Grisham

Reading a John Grisham book called The Reckoning proved apt.

“You know when people are trying to get out of a building and they’re getting trampled? Well, these were people getting trampled on their way into a building,” the band’s vocalist, Jack Grisham, told The Times.

As a conservative region, O.C. may seem like an unlikely breeding ground for punk rock, especially compared with neighboring Los Angeles, but Grisham, who came up in the O.C. punk scene with his bandmates in TSOL, credits the area for innovating punk rock with a distinct sound that catapulted the music beyond local neighborhoods.

“L.A. had cool bands, but the Orange County sound — that surf skate sound that came out Orange County — that’s what blew punk rock up,” Grisham said.

Even with the creation of this innovative sound, Orange County wasn’t easy to navigate for punk rockers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to Grisham, and its conservative grip on residents often made life difficult for outliers and creatives.