Faced with the current glut of "sincere" punk-with-melody-and-emotion out there these days, it's easy to forget that it hasn't always been this way. There was a time -- only a decade and a half back, now -- when punk bands were snotty, goofy, pseudo-political streetpunks from the Bay Area, tough-talking hardcore guys from the East Coast, or flannel-wearing depressives from the rainy Northwest, without much room for anything in-between. It's kind of surprising in retrospect, then, that the image-conscious concrete sprawl of the L.A. 'burbs (Victorville, CA, to be exact) would give birth to a band like Face to Face.

At the time, they were a new breed of punk band, one that blended metal guitars with beautiful melodies, hardcore shout-along choruses, and meaningful, personal lyrics about relationships, loss, honesty, and being an individual, and they breathed new life into the punk world. The elements had all existed beforehand, sure, but they'd never really been brought together in that raw a way before -- on their debut full-length, Don't Turn Away, Face to Face sounded like a brand new animal.

The band was headed for big things right at the start, but the obstacles they faced proved difficult to overcome. They jumped from indies Dr. Strange and Fat Wreck on up to Victory Music/JVC, where they put out the seminal Big Choise before the label itself went bankrupt, tossing the band over onto A&M Records. The move to a major label prompted a backlash from punk "purists," while at the same time the label itself appeared to be uninterested in really working to help the band succeed or promoting their self-titled 1996 release. Towards the end of the '90s, Face to Face managed to get out of their deal with A&M just in time to dodge a label merger, but again found themselves adrift -- with a new album, Ignorance Is Bliss, but no label to release it. Even after they found a new home on Beyond Music and put out the album, the dismal response from fans effectively killed it and pushed the band back towards its punk roots. After two more albums (and yet another label), 2001's Reactionary (on Beyond Music) and How To Ruin Everything (on Vagrant), the members of the band finally agreed in 2004 to pull the plug.

Face to Face had gone up fast but come down hard, enduring jabs from both the punk scene they'd grown up in and the as-yet-unappreciative mainstream. While a faithful core of fans stayed true to the band and the music, the members of Face to Face never achieved the kind of real success at which the music seemed to hint. In the post-Face to Face era, however, their influence can be felt everywhere, from the depths of the punk underground to the airwaves of "alternative" stations all over. In a way, they almost could be called the Velvet Underground of the punk scene -- they themselves never cracked the heights of success like, say, Green Day or The Offspring, but it sure seems like every single person who loved them as a fan started a band and incorporated the Face to Face sound. Other bands might've made big bucks, yeah, but these guys were important in the grand scheme of rock.

With so many of Face to Face's "followers" making it big right now, it seems fitting that the band lift its head up once again, this time with Shoot the Moon: The Essential Collection, a career retrospective hand-picked and released by ex-FTF frontman, guitarist, and songwriter Trever Keith himself, on his own Antagonist Records label. With the record in hand and all those classic songs bouncing around the room, Space City Rock was overjoyed to be able to speak with Keith and throw him some questions about the past, present, and future of his band and his music.