Because you can be like Adderall guy if you're doing bonus cups and 50 million espressos. I'm positive, and I don't get too jittery. But now I'm good if I have one espresso in the morning and then one in the afternoon. I would need three espressos in the morning just to feel like a human being. Because you build up a tolerance to caffeine, I think really way more than people realize. For the last five years, we've been playing all these shows, and I would have to drink 12 espressos just to get wired. Because when we do a show, then I’ll have maybe, let's say, eight espressos all at once.

Right now currently, I've got my tolerance way, way, way down.

STEVENSON: Right now? Currently, I have espresso in the morning, and then I have another espresso at about 2. Bill, how many cups of coffee a day are you consuming these days? Read more: Hear Descendents demand change on powerful new release, 'Suffrage' That's wild. Then you're a caffeine-addled person, and then coffee’s your whole life because you need it just to get out of bed. I was like, “All right, this is how we're going to get it” because I had to try to stay awake all night with those guys that were on the black beauties, the amphetamines. I didn't even know: I thought I had invented espresso as a kid. If you wanted to get espresso, you had to go in and sit down at a legit Italian restaurant. The thing you’ve got to remember espresso was not really readily available, and there was no Starbucks. So I started making what I called “a bonus cup.” I would just fill the whole cup up with coffee grounds and then pour in instant coffee, and then just enough water in there to get it liquid enough to drink it and then put in like five, six, seven spoonfuls of sugar and enough cream just to choke it down. I never wanted to take drugs or anything. Frank and Pat had their “black beauties,” their little amphetamines to stay awake. Frank and I, and our kind of fifth member at the time, Pat, when we started commercial fishing, we'd fish all night. STEVENSON: I think it really, really became critical when our sportfishing turned into our commercial fishing. How did it become such a part of your band? Do you remember the first time someone referenced it? And boy, one cup of it and you were a fiend. My mom made me a cup of coffee with two spoons of honey in it and half-and-half because that's how she drank her coffee. Then it got gnarly.īILL STEVENSON: Yeah, it was similar for me.

But it didn't start me on this long road to addiction until I joined the band. And I can remember trying it and going, 'This tastes like crap.' But then you put a bunch of sugar and milk in, and it’s like, “Oh, this tastes pretty good.” And a little wired drinking coffee with a bunch of milk and sugar in it when I was 10 years old or so. Backstage at the El Camino Theater, they would brew the big urn, the urn coffee. But I was part of the backstage crew or whatever. MILO AUKERMAN: I used to go out to El Camino with my mom to do theater productions, although I wasn't in the theater productions. Does either of you remember the first time you ever tried coffee? Putting on Cool To Be You and brewing a fresh pot of coffee is an amazing experience. Read more: Pabst Blue Ribbon unveils hard coffee as the Frappuccino for beer lovers Coffee is so essential to listening to Descendents.

Milo aukerman