Picture this: you’re a group of friends from southern Utah and, after years apart taking time to start families, you come back together during a global pandemic to make music again.
Now, picture that, and add to it that your old lead singer has a multitude of songs in his back pocket that everyone is highly invested in. They’ve got enough potential for you to get picked up by the legendary Bill Stevenson, who has produced and been part of bands like Descendents and Black Flag.
Once you’ve got that in your mind, you’ve got a clear image of Bridge The Gap, a group of men who are set to release their second studio album, Gainslayer, on April 11th, 2025.
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting up with bassist Shon Foster as he was on his way back home from a catering event in Ojai, California (what a day job!) to pick at his brain and get a little more information about the inside workings of this melodic hardcore-turned-skate-punk ensemble.
So, first of all, I wanted to ask, how did you guys meet, like how did y’all come together?
So, we all generally came from bands from the same area in southern Utah. The Saint George area—which is about an hour and a half from Vegas—so we could catch a lot of the younger punk bands coming through there on their way to Salt Lake and usually do like living room shows when we were younger and then started playing ourselves. We were all in different bands and then kind of came together as the best of the best.
At that point, I was actually the audio engineer and manager of the band. I had worked for Pennywise in LA, at their studio called Stall Number 2, and so I worked with the band, and then eventually when COVID happened, we all thought we had a lot more time. Chad Jensen [lead vocalist] had never stopped writing, and we had stayed in contact just as dads, you know? And he started sending me home recording mixes, and I'm like, “Dude, I need to come up and help set that up.” So it actually came back together as a project—like, "Let's go capture these songs; let’s go hang out in the studio with whatever producer we never thought we’d ever get to work with.”.
That’s when Jeff [former guitarist] reached out to The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado, with Jason Livermore, and of course, The Big Man. It was kind of fortuitous. The next thing you know, we’re booked with Bill Stevenson, producing a record. Chad sent out the demos, and he [Bill] was willing to do it, so the music was good enough to get in that door, and then it’s been a ride ever since.
Yes! I was going to ask about what it was like to be working with someone who is that attached to some really big names in that part of the punk hemisphere!
Yeah, you walk down the hallway and you’re like “Every record we’ve ever loved has been touched by this guy” especially in the genre. And it’s just nostalgia. When I was at Stall 2 and working, that’s where the Descendants are from and Black Flag. So getting to run around and y’know, different guys point out “That’s where I saw Descendants in 1983”, just some of those fun facts, and you’re sitting in a room with him with records on the wall from Good Riddance and so many bands that you’ve looked up to. It’s amazing. Definitely some pressure, for sure.
That was your first album, and your second was at The Blasting Room as well?
Yes.
So, the second one, which I got a little sneak preview of, I really like it. I’ve had it on repeat. When I first heard you guys, it was while watching your last music video [“Brothers”], and I thought “Oh, I’m with this, I really like this,” and then I put on your first album to go further back and I'm like “OH! I’m really with this! I’m there!”
Yeah, y’know, when we were getting back together on this project, we were all like, “Let’s go see what’s happening in the scene,” and we had all gone to shows, and I still have a few friends that are kind of in the scene, making music. So when we went to Punk Rock Bowling [a 3-day music festival], we had the album, and it was like, man, there are still a lot of people who like this stuff. We called it melodic hardcore back in the day; now it kind of gets put into the skate-punk genre. And not that that’s bad, but you know it was like, “There are still some fans. Let’s do this. Let’s put some music out; let’s see if there’s still an audience for it.”
I wanted to ask- so when I was listening to it, in the sneak preview, I think “Dixie Downer” is my favorite, because I really like that opening bassline. Do you have a personal favorite of the album?
Man, that’s a good question. I mean, from the first album, with it being a project and kind of coming in at the last minute, there wasn’t a lot of bass-forward material, and in this one, there are a couple. I really dig “Broken Language” just because of some of the meaning in it and the connection.
It’s very easy to relate to.
I don’t know if we’re going to release this; it’s in the next single. There’ll be some information that comes out, so I don’t know how much I can spill, but there is a chorus line from the late Jim Cherry's unpublished lyrics that his wonderful widow, Wendy, gifted to us posthumously. Jim was the founding member of Strung Out. We became friends with Wendy throughout this journey of kind of getting back into it. So yeah, I mean, just a star alignment sort of thing that we were thrilled and honored to include on the song. So to play a bass riff inspired by the music of Strung Out and then Zero Down, which was his last band before he died, I’d probably say that.
That’s really impactful!
I would go with that one. But there’s a lot of really cool stuff. We got like—we got to be musicians again. The first time it was kind of like, “Okay, here we go, what do we still have?” and then this time it was us just playing a little bit so we got to stretch out.
We’ve sort of touched on this already, but do you guys sort of have a lot of very similar influences in music, or does everybody sort of have their own bits that they bring in?
I think that’s a great question because our drummer, on the last trip we took to play in Portland, all of a sudden some country songs sneaked in, which would never have been in the mix back in the day. All of a sudden I’m like, ” Wait a minute, what is this?” So yeah, I would say, like, we’re all definitely much more comfortable. And maybe people were listening to it back then, just not around their friends. I go through everything in the genre from, like, I can be spinning classical and then come through 60s and 70s R&B and soul, and then find myself jamming Gregory Alan Isakov on the folk side. But most of it is melody lines and bass hooks, right? Like in those classic chord progressions, fit in everything. With Chad, he's like—he’s probably the most hardcore. “I listen to punk; I listen to a little bit of hardcore/post-hardcore, and that’s it.”.
I wanted to ask about the music video for "In The Throes." Where were the clips from? Do you remember the specific shows, or was it sort of like when you look at old videos and you know “That happened but I don’t remember that exact moment”?
Yeah, I think we purposefully took footage from iconic shows that everyone had. We had a phone conference to talk about what we should include. Like “Oh we have to do Warped Tour. We have to do one in Groovacius Records [in Cedar City Utah]. One in La Grande, Oregon. So we all kind of had our favorites that we talked about and threw those in.
Cool, I love that! I was curious as to whether it was just haphazardly in there, or just like “Okay this is what we have”.
Chad is a masterful collector. He has nearly every photo, every article written, and every CD review. He’s been really good at holding on to things. I have all the early recordings and all of that kinda stuff, but he’s good at keeping the videos and such.
My next question was about the “Brothers” video. Where was that filmed?
Okay, so that’s super cool we got to work! Eric [Cannon, director] is based in Vegas, and when we went through some of the ideas for the video, he literally found this guy who has a casita behind his house. When you walk down the driveway and open the door, it's like late 80s and early 90s nostalgia crammed into this tiny little studio apartment. It’s like walking back in time, and then it’s all around you. Like the Skate or Die game on the first NES was playing in the background.
And, for Dustbin, have you guys done a performance video, or was this your first time doing that?
That was definitely our first time with a crowd, a camera crane, and people in your face. It was still all live and real playing, which we appreciated, but yeah. It was pretty cool to have all the people really close. The vibe and the energy definitely go upwards more than just from playing to the camera. Y’know, the glistening forehead that Chad displays is the real deal from jumping around and jamming with a bunch of body heat.
Was it shot in Utah, or where did you guys go for that one?
That was actually in Vegas again, where Eric is based. We were like, You can come to Utah, and he was like, “Well then I'll have to do a bunch of research on where to go. Just come down here because I know all the places to run to.”
He literally found a huge warehouse, rolled up the doors, packed a bunch of people in there, and I think the funniest part of that video was them saying, “Okay, now we’re going to do some shots from behind,” and you’re like, “Okay… how do I look from back there while I’m playing forward?” It was super cool! “In the Throes” was all shot in Utah, though, except for the different venues for the early clips.
So are you guys looking to tour at any point in the future?
For sure! We knew we wanted to get two albums put together so there was a little bit of a discography for people to discover. We wanted enough music so it could really kind of get out there and penetrate. We knew we wanted to get some labels secured in Europe and Australia.
When we went into the studio [for Secret Kombinations], Chad had a ton of songs, and when we were recording that album, we were kind of capturing everything that was the tail end of what we had been doing at the time when we all separated, so that’s where that one really falls in the pocket of the skatepunk.
And then the new one has a little more of that modern edge to it and kind of fits in between Bad Religion and—oh, I don’t know—who else do people say? Rise Against, maybe a little bit. So we already had another album ready when we did the first one. It was kind of like, Let’s give it some time to buzz.” We did happen to be picked up by People of Punk Rock Records; we did get at least a little splash when that was released. And then the relationship developed with Double Helix and SBAM and Pee Records, so this one we just like—we’re stoked that it just hits a broader market, and when we do go out, there are people there, and you know, we have people that we can connect with.
And, everyone is stoked on it already and they know the words, so they can scream ‘em back at you, which in my opinion is the best part of a show.
Yeah, right?! I mean, it’s one thing to play and sing your heart out, but it’s a whole other thing when you get to be like, “Oh my gosh they’re as loud as we are.”
And, you guys have some really really poignant points. What I really liked about your music as I was listening to it is that you guys have that spirit of “punk is politics”. It’s that whole idea that punk is not an aesthetic or even a genre. Punk is like a mindset. You guys definitely embody that, and I really enjoyed that.
Yeah, I think for us it’s like some bands get into the position of preaching, and I wanted—and I think Chad definitely wanted—to talk about a lot. We want to have enough in there that it percolates. You come up with your own side that you want to be on, but you have to start thinking about it. You need to think about what position you want to take and then stand up for it. Left, right, down the middle—it doesn’t matter, you know? Act instead of being acted upon. And I think that’s definitely what punk rock gave to me. Coming up on the Pennywise Bad Religion side, those are like—if you don’t like it, get up and do something about it.
I love that.
So, it was highly motivating for me to be like “Oh I’m a young adult, I can do this, I can make these decisions and I can make a difference and I’m gonna do it”. I’m glad you picked that up! I mean, you want to package it in a pretty way. You want to have great harmonies.
And you guys have some really tight harmonies, that was another thing that I noticed when I was listening. Those are tight, those are locked in, and I love a good solid harmony.
That is the surgery of Bill Stevenson. When you talk about going to the mountaintop? That man is serious. I didn’t do any backups on the first record actually. Chad did all of those.
Oh, wow.
And then on this one, going into the album, Chad’s like “You’ve gotta do backups, man I know you can sing, I know you can do the harmonies.”
He’s got faith in you!
Yeah! So we did a little bit, but little did I know how brutal it was. We would track songs, but then we would work on harmonies for 4-5-6 hours with Bill. We were going to like 3-4 in the morning and then jumping back up to do more of the instrumental stuff. There was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in there. I'm glad you noticed.
Yeah, absolutely! Before we wrap up, I just wanted to get some little nit-picky things here at the end, just to be nosy.
What was your favorite piece on the Brothers set? And what was the dice game that was being played in Dustbin, and did you learn how to play it?
We didn’t learn how to play it, but we did watch that poor guy roll dice for like 15 minutes straight because it had to be the right angle; it had to be these certain numbers. It’s just called dice. It’s a betting game, a street game, or a game that people will play in prisons. So we were on the streets of Vegas, and he was playing dice.
Favorite set piece… I don’t know… Maybe the Michael J. Fox hoverboard from Back to the Future.
Yes!!
What else did he have that was super cool? There was a robot! From the NES, that I don’t even remember the name of, but the robot was there.
I really liked the big Pepsi machine. That was the thing I kept going to because it’s old school, and really iconic.
Yeah! Pepsi Nation!! Kids these days don’t even remember that there was a Pepsi Nation and I think what was big, too, with that, was that it really embraced the alternative music at the time when I was a kid and they really got behind it, so yeah, there’s some nostalgia with Pepsi for sure.
It’s awesome. I just loved the whole music video, like you said, it had the nostalgia and then obviously the song and what it means and it all tied in really nicely, I felt.
Well, I won't take up too much more of your time. It was really great talking to you, it was really great finding out about you guys. I’m really glad that I got that opportunity. I’ve been sort of in my shell for a while, and now as I’m getting older I’m branching out. I get to find new music and if I vibe with it then that’s great!
Yeah! It’s not a bad life!
No, not at all! And you guys have got that hook, it’s the spirit behind it, and you summed it up perfectly. Act or be acted upon. I'll be thinking about it for a while.
I think most people will be thinking about it as they listen through Gainslayer. From songs like “Dustbin,” to “No Profit in Peace”, there is no question as to the sentiment in the story being told.
With the new album set to release on April 11th, 2025, there is no better time to get behind that story.
If you'd like to keep up to date with Bridge The Gap, they can be found all over the world wide web!
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