“I’m new and improved. So much better than I used to be. I was an awful alcoholic. I was a shitty drunk, and fucked up on drugs.”

These are Duck’s words from the song “Rinse and Repeat” off the new Joystick album, I Can’t Take It Anymore (release date April 16). It, the band’s 4th full length, is a great skacore album, with a heavy dose of hardcore, mixed with an almost jazzy style of ska. If there were ever any doubts that ska-punk is more than just silly music, this album puts thoughts to rest. It’s a very serious, very personal, and very heavy ska-punk album. 

On this episode of In Defense of Ska, Duck, the lead singer of Joystick, joins us to talk about I Can’t Take It Anymore. He also talks about getting sober, what life has been like on the other side, and how challenging and rewarding it was to make that decision. We get into the nitty-gritty of how Joystick created that perfectly surreal album cover. We also ask him questions provided to us by several Bad Time Records bands. One of them involves a strange story at the “Cat S**t House.” 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

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