Thanks, Bums

"We had the practice place for about a year," says drummer Josh Arend of Morning Riot, a four-man punk-rock band based in Encinitas. "We couldn't afford the single room for $500, so we split it with another band and we each paid $250."

Morning Riot shared the rehearsal space with a death-metal band on a month-to-month basis because it was convenient and the price was right. But...

"The death-metal guys we split the room with were cool guys, but they were a bunch of slobs. They had a lack of respect for the room and for us. They would party and leave their empty beer bottles and bottle caps everywhere. The place started stinking like musky beer and cigarettes.... One night we went in, and it looked like someone had taken a beer bottle, shook it up, and sprayed it all over the room; there were little drops of beer on my drum set....

"One day I'm sitting in my local bar in Encinitas, and my buddy who owns the barbershop next door comes in and said that he had extra space he wanted to rent out. I jokingly said, 'Hey, why don't you give it to us?' But then he actually said he would. So we made it soundproof, and we now pay him $350 a month. The extra $100 a month is worth it; we all live in Encinitas. We practice three nights a week. So, now after we practice we have a bar right next door. And we can walk home if we drink too much....

"The barbershop is in front and we got the back. We built a wall in the middle of the shop. We filled the wall with many layers of carpet, drywall, and soundboard. It's an old-fashioned barbershop with three chairs. We can't use it until after the barbershop closes at 6 p.m.... There are two solid concrete walls separating us and the other two businesses on either side. The only people who can hear us are bums in the back alley, and they all rock out with Morning Riot. They help us load in our gear."

Morning Riot appears Saturday at 710 Beach Club (formerly Blind Melons).