Lunging forward with the cathartic sonic epistle matter-of-factly.

"A lot of the genre has become so fucking poppy. Whereas our goal is to have powerful, fast songs that we really love to play. And a lot of people who have heard us have been telling me that we're sort of a breath of
fresh air."

From the ferocious, declarative bass rattle and agile drum rat-a-tat that ignites "Corruption" – one in a number of classic punk themes that dig deep – to the heartfelt epic "Choice Through Struggle," it's little surprise that the powers that be at Hellcat became enamored with ST's thought-provoking, machine gun approach to music.

Considering the influence that Rancid has had on the group – which also counts founding drummer Travis Davant, bassist Mike Have-Not and guitarist Danny Garcia – Urbach, 17, can't help but marvel how things have come full-circle.

"Travis started the band when I was in seventh grade," remarks Eric, now a high school senior.

"And at the
time, I had only just heard NOFX and Rancid. And I was like, 'Holy shit! This is what I want to do.'"

And if Static Thought's homage to Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen rings clear on "Dead and Gone," the group's primary songwriter has found himself completely fascinated with U.K. 82 bands like G.B.H., Discharge and Broken Bones.

"I was listening to some newer bands like The Unseen and The Casualties and my friends were like, 'Yeah that stuff is good, but you're missing out on where that stuff came from,'" acknowledges Urbach, who wasn't
even born until six years after that sonic faction
came and went.

"So I got turned onto stuff like U.K.
Subs and then I went back to the '77 stuff like TheClash and The Vibrators. And I realized where it all came from."

Along the way, the group issued an EP called Outta
Control (2003) that yielded the attention of Rancid Radio. Two years later, following a subsequent line-up alteration, the five-song cd Corruption which later became In The Trenches piqued Armstrong's interest, landing the band a gig at one of the infamous Hellcat Nights at The Echo in L.A. "Tim and Chris LaSalle were
stoked on us," Eric says with disbelief. "I was amazed."

Recorded over the course of a year, In The Trenches was engineered and produced by Urbach's dad, John, who also plays in the San Francisco based Minimal.

Realized in their basement studio, Static Thought
"threw it down whenever we could," Eric says.

"We had written a lot of songs, but we really didn't know we had the capability to make a CD that could sound this good."

With an undercurrent of rock & roll that elicits the croak of vintage Motorhead as it educes street punk's old school fast-hard rules, Static Thought bastardizes The Police staple "Next To You," with finesse. While ST's thrash leanings come from its other youthful member, drummer Davant, Have-Not's 28 years bring a seasoned perspective steeped in Operation Ivy and classic NOFX on bass, and guitarist Garcia, a recent line-up addition, has an equal devotion to Johnny Cash and '80s hardcore pioneers like Black Flag and Minor Threat.

It's that punk rock melting pot that gives In The
Trenches its liftoff with the quick-tempered "Drug OfMy Mind."

"I was pretty upset at the time I wrote that," Urbach concedes. "I was going through a lot of shit and it just kept flowing out of me. I don't drink or do drugs, not that I'm straight-edge or anything."

But music is the only real way for me to get stuff off of my chest. So I kind of wanted to write a song about how a lot of crap has happened to me. Although a lot of it was my fault, music has always been there for me and I hope others will also use music as a positive release."

Citing the need to prompt ruminations in punk form, Eric aspires to avoid preaching and inspire fans of Static Thought to think about what's happening around them. Consider "Ignorance of the Youth," a scorcher influenced by the disturbing emergence of Prussian Blue, twin thirteen year old girls from Castro Valley who sing songs extolling the virtues of Nazis.

"I found out they only live about a half hour away from where I live," Eric exclaims. "I read all of the bullshit on their message board and one person said, 'I can't reveal my position in society but I'm glad you're coming out on behalf of all of the Nazis. Which is totally fucked!"

Equally fucked were the images coming through the
Urbach family's television screen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which was the impetus for the aforementioned "Dead And Gone."

Says Eric, "I remember watching the news and I saw how those people needed help and no one was there. There was a man dead in a wheelchair with a sheet draped over him and there were two kids playing catch right next to him. It really
saddened me that people were dying and no one's
caring. I think people should always pay close
attention to the things they see."

Be it the furious, frenzied, guitar-pick sliding,
bark-sung "Social Unrest" or a personal crisis put to music – as was the case with "Choice Through
Struggle," which features the guest vocals of
Frederiksen – In The Trenches rarely forgoes meaning.

The latter, which Urbach wrote with Davant during a time of reflection, is an evocative anthem in the vein of Street Dogs, that punk fans will have trouble dismissing.

"It's a little surreal to think that my band is at a plateau now where people will actually start listening to us," Eric marvels in the wake of In The Trenches.

"When I first met Tim, I was, like, shaking. He was a figure that I always looked up to. It was something I never thought would happen and basically to be on Hellcat is like a dream come true for me. When we started the band and I first heard Rancid [2000], I was like, 'That's the music I want to play and that's the fuckin' label I want to be on.'"

"But now that it's happened," Eric closes, "we just want to play music we love and try to shed some light on things and have some kind of voice. Punk is real for us. We eat it and breathe it."

True 'dat........

Eric