by JOHNSON CUMMINS

With “skunx” proudly tattooed on his forehead, Lars Frederiksen may look like he just finished a five-to-10 stretch pressing licence plates. His disarmingly humble demeanour, however, is that of a regular guy who has lived a hard life and remains thankful for everything he’s got.

The man’s thug-life upbringing in Campbell, California, is well documented on the new record Viking by Lars Frederiksen & the Bastards, on which he describes being stabbed, having a gun pointed at his face (the trigger was pulled but the gun malfunctioned), addiction, crime, and the deaths of family and friends with a calm, almost detached recollection. But that’s hardly the whole story.

When he talks about his proudest moment, moving his mother out of her crack-infested neighbourhood, it isn’t from a survivor’s pedestal. In fact, it was his mother’s old apartment on Sharmon Palms Blvd. that could be considered the lyrical ground zero for his new record. “Getting my mom out of that apartment was a real struggle, but I just had to do it because it’s all gangbangers rolling. That’s the kind of environment I grew up in, but the kind of environment I didn’t want for my mother. That’s the working-class dream, to get your mother out of a place like that, and because of punk rock, my dream came true.

“My mother is a strong woman who has survived the death of my older brother, raising the kids alone from the time I was three years old and making a living in America after moving from Denmark, while learning English from watching Flipper and Leave It to Beaver. When I got into punk back in the ’80s, you had to really have strength to be a punk rocker, to put up with all of the bullshit, and I think I definitely got my strength and survival skills from my mother.”

Frederiksen is best known as the musical foil to Tim Armstrong in Rancid, and if his side project seems like a product of disharmony in the Rancid camp, nothing could be farther from the truth. Frederiksen formed the Bastards at Armstrong’s urging after the latter heard stories of his troubled upbringing. Armstrong’s Hellcat is the Bastards’ label, he co-writes all the songs, produces and even tackles photography. “I’ve always said I have the best songwriting partner in the world. We know how to push each other musically and lyrically in a really constructive way. He’s one of the most talented people I have ever met.”

Despite Frederiksen’s graduating with honours from the school of hard knocks, he still recounts his days in Campbell with more joy than relief that he made it out alive. “People ask me if I have any regrets and the answer is no. I don’t want to say I had it any worse than anybody else, but everything that I’ve ever done that has gotten me to this point in my life has been beneficial to me. I was homeless, eating out of garbage cans, strung out and whatever, but I wouldn’t change anything for the world. I know kids that have been handed everything their whole lives and those are the people who are really fucked up.”

With Roger Miret & the Disasters and APA at Club Soda on Saturday, Dec. 4, 9 p.m., $18.65

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