest, it’s more than that. I think, well, actually I know that
Tad and Moe have a lot of built up anger directed towards me. And I mean, they have every right. Before we went on hiatus, I was really fucked up. I had a huge drug problem, and was addicted to opiates. I think that both Moe and Tad feel like it was a betrayal. I mean....it sucks, but it’s my own damn fault, and I can’t blame either of them for being pissed off.
ASHLEY: Are you clean now?
STAIN: I was, until just a few months ago. It wasn’t really a relapse, or, well, I guess kind of. Okay, I quit on April 20th, 2013, and was good years, but in March I had to have emergency surgery and have my gall bladder removed. When I went into surgery, the doctors gave me dillotted just before putting me under. I also had six 5mg Oxycodone to take home for the pain. I was only supposed to take the pills every 8 hours, but took them about every four hours, which is technically abusing the medication, which is how I got hooked in the first place. I haven’t used any opiates since then. But it sucks, cuz I was about to be clean for seven years, and now I gotta start over. Shit, I don’t even know the date that I last took a pain pill now.
ASHLEY: So have you ever had any other problems with any other substances?
STAIN: Cigarettes. (Laughs) Fucking cigarettes. I guess... well, I don’t know. I’m a total addict, with everything. My ex wife used to say that my slogan in life is, “Everything in excess.” And she’s right. I mean, I can’t deny it. It’s like, something takes control of me, and I become obsessed on whatever it is and can only focus on it. Whether it’s my band at the time, or my label, or a show I was promoting, or my job, or whatever. Looking back, I was definately an alcoholic. But my opiate addiction was different. I was always in some control before that. I could stop anything if I wanted to. Like, if I really wanted to stop. I’ve used drugs throughout my entire life, and never had a problem stopping if I wanted. But when I tried to stop taking my pain pills for the first time, I experienced withdrawals, and I was complexed by the whole thing. All of a sudden, I realized that I couldn’t stop. Well, I could, but not without being sick. I would try over and over, puking and shaking and sweating for a week, and then I would give in. Sometimes I would make it a few weeks, but it takes months for the body to go back to normal, and your so weak during that time. It’s hard to put life on hold for six months to get better.
ASHLEY: You just said that you had a problem without alcohol too, are those the only two serious addictions you have dealt with?
STAIN: Well alcohol was different. It was like everything else. If I wanted to stop, I just stopped. I was a very heavy drinker, and would usually kill about 30 or 40 bottles of beer every day, and drink around a dozen shots while at the bar. But I never had any problem stopping, and I would quit for months at a time, just because I didn’t feel like getting drunk during that particular part of my life. I’ve even quit smoking cigarettes several times, but always come back. So I guess the only real problem that I’ve had was opiates. Or, the only thing that was really hard to quit was opiates. Well, and smoking. (Laughs).
ASHLEY: Do you feel like your opiate addiction cost the band any chance of super stardom? Like, do you think that you guys would have gone on to become rich and famous if you had your addictions under control?
STAIN: I think that my addiction caused internal conflicts with the band, and probably ultimately lead to our hiatus, but I seriously doubt that we would have become rich and famous. As a matter of fact, if we did, I think that I would have quit. Personally, I never wanted any fame from the band. Well, that’s a lie actually. I loved getting recognized and praised by fans, but I never wanted to be
super famous. Like, I wouldn’t want to have everyone watching my every move, writing about my personal life and shit. And as for money, I have always felt like I would like to have enough to be comfortable, but not so much that I was able to get everything I ever wanted. I think a lot of people who achieve that level of success believe that it will bring them happiness, and when they have all of their precious possessions, they realize that they are still missing something in their life and end up eating a bullet or hanging themselves from a shower rod. I wanted to have enough cash to survive comfortably, and a level of fame like Fat Mike or Ben Weasel. Famous enough that every once in awhile you may get noticed, but not to the point that it ruins your personal life. Besides, we would have had to sign with a major label to achieve any real level of success, and that was something that we weren’t willing to do. Wait, let me change that real quick. I think that we actually would have been totally fine signing with a major label, but the only offers that we ever got were totally fucked up. Like the contract would say that we had to tour nine months per year, or they would charge an insane amount of interest on the advance. And we weren’t about to sell our souls to be on a major. And if we came back with a counter offer, they would just tell us to fuck off, and they would find another band stupid enough to sign. (Laughs) Which was fine by us. We weren’t doing it for fame or money.