Anderson says that one of the greatest gigs the band has played was opening up for English Oi! pioneers the Business. "We hadn't even been a band that long," the singer says. "That was pretty cool. To me, there are two kinds of gigs. You can play in a big venue and open for a big band, or you can at somebody's house or basement where everybody gets drunk and has a blast. We've played a few of those too. An Indiana show we played was in my friend's basement, and he had a skate ramp. That was awesome."

While Bad Assets is still a relatively new band, Labeau hopes to still be playing Oi! with his band, as well as fighting fires, a decade from now. "I love the guys I play with and I can't imagine trying to replace any of them," the bassist says. "Right now we have, as clichéd as it sounds, a really good chemistry. We all come to the table with ideas and every idea that we come to will either lead into a song or be put on the back burner for another song. We're all part of the songwriting process, whether it's lyrically or musically."

Hopefully they'll have company too. Both men agree that local like-minded punks Standard Issue and Public Sex are two of the best of the new breed. "Public Sex is two members from a hardcore band that was very short-lived called Broken Teeth," says Labeau. "I really wish they were still around. They were young, but they had that gritty old-school hardcore feel. We also played quite a few shows with Iron Clad, an Oi! band from Ypsilanti."

So that's Bad Assets. The band isn't trying to change the world, and there are no shady political agendas on the table. As Anderson so eloquently puts it, "It's about having a beer, having a laugh and playing some fucking punk rock."

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