Face to Face is like that baseball team you fell in love with as a kid. Every year, you get psyched up to watch them even though you’re not quite sure who they might cart out onto the field to play alongside their franchise starter. One thing is always guaranteed, however - a gutsy performance with lots of heart to send the kids home happy. Because, after all, that’s the fuel that primes Face to Face’s engine - the fans.

That point was never more evident than in 1999 when the band released what they felt was their strongest and edgiest record to date, Ignorance is Bliss. Unfortunately, the curveball the band threw completely alienated their fan base. Gone was the driving Southern California vibe that made bands like The Descendents and The Adolescents the darlings of the skatepunk scene. What Face to Face put in its place was a dark, grinding sound nowhere near the pop-filled punk rock they had peddled since 1991. But it was something the band wanted to do.

“Ignorance was done as a band effort,” states bassist Scott Shiflett looking back on the experience. “Shaping that thing up, we had a few songs that were a bit more edgy and just as we were building the record, they didn’t seem to fit. Before you know it, we built a big melancholy record, albeit a dark, pushy, melancholy record. We just did it to be selfish; for ourselves.”

Despite the uproar and cries of sell out that ensued on the Internet shortly after its release, Face to Face claims that the recording of the album unified the band and brought them closer together than they had ever been. The comments that accused Face to Face of cashing in were quickly shrugged off - techno and swing music were the in trends of that moment, not brooding rock and roll. The fans may not have enjoyed it, but the band has no regrets.

“Ignorance is Bliss was a very different record,” adds frontman/guitarist Trever Keith. “That was a 180 if there ever was one. But, we were unified under the idea of Ignorance is Bliss and we were stoked to do it. It wasn’t until after it came out and times got tough that it sort of caused the rift. We try to do things a little bit differently with each record. One, just to keep it fresh and exciting for us so we’re not treading over the same territory over and over again and two, because we know it will help add to the sound and the character of each record as well. We try not to write formulaic music, although much of music does fall into a pattern. You can never completely erase that or it wouldn’t be rock and roll, it would be some experimental, atonal music.”

To make it up to their fans, Face to Face went above and beyond to soak up their comments for the follow up release, Reactionary. The band posted songs on MP3.com and had the fans vote for their favorites. Those tunes selected made the cut on the new album. They learned from what went wrong in the past and have been able to find a happy medium between making their fan base happy and appeasing their own internal creative desires.

The last two records aside, not much has changed with Face to Face since their inception back in the early 90s except the guys on the team. Starting as a three piece shaped around Keith, the band chugged along the Southern California punk scene, gigging with such household names as Guttermouth and Voodoo Glowskulls. After a sharp, full length record released on Dr. Strange Records (later and more widely on Fat Wreck Chords), the band was picked up by a major label while they were still in their early stages.

“We really didn’t begin to gain any national status until after we had been on Victory, which was through JVC and A&M here in the States,” Keith says. “[Success] kinda happened for us after we had already been on a major, but I think despite our major label status - and we took a lot of shit for it - we’ve been able to garner a sort of indie label following, a very loyal following, that’s stayed with us over the last seven or eight years. It’s not really that we wanted to go on a major to do this or that, we just went with what we thought was the best label for us to get our music out. Unfortunately, we’ve run down a lot of bumpy roads as we’ve jumped from label to label but I think we’re finally at a place now that is gonna allow us to play music and make records and not have to worry if they’re in stores.”

That place is Vagrant Records, the company their manager, Rich Egan, started over a decade ago. Although Face to Face has never had a formal deal with Vagrant, they have been putting out music through them for nearly seven years. After being freed from their long term recording contract, the band is happy to have everything under one roof.

Getting all their ducks in a row, Face to Face settled down to record their latest studio effort, How To Ruin Everything. The new album, a complete progression from the two former, was constructed with a different sound for several reasons. While touring for Reactionary, long time guitarist Chad Yaro decided to leave the band taking his powerful guitar sound with him, returning Face to Face to a three piece. Not wanting to introduce yet another strange face to the fan base, Keith, Shiflett and relatively new drummer Pete Parada decided to carry on without him.

“Things weren’t right in the band for the last year or two Chad was in anyway because he was unhappy,” Keith states. “We wanted him to stay to try to keep the band intact. We convinced him to stay longer than he really wanted to. When we finally just cut him loose, although it was a bummer for everybody, there was also this great feeling of relief that reenergized all of us in the band.”

The new found energy allowed them to hone their skills as a three piece on the road before heading into the studio. By the time the guys sat down to write How To Ruin Everything, they were already very comfortable with their new sound.

Looking to set their seventh record apart from the rest of the discography, new measures were taken by the band when they put the whole thing down on tape. “We recorded [How to Ruin Everything] in a way that was different from any record we’ve recorded before,” Keith says. “The approach to this one was going for something with a super live feel. We were in a studio with one good, big-sized room and we put the drums, the guitar amp and the bass amp all in the same room, let all the mics leak into itself and just recorded everything live, essentially. I think that really adds to the intimacy of the record.”

Recording the album live required the band to have their sound down tight before they entered the studio. Countless hours were spent rehearsing and perfecting the tunes both during practice and on stage. “We have a lot of rehearsals up until an album,” Keith says. “We try to get everything fleshed out before we get there, at least the technical aspects of the music - knowing the songs, getting the rhythm tight, knowing our parts - so when we get in [the studio] we can let it flow a little bit because we’re so familiar with the music.”

The familiarity allowed them to crank out How To Ruin Everything at a manic pace with very few, if any, overdubs truly meeting their goal of a live ambiance. “I think we were just lucky enough to catch those performances on tape,” Keith recalls of the recording process. “We’re comfortable enough in the studio now to let those inhibitions kind of go away. We feel at home in there so we can concentrate on their performances.”

Whereas most new punk records reek of Pro Tools and creative production tricks, Face to Face’s latest effort is very refreshing. The raw sounding cuts harken back to the studio performances of the Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned and The Jam - bands who had a unique energy that refused to be compromised.

There’s a reason why the aforementioned punk bands still have such a large fan base - they put out great music. Putting their Southern Californian influences on the back burner, Face to Face embraced their past heroes and used their gritty, no-nonsense sound as a blueprint to compose some genuinely powerful tunes with a classic feel. Perhaps they were still miffed that their rendition of “Tommy Gun” was left off the American release of the horrid Clash tribute record a few years back?

“That was a nice idea gone horribly awry,” says Shiflett with a laugh. “The Indigo Girls? Did they ever listen to The Clash? Anytime something like that goes down, it’s just a popularity poll. I even heard Strummer heard our version and liked it a lot, yet, by the end, I even think that Strummer wanted his named pulled off [the tribute] because he was so disgusted with where it was going. Of course, I don’t know that any of that is true but it sure would be nice if it was.”

What direction Face to Face heads in next is solely in their hands, although they will certainly give credence to their fans. Learning from experience, they know that as entertainers they have certain expectations to meet from those who pay the bills. As much as they would like to noodle and experiment, the band understands what is most important in the end.

“[The new album] is more simplistic in its approach and it strikes more of a chord with that intense, rousing sort of music,” Keith states. The album strikes more than a chord, it proves a point like the shattering of glass. Face to Face has been able to evolve over the past 10 years into something vital that’s here to stay.